The Problem With Jon Stewart - The Republican Playbook Democrat Edition With Tim Miller And David Faris

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

As the government shutdown takes effect, Jon is joined by Roosevelt University Professor and contributing writer at The Nation David Faris, and "The Bulwark Podcast" host Tim Miller to examine Democratic strategy. Together, they explore what Democrats are hoping to achieve through the shutdown, discuss whether the party should rethink its resistance tactics and policy priorities, and consider what it would look like if Democrats embraced the hardball precedents Trump and Republicans have set when they eventually return to power. This podcast episode is brought to you by: GROUND NEWS - Go to https://groundnews.com/stewart to see how any news story is being framed by news outlets around the world and across the political spectrum. Use this link to get 40% off unlimited access with the Vantage Subscription. QUINCE - Keep it classic and cool this fall – go to https://Quince.com/ TWS for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast> TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Producer – Gillian Spear Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the weekly show podcast. My name is John Stewart. It is October 1st, Rocktober. It is Wednesday. It's mid-afternoon. The government currently is shut down. And maybe it'll be back this afternoon. Maybe it'll be back next year.

I don't even know other than a shit ton of people losing their jobs. Donald Trump has been basically administering over this country as though there weren't. a government. So I don't know in terms of the amount of things that he does, that that will even change. And perhaps he will accelerate it. But I do give the Democrats credit for finally putting up in a moment where they have had zero representation. The one moment of leverage, they identified two simple things that they would do to keep the government going. And it has to do with health care. And I am glad that they are at least taking this stand in this moment, whether they get

what they are asking for, whether they don't. It is pleasing to see Chuck Schumer rise, rise with the voice of a powerful aging Borshpelt comedian and do that. while the things still happen so fast and furious. And I just want to point out just one thing that gets slightly buried in all of this. And that is, just as an aside, Donald Trump thought it might be a good idea for our military to practice military shit on American cities. And it created a little bit of an uproar, not that much. And I just have to co-sign the idea. You know, it is so hard to get in, you know, real game work.

The preseason stuff, you know, it's very difficult to prepare your team for when those first games are going to come down. So I absolutely understand, you know, he's going to get us probably into a war. You know, he tried with the bombing of Iran or not being able to really be forceful against Vladimir Putin. And boy, he's making a great case here. These guys got to get in the work. and why not let them get in that work on people that didn't vote for you?

That makes total sense. Just some, you know, pre-real-world bombings and invasions and such of cities that don't matter. You know, you're New Yorks, your Chicago's, your Baltimore's, your Philadelphia, you know, your enemies within. Why not, why not practice on? them. I think it's a great learning exercise and couldn't have been a more reasonable comment by a commander in chief in front of 800 generals. And I also, obviously, like any good personal, they ended their addresses to the generals with the universal phrase that Sun Tsu first used

many, many centuries ago, no fatties. Anyway, we will continue our discussion of the Democrats that we started with Ken Martin of the DNC. We're going to continue it this week with our guests to discuss even further what we believe might be positive or negative strategies for Democrats to follow. So here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, on this historic and action-pack day here,

in the United States of America. We are lucky to be joined by David Farris, Professor of Political Science, Roosevelt University, and he's a contributor writer for the nation. And of course, Tim Miller, host of the Bullwark podcast, comms director for Jim Bush in 2016, and Bonne-Vevant, all-around,

excellent commentator in many different ways. Guys, thank you so much for joining me today as I try to avoid the shadows and sun that are coming through here. This is where we'll start. The Democrats, people who voted for the Democrats, have no representation on a federal level at all, not in the judiciary, not in the executive, not in the House representatives, not in the Senate. They've got nothing. The Republicans have needed them not to do whatever the fuck they wanted for however, as long as they wanted.

This is the one chance where they need 60 votes in the Senate to do it. And the Democrats have drawn the line to try and get something in your mind. And I've been begging them to do something. In your minds, we'll start with David. Is this the proper use of the one whiff of leverage that they have in this moment? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't think they should have rolled over the last time that Trump needed $60. Come on, David.

Yeah. Let's fight. And I, you know, I think it's an opportunity to kind of focus the public's attention on a variety of things that Trump is doing, including the lawlessness, which you can kind of shoehorn in through the fight about health care. Right. So I do think this is a huge opportunity for the Democrats to use their, like, very limited leverage. I mean, who knows?

Maybe they'll nuke the filibuster and it'll all be moot, right? But I certainly, I think from a strategic perspective, yeah, they have to make a stand here because there might not be another opportunity. to kind of to put the lawlessness, the expansion of executive power, the empowerment, all this stuff that Trump has been doing since January, this is a pretty unique opportunity to litigate that and to try to win that public relations battle. Well, of course, keeping in mind of real people's lives affecting. You know, he brings up an interesting point there.

Do they have the litigators, you know, not that Chuck Schumer isn't, as his shoulders slowly begin to roll over into his nipples. Do they have the litigators to make that case? Are the nipples growing or just the shoulders shrinking? Sir, I don't know. It's the high holidays. I can't comment. Here's the thing.

So in a vacuum, I agree that the Democrats should fight. I agree on principle they should fight. I don't think there's any reason that they should be at all complicit in Trump's lawless government. And if Trump felt like he needed Democrats in Congress to do things, then he should have come to them before he put the tariffs in place. and he's illegally taxing the country with his tariffs, you know, that should have gone through Congress. He's not, you know, and so it's not stopped him before to act lawlessly or to act against the norms of the traditions of the Congress who wants to do something. So I don't think there's any reason for the Democrats to

be part and parcel of it. Here's the problem, though. Like what's the strategy? What's the end game, right? Like how do they get out of it in a way that makes them look strong and not weak again? And listening to David, I start to get nervous, right? Because he's like, well, this is a good opportunity. to draw the public's attention to Trump's behavior. It's a good opportunity to win the public relations battle. Do we have the horses to do that? Like, right? I mean, do we think that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are capable of winning a public relations battle against Trump? Part of that is a knock on those guys. Part of it is just that that's Trump's skill set. If Trump is good at anything, it's winning public relations battles. And so, I don't know, like, that is the part of it that

I think that there's not going to be a strategic victory. Trump is not going to retreat and we're no longer going to have massed ice agents in the streets and Congress is going to vote on tariffs or whatever the issue is. He's not going to fund Medicaid, right? Like he's not going to retreat on the policy. So if you have to win the PR, then you've got to figure out how you're going to win the PR. And that part, I'm a little skeptical. Well, that's a good point.

