The Bulwark Podcast - Jon Favreau: Foundational Freedoms

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

One of the promises of this country has been the freedom to walk down the street without being harassed by the government. But even being an American citizen isn't stopping ICE agents from grabbing people with passports or IDs—and detaining them for hours. At the same time, many of the thugs and sadists who want to do the grabbing and snatching are pathetically failing basic physical fitness tests. Plus, JD is painfully unfunny, Republicans calling Democrats 'terrorists' has real world consequences, and Dems need more normal people running for office—but they should save the wild card candidates for long shot races. Jon Favreau joins Tim Miller. show notes Pod Save America interview with Graham Platner The Atlantic on "ICE’s ‘Athletically Allergic’ Recruits" Tickets for Crooked Con in DC in November Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/BULWARK.

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Always read and follow the label. The holidays are coming, but redtag.ca's incredible Christmas and New Year deals couldn't wait. Unwrap the gift of serenity with unbeatable vacation savings on redtag.ca and get ready to unwind in your dream destination. Whether you're deciding between the sand and sea or a bustling city, these can't miss prices are the perfect way to ring in your holiday relaxation. Book today at redtag.ca or call 1-8665 Red Tag. Travel made easy. Hello and welcome to the Bullock podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We're in a different studio today. I'm in Los Angeles and our friends of Crooked Media had allowed us to rent this out. We're paying union rates. They're going to round up on the hours, which I appreciate. You know, we want to support everybody. and kind of when in Rome kind of vibes, is what I'm thinking about here.

And I'm delighted to be joined by one of the founders, Crooked Media, host of a Potsave America, John Fabro. What's up, man? Welcome. I heard that when we were setting this up, you actually asked if you needed to rent this space. I was like, what the thing is talking about? That was offering. That was really nice of you.

It's you. We love it. We're pals. I know, but, you know, sort of make sure that everybody's a kind offer. Yeah, everybody is, we want equity, you know. That's important. I agree. Not diversity, equity, inclusion anymore. We're just the E.

We're only doing the E now. We're taping this on Tuesday afternoon, I should say. I usually tape in the mornings. So by the time this actually comes out, who the hell knows? Right? I mean, Donald Trump might have actually taken down his pants and shit on someone, like, in person, instead of just an AI. And if so, I'll get to that on the Thursday show. So we're just going to try to do the best we have with the information on the table now.

You run into this on your show from time to time. All the time, especially since we recorded three on Mondays and Thursdays. Yeah, it's brutal. So we're always having news. Lots happening. I want to start with you, since you actually won some campaigns and made it into the White House, which I never have, so I don't really know what it looks like in there. We're bulldozing the East Wing now.

We sure are. It's just going straight to the ground. Trump said he was going to add a new, it was like, at first it was like, we're going to add a new space. It's a ballroom. Yeah, a ballroom to host foreign dignitaries. It's not like in my head, I'm imagining like, you know, kind of. have a new room, right? You know, something that you can add it or maybe rearranging a little bit,

but no, it seems like they're like tearing down the East Wing and building up a new, gilded monstrosity. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't understand that either because it's like, I could see adding a ballroom. I couldn't. You don't need a ballroom. You have state dinners at the White House all the time. Those are like the biggest events. And where would they be? They'd be in the East Wing. Yeah. There's a, there's a large room in the East Wing where the President can do press conferences, hold big events and then when it's a really big event like sometimes for a state dinner you hold it outside and you tent it right and you know you have heaters if it's in the winter and it's no problem yeah there's no reason to have a ballroom not an urgent matter yeah

what so what else is it like walk us through the east wing like i don't know i just i'm seeing the images of you know people's mouth just being torn to shreds east wing is where the first lady's offices it's where the social offices so nothing happening there in this white house. Crucially, it's where a lot of the tours go, too. Because you can get a West Wing tour, but you can all get an East Wing tour, because that's more of the, like, the history of the White House, and you see portraits of other presidents and First Ladies and China and all that kind of stuff.

So it's just very, like, historic, the East Wing. But it's kind of insane that they're doing it. Yeah. I mean, does it give you any emotional feelings? Like, when you look at the images or just, do you laugh? You know, I think it's dumb, and I think it's, ridiculous that he's also like doing this in the midst of a government shut down just like we're going to just create a new ballroom and we're not paying the people doing TSA for example

no we're not paying government workers right now are we paying the guys that are bulldozing the east wing I assume so I guess we're contracting someone yeah but I have to say I don't have a lot of faith in his taste either so that that's gonna kind of you're not impressed with the kind of auban pan patio yeah they were all out there today. The Rose Garden? It was the, yeah, the op-up. But, like, it doesn't bug me as much.

I mean, on the list of awful things that Trump is doing, like, if he, you know, called off the masked agents rounding people up in the streets, I would let him bulldoze the entire White House. Yeah, good. That'd be a free trade. You know what I'm saying? So it's very low on the list of things that get me gone. Are you with me secretly on liking the new Oval Office decor?

No. I could. That's a crazy opinion. The old one was pretty drab. Well, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine, but I don't think this was the answer. I don't think that's better. I don't think that like Saddam Kor.

The Uday and Kusai drawing room is better. And look, I thought that Obama had a coffee table in that White House, in our White House, that I thought was fucking weird. Did he? Yeah, he was just a very... Somebody had a blue carpet, one of the old presidents. I was watching some old videos, and I kind of liked that. Or no, it was before. It was a bill.

It was Clinton. Yeah. A little blue, dark carpet. JV, one more thing on this. JBL has particularly stride it. I saw. I read. Yeah, I'm a triad reader.

I'm a triad reader. Thebork.com sign up. It's a great newsletter. Sometimes, you know, he lets it rip a little bit. You're writing a daily newsletter. A lot of A plus takes some A minus ones. And then you get into some weird territory. Maybe people like this.

The stated policy of every Democrat seeking the presidency should be that the first thing they will do is demolish the Trump ballroom and restore the east wing of the White House to their pre-Trump state. What do you think? Here's what I think. If I was at a debate, a primary debate, and someone asked me if I would do that, sure. Fine. Yeah. I'm joking. Sure, I have no problem with that position. I don't know that it's, again, it's not high on my list of priorities. I think there's a lot of other things we're going to have to clean up. woof I'm choking on that

I'm gonna have to demolish most of the most of the appointments yeah yeah the lot of the people working in the ballroom they can leave for sure yeah I don't know I'm kind of a count me as a maybe on that

I don't know that I'll be mad if a Democrat decides that they want to demolish it but also I don't know I don't think it'll be in my first day you know they ask you that thing what are you going to do on for day one signing an EO demolishing I'm going to be out there fucking sledgehammer

demolishing the east wing though that might do well I don't know in a Democratic primary we'll get to that in a second we have some more serious matters you mentioned the ice the masked ice thugs

our friends at puck has some new polling on this Indies opposing the ice efforts independence 49 to 40 most Republicans are for it unfortunately you know I was maybe

you were hoping I wasn't really hoping but you know 11% to me it was like that's pretty that's high it's pretty good

50 to 34 the numbers against masks, again, pretty good, I guess. 34 seems pretty high for secret police, but okay. 47, 42, so a very small majority agree that they're mainly targeting peaceful people who are not a threat. That to me was probably the most hopeful number in there. Because to say that mainly targeting peaceful people, which I agree with, you sort of have to know, you're following this somewhat closely. And you're seeing the images and you're seeing the footage. So I was like, that number surprised me in a good, in a positive way.

