The Bulwark Podcast - Sarah Longwell: Dems, Go on Offense FFS

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

When Graham Platner’s campaign was imploding, Republicans made sure to hang him around every Democrat's neck. Now, Democrats need to make Republicans own Rep. Max Miller, the alleged violent domestic abuser. That definitely includes Neverland Ranch fan Mike Lawler. Plus: Tim reads from the mailbag, more and more focus group voters are seeing that Trump only cares about his vanity projects, Joe Rogan does not seem to be following the news, Woke 1 got some things wrong but not "Abolish ICE," Sarah is sounding kind of left on healthcare, and Bill K is mayor of The Bulwark. Sarah Longwell joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.show notes: Pre-order Sarah's book here More details on Sarah's book tour Latest episode of "The Secret Podcast" GoFundMe for Maryam Tahmasebi and her family  Tim's playlist  Bulwark LIVE: GOOD FIGHT TOUR with Tim, Sarah, Sam and JVL is coming to the Southeast in October. Tickets go on sale August 21. Bulwark+ members get early access via our presale starting August 18. Watch your inbox for details. Head to TheBulwark.com/Events for details and to get your tickets.

Welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Friday. As promised, we got a mailbag, and I'm here with the publisher of this year, Bullwork. She has a book out. I do. September 8th. How to Eat an Elephant, one voter at a time.

We'll put the link to the show notes. You even bought it yet. I don't know what you're doing. Please pre-order it now. Also, the show notes, a friend of Merriam Tomasebby, who's just horrific story I talked about on the podcast earlier this week, reached out, and with a go-fund me for her and her. family. They've been in the Dilley internment camp for like four months, even though they're legal residents. So we'll put that in the show notes as well. Appreciate any support you have.

Double duty today, girl. Thank you for doing this. I just finished a long slog secret pod with JVL. Actually, it was a great secret pod. Go listen to it. I mean, this is what you're getting as a Boller Plus member of the secret pods. You might as well take advantage of it. I have one overlap topic just because we have to do it. Yep. With the secret pod. Besides that, it's all freshies for people. Okay. Great.

Freshies. Yeah, skiing. When you're skiing, when you go on the mountain, you know, if it snows a little bit overnight, you get freshies. I'd never heard that. No. It's a little Colorado slang for you. Gotcha. The Kennedy Center, there were some announcements yesterday.

The Board of Trustees, which is Trump and his pals, approved a resolution calling for a new inscription beneath the center sign that would read, restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump. It also voted to close the. venue for two years of renovations and rename the center's grounds, President Donald J. Trump Plaza. This decision faces some legal obstacles for people who pay attention. Trump had added his name to the building already. The court said that was not allowed.

The judge, I think, said the law makes crystal clear that the center is to be named for President Kennedy. They've had a tarp over it, I guess, since then? Yes. Do you ever drive by? I do. The tarp is up. The tarp is up.

They don't want anyone to see the. building without Donald Trump's name on it. And because people, including our people, went and camped out there when they were supposed to be taking his name down, they didn't want anybody to see that, right? Because the only thing Trump cares about is his sort of fragile, little ego. And so, yes, they've tarped it. And now they basically, they clearly went back to the drawing board and said, how do we get his name on this? And one of the things that this is the boards doing, but if you remember, they stripped, they kicked, kicked everyone off the Kennedy Center board when Trump came in, put Rick Rennell in charge of it, I believe, and then stacked it

with a bunch of other sort of Trump toadies. So their big goal has been shutting down the Kennedy Center and figuring out any way possible to get Trump's name on it. Yeah, that was Rick's consolation prize after he lobbied to be Secretary of State. And they're like, you know, I think we'll put the gay over at the theater. Yeah. One of the things I promised people after Trump won was that I was like not going to pretend to be outraged about things.

You know, like we all only have so much. you know, kind of room in our heart for rage if we're not going to stroke out. This has been a story that I've struck. You know, I'm not a theater queen. It's just, you know, it's one of my weaknesses. You are. Should I be really mad about this? I mean, aren't we just going to take his name off the fucking plaza as soon as we went again?

And so it's kind of like this is stupid? Yes. Or is there a reason for me to really be really more mad about it than I am? So I think all of the reflecting pool, the ballroom, the Kennedy Center, they all sort of don't matter substantively, but they matter a great deal sort of metaphorically because it is, this is the example of how we are all being dominated by Trump's ego. He pays attention to these things. He doesn't pay attention to the material needs of Americans. He walks us into a stupid war. He will go on the record and say, yeah, I don't care if Republicans lose. I don't care

if inflation is up. Like, I don't care. I love the inflation, he says. And so he won't pay attention to those things that matter, he does pay attention to this. So I think it matters in that regard about where Trump's attention is. Yeah, I think it matters politically. I cheated on you a little bit and monitor a focus group that was not one of yours. Who was it? A friend works for a campaign and was, you're going to just give me a readout of their focus group in one of the House races. And this notion really has broken through. Yeah. Like with Trump voters, one swing voters, like the idea that he cares only about this shit. Right. And I do think that, and I do think that is, that's meaningful, right? And I think that like this stuff, if the economy is good,

if he hadn't done the stupid war, maybe, you know, he'd get away with it. Yeah, he'd get away with it, you know, the resist libs on substack would be mad, but, but maybe that would just be it. But I don't, I do think this, this has more resonance for that reason. I mean, this is where the contrast, so I talk a lot about contrast, because I think that when you hear this in my focus groups all the time, where people are like, I expected to have the economy of Trump's first term. And the fact that they aren't and the fact that there is this war. And I cannot stress enough. I just did a bunch of focus groups in Florida's.

When we were on a Cole, she played some sound from the Florida focus groups. I was genuinely a little surprised at how angry these voters were at Trump right now. And it is the war and it is the tariffs and it is the fact that he is not paying attention to the economy. And that is why these things now matter. And then there was the one Cletus who was mad that we're not deporting enough people. But he was mad about both. It was funny that she played that clip of a guy being like, they're not doing enough menacep deportations and also the war is really stupid. And he was like, I want to give Trump an F because he's not deporting enough and he got us into a stupid war.

Those people are meaningful because it's like, is that guy going to vote? Very possibly not. Yeah. I mean, this is where the enthusiasm gap gets real going into 2026. When these Republicans are just frustrated with Trump, if you're a Republican and you love Trump, you're like, well, I want to protect his agenda. But if you hate his agenda, you're much less motivated to do it. Speaking of things were mad about yesterday, you know, when I think about it or to chat about it on the pod, I asked you kind of like what you're upset about. You mentioned the Max Miller situation.

Simultaneously yesterday, for people who are not on X.com, I created a little bit of a stir, which when I did the thing I do about once a year, which is remind people that Mike Lawler, the congressman from New York, when he was 18, even still. I did some weird stuff when I was 18, but nothing like this. He traveled from New York to California to go to Michael Jackson's trial where he trolled the parents of the children that were alleging molestation. Malastation. Yeah. He also is dressed up in Michael Jackson blackface. That's pretty weird. So these two topics merged.

They did. When Mike Lola was on Dana Bash yesterday, and I want to play a little bit of their conversation. I am not making the allegation, his ex-wife is, his ex-father-in-law. And I am asking you a purely political question. It's tragic. A purely political question. Why not just give up back? It's only $10,000.