And maybe we should tease this out because, you know, there's two things going on here. One is, oh, let's draw attention to his lawlessness. this. I think attention has, I mean, he gave a speech on the day they shut down the government that the United States armies should practice in American cities, you know, to get ready for whatever invasions are coming up. You got, you got to work it out somewhere. You got it. Are you in the enemy within that he mentioned? I would assume so. But you're not, when you're not uniformed, he said, we don't know who the enemy within. There's, they're more, they're more dangerous than the enemy without. And you don't know who they are. You don't know who they are. But it's important

to think about invading Baltimore is kind of like an off-broadway, kind of like working on your thing and getting ready for when you want to go there. But I want to draw attention because there are two things here. One is they've drawn attention to health care. They've said all this is about

is restoring funding into Medicaid and making sure that the subsidies that we're going to go into the ObamaCare are going to be put back in here. and here's where I take issue with the Democratic Party, whether it's about winning a PR battle with Trump or doing another thing, I don't know. But once again, the Democrats are in a position

of defending the status quo of policies that most people in the United States think suck. Meanwhile, on the same day, Trump rolls out Trump RX. Hey, I'll just threaten Pfizer with 100% tariffs and then just open up a prescription drug outside of the middle managers and sell directly to the public at a discount.

It is malpractice for the Democrats in my mind. And David, we'll go with you, to not have the forethought and creativity to think about programs that would fix what Americans hate about things like our health care system. them, but instead decide we have to shut the government down to protect these things that most people think are failing them in the first place, David. Right.

I mean, like, so what you really need here is a time machine, right? And you need a time machine to go back and, like, come up with the popular healthcare proposals and not be in this position of being like our big thing is tax credits or these like little sort of marginal adjustments to health care policy that are not especially popular. So, yeah, they're in a pickle in that sense, although I mean, I think the polling is there for the ACA in general, like, is more popular than not. But, um, but, but obviously the failure to address healthcare in any kind of systematic way, I think contributes to the general frustration with our political system. Democrats are just as guilty of that as anybody else. And Jeffrey's and

Schumer are not the ideal, uh, message carriers here. Right. I mean, if you look at polling going back to the early 21st century, that consistently the least popular people in the country are congressional leaders. Um, and so I think that you have to be realistic about that. So isn't, isn't that the malpractice, though of the Democratic Party, David. There is no, like, the fact that you would need a time machine, Democrats forever have been saying what we need. You know, they always run on the audacity of hope.

They run on audacity and they end up governing on the timidity of what they think they might be able to get through. And Tim, haven't we learned now from Trump, like, how in God's name is he coming up with socialist programs like taking 10% of companies and having the government directly distribute prescription drugs and the Democrats are stuck going if you just give us more subsidies for the insurance companies who are raising the rates 75 to 80% won't that be fine how did we find ourselves here well we can do a whole podcast in the history of that and the timid democratic leadership but

I'm going to do something really countercultural at first. Boom. I'm going to praise. I'm going to say, well, Hakeem Jeffries might have a point on one thing. People are getting their health care premiums right now, right? Because they're re-upping for the year and they're going up. And so it is an opportunity not even to defend the system, but to just say, hey, that cost on your bill that just went up, that's this guy's fault over here. Right.

And that's another thing that Democrats were not very good at going back to the Biden administration because Biden wasn't that good at talking, was that he wasn't that good at saying, like, I get credit for this. Like this, you know, this thing got built in your town. I did that, right? Like, he never did that. So this is an opportunity just to say simply, not to defend the health care system, but to say, your costs are going up right now. It's this guy's fault. And the reason why they're going up is because they just pass this bill

that's more tax cuts for rich people. And the other thing that they're going to do, by the way, is in addition to your health care costs going up, the fucking bill at Walmart is going up because of his tariffs. And he's taking that money, and he's using it to bail out Argentina. He's using it to bail out farmers. and he's using it to, you know, buy Intel, right? Like, I do think there's a way into that that is, that is potentially resonant,

like, if you got the right messengers for it. And if you're, and if you're fucking drilling him on it. Right. And do we believe, David, that they will have the right messengers? And they were, because what Tim just said, boy, that's a very coherent case. That's something that you will occasionally see. but that does not seem to be well presented in any kind of a disciplined way. No. And I mean, again, I think like we're we have this problem, right, which is that our

congressional leaders are not our best communicators, right? They're not our most charismatic people in the party. And yet, now the less, they are responsible. I'm going to show you a video of Chuck Schumer holding hands with, with, I believe, Maxine Waters, shouting, we will fight. Yeah. Yeah. They want fighting, John. They said they want fighting. I mean, and he said he's fighting. What is your problem? And he's terrifying. I mean, he's terrifying.

Like, nobody wants to fight Chuck Schumer, right? Exactly. Every day, the loudest, the most inflammatory takes, dominate our attention. And the bigger picture gets lost. It's all just noise and no light. Ground news puts all sides of the story in one place so you can see the context. They provide the light. starts conversations beyond the noise. They aggregate and organize information just to help

readers make their own decisions. Ground News provides users reports that easily compare headlines or reports that give a summarized breakdown of the specific differences in reporting across all the spectrums. It's a great resource. Go to groundnews.com slash steward and subscribe for 40% off the unlimited access Vantage subscription brings the price down to about $5 a month. It's groundnews.com slash Stewart or scan the QR code on the screen. I think we have to set our expectations realistically about like how much of the public conversation Schumer and Jeffries themselves are going to be able to drive. I think it's about setting kind of a party-wide messaging strategy and pointing out it's not

just about the ACA subsidies, right? Like everybody's health care costs are going up. You know, like my health care costs are going up. It's like a nightmare time. And this has been happening for years and years and years where the cost. of health care are going up faster than the cost of inflation, right? Far beyond the cost of living or inflation or anything, yeah. And if you go back to like the Harris campaign, right, there wasn't any, there wasn't any

particularly good ideas to systematically address that. That's like, that's a party-wide feeling going back many, many years that you can't rectify in the moment here as much as you can try to use this as an opportunity to kind of plug into people's frustrations, their fears that their health care costs are going to go up and try to win some kind of like, you know, again, not like a strategic victory, but some kind of PR victory where people associate the Democrats with the people who are trying to prevent your healthcare costs from going up. But guys, we're dancing around something here. And that is, we're all talking about, like, if they could just message it a little better

and be a little bit more disciplined and get some people. What I'm saying is the malpractice is, you know, Kamala Harris has 107 days. that's not enough time to put together my coherent. Well, that ended in November. It is now almost a year later. How the fuck is the most interesting healthcare proposal just rolled out on a morning by Donald Trump about the government directly selling prescription drug to use the leverage of the government? The malpractice here in my mind isn't messaging.

