00:10 JVL Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Next Level. 00:14 I'm JBL with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, and my sort of best friend, Tim Miller. 00:19 We are back together again after having Sonny Bunch guest for us. 00:24 And it's a very special episode because Sarah is doing a total pro move with a two-year-old quasi next to her watching Paw Patrol while she tapes a show. 00:37 Since we all have young children, I would like to posit to you that Paw Patrol is the most insipid of all of the children's cartoons. 00:46 Yes or no? 00:48 Proposed. 00:49 Tim Miller I have to concur. 00:50 As usual with JVL, I've banned Paw Patrol, and we are running a very liberal household here. 00:58 You know, the three-year-old watches The Simpsons with me. 01:00 I'm not a hard line on the types of material. 01:04 But Paw Patrol is just a massive marketing effort to get kids to be obsessed with dog-style off-television toy content. 01:16 That's the whole purpose of the show. 01:18 JVL To be clear here, Sarah, I am not criticizing your parenting because my four-year-old likes Paw Patrol, too. 01:24 I'm just saying of all the things which G-Money can choose to watch... 01:28 Including, right now, we're bopping around the whole Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Expanded Universe. 01:34 That's in our rotation. 01:36 To me, the one that I cringe most when he puts on is Paw Patrol. 01:41 Sarah Longwell You? 01:43 That is my, no, my least favorite is Mighty Express, the train show. 01:47 But here's the deal. 01:48 You are correct about the marketing. 01:49 And as a testament to that, I will tell you that we have absconded from the four-year-old's room with the Paw Patrol tower, as well as the Paw Patroller, because the two-year-old never gets to play with them. 02:00 And this is how I'm going to get through this podcast, is by letting him play with his older brother's stuff. 02:04 And by watching Paw Patrol, and I have no opinion on Paw Patrol because I've never watched it. 02:08 I don't like sit there with them while they watch cartoons. 02:10 It's like the one 25-minute period where you don't have to talk to them. 02:14 I put them in a closet. 02:15 I put Paw Patrol on. 02:17 Send me your Parent of the Year awards. 02:20 JVL Please don't call child services. 02:22 Tim Miller It's nefarious. 02:22 Please don't call child services. 02:24 Paw Patrol is nefarious. 02:25 And, you know, you could go to get Disney Plus, go to the classics. 02:28 You know, we're working through all the classics right now. 02:32 Sarah Longwell Your kid's like three, and my kids won't even sit through a movie yet, including the four-year-old. 02:36 He will watch one movie, which is Cars. 02:39 And actually, I should say, he'll watch three movies. 02:41 Cars 1, Cars 2, and Cars 3. 02:42 Tim Miller So is that a bad sign that my child will watch all of the Ice Ages in a row for 10 hours straight? 02:48 No, it's not a bad sign. 02:49 Sarah Longwell Is that a bad sign? 02:50 Do you not have a screen time limit? 02:52 We have a very rigid screen time limit in this house. 02:56 JVL No screen time limits. 02:57 We had incredibly rigid screen time limits for children 1, 2, and 3. 03:01 And by 4, we literally bought the fourth one, his own tablet. 03:07 We're like, here's $20. 03:10 Go watch a Star Wars. 03:14 All right. 03:15 So today I would like to start by flipping open the Wall Street Journal opinion page. 03:21 Really, the place for serious conservatism. 03:24 And an op-ed by one Pierre Delecto. 03:32 Headline. 03:33 Biden's stimulus bill is a $1.9 trillion clunker. 03:39 Wah, wah. 03:42 Tim Miller Little cash for clunkers throwback there, do we think? 03:46 JVL And he, subhead, Senate Republicans are eager to get aid where it's needed, reopen schools, and encourage work. 03:54 Now, I don't want to cap on Mitt Romney because he did stand up against the attempt to conduct a coup. 04:07 God bless him for it. 04:08 But this piece reads as if it was written in... 04:15 2010 or something. 04:18 It's, you know, well, we really have to be mindful of our P's and Q's here. 04:24 And if you look at the CBO score, it seems that only 4% gets spent in the first six months. 04:31 And then another... And I just look at it and I think, my dude, as they say on the Twitters, my dude, you are living in a different reality. 04:44 That is simply not a world that we inhabit anymore. 04:48 Tim Miller We don't have to mind our P's and Q's in 2021. 04:50 It's just that's a 2010 thing, minding your P's and Q's. 04:53 Now it's just anarchy, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. 04:58 JVL The idea behind publishing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where you pose as the voice of fiscal sanity and are retreating into CBO scoring and talking 05:17 In some of it, I'd say much of this is good faith. 05:20 I would say we've run pieces at the bulwark which have made similar points to this, which is that the stimulus plan as written is maybe not optimal in some of its targeting. 05:33 Like, for instance, a bunch of the state and local aid seems to be extraneous. 05:37 You could spend the same amount of money but in more effective ways. 05:41 But some of the stuff in here is not super good faith, I would say. 05:47 Here's a line from it. 05:51 The Biden stimulus calls for $170 billion for education, yet has no realistic plan to reopen K-12 schools. 06:00 Well, the federal government does not open or close K-12 schools. 06:03 Those are local decisions. 06:06 You know, it is the Fairfax County school system which opens. 06:09 Joe Biden cannot say to Fairfax County, you shall open. 06:14 That's not... 06:15 And so everything about this just feels like it is coming from a universe where it is, A, having a conversation from 2010, but B, is presenting itself as emanating from a Republican party of 2010 that no longer exists anymore. 06:35 The Republican Party, which, you know, cares about this stuff, that's gone too. 06:41 The Republican Party is Ron John standing in the well of the Senate reading from The Federalist. 06:47 That's the Republican Party. 06:48 And so I look at it, and I mean, on the one hand, the part of me which loves good faith and good government and stuff, boy, Sarah, you look unhappy. 06:56 It reads this piece and thinks, yeah, no, we need to be able to have good faith policy debates about optimal outcomes. 07:05 On the other hand, I think, I don't know, like Mitt Romney's party fucked around for the last 12 months. 07:12 They kicked the can down the road at every opportunity. 07:16 They nickel and dimed and did stimulus packages that were wildly inadequate to the moment and which everybody knew were wildly inadequate for the moment, which is why they had to keep going back and doing more of them. 07:30 And now when we're nearing the end of the pandemic and we got to create a bridge for, you know, 80 million people or so who are screwed, screwed by this stuff before we get to what we hope is going to be somewhat normal by August or September. 07:44 Now we have the good government Republican Party in the person of a single guy writing for the Wall Street. 07:53 Give me a fucking break. 07:56 Tim Miller Sarah, would you like to take it or me? 07:59 Sarah Longwell I don't even understand what your argument is here, JBL. 08:02 Like, you're mad. 08:03 Joe Biden promised a return to normalcy. 08:06 We're having a normal policy debate on the merits of which Mitt Romney is correct. 08:12 Like, it is a poorly targeted... 08:14 Many of the merits. 08:16 Much of the previous stimulus still hasn't been spent. 08:18 It is poorly targeted. 08:20 We are not focusing on the people who need it most. 08:22 Many of the states are not in distress and, in fact, haven't tapped into the rainy day funds. 08:27 Like, he's making a bunch of perfectly good points that are perfectly normal. 08:30 And you know who gets to continue to have good faith arguments right now over policy? 08:35 The handful, the three or four Republicans who consistently stood up to Donald Trump. 