00:12 JVL Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Next Level. 00:15 I'm JBL, here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell. 00:18 Welcome back, compadre, and my other very close-to-being-bestie friend, Timothy Miller. 00:25 Hey, guys. 00:27 Tim Miller Hello, JBL. 00:28 Hey, Sarah, I missed you. 00:29 We did like a 21-minute green room where we used all the good material before that. 00:33 Sorry, paying listeners, but it is good to see you again, Sarah. 00:37 Sarah Longwell It had been a while since we caught up, so we did too much pregame talking. 00:43 But I missed you guys a lot. 00:45 And I'm sorry. 00:46 It sounded like things got dark while I was gone. 00:50 JVL Did they? 00:50 On the show? 00:51 I don't remember. 00:52 I mean, Tim used the word dildo in front of Mona. 00:55 That was amazing. 00:55 Sarah Longwell You know what I missed? 00:57 I missed the... 00:58 So people hate our intro music? 01:00 Mona hates our intro music? 01:01 JVL No, not people hate it. 01:02 Mona hates it. 01:04 And you know, so I forwarded Mona all of the emails that said not to change our intro music. 01:10 I kept from her all the emails that said, Mona hates your intro music. 01:15 Has she listened to her intro music? 01:18 People do not like her intro music. 01:20 They're like, what is this, Masterpiece Theater? 01:23 Sarah Longwell You guys, I could not pick out the intro music to any of our podcasts out of a lineup. 01:29 Tim Miller I thought that my use of dildo around Mona was me kind of dialing it back. 01:35 I didn't use vibrator. 01:38 JVL Oh, I'm just glad that you were not asked to provide a definition. 01:42 What were you talking about? 01:44 Tim Miller I think transvaginal ultrasounds. 01:48 No, no, no. 01:48 JVL We were talking about, no, we were talking about terrorism. 01:51 And I meant, so I brought up the human rights campaign because their current building was the site of an act of terrorism back in the 70s. 01:59 But Tim didn't realize that's where I was going. 02:01 And he thought terrorism and human rights campaign. 02:03 And so he conjured up some gay terrorist, like, you know, planting dildo bombs. 02:10 It was a whole thing. 02:11 All it was like, I sat there. 02:13 Thanks for listening, Sarah. 02:14 And I was like, wow, right in front of mom. 02:17 He did it. 02:17 He said the word in front of mom. 02:20 I don't know what that's potty mouth. 02:21 Tim Miller I think it's totally fine. 02:23 I don't know what you're worried about. 02:25 Sarah Longwell Well, I'm glad that I really appreciate Mona sitting in for me. 02:28 I missed you guys. 02:30 I missed doing podcasts. 02:31 I have really hot takes about a bunch of stuff that happened two weeks ago. 02:35 JVL Oh, should we do a lightning round? 02:37 Sarah Longwell No, we should start with the thing I'm angriest about right now. 02:41 Okay. 02:41 JVL Donald Trump has a turnkey operation ready for 2024. 02:46 Sarah, go. 02:48 Sarah Longwell That wasn't what I was going to say. 02:49 I was going to say J.D. 02:50 Vance. 02:51 Oh, I thought you wanted to. 02:55 No. 02:55 Okay. 02:55 I'm not angry about Trump's thing. 02:57 That's a thing we need to unpack because that has big implications. 03:02 I think J.D. 03:03 Vance is just... 03:05 This tweet has now come and gone. 03:06 It was bait. 03:08 It's blue-check bait, right? 03:09 When he does things like, say... 03:11 Alex Jones is a more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow. 03:17 And he was doing it by quote-tweeting Glenn Greenwald, who was, I think, actually correctly criticizing Maddow for the fact that they had that Rolling Stones story up that had then been thoroughly debunked. 03:29 I'm not sure why, after that piece was completely debunked, anybody kept that up. 03:35 And so it was like a fair – it's a fair critique – 03:38 of maddow but jd vance decided to just go nuclear uh nuclear take with um uh alex jones of info wars is a more reputable source of information than rachel maddow okay that was bait 03:54 I should not go in for bait like that. 03:58 And so the thing I am most angry about is the fact that, like, I felt inclined to engage. 04:03 But I just, because obviously, like, that's an insane thing to say, right? 04:06 You've got Alex Jones. 04:09 So I tweeted about it. 04:10 You know, the thing I know very little about Alex Jones other than... 04:14 You know, some of his most famous conspiracy theories include the thing that I find the grossest. 04:22 And Marjorie Taylor Greene does this, too, where he says Parkland. 04:27 I'm sorry, not Parkland. 04:28 Sandy Hook was a false flag. 04:32 Yeah, it's both. 04:33 I mean, right, he says these shooters, like he says that they're false flags, they're written. 04:38 And so the reason these kinds of things made me crazy is not only, I don't know if you guys have ever heard, there's an NPR piece, I think it's This American Life, where they talk to one of the dads of the Sandy Hook, of one of the Sandy Hook kids, who is just harassed endlessly by Alex Jones listeners to tell him that his child was a crisis actor and didn't die. 05:02 It's so revolting and horrible and 05:08 J.D. 05:08 Vance, because he is sucking wind behind Josh Mandel, decides to say that this person is a credible source of information. 05:17 And it's such a sad commentary, not just on human beings who are terrible and right-wing media ecosystem things that are terrible, but the fact that I saw something today where he says, oh, I was just trolling people, where J.D. 05:34 Vance said that. 05:35 But the way that you excel in Republican politics today is by saying things like, Alex Jones is a better source of information than whatever, a lefty I don't like. 05:50 Those are my feelings. 05:52 Tim Miller J.D. 05:52 Vance is a big meat puppet, for starters. 05:55 And second, I do think that Sarah is not fully describing. 06:00 The other reason why it made her so mad is because he did come after the queen of the lesbians, Rachel Maddow. 06:06 Maybe it wouldn't have cut it deep as if he had compared Alex Jones to Don LeMond, for example. 06:14 Yeah. 06:14 Maybe. 06:15 Just throwing that out there. 06:16 Might have cut. 06:17 Yeah, no. 06:19 It is bait. 06:21 And, you know, it's pretty... 06:24 I'm starting to pivot, though, from anger at J.D. 06:27 Vance into sadness. 06:29 Obviously, there's a long campaign ahead, and he could yet become a senator. 06:33 But, man... 06:35 I mean, if he fails, he's really like put himself into a really sad place where I'm sure that Peter Thiel will dump him and find another new hot thing like Blake Masters. 06:49 Have you met Blake Masters yet? 06:51 Sarah Longwell Is he a golfer? 