Where are you at on the whole convo of like whether this is a political winner, you know, and there's me and the Matt, Iglesias argue about this. So Glacius is in the Democrats just shouldn't talk about this. It's a losing issue. Where are you on that? I strongly disagree with that. I think we, Democrats fucked up immigration under Biden for sure. I think that most people in the country want.

Like policy-wise or rhetoric? Policy-wise and rhetoric? because I think that the idea there, again, was we're going to do all this stuff, but we're not going to talk about immigration because that's not the best issue for us. So now we've, this is basically how Democrats have handled immigration for some time now, which is a tough issue. So let's do the policy. Let's say that we're for a path to citizenship and then helping the dreamers and then, you know,

make a nod to border security. But when immigration just happens or there's waves of new migration or an influx of migrants, we're just not going to talk about it because it's not a good issue for us. And I think that is a mistake because the Trump Republican Party is always going to make it an issue. It's going to be the centerpiece of their agenda. So why are we just having their story out there and not telling ours and just pretending that when they do really extreme things on immigration, we hit back with like, but cost of living. Like, I just don't think that works. Even though I agree that cost of living is a more favorable terrain for us than immigration.

But I think that Trump's numbers on immigration and the change in his numbers on immigration since he took office the second time proves that it's not their best issue. And if you actually go make the case and share a lot of these videos and stories and images of ICE, it's going to change people's minds. And I still think a lot of people would say, we want a strong border, we want an immigration system that is fair, that people who've been standing in line and waiting, they should get precedent over people. who illegally cross the border for sure, but they don't want ice in the streets grabbing innocent people on American citizens and legal residents. Yeah, and the 50-34

against masks, I think it's encouraging because it also shows there's room to grow there probably, probably don't know. Like, a lot of people probably don't know. Like, haven't been following that closely, don't know about it. I was talking on a different project to some MAGA folks who, like, you get a lot of the defense of this is actually not really on the merits,

but it's a lot of like, you know, a couple examples are falling through the cracks. Like, that happens in any policy, right? And the liberal media is obsessing over these outliers. And so to me, like that is an argument for talking about this more and bringing up the examples more, because I think that the more examples are, the harder it is to kind of get away with that. I also find that, I mean, I've been angry about this for months now, and I know you have. And you interviewed George Redis, U.S. citizen who was detained for three days. for no reason. Both of us were mad or than he was.

I mean, which was also incredible to me. It was just like the grace that he has. And then I talked about it too and shared the story. And just the reaction from people who are like, I can't believe this is happening. I didn't know this. And these are people

who, you know, pay attention to you and me and all the content we do, which means they're political jokes. They're engaged. And so just the number of people out there who probably don't realize this, I think there's huge room to to persuade people in this. Yeah.

We got to get George on, like, the O'Von show or something. You know what I mean? Like, one of those types of things. You mentioned this about how angry you are. I've talked about this a lot about what, like, the origins are, like, why. Like, people might expect on the surface, like, the thing that I would get the most upset would be about gay stuff or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, something.

And, like, I don't, I'm not an immigrant. My families aren't immigrants. But it's just been, it was very core to kind of why, you know, it's just so. weird now, but like why I was attracted to Republicans in the first place, like the kind of, you know, shining city on the hill element of this is like part of my pride of being an American. What is it that, like, why are you so in your feelings on this? I feel like we're like extremely aligned. Yeah, it's a good question. I think, I mean, look, Barack Obama in that 2004 convention speech that I didn't work on because I didn't know him yet, you know, one of the riffs at the beginning

is the one of the promises of this country is that you can walk down the street without being harassed by the government or you don't get a knock on the door in the middle of the night. I mean, these are like basic foundational freedoms in this country and it is genuinely scary

that there are federal agents on the streets now who will grab people and your citizenship won't help you. Carrying an ID doesn't necessarily help you. Your fucking passport may not help you because they're now saying that they don't believe people

who show them their passport. They have to go run the social security number after they detain you for, five hours, it's legitimately terrifying. And I'm like, if, if we can't expect that our government won't wrongfully detain us and potentially physically assault us and take us away from our families without being able to call a lawyer or being able to, like, call our families, what else is the country for? What else is the government for? That's like the most basic, basic freedoms. And so I think it really, that bothers me, like more than anything. And it's, and look, I know,

So, you know, we did deportations in the Obama administration, and there were plenty of stories where someone gets deported and you're like, you know what, that person has been here for 10 years. They've like done it all right. And yes, they crossed illegally, but like you feel really bad. And that's going to happen in this, even in the best immigration system. So I get that sometimes that happens, but this is just, it's just another level. When you talk about how it's like one of the fundamental, like the fundamental elements of America, I mean, the immigrant story is a fundamental element of them. But in addition to that, right, like this, the fact that this is not an authoritarian country, it's a free country. We all have basic fundamental freedoms. I do think, like, that maybe why this is an issue that kind of aligns people, like, coming from my background and yours is that, like, you actually care about that and still believe in it. And I do think, like, not to pick anybody in the left in particular, but, like, there's a category of left folks that are kind of like, I don't know, America is not that great, actually, right? And that, like, we need to, like, fundamentally change it in a way that, you know, there are elements of America that are good and that we like, but, you know, we should go a different route. And I think that, like, this issue cleaves off people that, like, does genuinely care about the foundational documents of the country and, like, the points and, like, then maybe have some disagreements on how to live up to those, right?

Is that a majority still in the country, do you think? I think so. I think so. and it's one of the reasons the interminable debate within sort of our coalition about do we talk about democracy democracy is a loser to talk about or we talk about kitchen table issues drives me fucking insane because I agree that talking about democracy and the rule of law and using words like that is not going to land with people I 100% agree with that. But I also think, do you want to be, do you want your family to be able to walk down the street without worrying that they're going to be taken by masked agents?

I think that, I think that resonates with people. I think that's a kitchen table issue. Yeah. I do. Okay, good. And I also think, like, as we're talking about the political prosecutions, like, the political prosecutions right now are like up here and people who've pissed off Trump and who are on legal teams that went after him and stuff like that. And then the ice stuff, the immigrant stuff is like, it's like down here. It's people who, you know, maybe they crossed illegally.

It's sort of getting to meet in the middle soon because like the political prosecutions, they're going to go down the list. And then on the ice raids, they're grabbing American citizens. They're grabbing legal residents. And now with the everyone who disagrees with the president is Antifa. Right. And we're going to go after left-leaning groups. Like, it's broadening.

