The Problem With Jon Stewart - Wrapping 2025 With Jon Favreau And Tim Miller

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

As 2025 draws to a close, Jon is joined by Crooked Media's Jon Favreau and "The Bulwark" host Tim Miller. Together, they assess Trump's tumultuous first year back in office, discuss whether his declining popularity offers reason for optimism, and examine what lies ahead for both parties as he enters lame-duck status and the races for both the midterms and presidency begin. Plus, Jon talks about the Best & Worst of Trump, Jimmy Kimmel, and the Baby Jesus! This podcast episode is brought to you by: MINT MOBILE - Shop Mint Unlimited Plans at http://mintmobile.com/TWS AURA FRAMES - Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/TWS. Promo Code TWS. INDEED - https://www.indeed.com/WEEKLY 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

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the weekly show podcast. My name is John Stewart. I will be your host for this lovely afternoon. It's Wednesday, December 10th. This is the final podcast that we are doing this year. We will be back, I think, in the, maybe the second week of January. You know, old people need a good time. You know, it used to be when you're younger, you go on vacation. I believe I am going to be convalesing. I believe that is the proper term for ladies and gentlemen over 60 years old who are taking a little bit of a break. But we would be back then. And when we come back, publishing on Wednesdays instead of Thursdays, which I know we'll make a really, I don't want to say crucial difference in your life, but the impact will be sensational. And we're delighted because it's the wrap up episode of the year, we're going to do a wrap up type thing. We're going to grab a couple of our favorite pundit type individuals and talk to them about how they're viewing about the year in Rewind and how they're feeling in terms of optimism for the future. I'm sure it's going to be all rosy people. That's how we've been living this thing. So let's get to them right away and jump into our year-in-review episode. Here we go.

Ladies and gentlemen, what would a year-end wrap-up be without two media moguls? Moguls, that's right. You heard me, moguls. I don't throw that word around lightly. I mean it in the sincerest form. John Favro, founder of Crooked Media and host of Pod Save America, and Tim Miller, host of the Bullwork podcast. Gentlemen, welcome.

What's up? Thanks for having me. Thank you for taking time from your media empires. Yeah, it's upstairs at my house. My kids' room is right over there. Is it really? Oh, yeah. That's the beauty of podcasting.

Favro, by the way, mentioned this earlier. He has to, let me talk about what a sucker, this motherfucker is. He has to get in a car and drive to some place of business. In LA, no less. Where he breathes shared air with others. Well, it's a progressive outlet, so there are a couple of masked. A couple of those people are wearing masks. There's always two.

There's always two, and you always say, oh, are you sick? And they go, I don't want to talk about you. And then you have to move along. Gentlemen, as a year end in review, let me ask you this. We shall begin with this. I think it's the question of the era. how many years has this year been? Tim, you go first.

Who could say? I don't know. Like, on the one hand, I'm like, how is it Christmas? I haven't bought a single present yet. And on the other hand, I feel like every day is a lifetime. And so I don't have a great answer to that, but it's been a slog. I'll tell you that. It's been a slog.

It is a slog. Fabro, how are you holding up? I'm holding up okay. It's been a long year, but it's also been like a long decade. I'm really feeling the fact that we've been dealing with this in some former fashion since 2015 now. And it sort of feels like that's the only life I know. Guys, I didn't want to say this. I'm 24.

Really? Look what this is done to me. Look at this. I look like I sleep in a meat dehydrator for God's sakes. The fuck. I've got the Kerry Lake Vasex. gasoline on the lens thing to try to help me. I should smooth that and get some good diffusion that's going on here.

As people, so it is the inevitable contradiction. So the rise of your media empires coincides with the sort of attention economy that is occurring. Is it symbiotic? At this point, you know, people used to say to me during, you know, the Bush years, you know, I think Larry King said this to me once. you know George Bush gets reelected that good for you you hoping

for that and I was like no I have children Larry how do you separate sort of your professional engagement and success from that feeling of it is it is

you're having to wade through a turd mine to get there yeah it's a good question We're catching Favro on a reflective day. Deep Catholic guilt for me would be. We're having a reflective day with Favro.

I mean, look, if Donald Trump exited the scene tomorrow and our politics returned to some semblance of normalcy, which probably hasn't been normal in my whole life, but some semblance of normalcy. And our audience went away. Like, I would take that trade easily any day over continuing this shitstorm that we've been in. for a decade. So that's that's that. I think what has propelled me this year more than anything else is just sort of a rage. Tim is nodding, by the way. When you said, what has propelled me is a rage. I just saw a glint of recognition. Well, I'm usually like the hopeful guy and I still, you know, I still have some hope, but I'm just, I'm so fucking angry that we're here and that we're

dealing with this and that it's been as bad or worse. than we imagined in in 2024 and before Donald Trump coming back. Tim, on the emotion wheel, where are you out with that, a similar kind of rage v. optimism? No, no, after a deep abiding rage, yeah, and anger. And I don't know. For me, though, I also, because this has been our life, because it's been a decade, I've tried to process this as like, this is just a job now. Like, this is our life.

Like, this is it. Like, I don't, I did everything I could think of to try to convince people in my tiny little way to not vote for this person the first time or the second time or the third time. And I was, I lost two out of three. And, um, and, you know, we have to deal with the consequences. And so I, I get up in some days I just, I'm like, it's just a lunch pail, man. It's just like, we got to get up and talk about this shit. And, um, and I think that's the only way to deal with it.

and let the emotions. You know, I said last year, when I was thinking about this, how was I going to deal with it emotionally? I was like, I'm only going to get mad and upset about the things that make me really mad and upset. And like, there's a lot of, we'll talk about it on the years. There's a lot of crazy shit that happens. It's bad.

It's like objectively bad, but it doesn't really affect me emotionally. And I just do, that's healthy, I think. You know, you can't run at 11 all the time. And then when something happens, it makes me really upset. I get on here in my little hole. I walk up to a little hole. And I get upset with people. Yeah.

And I scream. And you allow yourself to do it. Yeah. People, and I think people want that because they're all screaming at their phones. So we might as well scream together. Two things from that that I find interesting. One is so, you know, Tim, your frustration, you were coming at it from, you know, the Trump voters were inside the house. Yeah.

You know, you were coming at it from a more conservative perspective. I think for John and I, it always felt like an opposition. place, our frustration probably went more towards how can you not to the Democrats present a more coherent and thoughtful and affirmative case other than, I think this guy is fucking nuts. Don't you? Doesn't everybody see that? But having that happen, I don't want to throw this to the Mets, but like the Mets recently lost Edwin Diaz to the Dodgers.

That's what it feels like to be a Democrat, to be a Mets fan. but you're coming at it. You were on the Dodgers. Yeah. I don't do baseball metaphors, but I'm going to go with you on that. But yeah, it's a family. I'm going to make it. Yeah, I'm going to do holidays.

It's a family few. You know what I mean? Yes. It's more personal. I'm pissed. You know, it's more personal and you get more upset. I do that. Not that you go, you know what I mean?

But like there's just some, there's a different level of valence. There's like the narcissism of small differences is that phrase. Like, I get the most mad at the most normal Republicans. If that makes sense. Sure. Like they know better. Like Marco and, you know, whoever, all the way down the line, the people that I knew personally. Right.

And I do think that like creates a different like body response maybe than being mad at somebody that you think has been stupid and wrong the whole time. That's so interesting because, John, I don't know about you, but my feeling is rage against fecklessness, that idea of, you know, Kamala Harris wrote a book, 107 days. I only had 107 days. I couldn't put together a coherent governance plan. And you're like, well, it's been a year now. Like, does anyone over there have chat GPT? Can you fucking just throw that in there? Like, hey, what's a good affirmative liberal case for economic?

Like, what's your frustration? It is with that. Maybe, not primarily because I do think, like, you have to, you know, Republicans and Republican politicians have agency and so to voters. Look, like, it's been 10 years of this. All of us are to blame. You know, like everyone has a dark hole, man. You're in a dark hole.

But, you know, I know we all try to blame someone else, but it's like, we all have a little stink on us here. You know, voters, media, Democrats, Republicans. But no, I do, I am very, I find myself very frustrated with the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians because I just, I can't believe we haven't fucking figured this out yet. And that we are still making the same mistakes that we made, I don't know, in 2016. on. It's just like we haven't learned many lessons. John, to that point, you're making, he came down the escalator in 2015, and I remember being gleeful. I thought, well, oh, my God, Yosemite Sam has just entered the race. A cartoon villain, I mean, who chooses the escalator, the least powerful mode of getting down, you

know, you might as well come down on a fire pole, and then he comes out and he's Mexican. Mexicans are this and blah, blah, blah. And I thought, oh, this is just going to be a funny circus that we're all going to enjoy ourselves. And 10 years later, did you guys watch any of the rally last night? Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, that's the whole thing. Yeah, that's the lunch pail part of the job we were talking about earlier. I only did. I did a strong 14 minutes, I think. Really? Really? I could take. Yeah, maybe 16. All right. So what was, I'll tell you what jumped out to me. A, it felt a little bit like when you see a big star from 20 years ago playing a state fair,

like where they go out there and like everybody's just kind of sitting there like, just fucking do achy, breaky heart and let's go. Yeah, yeah. His heart really wasn't in any of the affordability message that he was supposed to, which he told us, which is always this is, you know, you got to give him credit for that. He's like, oh, my chief of staff is making me do this. And they're telling me not to call it a hoax, but it's a hoax. And let me show you all these charts.