08:40 The one. 08:41 That's fine. 08:42 That's fine. 08:42 But like Mitt Romney does. 08:43 He's absolutely earned the right to continue to try to have a normal functioning government that has these policy debates. 08:51 I am here for the go. 08:53 But when you say go back to 2010, do you mean before we had the autocratic surge? 08:58 Like I want to live in that world. 09:00 Like, what is the problem with that? 09:01 Like, do we have to at every... 09:03 So I agree with you that Ron Johnson should be... What do we do with these people? 09:08 We strut them to a falconhead rocket and we shoot them into the sun. 09:11 Yes. 09:11 I'm fine with that for Ron Johnson. 09:12 That's the policy. 09:13 So that's true, but like... 09:15 that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be having policy. 09:18 In fact, I would like this muscle to be something they work on. 09:21 I would like them to forge deals and to have policy debates. 09:25 And this is loaded up. 09:27 It is true that this bill has a bunch of 09:30 uh democratic things that they want that they normally can't pass legislatively uh that they are trying to jam in here for to to make sure that like they happen under the guise of like that's a true thing that's happening now you can say that's okay you can say that that you support that but like it's a true thing that is happening 09:47 JVL You know what Mitt Romney ought to do if he cares so much about compromise? 09:52 Switch parties. 09:54 He could extract a lot more of what he wants as the 51st member of the Democratic Senate than he could as a Republican minority member arguing in the Wall Street Journal. 10:06 Tim Miller So as a person who's capable of being a squish who lands in between two extreme polls, no matter who my audience is and what the debate is, I will fall in between the two of you here. 10:17 Sarah is basically right on the merits, while JVL is basically right on the politics. 10:24 The merits of Mitt Romney's op-ed are mostly correct. 10:30 I agree with you there are a couple of cheap shots and bad faith lines but it is true that particularly for example some of the school funding like a lot of the school funding in this 1.9 trillion dollar 10:45 You know, bailout stimulus is not going to be spent until like 2026 when, God willing, the COVID-19 will be very deep in our rearview mirror. 10:56 The problem is the politics. 10:58 And I do think Mitt, who I just adore... 11:02 um is is living in 2010 not for the reason jvl said that you know caring about budgets is a thing of the past but he's living in 2010 in how to play the political game of this and and i think the fact that he rolled this out as you said in the wall street journal ed board he went on fox news radio yesterday he's on the guy benson show talking about this and 11:24 I had a little bit of fun and I scrolled through the replies to Guy's tweets when he shared the Romney interview and it's entirely insane MAGA people telling Mitt Romney that he is a simp wuss and that he might as well just become a socialist and that he tried to steal the election from the great Donald Trump and all this stuff. 11:48 I don't think that he's convincing any of these people. 11:51 And so I don't know that he necessarily needs to become a Democrat, but I do think that he needs to live in the reality of where the Republican Party is. 12:01 And I think that his fantasy of, well, I'm going to go on Fox Radio and go into the Wall Street Journal opinion board and I'm going to win over a few of these Republicans who are mad at me for betraying God King Trump is a fantasy. 12:15 And that maybe had he recruited five of his fellow Republicans and went to Joe Biden and said, hey, man, we're going to give you your 1.5 trillion of the 1.9. 12:28 If you take this 400 billion or whatever, my math isn't great or whatever it is that it's supposed to go to something stupid and not do it. 12:37 So I can say that I have a win. 12:38 Now, maybe the Democrats would say, why would they negotiate? 12:41 But that would, I think, be in the spirit of what Joe Biden is trying to do. 12:45 You know, proposing $800 billion, like a third of what the bill is, railing $600 billion. 12:55 JVL $618 billion was their counteroffer. 12:57 Their counteroffers will give you one third. 12:59 Tim Miller That's absurd. 13:00 And then going into the Wall Street Journal to rant about it, it's just the process of it. 13:04 is wrong. 13:05 Like Mitt needs to recognize that he lives in the center squishy bulwark space. 13:11 Now he should be speaking to this audience. 13:14 He should be speaking to Joe Biden's audience and center left audience and thinking, what can I get out of the Democrats that will make this bill better? 13:22 That's good governance. 13:23 That's what Sarah should be wanting. 13:25 What can I get out of the Democrats realistically to make this bill better rather than railing against it and calling it cash for clunkers and going on Fox News Radio? 13:34 That's not advancing the ball at all because they're just going to ram through the $1.9 trillion anyway. 13:39 Tim, you're super hot. 13:41 Just to either sit back a little bit. 13:43 Sarah Longwell He is so hot. 13:44 He's got a half ponytail going. 13:46 I'm shirtless. 13:47 I'm shirtless. 13:48 JVL You should see the one ab that I have right now in this little photo. 13:52 Crank the game back or sit back a little. 13:54 I mean this sincerely. 13:59 Do you think Mitt Romney is, as the two parties are currently constituted, closer to being a Democrat or closer to being a Republican? 14:07 I just think he should put his existence in harmony with his essence. 14:14 Because he is a Democrat at this point. 14:18 Sarah Longwell No, he's not. 14:18 JVL So why not just become a Democrat and then work from inside the system? 14:23 Thank you, David Shaywitz, for my New Yorker cartoon. 14:26 He should be working within the system on the Democratic Party. 14:29 Instead of standing on the outside with, as he said last last night or yesterday, he said, yeah, you know, if he runs, Donald Trump will be the Republican Party nominee in 2024. 14:39 So so Mitt, who again, love the guy, love the guy. 14:43 Just come over to the other side. 14:45 Go be a red dog. 14:47 Go be a Red Dog Democrat and you can get way more. 14:51 Also, I got to say, I would bet you dollars to donuts that like Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney is way more favorably viewed by Democrats than he is by Republicans. 15:03 For now. 15:04 You guys saw the poll yesterday where Liz Cheney is underwater by one to two with Republican voters and has net favorable with Democrats. 15:19 I bet you anything the same is true for Romney. 15:21 So why not just do it? 15:24 Why not just start the realignment? 15:26 Tim Miller I totally agree with you on the fact that Romney's probably more popular right now with Democrats than Republicans, just like Liz Cheney. 15:33 I totally agree with you that he should reassess how he plays his politics. 15:38 Maybe for some people that would mean becoming a red dog Democrat. 15:41 I don't know if in Utah that is really a smart political move. 15:45 But I do think that by recognizing... 15:50 Who he can persuade and who he could win over. 15:53 I mean, this is my point. 15:54 Is that Romney, if he made a tailored argument, could persuade many Joe Biden Democrats. 16:02 I think there are probably people listening to this podcast right now who are Democrats. 16:06 who were like, I want a stimulus to happen, I just want it to get through. 16:10 If you told me that it'd be smarter to do it with $1.6 trillion instead of $1.9 trillion, and we moved column A to column B, I think that he could probably persuade some of those people to say, okay, this is a smarter thing to do. 16:21 So that is at least step one in the process of becoming a red dog, is just recognizing who your constituency is. 16:29 The people that are listening to Fox News Radio is not his constituency. 16:35 Bringing back out cash for clunkers is just going to leave him unpopular with both sides. 