0:07

Welcome to the Bullework

0:08

Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.

0:10

We almost never do this. No, that's not true.

0:13

We never have done this. We've never done

0:15

a face to face live in person

0:17

podcast. I am here in Austin,

0:19

Texas at Texas Tribune Festival.

0:22

with ten mil. With ten mil. With ten mil.

0:24

I'm touching your bony knee. Right? That's right.

0:26

We're that close to each other.

0:28

Okay. What what it was with the boney knee thing. I thought

0:30

you gonna give me shit for showing up wearing shorts

0:32

in a t shirt. Well, then victim, and then you're rocking

0:34

these, like, Bermuda shorts or something. Yeah.

0:36

got them in Brazil. I'd ride a little vacation

0:38

earlier this year from our age

0:41

redacted birthday. And

0:43

so I got some Brazil shorts. And, you

0:45

know, you look great. You're in an RMAT t shirt.

0:47

Rep Rep Rep Reping. I think you looked through this.

0:50

So okay. So just to put this in

0:52

the context, you know, I I fly down here

0:54

from the Midwest on the first day of autumn -- Yep.

0:56

-- thinking, hey, it's fall? I mean, how bad

0:58

can it be? It was ninety eight fucking

1:00

degrees when I get out of the airplane. It's

1:02

fine. Ninety eight

1:05

degrees. But is

1:07

a great event. It's it's it's good talking with you, Tim.

1:09

So last night, I don't know whether you caught it. They had

1:11

the opening event about Evan Smith,

1:13

who's the CEO, and and founder

1:15

of Trip Who, by the way, is gonna be doing our panel

1:17

-- Yeah. -- later day. Just for people who know, Amanda

1:19

Carpenter, Tim and I will be doing a panel

1:22

here at Tribune Festival, I think it's

1:24

described as bullshitting with the bulwark or

1:26

something like that. I think they had a better name, but I think

1:28

that's what it should have been called. Well, that's pretty much

1:30

what it's going to be. Well, Evan sat

1:32

down with Pete Buttigieg. And

1:34

I have to say, well, I watched the guy before. He yeah.

1:37

You know, just bottom line,

1:39

short take, gifted animal. I

1:41

mean, it really is something watching. I've never

1:43

seen him in person, interact, and

1:45

III gotta say to the guys, the guys still

1:47

got some stuff. Yes. Got it. It's his wheelhouse.

1:50

He's got it. He's good. He's sharp.

1:52

I didn't get to watch him yesterday. Can

1:54

you know, I just I'm an off and I'm on

1:56

a little hot weather. So I availed myself to

1:59

some Mexican

1:59

Tex Mex dinner instead of going to see mayor

2:02

Pete. I did was that a mistake? No. I

2:04

get on him. You you you know, I get I get to

2:06

see him a lot. But, you know, sometimes

2:08

you do wonder the democrats and

2:11

we have this discussion about how they're like

2:13

desperately searching a nationwide search

2:15

for somebody who has political

2:17

talent to unite the country, and it's like,

2:20

he kind of was just sitting right there in the transportation

2:23

department. I don't know. Maybe,

2:25

obviously, there's some other political issues

2:27

he would have. Should he ever run again? and

2:29

challenges, but He's pretty damn

2:31

good. Well, I've

2:32

always thought so, and I was actually kind of making

2:34

mental notes because it's look, you

2:36

and I spend a lot of time around politicians. Right?

2:38

or watching them or talking about them or thinking

2:40

about them or or, you know, cutting them off of the

2:42

knees or whatever. It's rare to find

2:44

somebody who has the whole package and I was

2:46

watching him and he was talking about infrastructure

2:48

and these wonky details, so he

2:50

was pulling out of some deep pocket

2:52

where every question they asked him about

2:55

some remote projects that where he knew

2:57

it back and forth. And yet he does it in

2:59

a way that's not pedantic. It's not the

3:01

okay more Harvard

3:03

asshole. I know all this stuff.

3:05

And also, he resisted the temptation

3:08

to go for the sort of

3:10

the MSNBC red meat rhetoric on

3:12

a lot of things. He does something that's interesting.

3:14

I I was gonna bounce this off you.

3:16

He seems like the only guy who

3:18

has really thought about

3:21

how do I talk to the middle

3:23

in this country? I'm sorry. He's obviously

3:25

not the only guy that's thought about it. But

3:28

clearly, he's thought about

3:30

where we are in politics, why

3:33

he needs to go on Fox News, Yeah.

3:35

And how you actually can change people's

3:37

minds, which is vanishingly rare.

3:39

The thing is, as it makes it so

3:41

strange, why it's so rare, is it's not that

3:44

hard. actually, to talk to I mean,

3:46

he's pretty liberal. Mhmm. Okay. He's

3:48

not he's not, like, particularly center

3:51

left, squishy, moderate. But

3:53

by going on Fox, like, this is just a signaling

3:55

thing, which is I'm gonna talk to you. I'm gonna talk

3:58

down to you. I'm not going on Fox to troll you. Right?

3:59

When he's answering the questions, he thinks about, okay,

4:02

how can I answer question using

4:04

normal person words, despite the fact that he's

4:06

obviously smart. Right. To a normal person

4:08

words that normal people use in conversation

4:10

rather than you know, what Jake Carville

4:12

calls the faculty lounge bullshit. Right? Like,

4:14

he talks like an old person. This is the

4:16

Kemp thing when I went down to Georgia,

4:18

and I I sort of yeah. I sort of made fun

4:20

of Brian Kemp about this in the article, but

4:23

it's also true, which is he's

4:25

signaling to Georgia moderates.

4:27

He's a moderate. by just

4:29

stepping over the tiniest bar of

4:31

being like, I'm not gonna go along with the coup.

4:33

Right? Like, by not going along with the coup

4:35

and by not saying the most

4:37

crazy rhetoric. All of a sudden, as I

4:39

was interviewing voters like, she's a mainstream

4:42

guy. It's like that, really, actually.

4:44

Brian Kemp is pretty down the line conservative

4:46

right back in twenty ten, you know, back in the yeah.

4:48

In the normal days in twenty twelve,

4:50

if you're judging Brian Kemp,

4:52

on a continuum with, like, Mitt Romney and

4:54

John Huntsman, my old boss would have said Brian

4:56

Kemp's the hard line, tea party guy.

4:58

Right? Not not a moderate, but he he projects

5:00

his moderate. Pete has the inverse of

5:02

this. Right? He just doesn't step into

5:04

the lefty stuff that for some reason a

5:06

lot of other Democrats can't help to avoid.

5:08

But one other just a little preview. One

5:10

other guy who is good like this about Pete,

5:12

who knows whether it will

5:15

will hold up. But Jim

5:17

Swift and I interviewed Wes Moore,

5:19

who's the Democratic nominee for

5:21

governor of Maryland last week. We've got a profile

5:23

on him coming next week. And he's

5:25

really talented too. And he is also

5:27

very conscious of

5:29

just it's kind of like it's kind of crazy to

5:31

say this, like, oh, using Obama rhetoric.

5:33

Kind of put you in the middle now, but he does he

5:35

has this sort of going back to -- It kind

5:38

of progressive patriots. Yeah. Yeah.

5:40

Patriotism unity -- Yeah. -- we

5:42

can all be you know, I'm trying to talk to

5:44

everybody even in red parts of Maryland. He

5:46

talks about economic growth, and entrepreneurship,

5:49

and innovation. You know, it's

5:51

not just the class war with war

5:53

and stuff. So anyway, you can read

5:55

more about that on Monday, but the fact

5:57

that that stands out for

5:59

people like Peter and Wes is notable. And what

6:01

kind of tells you where we are that that

6:03

is a rare thing when that was kind of like the

6:05

standard Democratic

6:05

rhetoric for a while not

6:08

too long ago. So let let's talk

6:10

about all all of the news of the day. And and

6:12

there were some good there were some good news and there were some

6:14

just normally insane news. In other

6:16

words, it was just a regular week. I I had

6:18

to tell you, I'm a little bit stuck on this whole

6:20

judge jury story. Okay.