And he sort of held all these charts up about inflation in the Biden administration. And, you know, no one really cares about the charts. And he's like, let's do one more chart since they're playing so well. And it's like, you know, he is funny. That was, it's a funny joke. But he's, his heart's not in what voters actually care about or what most voters actually care about. His heart's in, you know, going off on Ilhan. Omar and Somalia and immigration stuff.

But that's also, if you notice for the audience, until he plays the hits. Yeah. That's their watchtower right there. Somalia was the good stuff. I thought, and it was really gross and the good stuff for him, like working with the audience. Like, you know, the, he did like five minutes on Elon Omar last night. And to me, I thought it was the most telling because, A, it was the crowd response was probably the most into that. It's the crudest.

Or maybe the fake three more years. or any of the fake former years champ. And it's like, he needs a foe. Like, that's what it is, that is the thing he's good at. He was good at, you know, making Hillary into a foe. He's good at making Harris and Biden into foe. He's good at going after elites. He's got to going after immigrants.

It's been tough for, it's tough for him on the economy because he doesn't have a foe, right? Like, he tested out Jerome Powell. You know, like, you know whose fault it really is? It's this kind of Jerome Powell over the family. My favorite image of the year, the two of them and hard hats. Yeah. That didn't really land. And he's like, you're over budget.

And Powell looks at it. like that's a different project you dumb fuck yeah Somalians are much much you know uh more in line with the type of thing that the that his folks are going to respond to you know it's not just that his heart wasn't in it though it's that um I think he has become even more out of touch uh in this second term and in the first year like he's doing the last night he was doing the uh your kids don't need 37 dolls like we're like two weeks out from Christmas you know right and Only two or three. How's like going to your house?

It's the best it's ever been. You're all doing amazing. Make your children at Christmas cry. And also like I just fired the architect for my new ballroom because he couldn't build it big enough or fast enough. So while I'm gold enough. Yeah, I'm sort of using gold leaf all over the White House. But, you know, two, two dolls, two dollars maximum. Two dollars, maybe three.

So I'm going to throw out to the to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, I'm going to inject a little bit of that MDMA in this thing. I'm going to throw a little bit of ecstasy into the room. The thing that it strikes me as, and the reason why I bring up sort of the state fair analogy, or that the vein of this that's so tapped into something deep and dark in the American spirit seems to be waning, that if you look at somebody in his more,

he's in authoritarian. right? He wants to run this thing. He wants us to be more like Russia and more like Orban and all those things. Generally, authoritarians in their first year are legitimately popular. That the things that the, I'm going to take care of the drug dealers and I'm going to kill the, and I'm going to deport the Somalis and all those things that are the trappings of kind of a more darker authoritarian thing usually play pretty well in the countries where they're deployed. he's not that popular. And is that the thing that maybe gives you a little bit of like,

oh, wait a minute, maybe this lunch pail shit we're doing, maybe it's working, or maybe it's his own incoherence that's causing this. Hey, kids, this holiday season, you know, you don't have to let big wireless and your overpriced phone bill suck the joy out of the holidays this year. You don't have to. You could.

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Over 35 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. I think it's zone and coherence. I'll maybe take a half dose at the MDMA because I'm with you on him. He's made a lot of problems for himself. I think that the nativism and kind of right-wing authoritarianism, I don't know that's going anywhere. I think you just have to. That's still high.

That holds its appeal. Yeah, you got to hang around some young MAGA voters for any length of time and you'll kind of see the trajectory we're on that is still scary. But Trump himself, like the ability for him to. control power. You know, I look back at the year and in some ways, I think about that inauguration picture with him with all of the tech billionaires. And I think maybe the seeds of his demise were really right there. I do think that he has lost touch with like the types of people that came into his coalition late who like really were pissed about inflation, who really were kind of

pissed about the way the COVID governance happened, you know, these kind of young men that we all talk about who like are more libertarian-ish, but they had economic concerns and they didn't like the establishment. And Trump ends up like ensconcing him and with like the richest people in the world and doing them favors and doing nothing to actually help regular people. And I think you're seeing the results of that and his numbers going down. I don't know that he's lost like the core magabase, like people that are injecting newsmax into their veins or have not turned on him yet.

But like that layer of people, you know, the Manosphere types and Hispanic voters and other folks who like came in in this last time who voted for him the third time that maybe didn't the first or second time. I think that he's really alienated them. And it's hurting his political standing for sure. Yeah, I think his political standing is probably weaker than it's been at any time in the last decade, say, for, you know, after he tried to foment an insurrection. The capital. It was pretty dicey there for about a couple weeks. I can't believe that that's been reduced to some sort of subtextual footnote. There was also that.

If I remember correctly, there was when he tried to overthrow the government of the United States. Yeah, it was that. And then right behind it concerns over inflation. Yes. No, absolutely. But, yeah, so politically, he's rarely been weaker, but he's also never had more power than he does right now. And so I my concern is that so the good news is definitely like I'll take the full hit of MDMA. All right. Bring it.

There you go, bud. Getting some water. Let's hit the rave, man. Hit the rave. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think I think the off-year election showed us that I feel like relatively hopeful about the midterms because of this. But I do think that he and the people around him also are not going to let go of power easily.

and he has proven in the past that the more cornered he is, the more dangerous he is. And so if I'm looking ahead to next year and the year after, what I worry most about is that he lashes out and abuses his power in ways that are even more harmful and dangerous to the country as he gets weaker politically. You think that as he's more cornered, it'll do it. Because I'm always struck by that juxtaposition that you're talking about. When you think about the shit that he's done, like, okay, January 6th and there's no question that January 6 was the culmination of a two-month strategy

to overturn that election in any way possible that it could. Then there's the, I've got the Epstein files, the Q&N sort of power that surged through my campaign and got me to like, but I'm not doing that because I've done doodles of pubic hair with like messages of like, and please don't tell anybody about all the girls we fuck. Like, you know, all those different things. And we line up all the unbelievably like unprecedented through 250 years of attempted Republican governance of a country, a historical, you know, consent to the governed experiment that we're trying. And we lay it all out there.

And the uptake of it is always like, so I think we're going to do better in the midterms. I think the Democrats. And not even that good, actually. I don't know that we're going to take the Senate. Like we're going to do a little better in the midterms. Maybe one house, not the other. What has happened to our zeal, our revolutionary goals of like, have we been reduced to a guy overturning, you know, a unitary executive overturning everything? And the best we can hope for is like, there's a swing district in Georgia that I think is really, I tell you, they're primed.

If we just get a centrist in there. Like, has she beaten us down? I mean, the concern, and this is where I get annoyed with Democrats, is the concern I have is we are in a cycle where one party takes power and then they don't deliver in a way that solves people's concerns and alleviates their distrust in their government. And so then the party in power gets thrown out and then the other party comes back in. And that would be difficult enough for democracy if both parties were normal political parties. But we are playing a bit of Russian roulette with these parties because one of them wants an authoritarian takeover of the country, which is the one in power right now. And so for Democrats, there is a way to look at this like you just did, John, which is, okay, we can, he's going to be unpopular because he has not fixed people's chief concern, which is costs and inflation and affordability. And so based on that, we can maybe take back the House, maybe take back the Senate, but maybe not, right?

And then, and then hopefully eke out a victory in 2028, but only if we focus only on these, you know, economic concerns that people have. Okay, that's fine, but that is continuing to put a band-aid on a gaping wound. A gaping wound that we've had for a decade now. And if we don't have leaders who speak to the broader set of challenges that we have as a country and not just the ones that voters are saying that they care most about, which are important. But if we don't have that larger narrative and that larger vision, then we're going to end up right back here. I want to say one thing about the revolutionary zeal. I think it was your phrase, John, because like this is the thing. Please know, Tim, that I am very careless with my wording.

So just know that whatever it is that I said, I take it back. No, that's great. I'm right. We need revolutionary zeal. And that's what I meant. Yeah. Maybe you can be the leader of the Resolutionary Zeal. I don't know, because here's my frustration with Democrats, which is like, we're in year 10 of this.

And the last two successful political figures in this country, meaningfully successful, sorry to gas up Favro right now. I really hate to do that. But it's like a guy who's named Barack Hussein Obama who ran is like the ocean should recede and red states. I don't be the first black president. And, you know, we're not. Like very grand ambitions.

of hope. Exactly. And then it's Donald Trump who's like a reality show host Bigot, who's like, we're going to build the wall and arrest our opponents. Neither of them were going at all by normal political playbook. And they tried something new. The establishment and conventional wisdom and the pundits mocked them, and they won including myself in both cases.