Because this is the typical Washington, this is the typical Washington media game where it's always an allegation comes up, you must return the money. It's the typical game. Everybody plays. And it doesn't actually do anything to further the situation. If there's evidence that Max did something, then obviously there should be a thorough investigation of that. But thus far, there's been nothing to verify

any of the claims that have been leveled. I think it is a tragic family situation. We all know people who have gone through nasty divorces. Do we? Do we all know people who have gone through nasty divorces where the wife says that the husband scalded her and there's domestic violence violence and the husband kidnapped the child's beloved bunny and there are two other women that say

that the husband has roughed them up or done other kinds of domestic violence. I don't think that's typical divorce things. I don't know anybody who's been in a nasty divorce like that, actually. No, plenty of people who've gotten divorced. I've never heard anything like this. I really wanted to talk about the Max Miller thing because it is an example of a bunch of things that bother me in the moment. But Lawler's really highlighting one of them, which is we got like six weeks.

out from the Platner discourse, because he, like every other Republican, when the Platner thing was happening and the accusations were coming out, condemned Plattner, condemned all his supporters, condemned anyone who was backing him. And so Democrats did the right thing, and they tossed Platner overboard when he was credibly accused of rape. Republicans in extraordinary close proximity to that same thing happening, who, you ain't. remember Tim, our friend Kevin McCarthy and Kellyanne Conway going on TV regularly to say, we don't defend abusers in our ranks. Now, at the time, it was already absurd because, of course, Donald Trump renders all of that stuff. The hypocrisy is already there. But to then just weeks later

have this Max Miller situation, right? And Republicans basically be like, no, we're going to stick with him. And for somebody like Mike Lawler, who likes to pretend, like he's one of the good guy moderates to say, this is just divorce. The hypocrisy is staggering. And they are willing to brazen these out. This is a difference between Republicans and Democrats. And it is not just Lawler and the elected officials. It's the entire sort of right-wing Twitter brigade who came for us over a platter, who came for everybody over platinum. That's right. And they're all heads in the sand on Max Miller, which brings me to the second thing that really bothers me about the Max Miller thing. I get some likes. I do want to tell you. When I criticize Max Miller, I do get some likes from Republican

world. I believe Harmeet Dylan. Oh, they don't speak out, but they're willing to signal to you. Yeah, they don't like, they don't like him. And so, you know, and those, and likes are private. I should, I should, I probably out them. I probably should have done that already. You should. Anyway, Harmeet Dylan. That's the one that comes to mind. But, you know, I was making fun of Max Miller. Because they all hate him. He's a douche. And he fucking beat up a Republican Center's daughter and the spokeswoman. Stephanie Grisham. Yeah.

So it's like, they don't like this guy. They know he's a scumbag. Yeah. You and I did a take one point where we laid out all of the times. Trump was willing, interestingly, Michael Jackson came up in that one too, where Trump went, goes to bat for any abuser who shows up. Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson, you know. Eric played with Michael Jackson.

Yeah, he talks about how his kids played with Michael Jackson all the time. Yeah. It's kind of a weird one. Okay. That's one part of it. Then I want to talk about Democrats. offense. So one of the things that is driving me crazy right now is that in light of this hypocrisy, right, the way that the right came together around Graham Platner to go on offense, not just against

Platner himself, but against everybody who might have tacitly supported him. They came at me, even though I wasn't tacitly supporting him. Like, they made, tried to make a tie everybody to their behavior around Platinum. Right? I said this one. I was in my dad's retirement party. Some family members that are MAGA, you know, were like asking me about Grand Platner, like quizzing me about Grand Platner.

And I was asking them, I was like, do you know who Mary Patola is or Roy Cooper is? And it was like, no, they never even heard any of these other names, right? Because to your point, because the right is really good at like surfacing, you know, these bad examples of Democrats and going on offense, forcing Democrats to have to defend it. The psychology of this is they hide from themselves. their own disgusting acquiescence to Trump and all the immorality that comes with that, right? They don't want to tell themselves that story. So what they focus on offensively is any Democrat who behaves poorly as a way to say what about,

what about and to enoculate themselves, right, from that criticism. But it is wild to me in this moment when they are so close to the Grand Platner situation, Republicans are standing by Max Miller and Democrats aren't in a brigade themselves. going on offense against Republicans for doing this. They should be hanging it around Eric Erickson's neck. They should be hanging it around every Republican who was made the Platner thing such a big deal. But they can't because they're fighting with each other. Yeah, that's right.

And Lawler provides a good example, you know. And this is an easy opportunity. And I assume Kate Conley in her campaign will take this opportunity. But it's like you can tie back to the Epstein issue. Totally. It's like all these guys, except for what MTV and Nancy Mace are like four of them. Like all of them blocked. the Epstein files release.

So you've got Mike Lawler, who's so into Neverland Ranch that he went, like, flew to defend. This was brand new information to me. Flew to defend Michael Jackson and troll the victim's parents. So big defender of Neverland Ranch, Epstein cover up in favor of, running, you know, cover for Max Miller, who is incredibly accused of domestic violence by Republicans. Like, there is a good story to tell against these people. And, like, Mike Lawler, I mean, who is, who was on CNN, I guess, doing the Humana Humana, like, this should continue to nag him. And that is replicable, I think, in other situations with the example that I don't know that anybody else is that huge of a fan of Michael Jackson's pillow fight parties with the children.

I know people have very strong opinions about the Michael Jackson stuff. Oh, yeah. And let's just say, forget which side of that, maybe you're on. How? I don't. I don't. Why would we forget? Well, I just, you're neutral?

No, I'm not neutral. No, no, no, I'm not neutral. But I still think that my only point is that even if you were neutral, the idea that you would put on blackface and go down there. Now, granted, he was 18. These are two separate incidents. One incident he put on blackface. We'll put the picture up. Oh, okay.

Oh, it's not the same thing. No, two things. He just was a big stand. He's making a stand culture. So one time he did Michael Jackson's blackface. Which is kind of weird because Michael Jackson kind of did white face. Well, he had a disease. I saw it on Oprah.

I was young. Oh, okay. Well, even still, you would, you could dress as Michael Jackson without darkening your face, given how Michael Jackson looked. But anyway, he went the extra mile and did the black face. That was for a party. And then also went to the trial. Okay. Well, I didn't know any of that until I saw your tweet, and that was fun. My point is that that is a wild thing to do, to like go down to a trial. That is an intense thing to do, regardless of how you feel. I want to see Democrats. Like, guys, male Mike Lawler, a million blue bunnies.

Like, put the blue bunny in your Instagram profile. Like the black box. Can we not make this a huge issue? Can we not discover what offense looks like and go after the bad guys? Yeah. Look at that Michael Jackson blackface photo. Katie just put that up on the screen here in the studio. What a look.

What a look. He's doing the dance. Yeah. August is the perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins. And honestly, I can't think of a better place to start a reset than the closet. Now, we're not talking about Lindsey Graham. I mean, the clothes in your closet with quince. That's what you're going to reset with, naturally. We all know and love quince.

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she's wearing by the organic, comfort, stretch, chore jacket. It's a nice little light layer as the evening starts to get cooler. Upgrade your every day. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash the bulwark. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns down available in Canada and the UK 2. That's QI-N-C-E.com slash the Bullwark. There's another clip I saw yesterday of Manosphere stuff. Shane Gillis, who's always like, people don't know, he's like probably the best of the bro comedians, really.