6:21

The special master from from New York

6:24

who

6:24

continued remember, he was the guy

6:26

Trump chose to be the special master, and he

6:28

keeps just slapping these guys down.

6:30

And yesterday, he tells the

6:32

Trump's people, hey, basically, put up or shut

6:34

up. you know, you've been implying, you've been

6:36

insinuating that the FBI agents

6:39

planted the information. Okay?

6:41

Yeah. I want you to now tell the court, the

6:43

federal court. whether that this actually

6:45

happened. Also, you've been implying that some

6:47

of these records have been declassified. You

6:49

said this outside of court. Are you gonna say this

6:51

now to me? and a reminder

6:54

that social media is different than being in

6:56

a federal court. So

6:58

I think this is kind of interesting the way it's I

7:00

mean, this has been. And

7:01

look, I I don't wanna be part of another

7:03

montage of, you know, the walls are closing it around

7:05

Donald Trump thing. I know we've kind of been doing

7:07

that, but this was a really bad week.

7:10

for Trump in the courts. Pretty nice. I

7:12

mean, he's getting sued by

7:14

Tish James. He's he's

7:16

in the like, chains rules. Do you watch

7:18

his truce? they're pretty strange about I

7:20

mean, they're always strange, but he's like making

7:22

up weird names about our that

7:25

aren't really landing. Yeah. DeJean Carol,

7:27

my friend, Robbie Kaplan, is is representing

7:29

her, and that suit is is coming

7:31

back to a head. You know, there's there's been

7:33

a little kind of fake drama around Hannah's

7:35

art, this week at it. Can I just comment about this for

7:37

a second? I just she's so great and

7:39

a YoStar Art Director. But I've I

7:41

haven't disappointed about one thing. Not the

7:43

weird AI art, which I think has been cool.

7:45

But that Trump having a special

7:47

master and having the special master slapped

7:49

him down provides a lot of evocative

7:51

images for me that I wish you

7:54

know, man I wish we could go there. Okay.

7:56

You have to, like, use the special master

7:58

master. Yeah. I

7:59

don't know. I don't know. A win maybe I think

8:02

we have a win. I just okay.

8:04

So we're like, we're ten minutes into this,

8:06

and we're already talking about, you know, ten millers

8:08

kinks. I mean, I just no.

8:10

This was not the kind of mashed that I

8:12

think that that Donald Trump wanted. But

8:15

but but he's kind of been that. But but,

8:17

you know, okay. So you you have all these lawsuits.

8:19

You have the various that are going on.

8:21

I think the Washington posted there are eight

8:23

ongoing criminal or civil investigations. And

8:25

I was thinking, okay, if I sat here, how long would

8:27

it take me to come up with all eight of them? Just to

8:29

keep track. but the declassification

8:32

drama continued. And

8:34

so my second favorite story

8:37

after Judge Deary basically

8:39

telling Trump's people to put up or shut up.

8:41

Is Trump kind of

8:43

flailing around here on all of this

8:45

and this is my favorite sound bite of

8:47

the week The former president of the

8:49

United States goes on Sean Hannity

8:51

to explain that he can declassify

8:54

things just with his

8:56

mind. A

8:58

president has the power to be classified.

9:00

Okay. You had said on truth

9:02

social a number of times, you did declare I

9:04

did declare Okay. Is there

9:06

a process? What was your process to

9:08

do? It doesn't have to be a process as

9:10

I understand it. You know, there's different people

9:13

say different things. But as I understand, there doesn't have to

9:15

be If you're the president of the United States,

9:17

you can declassify just by saying, it's

9:19

declassified. Even by thinking about

9:21

it because you're sending it to

9:23

Mar

9:23

a Lago or to wherever you're

9:26

sending it. And there

9:28

doesn't have to be a process. There

9:30

can't be a process, but there doesn't have

9:32

to be you're the president. You make that decision.

9:34

So when you send it, it's

9:36

declassified. We I

9:38

declassified everything.

9:40

It's

9:40

just like magic. You know,

9:41

that's some just we just didn't date him with our mind.

9:44

I was in dating

9:46

him with my mind this week, actually. You know, I've

9:48

been trying so hard to not get hope about

9:50

the indictment. But every time a new thing comes up, just I'm

9:52

getting weak. I'm getting weaker. A

9:54

little backstory on how these Hannity interviews go,

9:56

someone who, unfortunately, has been in

9:58

that seat of prep. he

10:00

had to preps with you. Mhmm.

10:01

Right? And some of these other Fox shows,

10:04

they might be propagandists, but, you

10:06

know, they all they have their own agendas

10:08

and you Hannity is is a classic

10:10

North Korea style. Trump again. That's

10:12

right. Him and Trump sit together, you know, how do

10:14

you He's going to ask you this. this. He

10:16

advises him, like, hey, I think he should

10:18

have this. Right? Like spitball stuff. Trust me. I've been in

10:20

the rooms with him when he does this, not with Trump, but with

10:22

Hannity and other candidates. So

10:24

that is

10:25

just I I think emphasizes how

10:28

much he's flailing. But it's like

10:30

they prepped for this, and Hannity still

10:32

asked him, do you have a process? And

10:34

Trump's like, No

10:36

process. It just happened with my mind. The other which

10:38

wasn't included in this clip. My personal favorite

10:40

was a different answer, where

10:42

he suggests that it's

10:44

possible that they were searching for Hillary

10:46

Clinton's emails tomorrow. Yeah.

10:48

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a long interview. So

10:50

you you didn't have to suffer through the whole

10:52

thing, but Trump's like, well, you know, if

10:54

FBI had to come down and why who knows? Why they

10:56

could've come down? I didn't think there was anything in there,

10:58

but we never found those emails.

11:00

Maybe they thought Yeah. I don't know why he thought

11:02

that the emails might have been in Mar a Lago.

11:05

But see, this is why. And and again, III

11:07

caution against your rational hope about any of these

11:09

indictments and everything. But

11:11

there is that moment where Donald

11:13

Trump is in front of a judge or in front of a

11:15

grand jury, and it's going to be very difficult to

11:17

be Donald Trump because the guy

11:19

lies and throws bullshit against

11:21

the wall so much. And here you have a federal

11:23

judge, and you wanna say that here in court,

11:26

where it might actually count. Do you really wanna say

11:28

this under under oath? This is part of the

11:30

problem is that at

11:31

some point he says all of this

11:33

stuff. If he's ever put on the

11:35

record in a court proceeding. He

11:38

either he can play the fifth

11:40

amendment. He can repeat it under

11:42

oath. or he can say, no, I was

11:44

just bullshitting. Right. And I do think the civil

11:46

courts because

11:46

we've gone around and around on this, which is like

11:49

some of the problems within actually getting

11:51

embedded in criminal criminally held to account

11:53

as you need to have juries and is our

11:55

one person in a jury. Civil courts are different

11:57

animal. Right? Like, you get sued, you

11:59

get deposed, you know, we just saw this with

12:01

our friends at Project

12:03

Veritas. Right? They just got taken a civil court this

12:05

week and another little piece of good news.