06:52 Who is that? 06:52 Tim Miller Is that a porn star name? 06:54 You would think it's – and he looks like a porn star, and you'd think it's a porn star name. 06:58 Blake Masters is Peter Thiel's little mini-me that is running for Senate in Arizona. 07:06 And he has, like, washboard abs and – 07:13 And is checking all of the populist nationalist troll boxes. 07:20 But just not doing it as ostentatiously as JD and Josh. 07:25 So you guys haven't just caught them on your Twitter yet. 07:27 But keep an eye out for Blake Masters. 07:29 um more handsome and and it seems like he probably has some other skills when it comes to the vc world than meet puppet vance and so i think that you know jd would probably get eschewed but you know get sort of tossed aside by by peter teal and and i mean what does he do then he like goes on the villages tour he's lost all of his he's lost all of his friends you know from when he was sucking up to the elites and you know going on the today show and he was the person who is who um can explain 07:59 to these coastal elites what's happening in akron and and he will have lost his ability to be that translator to the elites who he really wants to hang out with deep down and boy i just i don't know i think um you know he'll be doing like the hillsdale tour given doing being a guest professor at hillsdale i think it would just be a tough turn for him um obviously still has time ahead of him but uh but it's not the shtick just isn't landing really the shtick doesn't seem to be landing 08:28 Sarah Longwell Because he's a fraud and everyone knows it. 08:31 I mean, he's got that like Rubio kind of stench where everyone knows this isn't who he really is. 08:36 Yeah, you can smell it. 08:37 Yeah, whereas Josh Mandel is like full-blown MAGA crazy and people are like, yeah, I guess that, I guess sure. 08:44 Him. 08:45 And you're right. 08:46 I actually think, because this is, it really is about Ohio politics, right? 08:50 It's about the Ohio Senate race, which right now is between Josh Mandel and J.D. 08:56 Vance. 08:57 And it doesn't look like Jane Timken, also perfectly MAGA, but who was a Republican normie for sure before she had to do just enough MAGA to get by, right? 09:09 But she's not even, so I was interested. 09:11 JVL She's like 4%. 09:13 Sarah Longwell Yeah, and I'm not sure. 09:14 I think Vance just broke double digits. 09:17 JVL Yeah, he just broke to 12. 09:19 Sarah Longwell I don't know if we talked about my Ohio focus group that I did a couple weeks ago, but one of the things that just jumped out when you asked them is they'd all heard of Josh Mandel. 09:29 They had not heard of Vance, and one person had said, oh, the woman. 09:34 I got a mailer from her. 09:36 That's kind of good news for JD, sadly. 09:40 Tim Miller It means he has some room to grow, maybe. 09:42 Sarah Longwell So I do think, well, this is to me, this is the whole reason, right, is that if you're a consultant for Vance and you're looking at Mandel and you're doing these focus groups in Ohio, you know that what it's not that people loved Josh Mandel in the group. 09:55 They were kind of like, I don't know. 09:56 Yeah, but like they all knew who he was. 09:59 And there's a phase where that's much more important, like getting to at least the name ID phase. 10:05 And so, I mean, that's what Vance is doing right now. 10:09 He's fighting for enough name ID that people could even make a value judgment for him against Mandel. 10:15 And so what he needs is to be hated by the right people. 10:18 He needs to have news cycles that belong to him, that elevate his name ID. 10:23 And he does it by saying disgusting things and speaking positively about Alex Jones. 10:31 Tim Miller Yeah, by the fact that he's given away the game by the fact that he says that it's trolling. 10:35 you know by the way um uh in that like like josh mandel is also faking it uh but he kind of inhabits the character to a much greater degree you never hear him back away from something like that and say that it was just trolling right i mean if you if you if josh mandel fires off a tweet saying that alex jones is more reputable than jd vance 10:54 and he gets asked about that in a follow-up, if anything, he would expand on it and say much, much more reputable. 11:01 More reputable than J.D. 11:01 Vance. 11:01 JVL He's more reputable than the New York Times. 11:04 Tim Miller Yeah, yeah, yeah. 11:05 Or more reputable than Maddow, I meant. 11:06 But yeah, he'd expand on it, go over and over and over the top. 11:10 Though he did give away a game a little bit during that clip that Jim wrote about, which is where he was talking to the reporter, and he's like, you know, this is just part of a deal. 11:17 Why are you taking this personally here? 11:18 This is just I'm playing my role, you play yours. 11:20 Did you see the Medium post on Mandelman? 11:22 about his uh his genealogy he had like a great aunt in auschwitz he's going hardest on you know the refugees about how you can't bring these the these these people to my neighborhood you can't bring these people to toledo and all the elites are gonna are gonna force it and they're just gonna be terrorists and and you know we can't you know we can't have them screwing up our judeo-christian culture 11:45 I mean, what do you think? 11:48 You do know that there are some Mandel family members who just are filled with shame. 11:56 JVL I don't know. 11:58 We don't think so? 12:00 My boy is running for Senate. 12:02 He's going to be a United States senator. 12:03 I think it I am amazed by Josh Mandel because the job he has been doubled up on J.D. 12:12 Vance the whole way, despite working with like he's got, I don't know what, 70,000 Twitter followers, no money, no institutional support. 12:22 In fact, he's got anti-institutional support. 12:24 The Republican Party wants no part of him. 12:26 kicked out of one of the RNC meets in Florida. 12:30 And on the other side, you've got finance money and tech money flowing like a river into J.D. 12:38 Vance. 12:40 Tucker has basically all but endorsed him on his show. 12:43 All of Fox is all in on J.D. 12:46 Vance. 12:46 The whole conservative inc, right? 12:49 From the Hugh Hewitt's of the world to the... 12:52 Who's that dumb asshole for the Washington Post who works at EPPC? 12:56 Mark Thiessen. 12:58 Henry Olsen. 12:59 Oh, Henry Olsen, right. 13:00 The guy's wrong about everything. 13:01 He is super. 13:03 They're all super into J.D. 13:04 Vance. 13:05 And they I don't quite understand it because, as you said, it's he's Rubio. 13:11 He's Rubio with a beard. 13:12 I mean, everything about him. 13:14 I just don't understand why they didn't understand the problems. 13:17 He's a New York Times contributor. 13:18 He's super friendly. 13:20 Ron Howard made a fawning movie about him. 13:23 His main patron is a gay tech oligarch whose big company is called Palantir and which is literally creating the AI-driven surveillance state. 