You know, he did, and he's been photographed with Trump. He's a little, you know, he's a little more Trump curious than us here at the headquarters of, you know, Trump derangement syndrome. But, like, compared to some of the other guys out there, Rogan has him on. And there are a bunch of interesting clips, like, they're talking about how great. Socialized Healthcare, for example. And, like, there are a bunch of interesting things. But there was one that particularly caught my mind because Shane is telling Joe about the... The corruption.

Yeah, the corruption that's happening. But he particularly tells him about the example of Trump selling for $100,000 access to his tweets early. So people can inside or trade on him. Let's watch, like, a little bit of exchange. I don't know what's happening at the beginning of the clip. Looks like a man is drinking out of an American flag boot. we should get one of those. No, I think it's an eagle's butt.

It's an eagle's butt? I'm not sure. You might be drinking it. Is he selling his truth social feeds to people and then they can bet on it? What? I think, yeah. He's selling access.

He's selling access. He's selling faster access to his tweets and then you can bet on it. On the markets. Wait a minute. It's literally insider trading. It's kashi. You can bet on everything.

You can fix. Wait a minute. Is that real? You get access to a tweet before he makes it and then you get bet on that tweet. How is that legal? Great question. Trump sued over true social advance access sale. I'm online in the Oval Office. Who's telling him this is a good idea?

Who's failing Donald Trump? I know. It couldn't be Trump himself. The corruption couldn't be coming directly from Trump. It's as if he hasn't been a scam artist for a fucking half century. Who is, what is the incoming news that Joe Rogan? is receiving. Listen, this clip is also a perfect example of a phenomenon that I need people to get their

heads right about, which is people are like, the left needs a Joe Rogan. And I'm like, guys, to be a Joe Rogan is not to be on the left or right. To be a Joe Rogan is just to live in total blindness to the world. You sit at your computer, you get really high, you lift a lot of weights, and like you don't actually tap in to the news much, which is why they keep failing because they keep. keep bringing up people who are of the left, but who are consumed by politics, right? I don't know a lot about politics. And know a lot and argue a lot about it.

That's not what Joe Rogan does. Joe Rogan sits there like a pure little baby, just getting this information as it comes to him. And he's like, that news about Trump selling access to his truth socials has been out there for weeks. And it was big news. Rogan, brand new information. Top of drudge. Yeah, I would like to learn a little bit about Rogan's kind of media diet. I'm a little bit less

like hair on fire about like sometimes I feel like the rhetoric, the anti-manistry rhetoric can be a little bit overblown. It's like it's a comedian's podcast. Right. Totally. And I always felt this way about like Theo Von, my Louisiana guy, it's like, we have a mutual friend. And I said to him, I was like, we pass on to Theo.

Maybe we can clip this now. You can send it to him. Like his podcast is hilarious like when he has on like an Amish kid. And he like wants to ask the Amish kid what's life like is an Amish teen. Yeah. He's funny.

He's funny. It's like the problem. the most when you have the vice president of the United States on because you don't know what's happening in the news. That's right. So the vice president of the United States comes on and starts just fucking gaslighting you and lying to you and you're like, oh, really? Oh.

And like your fucking huge audience listens to that. Like that's the problem. And like that's like the Rogan thing. It's like, okay, like if you're going to talk about aliens, great. That's fine. But it's like if you're going to talk about the news, if you're going to go to the White House, like Rogan has done multiple times, do free PR for Trump, you would think that you should at least like, I don't know, know what's happening.

Know what he's up to. Do I like what he's doing? Because actually, every time Joe Rogan, as best I can tell, gets a new piece of information about what Donald Trump is doing in this administration, he's like, boy, that's really not good. I don't like that at all. You're like, yeah, man, Trump's bad. Lovett does this thing where he's like, it's annoying that like the Democrats are the

only people who have any agency in the world. Like, it's terrible thing happens out there. And it's like, why aren't the Democrats doing something to do that? resolve it. That is an accurate critique. That said, we all do have agency in the world, and it's like, do you have any thoughts as a communications professional about like, if Joe Rogan doesn't know that Trump is selling insider trading tips to Wall Street, I assume that lots of people don't know. Right? Your focus group people don't know. So like, what, do you have thoughts on how to address that problem? Yeah. This is where

when people say we need a left-wing Joe Rogan, I'm like, no, what you have is a Joe Rogan who is an uninformed dude, but who likes to dabble in these political issues, right? And he basically wants to talk to people who will talk to him.

Go talk to the Joe Rogan that exists. He clearly likes getting this new information. He takes these inputs. And so if I were Heim Jeffries or Okay, fine. But I'm just, I mean, Well, this is the problem, right? I mean, the problem then comes down to, do you have people that can go on Rogan?

And I think this is where the Democratic Party does struggle a little bit. It's like, J.E. Vance, for, I find him, you know, repellent as a person talking. But lots of Democrats could say like, yo, Joe, Rogan, I want to come on and talk to you about whatever. And think about how you go on. Talk about aliens. Talk about the way that Donald Trump is betraying us. They keep saying they're going to, they're going to, show us all the UFOs. Where are the UFOs?

I mean, just. Whatever. Just do that. And like, Theo Vaughn is funny. And but so this is why it's not just, I look, I think that Democrats do need to build their own communications infrastructure the way that the right has. But I also think they need to avail themselves of the existing infrastructure that is not political. That's the key. The key is that it's not political.

I'm going to do the positive first and then a critique. This is just another thing that Zoron's good at. I had a big laugh this morning in the New York Times. I'll actually just pull this up because it's funny enough to read it. Our friends in New York Times, they sponsored the episodes, but sometimes we can make fun of them, too. It happens to the best of us in the media business. Here it is. This is a headline in today's New York Times.

Mamdani's bro culture in City Hall, sports memes, nicknames. As much as Zohran Mamdani's team runs on leftist idealism and social media hits, its style of governing also relies on humor and sports references. And pop culture. It's like, so they're guys. They're just straight guys. Sorry, not even guys. Not even guys.

I have multiple women run companies, me being the woman. And like, you can talk about sports and pop culture. We also like sports and pop culture. We also give each other nicknames. And it's like, so Mount Dinah can do this. He could go, he should, you know, he can go on these shows. And he's great. And he's super talented, able to kind of mix it up, you know, get his universal health care and free

grocery stores or whatever government around grocery stores. mix that in and talk about other stuff. Like, this is doable. But it is, I just think it's telling that it's like the fact that Mom Dani can do it and that he has a staff that is fluent and all this stuff. The fact that that is like surprising enough to merit a story in the New York Times, that kind of tells you. That is, that is telling. That the other part of it is that they identify that specifically as broculture as opposed to just culture. Like people like to tell jokes.

They like to give each other nicknames. They like to treat each other like human beings. Raz each other a little bit. Have fun. You may have noticed this happens on the bulwark podcast. They like the nicks. They like, yeah. And so like, that's not bro culture.

