00:04 JVL Hello, everyone. 00:06 Welcome to The Next Level. 00:07 I'm JVL here with my best friends, Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of The Bulwark. 00:13 Let's get to it. 00:14 The impeachment of Joe Biden is moving forward in the House based on... 00:21 Sebastian, can you give us some audio to start us off with Representative Joe Neguse? 00:28 Neguse, did I have that right? 00:29 Or is it more of the Italian Neguse? 00:32 Neguse. 00:33 Out of Colorado. 00:33 Sarah Longwell Come on, he got famous during the first impeachment. 00:36 JVL Talking with Guy Reschenthaler yesterday. 00:40 That's very German. 00:41 Yeah. 00:43 Sebastian, hit it. 00:44 Crosstalk What is the specific constitutional crime? 00:48 that you're investigating? 00:49 Well, we're having an inquiry, so we can do an investigation and control the production of witnesses. 00:54 And what is the crime you're investigating? 00:56 And documents. 00:58 High crimes, misdemeanors, and bribery. 01:00 What high crime and misdemeanor are you investigating? 01:02 The high one. 01:03 Once I get time, I will explain what we're looking at, and I will make the equivalency of the last impeachment. 01:10 JVL No, I'm just asking you for the... 01:13 So, I mean, normally when there is a high crime, you can do an elevator pitch for it. 01:20 For instance, the president of the United States got on the phone with the president of Ukraine and said, you have to investigate my political opponent or I won't give you military aid. 01:31 Or for instance, the president of the United States stood up on a stage and said, you have to go down to the Capitol this afternoon and stop the certification of the electoral college votes with strength. 01:46 There, that's the elevator pitch. 01:48 The elevator pitch for the Joe Biden impeachment is that the crimes he is accused of committing are high. 01:57 Sarah Longwell Maybe it's because Hunter Biden was high. 02:02 That's it. 02:03 JVL Sarah, how is it that this could... How is it that this could float with the general public, right? 02:10 Sarah Longwell You know, I get very JVL in my head with stuff like this because this is one of those asymmetric things, right? 02:19 I listened to voters... 02:21 During all of these impeachments be like, this is a political witch hunt. 02:25 This is silly. 02:26 Why are they spending resources on this? 02:29 And like there was a thing. 02:30 There was a thing to follow. 02:33 And the idea that they are going to impeach now. 02:36 But and here's the other thing, like they keep doing this. 02:39 They keep being like, well, we need to impeach. 02:41 to do the investigation to find out the things. 02:45 And this is not the first time they've said this. 02:47 It's just now they finally got to the formal part. 02:50 And I guess it's because they've realized they have so little that they have to formally impeach in order to, I guess, get the legal standing to try to dig deeper. 03:00 But they must already know. 03:02 They would have found it by now. 03:04 They've been in a formal inquiry now for months and months. 03:08 Tim Miller Yeah. 03:08 No, they have to impeach to find out what's going on. 03:10 They took it from Nancy Pelosi. 03:12 You know, we've got to impeach Joe Biden to find it out. 03:15 I got to tell you, I had a couple of observations. 03:17 This fella, Reschenthaler fire. 03:20 I'd never heard of him. 03:22 And it's like, 03:24 I just think that there is this insight into what is happening in the Republican conference, which is like every time you meet a new person, they're stupider than you could possibly imagine. 03:35 I don't want to insult the Penn State University at Erie. 03:39 I was Googling a guy's resume here, but he seems like a total moron. 03:45 He was completely unable to answer the basic questions about what he's doing there. 03:50 He doesn't seem to care. 03:51 And this is just a median member now. 03:53 Sarah Longwell This guy might be above median. 03:55 Tim Miller I know. 03:56 People are still living in the 2017 construct, which is like if you didn't know a Republican congressperson, they're probably a basically, you know, a minimally competent member of Congress from an earlier era who decided to be quiet because Donald Trump took over the party. 04:14 And now they're sitting silently in the back bench. 04:16 That's not it. 04:17 Most of those people have cycled out. 04:19 And they've been replaced by the Reich and Slater fire. 04:21 So that's one observation I have. 04:23 Here's the other one that's only kind of tangentially related to this. 04:27 There's another big news this week. 04:29 I don't know if you saw this, which is Biden's Department of Justice laid a pretty serious indictment against Biden's son. 04:36 Sarah Longwell Mark Hunter. 04:37 Yeah, the deep state. 04:38 Tim Miller Yeah, like you might go to jail. 04:40 You really very well – 04:42 This is a – Hunter is in very serious danger of going to jail level indictment. 04:47 This is not a little BS patty cake indictment or a show indictment, whatever. 04:53 This is a real deal indictment. 04:55 And when DOJ indicts somebody with real deal indictments, they go to jail most of the time. 05:00 And so it's intriguing because the fundamental – 05:05 underlying element of, that I actually can explain better than Guy Reichenflasher, of what the point is, of what they claim to be investigating, is that Joe Biden was wrapped up in Hunter Biden's foreign dealings in some way or another. 05:21 When he was president, right? 05:22 Yeah. 05:22 No, no, no. 05:23 Sorry, when he's not president. 05:25 Oh, when he was not president? 05:26 Yeah, no. 05:26 And also not when he was vice president. 05:28 That's so weird. 05:29 Also not when he was vice president, actually, when he was after the vice presidency. 05:32 There are some spurious accusations about his time when he was vice president, but most of the core accusations happened in the four years when Trump was president. 05:40 That seems so weird. 05:41 That is weird. 05:42 So anyway, if Biden was using the levers of his power— 05:47 in order to help enrich his son and help his son when he was VP and when he was not in an elected office. 05:54 You would think that when he'd be president, he might try to do that as well. 05:59 I don't know. 05:59 Try to put his thumb on the scale with old Merrick Garland. 06:02 Maybe have a tarmac meeting. 06:04 Maybe berate him publicly on X as another former president did. 06:11 I don't know. 06:11 There are a few potential things. 