13:38 And the idea that you're going to be able to position him as the authentic voice of MAGA in Ohio in 2021 is... 13:47 When he voted for Evan McMuffin? 13:50 Yeah, it just strikes me as nuts. 13:53 And so here's the thing. 13:55 I do not buy the you should not be angry about him. 13:59 You should not be sad about him. 14:00 J.D. 14:01 Vance is here to provide us with joy in this dark moment in American history. 14:07 Because the idea that we're going to get to watch a D-bag like this fail so publicly when he wants it so badly, it's just delicious. 14:17 Let's enjoy it. 14:18 This is the one thing we can all come together with. 14:20 Tim Miller I still have PTSD from 2015. 14:23 I can't enjoy until it's happened. 14:25 It is sad. 14:28 Tim Ryan, it's too bad. 14:31 And this will kind of go to our next topic a little bit about what the Democrats need to do. 14:34 And in a different situation, I feel like Josh Mandel is beatable. 14:43 maybe in the Trump first midterm in 2018. 14:47 Tim Ryan does kind of fit the bill for Ohio and is doing as good of a job as I think you can do so far, sort of from what I see from him and his brand positioning and how he's trying to wedge them on economic cultural stuff, which I think is exactly what you have to do in Ohio as a Democrat, sort of run the Sherrod Brown playbook and he looks the part and 15:10 Sarah Longwell um but it is it's going to be really tough in the first biden midterm for for a tip for a tim ryan to win in a place that trump won by what eight nine i forget where it landed and this is why i can't sort of get to where jbl is on i mean i'm not excited i i would be horrified by either of them um jd vance is completely debasing himself and um in order to win this and so it's not like i'm like oh well vance would be better than mandel but like 15:41 If you thought that the Democrat had zero chance, would you rather have it be Vance versus Mandel as a United States senator? 15:53 Which is worse? 15:55 Which is worse? 15:55 The more authentic, insane MAGA or the total fraud MAGA? 16:02 JVL No, you're not thinking about it the right way. 16:03 It's not a question about which is worse. 16:06 The question is, which one of them would it hurt more to lose? 16:10 I don't care about their souls. 16:12 Sarah Longwell I don't care whose ego it hurts the most. 16:15 JVL Oh, that's what I care. 16:16 I care about the pain in others. 16:19 And with Josh Mandel losing, he's like Laura Loomer, right? 16:22 It'll just be on to the next race. 16:24 For J.D. 16:25 Vance to lose... 16:26 When other people have been whispering in his ear about, well, maybe you should just go right to the White House. 16:31 You could run for president. 16:32 For him to lose, the little golden fuck boy. 16:35 Delicious. 16:38 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I do think I will. 16:39 So, OK, so let me just I'll play that out for one second. 16:42 I do think you're right in the sense that. 16:45 I think that it's important for Republicans to understand that the J.D. 16:51 Vance's are going to lose to the Josh Mandels. 16:55 Because I think, you know, we had that great Ross Douthat piece in The Bulwark by Nick Grossman. 17:01 There is a whole subset of sort of these elite Republicans. 17:06 who are not sufficiently alarmed, who make all kinds of excuses. 17:09 And they think that, okay, so J.D. 17:13 Vance says a bunch of this crazy stuff to get elected, but he's a reasonable person, acceptable by the Republican establishment. 17:20 But when Herschel Walker... 17:22 and josh mandel emerge despite mitch mitch mcconnell's best efforts uh it seems like then i mean whatever i i don't know that i can say like oh well then they're gonna really realize but it does it does it is it is a good it is an important lesson for them to see that their voters 17:41 want josh mandel want herschel walker and that they can no longer control this frankenstein that they've built i will say though i hope tim ryan tim i agree with tim that tim ryan um is one of the best positions you could possibly have in ohio but man has ohio been getting red it's like uh it's like an r plus nine now and so this would have been this would tim is exactly right this would have been winnable as a midterm with a republican incumbent i think 18:10 Tim Miller you know a close a close run thing and not a short thing but maybe you get to a one in three chance if if the environment is the other way where the the r's or the incumbent party um i i want to just give a serious answer to sarah's question um after thinking about it for a second i did enjoy jvl's desire for schadenfreude above all things um but uh if this was a race for president 18:36 I guess on a scale from 1 to 100, J.D. 18:41 Vance would be like a .9 and Josh Mandel would be like a .2 for me. 18:48 So I guess I would rather have J.D. 18:49 Vance as president because I do think inside that little squishy belly of his, he just wants to be loved by the New York Times editorial board. 18:59 He kind of pretends like he doesn't, but deep down he still does. 19:01 And I think that that would sort of 19:04 soften the edges of his of his presidency shutter um uh versus being in the senate i don't know i think that they're the same in the senate i don't see any difference between the two of them in the senate like whatever i don't know maybe i'll like one of their votes one vote more than the other vote but i don't it's not like i can imagine a lot of scenarios where jd is casting a tie-breaking vote that i think is super important like over josh over what josh mandel would have done so i just don't know that it matters that much i think that they're both 19:32 JVL uh you know thirsty ferrets and both potential vp material for uh the trump 2024 campaign i'm ron burgundy nah i don't i don't think so tim this is me teeing up you to talk about the politico sorry do miss that transition smooth transition effort that just kind of uh you know the lose just fell off the track there um 20:01 Tim Miller Yeah, so here's why I wanted to talk about the 2024 piece, because I know that art and graphic design is your passion, JVL. 20:09 And so I'm hoping for a triad graph at some point in the next week or two, which maybe helps some of our readers understand the... 20:20 I would almost call it sheer panic that I have towards the lowering Joe Biden approval number at the moment, because I think that there is a direct relationship between the Biden approval number and the likelihood that Donald Trump turns the key on that turnkey operation that he was bragging on to Biden. 