It's that they don't know. where they're messaging us to. They have not created a platform or infrastructure that addresses directly the needs. They are still dancing around the old paradigm. I think that's my point. Now, Tim, Tim disagrees. I kind of do. You at home listening on the podcast, I'm sensing frustration on his face. I kind of do. Yeah, this is why I never would have been a good White House press secretary. You can just, or I'm a terrible poker player. Do play poker with me. You know exactly what I'm thinking at all times.

Look, man, I agree with you. So I don't disagree that the Democrats should have a fucking health care plan and should, and the Democrats should have a vision and a direction and someone should emerge to try to lead them. But, like, that's not actually necessary to be politically successful. I mean, as the former Republican here, may I remind you that Mitch McConnell did pretty good for a few years as the opposition to Barack Obama, just saying, you will do nothing. and I will blame everything the bad happens on you. And to me, that's kind of like, that's a useful first step, right?

Is fighting Trump, doing everything you can to slow him down. And then when bad things happen, many of them are Trump is to blame for. So you can credibly say he's to blame for it. But even for some of the other ones, like, sorry, man, buck stops with you. You wanted to be a, want to be authoritarian. This bad, this bad thing is happening. We're going to blame it on you. And we're going to do so relentlessly.

And we're going to remind people why the current status, quo sucks. And that's like an easier thing to do than what you're asking. And so I just feel like my suggestion to them might be like the first little baby step towards doing things better. I think that's actually a fine retort to that. And I would agree with you that there is something to meeting in the basement of a steakhouse on the day of the inauguration of Barack Obama and saying we will deny him everything. And putting that into play. and doing it and doing it really well and not getting them Supreme Court justices and not getting them legislative victories and not having a health care plan and not have and not having a health care plan

within that David right now they're doing neither so uh I'm going to say are you seeing the plan that Tim's talking about slowly starting to coalesce along with maybe the bubbling up of the thing that I'm talking about I wish I saw that but no not really I mean like we had an opening for sunshine David yeah I know, sorry. I mean, just, I mean, going back to the inauguration, right, congressional Democrats, like, one of their first things they did was to help pass legislation that a lot of people on their base didn't like. And, like, you set aside the merits of the legislation, you know, the Lake and Riley Act. I think the instinct of the Democrats from the very beginning was to find ways to cooperate, right? Find ways to moderate to make it look like they were reasonable people on the theory that Trump had just won this, like, magnificent mandate to govern the country. And, like, we have to accommodate ourselves to that reality. And I think like what people in the Democratic rank and file have been screaming for like months and months and months is that that's not what we want, right? It's not just that it's not what we want. It's not the path back to power. What Democrats need to be doing here fundamentally is making sure that Trump is holding the bag for all the bad things that are about to happen, kind of what Tim was talking about, right?

Like when you sit down with Republicans and you negotiate good faith compromises, like not only can you not trust the president to carry them out, but you're helping the president politically. And I think that they should not be doing that. I think that's like what the base has been so animated about is they want confrontation rather than cooperation. I think that's why people are like maybe briefly momentarily happy right now because the Democrats do appear to be making a stand. It's just a matter of communicating what that stand is about. And then following through that narrative thread, like this crisis will pass.

Right. Like we're talking about this like this is going to be the thing that people remember. This crisis will pass probably three hours from now when a new crisis. arises. The shit, the speed, the circadian rhythm of national crises is so different now than it, the churn of it is what's so dizzying. That's because the president keeps starting them on purpose. You know what I mean? Like we've never really had a president who's like animating principle is like, let me cause one crisis after another. He wakes up in the morning like, how can I cause a constitutional crisis today? And we're all living with that. It's very stressful, you know. It's like secondhand

ADHD. Like, he very clearly has, you know, he is the statement president. He likes proclamations. He's not a big fan of follow-through. But we're all getting that secondhand ADHD, and it's, it's discomforting. Yeah. I mean, he's the president that has, he's made us all realize that we have an unhealthy relationship with our phones because we all want to, like, take the New York Times app off and not have to deal with this. Like, you want to be able to, like, sit down to dinner. New York Times app, you dinosaur. Is there something else? I'm on Discord right now.

Talking to all my dissatisfied friends. Tim, is that, is it just that it's the churn and we're not able to keep up in a discipline fashion? There just really is no precedent for it. And so I think that you have to kind of think about him in a completely different paradigm from any politician before. And like one example of all issues of this is I was back when I was a Republican 12 years ago now, It feels like a nightmare.

It feels like a lifetime. Right. I was on Mitt Romney's campaign. Mitt Romney said something very stupid about how 47% of the country. I remember. Okay. At a private fundraiser. And if Donald Trump had said that exact, if you just put that paragraph about 47% of the people being takers in the middle of his rambling speech yesterday to the generals, it wouldn't have even been mentioned.

Like nobody would even talk about it, right? Like that thing derailed Mitt Romney's campaign. Trump yesterday talked again about making Canada the 51st state in front of the generals. No one even mentions that. Like it didn't even come up in the news coverage because there was so much other crazy shit that him and eggs had said yesterday, right? And so it becomes challenging for media to like cover it with the right amount of focus because he like benefits from, it's the same way as like a whatever hockey team or basketball team

that's fouling on every play. Like you don't want to, the refs eventually don't want to call a foul every time down the court. Right. And so it becomes challenging for the media cover. It comes challenging for people to understand, like, what is a real threat? What should I care about? And he benefits to that environment. Like the only way to combat that environment, now I'm mixing metaphors.

I've gone from basketball to war. But it's like do asymmetric warfare back at him, right? And instead, for some fucking reason for 10 years, like the Democrats and a lot of the media folks have been using the same playbook while he continues his completely different paradigm. What Tim is getting to is sort of this unprecedented figure, and it does feel a bit like he's, you know, chat GPT 5.0, and we're all walking around with AOL floppy disks, and we put him in, and we don't know how to handle this particular. But I think that interpretation, for me, allows the Democrats to skirt the malpractice that I think has occurred within their party over these last, I'm going to say 40 years. 40?

Well, to the rise of what I would call like establishment status quo neoliberalism that allowed them to shift their focus from labor to capital. I mean, there's a larger economic conversation, but yeah to me their policies shifted from helping labor to helping capital and in investment and got very comfortable with that class of donor and and voter and you know we can talk about can I ask you if that's true so maybe that's true oh by the way I don't know if any of this is true this is just me talking shit yeah every Democrat I have on I ask this question so I come from a place as a capitalist I'm more sympathetic to the Democrats pivot on that on the merits,

but I'm open to the fact that, like, my policy preferences are actually bad politics. That's possible. I just don't, is it that or is it the culture? Like, is it economics or is it culture? Because I had Joe Manchin on the pod about a week and a half ago, and I was asking him about this. I was like, West Virginia used to be a Democratic state. You were the last of the Democrats to win there.