12:07

Yeah. Six figures. We saw

12:09

with Alex Jones. Right? So

12:11

civil court is revealing, right, in a

12:13

way that maybe we don't get the

12:15

purplock of our dreams, but

12:17

that they start to bled out a little bit. Yeah. And for

12:19

people who are, you know, thinking that there's there's this

12:21

great nemesis coming and and and

12:23

maybe perhaps it it is. You

12:25

mentioned Alex Jones. Alex Jones is having

12:27

a also a terrible week in the court

12:29

where he's, again, under oath. He's he's on the

12:31

stand, making a complete ass of himself, which he

12:33

does on a regular basis. He's being

12:35

asked about things that he said are

12:37

done in the past, and they play the tape of

12:39

him saying, it's it's it's

12:41

bad. And, you know, I I think

12:43

in part of our minds, we're thinking, okay. Well,

12:45

this kinda gonna be the end of Alex Jones because he's

12:47

so completely discredited, you know,

12:49

mocking these dead children at

12:51

Sandy Hook. I see this week

12:54

The turning point USA, Charlie

12:56

Kirk, who has really might become central

12:58

now in in Mega GOP World,

13:00

is now featuring Alex Jones

13:02

at TP USA events. So in

13:04

in other words, rather than the

13:06

right basically saying, hey, let's let's

13:08

move on without these complete

13:10

nut jobs, crazed, you know,

13:12

bigots and everything. No.

13:13

We're gonna double down on it. This

13:16

is important to bring up

13:18

because just how

13:20

when you say central, Charlie

13:23

Kirk and TPSA is, it really is,

13:25

you know, the entire web of

13:27

the kind of Republican party, this new

13:29

MAGA establishment. Right? There's

13:31

central node in it. Right? They're taking a

13:33

place of what a stuff the parties used

13:35

to do. Right? because those parties have been weekend.

13:37

We've talked about this. It was a big event up in Green

13:39

Bay, Wisconsin just this last weekend where

13:41

all the republican candidates were

13:43

there. sponsored by TP

13:46

USA, which again, and to your point,

13:48

they have really become the new RNC.

13:50

Yeah. And that's who was sponsoring the

13:52

DeSantis events. just remember what DeSantis

13:54

is traveling around the country. You could campaigning for

13:56

Mastriano, I think, and I I

13:58

forget which which there are, like, three or four of the

14:00

gubernatorial candidates. including

14:03

Mastriano, and and they were sponsoring

14:05

those events. So to have, you

14:07

know, Alex Jones as a special guest, and if you

14:09

watch that video, Kirk is

14:11

teasing, like an exciting guest to

14:13

the crowd. Right? You can see Buzz building

14:15

and and then he says, oh, it's not gonna

14:17

be the big guy. know, it's not gonna be

14:19

Donald. Right? And you hear a little disappointment. He's like, well,

14:21

it's gonna be somebody that the media hates even

14:23

more than Donald. And they show

14:25

Alex Jones, and sometimes they show the video of these

14:27

things and you watch them and you're like, I don't know if that's really

14:29

landing with the crowd. That wasn't the case

14:31

this time. You can't see it because people

14:33

start standing up. There's standing over.

14:35

Yeah. People take away.

14:37

This is deeply concerning.

14:39

Right? Like, the the the types of people

14:41

-- Right. -- the moment of understanding and

14:43

on the I guess. The types of people

14:45

that are screaming, cheering

14:47

for this

14:48

lying, pernicious ass

14:50

pimple Like, are the same people

14:52

that are there for, you know,

14:54

your average Republican house candidate

14:56

about. Right? Like, then is the core of what of

14:59

what's happening? Well, let you know

15:01

III don't wanna get to, you know, Mette

15:03

here, but but once you basically

15:05

embrace, you know, the Orange God King and said this

15:07

is the guy we want to be our leader forever and back

15:09

in the Oval Office, then basically all

15:11

those other standards for everybody else kind of have

15:13

to be scrapped.

15:16

So speaking of trolling and

15:18

and Rhonda Santos, I don't know whether you

15:20

caught it, but the governor

15:22

of Florida shared some deep thoughts about

15:24

American history. I mean, this guy is a he's

15:26

a thinkery. He is not merely

15:29

an Internet troll from Tallahassee.

15:31

He he also has some

15:33

thoughts about the American

15:34

revolution. Harvard's.

15:37

Yeah. That's what yes. He's from Harvard.

15:39

Let's play that. For example, the sixteen

15:41

nineteen project is a

15:43

CRT version of history. It's

15:45

supported by the New York Times.

15:47

They wanna teach our kids that the

15:49

American revolution was fought to protect

15:51

slavery, and that's false. We know why

15:53

the American revolution was followed.

15:55

They wrote pamphlets. We saw dumb

15:57

tea into the Boston Harbor. We saw

15:59

meat in Philadelphia, and we have the

16:01

records of why they

16:03

revolted against King George the third.

16:05

And so it was the American

16:07

revolution that caused people

16:09

to question in slavery. No one had

16:11

questioned it before. No. We

16:13

decided as Americans that

16:15

we are endowed by our creator with

16:17

unalienable rights. and that we are

16:19

all created equal. Then that birth,

16:21

abolition movements. So you

16:23

can't teach history that's

16:25

you being used to pursue an ideological agenda.

16:28

You can't teach that

16:30

the foundations of our country

16:32

were somehow evil. Yeah.

16:33

Let

16:34

let's leave aside sixteen nineteen project,

16:36

which does have some, shall we say, problematic

16:39

elements? I really like the part of how no

16:41

one questioned slavery before seventeen

16:43

seventy six. No. Uh-uh.

16:45

No. This is You you you wanna take the

16:47

the high law off there? No one questioned

16:49

it. Worldwide. I I think we

16:51

are the last, actually. to get rid of slavery?

16:53

I don't know if you're the first. I think it might

16:55

have been the inverse to that. I actually

16:57

know some people no. There are no one, but

16:59

some people who might have questioned slavery.

17:02

Like, this way Jesus. But

17:04

but apparently, they they become sort of

17:06

invisible and and rotten to sand. This is really nobody

17:08

thought this was wrong. Wait. there's

17:10

like a million slaves going. We would like a

17:12

word. We would like to talk

17:13

about this. The slave owners were actually the

17:15

first ones to determine the slavery was

17:18

wrong. I I The

17:20

orwellian nature of the end of this too, which

17:22

is like we cannot let our children

17:24

be taught in ideological

17:27

history. They have to be taught real

17:29

history. such as the great

17:31

white American founders were the

17:33

first ones to question slavery. It's, you know,

17:35

it's like he is doing exactly the thing

17:37

that he is accusing the other side of

17:39

doing and and, like, the most hampisted way

17:42

possible. It also makes me reflect back on

17:44

the common core. Do you remember the common core?

17:46

Yeah. Absolutely. had to

17:48

deal with this as Jeb's spokesperson.

17:50

There

17:50

was this big complaint,

17:52

a common core ostensibly among

17:54

the conservatives, was that, you know, we don't want government

17:57

setting curriculum standards. Right? We don't

17:59

want these top down

17:59

government curriculum standards. Now

18:02

that concern about government setting

18:04

curriculum standards has been

18:06

been pushed aside because we have a new thing, which

18:08

is patriotic core.