20:41 to Politico and I think that if you looked at the Politico story this was you know you can only you can't really trust anything that anybody in Donald Trump's circle says I mean they're all full of shit but Jordan was on the secret camera 20:59 saying that he thinks that after the Afghanistan thing, Trump is 99% to 100% to run. 21:05 I think that's a little bit higher on the honesty scale since it was on a secret camera than these others. 21:11 But his pollster, Tony Fabrizio, said to Mark Caputo at Politico that he thinks that Biden's recent downturn has made it even much more likely that Trump will run. 21:20 There's an anonymous quote in there saying the same. 21:23 And I just think that's obvious on its face. 21:25 Like Trump, and I think I've brought this up on this one of the other pods, but Trump... 21:29 has an instinctual sense for narrative and for what the medias is saying and for what is happening what what you know the strength or weaknesses of his opponent like for all of his flaws like this is this is an innate skill that he has deep in his heart that was honed in him by the fact that his father didn't love him and that um he's became a brand man in the tabloid era 21:51 he understands narrative he understands when someone's weak in the public eye and versus strong and and if if biden seems weak uh you know he he will convince himself that he can do it right uh he is he does not want to run again and lose he does not want to be the only he'd be the only two-time loser right now i guess adlai stevenson so i guess he wouldn't be the only two-time loser but he does not want to be one of the rare two-time losers 22:16 And so if Biden was seeming strong, I think it would be less likely for him to run. 22:23 And so I think that there's this direct relationship. 22:25 What is happening with, you know, in the fall from Afghanistan, potential economic concerns, Delta rising, like all of this stuff is compounding to make Trump run. 22:36 And my other main takeaway from this political article is that everyone is going to go along with it. 22:42 Of course the Republican senators. 22:46 Of course the Republican party. 22:48 What I'm talking about is even the media. 22:51 People are just going to pretend like this is just a normal dude running. 22:54 There was nowhere in this 2,500 word Politico article that was like... 23:01 And to be sure his candidacy might be hampered by the fact that he tried to steal the last election and become an unelected autocrat and end our democracy. 23:10 Like there was not even a sentence about that. 23:12 Sarah Longwell There was like a little bit. 23:13 There was like a cause the insurrection. 23:15 It was like it was because I was looking for the same thing because it was like this piece. 23:20 Look, we should just back up and talk about the piece a little bit like the political because it's long. 23:24 And it's a pretty well-reported piece where they talk to basically everybody in Trump's orbit to get the over-under on whether Trump was going to do it. 23:31 And so Jason Miller and everybody – and they're all putting it at the odds at extremely high that he's going to run it. 23:38 And they talk about the fact that he's raised $82 million into – like he has to spend that money on – 23:43 you know, candidates, his candidacy, somebody else. 23:46 But he's like he's a fundraising juggernaut. 23:48 And the other thing that I think is they talk about in the piece and that we should maybe even spend some time unpacking is like the prospect of Trump running again and him just letting it be believed that he's running again. 24:01 That is a crazy thing to do to the Republican field. 24:05 And to JBL's earlier point about vice presidents, like Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and Nikki Haley and everybody else, they basically all said, like, well, we'll sit it out if Trump's going to do it again. 24:17 And so if Trump just none of them can go to Iowa. 24:20 like they talk about how trump has this operation basically set up in iowa so that they can keep an eye on who else is making trips there uh and so he freezes the entire republican field out of this he's the only one that can really fundraise he puts him i mean if he decided to pull out at the last minute uh or like ultimately decide not to run in like 2023 sometime 24:45 that is a wild thing to do to the republican party like i can't believe there's not more outcry 24:50 over the idea that he would do this and so he sort of boxes himself in at some point where he's got to run he'd be 78 uh as the piece points out but yet the piece reports it very much as like let me tell you about this operation that he's building and all of the people in his orbit who says he's going to run again because of joe biden's weakness and because he genuinely thinks that the election was stolen from him and the fact that he was impeached historically for a second time after 25:15 helping to propel an insurrection um you know would be an interesting little twist but like they don't they don't see it as a disqualifying element like this guy couldn't possibly win quick over under on the impeachment question of the 17 people that voted to impeach him how many people will support donald trump in 2024 i'm saying over under 11. oh i said it at 14. the over under at 14. you guys a bunch of those people are going to be gone 25:45 Sure. 25:47 They're going to lose because they voted to impeach him. 25:49 JVL And even once they lose, they will, when a reporter buttonholes them at the Elks Club, they'll say, no, look, I've always been a good Republican. 25:59 I'm going to support the Republican nominee, whoever it is. 26:02 So I have a question for you. 26:05 used to be that the party had a bunch of diffuse power structures and these power structures included things like uh long-standing local officials in key places uh money bundlers uh party alumni um 26:33 are all of those people just dead or co-opted because you would think that if for whoever you know whoever is involved in team elephant who wants to maximize the chances of team elephant winning 26:49 would not want donald trump to be the nominee and you there are i can answer this there's a living republican president he's not infirm right i mean they have all of their money people there's condoleezza rice sitting out at hoover like all that nobody is gonna lift a finger to try to signal that if the guy runs uh they'll blow up the railroad tracks and he will lose again in 27:16 even if it means denying Republicans' power in an effort to prevent him from running? 27:20 Tim Miller I can answer this. 27:21 I know this one. 27:21 I know the answer to this one. 27:22 Me, pick me, pick me. 27:24 It's the same answer to Sarah's question, actually, which is why nobody's mad about the fact that he could blow up the party by delaying and waiting until 2023 and not running, which is a good point for a logical person, a strategist like Sarah to make. 27:39 That's a logical point. 