Why did it, he lose, why did the Democrats lose West Virginia? And then he goes into your answer, right? We didn't care enough about it. We lost focus on the working people. you know, our economic platform changed. And I was like, but are you sure? Like, even if you had, you know, whatever populace left of economic platform, if you also, like, aren't people in West Virginia really mad about the one trans girl that is in on the lacrosse team?

And isn't the culture like and the feeling that the culture left them and that the people that are celebrated are more diverse and live in the big cities? and like isn't that really what underscores all of this? And I don't, and that's a much more challenging, not for the Democrats to crack than to say, okay, well, if we just, if we just do a little bit more lefty economic stuff, then that'll solve our problems. Oh, I agree with you that that doesn't solve their problems. And I do think where that conversation has merit, and David, you know, you can jump in on

this. I think if you look at where the Democrats seem to be focusing their efforts, it was in, diversity but not economic diversity. I think there's an argument to be made that diversity, I think part of it is in the way that they talk about that, that diversity suddenly became the one trans girl that was playing on the sports team. But what I would say is it's in the way that I think, for instance, there is no such thing in my mind as an entitlement.

It's about investment. There is no such thing as diversity. it's about opening up tributaries to areas that have been deserts as far as opportunity. So I think oftentimes we talk about diversity as though it's separate from economics, right, or equity. And I'm saying, I don't think it's separate. And that if you are forcefully making economic arguments, diversity is included in that. It's just that it seemed like there's diversity and economics within it.

And I'm saying it's economics. And within that argument is diverse. Does that make any sense to you? You can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can have a coherent economic message. We're talking about Chuck Schumer. Okay, maybe not him. Okay, but a lot of people could.

And I think part of the problem here is that if we're going to come back to cultural war issues like trans women in sports, it's like Democrats did not really put up a fight, right? So they had like kind of the worst of both worlds where they had, they seemed to have a policy in place that people didn't like, but they also weren't willing to defend it. And the same was true during the Biden administration. I think various immigration policies, right? Where, like, you were doing things that maybe had some like bad optics right here and there.

And you had the president who was not just incapable of, like, defending those policies on their own terms because, you know, he was kind of out of it. It was that the whole party didn't want to. Right. And that allowed the opposition to kind of focus on the policy. To be fair, he did have shitty immigration policies. He did. Right. And they were exposed when they got trolled by the, you know, the governor of Texas. Right. But it's like, buses of people and everyone went, we don't have the resources for this. And they're like, welcome to our world. Right. And they rolled over for it, John. Right. So it's like they were, you know, they were busing and flying people to blue states

and dumping them in the cities, right, which was not popular here. And then you had the Biden administration who was responsible for some of some of these folks being here, not willing to take action to unlock the various resources that could have, like, fixed at least the perception problem, right? So you had bad policy with bad optics and no one willing to go and even explain to people what was happening. And that allowed the Republicans to define the whole issue for us in ways that I think was really damaging, right, apart from the policy mistakes. I don't know. I don't know if you had the most compelling messenger defending the most left view on cultural issues that does anything for the Democrats and with their problems and a lot of the red states

and purple states. Part of that though, Tim, is do you really believe that most Democrats think an important issue is trans participation in sports? Like, I think that was much more the obsession of the right that allowed to find, because the Democrats are more, look, it's a question of inclusion versus, I don't know, competitive balance, whatever you want to call it. I think most Democrats look at it like, how many of these kids are there? Like, they don't really think about it that much, but they allowed the right to define that

as a core central tenet of the Democratic Party. When I don't think it was in any way, the reason why they didn't really go to the bat board is probably because they thought, well, like, how many of these kids are there? Are they really dominating? Like, what's going on? And I guess that's just a failure of understanding, like, the voters. I sometimes think that you hear a lot sometimes from Democratic strategists is, well, they should really just focus on the kitchen table issues. When they say kitchen table issues, they're talking about finances, talking about economics.

And again, I think that if the Democrats want to have a more populous economic platform and talk about that, I think that would help them. But people also talked about trans girls in sports at the kitchen table. Like it was a popular, like there might not been that many trans girls participating in sports. I understand that. It's not a critical issue for most people. but for whatever reason that the Republicans were successful in that because it animated people. People felt like there was a sense of unfairness that people that was, it was an interesting question. It tickled something in people's lizard brain that made them like want to respond to it.

And so you can't then not ignore it. You can't ignore it. You've got to engage on it. And by the way. And they engaged on it poorly. Yeah, they engaged on poorly. And by the way, the street also works both ways. Like Trump's not the only one that can play these games. Like the Democrats can find random issues that people to get people talking. talking about them that the Republicans do that are unpopular. You know, I don't, and think about things that appeal outside the base around all these

issues. You know, let me tell you, I think that's exactly true. And I don't understand why, you know, remember that there was a big ad in the presidential campaign. Kamala Harris is for they, them, Donald Trump is for you. I don't know why Democrats don't go. That's right. Donald Trump is for you.

if you ran an international sex trafficking ring that didn't and show Galane Maxwell. Donald Trump is for you. If you are a billionaire tech company owner who wants to get out of tariffs, Donald Trump is for you, like, and define who you is and use that against him. Hey, folks, I know most people look at me and they think to themselves, well, that, that's a fashion plate right there. That dude, he knows what's up. I'm surprised he's even got time to do the podcast,

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You wrote an article saying a lot of the shit that Donald Trump does can be applied right back to Republicans that they don't. And to Tim's point, they do have opportunities to do that, but they don't take it. And I think we have a tendency to blame the consultant class, the political class, the thing. But this party is ripe for the type of takeover that Trump was able to pull off in 2016. I'm sure of it. And what does that look like, David? You did kind of a thought experiment on that? Right. Yeah, I mean, the thought experiment was like, okay, the Trump administration is obviously operating on this theory that, like, no one will ever get their hands on this, like, earth scorching apparatus that they're building out of the White House, right? And so I'm not

necessarily endorsing a lot of the things that I floated as like what we could do, right? But it would fit into those general categories, right? And it's like constant culture warring, you know, like rename Reagan National Airport, George Floyd National Airport. Like, just you wake up in the morning, you're like, how can I make the other side angry and miserable and deflate it? I just say I think that would probably backfire. I know. Yes, yes, yes. As not any of my Reagan love coming in.