06:13 And he doesn't seem to have done any of that. 06:15 His last surviving son. 06:18 JVL Worst head of a crime family ever. 06:20 Tim Miller Yeah, who seems to love very much. 06:22 And Hunter's in deep doo-doo. 06:25 And yet, somehow, this chain of events has not changed the narrative from a single Republican. 06:32 There's a great Jonathan J piece in New York Magazine today that he goes through. 06:36 Rich Lowry at the National Review is out there talking about, I can't believe people are getting the vapors about Donald Trump wanting to be a dictator when Joe Biden's out here running, having the DOJ indict his opponent. 06:48 And the Wall Street Journal is out there saying, oh, the Biden DOJ is corrupt. 06:52 Well, how much worse could Trump's be? 06:54 And it's like the Biden DOJ has indicted now Joe's son, Bob Menendez. 07:00 They're investigating Eric Adams. 07:02 They're investigating a member of Congress from the Democratic Party from Texas. 07:07 I mean, there is no amount of actual facts and action that could possibly change this imaginary narrative that Biden is corrupt and is the same as Trump. 07:17 JVL And yet all of this stuff, which is apparently, you know, prima facie insane, is going to wind up hurting Biden and helping Trump. 07:26 Right. 07:27 Because we will get both. 07:28 Hey, see, Hunter Biden is guilty. 07:31 And so Joe Biden is just as corrupt to go along right next to Trump is innocent because it's all a deep state conspiracy. 07:39 Both of those things are going to be true in the minds of voters. 07:41 Sarah Longwell Here's the thing, though. 07:42 I mean, some of it is the bifurcated media. 07:45 Some of it is the shamelessness of Republicans, whatever. 07:47 But like the case that we are making about the DOJ, I don't hear that from Democrats very often. 07:53 Now, maybe I'm not watching the right MSNBC shows, but I feel like- The White House can't make it because the White House shouldn't be commenting on these things. 08:01 I'm going to lose my mind on this surrogate stuff. 08:03 Like the idea that there is not an army of talkers out there to be like, look how fair this Department of Justice is. 08:10 Look at what they're doing. 08:11 They are investigating Joe Biden. 08:12 Now, maybe some of the lawyerly types are doing it. 08:15 But like the political side needs to do it. 08:17 This campaign needs to start. 08:18 I am getting beside myself. 08:20 Like the reason I'm sorry, the reason for the asymmetry is in part. 08:24 Because of a communications gap, because there is no offense strategy right now. 08:29 Everybody thinks that Trump's going to do it for them. 08:31 And he's not. 08:32 I mean, he is to some degree, but like you got to do your job. 08:36 You got to get out there and be really aggressive about making these cases. 08:39 Tim Miller I want to agree in part and disagree just in part. 08:42 So the Biden White House has been pretty aggressive at making James Comer seem be clowned. 08:48 They put out a lot of press releases, a lot about that. 08:50 They talk about that. 08:52 I do think that there's a media element to this. 08:54 James Comer being a total clown is not on the Today Show. 08:58 I just, it isn't. 09:00 We talked about this a little bit last week, that it's kind of crazy, right, that we have a head of a committee that puts out these wheels off press releases with accusations with no basis behind them. 09:10 And it kind of doesn't make the news a lot of times. 09:13 Sarah Longwell But this is my point. 09:14 My point is that the reason that the Republicans are able to dominate these narratives and conversations is because they're out there being like, put me on TV. 09:19 Comer with no evidence goes on television all the time to talk about all the evidence he doesn't have. 09:25 Right. 09:26 To just blow the smoke. 09:28 And I'm saying that the Democrats, you can't get a hundred of them to be out there all the time to be pushing the story like the media. 09:36 You have to you have to set the narrative. 09:37 You have to set the tempo. 09:38 I just I think they are living in a bygone era where they think the media is just going to like do it for them. 09:44 And you know what? 09:44 Their stuff's not as exciting. 09:46 They got to make it exciting. 09:47 They got to get aggressive. 09:48 They got to have people who are validators and messengers. 09:51 Tim Miller The part where I do agree with you, I was going to save the story time for the very end. 09:53 But I will say, without betraying any confidences, I think it will be pretty easy to figure this out. 09:58 I was at a Democratic fundraiser where I met with a certain secretary in Joe Biden's cabinet. 10:03 We won't say who it is. 10:04 And I said to the secretary, I don't know what exactly your day-to-day looks like, you know. 10:10 Maybe it could be fixing potholes. 10:12 Maybe it could be looking at the hospital system. 10:14 You guys can decide who that might have been. 10:17 And that's really important. 10:18 And I've got some potholes on my street. 10:20 But maybe there's a better use of your skills. 10:24 Sarah Longwell Your particular talent. 10:25 Tim Miller Your particular talent. 10:27 Like taken. 10:28 JVL You have a very particular set of skills. 10:30 Yeah. 10:31 You can go on television and explain things. 10:33 And you will go on television and explain everything to everybody unless you people elect Joe Biden. 10:38 Tim Miller And I got to tell you, the response is tepid. 10:43 The response is tepid. 10:44 Again, there's a lot of, we're kind of doing this. 10:48 There's a lot of, oh, I don't know. 10:50 I don't want to step on. 10:51 All well-intentioned, right? 10:53 All well-intentioned. 10:55 But there's a tepidness about it, just about whether this is needed. 11:01 Right. 11:01 Whether it's needed. 11:02 Sarah Longwell Whether it's needed. 11:04 There's just this gap to me that drives me crazy. 11:07 There's a gap between the language of, boy, democracy might end, Trump might be a dictator, all this stuff. 11:16 And then the like, do we need to get out there and push hard? 11:19 Maybe it's a little overkill. 11:20 JVL Maybe they're just waiting for the fourth quarter. 11:21 You know, everybody makes a run. 11:23 They want to make their run in the fourth quarter. 11:25 Before we move on, just very quickly, I went to check in on our friend Andrew McCarthy, the very serious lawyer at National Review, because I was curious as to what he had to say all this. 11:34 Here are the last two stories from him. 11:36 The first is about the Trump prosecutions. 