27:40 Why aren't people more concerned about this? 27:41 He's freezing everything. 27:42 Other people can't. 27:43 It's because a conventional wisdom has congealed in all of those power centers. 27:52 And that says that the party cannot win without them. 27:58 Maybe they cannot win with them, but they definitely cannot win without them. 28:01 And and and this has over the course of the last eight months, you know, there were some people who thought that maybe thought this was true. 28:12 Some people who who didn't know if it was true or not. 28:14 Some people who are certain it was true. 28:16 And they've all been been brought along to the to this mindset by, you know, Lindsey Graham getting shouted down in an airport. 28:25 None of them believe that the coalition can be held together without it. 28:28 um all of them are secretly hoping that he dies um but uh no descent will be broached or else you're immediately outside the circle and so it is a combination of groupthink along with fear of losing status and and you know at this stage at this juncture 28:49 there's no reason to go against the groupthink or to lose your status because who knows, maybe you'll have one too many double cheeseburgers from White Castle and drop over and keel over. 29:02 I suspect that come this time next year, you'll have two or three brave new soldiers, just like we picked up two or three brave new soldiers in 2020 from 2016 who will be like, this is going to be my moment. 29:16 And I'm going to step out and say it, and they are going to go the way of Tim Miller and Stuart Stevens and then Adam Kinzinger and then Liz Cheney and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 29:29 We can go all the way down the line. 29:33 We are in Groundhog Day in the bad place together. 29:36 Sarah Longwell Well, I would just add one thing to that, which is that, like, that calculation happens to be more or less true. 29:42 I mean, when I started doing the MAGA focus groups, or just Trump 2020 voters, right? 29:49 And I was no longer isolating for people who thought Trump was doing a very bad job, you know, so that you could think about who's persuadable. 29:56 You just basically say, OK, give me people who voted for Trump in 2020. 29:59 And you ask those groups, who do you want to see run in 2024? 30:05 vast majority say trump and every poll bears that out and so like there it's not that it's just congealed out of nowhere i mean right it's true like there's been no consequence uh i tell the story sometimes about how shortly after the insurrection i was saying to people this guy's not done you gotta go gotta go finish him gotta go put his gotta gotta gotta gotta give cover for people who are gonna impeach him gotta go hard right now everybody's like you know what 30:31 this is the first time I've slept great in months. 30:33 You know why? 30:34 Because I know Donald Trump is done. 30:36 He's done after this. 30:38 And I was just like, no. 30:40 And so, like, here, and I'll tell you another thing. 30:46 When I read that, JBL, you may remember, we did a secret podcast at one point, and we called it Panic. 30:54 You know, it's time to panic or something. 30:55 And it was not, it was like in... 30:57 March, I don't know, or it wasn't that long ago, but it was or wasn't that long after the election. 31:02 And people kind of wrote in being like, can you guys give it a rest? 31:05 Like, we can't be in a constant state of panic about Trump and losing or whatever. 31:12 I think not only is he very likely to run again, not the least of which is the number one telltale sign, which is that he's dropped about 25 pounds, which is what people do when they're serious about it. 31:24 He's dropped a bunch of weight. 31:26 Not only do I think he is likely going to run again, I think he could very well win. 31:30 Like his calculation about Biden's weakness and what are the Democrats going to do in 2024? 31:37 So the way that I just talked about the Republicans being boxed in, let's think about the Democrat side. 31:42 So you've got an incumbent who's got to decide whether he's going to run again, who in no way wants to signal that he's not up until that point. 31:49 But Biden is going to be how, what, 82? 31:52 And potentially, and I'm not, look, lots can change. 31:56 This particular moment is not set in amber. 31:59 Lots in the political universe can change. 32:02 But is his vice president going to run, Kamala Harris? 32:06 Do you think that Donald Trump wants to run against Kamala Harris? 32:09 I bet he very, very badly would like to run against Kamala Harris. 32:14 But could somebody else emerge? 32:15 Could Pete Buttigieg or Amy? 32:21 How are they going to do it with Joe Biden in off like what do the Democrats do if Donald Trump tries to run again? 32:29 Tim Miller So that was sad. 32:30 I want to bring up something happy in a second. 32:32 But go ahead, JBL. 32:33 JVL So here the plain fact of the matter is that it has been obvious since November three or six or whatever election day was last time around. 32:44 Joe Biden will have to run again. 32:46 I'm sorry, but that is the only answer is that Joe Biden has to run again. 32:52 He is the only Democrat within the circumstances of him being an incumbent president who could win the presidency again. 33:00 There is no other option. 33:02 So it's not even worth thinking about other options because there aren't any at this moment. 33:09 And I think, Sarah, you're not even selling that. 33:13 When we say Trump could win, 33:16 I think it's a coin flip, honestly, because when you're running as an insurgent, you know, Biden is now running against an actual record in the real world where things are not perfect. 33:28 I think he has governed on the whole pretty well, but, you know, nobody ever gets credit for pretty. 33:34 People looked past 500,000 deaths and said, yeah, things are basically OK for Donald Trump. 33:39 Like, you know, people are going to reelect him. 33:42 He's an incumbent president. 33:43 And somehow the narrative for Biden will be like, oh, everything is terrible. 33:47 And I don't understand how these narratives happen, but they're real. 33:51 And it's because everybody grades this stuff on a curve, right? 33:54 Donald Trump is an insane person. 33:56 Therefore, we have to have insane standards. 33:59 And Joe Biden is a normal politician. 34:01 Therefore, we have normal politician standards. 34:05 And he could absolutely lose to Donald Trump, except for one thing. 34:16 I truly believe that people are not quite taking into account how just the numbers of Trump voters in some key states are going to be smaller than they would be even naturally through attrition. 