Episode Transcript
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0:00
Hey,
0:00
someone listening to a podcast. It
0:02
isn't my podcast. This is Al Franken,
0:05
host of the Al Franklin Podcasts If
0:07
you like entertaining discourse hosted
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by a former US senator and four time
0:11
New York Times number one bestseller, and
0:14
eleven with the humor of a five time
0:16
Emmy winning SNL writer. Well, then
0:18
the Al podcast just might
0:20
be for you. You might hear David Axelrod
0:23
talking about the Georgia Run off. or Joyce
0:25
Vance talking about in dining Donald
0:27
Trump. Remember when Trump said
0:29
he could shoot somebody in the middle of fifth
0:31
Hernan and not lose any boats? Well,
0:33
maybe. But he would have been prosecuted.
0:36
Occasionally, out of guests like Conan O'Brien,
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Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman, but more likely,
0:41
guests like Paul Crookman. Safile Richards
0:43
and Michelle Obama. Well, not
0:45
Michelle Obama, but guests like her.
0:48
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1:03
And now we have Tim Miller who is fantastic.
1:07
Tim is great. This
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show you're about to listen to is fabulous.
1:12
You know, I could have guessed that because
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I've seen him do commentary on MSNBC
1:16
and he's always really, really
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good. And you told me his book, why we did
1:20
it, is a really interesting look
1:22
at the greed and moral perpetitude of
1:25
the Republican political class in DC?
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It is. And and it's an amazingly
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honest book. Tim doesn't
1:33
spare himself. Let let me explain. Tim
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was a longtime Republican campaign
1:38
operative. He worked for John Mcannan o
1:40
eight for Mitt Romney in
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twelve, for Jeff Bush in
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sixteen. But once Jeff was out,
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Tim did everything he could in that cycle
1:48
to make sure that Donald Trump did not become
1:50
president and he failed, of course. But
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unlike so many Republican operatives
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who knew that Trump was bad news,
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Kim remained a never
2:00
shumper, but
2:02
in why we didn't. Tim doesn't
2:04
take himself off the hook. The
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first sentence in his book is America
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never would have gotten into this
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mess if it weren't for me
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and my friends. He brutally
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honest about it, and and that's why
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this book's great. And and
2:21
the show, unfortunately, our
2:24
third great one
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in a row. Trump
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is a good stand up comedian because
2:31
a guy has no actual
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real good no sense of humor
2:36
and doesn't ever laugh. But
2:38
he rips and he can
2:40
talk forever. that's a talent.
2:43
That's why Zucker ran it. I
2:46
remember camp I was campaigning for Hillary
2:48
during the thing, and she said that she
2:50
and Huma when they're on the road, would
2:52
want to watch it because they were so they
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it was so entertaining. They'd wanna
2:57
watch That's true. that I
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I never he never clicked for me. I don't
3:01
know what that is, but I get that some people
3:03
wasn't interested in any. Yeah. I never never
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had never happened for me. I mean, I guess it
3:07
was kinda fascinating, right, that a major
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party nominee would just be up there, like,
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talking about, like, random TV
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celebrities BOTOX
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regiments or, like, whatever. Like, that
3:19
was not normal. But III it
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it wasn't interesting to me. But he was good at the
3:23
crowd. this crowd part
3:25
of it is also a massive key to
3:27
his success that people underestimate, which is why he's
3:29
doing those rallies. Part of it is is ego. But
3:31
the other part is he needs to hear what the people
3:33
want. He because he doesn't believe any of this shit. Or
3:35
he doesn't believe anything. He's a total evangelist,
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and he just cares about Donald Trump.
3:40
you know, people liking him. And so we're
3:42
people in listening and listening
3:44
to what worked. And that's why, you
3:46
know, the Muslim man happened, honestly. Wow.
3:49
till the wall happened. If
3:51
the crowd was cheering for, like,
3:53
work with the Democrats on bipartisan
3:55
solutions to get things done.