And they won overwhelmingly. And it's like, could we learn something? from that? Could somebody try to try? I'm desperate for somebody to try to try something. Try something. Try something. It might not land. It might not be my preferred policies, you know, the great center left, former Republican radical. It might not be that. And we just, and there's not a lot of trying out there of giving people something to get excited about. And that I think is frustrating. I'm going to sing your song, Tim. I didn't want to have to do this, but I'm going to sing your song. Please. mom Donnie

Whoa Yeah well She was born in Uganda unfortunately So we've got limited gap on his ambitions But isn't that the thing you're talking about So I think structurally We are more set up for what you guys are talking about now So we're we are in a joint custody agreement now

Sometimes dad gets the country Sometimes mom gets the country But there is no real interaction It is not What do they call it a conscious uncoupling This has been a it's one of those divorces that has a lot of vituperative elements to it. But the structure is also set up now so that these pendulum swings that you guys are talking about, to go from Barack Hussein Obama

to Donald Trump is, you know, we keep having those pendulum reactions to one another. But now those pendulum swings are set up to be the gap between them is much more, especially if the Supreme Court grants the executive the ability to come in and just wipe out the, the entire government, everybody that comes in there. So depending on which billionaires are the ones that are victorious in whatever they do there, aren't we set up actually not for the thing that we're all talking about, which is a healing candidate that brings an affirmative case that finds a way to break through this kind of attention, economy fog that we've all lived in, aren't we, aren't we in for a little

bit of a rougher cycle than that. Maybe. We certainly could be. Yeah. I was worried about this. Fabro's new friend, Ben Shapiro. He's been on multiple panels with him recently, but I was watching Ben. And he was like rationalizing Trump.

I forget who he's in an interview with, a matter of bit, but he was rationalizing Trump by saying that he thinks we're going to go through the cycle you just laid out, John Stewart. He's like, we're going to have, you know, kind of an authoritarian-ish right-wing person, followed by an authoritarianish left-wing person. And if that's going to be the cycle, then I've got no choice but to sign up for the authoritarian as right wing person. And I do think there are a lot of forces out there that are like incentivizing that dynamic. And so I worry about that. And that is like part of the reason why I'm

trying to, you know, gently encourage opponents to Donald Trump to have some positive ambition or else I think that we could end up there. And I don't want to. I didn't leave one authoritarian side to to join up with another one. Right. See, that's where Tim and I, we disagreed a little bit because I was, I was more down with that. You're down. I was more down with, not not authoritarian necessarily. By the way, and I say this in no way to scare anybody except myself, there is a giant B. Oh. And at first I thought, oh, look at that giant B outside. And now he's on my phone. And I realized, oh, he's not outside. And is this a metaphor? I wish it was. I think it's, there is a giant.

Do you want to kill it? Clearly unhealthy. Or let it go? I don't want to kill it. Wish it away. I want to find out what's wrong. I want to diagnose. You want to help it.

I want to help this be desperately. Not to derail anybody. But if you find me at any point while you're talking going, oh my God, that's why. I apologize to Rob Vitoa for blowing out the sound just now. When the bee came in, I think you were saying that you wanted a left-wing. Franco. That's where we were. You wanted kind of like a Democratic Franco to just shake things up. Yeah, I mean, I say that sort of, you know, facetiously. What I want is a Democrat who understands that government's role is partially to be a check against corporate power, not a lubricant for it.

That when you have government does the shit corporations won't or can't. do, like healthcare. So like when we talk about, you know, Obamacare or like setting up an insurance pool to all that, like I want government to understand the lesson that every other industrialized sophisticated country understands. The market for health care is inevitably broken. It doesn't work. And therefore, you have to accept that like they've all accepted. We're the only ones who haven't accepted it and we see our cause skyrocket. So if a more robust executive can use the bully pulpit to push through what like what John was talking about earlier, a policy that could actually solve the problem that we're facing rather than kind of just adding more liquidity to a

system that we have that is already broken through the externalities that capitalism does. fix. Tim, does that sound dystopian to you? Not dystopian, no. You know, we can hash out the details. I'd like to hear, I'd like to see your white paper, sir. No, that's, that's right.

You do need a white paper for that. Hey, folks, it's December. It snuck up on us. It means holiday time, which means I'm already late in terms of getting gifts. And I will be late. And then I'll get some sort of a gift card and then it won't be used.

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Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. This is a choice that the next Democratic nominee and hopefully president is going to have to make, which is Donald Trump has taken a sledgehammer to whatever was left of government when he got there. And he has politicized everything. And Democrats, you know, one style and one piece of advice has been, you got to fight, you got to be, they don't play by the rules. Why should we play by the rules? And in some cases,

you know, I agree with that. I think that Democrats take the Senate, then, and we have a Democratic president, we should get rid of the filibuster immediately because there is going to be no other way. to pass legislation where Democrats aren't getting 60 votes in the Senate, probably in the next decade more. They could try. I'd like to try that out there. You're saying they could try to get elected to? Trying to win some races in red states.

But honestly, it's going to be uphill at this point to get to 51, right? And so we're going to need to get rid of the filibuster. On the other hand, it's like, okay, who's the next attorney general? Do we want someone who's going to, like, go after all of the MAGA people, like, they went after Democrats, or are we actually the party that believes in a government that works and that people can have faith in and trust in and believe isn't politicized? And so you're going to have someone like that. And then if you do that, then that gets a bunch of people really pissed off because now you're not fighting hard enough, right? So there are real choices for the next Democrat to make

because of what Donald Trump has done. Do you get rid of all the people, all the the crazies in the Trump administration? Yeah, I probably would. But like, what if someone, what if he in install someone as Fed Chair who's really bad, but now you're a Democratic president and you're going to fire the Fed Chair and that's going to screw up the markets. Maybe you do that anyway, but these are, I think the next, I think we are underestimating right now the choices that the next set of Democratic candidates have to make in regard to like what kind of country they want beyond just we're not having it. No, I'm, oh, I am having it. This is my kind of hard ball. My question is Favs' optimism is showing. I mean, isn't J.D. v. or Donald Trump, Jr.?

you're going to be in charge of the next Fed chair. Democrats need to actually convince people and win, you know. But this is nice. I'm talking, no, well, Tam, I'm talking about like these things will be hashed out in the campaign. Oh, God. Before you. That's why I said Democratic candidate, right? Like, this is going to be a conversation we're having in 27.

Maybe this, though, is kind of the viewpoint of it, which is, and I hear this a lot from the Democratic Party is we've got to get rid of the filibuster or we've got to pack the Supreme Court. and what I don't hear a lot of is to what end. Yeah, right. So when they say, we're going to get rid of the filibuster, I go, oh, great, what are you going to pass? I think we're going to pass an extension of subsidies to insurance companies that does not in any way address the broken health care and insurance market system. And then we're going to continue along with the kind of failed legislation that does not address in an agile way the needs of the people you purport to represent. And this is my largest problem. And Tim, I'm so curious about you, though, because you're in this kind of, it starts out as a diaspora.

Yeah. And I imagine that you begin to have more affection for sort of the Democratic side, not to suggest like a Stockholm syndrome. But it's sort of like, you know, I don't know if you've seen Cheryl Hines on any interviews recently. Oh, yeah. She was like a diet in the wool liberal, you know, all these different things. And now she's just like, MAGA opened their heart to me. And the liberals turn their backs on me. And you're like, right, because you're useful to them.

You agree with them now. So they embrace you. Look at this shit they're saying about other people. Like, for you, has the embrace of liberals changed you politically? Do you still feel the same kind of political mindset? Or are you in a diaspora? Like, where are you? Yeah, it's changed me.

Anybody who's like Donald Trump getting elected twice did not change my ideology at all, I think that's a sign of a really small thinker. It's like, I don't know why in a society we have to be like, oh, the good, the way to show that you're moral and true is to have the exact same views when you're 22 is when you're 82. Like that is what a principled person does. So yeah, I've changed some. There are certain things in particular, like Republican things that were just, I didn't care about that much, but I just signed up for the team, you know, issues that were not high priorities for me that I'm like you know you get a little time to think about them and and you change your views I'm way more open I've also I've been around way more rich people uh and and important people lately and I'm way less impressed with them than I was

when I was 22 and so like I'm much you were ever impressed with them yeah I'm much more open to you know extreme extensive taxation of the wealthy than I was when you know uh I was I was I was I was convinced by the pull of Europe, pull myself up from the bootstrap stuff that I, you know, learned as a college Republican. So I've had some changes. But there's also stuff. I think that, look, I think that in you guys, I'm sure agree with this. You know, I haven't gone full native. The Democrats have not done a good job governing a lot of places where they're in charge of everything.