18:10

Patriot core. Patriot core

18:12

is cool. Okay? It's like,

18:15

America was wonderful. From the

18:17

start, it has no flaws. Our

18:19

great patriotic leaders were the ones that

18:21

ended slavery and started the

18:23

Evolution movement. and anyone that questions

18:25

anything America that ever ever did,

18:27

they are wrong. That's our new patriotic

18:29

core history in Florida. It's it's not

18:31

quite history, but it's something. Yeah. You actually

18:33

have to work pretty hard to come up with the, you

18:35

know, that no one had thought this was a problem

18:37

before. I mean, really, you do and and We

18:39

just went through the British queen. We were just talking about

18:41

we learned about all the news. What was Wilberforce's

18:44

first name? I mean, the the great

18:46

story of the abolitionists in

18:48

England, what they did, long before the

18:50

American Civil War. So I'm sorry,

18:52

I'm having this this post

18:54

traumatic flashback when you're talking about the common

18:56

core because that was a very nineteen eighties

18:58

issue. so

18:59

here we're sitting in a can I just

19:01

have a digression? Okay. So we're

19:03

sitting here in Austin, Texas where it's ninety

19:05

seven degrees. Ninety eight degrees. That's

19:08

nice. for it. It's gonna bomb me. Okay. Well, yeah. It's it's, like, eight

19:10

o'clock in the morning here, you know. Yeah.

19:13

But the first time I was in Austin,

19:15

Texas was in January during an

19:17

ice storm. And it must have

19:19

been January of, like, nineteen

19:21

ninety seven. A little vague on all this,

19:23

but George w Bush

19:25

was governor. And I was here to do some

19:27

speaking events around around this

19:29

day, and the Texas Policy

19:31

Institute or whatever, which is on complete

19:33

Mago now. Yeah. But at that

19:35

time, they actually arranged a meeting within the governor's office. Okay.

19:37

But I had to walk over

19:39

from my hotel to the state capital, which

19:41

we can see from where we're sitting right

19:44

now. and everything was covered in

19:46

ice. Absolutely covered

19:48

in in ice. I mean, because down here in

19:51

Texas, unlike in Wisconsin. They do not have snow plows.

19:53

They do not have salt. They don't

19:55

know what to do in the middle of an ice storm.

19:57

And I it was the longest walk

19:59

my life because I'm wearing any sort of, you know, slippings,

20:01

slippings, slippings, slippings, slippings, and I get

20:03

there. And Bush is the only person in the capital. I

20:05

mean, the place is completely shut down.

20:07

so we had scheduled a fifteen minute talk about

20:10

education policy, and

20:12

it turned into an hour and a half to say, I I

20:14

had nothing else to do. and so we bullshitted

20:16

about all kinds of things. But I remember we were talking about,

20:18

at that time, he was pushing

20:20

education reforms, which we would

20:22

think of as pretty moderate, pretty

20:25

noncontroversial. Like, range of

20:27

the top style art. But there was this

20:29

extreme sort of

20:31

fundamentalist right was shooting

20:33

at him because of this, you know,

20:35

the government should never tell us what we teach

20:37

in our schools. We should all require

20:39

Mcguffie's reader and everything. And

20:41

I remember he was sitting there and this feels like a different it was

20:43

a different century literally where he's

20:45

talking about, you know, these not jobs,

20:47

these streamers,

20:49

you know, and fuck them. I'm still gonna go ahead

20:51

with what I'm gonna do. So the common core, I'm

20:53

I mean, I'm having that Austin flashing

20:56

back here. Yeah. I'm sorry. No. I just have one other thing on DeSantis.

20:58

I don't know if you're ready. No. I'm not ready

21:00

to go. Okay. Great. Did you see the Jared

21:02

Kushner thing? I'm taking the

21:04

host for a second. We're together, so you're sort of rotating. Did you

21:06

see Jared Kushner's comment about the Santa

21:08

Barbara Vineyard? I had my first moment

21:11

of thinking, I'm pretty

21:13

bearish on the idea that the Santos could go

21:15

head to head with Trump. Yeah. Just we

21:17

just listen to that video. He has an annoying

21:19

voice know, it's a personality. He says,

21:21

it feels very cruise and walker ish,

21:23

you know, where he's gonna try to suck

21:25

up to Donald and then try to

21:28

criticize them and and it's, like, weird, think I'm

21:30

clever way. And then, like, Donald's gonna call

21:32

him, like, fatty macf fat face or something and,

21:34

you know, everybody be like, You've been at

21:36

Orange God, King Henry. That's always been my Excuse

21:38

me. That yeah. That's kind of been my

21:41

vision. But then that

21:41

little Weasley Jared was on Fox

21:44

this week. and he was saying

21:46

that he thought that Ram

21:48

DeSantis, he just needs to

21:50

tweet these people like humans. Like, they

21:52

aren't human. So he's she's using them,

21:54

like, pawns, and he's like, really

21:56

wanna hear Donald. The the Donald pick

21:58

that thing up. And so

21:59

I was watching, I was like, it was my first moment

22:02

when I was like, don't know. Maybe Santos

22:04

has these guys flanked. Like, because they feel

22:06

like they have to criticize

22:08

them from

22:09

the

22:10

humanitarian perspective. And

22:13

III got a kick out of

22:15

a just Jared all for six

22:17

years. We had to listen to Jared through

22:19

the reporters. behind the scenes. It was like, Jevonka

22:21

is upset about this. Right? But they never

22:23

but now that he saw in a book, he has to do it in

22:25

public. And it just

22:27

sounds so weak and pathetic, and you

22:29

don't believe it. And he's not not he he's

22:31

like this animatronic person pretending

22:33

to have human feelings. you know,

22:35

so it's it's like not like I really believe that

22:37

Jared actually cares about the humanity. Oh, it'd

22:39

be funny if he was in there during the

22:42

child separation. doing business with robots. But it's interesting

22:44

that they feel a little bit cornered on

22:46

this one. The like, that that DeSantis

22:48

kind of has the nuts that

22:50

the voters want cruelty and dehumanization. That's what

22:52

they want. Trump is not in

22:54

the picture. Right? He doesn't have it's not

22:56

he's gonna use his own money to

22:59

start flying the Mar a Lago

23:01

employees. Tomorrow, the Vineyard, I guess,

23:03

is is That's not right. Undocumented and then I'm

23:05

a good employee. So they don't, like,

23:07

have a way into the story. that

23:09

Jared is obviously not his id. Don junior would be

23:11

Trump's id. So maybe Don junior would have a

23:13

better take on this. But

23:14

I don't know. It was the first moment that

23:17

I thought maybe like a hint of

23:19

weakness with Well, they're annoyed. You know they're annoyed

23:21

because he's taken his issue. He can't

23:23

say anything about it really

23:25

publicly. He can't endorse it because then he

23:27

looks kind of beta. Right. Did

23:29

did you say that? Am I just repeating you from one of

23:31

the secret podcast? I mean,

23:33

And he's obviously not I'm always It's hard for him,

23:35

you know, to figure out to get to the right

23:37

or the left of him. I'm I'm not sure it's very on brand

23:39

to, you know, talk about using people as human

23:42

pawns. I thought maybe he would say that, no. DeSantis is a

23:44

cock because we should have the death penalty

23:46

for all illegal immigrants or something

23:48

like that. But I guess the other

23:50

vulnerability of DeSantis and I, by the way,

23:52

agree that this is

23:54

electrically probably working for him

23:56

because it's focusing on the

23:58

border, etcetera. But the other weak spot is

24:00

the the flat out fraud. I I don't think Sonny

24:02

Bunch has got enough credit for

24:04

pointing out that in that brochure they

24:06

gave to the migrants they

24:08

had a fake flag of

24:10

Massachusetts that somebody Googled.

24:12

And then they had all this information telling these

24:14

people what they were going to do. And

24:16

it seems increasingly likely

24:18

every single day we get another indication. But

24:20

this is is not like close to fraud

24:22

or near fraud. This is just

24:24

pure raw fraud. Yeah. And

24:26

Miami and then Miami Herald had a

24:28

good report about a different group that

24:30

they were going to tried

24:33

to draw to Delaware, I guess.