Right. It is how normal people just engage with each other. And this is when you think about Democrats in their stiff talking points. And I think that the Thanksgiving thing now has been sort of done to death. But like, that sounds alien to people, right? That is somebody being like, this thing that you love, that you say. celebrate in culture, which is part of your vacation when you see your family

is like a bad thing and you should feel bad about it. That's just a weird thing to say where joking about sports and liking comedians is just how people want to exist. Yeah. So that's part of it being able to do that. Just

being a part of the actual culture as part. There is something that leaves me a little bit wanting and I feel bad for the comms. I used to be a coms person and it's like kind of easy You sit here in the big comfy chair and say what I'm about to say. I get that.

Like, you get an organization. There's always reasons not to do stuff. But I just am like, Trump is so bad. And there's so many opportunities that, like, I want some more stunts. Yeah. I want some more big stunts. And occasionally, I will say, it's not the first time I've offered this. And I think some of our, we're going to get to a mailbag lighter.

Some of the negative feedback we've received sometimes, it's like, the Democrats will do a stunt and it'll be bad. And then I'll complain about it. That's a risk of stunts for sure, okay? Like, just because I like stunts doesn't mean that every stunt's a good stunt. Okay, but like, I don't know. I just, I do feel like there's something, um, there's like a limit on the creativity of how to get these stories about Trump's corruption to break through. Or I was, I don't want to pick on Seth. You know, a good guy, and I hope he wins in his primary against Markey.

And I was talking to Bill about this yesterday. And I was, uh, when we had lunch and I was like, I want Steph Moulton like, almost chaining himself outside the ice facility in Massachusetts. Right. Like, I want really dramatic gestures. And rather than what you were saying earlier, kind of the nitpicking within the party, like nitpicking each,

I want very over the top gestures going after Trump. I am still left a little wanting on that front, just kind of across the board, basically. Yeah, I think that, look, not to reference my book, I'm sorry that I am in the phase of, you, you know, as I say in my book, but it is true that a bunch of what's in my book is about communication, narrative dominance, the way that Trump practices narrative dominance, and the way that Democrats can go on offense to push back.

And a lot of it, I think that because the line between a stunt and cringe is like a, you never know where you're crossing that one. But I do think that Democrats should spend a lot more time, even if it's just, be serious about it, but like call a press conference. All right. You're in the middle of a contested election. The press will come if you call a press conference to say, I want to lead the charge against Max Miller.

My colleague, Max Miller, who needs to go. He's a lousy guy. Like, pick up the mantle of something, stand for something. It doesn't all have to be sort of performance art. I go back to my blue bunny idea. I like the blue bunny idea. That's one off the, but like think about what are the things that you can do that harness people's attention.

And they like, they don't, it's like they flound, in that space. The line between performance and cringe is thin. A little cringe isn't bad, though. You know what I mean? This is something that Trump learned, right? Like, if, like, your people like it and the opponents are making fun of you, then more people are seeing it.

Right. Because everybody's talking about it. That's right. And so, you know, I think that that is, like, the advantage of, like, shooting more shots on this, right? Here's an example of the thin line between performance and cringe. This was Abdul al-Sayyad a couple weeks ago It's a video trying to get people to send in their mail-in ballots

And Fox was making fun of him for it yesterday Let's play a little clip Here's the mail it never fails It makes me want to whack my tail When it comes I want to whale This is him doing a blues-close riff A little cringe But Fox is making fun of them

And it like This works, right? I mean, A, this was a couple of weeks ago, people were learning about the mail ballots. But also, it's like, I don't know, on the one hand, Fox wanted to call him a terrorist, a very scary jihad. I think Trump called him a jihadist in the White House. And then, like, the next minute, Fox is showing a video of him, like, doing corny dad jokes. First of all, that is the most that I have liked Abdul, Alsaid since I've become acquainted with him. Because most of what I've seen from him, right, is comes from the primary where he's, like, you know, crapping on Haley Stevens, who was like my, who I had a preference for.

But I watch that and I'm like, I think he's adorable. First of all, he looks great in that shirt. He does. And second of all, like- Maybe he should wear more colors. He's always in that black V. Yeah, he does. It did.

It looked nice on him. There's something about him. He's doing like a civic action, which I love a good civic action. I love, right? That's the way you get to my heart, like telling people to send their bouts. He's taking a swing. It's funny. He's appealing to like, I'm a little old for blues clues,

but like, you know, it was a cultural thing. My younger siblings liked it. And so I think that that backfires on Fox. And that that is a good thing to do. Yeah. There's a lot of this with him in particular. And actually, maybe I should kind of revise and extend my earlier point where some of my frustration on the failure on the performance side is like with our people, like the center left Democrats and like the established Democrats. Because the left candidates, at least a handful of them, are pretty good at it.

We mentioned Zohan, which said, Abdul. So that's a more, you know, kind of cheesy version of it. But his really passionate arguments, you know, going after money in politics, going after what's happening in the Middle East, going after the health care executives, right? Like, the actual policies are probably not, like, exactly what you and I would want, you know? But, like, he's defining a clear foe. Yeah. You know, and you can tell he's passionate about it. It resonates with where Democratic voters are.

And then it creates this response, I think it's so funny from the right, where they are like, you know, calling him names, being like, oh, Abdul Elsa Head hates Israel so much. And I'm like, this is a little bit reminiscent of for me of the mistakes we made as like in the Jeb campaign and Mark, everybody campaign, Marco, Scott Walker, where we were like, Trump is a racist with his Muslim ban. And it's like, well, that was true, right? But was that a good message just looking at this strategy-wise, not morality-wise? Because, like, that means the voters heard about it more. That's right. And the voters, the Republican voters were like, hell yeah. Yeah.

And like in this case, whether it be whatever, single-payer health care, less money and weapons for Israel, et cetera, it's kind of like they're like they're calling him a socialist. They're calling him anti-Israel. It's like, I think this is helping him. Actually, I think that there's like a Trump element to the, like, it's a reverse. Like, Trump is in the Jeb shoes and El Cyanid is in the Trump shoes that, you know, I guess I'm not comparing them at a moral level, but like just from like their role in the discourse. And it's like they didn't learn what worked for themselves. Yeah. And this is where, look, if what voters learn about you as you are getting your profile raised is that you're anti- Thanksgiving.

And I got to tell you, people get me like Sarah stop talking about that, but I'm telling you that is the thing. that did her in, right, with voters, but they were like, well, that's too weird. But so that's one example where, like, not all press is good press, right? If it's too far out there. But the fact is, there are a lot of Republicans that are anti-Israel right now. There are a lot of people that will suddenly go, oh, I'm interested in you. Oh, yeah, you don't want us to get in this stupid war. That's right.

And that's why this is, in part, there's a different game afoot now, which is about just the attention economy overall. And it can work for you or against you, but I do think, you're right that there's a bunch of these issues that are broadly more popular than the than the Republican establishment thinks they are. Yeah. Kinsinger yesterday, right here sitting in the chair you were in, was saying he's getting socialist healthcare curious. So am I. Not so, but I do think.

Single payer. Or some version. Some version. Yeah, I think that there is, I won't go into like a whole policy thing. But if you ask me one of the main things that I have shifted on, I think that, look, presidents, there's not that much they can do to, like, lower inflation. Like, these are big economic forces. I think that we are at a point where health care is so complicated. And I think that there is a grand bargain somewhere between securing the border and offering every American when they are born comes into a health care plan.

and you can purchase additional services as you need them or additional layers, but that a basic access to health care is both where we should be going as a country and I think where we are going. All right, guys, I've got an announcement for you. Fall tour is happening. If you're in the Confederacy, save the date because we're coming for you. The Bullwark is headed to the southeast in October for our good fight tour. We want the community to come together before the 2026 midterm elections.