So I'm not on board for everything the Democrats have done. I lived in San Francisco or in Oakland, but I lived in the Bay for a while. The Bay wasn't governed that great. And now they've got Lurie in is more of a center guy. And I think things are getting better. So I'm not on, you know, Chicago's not being governed that great, right? I don't think that the National Guard should go in and that we should have the, you know, jackbooted thugs menacing people.

But I don't think the mayor of Chicago is doing a particularly great job. And I think Pritzker would have questions about that if you were to run for president. So, you know, I've had some changes. And I think that just going back to your Zoron point about how Democrats could think about this, Zoron's messaging is grand and like the movement is grand. But the ambitions like aren't that grand, right? It's like free bus. It's tangible stuff for people.

It's free buses. It's rent control. We're going to cut some of the red tape so that you're, you know, the food, food, you know, truck guys can survive, you know, can survive the halal trucks, right? And so, you know, I'm fully on board with all of that. I think it would be a big risk for the Democrats to come in and say, we just listed out all the things that need changed. It's like, okay, well, we're going to put in the Swedish health care system.

Sure. I'm fine with that. I've no love for this current health care system. I'm not going to go to the mattresses over that. But like, you know, that's going to be a rocky transition. And that might lead us right back into a MAGA 2032. And so I just mean that like there's a lot of stuff to consider. It's it's complicated. So Tim and I joke that our politics have sort of moved now so that we have the same politics. Like I've moved towards Tim and he's moved towards me and so we don't disagree on anything anymore. That's a bad clip for you on TikTok, Fabro. I know what? This is part of it. When you run for governor in California, Tim, this is part

of it. Guys, I don't give a shit. What are you guys trying to do to me? I'm trying to, I don't give a shit. I'm getting clicks here. You're fucking me up. Um, but one way that I've sort of rethought my own priors on this is the delivering on the campaign promises is just as important as the boldness of the promises that you make. And so I do like, like, When I think back to the 2020 primary on the Democratic side on health care, to stay with that example, it was an entire, every single debate, every single time they all got on stage, it was they were debating the finer points of various Medicare for all proposals. And if you didn't have Bernie's, you had to explain why you were lesser than Bernie and why you weren't as committed to health care as Bernie was. everyone on that stage knew, including Bernie probably, that you're never going to pass just a clean Medicare for all. Some people had pretty bold plans that would be just light years better than we are right now.

You know, thinking of like Pete Buttigieg was like Medicare for all who want it. So you have a Medicare program. You can have people choose into it and then it slowly kills off the insurance system, right? That would be amazing. But so we're debating all the stuff. Joe Biden wins. And what do we get? We get an extension of the health care subsidies because that's all that passed, right?

Now, what do you think that means? And they also got to negotiate the price of four different drugs. Four drugs, yeah. And the other ones are coming soon. Coming. You won't believe it. And so do you think, like, what do you think that does to all the voters who were thinking, oh, we had this big debate about health care and then we win in 2020.

So there's going to be real change coming. Like, I'm pretty excited about this. And so, and I think the Mamdani point is instructive here, which is, Mamdani's success is going to, like, completely hinge on whether he delivers the promises that he made. That sounds obvious, but like if he can't do free buses, if he can't freeze the rent, then it's not like, you know, people's fears are like, oh, he's a, you know, Muslim socialist who's going to, you know, institute Sharia law. No, the real fear is that he just doesn't manage the city well and doesn't deliver on his promises. And so, therefore, it deepens cynicism and it makes people less likely to participate in politics.

And so I do think that our ability to deliver on the promises we make has to be as important as the problem. themselves. And so you need a path, a realistic path to get where you say you want to go. And a coherence to it. I mean, one of the things that strikes me about this administration, I'd love for you guys to think about it is the utter incoherence. He's a wonderful announcement president. He makes great announcements. We're going to cut drug prices by a thousand percent. He never actually follows up on it. China is going to buy more of our farmer soybeans than in the history of soybeans. You're going to have to, we may have to plow over Omaha to plant more soybeans because of how much China's going to buy. And then they don't. And then Caroline Levitt goes out and says,

under Biden, China didn't purchase any soybeans. Just a flat out fucking lie. They actually purchase more than they're purchasing now. Does coherence, the price of, there has to be a price for incoherence. There has to be a price for somebody who's going to get us in a war to stop drug trafficking while pardoning a guy who literally moved mountains of cocaine into America. Surely coherence has to be a part of this at some point. Surely? And stop calling me Shirley. Surely?

I don't know about Charlie. I mean, I think he's paying the price for it right now in his approval ratings and we saw it in the off-year elections. Like there is there is a price to it. But I think that the key is and what's frustrating is there's only a price to it when you are lying to people about something that they know you're lying about because they're experiencing it in their own lives, right? And so him going out there last night and being like, it's an A++ economy and affordability is a hoax. Like that is going to hurt him with voters. It is hurting him

with voters. Right. On the other hand, when he says like, well, I'm getting the worst of the worst off the streets for immigrants, if you don't live in a community where ICE has been raiding the community and he's telling you that these immigrants, you know, committed all these horrible crimes and now he's cleaning them up, you know, it's more possible for you to believe that bullshit because you're not experiencing it in your own lives. So I do think that the economic trouble that he's facing is the first, is the thing he can't run from with just all of his usual bullshit. Well, some of it, too, is sowing the seeds of our destruction. I mean, you know, how do you make America stronger by completely gutting our research capacity? Right. In anything. So maybe these things don't,

don't pile up. Tim, what do you think is the thing that's going to start to create a sense? Because even when we say he's not that popular, like, I don't understand how he's even in the 30s, quite frankly. Yeah, the research thing that makes me sad. I just want to say one sentence on that. Because like, some of the stuff that's in the most destructive that he's done actually isn't going to matter at all. And that's really, that gets you into a dark place and to wanting to have some bourbon. Because, you know, we won't even know. We won't ever really be able to say, right? Like, was it because of that cut that we weren't able to deal with this disease, that we weren't able to have this discovery that we could have had? And then on the USAID cuts on top

of that and all of the vulnerable people throughout the world have died. And, you know, Cheryl Hines doesn't understand why liberals are mad at her. You know, all of that. Well, that was most even I saw, I think it was Nicholas Christoph made a great point, which is, for all the MAGA people that are upset about Nigeria attacking Christians, like, nothing will kill more Christians in Africa than cutting off USAID. So that's sad. Nothing. Yes.

But I don't think that will matter. To me, what has mattered, you know, and I spent a decent amount of time like listening to like MAGA adjacent media to try to see what's like resonating. And for them, like, or listening to Marjorie Taylor Green lately, you know, there wasn't genuine feeling like the America first thing really did resonate with people. as it has for 150 years. Yeah. And there's obviously there are some racist elements to that that I just, I deplore. But like this idea that the government doesn't care about us.

It cares too much about the elites. It cares too much about our foreign, you know, adventurism and militarism. And I think that you think that Trump, as I mentioned before with like having all the tech guys being his new BFFs, bombing people in Venezuela, blocking the Epstein files, you know, caring more about his peace prize than he cares about the food bank line. in Kentucky. I think that is his real vulnerability, that he seems to just become just like any of the other elites that have let people down. And it would be for the Democrats to best capitalize that, they need to find a messenger who can, without the racist parts, speak to that. Right? Like, speak to the fact that, like, I do care about your suffering. But without the racist parts, where's the shush? It's not as fun. You got no shooge on that. Yeah, it's not as fun.

is that it is john when you think about sort of because i you guys live more in the world of of of these pundits tell me about the conversation that occurs not on television where people you know how many times is marjorie taylor green just recently say you won't believe what republicans say about don't trump when they're not uh on television or you won't believe the things that they say to me you know what what is the conversation below the conversation. Yeah, Favs. What's Ben

saying to you in the green room when you guys What has been? John, you and Ben, I think. We're so tight now.

At Hanukkah's first night, I think it was, which is really the night. By day six, there's very little enthusiasm for the candles. I think we all agree on that.

But do you, because I've always said this, the real news is what people are talking about in the green room of the news network, not the sort of, of performative news that you see, you know, being delivered every night. That's where the truth is.

Yeah. I mean, I think on the Democratic side, look, I try to keep my whole goal is to narrow the gap between the on-mike conversations and the off-mike conversations. But honestly, on the Democratic side, the conversation is like, what are we, we don't have anyone for 2028. What are we going to do? Like no one, like people can, this is why I'm trying to be honest about this. People can tell you that they're really impressed with one candidate or the other, or they think this one's going to win or this one has a chance. But it's like it's either something that you say in public to not piss everyone off or it's something you tell yourself to make yourself feel better.

And like you sort of get to the point where you're like, yeah, I could get on board with this one. I can maybe get on board. This could work. So when Democrats say I'm so impressed by our deep bench, they're completely lying. I think either to themselves or to other people. I will say I am not impressed with a deep bench. Some people are definitely lying to themselves. I guess I had a Democratic,

very prominent Democratic strategist, I'm an embarrassment. But like, he gave me the deep bench thing just like a month ago. And I was like, what are you talking about? Are you serious? I was like, is this a bit? And he's like, no.