24:35

And The Keystone cops,

24:37

a little a little secret plan. And sort

24:39

of Yeah. Yeah. It fell apart, and they backed

24:41

off on it. And so I think there could be some

24:43

legal exposure here for sure. So, you

24:45

know, we've talked about this in some of the other podcast,

24:48

but I I you

24:49

know, I'm not certain, you know,

24:52

JBL compared this to Bridgegate.

24:54

And I do think that's a kind of an apt

24:56

comparison that that that era and

24:58

Bridgegate era Christy thought he was

25:00

being clever and politically hard

25:02

hitting, but it didn't, you know, he's getting crushed

25:04

every day. There's a new leak about about

25:06

how this was illegal and, you know, his own staff is turning

25:08

on him and, you know, now we're full yearning the

25:10

documents and that's a league. And back then, I think

25:12

that really hurt him because there was this very large

25:14

cloud around him.

25:15

And now, I just don't know

25:18

if that matters. Right? Like if the Miami

25:20

Herald is doing drip drip on this every day,

25:22

does that even actually hurt to Santa's at all?

25:24

I'm not Sure. So I think that same environment could

25:26

surround him, but it's unclear to me

25:28

whether it would actually matter to his

25:30

baseball. You used a phrase, I

25:32

think, during a

25:34

podcast that kinda stuck with me that this

25:36

was in the era when

25:38

the media could still hold Republicans accountable.

25:40

Right? And they're like, we don't live in

25:42

that world anymore. And again, I've I've been pretty clear how I feel

25:44

about Rhonda Sandis, you know, the cruelty being the point,

25:46

you know, that it's all about, you know, the

25:49

trolling lid. But let me just just step

25:51

back for a moment. And I

25:53

think people need to understand why

25:55

this is playing so strongly

25:57

with the other side. Yes. There is,

25:59

you know, the the cruelty, etcetera.

26:01

But as somebody said to me last

26:04

night, you know, it

26:06

would be interesting if we paid

26:08

as much attention to what's happening

26:10

in in El Paso every single day

26:12

as what's happening in Mar a

26:14

Lago. The point being, there's a there

26:16

is a problem with

26:19

the border. It is not going

26:21

well. And, you know, every day

26:23

that we now are talking about

26:25

this, we're talking about an issue that Republicans wanna

26:27

talk about as opposed to abortion. But

26:29

we built the wall. We only

26:30

built the wall. I thought we built the wall. Yeah.

26:32

And Mexico paid for it. That didn't

26:34

work. But we have a problem.

26:37

Right? I mean I guess, but I hear you.

26:39

But I I DeSantis doesn't have a

26:41

problem. DeSantis has

26:43

a gulf in an in an ocean around the

26:45

state. And and there's no you

26:47

know, DeSantis doesn't have any more of

26:49

a migrant crisis problem than Delaware

26:51

This is where that happens. This is why he looks so

26:54

silly -- Yeah. -- that he's, you know, going to get

26:56

people from Texas to fly there. That's why

26:58

the attention is there because there's been some attention on

27:00

Greg Abbott's deal. which I also think

27:02

is trolling and kind of

27:04

pathetic. It's again, it's one thing of Greg

27:06

Abbott, not the Sandoz. The Sandoz's whole

27:08

situation is ridiculous. us.

27:10

But it's one thing of Greg Abbott said,

27:12

okay, we can't handle this anymore. Right? And

27:14

we need help. And so I'm calling

27:17

Charlie Baker. And I'm calling, you know, the governor of

27:19

Delaware. And we're gonna work with you to send

27:21

some migrants up there. That's one thing. But

27:23

that's not what he's do know, because he's not trying to

27:25

suck. He's not trying to

27:27

help. Right. And so I don't know, you know, and then did they

27:29

add to California? I think this bears mention I've one, he'd

27:31

been going to mention this on a podcast. There is

27:33

a blue state that actually has a

27:35

border. Yeah. My state? California.

27:37

You know, it's a progressive landscape. Yeah.

27:39

It's a progressive landscape. You don't see

27:41

Gavin Newsome saying we can't handle

27:43

the Tijuana entrance, so we're gonna send

27:45

these we're gonna send these people into Arizona.

27:47

Nothing right to use California as a

27:49

model of how It's

27:51

working well. Well, I mean, I guess I'm

27:53

just saying California as a state has

27:55

plenty of problems. No doubt, but

27:58

the California border

27:59

situation is again, not a we know

28:02

border situation is ideal. Part of that is

28:04

a global geo bullet economic

28:06

problem. I I don't know what Greg Avid or

28:08

Gavin Newsom or Joe Biden is supposed to do about

28:10

the gangs in El Salvador and Guatemala

28:12

or the communist dictator in

28:15

Venezuela that is drawing these people

28:17

here. But what my point is

28:19

that there is a Democratic governor that is

28:21

managing a border and doing

28:23

so without you know, crying to

28:25

Fox News about how he needs he needs help

28:27

from, you know, the market the the

28:29

Republican elites.

28:32

So I

28:32

I was talking to some swing

28:34

Republican voters about all of this, and it

28:36

was interesting how often

28:39

issue of sanctuary cities comes up.

28:41

Like, what? And and and and this is something

28:43

that that I do think we need to talk about. You know,

28:45

what we could because we all talk about the rule of

28:47

law. We have to have the rule of law. And then on

28:49

the other hand, but sanctuary cities, which

28:51

basically say we're going to ignore the

28:53

law, are and and this

28:55

is again part of what is

28:57

going on right now. You wanna be a

28:59

sanctuary city. Okay. Here,

29:01

sanctuary these people. So

29:02

you know Coming

29:03

to the immigration squish for this. Are you ready? You

29:05

ready for my Yeah. I'm like the total. I'm like the

29:07

immigration is my squishiest issue. I'm like to the

29:09

left of Biden on But here's the

29:11

thing. This annoyed me this argument, this rule

29:13

of law argument about the undocumented and the

29:15

immigrants because -- Well, I'm just curious. -- here's the

29:17

thing. So the rule III

29:20

after all of these years, I finally come up

29:22

with a question. No. Too much.

29:25

Too much. Hey. Here's the problem.

29:27

Okay. There can be plenty of legal

29:30

remedies and issues to deal with people coming

29:32

across the border. And part of the rule of law issue

29:34

is that we we aren't funding our

29:36

courts enough to deal with all the Assadis that are coming

29:39

here, so we should be funding the board records to be

29:41

able to deal with these people. There there

29:43

also, you know, can be punishments

29:45

short of deportation that that are here for the

29:47

rule of law. This is my problem is the people

29:49

who only say, well, why not we have the rule of law for

29:51

illegal immigrants? They're like, well, we need to deport them.

29:53

like, the deporting is the right

29:56

solution. I mean, are we doing death

29:58

penalty for for Donald Trump

29:59

and Ivanka? I mean, right, like, that we

30:02

can have a range of

30:04

of legal solutions here that isn't,

30:06

you know, putting people on buses back to next.