Sarah, JVL Sam and I will be headed to the Carolinas and Atlanta in October. Some other Bullwark folks are coming too. Make sure you subscribe to be a Bullwork Plus member to get your pick of seats while they last. This is important. First seats go out to Boor Work Plus members. People get very excited. They get the seats down at the front. If we do audience participation, you know, if there's call and response, they're right there.

If you're not a Boulog Plus member, you're going to, you might be up in the nosebleeds. Who wants that? Okay. Become a Bollard Plus member. Come hang out with us. Tickets go live for the presale for subscribers on Tuesday. They go live for everybody else on Friday. We are going to be in Columbia, Charlotte and Atlanta.

Columbia, Charlotte and Atlanta. It's Columbia, South Carolina. Not Medellin. Columbia, South Carolina. I'm so excited to be back. love cola. Hope you all come and hang with us. Keep an eye on the bulwark.com

slash events for the latest information. All right. I promise we pull a mailbag. Let's do it. Before we get to the mailbox, actually, why don't we play Abdul one more time? Why don't we have that goal? Take us into the mailbag.

Here's the mail. It never fails. It makes me want to wag my tail. When it comes, I want a whale. MIR. Mail. That's horrible. We have a lot of actual.

emails that I got. I did use the best one yesterday, thanks to Tyler, about his explosive diarrhea. I felt like that was more appropriate for Kinzinger. I'm going to get to specific mailbag questions, but there's a more general piece of feedback that we got from the next level that was everywhere in my inbox and Reddit and comments that I want to address first before we get to the specific mail questions. And that was this question about woke one so crazy. And we'll just a little behind the curtain here.

I do a lot of prep for this show. you do a lot of prep for the illegal news and for the focus group T&L sometimes we're just kind of shooting from the hip We are. We're flying. It's just like, hey, like whatever, what are the topics today? Like, let's spit ball, we're hanging, we're friends.

That's what you guys like it. But the negative side of that is like sometimes, you know, I'm giving opinions that are more secret podcast rules. Right. They're not fully formed. And so I just wanted to revisit the woke thing for a second because there were a lot of people

that were like, why are Tim and Sarah so mad about woke one? Like, it wasn't that big of a deal. Like, so people said latinx, whatever. Who cares? Who was hurt by that? And I hear that. And so I wanted to kind of explain myself, but do you want to go first or do you want me to? Well, why don't you go first, because I think we feel pretty similar.

Yeah. Here's my view about this. And for people who do really care about this, I've now had Tonahasi coats on the pod three times. And each time we've done Woke 1 revisited. part of the conversations. I think you could learn a little bit more about my, my kind of quibbles with it from those conversations. But, like, just to sum it up, I think that, like,

there are some really good parts of it. Like, I think that, like, the idea that we should have more visibility for, you know, different marginalized groups, like, is like, yeah, like, obviously, right? Like, it shouldn't just be, like, fucking white ballerinas, you know, in the store. And, like, having different, you know, characters that more reflect the full country in kids' books, like, all this sort of stuff. In the C-Sweets, it's like, I kind of think we're not even really there yet. Like, some of the DEI stuff in office and HR stuff is stupid, but, like, I laugh at, like, the tech guys that are like, woke is so stupid?

Like, we're past racism. And then I'm like, okay, well, then why is every CEO of a tech company a white guy or an Indian guy? Like, literally. So, you know, there is, I think good progress that could be made, both when it comes to race and gender. And I also, like, as somebody who was long time kind of in... ACAB on COPS. I was never a big cop guy. I was more of a libertarian on the Republican side.

I think a revisiting of the relationship between the police and the populace is also positive that that got overboard. Here's my, like, here's my main issue with it. I just think that fundamentally, like, I'm a moderate, balance in all things. And I think that when it comes to identitarianism and identity politics, like making everything about that, like making it the central part of assessing. every person's character, every decision that has made in an organization is, like, pernicious. And it's not how our society should be. Like, I don't want to, like, we're going to like, whatever, people are going to cringe and this is corny. But, like, the idea that people should be judged by the content of their character is, like, fundamental to the country.

And that does not mean that we shouldn't, like, address structural racism and all that. But, like, if we move away from that framework where we're not judging people by the content of their character, it becomes problems. And I still see to this day, like, people, like, throwing around things like attacking. Like, I saw us on Twitter just this week. Somebody was like, I don't want to hear what a white woman thinks about that. And, like, it's like, that's a bad thing to say. I get a lot of, I get a lot of white women comments. Yeah.

I'm sorry. You cannot use white woman as a pejorative. Like, that's not okay. It would not be okay if you said, you know, I don't want to hear what a gay has to say or what a fucking Asian person has to say. You know what I mean? That one from the right. Yeah, sure.

Like, that's just not okay. That is not in the spirit of liberalism. And it has a negative impact on society. It also creates a backlash. You know, like it also is strategically stupid. I was always like, okay, you want identity politics? Well, that's interesting. We'll see how you like white identity politics.

And we've seen that. I think so I think it's morally wrong and strategically wrong. And the last thing I'll say is all that is a little bit up in the clouds, esoteric, cultural. and that is not a substantive harm like we've seen for Trump's policies. And there's nothing to compare all of this. Obviously, it's why we're doing this. And, you know, I think that's why we started an entire media company devoted to trying to. Going out right way with authoritarianism.

But, like, there also were tangible issues. Like, crime did skyrocket during the period. And part of that was COVID, but part of that was, like, the changes in policing and prosecuting. And, like, there were victims of those crimes. Like, that's just true. Like that that's a real consequence. The school stuff, we can all debate. COVID was hard.

I know JVL is like, doesn't like when we do this. But like kids not going to school for a year when for no reason was bad. That's just bad. And I lived in Oakland at the time of California. So maybe I was more into this. And like the example I gave on TNL is kind of stupid. But like a more serious example is like people in our community that I was friends with that were not as well off who have both parents working or have single parents and they work. Like what were their kids doing?

You know, like rich people's kids, like, they paid like a nanny or somebody to come to their house and, like, sit with them on their class computer while the parent did their laptop job. Like, that wasn't possible for regular people. So that's, like, my answer. Like, I think that to not acknowledge that there were real harms is bad and to not acknowledge that just, like, fundamentally, it's illiberal to be so extreme on identitarianism is also, I think, not acknowledging reality. I agree with all that, but I'm going to talk about some different things. Okay. Because one of the things that I think happens is that we all have a kind of survivor's bias that I, and I don't mean like we all lived through, but I mean we've all like, we only remember

the things that really bothered us. And we've let a lot of the things go that perhaps were the excesses of our side. And so I think when people look back at COVID, a lot of people don't maybe realize or remember. But if you think about it for one second, you'll be like, too many businesses went under during COVID. Like a lot of people lost their livelihoods. Now, it was a once in a generation pandemic. And I think that like the attacks on Fauci and all this aren't seen, everybody was trying to do their best. But every single.