So some of them have convinced themselves. It's a big bench. There's a lot of people on it. And by the way, Trump could fuck everything up so bad that it doesn't matter. Yeah. Do you have a sense of with the Republicans, like when Marjorie Taylor Green comes out now,

nobody tells the truth until they decide not to run anymore. And even then, people are a little bit reticent. So when they talk about that, you know, we can all relate it to kind of the emperor's new clothes. Like, is anyone ever going to say it when it still means something that the emperor has no clothes? Or are we really sentenced to this sort of backroom conversation that is the real conversation?

Like, I would love to know, and I know, Tim, you recently had a spat, Scott Jennings, but like, I would love to know in his quiet moments when the demigorgans visit at night, like what he really thinks about all this shit. Because certainly, like Dan Bongino recently now is the FBI deputy director said, oh, all that conspiracy shit. Well, I was being paid. Yeah. I was being paid to lie to you and stir up discontent and trouble and and all kinds of other incredibly negative emotions to undercut the authority of the United States government. But now that I'm in it, I just want to let you know, like, we're all good.

Yeah, I guess I'll just look. These guys don't talk to me as much as they did the first term. He'll be surprised to know. So I have like a somewhat limited vantage point. Right. Our boy, Scott Jennings, I think he's vinegated himself. I think he's become the person he pretended to be. So I don't know that he has quiet moments, to be honest.

Maybe he does, but I don't know. I think that what you're seeing, though, like where you can kind of get a little peek into what's happening is in the frustration from the House of Representatives members. It wasn't just MTV. And Nancy Mace has spoken out about this recently. Police to Fox running away, running for governor. A bunch of people are retiring. There's just another one from Texas today. And they all say the same.

They're all saying the same things. Like, we're not doing anything. I don't feel like we're accomplishing anything. and, you know, they can't blame the person whose responsibility it is. But what is it that Nancy Mason, at least Stefanik, thought they were going to accomplish? Like, they seemed like just bomb throwers. I mean, at least Stefanic is a pretend, like, I think underneath all that is probably someone much more sober. But, like, what exactly is Nancy Mace frustrated about not accomplishing?

Yeah, it's a great question. Look, I think part of it was when things were going well, I think that they're going well, I think that they were happy to do what you just said, right? It's like, oh, hey, look, you know, we're going to drink liberal tears and go on Air Force One and go to the, you know, parties at the White House and we're winners, so it doesn't matter. But Trump's poor, but I think what's reviewing about it is that Trump's poor political standing means it's not as fun anymore. And so they do want to be able to say, oh, hey, you know, whatever, whatever it is. Like the Epstein thing was a real break for them, you know, on a variety of their issues that want to be able to go home

and say to people, we're doing, I am like trying to deliver something for you economically. And instead, they're not doing anything. John, do you find Democrats, like, during the Biden cycle, did you find a very similar thing where all of a sudden some Democrats were like, you don't understand? Because I didn't see much of that. You know, none of them were, very few people were coming out and going like, yeah, I'm not sure this guy's up for a reelection campaign. Yeah, look, there was anyone who was close to the White House was even privately spending

the same shit that you would hear in public with like maybe taking it down a few notches. but like he's tired. He has his days, but he's good. You know, I was in a meeting with the other day. He was so smart. He, and it was, yeah, it's very like, you know, participation trophy kind of thing. It's like he stayed.

It sounds like a parent teacher conference. You can't believe. Let me show you a picture. He drew this. Remember Jill Biden after that debate when she came out on stage and was like, Joe, you answered all the questions. And like everyone, it was sort of bad. Why are we doing this?

I know. I'm just, I can't. You're traumatizing me. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, sorry. But anyway, yeah, no, so you didn't. But people who weren't close to the White House, yeah, that was the same thing. Look, this happened, but this was, this goes back to like 2016.

If people who weren't close to the Clinton campaign were like, oh, Hillary, not a great candidate. But like, you know what? Donald Trump is so bad that she's obviously has to win and we just got to, we just got to get her there. And I just, I cannot, I cannot go into another presidential cycle where it's like, you know, the person isn't the best, but like, they've got to be better than J.D. Vance. and I think we can just get him there. I think it's just to compare him to J.D. Vance, and we'll get them there. You want something affirmative.

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Speaking of JD Vance, let's pivot for a second because Donald Trump will, he's 79 years old, as much as he threatens the, you know, we're going to change the constitution. There's a lot of things we're looking at. That talk is quieted somewhat based on popularity. And certainly J.D. Vance would be seen as, as most vice presidents are, the person that's going to inherit this. But I think most people look at J.D. Vance and go, doesn't have the magic. like Donald Trump gets away with there's a certain antibiotic resistant kind of being to Donald Trump. Shit doesn't stick to him. He's able to get away with saying the most horrible shit and it doesn't seem to affect.

That dude doesn't have it. And Rubio doesn't have it. So they're going to be back to, okay, now we're stuck with Pat Buchanan's platform. but without Trump's ability to somehow put gold leaf on it and make people not see it. I'm with you on that. I look, I don't, maybe we can compete on this and have some sort of competition.

I don't know that there's anybody that has more disdain for J.D. Vance and me, like, I find him utterly contemptible. I'm up there. I literally ask me, like, name somebody.

You guys really do agree on everything. Yeah, name somebody in public life, your entire life, that you like less than J.D. Vance. And it's literally like, mass murk, you know what I mean?

Epstein. You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to find somebody. I think Stephen Miller's up there for me. Okay. So I hate Vance Moore. So anyway, with that big windup, he's a learner.

He's a learner. Like, you know, I think it'd be, it's a little bit of hopium. Shape shift. Yeah, he's a shapeshifter and he's good at it. Like, I think about him on Theo Vaughn's podcast, the Manusphere guy from here in Louisiana. And he did fine, actually. I mean, like, it wasn't my cup of tea. but like they did some cocaine jokes.

Like he seemed quite kind of, he didn't seem scary. And I could see how he could, you know, kind of learn how to adapt and appeal in a way that's better than he is now. But he would have to soften the, you know, Stephen Miller is only able to be there because Donald Trump dilutes the poison. Sure. Yes. Right. That's true. They may not, there may be no difference or distance between.

between what they actually believe, but you can't feed that shit. I truly believe this. I'm not one of those people who believes that America at its heart. I think this nativist era we're living through is antithetical to our actual country's spirit and being. Like, I really do.

I don't think people dig this. And Miller's poison has to be filtered. And Trump is the perfect vessel to be able to do that. You take that away. And when people get a real taste of this shit, I don't know. I, maybe I'm being naive. No, I think there's some truth to that, but I don't think I will agree with Tim again.

I don't know that Van, I think Van, he's definitely not as good as a vessel as Donald Trump for Stephen Miller's bullshit. But he is, he can code switch in a different way than Donald Trump, which is he has been part of the elite circles in media. in the never-Trump or worlds that we all have been swimming in for the last decade. And so he, like, think about him against Tim Walz in that debate. Like, that was a nicer, more respectful, J.D. Vance. And the way he makes the argument for nativism is not as, let's say, exciting as Donald Trump, but it is more cohesive and intellectualized in a way that is targeted to people who, like, when, you know, when he talks about, there was this quote he was trying to explain himself

the other day where he's like, you know, should you really, what's wrong with not wanting your neighbors to speak English? So you can, if you go over for a cup of sugar, you know, you can ask them in English. And when they don't speak English, like, that's okay that they don't speak English. But really, do you want a whole town like that of people who don't speak your language, right? You know? And it's like, he's, like, I don't, I think it's bullshit. I laugh at it. But, like, I think he is more adept at speaking to sort of the nativist strains in Americans than we might think. And I worry about that because that coalition after Trump is going to be more ideological. That's what I mean. This is more personalistic right now because it's all about Trump. The post-Trump coalition

will be more ideological, more dangerous, I think in many ways. But maybe more politically weaker. But Tucker would embody that much more cleanly than J.D. Vance. He would be much more like that. And he's more entertaining. He's like more, he's more genuinely, I can't believe I'm saying this, but funnier than J.D. Vance. Like, J.D. Vance does have a stiffness to him that, yeah, I don't think Tucker has. Tucker might be believing his own bullshit now, though. I was a little more scared of Tucker a year or two ago, but I think Tucker might have seriously had a psychotic break. At some level, Donald Trump knows it's an act, right?

Like, remember he made fun of Mike Pence for being too religious and he makes fun of Stephen Miller being like, I don't know if we'd want with this guy. He knows this. I don't want to know what's in his head. And Tucker might, I think, have had an actual psychotic break. He may now be a long. I tell you, the moment for me, and you know, I've been a fan of his fans. For a long time, yeah. For a long time.