Starting to touch a lot more folks. And we're only, you know, nine months in. Yeah. To your point on the broadening on their bottom-up attacks and what ICE is doing, they're trying to add 10,000 more deportation officers, which is alarming on the one hand. It's something I'm very concerned about. I think this is going to get worse than before it gets better.

There's one little positive silver lining, though, on that front. I don't know if you saw on the Atlantic. I want to read a little bit from this. More than a third of those who have applied to join ICE have failed the fitness test so far, impeding the agency's plan to hire training. and deploy 10,000 deportation officers. That's a crazy sentence, by the way. We're trying to hire train and deploy 10,000 deportation officers.

But that plan is getting impeded by the fact that recruits are not able to do 15 pushups, 32 sit-ups, and run one and a half miles in 14 minutes. So I'm just curious what you think about the fatties who are not able to get into ice. They want to rough up. They want to run up some Mexicans, but they're not able to do the 14 push-ups. Yeah, like, if you looked at all the images, the pictures of the people who were in the Nazi group chat, those would be the kind of people who apply to ice and probably couldn't swing it. Yeah, 32 setups.

They might not be able to do that in the full 14 minutes. And that's, you know, if you're doing one setup for 30 seconds, you know, that's going to take up the whole time. Look, I ran track in high school for three seasons, four years, and I was not the fastest. What was your mile time? My mile time was, like, 545 at the best, which is like middle of the past. It's fine. All right, well, you've gotten older, so let's call it 14. Let's call it six minutes now.

You've gotten older. You've gotten older. So you've got eight minutes to do 15 push-ups and 32 setups right now. Let's do it. Let's see. I can definitely do the push-ups. I can definitely do the push-ups. here's the thing. My first reaction when I read that

was that oh shit they're just going to lower the standards they're just going to get rid of the fitness standards at some point because they just want they want the thugs, they want anyone and especially want people who want to rough people up and the standards will be lower it was always the concern about ICE

you know the guard the military they all have much higher standards anyway and ICE's standards are lower most local police forces as well so when you lower the standards because you want a lot more people, you're going to get a lot of unqualified people in, and their physical fitness to me is the least of my concerns. It is the least of my concerns, but it does paint a mental picture of the type of person

that's coming. And at this point, you're like, I, you're watching the videos of the masked agents, like, harassing the old guy with the weed whacker outside of IHOP, and you're like, I want to be one of those guys. Okay. And so you're driving the type of person who's into that, you know, who has, who's a little sadistic. And then they're also the type of person that can't do 32, so.

It tracks. You're picturing that person and you're thinking, man, 10,000 of those guys can cause a lot of damage because they've got a lot of bitterness inside them. And you know what? They're not going to have to chase people down because they have guns. Right. Well, there was the one video you saw the Chicago one of the ice people chasing the guy around the plaza. Okay, do you think Dean Kaine made it? Can we FOIA for that to see if Dean was able to do it?

That was a tough video. Did you see the video of Dean? Oh, my God, yeah. I tried so hard. I literally started Googling New Orleans, like, dog training centers, and I was going to go tape a video of myself doing the Dean Kane, where he's like, can barely crawl through the tunnel. But I couldn't find any place to do it.

It's weird that he was doing that, knowing that there were cameras on him, and he didn't, he didn't even try. He barely made it through that course in 14 minutes. I don't know. Maybe Dean will make it. We'll see. I'll ask the peers, Morgan producer. to follow up with them on that.

I'll see if you made it. All right, you know, we don't pick favorites with our ad sponsors. We don't rank them, you know, publicly at least kind of like your children, you know. You don't, I only have one child, so not a big deal, but I hear this from like my, my nephews and nieces, maybe. You don't want to, you don't want to rank them publicly. But here's one thing we know. I really love fish.

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If you're not completely satisfied with your first box, Wild Alaskin, will give you a full refund, no questions asked, no risk, just high quality seafood. Not all fish are the same. Get seafood you can trust. Go to Wild Alaskin.com.com slash bulwark for $35.com.com It's wildalaskan.com slash bulwark for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. I want to do some pardon news with you, unless you had any other ice talk. Do you have any other ice thoughts? A couple pardoned news items.

On the first one, one of the January 6 rioters that was pardoned, he was arrested over the weekend for threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Court documents said that Christopher Moynihan was arrested after saying in text messages that he planned to eliminate Jeffries when he was at an event in New York City on Monday. So I'm glad they got ahead of that. Thoughts. He also said, in a tax message, this terrorist cannot live. Who's been calling Democrats terrorists? The Republican leaders, the White House.

Republican Speaker of the House. Republican Speaker of the House. Hamas terrorists, Antifa terrorists. It's been like this for now several weeks since, honestly, since Charlie Kirk's assassination. It's just been calling Democrats terrorists. And are we surprised that the guy that Trump pardoned who was convicted of, you know, entering the Capitol building and threatening, I get, apparently this was a guy who was on the floor of the Senate when, during the 2020 certification and was opening the desks in the Senate saying there's got to be something. in here we can use against these assholes. So I wanted to cause harm to politicians.

And then Trump said, no, that's okay. You're free. And now he wants to kill a Democrat. After hearing Donald, that same man that pardoned him and all the people who are allied with him call Democrats terrorists. So that's where we are. Yeah, I don't like the whole discourse around, you know, like we've got to tone down the rhetoric so we don't have assassinations like that much anyway.

And I think everybody should be more responsible in their rhetoric. Like, the idea that after the Charlie Kirk assassination, people are, like, talking about the Democrat, like, Chuck Schumer called, like, Donald Trump, a fascist. And that's why this guy killed Charlie Kirk. It's just like, this guy was, like, playing video games and he was mad about trans stuff. And it was like, this guy was not watching, like, face the nation and was unhappy with the Democrats rhetoric. Right. So sometimes, like, that connection is kind of tenuous, right? But.

Not so much in this case. Not in this case. And, you know, and it's particularly the. the true when coming out of the No King's protests, right? We're like, you had, thank God we didn't have any violence. Like, thank God. Like, you have gathering places. You have a point where you know people are going to be and you have leaders, like,

essentially putting a target on their back. Like, it is totally irresponsible. And it's coming from the same people who are like, anytime you call Stephen Miller a fascist, like that means that the government should be able to go after you. And it's double speak, but it's also alarming. Yeah. I think that they have broadened the aperture on what constitutes, you know, inciting violence. What speech constitutes inciting violence to be like, you can't call, you can't call him authoritarian anymore.

Like I saw them go back and forth on this on Fox the other day. And they're like, well, if Donald Trump's an authoritarian, why shouldn't people try to, you know, resist him with violence? It's like, easy. I think he's, I think it's an authoritarian regime that we have to take down nonviolently. Yeah. Protest. We should protest. There's a non-violent protest. That's happened throughout history. Yeah.