There's also bad stuff in the right. I just want to say really quick. Like more people died. Florida after the vaccines because they did anti-vaccination stuff and like those are lives lost. So like that, so that's true. And so I mean, part of part of this, I think my overall point is that like grace sort of needs to be extended across the board at some of these times when it was really difficult. But there are certain flashpoints that I, that come up over and over again from voters

where they decided that they hated the left on COVID, like the backlash. And it was things like during the Black Lives Matter protests, all the scientists who were telling them they had to stay in their houses suddenly gave a dispensation to go protest. That broke a level of trust with a lot of people between them and sort of the scientific community. And that's right to woke because like that was the point. That's right. It was because it was, you know, people felt like during that period that they had to make these kind of racial identity and concerns like Prime. Right, rather than one thing to be concerned about amidst, you know. So if you've lost your business or you couldn't go visit your dying parent in their home,

their sort of, you know, their elder care facility, things like that, like the level of anger, and this is the thing that I lived through, I remember being in my basement doing focus group after focus group after focus group going during the pandemic. And the pain that I heard across the board from people who were being robbed of like every milestone of life, whose parents died and they couldn't go to their funeral, whatever. And look, I think part of what people were frustrated by, so there's the scientific community. But then one of the reasons that I think Gavin Newsom will never be president is because people don't talk about it anymore, but they will if he runs, which is him going to the French laundry and eating with his friends while everybody else was being told they couldn't go anywhere. Like, it is those kinds of things that I think really did.

And Mark Marin has this great set around how like we are annoying people. into fascism, which goes to the sort of backlash effect and the strategic part of it, which is, and I think that on every spectrum, right, so when you think about woke, you've laid this out, so I don't need to relitigate it, but there's like this part of the spectrum that is like the goodhearted part, the part where people's intentions are both pure and righteous and in the right place for humanity. And then there's the excesses, right, where it goes too far, Right. The idea of we need a police department or we need police departments that are more that aren't shooting people, you know, in the streets or whatever, that are better trained or whatever, versus defunding the police. Do you know who the main people against defunding the police are? Black people. People in dangerous. They thought that was insane, right? And so like those excesses created a backlash that I think allowed Trump to come back. And so I think to me, there were.

a lot of harms done. I don't like dismissing it just as like, oh, people are annoyed that there's like a barista with a nose ring in Starbucks and they, them, brown rounds, whatever. To the mailbag question, this one is from anonymous. And they say, growing up, my dad's conservatism largely shaped my politics while my mom was a Democrat who tried her best to expose us to her values. Now that my views have changed, how do I reconcile who I was politically with who I am now without feeling ashamed of my past? Oh, buddy, don't feel ashamed. You know, I think sometimes people think that it is a mark of a bad character or something to change your mind. It is not.

It is a mark of good character. Oftentimes people think of something like regret as a negative emotion. But regret is a positive emotion because it is you saying this thing from before was wrong. And I've reevaluated it of new information. Taking a new information and changing your mind, like, that's what we did. We were like, no, Trump. Like, this is a bad thing. And reevaluating things in light of new information is a sign of intelligence, not something you have to be ashamed of.

Free yourself with this, baby. I'll give you one little therapy note. This was useful from when I was in therapy. Shout out to Dr. Sharp. He told me that, do you know the difference between guilt and shame? No. According to Dr. Sharp, I don't know. I guess I've never actually really looked into the psychological literature.

Basically, summed it up as, like, guilt means you feel. bad that you did something bad and shame means you feel like you are bad. Okay, yeah, sure. And so like shame is an emotion that you should work through in therapy because, you know, assuming that I assume this person, the type of person that would send this email is not somebody that is fundamentally bad. Right. So, you know, guilt is something that everybody deals with about a bunch of things and of all

the things to feel guilty about the fact that before Donald Trump, you had different political views that you do now or different values is not one to feel guilty. guilty about, or shame, of course. So anyway, free yourself anonymous. It's great. Growth is great. This is something that I really value in people, actually. Like, I connect and resonate with people who don't get stuck in their ways, you know?

Me too. And whenever somebody says, like, I have no regrets. I understand that they meant their meaning to be like, look, I'm wheels off. I actually think it is so weird if you have no regrets. It means that you have never reevaluated a thing in your life. I'm going to get it wrong. There was like an Avet Brothers lyric that was like something to the effect of. I want friends that love me for the man that I've become, not the man that I was.

Yeah. I think that's the line. Yeah. Always moved me. Yeah. That's good. All right. More mail.

Okay. I asked these questions to Jane Koston about Crooked Media Universe. Okay. So we're going to turn this on to you or us. We'll see if I want to weigh on. It's from Sarah in Portland. Which board podcasters are most likely to run for office and win, run for office, and lose, most likely to appear at an event wearing sunglasses at night and showing off their biceps.

So something Abdul Al-Sahad dead. Bollart podcasts are most likely to be appointed to serve in the next Democratic, yes, Democratic administration. Am I the answer to all of these? All of them? I think definitely most likely to run for office and lose to you. Yeah, that's right. Who has bicep?

Oh, you know what? Will Summer has biceps. Sneaky fit. He is. He was in a T-shirt yesterday. driving around town for a video that's coming out next week, what your people are to like. And I was like, Will Summer. He's got big guns.

So I think if you put sunglasses on him and showing off his biceps, yeah. That's a good pick. But that could also be you wearing sunglasses at night at an event. Showing off my biceps. I don't know about that. What do you think? It looks like to serve the next administration. I think is Bill.

I think Bill deserves to be the ambassador to something or the undersecretary of something. Yeah, to like Barbados. or, I don't, somewhere. Yeah. Not in the Department of War. No. But give Bill Crystal his flowers and let him be of a late in life ambassadorship. But wait, who do you think is the podcast are most likely to run for office and win?

Is this you? Are you any of these? No, I don't think so. I'm much more likely to kind of force Tyler to loose to run for office as a stalking horse for me than I want to actually run for myself. Run for office and win. Do we have any winners around the office? I mean, we got a lot of great folks. But, you know, I don't know that many of us have the right temperament.

I don't have the right profile. Like, no, please know that my- Maybe video editor Rupert. Yeah. Rupert is a cheery guy. He is a cheery guy. He is an Arkansas, though. It's not going to be a good match.

Maybe like mayor. As much as I like that some of these sort of never-trumpers are going and running as Democrats for office. I'm not sure that I think that's a real viable lane long term. While we mentioned Bill Crystal, I want to go to one of my favorite emails, this was from Juso, which is a cool name. Juso says this, I remember hearing Sarah say that Bill Crystal likes to bumble around the office with his shoes off in his socks.

WTF is that about some sort of eccentric power play? Didn't the old guy in Mad Men do the same? P.S. Love Bill. First of all, I love Bill with like the heat of a thousand sons, okay? But he does, and he's wonderful, but he's in the office. And now that you're in the office you see, right? He like, he does sort of walk around and he grabs the young guys and he's like, not working here, you know, whatever he does that.

But sometimes he does take off his shoes. He will sit and tweet. He'll take off his shoes. And then he'll get up and do his walk. around thing. He's like the mayor of the office and the young guys love it. But he wears bombos socks. He doesn't do it all the time. But every now and then, when he's just getting comfy cozy, he'll walk around his bombos and chat. Bill is working hard. I mean, God love Bill. Like, if I had to rank, which maybe I should do at our next all-staff meeting, based on my perception,

the people who are working the hardest here, like, Bill wouldn't be number one. Like, we've got some 24-year-olds that we're really kind of cracking the whip on. Yeah. But, like, he would be in the top six, I think. I mean, he gets up early in the morning and writes morning for hats and teases people on the slack. The sex thing I'm fine with, some of the people might find that weird. I think it's great. I don't think it's an eccentric power play.