That one in particular. There's no bad ideas in a brainstorm, but just knowing that one out there. No, no, the point is not that this would make us popular, right? The point is like, the point is to highlight the absurdity. This was the beginning of the contract for America. This is how it started. Colin Kaepernick National Airport. I don't know.

There you go. You could imagine like 50 different ways to do this. Take a knee international airport. Right. But it's like, I think that Democrats need to start. thinking about, like, if the Supreme Court, right, the Supreme Court still has not ruled on a lot of the things that Trump is dealing, right? They've issued rulings on the emergency docket, but in theory, like, the ability of Trump to just, like, fire people on the National Labor

Relations Board, for example, that remains to be litigated in a sort of in a decisive fashion, right? And I think Democrats need to start thinking about, you know, how can we use, like, if these principles are allowed to stand, right, if, like, if the next Democratic president takes office under the unitary executive theory, under the sort of the Roberts courts, creation of an imperial presidency, how should, you know, how should we approach that? Are there things that we could do that would be good public policy and then highlight the things that I think are like, well, this is ridiculous, right? Like, you don't want to govern in a way that I call it abuse of federalism, right, where you're picking on blue states, you're highlighting, you're

like threatening to invade only blue states, you're talking about people in those places, like they're subhuman. You know, I live in Chicago and I've, I'm, I'm like year 10 of the president of the United States talking about the place that I live, like it is like a rat-infested hellhole. And it's, you know, I'm like, I'm a rat-infested hellhole. It's very exhausting. And I don't recommend that we do that. But I do think it's worth thinking about, you know, like, how could the tables be turned? See, David, I think I would say, I think you have to.

And I think the way you look at it, like, Republicans are allowed to decide that they have pocket veto power over how their tax dollars are spent. I'm not spending my money on NPR because that doesn't agree 100% of the time with the things I say. I don't understand why Democrats cannot do the same thing. Look, there are tax exempt. I'm not religious. Why is my tax dollars? I don't know anything about Argentina's economic crisis. Why are my tax dollars going?

Why doesn't the left use the levers of government power to demonstrate that that shit can't? It's what I used to say about like, you know, you want to give me all the money spent on the Iraq war. I will gladly fund condom distribution like myself. You know, shouldn't they do that? I've upset Tim again. You've upset me.

Yeah, you have. It just goes against my nature. This is like, I'm like, I left the Republican Party because these guys are acting like assholes. And now I'm in the, whatever, the pro-democracy movement, so called. And the people around me are like,

no, we need to be assholes like that. And I'm like, you're kicking me out too. I'm going to be on an eye. There's part of this that I agree with, I guess. At some point there has to be some de-escalation. This is probably not the great conversation for that. I think there are places for escalation, though, strategically. Strategically.

Like going after churches probably and naming things after George Floyd. God love George Floyd. And if people should name things after what they want, I just don't know if those are going to be political winners per se. I think there's some things that might be, though. Like, what about if these guys break the law because they're going after American citizens of people with masks, you better watch out because the next DOJ isn't going to be Merrick Garland's DOJ. And we're going to hold accountable the people that broke the law and harassed American

citizens and legal residents. And we're going to go after the people that orchestrated it. We're going to go after the people that took 50 grand in a kava bag and did corruption. And we're going to go after people that did crypto corruption and paid this president money and thought that they're going to get something on the back end. If you could, if you put six figures into this president's crypto currency, the next DOJ, when the Democrats get back in charge, are going to come after you and you better be worried about that. And if you're El Salvador and you're taking people against due process and putting them in a gulag, well, when we're back in charge, we're going to treat you like North Korea. And so I hope that your economy is doing okay because

you're not going to be trading with us anymore. Right. I think there are ways to like butch up and play political hardball that is not that is not like just kind of appealing to the basest instincts of like the most progressive person in Williamsburg I think that there are also ways to do it

where like Joe Rogan might be like yeah I'm for the yeah these guys make a point to me because that seems far more tenuous getting back into crackdowns I mean look the Supreme Court has made it clear corruption doesn't exist unless somebody writes down, thank you so much for this $50,000, I will now very specifically carry out.

You know, they've made doing all that. That's true for the president, but the Supreme Court doesn't get a choice when it's just a prosecutor and 12 people on a jury. No, but think about how that process. I mean, this administration has turned all of the prosecutors against immigrants. We could turn all the process prosecutors against white-collar criminals next time and see how it goes. Good luck. Think about the grinding wheels of justice and how good lawyers can defer all that for four years or six years or 10 years. I'm talking about things like, and this gets us back into, you know, we keep talking about Republicans and Democrats in Washington.

You know, what about federalism? There are block grants that go to states. Trump has been very clear. If you don't agree with me, I'm going to withhold money. Well, that is something absolutely that can be weaponized in the other direction. but forget about weaponization. David, I want to ask you about this. The Democrats have zero power at the federal level, zero.

I don't know that they can even get into the restaurants. I'm not even sure DoorDash delivers to Democrats in Washington, D.C. They've got nothing. But there are blue states that still have a modicum of power and a modicum of control. And why don't those states find ways to, combine that power to put a response to the United States president threatening their funding if they don't go along with his shenanigans. I think governors and states could be a place where an effective counterweight to Trump could be because they actually have power in those

places. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think in terms of D.C., don't forget that we run a sex trafficking ring out of a pizza restaurant and we can always get in there. Okay? So, right. Into the basement. Into the basement, right? Yes. So, yeah, no, this actually is happening, right? So, I mean, I think that I think Democratic governors are among the most important political actors in the country right now because all eyes are on them. There's efforts to, for example, there's efforts to create like a vaccine collaborative group, right? So when the federal government pulls the funding or pulls the support for like the flu vaccine or the COVID vaccine,

you have blue state health department's willing to step in and fill those gaps, right? And I think that that's absolutely what they should be doing. I don't think that they should stop the vaccines. I think there's all sorts of things that are under threat, you know, like predicting the weather, for example, right? Like we cut the national weather service to the bone, right? Like, I think, like, blue states are going to have to step in there. If they don't want to get hit by a hurricane, they didn't see coming. Right.

But that's a question of bailing out their own citizens from the irresponsibility of this government. I'm talking about something different. Tim, you're going to love this. Oh, no. You want vengeance. I can see it. Oh, Tim. I'm so appreciate you.

I live in Louisiana. I'm worried about what's happening. We are now finishing each other since. Am I going to be not allowed to travel to California at the end of this proposal? I'm a little nervous. I want to go to L.A. in a couple of weeks. There has got to be a manner by which, look, a lot of these states are giver states. They send more money the federal government than they receive in return.