16:41 He's not winning any of these people over, and the Democrats that he's gotten strange new respect from are going to start saying, okay, enough of this guy. 16:49 It was nice that you were anti-Coup and all, but give me a break. 16:54 Sarah Longwell Yeah, which is where JBL is landing, I guess. 16:57 But so I agree with that, Tim. 17:00 And I do think that Mitt Romney should be focused on on figuring out who he can persuade. 17:05 That being said, but the idea that he should be a Democrat makes little sense to me. 17:11 I mean, this guy is a socially conservative Mormon. 17:14 who has been a, I mean, I do think that Mitt Romney, look, he was a Massachusetts Republican. 17:22 So he is, I think, before he became the Mitt Romney that ran for president and sort of shifted who he was, he was a pretty moderate Republican. 17:32 And I think that that is a good place for him to be. 17:36 I think that somebody should model what it means to be a moderate Republican. 17:39 Otherwise, there will be none of them. 17:44 JVL I think it's in terms of what the actual landscape looks like. 17:51 Much, much. 17:53 There's much more ground to be made by just going and being a moderate Dem. 17:57 Sarah Longwell You know, here's the thing. 17:58 If you think. 17:59 JVL Because the Republican Party and the Republican voters are pro quo. 18:02 So just leave those people behind. 18:05 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I wonder how much. 18:07 Yeah, well, I was just going to say, I wonder how much he and Joe Manchin really have in common or how much he and Kristen Sinema really have in common. 18:18 JVL Beast mode. 18:19 Is that what she wore? 18:20 Was that her T-shirt yesterday? 18:21 Sarah Longwell I don't know, but I – look, I don't – there's no – I will say like I like Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush for sure. 18:28 Or Jeb Bush, sorry. 18:32 But like I have Republicans that I have liked or politicians that I've liked, but I try not to be a politician stan because they always disappoint you. 18:41 Tim Miller Dangerous creature was her show. 18:43 Sarah Longwell Dangerous creature, that's right. 18:44 Dangerous creature. 18:44 But I do like – 18:46 kristin cinema like i used the way i used to like sort of love ben sass and then he completely broke my heart um i'm starting to find those feelings for for kristin cinema and 18:58 Tim Miller Can I just mention really quick on the side that it's Sarah that is parenting a two-year-old and yet I was the one that just dropped a light coffee and milk drink all over the ground of my child's playroom right now and almost ruined my podcast setup. 19:13 So I'm an adult two-year-old right now. 19:16 I'm in the middle of a cleanup crisis over here. 19:19 Sarah Longwell I was wondering what you were doing, and if I sounded distracted, it's because my son walked out of the closet to hand me a wrapper. 19:24 Here, Mom, have us. 19:27 This is good content right here. 19:29 Yeah, I know. 19:29 This is the content people are paying for. 19:32 JVL Uh, so, uh, okay. 19:34 So that's my rant about the stimulus bill and Mitt Romney's politics, but, uh, so, so his is nicely into Sarah's topic. 19:42 Actually, no, I want to, I want to jump to your topic first because I think Sarah is the bow on this package. 19:48 The, uh, the cherry on top of this always, which is, uh, so again, as I say, does, does Mitt Romney have more in common with Joe Biden or more in common with his colleague from Wisconsin? 20:02 Tim Miller So Charlie wrote about this this morning. 20:06 So if you've already read Morning Shots, you can just press the fast-forward 30-second button. 20:10 But I do want to talk about what, as Charlie called him, Ron Anon. 20:18 I like that. 20:19 Do you get it? 20:19 Do you get it, Jacob? 20:20 Sarah Longwell Yeah. 20:20 Ron Anon. 20:21 Tim Miller Love it. 20:22 I like that a lot. 20:24 Sarah Longwell I don't get it. 20:26 Oh, like QAnon. 20:27 Tim Miller Yeah, like Ron John, Ron Anon. 20:29 You're getting it now, Sarah? 20:31 Sarah Longwell I got it now. 20:31 Tim Miller It's a dad joke. 20:32 This should be right up your alley. 20:34 So Ron Anon is in the well of the Senate yesterday, and he is reading into the record a first-person account from a man named J. Michael Waller, who is a conspiracy theorist that works for a fake think tank that was started to put a little bit of a serious... 20:55 high-minded sheen on the Trumpist foreign policy agenda. 21:01 And J. Michael Waller attended the rally on January 6th. 21:06 He was a big proponent of the idea that Hugo Chavez was part of a deep state coup to change the voting machines and steal the election. 21:16 And so he wanted to kind of see what was happening firsthand. 21:19 And he gets off the Amtrak, right, because he's a coastal elite, to just see what the scene's like with the regular folks. 21:30 And what he and Ron John found, and Ron John, if you remember when he called our friend that wrote for the Bulwark, who is the county chair in Wisconsin, and told him that Trump... 21:42 Trump fans that he needs to go to a Trump rally because Trump fans love this country and the Bernie Sanders fans do not love this country. 21:50 So this is kind of a longstanding view that Ron John has had. 21:53 So this Federalist article really, you know, kind of hit all of his erogenous zones. 21:58 And what J. Michael Waller found was that a very few in the crowd did not share the jovial, friendly, and earnest demeanor of the great majority. 22:11 They obviously didn't fit in. 22:13 Some of them were younger 20-somethings wearing new Trump or MAGA hats. 22:18 Must have just got it right off the internet to cover up their Antifa hats that they would have been wearing that would have looked much more worn. 22:28 They'd have a visor in the back. 22:30 They didn't have the same enthusiasm and joie de vivre as the rest of the crowd. 22:35 They were glowering. 22:36 They were holding out their phones with outstretched arms to make videos of as many faces in the crowd as possible. 22:42 Their body language was wrong. 22:44 So this expert, this is a security policy expert, decided that the crowd was not exactly a Trump, a pro-Trump crowd, and that there were a few Antifa troublemakers in the midst. 22:57 And that the rest of the good, God-fearing, police-loving, Blue Lives Matter-wearing protesters were basically instigated into tearing out the eyeballs of police officers by the victims' own actions, the cops with their tear gas, that really radicalized people and changed the mood, and by this small number of secret Antifa hiding amidst the crowd. 23:26 That's an interesting theory, especially since we've had a couple dozen people arrested and they all have very extensive histories of MAGA and that there were Donald Trump flags in the crowd and Confederate flags and, you know, the Holocaust was fake shirts and all that. 23:42 But it's, I think, particularly interesting that the senator from Wisconsin... 23:47 decided that that needed to be shared into the public record. 23:50 So that is his theory, that the real victims here were the innocent, MAGA, America-loving, Blue Lives Matter-wearing protesters who were just saying their piece, and they were victimized by the secret Antifa and by the cops themselves who shot the tear gas into the crowd and forced them. 24:10 I mean, they basically... 24:11 They basically forced the Trump fans to attack them with flagpoles and try to stab them to death and throw fire hydrants at them, you know, and as I said, try to kind of claw out their eyeballs and call them the N-word over and over again. 24:27 You know, they were asking for it. 24:30 They were wearing kind of a little bit of a short skirt. 24:33 This is... 24:35 Fucking outrageous. 24:37 I mean, is this, I know that like we have a little bit of outrage fatigue, but this is even potentially more outrageous than anything that any Senator read on the floor during the Trump, the actual Trump presidency. 24:49 No. 24:49 I mean, could you imagine like the, you know, some version of this in October of 20, 2001, uh, a pro Al Qaeda reading on the house floor. 25:04 JVL No, I think this is in the weirdness of it being Ron John and not like Louis Gohmert. 