Like, it's not, it doesn't not, authoritarian does not mean or excuse violence against the regime. Yeah. Some other examples that Jan Sexers have gotten pardoned? There's at least like double digits. Another guy got out and began soliciting a minor. Multiple people have done burglaries. Others have gotten arrested for past violent crimes, carrying a weapon. Feels like they, uh, they let loose some people that are violent criminals.

from the law and order regime. And again, they is the president of the United States. Yeah. Personally did it. Even over the objections of people who are like,

do you really want to, you really want to pardon and commute all of them, all the sentences? Including the vice president. Yeah. And like, why about the ones

who like really beat the shit out of cops? Yeah. In like a really violent way. Yeah, sure. Let's do it. And when Trump talks about it, among Democrats,

it's like, oh, some judge had someone served their, sentence and then didn't keep them in jail. Right. And they get blamed for that, right? And this is just like so much more direct. Yeah. And it's also

this is like, you know, his hypocrisy thing is like annoying to do after a while, but it's like he doesn't care about crime. Right. He cares about crime when it affects him and his supporters and people he's close to and he doesn't care about crime when it's committed

places he doesn't have to see. He cares about it kind of aesthetically too. Yes. He wants a clean city. Yeah, it's a clean city. Yeah, it's a Clean City. He wants the buildings to look beautiful. You know, he doesn't want people doing drugs in the street. Like, he cares about that, not really about, like, the victims of crime. Which is a very authoritarian thing.

I'm thinking about the Washington Post story over the weekend about Rubio and Buckele. And, you know, it was talking about how Buckele made deals with MS-13 when he was coming to power and basically said, you can keep killing people, but just no more public executions. We need to be private because I want the crime stats to go down. that is that is Donald Trump yeah right it's the same idea like I want the city's clean I want it to look good I want the crime stats to be down I want to say that I solve the problem if the murders keep happening I don't want to hear about it that book Kelly story was crazy it's insane that we gave them I just to this point of like hypocrisy is the wrong word for it

because it's like if you actually took them at face value took their argument at face value which I do think that some mega people do which is like I care about drug trafficking fentanyl has affected my life we should go after the gang members so if you take that in good faith. Like the fact that we traded to El Salvador people that were informants who were helping us get actual top level, you know, gang leaders and drug traffickers. We traded those informants to El Salvador in exchange for being able to use their prison to send these Venezuelans there, like the hairdresser and the guy with the Autism Awareness tattoo. And it's like, and now the prison is, we can't use anymore because they fucked that up so bad. So we essentially

traded them MS-13 informants for nothing. And for what purpose, right? What was What was the purpose of sending them to the prison? It was for propaganda purposes. Right. And it was to send a message. Yeah. There was no reason to put them in that jail. Right.

Could have put them anywhere else. Could have deported them. We had already detained. They were all already detained. They were already detained. Yeah. Yeah, they were already detained. They weren't out on the streets.

So we sent a bunch of people that were already detained to a meaner El Salvador gulag in exchange for giving them nine informus to MS-13. Which hurt our efforts, law enforcement efforts that started even under, that were happening under the first Trump administration. to go after MS-13 gang members in our country. I'm glad I got you riled up on that. One other part, peace pardon news, from TMZ. Donald Trump is considering commuting Diddy's sentence.

Of course. As early as this week, according to a high-ranking White House official, the White House is denying, but TMZ says they stand by their story and they're sourcing. Good for them. And so, who knows, the freak-offs could be back any minute now. Like, are we surprised by this? Trump and Diddy were passed? else. Right. Trump did your pals. Trump also likes having, you know, celebrity, especially

like hip-hop stars, like so he could be like, look, look at this, look at this rapper who's friends with me, you know, he likes me. I got a black friend here. The blacks. The blacks love ditty, you know? So it's a little bit of that, right? And he's got a, he's got a history with him. He probably looked at what he was convicted of, right? Which is, you know, it was basically prostitution across state lines. That's all they could get him on, even though. There are these horrific videos of him beating the shit out of women. It's just awful, awful stuff. And he's only, I think, like, two or three months, four months maybe, into a, like, a 50-month sentence.

Yeah. And we're going to just spring them from jail for what? Well, that's not a real crime, I don't think. Violence Against Women. And there's certain crimes that he's focused on that comes to law and order, and I don't think that that's one of them that he's worried about. You guys, I guess Tommy handled the grand plastic. Patner interview yesterday. Sure did.

I think folks should listen to the whole thing. It's interesting. There's one news item that I want to start by talking about. I don't talk about the race more broadly. He had a tattoo, and I had mentioned on a podcast last week. There's been a lot of little scuttlebutt going around about Platner in the political class. And I was like, I just, you know, I wasn't sure what was true or not. One of the piece of scuttle butt was that he had a Nazi, like a swastika tattoo going on.

I heard that from multiple people. And it turns out that that was not it. What he had was like a skull and crossbones tattoo that I'm not deep on Nazi insignia, but that was like, I guess, the symbol of some one of the units, of one of the Nazi units, I guess. And anyway, Tommy asked him about that. What was the takeaway? So I would encourage everyone to listen to the entire interview Tommy did with Platner. And it is a long one, but I thought it was fascinating, partly because of how he handled all the questions.

which was very, like, matter of fact, I don't know who the strongest candidate is in Maine, but I found him very believable in his interview with Tommy, and his story there is he was in the Marines, 23, they were in Croatia, and they all got really drunk, and they went to the tattoo parlor, and there was a bunch of skulls on the wall, and they were like, oh, give us the scariest skull and crossbones you have because they were Marines who were drunk. so that's what he got and he said

Not that surprised that in Croatia there's some Nazi loving tattoo artists that does that feels right that feels believable I guess yeah

and then he said to Tommy's like and I like it's not like I've been trying to hide it my whole life like I have a shirt off at the pool

and stuff like that he's like and no one has said anything to me about it and he didn't look it up now his political director

who left was like he's a history buff he should know like maybe he didn't know at first but he had to have known later Jewish insider has some story

that I can't access because I'm not a subscriber that says that there was some former acquaintance of his who said he used to call it his Toten Kompf or whatever Former acquaintance of the main Senate candidate somebody sent this to me said that he called the tattoo

my Toten Kumpf Right but it's like I don't know when that was I don't know what that is To believe that this is nefarious You would have to believe that he has all these Nazi beliefs that he has not expressed

to anyone in all of his Reddit posts that have got him in trouble some of which he said I'm a communist so he's like is he a communist is he a Nazi it just feels like a weird thing to be like but this is this is me this is my Nazi tattoo and actually these are all the beliefs

in this tattoo that I didn't know meant what it meant right the Toten Kampf is German for death's head. Yeah, I don't fucking know, as what I guess I would say. Yeah, sure. It does feel strange. I mean, you know, to have it on his, like, he doesn't, like, right on his chest. It's not like hidden. So any time

he would be going to the pool or the beach or whatever, people would see it. I definitely, if I saw it, wouldn't be like, oh, that's a Nazi tattoo. It looks like a skull. I do you feel like that's a test for people who might be critical of this? It's like, if you saw that, would you have known? Are you a buff on Nazi symbols?