There has got to be a way to staunch that flow. Even if that means, well, that's not legal. Yeah, none of this is fucking legal. legal went out the window years and years ago let the supreme court catch up and by the way the supreme court makes decisions now and trump doesn't even abide by those so at a certain point there has to be some coordinated effort to battle the the levers of power that he's that trump has identified wouldn't that make sense tim water wars we're banning arizona you know we're to block the water out of arizona no i don't now you're singing my son

Yeah, you guys are going to Desert heat Watch out next summer Thank you Look, man There are elements that I'm with you on I am for Aggressive political pushback

Obviously everything that Gavin has been doing is great I think that there are things The trolling is the only thing that works Yeah, I think the things that the Democrats on the Hill could be doing To gum up the works even more Slow them down Like look what Tommy Tupperville did last time

Remember I can't believe we're complimenting him He's like, you don't get any promotions in the military until you do. Right? Like, there's shit that one senator can do, and we're not seeing enough of that. I would like to see that. I don't know exactly what levers of power California has. Now you should have Gavin on and ask him. I would, the area I think I do kind of agree is projecting, if we get out of this, if the fight is successful, if Trump is Trump is made to fail, if the Democrats are good at highlighting how he's ruined and he's ruining people's lives, and he is, including people that voted for him, then the next time they're in charge, the Joe Biden model.

of, you know, I think the way to win is we're going to build a lot of infrastructure in red states and eventually people will like us. I think that method is tried and failed. And I think that a next Democratic administration thinking about, no, actually, how can we invest in the dynamic parts of the country that are growing where people are potentially voting for us and, you know, maybe good luck out there to our friends. A little bit of the victor go the spoils. And a little bit of little less what I'm talking about, which is, all right, let's identify, let's reverse engineer the shit that he's pulling. You can sell me on that. I want to kick his ass in politics. And I want to, and I think that like little troll stuff they did, like the humanity of the,

of the immigrant troll that you mentioned earlier, sending people to Martha's Vineyard and then being like, fuck you. And like, we're going to do ASMR videos of people in chains. Like, I don't, Like that stuff grosses me out. But the concept of, oh, okay, you're going to have to live with some of your policy choices here. Like we are going to do PR gimmicks that drive home, you know, the unpopularity and barbarity of some of the things these guys are doing. I'm for that. And that's the kind of stuff Gavin's doing. And that's why people are responding to it.

And I would almost go the other way. And David, this goes to sort of the thing you were doing, which is, boy, we have seen. how the country responds maybe just to the idea of action. The idea that the government, you know, I remember in the immigration fight back with Biden, and Langford and Oklahoma had come up with a plan that was very conservative and they had done all the bipartisan work and they'd put it all together. And, you know, they talked to Joe Biden about the crisis and he said,

you know, it's important that Congress be given a chance to do, their job and put together this and it took, you know, eight months to a year for them to get it. I think a Democrat from now on will go, I'm fucking shutting the border tonight. I'm doing it. Executive action will be the coin of the realm because I think you're starting to understand. Yeah. David, you go, yes. I'm talking too much, David, talk.

I'm just, I'm objecting my note to this. I don't want, I don't want kings. I don't want mega kings. I don't want progressive kings. Sorry, go ahead, David. For those of you at home, you couldn't see Tim's reaction. Two big thumbs up and a smile from here to Sacramento. He's so excited about this new plan that I am floating.

But David, that is the way. Look, Trump is, how can he be out-socialisming Bernie Sanders? But he is. Well, there's ways we can do this, right? But again, some of it depends on what are the powers that we inherit when we take power next time, right? Is impoundment left to stand? if so, like you can just take all the ice funding and build like abortion clinics and federal land all around the country, right? Like there's things that you can do. Like there's things that you have to

threaten to do because I don't think that they believe will do it. But you don't even have to do it culture war. You could take that money and you could put it towards not culture war shit, but the things that diagnose what really ails this country like elder care, child care, like being a mom to kids or being a dad to kids, if you're not working, that's a job. That's a We should be able to subsidize those kinds of things, like doing the actual things, not culture warshit, not obviously naming airports after people they hate, but taking money in action that directly, because one of the reasons the Democrats lost, and I'm convinced of this, whether it's culture or economic or not, is that the government has proven itself to be at

remove from the genuine needs of the people that have voted in those representatives. It is isolated and insulated. And executive action that addresses that in a forthright way, using the full power and weight of the federal government behind it, I'm sorry. I think that would be effective governance. I agree. But I also think, like, you know, a lot depends on the first six months, right? So it's like you could do some of the stuff.

You could repurpose money that's being spent to, like, support evil people and masks, like, abducting people and you could redirect that spending to address the country's actual social problems, right? In the long run, though, I kind of agree with Tim in the sense that I do think Democrats are going to have to spend some energy rolling back the imperial presidency, right? So we get into power, we do all this stuff, and then we're just going to hand it right back to them. I think that we have to work through Congress to dismantle some of this stuff, right? You have to pass new legislation. I'm sorry, you have to expand the court so that the court is going to roll back some of these decisions that are absurd, that are destroying our democracy.

John, you're just giving up on liberal democracy? Is that I just, my heart is sinking right now. You've just given up on, you know, balance of powers, liberalism, pluralism, liberal democracy. It's, I'm just going to trade dictators back and forth. So here's what I'm given up on to some extent. A broken system that is being justified as though the checks and balances that are in place are somehow sacrosanct and were brought on high by divine creatures of being. It was a 20-year argument and back and forth, it was a series of zoning board meetings.

And if it's not serving the needs, and by the way, executive power has always expanded and shrank. And Lord knows, like, Donald Trump is creating sovereign wealth funds. And the next Democratic president better understand how to spend it positively than to go back and go, hey, man, I don't think this is good for me to have. so I think we are making a mistake by valuing this model and I'm not talking do I believe in a constitutional republic abs a fucking lootly but I think I did get a thumbs up there just just now it's just a deep breath but I believe that can I give you guys an example of

this is an experience that I had and it's and I'll try and make it as short as possible we were trying to get funding for veterans that had been exposed to burn pits so that they could get health care through the VA and they were not getting covered. We went down and we had a meeting with Republicans and Democrats in Congress explained the problem. These folks have been fighting already by that point for 10 years through Iraq and Afghanistan deployments and all that. The congressional leaders went, oh, my God, this is a terrible problem, but we're really busy. Could you guys write it? And I was like, oh, fuck. So this is why legislation is completely taken over by special interest, but yes.