11:39 Headline, the wages of prosecuting presidents over their official acts. 11:43 You don't have to support Trump to worry that the criminal charges against him will set a dangerous norm-breaking precedent. 11:50 Okay? 11:51 That's on the one hand. 11:51 On the other hand, he wrote about the Hunter Biden stuff. 11:55 The Hunter Biden tax indictment is a disaster for the White House. 11:59 So, you know. 12:01 Tim Miller It's a norm-breaking precedent to investigate Republicans, but totally appropriate. 12:06 JVL For things they did while president. 12:07 Tim Miller Yeah, totally appropriate to investigate the sitting president's own son. 12:12 JVL For stuff that he did while the president himself wasn't even president. 12:16 That is okay, and that's really important. 12:19 Tim Miller And it says bad things about the president. 12:21 One more thing just worth mentioning on this before we move on about, again, just the absurdity of all this, like to argue that this is some deep state plot. 12:29 Charlie wrote about this this morning called This is the Big One in his newsletter. 12:32 The short of this is Trump is saying in the Jack Smith case that he is immune from all his crimes because there's some sort of magic presidential immunity. 12:41 Judge Chutkin said this is nonsense. 12:43 And now this is being appealed to the Supreme Court. 12:46 The Supreme Court says they're going to take this. 12:48 So this whole question of whether or not Trump is held accountable for what he's doing now sits in the hands of a Supreme Court where he appointed three other people, right? 12:59 JVL He still needs to get two people he didn't appoint. 13:02 Tim Miller Yeah, and still- 13:03 They will be able to make the case that this is some deep state plot against Trump when four separate grand juries of regular people in four different jurisdictions decided to move it forward. 13:13 And where the most serious case against him, whether he can be held accountable on this indictment. 13:19 Now that choice sits in the hands of a court where he appointed a third of the members. 13:24 JVL And yet still there's some democratic bias. 13:26 We really do have to move on. 13:28 But I want you to explain to me, Sarah, because I know what the answer is, but I don't know what the explanation is. 13:33 Why is it that the three justices who Trump appointed should not recuse themselves on this case? 13:41 Because I think they shouldn't, probably. 13:43 But on the other hand, we hear all the time from people in your focus groups about like, well, the... 13:49 I don't know, because it's the Supreme Court. 13:51 You pull three people off on a big, important case like this. 13:55 You have to be able to trust them somewhat. 13:57 If they were to recuse themselves, it would be fine with me, but I can also see my way to say, no, that's a bridge too far. 14:04 Sarah Longwell This is a legal question that I don't know the answer to. 14:06 Like, do judges, when the people who appoint them, like if you're on a circuit court or something lower, the people who appoint them, a case comes in front of them, do they recuse themselves? 14:15 JVL Yeah, no, it does seem to me, right, if you were appointed by the governor to a court and the governor was charged with embezzlement and you, the judge, you would not get that case, right? 14:26 Or if it came to you, it would not go to you. 14:28 Seems obvious to me. 14:29 Sarah Longwell just as a last point on this, the extent to which we are just slowly walking towards multiple constitutional crises, like the – if we spend some time mapping it out, the idea that Trump could get convicted in Georgia, which is not federal, which is a state, and also then win Georgia as part of the election and, like, be sentenced to prison but also be the president of the United States, like – 14:53 JVL Everything breaks their way. 14:55 Tim Miller It does feel like a rigged game. 14:57 Okay. 14:58 This is the frustrating part about all of this is that I just feel like it's also so obvious. 15:01 We're so right. 15:03 We're so right. 15:05 JVL Why isn't everybody just saying what we're saying? 15:08 Tim Miller It's frustrating. 15:09 JVL Vladimir Zelensky came to America and everything went great. 15:14 Republicans are not going to sign off on giving aid to Ukraine unless the House passes H.R. 15:22 2, which is their border security bill, and unless the Senate passes some undefined border security bill, which Republicans won't actually say what it is. 15:32 They say that they're willing to pass the Ukraine aid, provided the Democrats 15:37 are good on border security, but when the Democrats have asked them to say, okay, so what is it you'd like to do on border security? 15:43 The Republicans have declined to say anything. 15:47 That's great, right? 15:48 This is all perfectly normal stuff that, again, falls right within those two 40-yard lines on the football field of American politics, right? 15:56 Sarah Longwell Here's the thing. 15:56 Republicans do not want to give the Democrats a win on immigration. 16:00 They don't want to solve this problem. 16:02 They want this to be a bad situation going into the next election, so they're not interested in doing it. 16:07 And I have a critique of you, JVL, from reading your newsletter. 16:10 Read it. 16:11 Great. 16:11 JVL You finally read it and you want to read it. 16:13 Sarah Longwell And I've got and I've got some I've got a problem like it because your Joe Biden should cave on immigration. 16:18 Got some people's backs up. 16:20 Mine included. 16:21 And part of it was the framing of the idea that Joe Biden should cave on immigration versus people to read. 16:29 JVL It's just a headline. 16:29 That's the only place the cave appeared was in the headline. 16:32 You got to get people to click the piece, Sarah. 16:34 Sarah Longwell Oh, okay. 16:34 Well, I'm sorry. 16:35 I got a few things to tell you about people and headlines. 16:38 Okay. 16:39 But the idea of caving is terrible. 16:41 What he should do is make a big production out of the idea that I'm with you. 16:47 Let's do something about the border, guys. 16:49 Let's go on offense. 16:50 Let's do it and make them come to him. 16:53 He's not caving. 16:54 He's not playing on their terms. 16:55 He's going to set the terms and the terms are going to be, yeah, but we need to do something about the border. 16:59 What do you want? 17:00 Let's do this all together. 17:01 Tim Miller That's caving. 17:02 I'm sorry. 17:03 So this is the definition of terms. 17:04 I defended JBL's honor against Liam Donovan of the Lobby Shop podcast. 