I definitely wouldn't have known. Like, based on what I had heard about it, once I saw it, so then you guys played a video, I guess he also was shirtless singing Miley Cyrus Recking Ball at his sibling's wedding. It is the best part. At his sibling's wedding. It is sister-in-law's wedding. Who's Jewish? Great, great rendition of Wreckingball, of a great song. I do recommend

Anne Hathaway's version of Wreckingball on that lip-sinking show. That is a good show. It's really nice. The lip-sync battle. So, you know, he's singing the wrecking ball and the picture is there. And like, when I saw it, I was like, okay, based on what I'd heard, I expected that the skull would have like a little swastika inside of it or something but again it's just like the symbol of

this john not just i mean it is the symbol i guess with this nazi like military unit i probably would have tattooed over it by now i mean for that reason i guess so i don't know if i had known i guess i don't know i mean i there's no universe where i'm getting a tattoo anyway me neither i'm scared of needles it's a great gift the lord gave me i don't i hate getting my blood drawn Yeah, it's like, I've learned to live with needles, but I'm like, it just, it seems unnecessary to get a whole bunch of them for a tattoo that it would be hard to remove too now. So, like, I'm all set with tattoos, so I can't really get inside of his head on that one. I think my broader issue with all of this is, like, I very much want and think it is super important for normal people to run in politics. Yeah.

I just do. And I think that part of the issue right now is we have very abnormal people. in politics, obviously on the Republican side, but I think... Like, self-selecting for deranged people. And I think, in the Democratic side, I have a lot of, like, front of the classroom, call on me, teacher people. And that's fine, place for them. But I think we just need people to run who are normal human beings. To get that, to be a normal human being, you're going to have plenty of faults.

You're going to have made plenty of mistakes. You're going to have plenty skeletons in your closet, particularly now that we're getting elder millennials running. Pretty soon it's going to be Gen Z running, and these people, their whole life is on the internet. And I kind of thought that over the last year or so, we were past the, like, you posted something that, or you have an association that's a problem, or you posted, I thought we were kind of past that in terms of, like, disqualifying people. So it's like, I guess we're not. I guess my complaint about that is, like, it feels like it's a lot of motivation reasoning all the time in this case. Like in this story, like I see a lot of, because Platner, for now at least, it's sort of, I guess somewhat from a policy standpoint, but also kind of from a vibe standpoint and from like who is consultants are standpoint has kind of aligned himself more with like the Bernie left populist wing. And so you see the types of people that are kind of in that wing online, like going full throated defending them that you could imagine, you know, if like Josh Shapiro had done a Reddit post where he had said something sexist about a woman, you would imagine that what they would be.

saying about that and vice versa right and don't even pick on that and so like that is i guess my problem with that or my concern about that which is like it does feel like people want to have it both ways for like if it's somebody that they like did something bad in the past then it's like whatever no big deal but then if it's someone that is on the other faction within the party then it's like oh well this is disqualifying now yes for sure and this and where i am on this is my my universal principle is if you have done or said something bad in the past and you show contrition and you talk about why you did it and you feel and you say I've grown and I've done this like I am in favor I am I'm more likely to buy someone who has done it apologize and moved

on if you have no contrition not a lot of people in the Hitler group chat for apologizing a few were a few were more apologetic than the vice president of United states talking about the Hitler group chat, who said it was all pearl clutching. A few of them were like, I can't. I read these. I took that personally. Do I really believe them? I don't know them. But at least on the Democratic side, let's say, whether it's a centrist, a leftist, whoever it may be, if you've done something and you want to apologize and you are, like, I am just more inclined to cut that person a break. Steve Shaley is a consultant from Florida. I like him a lot. Really smart. he was posting about this

and it was one of the rare interesting posts I saw about the Plattenor's race a lot of bad posts out there on both sides of the Grand Platner discussion but he wrote this he goes there are two separate conversations happening number one is we should create the space to allow people to grow from youthful mistakes as a part of an effort

to build a broader coalition that's what we're just talking about right now everybody agree that's not true not everybody agrees you and me and Steve Shaley agree on that many people agree on that like the Democrats need to broaden their coalition and bring some people in who have some rougher edges and who can like hang with non-college voters who are not as attuned to the most recent woke speak and you know who are not who are not

front of a classroom people right like i i think that that is really important and i think that's important as a principle for democratic candidates no matter where they are ideologically you agree we can move on from point one point one we all agree point two is there's a separate conversation what do we need to do to win in main because that's really important and that is where I get a little bit more iffy. And I'm not really falling on one side of this at this point or not, but it's like, man, I would be more into the idea of like, we should try a wildcard candidate in Texas because we've tried a bunch of stuff in Texas, or Florida, right? In Florida, try somebody down there. The Democrats don't nominate a Florida man, you know, who's got some

weird tattoos and has done some strange stuff with bath salts in the past or wears jean shorts. It's like, I'm interested in that because the Democrats haven't won in Florida in a while, and it feels unlikely they're going to win anytime soon. And so it's like, why not try something new? In Maine, like, Kamala just won in Maine. And if the Democrats have any chance to get even to parity in the Senate, they have to win this race. So it's like a little bit of a risk in Maine that might be greater than in other states or not.

So what Steve said is absolutely right. In fact, I'm in the camp that like winning is the only thing that matters in this. environment right now. I truly believe we are facing an authoritarian threat, and therefore, yes, we have to win. This is why you and I were on the, on the, uh, Joe Biden should not be running again. Don't bring that up. Early. Covered enough of that this week already on the pod.

That was covered on yesterday's pod pretty thoroughly. You know, the Biden defenders, you know, they off, we were offered, it was like personal. It was this. No, it's not. I think Joe Biden, like I said, he treated me well, my family well. I think it was really hard to do that. But it is about winning because we are in, we are facing a real threat. It's an emergency.

So that is the most important thing in Maine. So if Graham Platner absolutely cannot win and there's a lot of evidence of that, then fine. Then like great candidate. I'm glad that we can, you know, that people can grow and learn from their mistakes. But no. My contention is I, and I'll tell you how this whole thing started, before Mills, before Platner, I was looking at Maine and be like, okay, we have to win Maine. And then I was like, I hope. that the, I hope that this governor runs. I didn't know that Janet Mills might run because

she's a governor. She's somewhat, she's one statewide twice. Yeah. So that's a real, that's great. And then it's like, oh, well, do you know that she's 79? 77. 77. 77. So she'll be, she does look great for 77. Yeah. And they're different. Let's not listen. It's not Biden. Yeah. It's not to meet a dead horse on Biden, but there's 77 year olds and 77 year olds. And and we all age differently. And she, by all, by all accounts every time I was seeing. I forget what Sean was on recently. I was like, Mitt Romney, for example, he looks better than Russ Vote. Rush, which is, I think, our age somehow.

And, I mean, he looks like he's on death's door. So, you know, everyone ages differently. I will say that wasn't, I was like, huh, interesting. Not a deal breaker for me, but that's a, that's a data point. You know, then she's saying, she has a quote about Susan Collins and is like, she's doing the best she can. And I really appreciate everything she's doing. And I was like, that's also not very helpful in an environment.