For me, you know, my break, obviously with subscribing to Carlson.com or whatever it is that they do there was when he said he was attacked by a demon and scratched. And I was like, that's weird. And then he told the story. He's like, so I'm asleep with my four hunting. dogs and I wake up with four scratches, you know, because I was fighting a demon and I'm like, look, I'm not, obviously, I don't want to be like Occam's razor here, but, you know, there is a possibility. I have dogs. I sleep with them. And I do wake up occasionally with, with markings. My first thought isn't demon. It's Toby. Toby, what did you do? Toby, why would you scratch me?

Maybe that shows you're out of touch. Maybe the D, maybe you should be thinking of demon. John? I think the problem that he'll have is, again, there's a shape, there's too much of a shape shifter element. The whole thing about Trump was authenticity.

You know, if your career was, I'm the bowtie wearing Buckley, and now you're, I'm the Marlboro man who fights off demons. Like, that's a hard pill for Americans, I think, to swallow.

Yeah, but we don't have long memories. I'm going to throw one out there for you. you, there's only one person within that coalition who has that sort of magic that Trump has and the kind of like, I don't give a fuck devotion. And that's RFK. He's the only one that possesses that. And I would think can do the most pull-ups out of any of those motherfuckers.

Too weird. The voice. Voice I'll give you. I think that might. I don't think too weird. I think that's part of the mythology that gives him his It's like saying like Donald Trump never would have been it I mean look at his house

He shits in a gold toilet Nobody's gonna buy that But the problem with Trump that we missed is it was like Oh he's too offensive he's too offensive No one is gonna do that it's our case problem is not that he's too offensive It's like the whale carcass and and the all that shit I think I think you're falling for sort of and and you're falling for monology rather than

And like, that's become the butt of a joke. Like, oh, he's got a worm in his brain and a bear carcass. And I don't think that is in any way. He's going to be 75. Are we ever going to have a candidate again that's not a thousand years old? And the other thing is he can't be, he can't be outsider shaking up the system anymore. And like, if you're a weirdo, but like, eh, you're going to go in there and you're going to shake some things up. Like, he's going to have run HHS for four years and he'll have a, he'll have a record.

But his people don't view him as weirdo. What I'm trying to say is his people view him as a, like, heroic Hercules standing against the tides of institutions that are designed to kill Americans. Like, there's a mythology around that guy that none of the other ones have. Yeah. But, like, but he'll have to answer for, did you, did you do anything to those? institutions over the last four years? Did you save us? Will he? Does anyone have to answer for anything anymore? Isn't that the lesson of the Trump administration? No, the lesson is that when you're

out of power, it's easy to just throw rocks at the institutions. But once you're in power, then people get pissed to you and then they throw you out and they put someone else in the tree. That's the only, that's the only thing I would say. No, no, no, no. I'm intrigued. I think Bobby versus Stewart. I heard something under his breath. Let me hear, let me hear more. I'm intrigued. I think Bobby versus Stewart. He's, he wants to do it, obviously. I think if you'd read the Lovian Nitsy book. I mean, she's very honest about that. Do you guys see yesterday? Cheryl says no. Cheryl says he's not running in 2028 no matter what. And she's been very predictive. Yeah, she doesn't either run in the show. He's never going to, I mean, endorsing Trump. That's a bridge too far. He'd never stray from

our marriage. The voice, though, is really, I think, the saving grace. That may be a political reality for Americans that make it, that make it harder. In your Let's sort of try and wrap up. Is the way to change the results we're getting from our government, do we have to change the incentive structure around what wins? Because the thing I noticed in Washington is it runs on a different currency than what its purported kind of ideal is. It's sort of like the Washington Post.

Remember the Washington Post put up on their masthead. Democracy dies in darkness. You know, but meanwhile, in the Washington Post boardroom, they had a list of articles and how many clicks it got, you know, and they were running on a different currency. It feels like the political system and the media, which I sort of liken to America's immune system, right? If those two things are corrupted, and I think they are, we don't get the results that build a healthier environment. do we need to change the incentive structures on media, on social media, on governance? They're not rewarded down there in the same way that you think they are. Does that sound fair to you guys?

I think that, yes, I think you do need to change the incentive structures for sure. But then the question is, how do you change the incentive structures? And I think the way to change or the best chance of changing the incentive structures is to have someone who wins, who doesn't follow those incentive structures and proves to everyone else that you can run a different way and win. This is the, you're going back to Obama wins, Donald Trump wins, and they won based on campaigns that people would have guessed before they ran would not have been successful. And so I do think it still comes back to. to, in my opinion, you need a person willing to, like a leader willing to sort of go outside the box and sort of swim against those tides and show people see all this stuff that you think you need to win is actually bullshit and you can win by doing, you know, something different.

Yeah. Look, Trump has revealed that like this structural, you know, architecture of our government and society is a lot weaker than we thought it was, right? And so I'm totally with you. I am pointing and thumbs-upping Tim right now for those you don't. Great. And I think that like a successful candidate potentially in the future would run on like a just total reform of how to do things. Right. And really like not just kind of a marginal change.

Like really and in ways that would make people uncomfortable, ways to probably make me uncomfortable. I think that's probably right. The thing that I struggle with on this, though, John, is like a good way. a little bit back and forth, like, I think that's obviously true if you look at Trump. The other thing, though, I think that's obviously true that's in conflict with that is that, like, our society has went through so many worse times than the 2016 to 2024, just like putting Trump aside, like economic, like people's lived, people's experience living through. Like, you know.

Except for the pandemic, I think that's probably true. Sure. The pandemic had had historical echoes to it in a way that most things don't. It did, for sure. But, you know, I mean, look, we went through, like, look at how black folks were treated throughout the entire history of the country, through the Civil Rights Act. They didn't, like, turn to, you know, their stupidest, you know, like, I guess stupid, authoritarian, like, black nationalist to try to overthrow the government. I just like.

Two weeks are wearing a mask in Massachusetts and guys stormed it with assault rights. Right, exactly. And I'm sure black people are like, oh. And so to me, you think about that. It's like something else is happening, too, right? It's like, yeah, people are struggling. I don't want to, I'm trying to minimize anybody's struggles. I just be like looking at a historical lens.

Like what we're going through now does not seem to match like the level of rage and the political reaction to what people are going through. And why is that? And like the phone is really the answer to that, I think. And so then like, how do you deal with that? Is that fixable? Is that not fixable? Is that a generational thing where it's our kids will be able to manage that better than we are? I don't know the answer to that.

Like that to me is the other element of this. No, I've said that, I think, for a while, which is the catastrophizing that occurs when you live online. Yeah. Because that, the incentive structure of social media and all those things is to, you know, the weaponization. Like, again, I had to go back to the Bongino thing, but, like, he basically said it. Like, my job was to make you feel like shit is completely falling apart. and we are in an existential crisis. Now my job is to try and hold things together

so I can tell you what's actually going on and it's actually not that bad. And you almost, you know, it's that part of it. Right, it's like so oopsie, oopsie poopsie, but AI is going to make that worse and what have we done to that rather than, again, show the government as maybe the only powerful enough check against that power, we've invited them into the henhouse.

Yeah, and I don't think anyone, is speaking thoughtfully about AI and how we're going to handle it on the Democratic side at all. Like even the social media stuff, to some extent, we're now fighting the last war on that because people are moving, you know, even off social media towards their chatbots who they're going to be friends with. But like the way we, I mean, we talk about this is like, is it really the phones? But it's the way humans interact with one another, right? And if the way that we interact with each other, get information from each other, debate with

each other has fundamentally shifted, then of course our politics is going to change dramatically. And I think that if AI continues to push us further, you know, it could divide us further, it could make us lonelier, it could make us, you know, we have these chatbots that are obsequious and they're going to just flatter us the whole time and tell us everything we want to hear. Or drive vulnerable kids to suicide. I mean, literally drive them to suicide. Yep. And what are we going to do?

We're just going to, we're charging ahead so that like the 10 people that run these companies can become like trillionaires and not just billionaires. Maybe we'll have a benevolent AI president. That's what Sam Altman said. The AI is going to poll everyone, see what everybody wants, and then do what everybody wants. Problem solved. What the hell are we needed for? And none of that will ever get weaponized by the Mercer's to try and figure out exactly.

See, that's the problem. All these technologies are being weaponized. I think it used to be, I used to think like, oh, it's going to be, it used to be like communism versus capitalism or democracy or, you know, those various things. Then I thought it was woke versus unwoke. That was going to be the new schism. I actually think Trump's onto something different, which is the sort of stable world order that we had that was based on kind of shared liberal or democratic values. He does not in any way value. He thinks that's for pussies. His mindset seems to be the five families. Russia is the Gambino's. We got China over there is, you know, whoever that family is. And, you know, and we're going to divide up turf. Yeah. It's very great powers.