17:08 He's pretty good on there. 17:09 And because he said this too. 17:11 He was just like, well, what do you mean cave? 17:13 Like Biden is already coming to the table with them on immigration. 17:15 And I'm surprised you don't agree, Sarah, because this goes to your communications question. 17:19 And my response to Liam was, well, my definition of terms on caving is people that do not have a podcast specializing in lobbying are aware that Joe Biden is giving Republicans what they want on immigration. 17:31 That's my definition of caving. 17:33 And so to me, the point is, and some of this is a little bit of a semantic debate. 17:38 I wish Frum was good on this on Charlie's pod yesterday. 17:40 I wish we could have Frum on to kind of work this out. 17:42 But the semantic point is that 17:44 I think that there are two tracks here. 17:45 I think that the Biden administration in good faith is working with the Senate to come up with a deal. 17:50 Your girl, Kristen Sinema, seems to be the point person on that. 17:54 Once again, I have to succumb to saying nice things about Kristen Sinema. 17:58 So there you go. 17:59 Kristen Sinema, who has some credibility with these guys. 18:02 As you've said over and over again, Sarah, there was some point to her being so annoying so that she can gain credibility with these people. 18:07 Well, now it's time. 18:09 Let's use that political capital you've gained with Republicans for being so annoying, Kristen Sinema. 18:14 So that's happening already. 18:16 That track is happening. 18:17 I think that there needs to be and maybe this is coming. 18:20 Maybe this is post Zelensky. 18:22 You can call it whatever word you want. 18:23 But like a public clear sentiment that is Joe Biden is saying there are some things Republicans want to do about the border that are not the ideal Democratic proposal. 18:34 And I want to meet them in the middle. 18:36 Right. 18:36 Like I've already proposed border funding. 18:39 They are proposing border funding plus some other stuff. 18:42 I want to give them some of the stuff that they want because this is so important, right? 18:47 To me, that is caving, like whatever you call it. 18:49 Sarah Longwell Caving sounds weak. 18:50 Negotiating sounds strong, like negotiating and coming to terms. 18:55 Tim Miller Okay, so this is where I think there's a disagreement. 18:57 We, being the pro-democracy side, I think we want to give Republicans a win on this. 19:03 Let them have this one. 19:04 This is a battle in a bigger war. 19:07 The win is they can have their little immigration win in exchange for Ukraine gets funded, which is really fucking important. 19:14 Israel and Taiwan get funded. 19:15 They probably get funded anyway in a different context. 19:18 And in exchange for now we share the border. 19:21 Now we share it because we gave this to you, right? 19:23 Like that is the strategic play here, which is we are giving you this win. 19:27 You get it. 19:28 You get to go out and say, hey, we have a bloody shirt. 19:31 You get to have two days on the news, which is like, hey, we're doing some of Donald Trump's policies on the border that these Democratic cuck squishes said was so horrible before. 19:41 Now they're giving it to us. 19:42 Yeah, we're giving you that bloody shirt. 19:44 in exchange for sharing the border owning and paying for Ukraine. 19:48 Now, is that practically possible? 19:50 I don't know. 19:51 Maybe the Republicans will never do that. 19:53 And maybe the Republicans want Ukraine to lose and want the border to be chaos. 19:56 And then the Democrats can have that argument, right? 19:59 Which is, we tried. 20:01 We gave them what they wanted, but they wouldn't come to the table. 20:04 And now the border is chaos and Ukraine is losing to Putin. 20:08 To me, that is the win-win position. 20:10 And getting to the win-win position requires losing. 20:14 on this first one. 20:15 JVL Yeah, my real question to you guys, and I think the best criticism of my piece is that Biden doesn't have control over whether or not he can cave, because he can cave, but Republicans have to accept it. 20:28 And it is entirely possible that even if he were to say, HR2, done, right? 20:35 I'm just gonna swallow all of HR2, no matter how mad it makes my base. 20:39 The Senate Republicans could still just decline. 20:42 Right. 20:43 And I don't think they pay any price for it. 20:45 I think the person who gets hurt on this is Biden. 20:49 So that's I mean, it is possible that no matter how hard he tries to cave, the Republicans won't take it. 20:55 Sarah Longwell Yeah. 20:56 But I do think this creates a lose lose where the impression is now that Joe Biden, you know, didn't negotiate well enough or didn't give them what they wanted when actually and I do think he should give them what they want. 21:08 And I guess the one thing that I think is compelling about the case Tim's making, although he didn't quite say this, is the idea of like if Joe Biden needs to cave in order to. 21:18 make it clear to his left flank that he didn't want to do this, I can sort of see it. 21:24 But to me, like, you want to be in the sort of Trump seat of being like, no, I'm a master negotiator. 21:30 And I'm going to give you guys, like, we're going to meet in the middle. 21:34 I'm going to give you guys a bunch of this stuff. 21:35 You're going to give me what I want, which is to protect Ukraine. 21:38 And like, I'm a dealmaker. 21:39 Tim Miller But Trump didn't cut any deals. 21:42 That doesn't work. 21:43 I understand that Trump didn't do it, but I'm saying that that is— What you're pitching is no. 21:46 What you're pitching is ending with nothing. 21:48 Sarah Longwell No, I'm not. 21:49 Tim Miller If Biden comes from the alpha position of, I'm the master dealmaker, Republicans come to the table, Republicans say, fuck you. 21:57 And so the border stays how it is, and Ukraine loses. 22:01 So the choice is to give Republicans what they want or to not fund Ukraine. 22:05 Those are the choices on the table. 22:07 Sarah Longwell Optically, he has to look weak in order to give Republicans. 22:10 I mean, I just think he can say, okay, well, I'm not sure he has to take that hard an L on it. 22:15 I think it can be a win-win. 22:17 I think the problem is fundamentally, and I'm much maybe closer to JBL on this, which is I don't think the Republicans have any interest in 22:25 No matter what, whether it's caving, whether it's negotiating, I just don't think they want to play because they want chaos at the border because they know that's hurting Joe Biden. 