25:14 Right. 25:14 Like it's not Tommy Tuberville. 25:15 It's not Louis Gohmert. 25:17 He's not a senator. 25:18 But he's not somebody who everybody just knows is a crank. 25:21 And Ron John himself does seem to be in on the joke. 25:25 Right. 25:25 He's not actually a true believer. 25:26 No, I don't think so. 25:29 Tim Miller You go back to that phone call. 25:30 Yeah, yeah. 25:32 I don't think he is in on the joke. 25:33 I think that he's bought this, that the Trump fans are God-loving real Americans, and it's the socialists that are the evil ones that don't love America, the Bernie Sanders people and their Pete Seeger songs. 25:45 Sarah Longwell So you mean you think he really means it to him? 25:47 Tim Miller I do. 25:48 Sarah Longwell Yeah. 25:49 JVL Oh, you think he does mean it? 25:51 Tim Miller Yeah. 25:51 Yeah, I do not think that he's in on the joke. 25:53 I mean, just go back to the Mark Becker call that we published. 25:56 JVL No, but he also says to Mark Becker, yeah, I mean, of course, I know the truth about this stuff. 26:00 You just can't say it out loud. 26:02 Tim Miller Yeah, I'm sorry. 26:03 He does not necessarily believe that the election was rigged by Hugo Chavez. 26:07 But I do think that he very much believes that the Trump fans are not at all violent terrorists and that this was real Antifa and the actual evil leftists that did this. 26:20 I think that he really believes that. 26:22 Sarah Longwell Yeah, and I'll say just to the question of would we believe it if somebody had told it to us two years ago? 26:28 I mean, not if I had to be transported into it, but having watched being like the frog in the pot, having watched Ron Johnson over the last couple of years, I actually feel like we've watched him radicalize in front of our eyes. 26:40 Like he's a weird Russia propagandist. 26:44 He is constantly he jumps in front of a camera every chance he gets to say the most pro-Trump 26:51 thing he possibly can the most conspiracy laden thing that he can the fact that he went this far and is quoting the Federalist on the Senate floor is absolutely outrageous but not out of step with I think the person we've watched him become do you guys think that he secretly wants a shot at the title 27:14 They all want a shot at the title. 27:16 Isn't that the whole point of being a senator? 27:17 JVL Not all of them, no. 27:19 But Ron John has never looked like he wanted to go sit in the big chair. 27:26 But maybe he does. 27:28 Maybe he is trying to be super sneaky, you know, hey, maybe I come out of the, you know, let Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton tear each other apart and Josh Hawley. 27:40 And then I sort of ride in as the true heir of MAGA because I was willing to push everything all the way. 27:46 Tim Miller I'm sorry. 27:48 Did you watch it? 27:49 Did you actually watch this feature? 27:50 Sarah Longwell I just watched the clip. 27:53 Tim Miller I'm telling you, this article in the Pro-Coup Federalist really touched Ron somewhere deep. 28:07 I think that Ron John has convinced himself that Make America Great Again is just about getting out the brown people and loving this country for what it had to be. 28:18 Singing some country songs. 28:19 Exactly. 28:20 And I love them some Willie Nelson, you know, I didn't read all of it But he starts you can almost see him get a little wistful as he's like some of these were older people They didn't look like that your types to be rioters, you know, they were maybe overweight. 28:33 They were families. 28:35 They brought their children They were waving their American flags and their blue lives met and their thin blue line flag and I think that this 28:45 Fan fiction article by a Trump propagandist who supported the coup in The Federalist. 28:52 I think Ron got convinced by MAGA propaganda. 28:56 I think that he really does believe that the only explanation for this is that it is the secret evil Antifa that was behind it. 29:06 And that these were just God-fearing people that got kind of swept up in a situation that was pretty... 29:13 You know, that was just not any different than the, you know, March for Our Lives march. 29:19 These were just people that were doing their civic duty and they got kind of swept up in the moment. 29:23 Kind of like when you charge the field and tear down the flagpole after a big win. 29:29 JVL Keep in mind that Ron John is smack dab in the middle of the Republican Senate. 29:33 Tim Miller The flagpole. 29:33 What am I talking about? 29:34 JVL The goalposts. 29:36 The goalposts. 29:37 Tim Miller You're taking down the field goal. 29:38 I like sports. 29:39 Especially college football. 29:40 JVL It's the only sport in which people pull down the goalposts. 29:46 But he is not all the way out on the limb. 29:50 Again, I think he is a median. 29:53 If you're going to rank all the Republican senators by Trumpiness, I think he is right around the fat hump of the curve. 30:00 Sarah Longwell False. 30:02 Let's name people who are more Trumpy than Ron Johnson. 30:06 JVL Everybody who voted against counting the electoral votes. 30:12 Holly, Cruz, Rick Scott. 30:14 Sarah Longwell So Holly, Cruz, Rick Scott. 30:15 Those are fine. 30:16 I'm contesting the media idea. 30:18 JVL Tuberville. 30:20 Sarah Longwell Marsha Blackburn. 30:21 Lankford's not. 30:22 JVL Marsha Blackburn. 30:23 Sarah Longwell Okay, Blackburn. 30:24 JVL I mean, do I have to pull up the – do you really want me to pull up the list and just like go through the caucus? 30:30 Sarah Longwell I think that – I mean, and this isn't even a defense of Republicans. 30:33 I just think it's like as an empirical matter, we should say that he's in like – he's not like the median Republican senator. 30:39 I think that Ron Johnson has moved himself to a place where he is out there with some of the fringiest parts of the Republican Party. 30:48 Kennedy. 30:48 Crosstalk Kennedy. 30:50 Sarah Longwell But like I'm saying more they're not you can bucket that you can say like these are your MAGA people and I would still put Ron John further out than Kennedy Kennedy wouldn't say I don't think they're saying no I would still I would still in terms of the people who buy into the election we're kind of splitting hairs at this point though. 31:11 JVL Yeah, I would say we've got 15 people to the right of him, more MAGA, 15 people who are much less MAGA, and then a lump of 20 guys in the middle. 31:23 Sarah Longwell Is there a different axis for Q and MAGA? 31:27 They're the same, obviously, but aren't they sort of different? 31:30 Because the thing to me about Ranjan is that he is more of a conspiracy theorist than a Kennedy. 31:36 Yeah. 31:36 Or a Lindsey Graham, but in the same bucket of MAGA. 31:45 JVL Maybe. 31:46 I don't know. 31:47 I think that it turns out the Q isn't real, that that was just a deep state. 31:51 Did that happen on Fox News last night? 31:54 Tim Miller I'm glad you brought this up because this is the thing with the Ron Johnson. 31:57 As crazy and just offensive and outrageous as the Ron Johnson remarks were, this is now canon. 32:04 There were multiple Fox shows last night. 32:07 Dinesh was on with Laura Ingram. 32:10 They were kind of doing a little pillow talk and flirting about defending the domestic terrorists. 32:14 Boy, that's funny, isn't it? 32:16 JVL That is a funny back-together-again thing. 32:19 For people who don't know, the two of them dated many moons ago. 32:22 Tim Miller Oh, yeah. 32:23 And Laura was a scorned lover in that situation. 32:27 Sure was. 32:28 Dinesh moved on to Brider Pastures and Coulter. 32:33 And so Laura and Dinesh are just doing a little pillow talk. 32:38 And just like, hey, I mean, these guys are just... 32:40 out for a leisurely stroll uh you know they didn't know what was happening all of a sudden the capitol doors were open and they wanted to go see the statues i mean these people like america and so they wanted to do a little they thought they were getting kind of a little bonus tour you know getting to see all the former confederate leaders um that they could you know sort of leave some cards next to their statues and then tucker uh also was saying that so yeah this is now canon that these people were not that this was not actually a big deal at all 33:07 JVL It is funny to watch the evolution of the canon because the first iteration of the official truth on this was that all of the rioters were Antifa. 