Yeah, we're North Jersey. You know what it is? It's, you know, if you ever watched Thomas Shelby, and, you know, do you remember that show? Peaky Blinders. I got a theory of power called Big, Fuck, Small. And that's what strikes me as. So I think this next election, what we're really going to be fighting over is, is the world order going to be the five families dividing up the spoils? Or are we going to try and go back to a more stable liberal thing?

But I don't think that can be the explicit battle. The Democrats can't make this about, we don't want to go to a spoil system. We want to go back. They've got to address real people. people's concerns. Is that sound fair to you guys again? Yeah. I mean, what they what they are selling, what's behind that sort of five families style of leadership is it's zero-sum politics, right? And it's domestic as well. This is Trump's view, which is if you win, someone else loses. And so it's might makes right. And it's survival of the fittest. And that's why I like the

people with power and I like the people with wealth and everyone else is a sucker. And so we're not losers. We're the hottest country in the world. We're not losers. If you're the right person and you, and you have enough strength and you have enough power, then you can get whatever you want and take whatever you want and everyone else fend for themselves. And that's why I respect Putin. That's why I respect she. And I respect all these people who, you know, who are tough. He only respects people that don't have to face elections or real elections. And I think that the argument we have to make is that this is not like politics isn't zero sum that there is that there can be winners and winners and that like we can grow the economy in a way that benefits everyone we can have a government that

benefits everyone that we actually do believe but that can't be the argument the argument has to be explicitly like child care doesn't work healthcare doesn't work education does work and here are the ways that we have to do it and we have to actually deliver well yeah and I would just say look like the spoils system my argument to them against it is more as less that he pitched you that the spoils were was going to come to you. That was the point of the spoils system. And like that these liberal democratic pussies, as John put it, cared more about what was happening in the Netherlands and, you know, in Rwanda and, and I don't.

I want the spoil system to help you. But we saw what happens to the spoil system, actually. The spoil system helped Trump. The spoils were for Trump and his family and their crypto money. And we need an alternative vision to that. Like, what is the counter vision to that that is not like the League of Nations? You know what I mean? Like people don't care about that stuff.

I do. Which is why the corruption message comes in in addition to what you're saying, John, which is like, yes, child care, health care, all the things people want. But you have to talk to people about why they're not getting it and haven't been getting it. And Trump is giving a perfect example of that right now. The difficulty with the corruption message is in the nuance of it. Yes. Because I think Tim said it earlier, which I thought was a really great point, which is Trump has found the ways to do this. He's made the corruption that we all suspected were in our society explicit.

it. But it's a hard argument to make. You know, you look at 1789 capital or you look at, you know, Jared Kushner is now going to finance the buying of CNN and hand it to the president so that he can kill it in front of us or. Or head it to the Qataris and the Saudis. Or give it to the Saudis. You know, Donald Trump Jr. is suddenly now the head of a drone company or on the board that has like a half a billion dollar contract. The problem is Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma. and you may say, oh, but that the order of magnitude is different. And you're right. But it speaks to the same thing.

That proximity to privilege is what matters. It's how kleptocracies and those things work. And so I think if the Democrats try and make it again a moral corruption argument, there's enough whiffs and notes and heady hints of, Teapot, Dome and Tammany Hall in their backgrounds that it's a hard argument to make. But that's why you don't, the message can't be they're corrupt and we're not so elect us because we're better and trust us. But that is always what they do.

I know, I know, I know. Weird, moral black and white. But back to what we were saying earlier, that's why you need an actual reform agenda. Like I am willing to change the institutions. I'm willing to change the incentive structure. I'm willing to get money out of politics. A new deal against corruption. A new deal to tap into inequality occurs because we value capital and not labor.

There's got to be a way to tap. Tim is a socialist now. I see it on his face. He is so excited about this new plan. Yeah. You can definitely sell me on just painful levels of taxation for the AI CEOs. You know, like you're getting, I will flank Elizabeth Warren on the left on. But you can't, here's when you can't sell taxation, Tim, because the Democrats haven't proven that people will get value for that extra money.

The message of we need to get rid of the filibuster or we need to tax billionaires means nothing if nobody ties it to fair value. They have to be more remedial than that. They have to step back forward. Now, you can frame it two different ways. You know, the first thing is the first commercial Democrats should run is Trump said he was for you. He said Democrats are for them and he's. for you. And that works if you're Galane Maxwell, if you're the cutteries. If you're like, that should be every ad is showing who you is. But on the Democratic side, if they can't

prove the taxpayers get value for their dollar, they are fucked no matter what they think of. See, this is where we're becoming more centrist, John. We're moving towards Tim. Yeah. Wait, what? Exactly. What just happened? Yeah. No more welfare. This is the We're going to have high taxation, socialism and welfare reform and cutting red tape so we can build things for once. We can do that. But value doesn't mean not because first of all, it's not welfare. It's not an entitlement. It's an investment.

If we invest in oil companies to go drilling somewhere, how the fuck can you not invest in human beings getting enough food and getting enough shelter to be their best selves? These are investments. That's value. Yeah, you got me. All right. I think we're done here. Almost. Gentlemen.

I need to see the white paper still. You're probably right. Any moment from this year that you would like to highlight on your way out to go to your respective media empires, anything that strikes you? The one for me that was both, because I think it represents the year, which is simultaneously, it's like the dark comedy. Like, it's really like heartbreakingly horrible, but also just clownish was when Terry. Moran was interviewing Trump in the Oval Office. And they're asked about Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia. And Trump's team to like prove that Kilmer-Margo-Garcia was MS-13 had done like the MSPaint,

like the font. It was like Ariel 12 font that they put on top of his hands and it says MS-13. Yes. And Trump says to Terry Moran, he's like, what, you're crazy. Like obviously he's MS-13 that set it on his fingers. And Terry's like, that was Photoshop. And he's like, no, it wasn't. And then Terry's like, I guess we're enough to agree to disagree.

And Trump won't let it go. Like, Terry's trying to let him off the hook. And Trump's like, get me the picture. That was it for me. That's a beautiful one, John. It's funny, I was going to do, I was going to do, well, Kilmer-Rergo-Garcia, this was a little darker. But, I mean, the fact that the, when I knew that, like, this was much darker than even

I had expected. The fact that the United States government in court admitted that they mistakenly sent someone to a torture chamber. And then their response to that was not bring him back. It wasn't even, okay, we'll get him out of there and send him somewhere else. It's we're now going to ruin this guy's life and make this a big cause on our side that we are going to punish this guy no matter what just because. And that is how they dealt with the whole deportation regime since then. And it is a they are delighting in violence and wanting us to know that they delight in the violence and the abuse. And I think it's that that sadism. The memes. Yeah. The memes and how they try to make it like a joke, but funny, like the desensitizing people

to violence and abuse and sort of dehumanizing people is I think the sort of the underlying like the real poison of the last year and something that's going to take a lot more to get out of the system than just a few better policies. That's so interesting. And it is, it's the dehumanization as a virtue. Yes. The idea that that is the virtuous way. And it really is, it's they make a virtue of the ignorance of a lack of discernment.

And the thing that I think always comes to you is we're not actually safer when our government can't tell the difference between MS-13 and an 18-year-old valedictorian who's lived here from Honduras since she was seven, but got the same treatment and sent to some facility in Louisiana. That's the thing that I think maybe also has to be brought to bear to the American people is our ignorance doesn't make us safer. It doesn't make us America first. That discernment is the first quality you need in building a better state of understanding individuals and not groups.

Gentlemen, I so appreciate you taking the time. I know you guys are awful busy. Tim Miller from the Bullwark and John Favreau from Pod Save America and obviously you will be consolidated when the Ellison's by you. By the way, I think it's a great move on their part. We're not selling.

The moment for me, and this is probably selfish, is when Donald Trump is like, I'll choose who gets Warner Brothers and you're like, is that where we are? Literally, the president of it. Make me another rush hour. I want rush hour four, five, I want rush hours and you can have it.

Guys, thank you so much. Have a wonderful Christmas, holiday, Hanukkah, New Year's, and I look forward to seeing all the good stuff you do in the next year. You too, John. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Hey, Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out.

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I'd be honest with you. They seemed like worn down at first. I think they started to gather that vigor again to go back into battle. But they definitely, I had a feeling of like, it's fucking December. Yes. And I want to buy presents for my family and my friends. But like this is an incessant grinding.

This year has felt a million years long as you said at the top. But you also weren't introducing such fun ideas like RFK is going to inherit the earth, you know. You're saying that actually I was not in any way bringing optimism and privality. You are the problem. I definitely didn't leave the conversation feeling optimistic, but I wouldn't expect that for a conversation recapping 2025. Yeah, look at our outfits. We all spontaneously wore black. Oh, God, I didn't even recognize that. Can I say maybe I'm insane, but I remain optimistic.