22:34 And it is hurting Joe Biden right now. 22:36 JVL If I can be incredibly darkly cynical, Republicans have a political interest not only in the border being chaotic, but also in Ukraine losing. 22:48 And if they are able to hold tough and prevent the needed aid to Ukraine and things go badly in Ukraine, that's bad for Biden politically. 22:57 Sarah Longwell I actually agree. 22:58 I think that they are so awful now. 22:59 JVL I just think all of their interests are aligned with this. 23:02 Sarah Longwell I no longer will defend them on the merits. 23:05 I think they would rather not give Ukraine aid because it's also a base issue, right? 23:10 They don't want that. 23:12 And I think they want chaos at the border. 23:14 And I don't think that they care about the practical effects of either of those things because they think it's electorally in their interest. 23:21 JVL And they're right. 23:23 Sarah Longwell They are right. 23:24 Tim Miller They're right. 23:24 Maybe you guys are right. 23:25 So this has been my problem with the people that are criticizing the, you know, the other people who I respect, like Sargent, who are like, Biden shouldn't give the Republicans what they want. 23:35 Biden's already making a good deal. 23:36 What I'm trying to say is true. 23:38 I agree. 23:39 Biden has already made a good offer. 23:41 He offered a ton of money for the border initially, and he's offered some asylum changes. 23:46 So he has made a good offer in the old school version of politics of horse trading, blah, blah, blah. 23:52 That's not where we are. 23:54 And so I'm sitting here in the chair of – there are a lot of important things out there in the world. 23:57 But I think the Ukraine thing is really, really, really important. 24:00 Really fucking important, giving them money. 24:03 And me and Bill were talking about this last night. 24:05 And if we get to a situation where this gets delayed and delayed because Democrats are like, oh, we have the moral high ground on this. 24:12 And we're sniffing our own – like everyone here knows that we've made a good offer. 24:16 And it's the Republicans that are bad faiths. 24:18 Like, OK, you can say that. 24:21 You can have the moral high ground here and say we've made a good offer. 24:25 The Republicans are bad faith. 24:26 And now we're going to take that argument to next November. 24:29 But that is a path for nothing changing on the border and for Ukraine not having absolutely needed weapons and resources and other material. 24:39 That's a path for it because taking the moral high ground and saying we've already done what people are suggesting we do is a path to stalemate. 24:48 Republicans are happy with stalemate. 24:50 I'm deeply concerned about this, and I think that Bill's point last night was like the longer we wait, if Trump's the nominee, this thing is over. 24:58 This thing is over. 24:59 The Republicans are definitely not dealing once Trump's the nominee because whatever deal they come to the – Yeah, because whatever deal Biden comes to the table with, Trump will say this is a bad deal. 25:08 JVL He'll kill them. 25:09 Tim Miller So they've got six weeks, four weeks, whatever, six weeks to figure this out before New Hampshire. 25:16 And I don't think they're going to. 25:17 And this goes back to my which I guess I'm the most full throated person in the case for caving, which is like I to me, it looks like the options on the table are doing everything possible to get Republicans to swallow this right now, which means things we don't like or getting that saying, you know what? 25:34 JVL We're not even going to amend it. 25:35 H.R.2 done. 25:36 Sarah Longwell Yeah, but this is where Joe Biden needs to go out publicly. 25:40 He needs to stand up at a podium and say, nothing is more important right now to the stability of the world than Ukraine defeating Putin. 25:48 And we need this aid. 25:50 Zelensky came and he asked for it. 25:51 And so I am willing to, in this moment, give Republicans what they want on the border. 25:57 Anyway, I just think there's this way you can do this from a position of strength. 26:01 Like this is the thing that drives me crazy is that people assume that the average American has any sense of what these negotiations are like and who gets the blame for it. 26:09 And the answer is like always the person in charge because they're not paying attention. 26:13 So Joe Biden has a vested interest of like elevating this and making it clear that he wants to give them what they want as part of this deal because the stakes are so high. 26:23 JVL All right, Sarah, before we get off of this, you had a J.D. 26:24 Vance thing you wanted to do. 26:26 Sarah Longwell So, you know, I think a lot about what does it look like post-Trump? 26:29 So let's say Trump dies. 26:30 We know the Republican Party is bad, but who really carries it forward? 26:34 And J.D. 26:35 Vance, so he walked out of the Zelensky meeting yesterday. 26:38 He has figured out how to basically, the extent to which he is an isolationist now in a way where he knows how to take every single thing. 26:47 We can't support Ukraine. 26:48 We need to secure our border. 26:49 You know, we can't trade with these guys. 26:51 We have to do this. 26:51 Like, 26:52 I actually think J.D. 26:53 Vance more and more is the cynical, disgusting future of the Republican Party. 27:00 He wanted to be famous. 27:01 He wanted to be, he has these delusions of grandeur. 27:04 His whole life story is about then being in this place where he thinks, now he tells himself, he's fighting for the little guy. 27:10 And he's fighting for the American people who got left behind. 27:14 It's a thread. 27:15 You can see the thread from his hillbilly elegy days. 27:17 And the way he has convinced himself to do that is we abandon our Democratic allies abroad. 27:21 Not just abandon them, but we make a moral case that doing anything for them is leaving Americans behind. 27:27 And I think he is the future, and I hate that future. 27:30 Tim Miller It is sick. 27:31 I agree with that. 27:32 JVL Hold on, Tim. 27:33 I'm going to say it right now. 27:34 I said it at the time, and you guys disagreed with me. 27:36 I'm going to say it again. 27:37 America would have been better off if Josh Mandel had won that primary. 27:41 Tim Miller I agree with that. 27:42 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I'm not sure in retrospect. 27:43 That's not true, yeah. 27:44 Tim Miller Yeah, JVL is always right. 27:45 I agree with that. 27:45 J.D. 27:46 Vance is sick. 27:46 I will say just one closing thing on the Biden thing. 