33:20 The second iteration was there were no riots. 33:24 The Capitol Police welcomed everybody in. 33:26 The third version of it was these are patriots who are trying to save our democracy. 33:33 And now we have finally arrived at the, there were a bunch of provocateurs and these people were 99.9% of the good ones. 33:42 And there's a few of them got radicalized by stuff at the end. 33:45 It is, it's any, I mean, 33:48 Tim Miller It's like a farmer's day parade in Sioux City. 33:52 The level of authority. 33:53 JVL But this is purely this is authoritarianism. 33:56 This is how authoritarian regimes arrive at truth. 34:00 Right. 34:00 They test out a bunch of things and then they eventually settle on a story. 34:04 And there is no everything is impervious to evidence. 34:09 Right. 34:10 The evidence never has any bearing to do on anything. 34:12 Right. 34:12 And that's where the Republican Party is, which is why Mitt Romney ought to just recognize he's not a Republican anymore. 34:19 Tim Miller Did you get to watch Dinesh and Laura's little kind of like pro-terrorist flirt last night on primetime Fox? 34:30 Sarah Longwell No, I don't sit around watching Primetime Fox. 34:32 Tim Miller Yeah, that's pretty good. 34:33 I mean, these people are getting... Would rather watch Paw Patrol. 34:35 These couple two million viewers are just getting some real hot, heavy-petting, pro-terrorist content. 34:44 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I'm not sure whether I should even bother with this. 34:47 I mean, there's like obviously, like to me, it is actually more about them trying to do a kind of not all conservatives, right? 34:55 They want to separate. 34:56 It seems like it seems like sort of an obvious play, which is we want to make sure we want to say that like most people are good, decent people and they they're not all insurrectionists, that we want to isolate this to a core group of bad actors so that we can say the rest of these people are blameless. 35:11 JVL But also preserve the possibility that we may have to do another insurrection. 35:17 That's the key to it, right? 35:18 Because you don't want to foreclose the possibility that you may have to call for another one of these gatherings. 35:23 That's part of the MO. 35:26 Tim Miller That's right. 35:26 And part two is you can't carve out the bad actors as your fans. 35:34 Right. 35:34 You know, I mean, Tucker's like top producer was a white nationalist, right? 35:37 So he has to argue that there were not actually, this was not actually a white nationalist uprising at all. 35:42 You know, you got to carve out the bad, the bad actors are, you know, these anarchists, right? 35:48 Like they weren't, they aren't real MAGA, right? 35:50 They just bought their hats at Union Station. 35:52 JVL Yeah, you can't. 35:53 They just bought their hats at Union Station. 35:55 Exactly. 35:56 Right? 35:56 Yeah. 35:58 Sarah Longwell The thing is, it is like most lies. 36:02 There's an element of truth to that, right? 36:04 Crosstalk What is the element? 36:05 Sarah Longwell That there's plenty of people that showed up that day not planning to storm the Capitol, right? 36:11 And who didn't, right? 36:13 That there were lots of people. 36:14 So there were probably lots of people who were like, oh my God, people have broken into the Capitol. 36:19 Oh, this is... Because there were... 36:22 I haven't I don't have like a full picture of the day, but there were there was obviously a ton of people who were like pushing into it. 36:29 Obviously, it was super, super bad. 36:31 But I'm but the capital is so big that there were sides of it where people like didn't know this was going on for a period of time. 36:37 Right. 36:37 That there was like where they were just standing around. 36:40 And this is I'm just saying this is what they're hanging their hat on is that, of course, there were different types of people in this audience. 36:45 Tim Miller I guess so. 36:45 I guess so. 36:46 Here's my question. 36:47 Let's say you went to the, you know, kind of Bethesda St. Patrick's Day parade here in a couple of weeks down Main Street, Bethesda. 36:55 And then people started like taking bats to the glass of the SoulCycle and going into the SoulCycle and like taking out bicycles. 37:04 And like you were there with Karen and the kids. 37:07 Like, do you feel like you guys would be like, yeah, I want to check out what's happening in the SoulCycle too? 37:12 Or do you think you would leave? 37:15 Sarah Longwell Yeah, but it's not. 37:16 I mean, that is literally the argument people made about the Black Lives Matter protests this summer, that there were protests that were absolutely peaceful. 37:25 And then there were protests that turned violent. 37:27 And I think that the Fox News crowd at the time tried to make all of it violent and destructive. 37:34 When, of course, we knew that much of it wasn't. 37:37 Most of it wasn't. 37:38 Tim Miller uh and i'm just i don't think i don't think that that's a good analogy i mean the black lives matter protests were were you know these massive protests where people were moving they walked down the street there were a handful of people that would go like whatever spray paint a bank but then everybody didn't start spray painting the bank like everybody went into the capitol i mean there i'm sure a handful of people who went home and had lunch or whatever but like the the preponderance of the crowd went into the capitol 38:02 I don't think that's right. 38:04 Sarah Longwell I don't think that's right either. 38:05 Not even close. 38:06 JVL Not even close. 38:07 I think they had like 300,000 people on the mall. 38:10 Tim Miller They did not have 300,000 people on the mall. 38:11 Sarah Longwell Look, don't put me in a position. 38:13 Don't put me in a position where I feel like I'm defending the insurrectionists. 38:17 I'm not going to do that. 38:18 But I do think that you are over – I do think that my point is that they are hinging – 38:24 uh their argument on something that people will believe to be true because there are elements of truth to it where there were lots of people that day that didn't enter the capitol in fact probably the majority of people didn't enter the capitol if all of the people who were there in the crowd that they entered the capitol it would have i mean we're pushing in we're pushing in now i don't mean like inside the building but into the capitol like ground i mean you see those videos and there's just massive crowds that are yeah there are 38:47 JVL Well, OK, so listen, we can come back to this after I have like gone and done some National Park Service research. 38:54 But I believe that we are talking about a fraction of the main body went to the Capitol. 39:00 Sarah Longwell We had a video person down there, right? 39:02 There was if you look at all of the footage, there's huge swaths of people that are just milling around like while this is happening. 39:08 Like it's actually the insanity of the scene. 39:10 The insanity of the scene is the fact that you've got like one group that is 39:14 violently pushing into it. 39:16 There are smoke bombs. 39:17 They are, we find out later, beating cops with flagpoles, whatever. 39:20 And then there's a bunch of people who can't really see that who are on either the other side, different sides of the building or just back farther in the crowd who are just kind of watching it. 39:29 Tim Miller Maybe preponderance was not true. 39:30 That's fair. 39:31 But I mean, there were significant people with Trump flags. 39:34 I mean, this is like a different... 39:35 This is different in nature than saying that there are like five people that went into a bank. 39:39 Totally true. 39:40 You know what I mean? 39:40 Like there's a significant percentage of people carrying flags and regalia like going up into the Capitol. 