34:35 And you look at Trump's margin in Arizona versus the number of people in Arizona who have died of COVID and 34:40 And lots more people have died of COVID than voted, than were Biden's margin, rather, in Arizona. 34:48 Sarah Longwell Not since Biden was elected, though. 34:51 JVL No, but again, we don't know whether or not COVID is impacting in an adverse way certain types of voters. 35:04 But just thinking it through, it's hard to understand how it wouldn't be. 35:08 Right. 35:08 I mean, when you look at the data that Kaiser's done on who got vaccinated and who didn't. 35:14 And I'm not being foolish here. 35:16 Tim Miller This is just a bad version. 35:19 I'm sorry. 35:19 This is just a this is just a weaker version of demographics or destiny. 35:23 A lot of things change in the electorate over the course of four years, and that is going to be a certain number of people who have died, many of whom might be low-income non-voters. 35:37 If you look at the unvaccinated, a lot of them are non-voters. 35:40 I hear where you're at on that, but I don't think it's a weaker version of demographics or destiny. 35:47 Sarah Longwell Okay, let's take JVL's macro point, which is that, well, no, look, I don't agree with this COVID thing. 35:57 So let's go back to the point where Donald Trump, if he runs again, stands 36:03 a extremely good chance of winning like can you imagine can you get into the headspace this the politico piece put me in the headspace of imagining an actual rematch between a 78 year old donald trump and an 82 year old joe biden weakened jbl's point about the the the way that standards are applied i 100 agree with that but a weakened joe biden uh i am just 36:31 I am not confident that Donald Trump couldn't win. 36:33 And also going into 2022 with a weakened Joe Biden, whether for better or for like, or whether you think that's true or not, or fair or not, like Donald Trump smells blood and water for a real reason, which is that Joe Biden's approvals are now under water. 36:50 And if that translates into a massacre in the House and to a draw in the Senate, 36:58 or even a picking up of one Republican seat. 37:03 Like Trump will think he has the pieces in place. 37:07 Tim Miller I mean, you got Jody Heist now running the election in Georgia, who's gonna move from being a Congressman to, I mean, like we're talking, just can you get there in your head about- You know some stupid rich dude will run a centrist third party ticket also in 2024 and cleave away from Joe Biden, because they'll be like, we can't have these two old options. 37:26 So I'm just going to run and draw more votes from the suburban voters that Joe Biden needs to win. 37:33 Yeah, I know. 37:33 I know. 37:35 It's dark. 37:36 JVL And yet everybody will proceed as though it's just another election year. 37:40 Just another crazy election. 37:42 There won't be any like, hey, this guy who attempted an authoritarian takeover is running again. 37:47 And now he's got his shit locked down at the state level. 37:52 You know, nobody will. 37:54 Yeah, let's let's have the League of Women Voters conduct a debate because we always have presidential debates. 38:01 Right. 38:01 Tim Miller I mean, what would what would the point of any of this even several people, by the way, on the left and other never Trumpers? 38:08 I won't out them like doing tweets and commentary. 38:12 It's like, I hope he runs. 38:13 He's the weakest. 38:15 We can beat him. 38:16 And I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with you people? 38:18 What is wrong with you people? 38:20 Sarah Longwell We're talking about 10, just like, yes, in Michigan, it was 100,000 votes. 38:25 But in Pennsylvania, it was like 20,000. 38:28 Those margins are too close for us to chance this. 38:33 Look, I know everybody wants to live in a constant state of panic, but I think we are underreacting to where this moment is. 38:39 Yeah. 38:40 You're looking at a scenario where like, okay, so he doesn't run. 38:42 So then what does he get to do probably? 38:44 He probably gets to anoint somebody, right? 38:47 Where he like hands over, okay, Ron DeSantis, I've decided I'm not going to run. 38:50 I'm going to hand pick you and be the kingmaker, puppet master. 38:53 Here's the money. 38:55 That's like the only other option. 38:56 But if he thinks he can win again, because he wouldn't do it if he thought he would lose. 39:01 But like if he thinks he could win again and he would be right to think he could have a real shot. 39:06 JVL Okay, so serious question. 39:08 If I asked you to set the over-under on the chances that Trump wins, the over-under meaning, so I can define for people who do not gamble, the point at which you don't quite know which side of the bet you would take. 39:23 Where's the over-under for you, Timothy, on percentage chance that Trump runs in 2024? 39:29 Runs or wins? 39:31 Runs. 39:34 So the point at which you go, eh, I don't know, could be either way. 39:38 I think 75. 39:41 Sarah? 39:42 Sarah Longwell Yeah, that's about where I'd be. 39:45 JVL I think you guys are way low. 39:47 Sarah Longwell You think it's like 90%? 39:49 JVL Yeah, I do. 39:50 Sarah Longwell You take the over on 90%? 39:52 Boy, you're... 39:53 JVL No, at 90 is where I would say I'm not sure. 39:56 At 75, I'd pound the over. 39:59 The thing is just his psychology. 40:02 Once somebody else is the nominee and there's a chance that they could win and become president, if somebody else is president and they're a Republican and he is off of Twitter, he's absolutely, I mean, at that point, he's nobody. 40:19 He'd be much, much in terms of his own personal risk. 40:23 There's a much lower downside to running again and winning, at which point you'll just say, I was cheated again, and 85% of your people will believe you. 40:33 Versus you hand the baton to somebody else like Ron DeSantis. 40:36 Ron DeSantis wins and becomes president, and all of a sudden you're the sad old guy from the old-timers game. 40:43 And you have no juice anymore, nobody's afraid of you anymore, because you have no real power. 40:49 Can we talk about something sad, though? 40:51 Tim Miller Let's do it. 40:51 I thought you wanted to do something happy. 40:54 No, no, no. 40:55 Well, it's sad in a good way. 40:57 Where you get to have some pleasure from other people's sadness. 41:02 That's what I'm talking about. 41:04 And this is part of the reason it has me at 75 as well. 41:07 Did you see how Donald Trump is going to be ringing in the 20th anniversary of 9-11? 