I think it's adorable. I think it's just Bill being Bill. To you this, I did something the other day, and I was worried about his minor notable in New Orleans, which is Toulouse and I were walking around barefoot in our neighborhood. And then we got like... Like on concrete? Yeah. Okay.

I don't know. Sometimes I like to be barefoot. And then she got the notion that we should go get a treat. Uh-huh. But then I was teaching her about no shoes, no shirt, no service. But she was like out of it that we get the treat. So I did, we did walk into a store in our neighborhood barefoot. And I did get spotted by somebody, like immediately.

Somebody was like, love the podcast. Oh, not spotted by somebody who was like, hey, put on your shoes and get out of the store. No, fan. No, I got spotted being. Got it. And I'm just kind of like, I live in a new one. Bill, just everybody be themselves. Okay.

What's next? Hi, Tim, or whoever's screening these. Tim is screening these in this case because producer answers on vacation. Your friendship with Sarah notwithstanding, is there any truth of stereotype of gay men and lesbians don't get along? If so, what do you think the reason is best, Jessica? Great question. Here's the thing. Take all of the things you know about women, then take all the things you know about men.

And then there's this like Ben diagram of overlap. where like men and women come together to share a bunch of things, not the least of which is like they make babies together and their nature has suited them towards each other. Gay men and gay women have none of that. We are not, we are not drawn together by biological necessity in any way, which I think takes away some of the imperative of getting along. And so culturally, we often don't share a lot of affinities. That being said, gay men and lesbians are also just people. And so oftentimes, you know, people decide they like each other. And it can be a solidarity piece. Yeah. That's what I was going to say.

I think gay men and lesbian might be coming back together again. I think we might be having a moment right now. And here's why. I always just to say that, and this is true, the gay men and straight women are natural allies. Right. Like in nature, like they are natural allies. And I think straight men and lesbians are often natural allies. Here's the problem, though.

Like I said earlier about woke one, everything in moderation. Right. The straight women have gotten a little too into, to us, the guys. And they've taken over our bars, like locusts. And, you know, sometimes gay men want to be in a gay bar with other gays. That's a point. Sure. You know, there's a big gay party.

That's actually a straight-in gay party called Red Dress Round in New Orleans was last weekend. It was like, the gay bar was like half-wimping. And there was a woman that, a straight woman literally came into the gay bar and looked at all of us in our red dresses. me and my friends, and, like, pointed at us and said, do a circle. You guys are looking so cute. I'm like, get out of here. Yeah. And I think the revulsion against the straight women overstepping into our spaces,

it's kind of giving us a new appreciation for the lesbians that would never do that to us. Yeah, we don't want to be there. Exactly. And we don't want to be in a red dress. I know. And so it's kind of like, I do feel like maybe as queer spaces are starting to dissipate, it's like maybe we might be coming back together now in community with one another. That's a very interesting take.

I will say I never go to lesbian bars anymore, which is why lesbian bars don't survive, by the way, is because, you know, women, the second they're sort of like, oh, now we're together forever and we're going to have kids and we're never going out again. But I went, this is probably still a couple years ago. And I was like, there's all these straight couples in here. Like, it was like men with their like braided belts, like with their girlfriends. And I was like, where did they all come from? And everybody's like, oh, well, this is now everybody's so accepting or whatever that... Too much allyship. Yeah.

I'm like, but there's a gazillion bars on 18th Street where all the straight young people can go. Why just... I just let all the lesbians be here. Get out of here. Okay. We're just kind of veering. I'm drunk driving all over the course between fun questions and serious questions. Here's Jordan.

This is what happens when producer Ansies gone. Probably could have organized these and like serious to silly, but we're just, You know, we're just going to be a vibe shift here. Hello from Southern Oregon. What happens to ICE when Trump loses the House and Senate or in 2028? I assume abolishing ICE isn't realistic or ultimately desirable. What do you think about that? So this goes back to our woke conversation a little bit where one of the problems, I think, sometimes with the excess,

is that you get to the excess part too early before people are ready. And then it diminishes the opportunity when that thing is really necessary. Because I actually think that when a Democrat, God willing, wins in 2028, one of the things they should do is probably dismantle ICE and reimagine our border security. I think abolish ICE in the early days led to some of the kind of backlash. It was seen as an overreach. But at this point, a culture of an agency that has masked agents in the streets where there's been no accountability, I do use. think it is one of the agencies that has to be totally revamped. I let's say we did our critiques with the wokes earlier.

Shout out to wokes and woke one. Abolish ICE. Correct. Absolutely correct. They should abolish ICE. This is the easiest one. Actually, there's so many tough challenges. It's like, I started during the W administration.

Like, this is not a necessary organization. Homeland Security is like brand new, basically. We can have Border Patrol, do Border Patrol and fund Border Patrol. We can, through all of the other federal law enforcement agencies, do any necessary. interior enforcement of violent criminals. And everybody else, if you're here legally, we can have INS take care of you. There's a whole agency called that. INS, they can send you a letter.

Limited government, guys. Limited government. INS can send you a letter. It's like, sorry, you've overstayed your visa. You need to go home. If they're not, if in six months you haven't gone home, they can knock on your door and say, sir, you really have to go home. If they don't go, you know, then the third time, we can, like, there are other,

they're just humane ways to deal with this if these people aren't violent criminals. We do not need fucking ice, all right? Abolish ice. Yeah. So do your kids get what you do in any way? What do they think or do they just kind of know you're a podcaster? Always enjoy you guys, Karen. I think my kids know that I don't like Donald Trump.

Same. And they also know that people recognize me places. And they find that odd, right? That people just come up to me. That's interesting. So it doesn't care about that at all. Like it happens, but it doesn't seem like. could even registers in her brain as unusual or something she has to reflect on in any way.

Well, that's it. So my kids, like, my kids have belatedly come to realize. And I think part of it is, I take my kids to the, the no kings, protests. And not the sort of ones downtown, but kind of the ones up here where it's a lot of older people. So a lot of people say things to my kids, like, do you know that your mom does? Like, it's really great. It is really sweet. And so they are at an age now where they seem to be like, they don't know what they're proud of, but they're proud that people seem to think that what we do is nice. That's cute. Yeah.

Yeah. Tolis knows that I hate Trump and did with my dad in the car recently. I was like, and I was just like, whoa, whoa, okay. So, you know, maybe over corrected on that one a little bit. But kids are going to be kids. But she doesn't, I don't think, really like, get up beyond that. It was really funny. She told me, you know, we're at the phaser you have a different thing that you want to be when you grow up every week.

Sure. And recently, to Tyler Chagrin, she was watching when I was in charge, when there are less rules around the screens. Yeah. Some streamers who do video games, like for kids. Like kids games, streamers. And she was like, I want to be a YouTuber. I want to be a streamer. And I was like, oh, you mean like me?

And she was like, no. Like, not like that. I don't do. video games, the kids, YouTube. Yeah. She almost thinks there's two different YouTube, even like I'm on some other YouTube for boring people. And like she wants to be a YouTuber on the cooling YouTube. Yeah.