30:08

Like a whole sanctuary thing is

30:11

we are carving out this part of

30:13

the United States where we are not

30:15

going to cooperate or enforce

30:17

United States law. I

30:19

mean, you understand how

30:21

there are people that wait, this just

30:24

sounds wrong to me. I mean,

30:26

I guess, I I why does it

30:28

sound wrong to me? No. What do

30:30

they want? I guess says what

30:32

they want. They want the Oakland mayor to be

30:34

giving undocumented immigrants living in

30:36

Oakland to the Department

30:38

of Homeland Security so they can bus them back

30:40

to Mexico like, well, I don't understand what they what they

30:42

want. From well, they want a lot of things. I mean,

30:44

they pretty much probably want the same

30:46

thing that you would want if Texas

30:48

declares itself a sanctuary state

30:50

for Donald Trump in Ivanka and Eric

30:52

in Donald junior. I mean, you know,

30:54

when it comes to gun legislation

30:57

or or when it comes to felony

30:59

convictions of the former president, if a

31:01

locality or a state said we

31:03

are a sanctuary state If

31:05

Donald comes here, we will make sure

31:07

that he is not arrested. That that

31:09

there are no legal consequences. Come on,

31:11

and we don't like I'm

31:13

just saying that if you live in a

31:15

different state. If you live by the

31:17

sanctuary city thing, you might have to die

31:19

by the sanctuary city, but

31:21

I I do not share the

31:23

concerns about this. Part of the reason is because the

31:25

federal immigration laws, like,

31:26

aren't being enforced by anybody. We don't

31:29

have a federal immigration law or federal

31:31

immigration system. And so This

31:33

is one city that's basically saying,

31:35

okay,

31:35

undocumented immigrants who are living here

31:38

who who we don't really have a

31:40

solution for Congress is uninterested in solving the

31:42

problem. They can live in our city and not

31:44

have the fear of deportation.

31:46

They can work here they

31:48

can be here with their families. You know, they're

31:50

not all rapists and criminals with watermelon

31:52

thighs or whatever Donald Trump used

31:54

to say about them. You know, but is that a Steve King thing?

31:56

When they're coming across border. They're they're

31:59

He he was

31:59

thinking about it. Yeah. He was thinking about that. I think it

32:02

was his Steve King. Yeah. Many of them are

32:04

just people that are trying to work and

32:06

make a living for their family and I think that

32:08

it's okay for them to live in Oakland and

32:10

not to be not be worried that

32:12

the the ice is gonna come banging down

32:14

their door. That's me. Can

32:14

we talk about something that actually some good news and

32:17

indications that that perhaps the world is

32:19

not totally by falling apart?

32:21

Yeah. Where'd you get that? What is that about? I

32:23

said, I'm living the writer's life and telling you

32:25

right now. Type in my articles, sitting out on

32:28

the balcony. feel it's

32:29

good. Well, it's like we're in the summer. We

32:31

have kind of a -- It's good to be late summer. -- New York

32:33

Times best selling season. You

32:36

have like three events

32:38

today here in Texas in in a book signing.

32:40

Right? Yeah. And a trivia contest.

32:42

Oh, yeah. Do you have to come up with a trivia stuff?

32:44

As I've given me the questions, I'm kind of like Alex

32:46

Quebec or Anchorman really. They just they put the questions in

32:48

the teleprompter and I read them and throw a couple jokes

32:50

out there. I'm excited. And we work in the

32:52

room doing a little crap light crowd work.

32:55

So while I was around last night, I was chatting

32:57

with a guy who's one of our podcast listeners

32:59

-- Yeah. -- and he said that he's looking forward

33:01

to coming to your event tonight.

33:04

Sure. And he said, I'm going to

33:06

be wearing an LSU sweatshirt

33:08

because I hope that that sort of

33:10

biases Tim in my favor. I

33:12

said, I I can't speak for him. So I don't so

33:15

if you see a a guy with an

33:17

LSG, just understand that that's a

33:19

specific attempt. to curry favor with

33:21

the host. I'm not giving out any I've already

33:23

had some requests for the answers actually from

33:25

people. And I care about the rule

33:27

of law. and run a tight ship

33:29

when it comes to pub trivia. Okay? So

33:31

there's gonna be no cheating. Well, okay.

33:33

So there there is some good news. I wanna there's

33:35

some bad news as well, but the electoral

33:37

count act, which we have been

33:39

railing about for months that if there's one

33:41

minimal thing that you could do to prevent

33:43

the kind of coup that almost happened

33:45

on generation, it should

33:47

change that incredibly stupid

33:49

and equated eighteen whatever

33:52

law. And finally, the House of

33:54

Representatives did it and They

33:56

got

33:56

nine Republican votes, nine whole freaking Republican

33:58

Let's talk to the back. We got good news on we got

34:00

good news on the back end, the bad news first.

34:03

Boy. Crystal, I think, put this best.

34:05

There were zero Republicans who

34:07

are up for election this November

34:10

who voted to reform

34:12

the electoral count. I missed that.

34:14

Zero. Eight. So there is the

34:16

eight in features out of the ten who

34:18

are already on their way out

34:20

the door via retirement or primary loss. The two who won their primaries

34:22

did not vote for it. And then one additional

34:26

retiring house member. So no one who's up for reelection vote for it.

34:28

Okay. So that is the bad news. so much for

34:30

team normal. Yeah. I mean Yeah. It's fucking

34:32

depressing. It's just again, it's like

34:34

or are you worried you're gonna get

34:36

primed? What is even the fear? Yeah. Just okay.

34:38

I'm gonna rant about this one second before we get to the good news.

34:40

Sorry. We always do this. Like, here's good news. Let me talk

34:42

about the bad news. Well okay. I'm gonna make

34:45

it worse. Just in case anybody has any doubt about what's gonna happen with

34:47

the Republican congress next year, they will vote

34:49

to impeach Joe Biden in every Republican

34:52

that wants to stay a Republican in congress will

34:54

vote for it. almost everyone

34:56

at least. Yeah. But meanwhile, every single one of them

34:58

that just wanna fix this long so we can just count

35:00

the votes. I was always skeptical of the story.

35:02

There are these leaks out of house

35:04

Republicans are like, I wanna develop for

35:06

impeachment. I think you should have been impeachment, but I

35:08

can't do it because I'm worried for

35:10

my physical Yeah. I'm literally I'm worried that the the the deployables

35:12

are gonna come with pitchforks to my house

35:14

and burn it down. And I'm worried about my family

35:16

and my

35:18

wife. And we felt like that was kind of it felt like the characters

35:20

and why we did it. It kinda felt like an excuse,

35:22

like a very an excuse that makes

35:25

feel good. Right. Like, the junior The messiah sent

35:27

the I said, oh, I would do the right

35:29

thing, but that we need good people like me

35:32

here. There is just

35:34

no explanation. for

35:35

saying, I wanted them

35:36

impeached, but I couldn't do it because we need

35:39

good people in here, and I'm worried about my

35:41

safety. To then two years later, when

35:43

they say, okay, we're gonna just fix

35:45

this arcane law to make sure that

35:47

if this happens again, you know, if he wants to run

35:49

again to run fair and square and win fair and

35:51

square okay. But but just to make sure we can't

35:53

cheat it next time, and then not vote for

35:55

that. Yeah. Right? Like, to me, that just reveals that

35:57

all of those assholes were pretty much

36:00

on the team coup. Right? They wanted to pretend like

36:02

they are on the

36:04

team normal say things like that so they could hang out and collect company,

36:06

you know, here in Austin at the Omni.

36:08

But they didn't actually wanna do anything

36:10

even the

36:12

most middle possible thing, like, reforming the electoral conduct to to safeguard

36:14

the elections. Okay. Yeah. The

36:16

good side, though. I think we have

36:18

ten senators. Pat

36:20

Tumi

36:20

signed on yesterday and indicated

36:22

that they think that they have

36:24

ten senators. And so this

36:27

is I think the fourth time, right, on a big

36:29

thing, chips, guns -- Yeah.

36:31

-- infrastructure -- Mhmm. -- that we've gotten centers,

36:33

I wanna just give a stare of

36:35

long well shout out. know, it's you and me and

36:37

Amanda getting all the love tonight, so we might as well give Sarah Long

36:39

Leshetta. She was the most optimistic about this. All

36:41

of us were pretty pessimistic

36:43

about the no that that the senate could

36:45

actually do bipartisan stuff anymore. I was pretty

36:48

pessimistic. You heard a lot of people on lefty

36:50

podcast were

36:52

like, Joe Biden, it's evil for even trying to work with Republicans.