41:13 sure did catch that sure did um yeah he is going to be um broadcasting uh a pay-per-view boxing an old-timers pay-per-view boxing match uh between evander holyfield and someone named belfort i don't know belfort i've stopped watching boxing about 15 years ago so maybe belfort is relevant and 41:38 But the interesting factoid that I saw about this as well is how he's going to be doing it with his failed son, Don Jr. And this was a line from the article about it. 41:48 The Trumps will call the entire four-fight telecast that also includes Anderson Silva versus Tito Ortiz and David Hay versus Joe Fournier. 42:00 They don't even list what the fourth match is. 42:02 So the former president is going to be sitting ringside calling the under, under, undercard of basically a celebrity, quasi-celebrity old-timers boxing match this weekend. 42:16 At the Hard Rock. 42:18 At the Hard Rock in Tampa or something, right? 42:21 Which Hard Rock? 42:22 It's not even in Las Vegas. 42:24 I think it's in Tampa. 42:26 Excuse me, in Hollywood, Florida. 42:29 which is you know the hard rock hollywood that's a that was a coveted t-shirt back when i was in high school um and uh this this is a person that that needs attention or needs money i think this is kind of a an open question i mean think about this somebody replied to one of our friends of our listeners i think replied and said oh you know joe rogan couldn't take this gig 42:53 You know, Joe Rogan was sick that day. 42:55 I was like, they didn't even call Joe Rogan for this. 42:58 Like, Joe Rogan, you would laugh in your face if you said to him, hi, I would like you to call the David Hay versus Joe Fournier boxing match at the Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. 43:09 I mean, this is like, this is not prime time material. 43:14 JVL what do you think the odds are he actually sits there and does commentary for the whole thing because i gotta say about the rigged election no no versus versus he stays there for 15 minutes and then walks off because the idea of him sitting still for 15 minutes with this stuff i i can't imagine that what is he doing you notice on the on the uh the flyer for it how he is identified 43:43 Tim Miller I did not notice that, no. 43:45 JVL President Trump. 43:48 Of course. 43:48 Not former president. 43:51 As if he's still the president. 43:56 Amazing. 43:57 Sarah Longwell I mean, I don't know. 43:58 I would normally say like, yes, this is insane. 44:01 He's like officiating boxing matches or whatever it is he's doing. 44:04 I don't even really know what calling boxing matches. 44:06 Tim Miller I don't even know what that is. 44:07 It's like Ortiz, jab. 44:09 Ortiz, hook. 44:10 Sarah Longwell I don't know. 44:11 Is that any stupider than the fact that this guy became well-known as a consummate businessman because he fired Gilbert Gottfried on The Apprentice? 44:20 It's not any more ridiculous than that. 44:22 It's all ridiculous. 44:24 Tim Miller Yeah. 44:24 Yeah. 44:25 I mean, I do think that it signals that he needs cash, right? 44:30 And he's trying to sell the hotel. 44:31 Sarah Longwell So I was just going to bring this up. 44:33 So somebody made an interesting point on Twitter, I can't remember who it was, that why would he sell his hotel if he was going to run again, since the whole point of the hotel was, you know, you're president, you force people to stay there, you know, as they come to see you. 44:48 And like, that's the whole business model. 44:51 But it strikes me that actually, he just needs cash. 44:55 JVL The hotel's a money pit right now, I think. 44:58 It became so polarized. 45:00 Nobody wants to stay there, and there aren't enough Republicans in power to make it worth anybody's while. 45:06 So he's got to just stop the bleeding on it, I think. 45:10 I don't even know that he's going to make a ton of – because he's not selling the hotel the way – I mean, it's a complicated thing about the leases. 45:16 So, you know – 45:17 He has a lease with the U.S. government on what is U.S. government property. 45:23 He's going to sell that lease to somebody else to pick it up. 45:27 I don't know. 45:29 I think you're right, Sarah. 45:31 You look at this and you think, oh, it's crazy. 45:34 Why is he doing that? 45:36 But on the other hand, he was on Alex Jones all the time. 45:39 He was president of the United States. 45:41 Didn't hurt him. 45:42 Never hurts him. 45:44 The rules don't apply. 45:46 Sarah Longwell Yeah, so I guess I just, you know, something that I think it was Donald Rumsfeld once said of 9-11, that it was a failure to imagine. 45:55 There was a failure to imagine that this could happen to us. 45:59 And I think that for anybody in the political space... 46:02 We should not allow ourselves to fail to imagine as horrible as it is, as much as you don't want to go to that place in the part of your mindset and as much as you sort of feel like, am I just addicted to like talking about Trump or thinking about Trump? 46:16 And so you're like, you know, give it a rest. 46:18 I mean, I wrestle with this. 46:21 You cannot fail to imagine that we are entering into the next phase. 46:24 It is September of 2021. 46:26 2022 cycle is going to start very shortly. 46:30 It's already in full swing in a lot of these primaries, like Ohio, as we were talking about. 46:35 It's going to set the stage for a potential return for Donald Trump, who is actively building. 46:43 The the ability to walk back into a campaign for 2024 and against a president who will just he'll be 82 and who will have to run on a record as opposed to. 46:58 JVL I don't want to toot my own horn, but I think part of my value add here at The Bulwark is that I'm the guy whose capacity to imagine the worst happening is essentially infinite. 47:17 I have never once in my life suffered from a failure to imagine the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen. 47:24 Tim Miller So, you know, I feel like I'm helping out. 47:27 I'm still enjoying my first summer of Joe Biden. 47:30 Can I just have another month, Sarah? 47:33 I mean, can my mind rest for one more month? 47:37 Is the democracy so in threat that my mind cannot rest until Halloween? 47:42 JVL Well, I mean, you can't do anything practically yet anyway. 47:47 Sarah Longwell Yeah, that's fine. 47:48 But I'll just say, that's fine. 47:49 Wait until you can grab a hundred grand. 47:52 And by that, I mean the candy bar. 47:54 And then you can freak out. 47:55 But like, I'm just, we are slow walking ourselves into a scenario that is very much worst case, it seems like to me, where it's just not over yet. 48:07 Tim Miller It seems like maybe you can't imagine what the worst case is. 48:10 Maybe it's even worse than this. 48:13 JVL All right. 48:13 Before we get out of here, Tim, would you fly back here to go to a concert with me and Sarah? 48:22 You're a concert guy. 48:23 Tim Miller You love music. 48:24 I do love music. 48:25 I'm going to go see Big Frida tonight. 48:28 Going to see Big Frida. 48:30 And I do like music. 