27:49 Even on this podcast where everybody is always right, we've underestimated, and maybe not Sarah, even though Sarah's kind of underestimating it now, the ability of the Senate to work things out with Joe Biden. 27:58 They've worked shit out at the last second a few times, and I'm just hoping that it happens again sometime before Donald Trump wins New Hampshire. 28:06 JVL We've got a case going on in Texas. 28:09 I hate talking about abortion on this show because... 28:13 There is no way to come out of these conversations without feeling terrible because it's horrible. 28:19 Here's what's going on. 28:19 I'm gonna give you guys the 15-second version for anybody who has not been following the story of Kate Cox. 28:24 Kate Cox is 31. 28:26 She's got two kids. 28:27 She was about 20 weeks pregnant and started having complications. 28:32 She showed up the emergency room to see what was going on, did testing. 28:35 It turned out that her baby has trisomy 18, otherwise known as Edwards syndrome. 28:40 This is a condition which almost always results in stillbirth. 28:47 When babies do survive birth, fewer than one in 10 make it to their first birthday. 28:53 There are the occasional examples of these kids living a little bit longer than that, but it's very, very bad. 28:59 Because Kate Cox has already had, from her first two kids, C-sections, 29:04 This puts her at all sorts of elevated risks with the C-sections and increased age. 29:09 She wants to have an abortion of this kid because it's, A, life-threatening, B, as important to her, it threatens her future ability to have babies because it already having had two C-sections carrying a stillbirth to term could make it very, very hard for her to ever have kids again. 29:26 No doctors in Texas will perform an abortion because of the law in Texas. 29:30 She goes to Texas district court. 29:32 The district court allows abortion to proceed for her. 29:36 And the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, he is so hot to prevent her from terminating this pregnancy that he has this escalated to the Texas Supreme Court where the nine Republicans on the Texas Supreme Court vote to overturn the district court and prevent her from having an abortion. 29:56 As I said, this is a horrible story. 29:57 There are no good things in it, but holy shit. 30:01 I mean, the takeaway from this is if you have a serious medical condition in the state of Texas, the only way to get an abortion of what is going to be a horrible pregnancy that could possibly endanger your life and your ability to have kids is to get the Texas Supreme Court to personally sign off on your situation. 30:24 And I don't understand why that is tenable as a political matter. 30:33 Like we can leave the moral stuff aside. 30:35 We can even leave the legal stuff aside, right? 30:37 Just put aside whatever your personal moral, like what should be or shouldn't be. 30:41 Based upon all the polling we've seen for like 20 years on this stuff, I don't understand how politically that is a sustainable position. 30:49 Thoughts? 30:50 Sarah Longwell Yeah, so I have a number of thoughts, but let's talk about the politics of it. 30:54 So there's a, we actually, we probably should have talked about some of the polling that's come out this week. 30:58 We've had a bad polling week, meaning that it's a week of polls that are bad for Joe Biden. 31:02 They're good for Donald Trump. 31:04 And one of the polls had, that I have a difficult time, this is a CNN poll, had Trump 31:10 beating Biden by 10 points in Michigan. 31:13 Now, that doesn't sound right to me, but part of the reason it doesn't sound right is that Gretchen Whitmer just beat Tudor Dixon in Michigan, the Republican candidate, by 10 points. 31:24 So that would mean there would be a 20-point swing in the people voting there in Michigan. 31:28 So, okay. 31:29 Now, one of the main reasons that we talked about this a lot in 2022 during the focus groups that voters voted for Gretchen Whitmer over Tudor Dixon is that Tudor Dixon was one of the people who said that she thought this 12 year old rape victim should have to carry a baby to term. 31:46 And people were like, yeah, no. 31:49 And that was it for them with Tudor Dixon. 31:50 Like she said that and it was over. 31:53 And even people who were frustrated with Gretchen Whitmer, they had complaints about how she handled COVID. 31:57 She hadn't fixed the potholes. 31:59 They were absolutely a no on Tudor Dixon. 32:01 And I think that one of the things Republicans, you know, when people say abortion is going to be an issue, I think what they don't realize is coming is hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of stories like this one where 32:16 There is a tragic situation either of rape, 32:19 or of a terrible medical complication where the life of the mother is under deep threat, where you are forcing people into the saddest situation where Republicans who can believe in limited government, right? 32:34 Like what the stories will do, it's not the issue of abortion. 32:37 The stories will remind people of the immense amount of state power that Republicans are now exercising over people's personal medical decisions. 32:46 And they will tell these stories and 32:48 for women especially, like part of this story, I think about the idea of something happening just to me and the idea of having to clear it, not just with the Texas legislature, but with a corrupt POS like Ken Paxton, who's been indicted multiple times and been let off and he is now in charge of a complicated medical decision for this woman. 33:08 Like it does, it is the kind of thing that instills the sense of urgency and anger and fear that drives people to the polls 33:17 and drives them to vote against politicians who would support these types of things. 33:21 Tim Miller Yeah. 33:22 I'm going to reject your offer to not talk about the moral implications about this JBL, because I just, I do think it's important to just give my perspective on this because I think it colors my political analysis. 33:33 And I just, I don't know what the point of all this is. 33:36 If I, if I cannot say that I fundamentally believe that every human life has value and, and, and I have a good friend that has a kid that has a minkus, which is not similar to Edwards in, in the, 33:50 science of it, but it's similar in the, you know, the likelihood of survival and, you know, how long the kid is supposed to live and development and all that. 33:58 And, you know, he's a sweet boy, but, you know, his life is going to be, his life is not great. 