And then she said she wants to preserve the filibuster, Janet Mills. And I'm like, okay, that's another one where, you know, Ruben Gallego, one Arizona, very tough state. John Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, one Georgia, very tough state. None of them are talking about preserving the filibuster. So, and that's a pet peeve of mind, the filibuster. So I'm not really, I'm not really got to that because my last topic I don't know a whole time to get to is do John and Tim agree on everything now because I've been agreeing with you way too much lately now that you're coming to a fund of a bullbuster. Yeah, maybe we can disagree on the filibuster. Anyway, so I don't know if Janet Mills would be the strongest candidate against Susan Collins.

If by June, it seems like she will be, then I am happy to support Janet Mills. I really am. But I don't think that any, I guess where I disagree is, I don't think that anything we've learned about Graham Platner obviously makes him less competitive than Mills. One of the thing on Maine. You spend a little time up there. I do. Yeah, my in-laws live there full-time now. Maine's weird.

And, like, as an independent senator and, you know, obviously in Collins. Jared Golden, got a Democrat winning one of the only Trump districts with a Democrat now. See, and that's where I was having Jared was going to run for Senate. And so, for that reason. But, you know, the other thing to think about is we have a long time to do this campaign, but maybe Maine is a place where you need a different type of candidate. And we were talking about this the other day where it's like, Susan, Collins beat last time a pretty traditional style of Democrat.

Very close. Saragadian was the Democratic leader of the legislature, well-known, and very well-funded, known as a cautious campaigner at the time. So people thought this is perfect. It's a Democrat who's just a little, you know, more mainstream Democrat, moderate Democrat, and then loses by nine points in a state that Kamala won by. nine, I think? Seven.

She won by seven. That's a huge fail that I don't think the parties reckoned with that our candidate in 2020 when Joe Biden won the national vote by four and a half points and won the Electoral College in Maine, who was one of the best-funded candidates,

lost by nine points and was just an establishment Dem in Maine. And Janet Mills now, she's won twice statewide. She won in 18, and she won again in 22. In 22, she did win against Paula Page, who was pretty extreme and crazy. It's not Susan Collins.

But she also has one of the lower approval ratings of any governor right now. And so, like, these are just like flashing warning signs to me where I'm like, I still think solid candidate, but I don't think she's like bulletproof here. I don't think she's like the, you know, like Roy Cooper in North Carolina, I think is probably an even stronger candidate because he left office like very well liked. And I think Janet Mills is sitting at like, you know, 49, 50, 51% approval. And Roy's got some good old boy energy, which I like. I don't know, and I am very happy to, like, see how the race unfolds. But I don't, I very much disagree with the fact that he is obviously the weaker candidate. This is super interesting, just as a politics dork, I wish we weren't like doing a political science experiment with the state of our democracy on the line.

It's kind of like, I would love to run them both, see how it goes. But this is why, like, luckily, we have till June for this. I mean, the idea that this is all coming out now. And the primaries, not until June, like, there's a lot of campaign left to run. What fundamentally underlines all this is that the Democrats have to do better with working class people. Yes. And that's just, like, what it comes down to. And as, like, a former Republican and, like, a commentator now that doesn't have, like, a dog in the internal Democratic factional fights, really.

I get to sort of observe it more as an anthropologist. Yeah. And it's like a lot of people are really certain what the right answer is, right? Like, you have popular, populist lefty types, like some of your favorites, you know, who I'm thinking of, who wrote for the Bullwark? recently are sure that the answer is, you know, we need kind of socialist left, populist left policies. And like that is the answer. It doesn't, all the other stuff doesn't matter. The cultural issues and, you know, we just need a populist leftist. They also have to be on the right side of Israel, Palestine. Right. And as long as they're right on both of those, then we can

do better with working class people. Then you have some, you know, in the one of the Iglesias camp, name checking him twice in this podcast, you know, who are like, you know, you have to do cultural right. You have to do cultural right. You know, you have to be. moderate on specific issues like, you know, energy guns, you know, the trans, that argument. Some people kind of argue that it's more about vibes, you know, and having the types of candidates that are more able to sort of mix it up and go into those communities and like give off the aesthetic, a working class aesthetic. Do you have a take on that or any thoughts? I think it's very dependent on the region, the state, the district, the candidate, the race.

I don't think there is one obvious formula, and I think that is evidenced by the fact that you have Democrats of all different stripes and backgrounds and beliefs winning all across the country in different places. I think you have Democrats losing in lots of places across the country. I'm thinking about the House right now. Yeah, that's the only thing because we've had a lot of experiments. If we're talking about political science experiments, we've had it in the House, less so in other places. And some of them have not moderated on social and cultural issues at all. They've just not focused on them as much, and they are moderate Democrats. Some are more, you don't see a lot of like DSA types winning outside of cities or deep blue areas, for sure.

But you see candidates who emphasize more, I would say populism not just in the we need Medicare for all, but populism in the like, you know, running high. hired against corporate malfeasance or, you know, corporations take the right to repair and like that kind of stuff. And I actually think that that is, if you look at polling, that stance, let's call it like the Lena Khan stance, that is more popular with voters and especially working class voters than the type of populism that is like, let's just tax the rich a lot and spend it on government programs, which is something I like. But I realize that a lot of people in swingier districts might not care about that as much as they care

about holding corporations accountable. I'm not satisfied by that answer, so we're going to have to do a little more. I just think that the Democratic brand is so broken in red and purple states that there actually is a table stakes part of this that you have to be separate from them

and separate from the Democratic establishment of the party brand and you have to be opposed to them in tangible ways. That's where people get in trouble. Yeah, to even get to the, to get people to listen to you. And it's hard. Part of it is get people in trouble because democratic activist types don't like this. You know, I've talked to several candidates like more conservative type candidates will call me and be like, what do you think I should do to run as a Democrat.

And I'm always like, I don't care what it is. Just pick, find whatever issue it is that you, like, you agree with the MAGA side of the argument on and like talk about it a lot. actually like talk about that one thing a lot and criticize the democrats directly on it and they're like ooh you know but when i go to the democratic county group meeting you know they get mad at me about that and i'm like yeah that but that's just the only way to get the other people in the state i'm talking about again i'm talking about like red states like winning back in florida again for example like this is what you'd have to do and people don't want to do that and maybe you can do it from the left too i'm open to the fact that it's possible to do it from like a populist anti-bus anti-corporate left

I think that's probably less effective in red states, but I'm, oh, that's worth a try, I guess. You know, it's kind of what Dan Osborne was trying to do a little bit in Nebraska, for example. I think that's worth a try. But I don't know. I just, I think it has to be tangible separation with the party to have a chance. I think you can do a running against the establishment, the Democratic establishment in Washington. And now the problem is when you scratch the surface of that and then dig in a little bit, like, oh, so what has the establishment done? Yeah.

They'll be like, lose. Yeah, right. They don't fight hard enough. We need a fight-eer fighter. I agree, we need fight-ier fighters. I don't think that's like enough, though, to win over people that voted for Donald Trump and Matt Gates or whatever.