39:47 JVL Yeah. 39:47 No, look, we're having an argument about a distinction where we're trying to be overly fair to the people. 39:54 The point is it isn't like it was 0.1% of the total crowd that stormed the Capitol. 40:01 It's more like it was 10 to 20%. 40:04 So a large number. 40:08 So has the next episode started? 40:12 Sarah Longwell Yeah, man. 40:12 I just had to give him some pirate's booty. 40:14 JVL Pirate's booty. 40:17 So, Sarah, if Senator Mitt Romney was not going to become a Democrat, could he become an independent or start a new party? 40:28 Tim Miller To get away from Ron Johnson? 40:31 Shouldn't he want to? 40:32 So he no longer has to go to a caucus lunch with Ron Johnson anymore? 40:35 Sarah Longwell So there's a lot of third party talk right now. 40:40 And I think that Tim Miller, Bill Kristol and I, and maybe you JVL, I don't know, I'll be interested to get your take on this, are in actually the minority position within the sort of never Trump community, but not, I think, the never Trump voting population, but the sort of never Trump Washington community. 41:03 There's a real movement 41:05 to start a third party and and it would be kind of a i mean that i'm not gonna go too much into it in terms of like what you hear in the internal double deliberations but it is the idea is kind of that there would be a either a a faction within the existing republican party or a third party like it would break off you'd form a third party and it would be like a real conservative party like a true principled conservative party 41:29 And I just am not into it. 41:33 I don't think it makes any sense. 41:35 And a big part of the reason is that whether we like it or not, you know, people talk about the two-party duopoly. 41:41 And it's true. 41:42 We've got a two-party system. 41:44 And the parties are both... 41:46 too weak not to be hijacked by outside forces. 41:50 I mean, the Republican Party was taken over by Donald Trump, and he was able to completely transform it. 41:56 The Democratic Party was nearly taken over by Bernie Sanders, who almost won the nomination, who doesn't even call himself a Democrat. 42:04 It's more moderate forces reasserted themselves, and Joe Biden obviously... 42:09 One, but the point is, is that I don't see sort of like a quick way that you break up that that two party duopoly. 42:17 Right. 42:17 There's still there's still sort of because anybody else becomes a spoiler. 42:21 There's a reason that Tim and I, when Justin Amash was thinking about getting into the race, wrote an op ed pleading with him not to do it. 42:30 And I think that people who talk about a sort of conservative third party have this idea like, well, you'll split the Republican Party. 42:37 And it won't be able to win because it won't be able to form a major coalition. 42:42 And I think the piece that they miss is how many... 42:47 sort of either right-leaning independents or centrists or other kinds of maybe left-leaning independents that you end up attracting as well like people's it's people's political positions aren't that linear and so when you have a whether it's centrist or center-right kind of party what you actually do is you take people who would otherwise sort of 43:11 hold their nose and caucus with the democrats tim has coined this phrase the red dog democrats so people who are sort of formerly republicans but going into this new political realignment would find the uh a a home enough in the very conservative like in a conservative wing of the democratic party uh and i think there is more 43:33 You either be Mitt Romney and you try to shore up a sane wing of the Republican Party, or I think you join a broad pro-democracy coalition with the Democrats to ensure that this very dangerous version of the MAGA Republican Party doesn't get within striking distance of political power. 43:58 Tim Miller Can I go JBL? 44:00 Because me and Sarah agree 100% on this, but she is being way too diplomatic in her take on our friends in the Never Trump community and their view on this third-party idea, which is fucking moronic. 44:15 It is moronic. 44:17 It is stupid. 44:20 They are... 44:22 we're gonna be running a piece on this tomorrow saying that it's time to plant a fly just so you know just just uh we are gonna be running a piece that keep going tim keep going tim it is navel gazing it is masturbatory um uh it is it's ridiculous and and and here's why because and i think bill nailed this and and he got in trouble with some of our friends at the national review and even the dispatch over this by saying what about joe biden 44:51 I mean, here's, Joe Biden is fine, okay? 44:55 Like, it is a different story if there was a socialist, an actual socialist, or an actual anti-democratic, you know, illiberal left-wing, you know, populist running the Democratic Party. 45:09 There's not. 45:10 Joe Biden is fine. 45:11 Do you disagree with him on some things? 45:12 Yes. 45:13 Are there going to be a handful of people who are so passionate about abortion that it is their one issue and they can't get past it and they need to have some kind of group like the Libertarians, some kind of small organizing group that advocates around pro-life issues that allies with either party depending on which ones are doing, the Republicans when they're doing abortion legislation, the Democrats when they're not trying to 45:42 you know stuff uh four-year-olds in the rio grande river like fine okay like if you want to start a little offshoot pro-life group that's fine that's not a national governing party right that's an issue group like that is like the sierra club right or that is you know like whatever all any other various issue groups the human rights campaign 46:02 For an actual organizing governing party, you need to create a coalition that can win elections. 46:10 And this idea that a small government pro-life Joe Biden is going to win elections is fucking asinine. 46:19 Maybe they could win elections in a specific state, in a specific issue. 46:23 If you want to gather Charlie Baker and Phil Scott... 46:28 and john bell edwards in louisiana and create a little team that's like the you know say what you want about the reform party back in the day that was at least an idea that could have worked right it was more of a coalition of people that had various different ideas that that worked together to try to break up the duopoly in various states that's fine like i i'm happy to hear about potential ideas that are targeted to localities 46:53 Maybe if Joe Biden dies or has a stroke and Bernie Sanders wins, then we can rediscuss this in 2028. 47:02 But the current conversation that is happening is a waste of time. 47:08 And it's a bunch of people on K Street that are looking for something to do. 47:13 Because the vast, vast majority of these voters are red dogs. 47:16 They've already left. 47:17 They voted for Democrats in 2018. 47:19 They voted for Joe Biden in 2020. 47:20 They probably voted for Evan in 2016 or maybe Hillary or maybe Gary Johnson. 47:25 They haven't voted for a Republican in six damn years now. 47:28 Okay? 47:28 Like, they're Democrats, basically. 47:30 And they might go back. 47:31 They might be swing voters. 47:33 Like, that's fine. 47:33 People change. 47:34 But right now, most of them have left. 47:36 There's another small but important swing group that we talked to in our VAT that are pretty much still Republicans that just hated Donald Trump. 47:43 They're still going to be Republicans and they're going to fight a losing battle inside the Republican Party. 47:47 God bless them. 47:48 I support that. 47:49 But like that, that is the political reality right now. 47:52 And like every conversation we have, I get asked about why not do this third party. 47:58 And so I'm going to tell people to scroll to the 50th minute of the February 24th next level and they can hear my answer for why not. 48:06 JVL Yeah, I mean, it's just a question of how many troops does the pope have, right? 48:12 I mean, how many people are there who believe in small government constitutional conservatism? 