34:02 You know, his life is full of pain and he's lucky that he has parents that are wealthy and that can, you know, do everything possible to keep that kid in comfort. 34:14 That is not true for everybody, right? 34:17 And this is where I get to the fundamental pro-life of it all, right? 34:21 It's like if Ken Paxton was out there saying, I just so deeply believe in the dignity of every human life that like, I'm sorry, but this fell past the X week line. 34:33 Yeah, okay. 34:35 It's six weeks there. 34:36 So that's where I would put it. 34:37 I just mean in a hypothetical world, right? 34:39 Right. 34:39 This is what, 21 weeks or 20 weeks? 34:41 Yeah. 34:42 You know, so it fell past the 20-week line. 34:45 Let's say that they had agreed on a 20-week ban. 34:47 And we don't know what's going to happen. 34:49 And, you know, there's still going to be value in this life. 34:53 This child is going to have a hard life. 34:55 And we're going to be there. 34:56 Like, we're going to make sure that there is nursing care for this child, et cetera, et cetera. 35:02 Even then, I understand the anger in Sarah's face of being like, Ken Paxton is going to be involved with this at all. 35:08 Even then, I understand that this is very complicated. 35:12 But, like, that's not what's happening. 35:14 Oh. 35:14 Right? 35:14 Like, there is no indication here that the nine Supreme Court justices of Texas or Ken Paxton give a fuck about what happens to Kate Cox or what happens to this child after the forced birth. 35:30 And that is where this whole thing crumbles for me on a moral level. 35:35 And I think that's separate from... 35:37 The political question. 35:39 You know, this is a woman that wants to have another kid and I think, you know, it seems like would be unable to, you know, given various stuff that I don't really understand about uteruses. 35:49 And that is where I'm, like, most sympathetic to this. 35:53 Like, this is a complicated choice. 35:54 This is a choice between the woman and her doctor. 35:56 She has other aspirations to have children. 35:59 This is not, like... 36:00 Kermit, whatever his name is, in Philadelphia. 36:04 This is not one of those cases. 36:06 I just think fundamentally the argument is being lost by the pro-life side because I am the swing voter in this case. 36:18 I'm putting myself in like, you need to win me over. 36:20 that these laws exist because you care so deeply about human life. 36:26 Because I care deeply about human life, and you've lost me, right? 36:31 Like by the way that you've treated her, by the lack of support for women post-birth, and so here we are. 36:37 And so now I think you end up in a situation where if you've lost that argument with me, 36:43 You're definitely losing it with the secular swing voters that we've talked about a bunch here, you know, that Tudor Dixon did not do well with the secular Trump voters who are not on board with this, who came on board for all these other reasons with Trump. 36:55 And you're definitely motivating young women and suburban women and other people. 37:01 And so that's where, to me, it ends up being a loser on all counts. 37:05 JVL This is worth saying. 37:09 Ken Paxton could have just accepted the district court ruling, right? 37:13 That's the other thing, right? 37:14 If you're in Texas and you want the law, like, you could just leave the law in place and the district court ruled what it could. 37:22 There is a weird maliciousness to... 37:26 Like, no, no, we're going to go with the extra mile here to see if we can appeal the decision and get it. 37:32 But I bring that up because I want to juxtapose this with a piece that's in Politico today about Kellyanne Conway and Heather Higgins. 37:38 Most people know Kellyanne Conway. 37:40 Most people don't know Heather Higgins. 37:41 Heather Higgins is a rich woman who, because she has a lot of money, is considered an intellectual in a Republican circle. 37:48 And they are going around the hill to Republicans saying that's very important that Republicans start talking about contraception instead of abortion. 37:59 Because if they would only just talk about how great contraception is, that's a winning message for them. 38:04 And Heather Higgins, this is what she says. 38:07 Republicans are like your uncle who really loves you and loves the women in his family, but he's bad about showing it. 38:15 It's just not in their natural vocabulary. 38:18 And we're trying to help them learn how to make this be more part of their vocabulary. 38:23 That's what it is. 38:24 Ken Paxton is just like your uncle who just loves all the women in his family and he's bad at showing it. 38:29 That's all. 38:30 Sarah Longwell Well, they're bringing in the cavalry here because they know they got a real big political loser on their hands. 38:36 I got news for Kellyanne Conway. 38:39 It's that, go ahead, make contraception an issue because what you're going to get is a bunch of Republicans who are actually like, actually, I don't think so great about contraception either. 38:47 And actually, I would like to remind people what an absolute cave person I am. 38:52 And I think it's not going to go well. 38:54 Every time... 38:54 When I start to look at these polls, as I do, and I'm sanguine about the polls in a lot of ways because I listen to voters all the time and I have a strong sense right now that when push comes to shove, you know, without the third party option and things like that, Joe Biden is still – all the hands still go up for him. 39:11 So I don't need to sit and unskew all of them. 39:14 I just think they're snapshots in time and people should – 39:17 People should do the work. 39:18 There should be more urgency. 39:20 But also this like obsession with them is not good. 39:23 But I do when I when I do start to be like, oh, these numbers are super bad. 39:28 I do think about the ability to tell these stories on abortion and how viscerally women especially. 39:34 But but I think folks in general feel about this. 39:37 Tim Miller Can I just give you one sentence on the contraception, please? 39:39 And then you can move on to whatever you want to. 39:41 It's just something people might have forgot. 39:43 It's a really smart vote that Mike Kevin held. 39:47 Just last week, 195 House Republicans voted against the Right to Contraception Act. 39:53 And now they've blocked action in the Senate as well. 39:56 So that was, let's see here, July 2022, last July. 40:01 So Kellyanne's a little late. 40:03 She needed to make her trip down there about 20 months ago and stop them for voting against the Right to Contraception Act. 40:09 Anyway, sorry. 