And the honest challenge here is, even when you look back at the Biden's four years, right, if you take the age thing out of it, and you say, okay, well, everyone was pissed about inflation. So what did he do wrong? What should he have done differently to help fight inflation? And I haven't heard a lot of answers on that. Yeah.

I forget it was. There was one person kind of surprised me. Damn, I'm annoyed as I'm forgetting it was, one person did say maybe we went a little bit too hot on the second stint on the second stimulus.

Yeah, there's a little bit of that. But it's like a little too hot. Yeah, it's okay, we had a couple hundred billion dollars left. And then we would have Toml Harris or Joe Biden as president. I think you're just got to be honest. If you're a candidate,

you're just got to be honest about what you believe. Yeah. And honest about like where you think the party is fucking up and where you think it's not. And what do you think the establishment's done wrong? and you should have a whole story about it.

Yeah. That just actually comes from you and doesn't come from like whatever is going to pull well. But I do think that most voters, especially people in red states, appreciate that. And I think starting by being like, yeah, the National Democratic Party is bad. Outside of the 2028 context, just broader. Like you mentioned Rubin earlier. Is there anybody that you're like, they're doing a good job with navigating that line? Just like being candid, talking about things they believe in, you know, being honest about the ways

so much the Democrats have fallen down. For 2028? No, I meant even broader. Because I know what your answer was 2028. I don't want to depress people towards the end of the podcast. I just mean, like, in general. It just is a model of like how to do this, how to talk about this stuff better. Yeah.

It is funny because I go to the house because I feel like by the time these candidates get statewide and then get national, they all start doing the cautious thing. Yeah. But I interviewed Jake Ockincloss here. thought he was like really thoughtful. I think Sarah McBride is one of the more like thoughtful, strategic, pragmatic Democrats who also is like, I don't know. I mean, it's funny that a lot of the people I like unsurprisingly are like they around my age, around our age and like grew up in the Obama era. So they have very Obama like politics. Yeah, sure. Even in like,

you know, different iterations. Sarah's like that, Jake's like that. So those people, I appreciate. Not Rubin. I gave you a tea for Rubin. Like, I think he's been pretty good. Like, they're thinking, you know, I'm not saying like Ruben 2028. Oh, just because you mentioned him, I thought. Yeah, I just been as like as you're learning for people who's like, he's pretty blunt now like when he's talking. I like him a lot. I like him a lot. I think Assoff's been doing

great. Good, strong anti-corruption message. Just waiting for the, waiting for him to accept my invitation to come on the pod. I'm just like, I'm like outside his house. I'm like in the window. John. John. Mr. Senator Ossoff. Come to New Orleans. He came here. Tommy interviewed him.

And we realized we hadn't talked to him since, like, 2017 when the podcast first started. Warnock, too, is also, I really like Warnock. Yeah, well, that's great. It's always good to have a pastor. Okay, we're running out of time, but we're getting kind of down about the Democratic future there. It was sort of a lukewarm answer, I think, I was say, when I asked you who's doing it well. Like I said, it's important to just be honest. It is important to be candid.

The MAGA future, though, I don't know. J.D. sometimes I worry that I find him so loathsome and unappealing that like maybe I'm not seeing things clearly sometimes I'm worried I'm not assessing him clearly because I just find him

unappealing in every possible regard Another place where we strongly agree Stronger there But you know I think I might be right about this So anyway he was speaking at Camp Pendleton This was the speech where They shot off some cannons to welcome him And they almost took out one of his Secret Service details

by accident, even though Gavin Newsom warned them not to do that. Trappinal flying down on our highways here. But in the speech, he was trying to, let's just watch. Over my four years in the United States Marine Corps, I probably learned about a hundred jokes about United States Marines. And every single one of them Marines would mean the end of my political career if I told it up here today. I sent a few of them last night to my communication staff, and I said, can I tell this one?

And they said, please no, sir. Please, please, do not tell that one. Oh, that is good. One sure sign that someone is not that funny is that they talk about humor more than they actually tell funny jokes. Yeah, and employ it. And I have now heard many clips of J.D. Vance talking about himself, being funny, telling jokes, and humor in general, without ever hearing anything funny from him. He's talking, he's been on the Katie Miller podcast, the in-house podcast for the White House,

talking about how Marco Rubio's a big jokester. Everyone just can't stop laughing at Marco Rubio, and then he told some story that Marco Rubio told with a joke that didn't even make sense. It was just terrible, terrible joke. He's talked about him joking around with his friends in a group chat. He's just painfully unfunny. How'd you like my Tucker Carlson laugh there? I didn't know was Tucker. I was trying to do Tucker.

He's also, if you notice, he's telling sir stories now. So, you know, he's trying to do it all. He's doing sir stories. And I don't know. Say what you want about Trump. A couple of people on the board rat got mad at me the other week when I said this. But like, Trump doesn't really make me laugh that much because I hate him so much. But objectively, he's funny sometimes.

Of course he's funny. And he's up there. I don't even know why that's like the controversial. I know bugs people when you say that. But he was up. they're speaking to the troops. It was inappropriate a lot of times. It was gross. I can't believe this is our country. Scary a little bit at times. He's getting the troops to, you know, shout for his authoritarian desires. And yet, like some of the jokes make you chuckle.

Gross, scary people can be funny. Yeah, right. We contain multitudes. And the funniness, though, is a way in for him to a certain demo of people that I don't, I guess, I don't know. It might be limiting for JD as far as their future is concerned. That's one hopeful thing that I have. I was reading a piece that Noah Smith wrote the other week in his substack. And it was about like what happens after Trump. It was about the Nazi group chats. And he made the point that you cite the reason for optimism, which is post Trump, cult of personality. It's going to be much harder to find Republican candidates out there who are as charismatic. Right. And so electorally, that's a good thing. But when you don't have a charismatic

leader and you don't have the cult of personality, then movements become more ideological because you have ideology that substitutes for... Now you're doing bulwarky material. You know, for like cult of personality kind of stuff. And if you look at

these young Republicans in these group chats and J.D. Vance and that whole crew, the national conservatism crew, which, you know, when they had their conference, everyone was like, well, it's a lot more boring than And it's like, yeah, because they're all fucking nerds.

But they're very dangerous. And the ideology is much more dangerous than Trump's ideology, who you could say doesn't have an ideology. Yeah, right. So that does worry me. I know. The National Review crowd will get mad at me for saying this because it's like, you know, they'll make fun of people that are like, you know, have Trump TDS like me.

And then then we'll say things like, well, in certain ways, J.D. Vance is more dangerous. Because it's like, well, everybody, you know, I thought Trump was the worst ever. And it's like, yeah, Trump is the most dangerous in the sense that I, he is a megalomaniac, and he has mental health issues. And so, like, the line I always used is, like, it's hard to imagine people storming the Capitol waving around to sanctimonious flags or J.D. Vance flags, right? So, like, Trump is the scariest in, like, the, you know, because you kind of do need a cult leader to successfully do a full toppling of democracy, right?