So we gathered all the stakeholders, VFW, Wounded Warriors, American Legion, Taps, all the VSOs of veterans. We got the, you know, congressional Veterans Affairs committees in the room. Everybody's in the room together. And I say, what would solve this problem? And they say what would solve the problem? and it's pretty much what the PACT Act ended up being. And then for the next two hours, they negotiated against themselves out of what would solve the problem to what they thought was possible. And that is the point I am making that we need to stop doing what we negotiating against ourselves to what is possible

and start addressing in a forthright and clear-minded manner in year, unison what is necessary. And that's the difference. Your thoughts? I mean, I've been saying for a long time, John, like, Democrats should use the power that they have, right? They should use the constitutional power that they have. One of those constitutional powers is expanding the Supreme Court, for example, right, which is a perfectly legal thing that they could do. But you don't, that's your, that the problem isn't the expansion of the Supreme Court. It's the politicization of the process of getting injustices or maybe it's the lifetime appointments. You're you'd be setting into play actions that you wouldn't be able to control.

You think that that would get you what you want. But it's very likely that it wouldn't. Well, right. And then you have to have one eye on like what are these, what's the next crew going to do with this power? Right. And I think that's one thing that Republicans are not doing right now. Right.

Like they are clearly behaving as if they do not anticipate Democrats will ever do anything like this. And I think that's part of the problem for Democrats is that they are not credible threat makers, right? Republicans don't ever, like they just don't believe that we will counter escalate and they have pretty good reasons to think that. A couple of thoughts in this. One, I actually think that's a misunderstanding of Republicans.

I think that the Republicans are in a world of misinformation and they're in a huge bubble and they think that the Democrats are already acting lawlessly. I think they've convinced themselves that the Biden student loan effort and the effort to steal the election and, you know, in some cases Biden did kind of exceed his powers, but in other cases they imagine it. Wait, the Republicans in Washington believe that? Yeah. Or you mean the voters writ large.

Mike Lee believes that. Ted Cruz believes that. Some of them fake it. Some of them fake it. But like their portions of them believe that and that justifies it. So I think it's not worrying. They're not not worried the Democrats are going to do it. They think that we're already there.

I think that's irrational. I'm just trying to explain what I think the mindset is of them. Yeah, yeah. As far as the Democrats are considered, I don't know, John, I heard your PAC story and I thought that was beautiful. That could have been, could have been in a Ken Burns documentary or something about how democracy worked, you know? and it took too long, right?

And that sucks for the people that suffered. But in the end, right? Like, there was a resolution. And I just, what I want is from the Democrats is to play political hardball, like to play political hardball. Not to say, oh, I'm giving up on the politics of liberal democracy in the constitutional republic, but I'm going to play the game as hard as they're playing it.

And that would be, you mentioned explaining the Supreme Court. One thing that we had the bullwark were arguing for when Biden, one was instead of doing a stimulus package that it is, you know, that money is just going to disappear in the air eventually. You're not going to get any long-term credit out of it. Why not use your political capital immediately to make Puerto Rico and D.C. estate? Now you've got three or four senators, right? Now you've created some structural advantage for you long term.

That's just like one example, right? Mm-hmm. That could have been a thing that they had pushed for instead of doing some more amorphous stuff. So I just, I think that part of this is, this is a longer conversation going out there on the Internet right now. Democrats should compete hard to figure out how to win in other states and compete harder in Ohio and Iowa and find different types of candidates, try different things. So, like, to me, like, that is when I think where the hard ball comes in. I hear what you're saying. I want them to be responsive to the needs of the people.

I just don't want them to be like, fuck it, because Donald Trump won twice. This whole thing's over. And so now we're just going to act like Trump. It's not it. And my only response, and Tim, I'm wary that I know you have a hard out and you've got to go catch a plane. That's so embarrassing that you said that publicly. Did I say plane? I meant he has a cage.

I would never hard out John Stewart, people. He's just making an excuse. He actually has something to do. He's hard outing me. What I would say is every time I hear people say they've got to figure out how to win in those states, it always feels backwards to me. It always feels like we've got to strategize as opposed to sitting down and being what I think Donald Trump is, a good diagnostician.

about what's really wrong and then come up with creative and interesting and actionable plans that can directly affect what's wrong and fix it and know that by doing so, you will then be successful politically. I think to go around and strategize about we've got to figure out what to do and here. Like, what's wrong in fucking rural America? Come up with plans that will address that. And you will improve your chances in those areas, not what if we all curse more like regular people? Like that's what's fucking them up.

And by the way, I was on the vanguard of that cursing. You were. I just want to point that out. So who's voting for me? Come on, guys. I'm interested. You said a couple of concerning things. I think that you're better than some of the names being thrown out there, I guess, I would say.

so creative ideas considered from my standpoint only if you have your own currency John David any last words from you before Tim who just really in a very diva-like way said he just kept as we're talking and you can't see this on the podcast

he keeps pointing to a fake watch on his wrist and he just keeps going like my idol George HW. Bush I'm just checking my watch the whole podcast when do we get out of here TikTok motherfucker David anything on the end

on the end note there. Yeah. I mean, I think like if you're trying to think about how to compete in Ohio or a whole Georgia or whatever, I think that's really important, right? But I think it's also,

we have to, I think it's less about like detailed bullet point policy plans and more about convincing people that Democrats have identified the problem and we'll do something about it. Right. Like who is responsible

for the rise in healthcare costs, right? Like, who are the villains here? Right? Republicans are very, very good at identifying a set of villains and then harping on them and turning people against them. And it's not that I think we should play

the game exactly that way. I do think it's important for Democrats to communicate to ordinary working people who are struggling that we know who the problem is and we're going to do something about it. And that's not like I've got a bullet point plan from the center of American Progress. That's like, these are the villains. We're going to get them and we will deliver for you. And I think that's something that you just don't see that much from Democrats. And I think we need to see more of that.

Boom. Tim. You co-signing? I'm okay with villains. There are a lot of villains out there these days. And I don't love bullet point plans. So we're all aligned on that. Ladies and gentlemen, three people who fundamentally agree on most things

have come to a fundamental agreement on most things within this podcast. Job well done. David Farris, Professor of Political Science Roosevelt University, Contributing Writer of the Nation and Tim Miller, hosts the Bullwark podcast and Travel Influencer. He's off right now. I don't know where he's going, but he's going. Thanks for joining, guys.

We'll see you, guys. Thanks for having me. Hey, Ontario. Come on down to bed. MGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM.

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Well, that episode vibrated at a very high level. I knew that Tim had to get out of there. And I also knew that I really wanted to make sure that David and Tim got everything in there. So I have not taken epinephrine. I just wanted to make sure. So it probably seemed like I was recording that at 7. As opposed to our normal. If you're listening at 1.5 speed, go back.