40:10 Sarah Longwell Yeah, that's a good one. 40:11 That's a good one for some ads. 40:12 Well, I just, we didn't even talk about, we didn't even think about having as the topics, like the Seltzer poll that came out in Iowa. 40:18 And I want to bring it up just because I think this is a good one for Tim, where 40:22 Now that people have dropped out, right? 40:23 And so just so you know, Ann Seltzer there in Iowa, she's the gold standard pollster. 40:29 She is the one who knew, what did she get right last time that everybody else got wrong? 40:34 JVL She saw Santorum surging. 40:36 Tim Miller No, but it wasn't that. 40:38 It was her poll that came out the weekend before 2020 that was like, actually, this is going to be close. 40:43 Yeah. 40:44 You know, it was it was actually this is going to be close. 40:47 It was when people were feeling starting to feel a little confident about Biden right towards the end. 40:51 And her poll came out on Thursday or Friday. 40:53 It's kind of 100 percent. 40:55 Sarah Longwell Yeah. 40:55 Nope. 40:55 Tim Miller Actually, it's going to be close. 40:57 Sarah Longwell So she just put out a new poll, and I always wait for her polls out of Iowa. 41:01 And now that we've had more consolidation in the field, Donald Trump has gained eight points. 41:06 Ron DeSantis, hot off of his Kim Reynolds endorsement, got three points. 41:10 Nikki Haley stayed exactly the same. 41:12 And Vivek is down there with nothing. 41:14 Same with Chris Christie. 41:16 Donald Trump is up now the eight points. 41:18 And I can't remember what that put him at, but it was certainly above 50 percent. 41:21 JVL 51. 41:22 Sarah Longwell Look, the Nikki, I want the Nikki boom as badly as anybody. 41:26 But Trump is over 50 percent in Iowa. 41:28 And this isn't some like rube off the street pole. 41:33 So I think people need to, that's why, this is why with the Biden stuff, I mean, I have just, I think that people need to kick it into gear. 41:40 Like we're doing this thing and we got to get ready. 41:43 Tim Miller Yeah. 41:44 Well, consolidation has helped Trump. 41:46 I don't know if you've heard anybody say that before. 41:49 Yeah, you did. 41:49 Somebody on this podcast has been saying that for about a year now. 41:52 And I did a whole separate – we have a YouTube page now where I do separate little short takes. 41:59 And if you just want to hear me rant about how consolidation is helping Trump, I did one of those on YouTube. 42:04 And it's nice. 42:05 We love our home team. 42:07 The YouTube comments, they're not as nice as you people because we're out there in the Wild West and a lot of strangers are out there. 42:13 That's a good thing because we're reaching new folks. 42:16 So yeah, consolidation is helping Trump. 42:18 And I started to get – this week was the week. 42:22 I'll look at the December 11th week when I started to receive texts from people that are like – 42:28 this is happening. 42:29 Like, this is really happening. 42:31 Like, it's sinking in. 42:32 It's starting to sink in out there that it's like, it's really going to be true. 42:34 JVL Text from people who are civilians or people who have clinical problems? 42:38 Tim Miller Civilians. 42:38 So these two that I'm thinking of are pretty engaged civilians, but not like weekly next level podcast listeners level engaged, like kind of engaged, right? 42:48 And so we're moving slowly. 42:50 The concentric circles are moving slowly out. 42:52 And eventually, like my high school buddies that don't watch the news are going to start texting me and be like, it's really Trump again. 42:59 And so, you know, people are starting to get nervous. 43:02 We've moved one concentric circle out this week, I think. 43:06 JVL That's great. 43:07 Well, I had something great to talk about, the Trump NFTs, but we are out of time. 43:11 So I'm going to save that for the secret show. 43:13 Tim Miller Can I tell you about the White House Christmas party? 43:15 JVL We have one minute. 43:16 I think we may have to get Sarah out of here first. 43:18 No? 43:19 Tim Miller Sarah, do you want to hear about it? 43:20 Just go ahead. 43:21 Hurry, hurry. 43:21 You just want to hear about it? 43:22 Yeah, do. 43:22 I did get to meet Joe Biden this last week. 43:24 And I don't want to admit it wasn't anything special. 43:26 It wasn't a private briefing. 43:28 I was in a line. 43:29 It was a cattle call line of people. 43:31 We were going through, getting our Christmas party picture. 43:33 And I'll tell you this, you're supposed to go up there, hold your hands by your side, get the picture, move on, brief greeting, Merry Christmas, Mr. President, move on. 43:40 I did not do that. 43:41 I went up to Joe Biden and I did, this is Sarah's right about this, where she said maybe I was maybe a little disingenuous when I told Carrie to stop touching me because I do like to touch people. 43:51 And I just grabbed Joe Biden by the arms, just both arms. 43:55 And I was just like, Mr. President, God love you. 43:58 We are keeping you in here. 44:00 I need to understand that. 44:02 I was like, we are not letting that other guy get in here. 44:04 We are going to keep you in here. 44:06 And I just had a 40-second out-of-body experience where I just held him up and I just sent all of the energy in my body into his body. 44:16 And then I grabbed onto Jill's two hands and I was like, God love you. 44:20 You got to keep him. 44:21 We got to keep him in here. 44:22 We are going to do this. 44:23 And the people in the picture line are like, what is happening? 44:26 They're like, please, sir, please turn around. 44:28 Sir, please turn around. 44:30 And Tyler is like standing there just waiting for his picture. 44:33 And I received the picture this week. 44:35 I was happy when it came out because I thought it might be everyone looking at the camera except me staring at Jill. 44:40 But I... 44:40 I must have turned around for one second right before the camera took. 44:43 So I did everything I could in the energy space. 44:48 Chakras. 44:48 Yeah, in the chakras. 44:50 In the chakras, I did everything I could do in the chakras. 44:53 Now we're going to move into the actual work part of things. 44:55 Merry Christmas. 44:56 JVL Merry Christmas to everybody. 44:58 We will probably do this next week. 44:59 Tim Miller We're doing it next week. 45:01 JVL Definitely show up on Friday because I've got some hot Trump NFT talk for Sarah. 45:07 Bye. 45:08 Peace.