But just purely on an ideological standpoint, like, Trump tamps down what a lot of these guys want to do in various ways. And Trump was joking. What was it? He made a joke. Trump being funny again. The other day he made a joke about Stephen Miller. I know.

He's like, I kind of want to hear what's inside Stephen's deepest thoughts. He's like, it might be scary. He's like, not the darkest thoughts. Maybe don't tell, maybe don't talk about everything you believe. We're just like, you know that he, he, I mean, it's a failing of Trump, obviously. But he knows right now that he has surrounding him a bunch of fucking lunatics. Like even Trump realizes that. Yeah, right.

Especially with Miller and Russ Vaught and some of these people. So I worry about that. But I think electorally that it's going to be trickier for them. But also, we're in a pretty divided country. So it's like you don't, there's no landslides here. Like, J.D. Vance is not going to be so uncharismatic that he loses in a landslide. And who the hell knows who the Democrats can put up? All right.

Final thing. Okay. The dark prospect of the young, the MAGA youth taking over. That's pretty dark place to go. I think it was the last time you're on my pod. was when I was at TPUSA last year because I remember I was taping from Arizona I go every year I think I might skip this year yeah I just don't know if I'm gonna have it in me um I think that's fair yeah I think maybe next year I'll go back but I try to go every year because I think it's important

like hear what the mega youth are saying and like actually hear it because you know there's some ways in which it gets caricatured by like just seeing the worst quotes from every event on Twitter and it's like it's interesting to see the full speeches you know um the boring parts the like weird ideological niches they have like i i knew in advance that they're going to try to redesign all of austin dc because they're obsessed with architecture and tucker carlson gives long speeches about how architect how how that very fashy yeah about how it depresses the spirits to look at some of the buildings in Washington and all that i heard that before so anyway oh yeah musiliniish so anyway i was there and we were talking and the

It was, I guess, a month after Trump had won again, and we were, like, talking about, like, what our thoughts were about, like, what it says about what we think about the country. And I remember we were both talking about, like, you know, how it was hard on us to think about the fact that, like, for our kids, when they go to the classroom, like, Trump's face is going to be on the president's list twice. And, like, that's a weird thing, but, like, for whatever reason that affects me, I'm just like, I kind of want to go tear it down from my, from the social studies classrooms in my kids' school, which is not the thing to do. not a sane parent, so I won't actually be doing that. Anyway, we talked about some other stuff. There is a boiling frog on it to all this. Like, it's a lot less raw than it was then last December.

I'm just kind of wondering what you think, like 10 months in how you're feeling about, you know, the American experiment. I think the feeling I've been having lately is just this sort of extreme frustration with the fact that I think, many people in the country are just not paying close attention to what's happening. And I think the reasons for that are both understandable and varied. And some of it's just like, I tried to check in

once and now it's brutal and I'm tired. And I got to live my life because it's too, it's too dark to pay attention to this all the time. And so it's like on one hand, I understand that. On the other, I'm like, we will lose the country if we just all turn away and stop paying attention. I genuinely believe that, which is why I'm still at this, which is why we just keep slinging tics. One of these days, it's going to break through and figure it up. So part of my thought process has been like... Are you slinging takes because you think it will break through? Are you slinging tics because there's nothing else to fucking...

You don't know what else to do with your time, like the only way that... This could be completely naive of me. I don't think that my takes are breaking through, but I think that I, hopefully, in a small, small way, am trying. trying to wake up every day and persuade people that things are bad and we got to get involved and we got to fix it. And don't know if that will work, but it's like the only thing I know how to do. And so I'm going to keep doing it and try to do it as effectively as I can and as persuasively as I can because I take words and persuasion seriously, part of just being in politics

and also what I did in politics. And also a big part of that is figuring out like how to reach those people who aren't paying enough attention and convince them that it is worthwhile to do so you seem like less of an emotional wreck than me and love it but are you ever doing any like sundays just in bed where you're like i can't do the pod tomorrow i don't want to do this no fuck this i get and i'm not i am anyone can tell you i am not an angry person yeah i don't show a lot of anger but internally if i'm like by myself it's it's anger that in the rage that fuels me more so than i'm so sad and doomer and everything's going to hell.

I'm just like, I can't fucking believe we're losing at these people. Yeah. It's more of that. Who are you mad at? Are you mad at J.D. and Trump? Are you mad at the voters?

Are you mad at the people working for ICE? All of them. You're mad at everybody. Fuck them all. Democratic Party. Yeah. You know. The most firing hot rage is for...

I mean, what we went through in 2024. That would be up there. That would be up there. And I, you know, I'm also, I was just talking about how I'm just talking about how angry I am, but I'm also like

a very empathetic person, and I try to be as empathetic as possible with everyone. So I get mad at them, and then I put myself in their shoes, whether it's Democrats, whether it's voters. And I'm like, okay, I can see why they got to this stance. You're not going to get Stephen Miller's shoes, though. No, no, I'm not. No, there's some people's...

Tiny shoes. I pretty much... I get where he's coming from. Pointy devil's shoes. No, it's like, you know what? I feel like I got it. I got where you're coming from, and I know where where that, you know, sorry. I get where he's coming from. It's not a good place.

Even Trump knows. No, he just is, you know, he had a tough experience in Santa Monica in high school. Bullie, Luis, or whoever. Yeah, told his friend, he wasn't going to be friends with him anymore because he's Latino. Yeah. I started screaming about janitors not picking up trash. I get it, you know? All right, Fowse.

I appreciate it. I appreciate you slinging takes with me anytime. This is fun. everybody else hope you enjoyed that right here at the crooked media studio what is what's happening here what you know what you need to ask love it yeah because you know who doesn't like that you know me Tommy great Jane all right next time love it's on the pod most of the staff first question is art artistic aesthetic do you think this depresses the spirit at crooked con everyone got a crooked con everybody on a crooked con by I want to bulldoze this

You're going to get your tickets, okay? You're going to get your tickets for CrookedCon. And John Farrow is going to come out and do it. Tucker Carlson, a speech about how there's certain types of art that depresses the spirit. It's the shit that love it put in my office. It's Cricket. All right, everybody. Come back.

We'll see you all tomorrow for another edition of the Bullwark podcast. Peace. We clawed. We chained our hearts in vain. We jumped. Never asking why. We. kissed I fell under your spell of love no one could deny don't you ever say i just walked away

i will always want you i can live a lie running for my life i will always want you i came in like a I never hit so hard in love All I wanted was to break you was All you ever did was Wreck me Yeah you you wrecked me I put you high up in the sky And now you're not coming down

It's slowly turned you Let me burn it now We're ashes on the ground Don't you ever say I just walked away I will always want you I can never lie Running for my life

I will always want you I came in like a rainbow I never hit so hard in love All I wanted was To break you out All you ever did was Wreck me I came in like a

Rape Yeah, I just closed my eyes and swam Let me crush it in a blazing phone All you ever did was Wreck me Yeah you You wrecked me

Yeah you You wrecked me The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.