0:00

Hey,

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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

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you like entertaining discourse hosted

0:09

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,

0:38

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

I'm about to play a clip from the

0:50

Al Franken pod podcasts. While

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you're listening, subscribe to the Al Franken

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And now we have Tim Miller, who is fantastic.

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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

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and he's always really, really

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good. And you told me his book, why we did

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it, is a really interesting look

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at the greed and moral perpetitude of

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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

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spare himself. Let let me explain. Tim

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was a longtime Republican campaign

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operative. He worked for John Mcannan o

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eight for Mitt Romney in

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twelve, for Jeff Bush in sixteen.

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But once Jeff was out, Tim did

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everything he could in that cycle to make sure

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that Donald Trump did not become president and

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he failed, of course. But unlike

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so many Republican operatives who

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knew that Trump was bad news,

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Kim remained a never

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trumper, but in

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why we did it. Tim doesn't

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take himself off the hook. The

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first sentence in his book is

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America never would have gotten

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into this mess if

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it weren't for me and my friends. is

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brutally honest about it, and and

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that's why this book's great. And

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and the show, unfortunately, our

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third great one

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in a row. Trump

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is a good stand up comedian. Yes.

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A guy has no actual real

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good no sense of humor and

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doesn't ever laugh. But

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he rips and he can

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talk forever. And that's a talent.

2:43

That's why Zucker ran it. I

2:46

remember camp I was campaigning for Hillary

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during the thing. And she said that she

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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

2:57

want to watch that disturbing. I

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mean, I never he never clicked for

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me. I don't know what that is, but I get that some

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people was asking me. Yeah. Yeah. I never

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never asked him. happened for me. I mean, I guess it was

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kind of 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

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TV celebrities BOTOX

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regiments or, like, whatever. Like, that

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was not normal. But III it

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it wasn't interesting to me. But he was good at the

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crowd. This the crowd part

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of it is also a massive key to

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success that people underestimate, which is why he's

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doing those Al. part of it as as ego. But

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the other part is he needs to hear what the people

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want. He because he doesn't believe any of this shit. Or

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he doesn't believe anything. He's a total evangelist,

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and he just cares about Donald Trump.

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you know, people liking him. And so we're

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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. Yeah. If

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the crowd was cheering for, like,

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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

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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

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had some real instincts about

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foreign. people, about

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hitting foreigners, about you

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know what? He got an instinct foreign? You were working

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with Jeb. and he

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had an instinct and he was,

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I think, the only candidate

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in it who attacked W.

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for

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Iraq and

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just for nine eleven.

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Remember when Jeb and the debate

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said don't you remember my brother

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standing on the rubble?

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I remember when he said standing

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on the rubble. That's

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your Yeah.

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No. The bullhorn. Well, your brother

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was standing on a fucking rubble.

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Yeah. The the the the

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Clinton administration told you guys

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that Bin Laden was the number

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one threat, and you did you ignored

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that. And then in South Carolina,

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he just which is

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a state with huge military,

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you know, retirees,

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etcetera, and bases. he

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just goes out in that

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debate and says the war in Iraq

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was terrible mistake. and

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not one other of the Republican candidates

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would ever say anything like that.

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And the response was, yeah.

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Yeah. You're absolutely right about that. And I he

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even dabbled once over in that South Carolina to kinda

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dabble in some nine eleven conspiracy, and it was

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like Trump in word salad. So, you

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know, there was like some depending on how you

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interpreted it. There could have been a little inside

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job accusation at at at Jeb

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there. But Jesus Christ. Yeah.

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And it's crazy stuff. So it combines this kind

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of crazy stuff having that reptilian

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instinct you talked about about where people

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were on this. And you're and I think that it's another

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huge mistake. I I wrote about the twenty twelve

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autopsy that we talked about. And I was like, he

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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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Ram May or in twenty team that said, okay,

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let's review kind

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of some of the orthodoxies around

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these forever wars. You know, let's,

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like, take a look at how we can revitalize

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manufacturing rural America. It's a

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counterfactual. I don't know. But, like, maybe

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something like that could have landed because you are

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right. He was where the base was on that. He

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knew it, I think, partially because of being,

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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

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in the coal mine for me. One of my trumpy

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uncles, you know, said to me before when I took the

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Jeb job, he was like, he gotta he he

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has to go out against the war. He's like the people

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who are mad about the wars. and kind

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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

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pivoted to a good place. is if

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you look at the twenty sixteen election, a lot

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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

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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

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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,

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honestly, for the Republican Party is to land

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someplace like that because it's never going

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back. to to McCainism.

7:45

Hey, Prime members. You can listen

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