Yeah. Perhaps at 0.5? If they go 0.5, they will find an incredibly well-paced, very informative hour and 45-minute podcast, as opposed to what appeared to be like one of those English cheese wheel runs, where they throw the wheel and everybody just runs like a moment. motherfucker down the hill and that's can i tell you though they're what reasonable fellas yeah yes butch up dems that's good advice we got to get yeah i want that on a t-shirt for sure butch up would be a pretty good bumper sticker for the democrats yeah and anything for me

they're one of those guys that you thought like i i kind of thought like you know david would go into like let's name everything after george floyd and tim would just be like no i i understand understand the premise. I'm just saying you might not want to really enrage people. Yeah. I mean, I really like let's invest in blue states, you know. I mean, we have this kind of like winter is coming problem with the future census where it's like we're going to lose all of these seats, these electoral votes to all of these red states because everybody's moving out of blue states. Like, what if we made it materially better to live in blue states? Could we, the places that we govern? Could we work on that? I mean, I feel like it is. Yeah, I mean, I do, people don't, you know, love paying taxes, but maybe if we made them sort of appreciate where their tax money is going better and wait, all of a sudden in this state you have cheaper health care.

All of a sudden, in this state, you have better roads, you have better schools, you have better ors. Maybe we could sort of stave off this apocalypse by just making life better for people. You're talking about leading by example. Yeah, in these states that we already govern, we already have all these people living under democratic rule. Why not demonstrate competency? Why not? For president, seriously.

Done. Killian's beer. Butch up me. Yeah. I like it. What do we got, Brittany, from this week with our viewers. I don't know if they're. All right.

Everybody's just still shell-shocked. I'm sure everybody's shell-shocked. There's so much news. From the Mets, probably, yeah. Oh, don't. Now, was there any real need? Funny you should mention that. I'm in such a buoyant mood.

We're going to get there. Just hold your horses. All right, Brittany. What do we got? First question. John, they spelled it with an age. How dare they? Strong start.

I'll have them know my family couldn't afford an age. Given current events, what do you think of the strategy of when they go low, we go high? Oh, God, I really thought you were going Mets. I thought, you know, given current events, where do you place the Mets 4-0 loss to the Marlins on a scale of the Ukraine-Russia war and Donald Trump threatening to invade American cities? Oh, I think that's a, I don't think that that's an actual democratic strategy. I thought that was a phrase in a speech that Michelle Obama used, who was a remarkable speaker and a remarkable leader.

But I don't think in any way the Democratic's failings can be tied to we don't, we won't do those things. I think they are adrift philosophically, directionally, and policy-wise. And it has very little to do with whether or not they would fight dirty.

I'm not even sure they know what they'd be fighting for other than preserving certain things that they had fought four years ago. So that's, yeah, that's what I would say. Meanwhile, the White House every day is unrolling another socialist platform where I'm like, yeah, why don't we do that? Yeah.

Okay. Why hasn't Trump tried to cancel you like the other late night host? Does he not get basic cable? There's no question there. It is a function of relevance. I don't think we are on the radar. I've had my experience as him with the past, with, you know, tweet fight. at two in the morning.

I take great pride in the fact that Donald Trump once at 2.30 a.m. just tweeted, I think, in all caps, John Stewart is a pussy. And I, and listen. That was the nickname he gave you? Yeah. If that was, well, that was after, I had come up with fuckface on clown stick because he was, he was saying my real name is Jonathan Leeuitz and why don't I appreciate my Jewish heritage. And I said, well, you know, he doesn't like people to know, but his real name is,

his fuckface on clown stick. And why would, and that set off a whole thing. I mean, this is, it's, it's absurd to even think about it. But, but that's what happened. This is obviously before he was the commander-in-chief of the United States. But I think I'm, you know, and I'm very happily, I think. I, you know, we continue to do what we do. And the hope is that the company that we work for continues to appreciate what it is that we do.

and I'm happy to continue doing it for sure. Preach. Preach. All right. Here it is. Yeah. So, John. I expected it.

That's the question. That's the answer. Matt's owner, Steve Cohen, apologize to the fans for the historic collapse. Are you good with that? Oh, sure. No, as long as, listen, it's Yom Kippur, as long as there's atonement. As long as, I don't know, I don't know how long it is that the Mets would have to fast to atone for something along those lines. But, no, I am, I am not good with it.

But it just goes along with, you know, Met fans are sort of like, do you ever see an abandoned mall and there's just stuff that's starting to grow up? Like, that's what we are. Like, the Mets are a semi-abandoned mall that you drive by, the Mets and you go like, didn't there used to be a Macy's there? Like that feeling of a hollowed out should be vibrant, great piece of real estate, but you sort of expect that if you go there, it will, you know, be overtaken by mycelium and whatever small woodland rodents are populating again in there. I'm just always excited at the interesting ways that they do it. They've done fast collapses, like in 2008.

They lost. They were in the lead first place by seven games with 17 to play, and they fucked it up. They have other things like their star power hitter, Yueness Espitus, just decides to like go bullroping and tears his complete knee apart in a divot. You know, they find ways to entertainingly collapse. I keep you on your toes. Thank you. Yeah. That's worth watching for.

Yeah. There's going to be one where they all get mono. Like they're going to be in first place and they're going to be, you know, hours away from going to the World Series and they will all go to a makeout party and get mono. That was my favorite. Like last year, the Giants went to Mexico City and like the next like three games, they were like, so everyone's got food poisoning. Can I tell you something? That will be the genesis of the next Mets collapse will most likely be explosive diarrhea. And you know what?

If that happens, there'll be no need to apologize. We all get it. There you go. I think we'll understand. Brittany, how do they keep in touch with us on the socials? Twitter, we are weekly show pod, Instagram threads, TikTok, Blue Sky. We are weekly show podcast. And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with John Stewart.

Is that where the question? Do most people question on the on the YouTube? Or is it like, what do they do it on Twitter? No. They're hitting us from everywhere. Instagram. Yeah, YouTube comments. We check them off.

Insta. Do we throw a filter on there? Do I look like the one that Trump is using now for Jeffries? Yeah, whatever it is. I want to look like golden. Well, I want to thank you guys very much. Once again, a quick shout out. Lauren Walker, who is our lead producer.

was not, she's a little under the weather. We're sending out good vibes out there. She'll be back. Producer Brittany Mametovic, producer Gillian Speer, video editor and engineer Rob Vitola, audio editor and engineer, Nicole Boyce, and our executive producers. Chris McShane, Katie Gray. We will see you next week. Bye-bye. The weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bus Boy Productions.