48:33 It depends on what the show is. 48:34 Will there be guitar solos? 48:38 JVL There will be some acoustic guitars. 48:41 Sarah Longwell Acoustic guitars. 48:42 Tim Miller Acoustic guitars. 48:43 Okay. 48:44 Is it a singer-songwriter? 48:45 Is it a male singer-songwriter singing about his feelings, singing about what it's like to have his heart broken by a woman and get down on his luck? 48:55 JVL it's a it's about getting a heart broken by women it's uh it's about the it's about the rich interior lives of women which is the best kind of music i am told and and i believe that the indigo girls and with very special guest ani de franco will be coming to like a miniature lilith fair will be coming to dc at wolf trap and i think that sarah and i should go we'll both wear flannels 49:21 We'll, uh, we'll pack, I don't know, I don't know what a good Indigo Girls picnic would be, and we'll just hunker down and just, just enjoy Amy, and I don't even remember the other Indigo, I used to be like someone of the Indigo Girls, but, uh, 49:36 What's the other Indigo Girls name? 49:39 Sarah Longwell I'm blanking on it. 49:40 I actually don't remember. 49:41 But I will tell you, not only would I go to this concert, I've been to this concert. 49:46 The only people that I have seen consistently in concert is Ani DeFranco and the Indigo Girls. 49:51 Throughout my life, I would never miss them at Wolf Trap. 49:55 In fact, I wore my first, I came, I rolled into my flannel yesterday and some people on my team said, oh, it's September. 50:04 And I was, they were like, you know, it is 80 degrees outside. 50:06 And I was like, I don't care. 50:07 As soon as September hits, it's flannel time. 50:11 JVL Well, I will either send you with my wife or I will send you and your wife to this show at Wolf Trap. 50:17 I will probably not go. 50:19 Okay, no one needs to be sent. 50:20 Tim Miller Why won't you go? 50:21 You're the one who knows the Indigo Girls catalog the best. 50:27 No. 50:27 JVL She doesn't know it better than I do. 50:28 I'm sure that Sarah knows it better than I do. 50:30 Now, you know, people forget that before the Indigo Girls were like the iconic lesbian band, they were on the front edge of a really cool scene from Athens, Georgia, when it was, you know, Michael Stipe and R.E.M. 50:46 coming out of there and Husker Du and Bob Mould. 50:49 And so there's this whole alternative rock scene happening in the late 80s, early 90s. 50:55 And I don't know when they went from being part of like the cool, hip, new alternative rock scene to being just like the earnest lesbian band. 51:07 Sarah Longwell First of all, they could be both. 51:08 Number one. 51:09 Also, it's Emily. 51:10 Emily was the other one's name. 51:11 Tim Miller Emily. 51:12 Yes. 51:12 Sarah Longwell And they're great. 51:13 Tim Miller There are only two of them? 51:15 Sarah Longwell They're the two main ones. 51:16 I thought it was like a four piece. 51:17 No, no, no. 51:18 It's just the two. 51:20 Tim Miller There's a new Athens. 51:21 Speaking of Athens, just really quick, a little tip. 51:22 If you made it all the way to the end at this point. 51:25 Sarah Longwell You're really hanging in there. 51:26 Tim Miller Mine is the late aughts kind of indie rock. 51:31 You know, kind of a spacey sort of indie rock vibe with some guitar solos and with some males singing about their feelings. 51:39 And there's a new Athens band called Low Talker that fits that bill that I highly recommend. 51:43 Is it a shoegazer band? 51:47 No, no. 51:48 I would say it's just kind of a lush and spacey kind of indie rock with a little bit of, you know, with a few ballads mixed in there. 51:55 JVL Where were you on Smashing Pumpkins? 51:58 Tim Miller Who hated Smashing Pumpkins. 52:00 Hated Smashing Pumpkins. 52:00 Hated Smashing Pumpkins. 52:02 Why? 52:02 Yeah. 52:03 I don't know. 52:03 It was maybe a little bit too heavy for me. 52:12 I didn't like them. 52:13 I kind of put the Silver Sun pickups in their little bucket. 52:17 And I was not a Smashing Pumpkins man. 52:19 JVL Those are wildly different groups. 52:21 But that's okay. 52:22 Not really. 52:22 They have a similar sound. 52:24 Sarah Longwell interesting and Sarah you didn't do any of the grunge rock you just went right for lesbian folk music yeah I mean I basically like if you check my current like what's on shuffle in my car it is just every American musical plus the British ones plus Ani DeFranco Indigo Girls and then a lot of Eminem Eminem for whatever reason I did a lot of Eminem and then there's like you know I can I got some I got some hits the hits Tegan and Sarah are you a Tegan and Sarah girl too 52:53 JVL uh no i'm not i actually played pool once with tegan and sarah in california and didn't know who they were uh then somebody had to tell me really that must have been pretty cool i didn't know though they were so how cool could it have been uh that's interesting so m&m can we just before we i mean we should give the people something for making it this far how did you get into m&m eight miles 53:19 Sarah Longwell I, well, no, before 8 Mile, I mean, Eminem was, you may remember this. 53:24 JVL You an OG Slim Shady type? 53:26 Sarah Longwell Pretty, yeah, he was a pretty big deal. 53:28 And here's the thing. 53:29 So I'm just going to tell you this observation. 53:31 I've never said it out loud, but it is true that in my college years, if you listened to all of Eminem and all of Ani DeFranco, and those were basically two of the people that you listened to, 53:42 The amount of rage and the sort of way they talked about their grievance, they were so similar. 53:49 And I think I might have just been a little, maybe right around my 20s, might have been like, I might have had a little anger deep down. 53:57 I might have been trying to work through some things. 53:59 And I loved them both so much. 54:01 Although I will tell you, I have caught, I hadn't listened to Eminem in a while and I revisited recently and I was like. 54:09 Tim Miller Through Dido. 54:10 Sarah Longwell No, I don't know. 54:11 It was like, you know, we're going to ask some ladies, please stand up. 54:16 Like I was, you know. 54:18 But if you listen to some of the tracks that I remember singing to, they are breathtakingly awful. 54:25 Like scary, dangerous, dark. 54:28 I mean, whatever. 54:30 I still loved them, but I like wouldn't put them in front of my kids. 54:34 Tim Miller Tipper Gore has entered the chat. 54:39 Sarah Longwell Man, dude, the violence against women, against... 54:42 JVL I was going to ask you, there's a lot of anti-woman stuff, and I'm surprised that you were able to stomach that. 54:51 You must have been very angry. 54:54 Sarah Longwell I need to Franco made me that way. 54:58 JVL Oh, your 24 flavors of awesome. 55:02 Bye, guys. 55:03 Peace.