3:57
That's what Donald Trump would have done. Right? It's
3:59
not like he had this deep ideology that
4:02
pushed him to this, but that is front of the bottom
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up. He had some instincts. He
4:07
had some real instincts about
4:09
foreign. people by hitting
4:11
foreigners about you know what?
4:13
He had an instinct foreign? You were working with
4:15
Jeb. and he had
4:17
an instinct and he was, I
4:19
think, the only candidate in
4:22
it who attacked W.
4:25
for Iraq
4:27
and just for nine
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eleven. I remember when Jeb
4:31
and the debate said don't you
4:33
remember my brother standing on
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the rubble? I remember
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when he said standing on the rubble.
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That's your Yeah.
4:42
No. The bullhorn. Well, your brother
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was standing on a fucking rubble.
4:47
Yeah. The the the the
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Clinton administration told you guys
4:51
that Bin Laden was the number
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one threat, and you did you ignored
4:56
that. And then in South
4:58
Carolina, he
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just which is a state with huge
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military, you know, retirees,
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etcetera, and bases. He
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just goes out in that debate
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and says that war in Iraq was
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terrible mistake. and
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not one other of the Republican candidates
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would ever say anything like that.
5:19
And the response was, yeah.
5:21
Yeah. You're absolutely right about that. And I he
5:24
even dabbled once over in that South Carolina to kinda
5:26
dabble in some nine eleven conspiracy, and it was
5:28
like Trump in word salad. So, you
5:30
know, there was like some depending on how you
5:32
interpreted it. There could have been a little inside
5:34
job accusation at at at Jeb
5:36
there. But Jesus Christ. Yeah.
5:38
And it's crazy stuff. So it combines this kind
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of crazy stuff having that reptilian
5:42
instinct you talked about about where people
5:44
were on this. And you're and I think that it's another
5:46
huge mistake. I I wrote about the twenty twelve
5:48
autopsy that we talked about. And I was like, he
5:50
now had a responsible, conservative,
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populist in twenty sixteen
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or in in twenty twelve run against
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Ron here in twenty team that said,
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okay, let's review kind
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of some of the orthodoxies around
6:02
these forever wars. You know, let's,
6:04
like, take a look at how we can revitalize
6:06
manufacturing rural America. It's a
6:08
counterfactual. I don't know. But, like, maybe
6:10
something like that could have landed because you are
6:12
right. He was where the base was on that. He
6:14
knew it, I think, partially because of being,
6:16
you know, his own instincts, but partially because
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he's being he's he's out there, you know, talking
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to these voters. And I you know, it was a canary
6:22
in the coal mine for me. One of my trumpy
6:24
uncles, you know, said to me before when I took the
6:26
Jeb job, he was like, he gotta he he
6:28
has to go out against the war. He's like the people
6:30
who are mad about the wars. and kind
6:32
of in this political class
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bubble, Republican bubble, you
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know, that was not shared because
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not most of us, you know, didn't deal
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with the sacrifices of the war, to be honest. We
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are protected from it, and
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so didn't feel the kind
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of anger that was out there even among
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Republican voters personally.
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And I think that he he channeled that.
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And that was absolutely right. And and just one other thing
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on this which
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goes to, you know, show that
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maybe something possibly could have
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happened within the Republican Party that would have
7:04
pivoted to a good place. is if
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you look at the twenty sixteen election, a lot
7:08
of voters looked at Trump and Trump as the moderate
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option over Hillary because he had the
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hetero docs views on Iraq and
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on social security. And so, you
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know, while we, those of us in the establishment,
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we're pushing, you know, moderation on
7:21
immigration and climate where
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people didn't agree with us, conceivably, I
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think a more responsible person could
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have turned the party a little bit more on economic
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and foreign policy issues while remaining
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culturally conservative. That wouldn't have been a party that
7:33
appealed to me at all. but
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but it would have been a better place to land.
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And I think that's the only hope for,
7:38
honestly, for the Republican Party is to land
7:40
someplace like that because it's never going
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back. to to McCainism.
7:45
Hey, Prime members. You can listen
7:47
to the Franken podcast wherever you
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