36:54

How do you pick up the phone with Republican

36:56

calls? Like, they'll never vote for anything.

36:58

Well, they end up voting for four

37:00

things. Pretty meaningful things. I think important progress in

37:02

legislation. Obviously, this

37:03

electoral conduct would maybe be the biggest one.

37:05

And so to get ten senators

37:07

really did undermine now,

37:10

like to to Biden's credit, the theory

37:12

of

37:12

the case that you could work

37:15

the senate still and get over

37:17

the filibuster, get to sixty, and

37:20

decent things passed. No. It hasn't happened

37:22

yet. But it was Is Mitch McConnell on

37:24

board with us? I think so.

37:26

Okay. Because this is, again, this is

37:28

bare minimum fixing the electoral

37:30

contract. I mean, this should not be controversial. This

37:32

should be as this should be as bland

37:34

as you could possibly can get. And Mitch

37:36

McConnell, who we're just reading this new book

37:38

that's coming out, you know. I mean, understood that the Trump

37:40

should have been impeached should have been removed from office. He

37:42

understands exactly what would the speech

37:44

he gave about the attempts to

37:46

overturn the election are Chris crystal clear.

37:49

This could have been on the board. This should be video. If you take a

37:51

nickname off of it. And put Mona

37:53

Gerron's name on it, like you won't really wouldn't

37:55

have known the No.

37:58

I've I've so this should get seventy eight or eighty votes. But but

38:00

to your point about the the fact that there

38:02

are no members of team normal who

38:04

are actually

38:06

in anymore. this is the fundamental flaw of this. You well, you

38:08

have to stay relevant, you

38:10

know, argument. This is the one I had

38:12

with rich Lowry a couple of

38:14

months back where his criticism

38:16

of Liz Cheney was, well,

38:18

okay. But you know what was more important for her to

38:20

keep a seat at the table? Because at some

38:22

point, you need to be at a table in order to

38:24

do the right thing. Therefore, you can never

38:26

ever ever do the right thing that

38:28

will just that's the problem with

38:30

it becomes circular. you know, we need to vote this way

38:32

so that we are here because worse

38:35

people than us will be here, but then when

38:37

it comes down to it, a vote

38:39

like this, what do they do? So Here's the thing

38:41

about that. Is that not only is that

38:43

a morally empty posture that Richard

38:45

Larry has taken, But

38:46

practically, over the medium term,

38:48

it's it's actually the wrong posture for

38:50

staying relevant too. And just look at what's happening

38:52

in the Republican Cox. It looks what's happening in

38:56

review. Like, let's be honest, national review is getting squeezed. Right?

38:58

The maggas don't like it. The remaining

39:01

sane people leaving. a national

39:04

review. It's getting squeezed as far as being

39:06

relevant. It's clearly not. If you're a

39:08

Republican member

39:10

of congress, and their national review criticizes you. Do you care? I I think you

39:12

kind of look at it like if the Board

39:14

criticizes you. I don't think you care, right,

39:16

anymore, which was different back when I was working

39:18

for campaigns.

39:20

knee well, if you look at Mitch, I think part of the reason Mitch can be going

39:22

along with things like this is the writing is

39:24

sort of on the wall for Mitch. You know, it's

39:26

possible you can get to be sent a majority leader

39:29

one more time. Right? And if they if they pick up a seat this fall, which

39:31

is I think a coin flip at this point, but

39:34

then if Trump gets

39:34

back in, you know, he's not gonna

39:37

beat the majority leader again. Right? Like, over time,

39:39

the Senate caucus, like, you know, who

39:42

knows who comes in, the

39:44

J. V.ances, this group isn't

39:46

gonna want Mitch to be in leadership.

39:48

Mitch is the least popular politician

39:50

in America. It was my there was a list

39:52

of favorability of

39:54

things always use this as a running joke for my far lefty friends.

39:56

The only person the only thing less popular

39:58

than Mitch McConnell was to find the police. It

39:59

was like they

40:02

testified to which has like a twelve

40:04

percent approval reading. So so this strategy of like kind of acknowledging

40:06

that you know that the

40:08

anti democratic stuff is wrong, but

40:12

not really doing anything about it, but not really cheering

40:14

it on that Rich Lowrey is arguing,

40:16

you know, keeps you in the mix,

40:18

keeps you at the table, is is

40:20

really just a path to irrelevant. Just a little longer one. You just get

40:23

to hang on one of your fingernails for a couple

40:25

more weeks. Okay. See, here's an

40:28

irony. If

40:28

you're Mitch McConnell, you're looking back and you're going, okay, I've had a

40:31

pretty good run. And what is

40:33

he most proud of? What

40:35

is he most proud of? He's most proud of the court,

40:37

of the of the federal

40:40

judiciary. And to the extent that Mago World

40:42

is willing to, you know, give

40:44

some props to to McConnell. It's because he did such a good job with the

40:46

federal judges. Oh, wait.

40:48

Because this federal judiciary thing,

40:52

might not play out for MAGA the way

40:54

they had thought it was going to play out. See

40:56

how we looped out all back together. Okay. So

40:58

we had to get back to the bad news.

41:00

You you're not my party about the the vote

41:02

to codify same sex marriage. This is the low hanging

41:05

fruit to basically say, Supreme Court is

41:07

never gonna overturn this. sure

41:10

that millions of people who are married, you know,

41:12

have, you know, legal status. Obviously, it's a

41:14

personal issue for you. So what's what's

41:16

going on with which should be dunk

41:18

vote in the Senate on it. It's even because,

41:20

you know, in the media, you're trying to explain

41:22

things the quickest way. It's even a more of

41:24

a low hanging fruit than you think. does

41:26

this build the the respect for MiraJack? Doesn't actually

41:28

protect Obergafil because for some arcane legal

41:31

reasons, it kinda can't. It just

41:33

it just reverses doma. Right.

41:35

So all this bill actually does

41:37

is ensure that federal

41:39

recognition on tax status and various things

41:41

for existing marriages as protect Right?

41:43

That you can't take it away. You can't annull. The government

41:46

is gonna annull my marriage. Right? But

41:48

what it doesn't do is, like, demand that

41:50

Alabama and the

41:52

future can't pass a law that we're gonna ban gay marriage. Now, ban if

41:54

the supreme court were to overturn a murder file.

41:56

So it's like literally

41:58

just protecting fisting charges.

41:59

It's not even a federal government. realize. Yeah. Yeah.

42:02

So it's the lowest thing here. Crude De Majgibles. So

42:04

this should be a one hundred to zero Senate

42:06

voter. You know, there are a couple assholes over there, Ted Cruz. Isn't

42:08

gonna do it. We're here in Texas. gonna shout him out to

42:10

ninety eight to two or whatever. But

42:12

past the House already, forty seven Republican

42:14

votes, not bad, but not

42:16

not great than any. But

42:18

okay. Yeah. So we'll take it.

42:20

They're saying that essentially behind the

42:22

scenes, we're reading tea leaves here. I asked Chris Murphy

42:24

about this. I'm trying to ask some friends who work in

42:26

the senate

42:28

The Republicans are signaling to Schumer and Baldwin.

42:30

Okay. We'll we'll vote for this. But let's like

42:32

let's put it in the lame duck. Let's not

42:36

politicize this by having this vote protecting marriage before the

42:38

election. And after the election, there's this lame

42:40

duck period where it's this existing Congress votes

42:42

before the new Congress comes in, but it's after

42:44

the midterms. vote

42:46

that.