I honestly think the despicable nature of this administration is the effect that it's having on those two. That is not the effect that it has on political operatives. That is the effect that it has on human beings that don't want to live in this acid-based. This is not like it's a, it's Mars. We don't want to have to wear space suits to breathe freely amongst our people. Yeah. People are sick of the shit, I think. Sick of this shit.

And they're starting to realize he's the band leader. Trump is the band leader. of this shit. Optimism! There you go. We did it. Gillian's so not buying this, by the way. No, I really, I think that you're right and I want it to be true as much as I think it's true.

All right. Well, for real optimism, we'll have a new mayor in the new year. And listen, man, which presents opportunity like we haven't had in a very long time. And each one of the things, these moments, presents opportunity to get some fresh water into this brackish cesspool that we've been swimming in and we'll get out of it. And it's the end of the year. Obviously, we want to give our listeners

a chance to pop in a couple of questions there. Brittany, what do we got from? All right. They are versatile. They are versatile. This is our last podcast of the year, by the year, by the way. That's why I'm talking like that.

John, in your opinion, what is the best and worst thing that Trump did this year? Oh, God. Best and worst? Yes, sir. I mean, Holy shit, really?

I mean, obviously, like, for me, the worst thing is it's creating clouds of humanity that are not individuals. They're just a patina generally shaded that he feels are inferior to his, you know, I think he truly believes. in those kind of hierarchies. And he believes that his people are at the top of the hierarchy and take this for however you think it, but that the lower castes are disposable. They're not individuals. They're not particularly on the same level of humanity

that he is on. There is no individuality. A Somali doctor has nothing against a Swedish petty larcenist. Like a Somali doctor is worse because he's in that cloud and therefore can be treated in the manner that his administration is treating him. And that's by far, I think, the worst thing. It's not an individual thing that he's doing. The best thing he did was accept a trophy from the World Cup that literally looks like zombies reaching out of the grave to tickle the underside of his balls.

He also banned, didn't he ban paper straws? So, I mean, I can't take that for granted. I'll give it that one. All right. What's next? Hopefully this one will perk us up a little bit. I doubt it. Oh, boy.

End of year. People are hurting, man. We'll get there. John. Trump has stated that he believes it's seditious, perhaps even treasonous for the press to report on his health. Care to comment on his health? First of all, I think he's doing great.

health-wise. He looks great. I have found, and again, I'm obviously not like an orthopedist, but I've found that the thicker, the ankle, the better the balance. That is that famous thing. And that's for old people falling is really, but if you get those, if your ankles are tree trunks, you can't get knocked over, you can't break the hip. And that's generally the beginning of the downward slide. So I would suggest that that in and of itself would give you confidence that this may be the healthiest, most robust president that we've ever had in the history. the United States of America. Angle circumference alone.

But it once again gets to the point of for Donald Trump, the level of fealty can never rise to a level that is satisfactory. There is no level of ass kissing that you can do. I mean, when you watch is, you know, everything is seditious that falls beneath the level of, my God, sir, thank you for not allowing too many hurricanes to hear. hit the United States, as Christy Noem did in that stupid cabinet meeting that they had. He is angry at Fox News, which is literally like a 24-hour-a-day ball-washing machine for Trump and is designed specifically to keep him in power.

So for him to say something as seditious entreatiness means nothing because the bar of entry to Donald Trump is purely about how deeply. you are proving your undying loyalty to the king. Anything below that, obviously, is seditious. And none of us measure up, unfortunately. Sad. It is sad. And I hate it because, you know,

it's so hard to be a billionaire president. I know. I mean, I don't know, but sure. Well, you can imagine. money corrupts and power corrupts. And to have all the money and all the power, it's like if Lord of the Rings ended where, you know,

they're going to drop the ring into the fire and then instead of hitting the fire, he catches it. Spoiler. Think of how hard that is on someone. Yeah. We don't feel bad enough. That's why you're so sleepy. That's right.

That's right. All right. What's next? All right. Next. Do you think it's possible for Trump and Jimmy Kimmel to end their feud, or is it too far gone at this point? First of all, Jimmy Kilnell might be the most generous, kind-hearted individual that I have

met in my entire life. He is someone, he doesn't even sleep. Like, he spent, in the middle of the night, he will just sit and Google, like, ideas for what the best thoughtful gift might be for you that he could send to you in a moment when you're feeling low. Like, that dude is all heart like all of it like he is always he is a naturally generous gregarious uh warm individual that people are drawn to and he is drawn to people he is i wish i could be more like him i am a kind of introvert loner type personality that like i love people over there he brings them in

into an embrace in a manner so if anybody could do it it would be him he is the antithesis of everything that that guy stands for and he has been and his family has been put to the ringer

for no apparent reason Donald Trump could say nobody you know everybody's mean to me and you're like because you're the fucking president and you have an army and nuclear weapons. Yeah, it's kind of part of the job. Right. And he's also mean, so.

Yeah, but you've drawn fire on him and his family because he said shit about you you didn't like. Tough shit. You know. Learn to take a fucking joke. Boom. I would love a president that could take a joke and stay awake through a meeting.

Two things. Like, I don't ask for a lot. When was the last time this country had that? I think it might have been Eisenhower. I just hate that. He's honestly like one of the best human individuals underneath the scenes, behind the scene, whatever, that you will ever see in your entire fucking life.

Colbert, too, by the way. I'm very fortunate that those people in my life who understand my eccentricity, but also warmly embrace me at the same time, I'm very lucky to have folks like that in my life. Absolutely. something to be grateful for in the holiday season. Yeah, this is a good optimistic note.

Brittany, you just put a bow on that. Well done. Thank you so much. Yeah. Last but not least, John. Do you think Christmas should be more about Santa Claus or the baby Jesus? Oh, God, this is not in my jurisdiction. I don't know.

Well, I've got some explaining to do to the people at home. I don't know if you can tell by, let's say, my face. But I would be more comfortable answering any question about fiddler on the roof. I can give you the ins and outs of the show Yantel. But as far as this, I'm assuming that Christmas has, I mean, other than the birth of Jesus being the tent post, the rest of it doesn't appear to be about that in any way, shape, or form. You guys might know better than me. It's giving presents. Yeah, it should be more about Santa.

Yeah. Like, I don't ever go like on November 19th. Oh my God, the Jesus commercials are starting so early this year. Like, it doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with that. But I will tell you this, as someone who never experienced it when I was younger, when my kids were younger and they still believed in all that. It was the most fun holiday I have ever experienced when they still believed in magic. Yeah. Like, Brittany, do you recall when you believed?

Like, did your family? Oh, very much so. Kind of magical. Yes. My mom actually, one of my favorite memories is I was 11 years old and my mom sat me down and she goes, you know Santa? And I said, yeah, she goes, well, it's me. She wanted the credit.

And I was like, that's awesome. Devastated. I love that. Yeah, we didn't, it like, it was one of those things that, like, we were always talking about, like, when are they going to figure this out? Because we knew it wasn't going to come from Vermont. They would be like, so Katie told me. Yes. And it is your entree into the world of lies.

Like, it is your, and then your entire worldview is like, wait a minute. minute, there's no Santa. And I think the president might be corrupt. The jump from there and the way that you parent your kids up to that point and then after that point is like before that it's all a certain like magical morality tale. You know, it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice. Sharing is caring. Like it's all that. And like as soon as that other thing hits, it's a lot of like, there's fentanyl and cocaine. Remember that. everything fucking changes very quickly. All right.

Well, this is our last podcast of the year, as we said. We're back January 14th. So it's a nice, long, beautiful. And you guys have earned it.

In the new year, obviously, we're publishing podcasts on Wednesday instead of Thursday. That's just something that you can lie down there. And this end of the year is a nice time to remind everybody

that all the work that is done on this podcast, that hopefully, you find yourself enjoying is done by the people that I'm talking to now or that you are not seeing, but they are behind the scenes. And they put in the diligent work that allows me to feel prepared and ready to talk to anybody. And I mean anybody. They're throwing me the creators of AI and political pundits and all these other things. And I just, I love it. I love being able to just talk to people that I find interesting and fascinating and pick their,

brains and learn. There is nothing better in this entire fucking world than learning something you didn't know yesterday. And it's just something I really appreciate and I really appreciate you guys for obviously doing the hard work that allows me to do those sorts of things. Brittany, how do they get a hold of us? 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 Joan Stewart. Our lead producers, Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mehmedevick, producer Gillian Speer, video editor and engineer Rob Vatolo, who has to sit back there when I see a bee and go, oh, that's going to suck.

Audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, who also has to deal with that. Rob actually, Moore has to deal with just how much of the Knicks picture I'm going to show and how pale I'm going to look. Nicole is the one actually who has to turn down. I guess it's the gain. I don't really know what it is when I shriek. Very good, John. Like a scared girl.

And our executive producers, Chris McShane and Katie Gray, who keep the whole ship running. Thank you guys so much for all of it. And thank you guys for in any way listening or watching this. We really do appreciate your support. And we will see you guys next year. Bye, bye. The weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bus Boy Productions.