So anyway. All right. I'm a 17-year-old who closely follows politics. That means I was born during Obama's first term and really only started following the news during Biden's term. Sometimes I feel like I like historical context from before. Do you have any recommendations for things to read, watch, listen to? I'd love to get an understanding of the last 20 to 50 years.

years that is deeper from when I get in school, love the podcast, and other content across the bulwark, bring back FYPod, Luke. Luke was a 17-year-old listening to it. Shout out, Luke. Give him some stuff. We have grownups, I think, that a decent number of people have decided that they should start caring about politics either in 2016 or 2024. So I think this is useful for even our non-GenZ listeners.

Look, if you haven't, young men, go watch Idiocracy. Because that was meant as a joke. Like that was a comedy with some slight, you know, cultural commentary. But I think if Mike Judge had realized he was making a documentary about 2024, but actually the one thing I wanted to comment on is the, I want more than what I'm learning in school. I don't know what they're giving you in school, but I am begging you actually all people, go read the Federalist papers.

Go read the Constitution. Like, go read Martin Luther King's. I have a dream speech. Go read letters from Birmingham, Joe. There's a bunch of... The basics. Yeah, foundational texts that seem to have been lost to history. Those are the ones probably people read, but the Federalist Papers is a good one.

I was going to do more modern politics. Okay. Our guy, John Hallamins, book, on the 2008 campaign, game change. Yeah, so good. Unbelievable. I love game change. You go back to the 1984, if you want to really learn out what it takes. It's probably the best political book ever written about the 1984.

It's unbelievable. That's really good. Richard Ben Kramer. Oh, now you're getting me going. A Face in the Crowd is a great movie that you should go watch. Sorry, keep going. No, that's okay. Our guy, Mark Leibovic is this town.

This town is so good. It is really kind of a time capsule of the pre-Trump D.C. excesses, which I really loved. The other one that came to mind, I was going to suggest this because it's fake, but it's Bill Clinton, and it's just such a good movie. Primary colors was so good. Primary Colors was the best. What a good movie. Man, what's his name from Landman?

Billy Bob Thornton. Great turn by Billy Bob Thornton as the Rage and Cage in there. Primary Colors is an excellent movie. I've watched it over and over again over the years. We are very long. So we're going to skip through the Tim questions. We'll do a bonus Tim Mailbag later. I will do two more.

Okay. Here we go. One is a music one. We've already been talking about our kids in the car. What's a family car ride like? Who controls the tunes? Do we have the same musical taste? Do the kids get to pick?

Are they introducing us to us or vice versa? What's your car ride like? I kept this one because I want to know what's like in the Longwell family car. I will say we listen to a lot of Imagine Dragons, which is the boys. Although recently my younger one, I got him at least into Zach Brown a little bit. And so we're on Zach Brown. The other thing I introduced them to is Newsies. and then I took them to see Oliver when we were in London

because I seen boys singing and dancing. My goal for them, I used to think I would want kids that were athletes, but what I really want is musical theater kids. So gays? Just no. You want a gay. Whatever. That part doesn't matter to me.

I just want that. I saw a stat the other day that was like with the gayest and straightest majors. Yeah. And it was like business was like 98% straight and musical theater was 27% straight. Yeah, but I want them to, because my kid now like wears like the, little newsies like paper boy hat. It's amazing. One of my proudest parenting moments is that we had a complete ban on kids bops.

She doesn't even know that kids' bobs exist. We succeeded in that front. So, you know, we're just listening to pop music, mostly, you know. And I'll put it on the stuff. She does like Oasis. But she's requesting lately Olivia Rodriguez as a new record. And she likes Kesha's record, which has a lot of, which has some cusses. Oh, no.

She was singing. This is my second dad car story, which is so weird. She was singing. She also sang one of Olivia's songs has some curses in it. And she was singing the lyrics with my dad in the car in the backseat the other day. Did Papa get mad? No, it was just, you know, he's trying to play it cool. Yeah.

You know, it's a different childhood than mine. My parents were keeping a pretty tight leash on my incoming. Mine too, really tight leash. Whereas, you know, Zach Brown got my toes in the water, my ass in the sand is a favorite line. Kids like that. For the kid to say ass in the sand. Final question is for you. You. Anonymous Kenyan alum.

I had the great fortune to argue with Sarah Longwell in quest for justice every day my freshman year at Kenyon. I thought she was deeply thoughtful. And I've always held her in high regard. I want to know what books, especially novels, have been meaningful to Sarah since we left, Gambier, or if any books we had to read at Kenyon, still sticks with her. They made us read things fall apart in so many classes. That's a great one. But I still think about it.

What books do you return to? or find yourself thinking about, we love you all. So this, thank you. Hey, hey, Quest for Justice. What was that? So that was our freshman. So, you know, I went to Kenyon thinking I was going to be an English major because I wanted to be a poet when I grew up.

A little known fact. And I took Quest for Justice, which was like the intro at a political science class, had the most incredible professor named Pam Jensen. And I became a political science major. And so it changed my life. And the things that I read in Quest for Justice, there's a couple of things. One of them was the Federalist papers.

Like it was a close, it's like one of the early things. So this was a class or like a club? It was a class. It was like a year-long entry to what political science would be. And it turned a lot of us into political science majors. This person from this class, I don't know if this person also stayed a political science major. But we did read Chinua Chabbe's Things Fall Apart, read the Federalist papers. Do you know what?

Actually, I remember from Quest, was we read Francis Fukuyama's. Essay, End of history. And now I know Francis Fukuyama. Like, you know, like he's like in our world of democracy people. Yeah. But that had... Much maligned essay, by the way. Read it, it still holds up.

You have to read it again. It still holds up, actually. People, this is where... The headline's bad. The headline is bad. But if you read the whole thing, it actually is like incredibly prescient. It's kind of like Mitt Romney's op-ed, let Detroit go bankrupt. There was some good points in that.

The headline was not good. The headline was not good. The headlines are important. Any other readings? I'll tell you, I just read the correspondent. If anybody has, this is just, now I'm just going to throw out fiction that I like. The correspondent is wonderful if you haven't read it. I'm also reading Stoner right now by John Williams, which I'm loving.

This is a dorky one. But if you haven't read history of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, that one has a little. Go read some Thucydides. It will give you some things to think about in terms of modern foreign policy. The vicinity's trap has held up compared to the end of history. Speaking of books, how to eat an elephant. One voter at a time. It's right there.

I'm number three in the acknowledgments. You are number three in the acknowledgments. Number three, which was pretty important to me. Yes. It was outside the top five. We were bumping you from Mark Hartling today on the podcast. Sure. I'm glad I'm in there.

People should go pre-order the book. They should go pre-order the book. It's coming out soon. And we're going to be at sixth and I on September 3rd. and then we're going to be JVL and I are going to be at New York, what is it, 92nd Street Y in New York, and there's still some room left in the balcony. Maybe I'll come. All right, everybody.

So on Monday, I'll be back in New Orleans, and we'll be seeing you all then. Thanks for doing this, Sarah. You bet. Good to see you, Tim. Hi. I want to have friends that I can trust that love me for the man I've become, not the man that I was. The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper,

and with video editing by Dante DeChico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.