42:46

And, like, my I thought

42:47

about that, and I had talked to some of my friends.

42:49

I'm like, okay. Well, that's maybe the right thing to

42:51

do just to you know, better

42:53

safe than sorry, why I played politics with this. And

42:56

the more I thought about it, and I was like, actually,

42:58

fuck this. Fuck these guys. They

43:00

just don't wanna go on record. I gotta

43:02

go for it now. I kinda think the

43:04

ten votes would appear. I I really

43:06

do. It's you know, this is one of those

43:08

history votes. A lot of all these retiring

43:10

folks, you know, your Tumi's, we're talking about your

43:12

Richard Burrows. they're really

43:13

on the way out the door, gonna vote

43:15

against this because of some heavy

43:18

procedural thing, whether annoyed that it

43:20

had the vote have it in September,

43:22

not December. maybe, maybe, but then let them own them. Let

43:24

them let them argue and say, oh, the

43:26

democrats are

43:28

politicizing this very

43:30

obvious protecting gay marriage vote right before the midterms.

43:32

I don't it just seems like a time

43:36

for hardball.

43:36

hopefully, you know, it'll happen in

43:38

in the lane deck regardless, but you just never

43:40

know who knows what happens. Right? The who are

43:43

you elections? weird. There's a there's we

43:46

have these claims that have fraud again. We saw it

43:48

happen after the twenty twenty election. The Lane

43:50

Duck kind of doesn't really happen. It a who isn't

43:52

the hell knows what could Well, no. And you could see see

43:54

in in my home state Wisconsin, you know, what a tricky

43:56

issue this is. I mean, Ron Johnson's been, you

43:58

know, flipping around, like, you know, a crowd out

43:59

of, you know, on on the Bank of the River. I

44:02

mean, on on of this. You know, when the polls

44:04

are pretty clear, I think, in Wisconsin,

44:06

seventy two percent -- Yeah. -- of voters, you

44:08

know, support the legalized same

44:10

sex marriage. and that includes fifty eight percent of Republicans. Right.

44:12

So, really, this is

44:14

one where Flandonia. Yeah. And if you're

44:16

going to politicize, do something that unites

44:19

your own and divides the opposition, right, which they need

44:21

to understand on a variety of other issues

44:24

as well. This would seem to be an

44:26

easy one. But, I mean,

44:28

it it is, as you point out, and you're not my

44:30

party, there's something weird about this

44:32

moment to think of all the

44:34

progress that had been made, the sense that,

44:36

you know, you come to a different point in history and now realize

44:38

that there is this huge push

44:40

to roll so much of it back.

44:44

I mean, it feels like we've regressed

44:46

decades in the last twelve

44:48

months. In in terms of of some

44:50

things that we

44:52

thought were had been

44:54

resolved. Yeah. Probably not decades. But, yeah, we're

44:56

regressing. And this is why I think Ron Johnson's

44:58

flopping around, you know, like the

45:00

trail. Because for

45:03

a while, I think he just assumed

45:04

that there there wasn't gonna be any controversy

45:06

in his own tent on this. We could just say

45:08

that. He could just vote for the own thing.

45:11

But but the anti gay anti

45:14

LGBT rights kind of element

45:16

within the Republican Party feels

45:18

resurgent right now because they

45:20

saw this that don't say gay thing in Florida was a winner. You know, look at

45:22

what what Youngkin is doing, even the

45:24

great Glenn Youngkin, you know, the

45:26

moderate normal

45:28

hope. Did you see this? What do you see? You know what they so he they put

45:30

in some the Virginia education department,

45:32

whatever it's called. He sent to school

45:36

some guidance on on how to deal with the trans issue.

45:38

And we could do a whole podcast of the

45:40

trans issue, but there was one thing that really stood out to me.

45:42

It said

45:44

that that people can only be called a nickname that is a

45:46

commonly held nickname of

45:49

their first name

45:51

on their school registry.

45:54

And so

45:54

it's like, this is good. Now we're sort of going back to the patriotic core. So it's

45:57

like the state of Virginia wants

45:59

to dictate what nickname a kid

46:01

can be called because

46:04

there afraid that some of these kids are asking to be

46:06

called either non gendered names

46:08

or names that are more commonly associated

46:10

with a

46:12

different gender regulating nicknames? We're regulating

46:14

nicknames because that allows

46:16

you to troll trans kids

46:19

at

46:19

Transparent. That's the whole point. That's really the whole

46:21

point of this. And so I think that there's

46:24

just this feeling of them being

46:26

emboldened. And and

46:28

to me, Well, I don't, like, really think that the game errands thing

46:30

would actually be overturned by the Supreme

46:32

Court. Because of that,

46:34

I think it's

46:36

prudent. to just say, let's stamp the

46:38

shit out right now. Right? Like, well, you can see what's

46:40

happening. Let's protect you. Well, III agree with you, and

46:42

I think it is in theory, I don't think the court

46:44

is gonna overturn that near term. However,

46:46

There's not a majority on the court that supports the reasoning behind Oberga fell.

46:49

No. There is not a majority on the

46:51

court that recognizes a constitutional right

46:53

to privacy anymore. Yeah.

46:55

And if you basically say you have five or

46:58

maybe six justices who do not believe that there

47:00

is right to privacy in the constitution,

47:02

then what is the

47:04

constitutional basis for decisions

47:06

like, for example, Griswold with

47:08

with contraception, or what was

47:10

the case in Texas thinking? Lawrence, Lawrence and

47:12

Texasville. All of those cases, I think, become more

47:15

problematic. And by the way, Ron Johnson is going

47:17

to win that election. I'm sorry.

47:19

I I just despite the trial flipping around. You'd be saying this last

47:21

week, I forget if I revealed that I had a friend with

47:23

an internal poll that showed me. And it's

47:26

it's concerning. This

47:28

is the It's such a

47:30

blunt officer. to do the gay marriage

47:32

thing, at least that would give let Mandela be

47:34

on offense. I'm not totally ready to

47:36

throw in the towel yet, but it seems like

47:38

in our little discussion. You you you have the edge No. I'm just

47:40

I'm just frustrated about it. No. Both

47:42

parties have taken seats that were

47:44

imminently winnable and decided

47:46

to to squander it. And it's

47:48

just that, again, this is,

47:50

you know, people ought to be cautioned

47:52

in politics not to engage in the

47:54

rational fallacy -- No. -- with the rational

47:56

fallacy being assuming that people behave in a rational manner or always in

47:58

their self interest, Tim. Have a

48:00

great day here in Austin, you have a busy

48:02

day gonna

48:04

see you later this afternoon when we, you know, bullshitting

48:06

with the with the boar. And then Amanda

48:08

and I are gonna come hang with you at trivia

48:11

night too. awesome. Alright. Sounds good to you. good to

48:13

do this in person. The Bulwark podcast is

48:15

produced by Katie Cooper with audio

48:17

production by Jonathan

48:19

Seres. I'm Sykes. Thank you for listening to today's

48:21

Bulwark podcast, and we'll be back tomorrow and

48:23

do this all

48:26

over again.

48:32

Dissecting

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Mate. So Adi Timberman's is banned from coming in contact with

48:41

a chimpanzee at the Antor Brazil

48:42

in Belgium. Part of what makes this

48:44

complicated is that he was a

48:47

it. Don't be like, oh, it's harming his socialization.

48:49

Like, that already happened. Honestly, they are getting

48:51

in the way of their love. I mean, they haven't even

48:53

gotten a second base. don't think so. It

48:55

depends how long the Kim's arms are though. Useful idiots with Katie Halper and

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