48:18 I mean, probably a couple dozen. 48:24 Sarah Longwell It's enough for a dinner party, not a political party. 48:28 JVL Yeah. 48:28 The truth is, there is a viable third party constituency in America, and that's for Trumpism. 48:35 If Donald Trump were to walk away from the Republican Party, he could take a very large percentage of the party with him. 48:45 Tim Miller And pick up a few Sanders, pick up a few Glenn Greenwald types. 48:48 JVL Yes. 48:49 And actually, in some states, win some Senate seats, win a bunch of House seats. 48:56 It would be hard to win the presidency, but not impossible. 49:00 Because what you might be able to do is essentially turn the Republican presidential candidate into the spoiler, right? 49:09 So where you're forcing Republican voters to choose, do I want to throw away my vote, supporting... 49:15 You know, good guy Republican X when he's polling at 20 percent. 49:23 Right. 49:23 Liz Cheney at 20 percent when Trump is polling at 25 percent and Joe Biden is polling at 45 percent. 49:30 Wouldn't it be better for me to just vote for Trump and maximize our coalition there? 49:35 So because there are, you know, there are several million people who would join that party, tens of millions of people who would join that party tomorrow. 49:46 So because all of these things, the third and again, we're writing a piece on this because I think it's an important conversation to have. 49:54 I don't necessarily agree with the piece, but it's as I said, I think it's an important conversation. 49:59 They start from a top-down idea and not a bottom-up understanding, and that is where I think so much of our understanding of politics over the last five years has gone wrong. 50:12 It is from thinking about the elites as if the elites had control over events when— 50:20 They should have been looking at what the voters wanted and how the tide was moving at that level. 50:27 I agree with that. 50:28 Tim Miller I just want to go back to the Romney thing because the biggest criticism that I think is correct or at least has a point about the not doing the red dog thing, when I hear from people that want to do the independent route or who want to stay in the Republican, 50:45 is that they say that this group isn't going to have any power in the Democratic Party either. 50:49 Right? 50:49 Like, not just to the same that they don't really have a power now in the Republican Party. 50:52 You're just switching teams where you don't have power. 50:55 JVL Joe Manchin seems to have a whole lot of fucking power. 50:56 Tim Miller Exactly. 50:57 And so this is the problem. 50:58 It's that, like, well, that's not really exactly quite true. 51:02 I mean, if you see power as you're not going to be able to convince the Democrats to become pro-life... 51:09 Yeah, you're right. 51:10 You're right. 51:10 Like this group isn't big enough to make the Democrats change their main platform. 51:16 But the group is big enough, as we saw in the Democratic primary, to work with a coalition to keep out socialists, which is a pretty important goal for people who aren't socialists. 51:25 The group is big enough if Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, they're not going to do this, but this is, again, just for fan fiction purposes, joined with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and said that they were going to be in the Democratic caucus and now that group of five. 51:39 Do you think that Mitt Romney could get the stimulus to look more like how he wants if he did that and joined with them in a caucus? 51:45 Sure could. 51:46 Sarah Longwell But you don't have to be an independent to do that. 51:48 This is the thing. 51:49 You could just be like, we're going to squat up in the center and we're going to have this group of moderates that come together because we've got all the control. 51:58 Tim Miller That's true. 51:59 JVL I think you have much more power if you just say, look, I'm on your team, guys. 52:03 I'm here for you guys. 52:04 And when you have tough votes, I'll be there for you. 52:07 But we got to carve $350 billion out of the stimulus. 52:12 You know what? 52:12 That would be a hell of a lot more effective than writing an op-ed. 52:14 Sarah Longwell Do you know that Mitt Romney is from a state where they don't have Democrats, right? 52:17 JVL Okay, that's not true. 52:19 Sarah Longwell That's not true. 52:20 JVL In Salt Lake City, there is a Democratic party. 52:23 Sarah Longwell You're right that there are human Democrats that exist, people that are willing to admit that they're Democrats in Salt Lake City, but the state is red as red. 52:29 But he's not running for re-election. 52:31 He's not running for re-election. 52:32 Tim Miller This is actually an interesting thought exercise because I was thinking about this yesterday. 52:35 Does Liz Cheney have... 52:38 And I don't think Liz Cheney is going to reasonably become a Democrat, but just as a thought exercise. 52:42 No. 52:43 Does Liz Cheney have a better chance to win a one-on-one primary in Wyoming, in a Republican primary, or does she have a better chance walking down to the Wyoming Democratic Party and saying, if you guys don't run anybody and you endorse me, I will make one vote for the House. 52:59 I will vote as I've been voting, but I'll vote for you guys for Speaker. 53:02 And and you're not going to run a Democrat and I'm going to run in the general election as a whatever independent who caucuses with Democrats. 53:11 And I'm running a general election in Wyoming against whatever some MAGA person. 53:15 I mean, I think that they're both probably dead death. 53:18 Sarah Longwell death wishes but which which do you think is about i would take the former all day long i think liz cheney can survive a mega primary in wyoming i do not think she can run as a democrat not to mention it would just be preposterous based on her policy but this is this is where i just i think you guys are ignoring a certain amount of reality like adam kinzinger is actually quite a conservative person democratic voters would not find if they listen to adam kinzinger tick through his policy beliefs 53:45 They would not find him to be an attractive candidate. 53:47 Mitt Romney as well. 53:48 Liz Cheney as well. 53:50 Just because they are on an axis of pro-democracy versus pro-authoritarian, they become more attractive to a broad pro-democracy coalition. 54:01 That's true. 54:02 But as a pure political matter, they do not read as Democrats. 54:05 They're nowhere close, especially like a Liz Cheney. 54:10 Tim Miller I don't I mean, like I said, I don't disagree with that. 54:12 This is for me a thought exercise. 54:14 I just don't because I don't think she ever could clear a Wyoming Democratic primary. 54:18 Right. 54:18 Because of the reason she just laid out. 54:20 But I do wonder if she'd have a better chance because then she could be at least run as an honest person. 54:26 I mean, imagine how she's going to have to run in her primary next year. 54:29 uh you know she's gonna have to pretend like she thought donald trump was great on all these other things i mean it's like her only chance to win a mega primary like she's not gonna win a mega primary by you know talking about how you know you know crazy ron and on is and and how you know attacking her opponent for being an insane person like that's not how she's gonna win 54:53 Sarah Longwell No, you know, I gave her money. 54:54 I gave them all money after they, you know, voted for impeachment. 54:58 And so now I get their texts like I'm on their list and her texts that I get the like the fundraising texts are all like, you've got to stop Nancy Pelosi and her radical socialist agenda. 55:08 No, I know. 55:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 55:09 But that's my point. 55:10 But that is that is that is who she is there. 55:12 She is she's pro-democracy. 55:14 She was anti-coup. 55:16 But she is a she is a rock ribbed Republican. 55:19 And and and like that is going to be a rock ribbed Republican out of a job. 55:26 JVL I mean, if you want to be in government and you're Liz Cheney, you're better off changing some of your policy positions and become a conservative Dem who just swallows hard and votes with the Dems where you have to and tries to move the – because the alternative is that or be out of politics. 55:45 Tim Miller Well, one of them is going to survive. 55:47 I mean, she could get lucky. 55:49 There could be five MAGA people that run against her. 55:51 JVL The big hope is that these people look so weak that they pull multiple challengers in. 55:58 Tim Miller yeah um and then she can survive kind of a plurality that's possible um i mean that's a much more likely path than any of the other ones we've suggested but that's based on luck like that's not based on skill you know anything that she did she just got lucky that the maga people are so incompetent that they're going to run six different candidates against her and they all split the vote but um it's like the whole republican party when donald trump was there 56:21 Yeah, exactly. 56:22 An inverse of that. 56:24 So maybe that could happen. 56:24 I don't know. 56:26 And again, so maybe the answer is for some of these people in an individual situation to run as independents. 56:31 And that's a different calculus. 56:33 Sarah Longwell That is a different calculus. 56:34 There are places where it could potentially make sense. 56:37 I don't know that the people that you're talking about make sense to me, but there's certainly like a David Jolly in Florida could potentially run as an independent. 56:45 Although I still think even there, I think that there is – 56:49 Merit to the idea that there's a bunch of places now where actually being a Republican who has become a Democrat as a moderate Democrat, a Conor Lamb, Abigail Spanberger type Democrat could be very attractive in certain districts or certain states. 57:08 JVL The Red Dogs, baby. 57:11 All right, we've gone very long. 57:12 Tim, you had something else you wanted to talk about, but I don't remember what it was. 57:17 Tim Miller I had a very heavy... 57:19 I spent a lot of time crying watching It's a Sin this weekend, which is a miniseries about a young baby gay coming out of the closet in the 80s in London during the AIDS crisis. 57:33 But I have some heavy, deep thoughts about it. 57:36 And this has been a very full episode. 57:41 And so we're just going to save it because it's evergreen. 57:44 It's an evergreen thought. 57:46 And everybody can maybe watch It's a Sin if you want to get some feelings over the next week. 57:50 You can watch it. 57:51 You can watch it or not watch it. 57:53 But you should bear down if you're going to watch it. 57:57 If you're really kind of having a bad day and just want to bathe in it and wade in the sadness, it would maybe be good. 58:03 Or if you're having a good day and you're looking to balance it out. 58:07 JVL All right, so if we're going to do that another time, there is something I want to just quickly handle the three of us before we get out. 58:12 Tim, you posed a question on our Slack the other day. 58:15 You asked the Bulwark team who was correct about the handling of the 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard. 58:26 I did not vote in this, but as the Brad Raffensperger of the office, can I ask what the final tally was there? 58:34 Tim Miller It was an overwhelming victory for sending the old Nazi the hell back to Deutschland. 58:40 I believe six to two was the final vote. 58:44 But regardless of what it was, it was a significant victory. 58:48 And Sarah was one of the two. 58:50 She voted for herself. 58:52 I did not vote. 58:52 We voted via emoji and Sarah got the lady construction worker, which I was pretty proud of. 58:57 How did you vote, Timothy? 58:59 Only two lady construction workers. 59:00 Oh, I voted with you. 59:02 Send the Nazis back. 59:03 I don't really need to know the particulars. 59:06 I'm sure he's lived a good life here. 59:09 Sarah Longwell You don't need to know the particulars. 59:11 It doesn't matter to you. 59:13 It doesn't matter to you. 59:14 No? 59:15 Tim Miller No, I mean, there's some pretty clear lines. 59:18 And, you know, being a Luftwassen is one of them. 59:22 And being a guard at the gas chamber is a no-fly zone for me. 59:29 And that also is American law. 59:31 by the way uh which he evaded uh we had a no um immigration for nazis you know i'm basically an open borders man um this is my this is my most socialist opinion um and even me as an open borders man uh would hold a very hard line on nazis um and so sarah 59:52 That's going to put you out on the pretty extreme end of things, I think, to be pro-Nazi in America. 59:57 Sarah Longwell That's a funny way to phrase that, pro-Nazi. 60:01 JVL That's a very interesting framing. 60:03 Sarah Longwell Yeah. 60:06 As opposed to me being the only one. 60:08 What I actually find mystifying is how little people cared. 60:13 thanks buddy how little people cared about thank you how little people cared about the actual merits of this case like nobody wants to know was he a guard for a couple of years was it for three weeks because the government made him go he was 19 like did he was did he absolutely have to was he was he was he terrible to people like if he if he was if he was like if he volunteered and to be a nazi death camp officer and 60:41 And he, you know, was marching people to their deaths like, fine, take the 95 year old and put him against the wall. 60:46 I don't care. 60:47 But you guys don't even you have none of those facts. 60:49 You don't know anything about this. 60:50 Tim Miller Is whether or not he was a Nazi in dispute or are we sure that he was a Nazi? 60:55 Sarah Longwell Well, everybody in Germany was a Nazi. 60:58 Tim Miller A bit of active, a working Nazi. 61:01 Sarah Longwell I mean, if you were 19 and you were conscripted into service, and so he was. 61:07 Tim Miller I think the area is nice, so he should have stayed there. 61:10 You know, that's fine. 61:11 JVL So I am happy to stipulate that you didn't have much of a choice. 61:16 And if the consequence, as I said on the show, was, do we hang him or not? 61:20 Then all of these details would matter. 61:23 But if the consequence is, do we ship him back to Deutschland for his final years? 61:29 then I don't think we need to know anything else about the story. 61:33 Because that is a perfectly... 61:35 Even if you say, oh, you know, I mean, it was this or gets sent to Leningrad to die in the mud. 61:39 Well, he still chose this. 61:42 And the only consequence he gets for choosing that... 61:45 Sarah Longwell But you're just making up those facts. 61:46 Like, you have no idea the particulars of this case. 61:49 Like, thank goodness our judicial system doesn't work like this. 61:53 We're like, nothing... 61:54 None of it matters. 61:56 My kid is like, why are you shouting? 61:57 Tim Miller One thing matters. 61:58 One thing matters. 61:59 Was he a Nazi or was he not? 62:01 JVL Your kid is saying, Mom, he should be deported. 62:05 Mom, send him back. 62:06 Sarah Longwell He's not. 62:06 He wants to watch Mighty Express. 62:08 JVL He's saying, Mom, JBL is right. 62:10 The nice bounce house man is right. 62:12 Tim Miller Why didn't he come forward? 62:13 Couldn't he have come forward and said, by the way, I was a Nazi. 62:16 I'm looking for a pass. 62:19 Probably should have done that. 62:21 Sarah Longwell That could be true. 62:22 Again, we have no idea what the particulars are. 62:25 Did he sneak in? 62:26 Did he lie about who he was? 62:28 You don't know that. 62:29 It's amazing to me that everybody's willing to just... 62:33 I know the key fact. 62:34 I know the key fact. 62:35 All right. 62:35 Well, I will just tell you how much I hate this particular podcast today where I have been put in the position to defend both somehow the 95-year-old Nazi and the insurrectionist just because you guys are unwilling to have any nuance in your thinking. 62:48 JVL While also parenting. 62:49 Sarah Longwell While also parenting. 62:51 JVL While high degree of difficulty. 62:54 All right, guys. 62:55 See you next week. 62:56 Sarah Longwell Peace. 62:56 Bye.