00:07 JVL Welcome to The Next Level. 00:11 This is JVL here with Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of The Bulwark. 00:18 Guys, how are we all doing? 00:20 Tim Miller Well, I'm living in a dystopic hellscape of fire and plague in California, but otherwise I'm doing really quite well. 00:28 Sarah Longwell Oh, I thought you were talking about the Republican National Convention. 00:31 JVL Also that. 00:32 Bada bing. 00:33 We're going to talk about three things today. 00:35 We're going to talk about the Republican National Convention. 00:38 We're going to talk about the bizarre paradox of the 2020 race. 00:42 And we're going to talk about the violence in Kenosha. 00:45 But Tim is going to lead us off talking about the RNC. 00:48 Tim, go. 00:48 Tim Miller Yeah, style and substance, I want to hit on both. 00:52 And starting on the substantive side, I went into this a little bit after day one in the newsletter while JVL was deep sea diving. 01:04 And the most noticeable thing for me about the convention from a substantive standpoint has, besides the fact that every single speaker mentions school choice, which I can't even remember when Donald Trump last talked about school choice. 01:20 So I'm curious what's going on there. 01:22 But the other substantive thing that I've noticed is that there is this dichotomy. 01:28 between the two Trumps, the speakers who actually like Donald Trump and actually understand what Donald Trump's voters want and spend most of their time talking about cancel culture and how great the orange God is and talking about how wonderful things were before the China virus came into the country and was the invisible enemy. 01:49 And then that's the only thing that they mentioned about it. 01:52 And focus on kind of these populist themes that drove Trump success in 2016. 01:59 And then you have other speakers, including the president's wife, weirdly, and Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, who either act as if he doesn't exist at all. 02:08 And their substance of their remarks are all about like interesting things that they've done or interesting or positive kind of traditional Republican-y bills that he signed, like Opportunity Zones. 02:21 And then completely ignore the main beating heart of Trumpism, the sort of popular cultural grievance. 02:29 And I think maybe some of that is by design. 02:32 And they're using kind of Nikki and Melania to appeal to the softer Republican female voters in particular who have left the party. 02:42 I think that's a tough sell. 02:44 But I also think part of it is not by design. 02:47 And they just... 02:50 have no kind of control over this. 02:53 I mean, Trump's body language was very bad during Melania's speech last night. 02:57 Tim Scott's speech very much read like it was written by Tim Scott's people. 03:00 And so they're just kind of letting a thousand flowers bloom. 03:05 And if one guy talks about how Joe Biden wants to empty the prisons and the next guy talks about how Joe Biden filled the prisons, like whatever, that's fine. 03:12 Who cares? 03:12 Nothing matters. 03:13 it's Donald Trump. 03:16 So from a substance standpoint, that's been what stuck out for me for the first two days. 03:22 Sarah, what'd you think? 03:25 Sarah Longwell You know, one of the things that I think I tweeted this, but that has struck me is that, you know, despite how anti-Trump I am, obviously I've been a Republican since I was like old enough to formulate a political opinion. 03:39 And 03:39 And oftentimes during this Trump era, there will be things that remind me of why I was attracted to the ideas of the Republican Party, very few of which exist these days. 03:53 But I'm reminded like, oh, I still I believe this thing or that and and still identify with certain when the Republican Party starts to sound like an old version of itself. 04:03 I can I can like remember, oh, yeah, this is why I supported this party. 04:07 I watched this convention, and I have yet to feel even the remotest sense of identifying with these people. 04:15 Tim Miller The gun couple didn't? 04:18 The woman in the gun couple family has a lot of similar traits to you, no? 04:22 No. 04:23 Sarah Longwell They just it feels like and this has happened, I mean, really in the Trump era where I'm like, these are not my people. 04:28 The conspiracy mongering, the apocalyptic talk, the over the top. 04:33 I mean, look, you can criticize Democrats for a bunch of things on policy grounds, but they just just saying socialism, socialism, socialism over and over is not. 04:42 It's neither a fair characterization of the vast majority of the Democratic Party, which nominated the most centrist candidate in their field, with the exception of Mike Bloomberg, of course. 04:53 Nor does it sort of... 04:55 It just doesn't fit the platform or the way that Joe Biden is even projecting himself. 04:59 I mean, they literally... 05:00 The Democrats just had a convention that featured a number of Republican speakers. 05:04 They are clearly trying to signal being a big tent party. 05:07 So anyway, it's just... 05:08 I just... 05:09 And also, it's funny because it's actually pretty well produced in the sense that it is technically... 05:15 They ended up, despite criticizing the Democrats for this, they filmed everything in advance. 05:19 And so it's pretty seamless. 05:20 It moves quickly from thing to thing. 05:21 But it also gives it the effect of being very bloodless, very produced. 05:26 I'm deeply bored throughout it. 05:29 And the only time you really perk up is you're like, oh, because something insane is happening. 05:33 Like, Kimberly Guilfoyle is... 05:35 screaming at me. 05:37 So I think that's, but that's been odd to me that like it triggers almost none of my sort of Republican or conservative instincts. 05:45 But Tim, I will say when you, I think one of the reasons that the school choice thing is popping just as an observation is probably because right now a lot of people on the right are sort of fighting with their local schools because they're trying to homeschool their kids and pot up with people. 06:01 And so there's sort of like a weird COVID situation 06:03 homeschooling school choice byproduct. 06:07 Tim Miller I mean, this is like the least important thing, but it's like, it just has been so striking to me. 06:11 Like, do you think that that popped in their polling or do you think that like the speech writer who wrote all the undercard speeches is just a hobby horse for them? 06:20 Or do you think it is what you're saying? 06:21 Sarah Longwell I think, well, so I think, look, the entire, the thing that they're doing, I think they're not doing it particularly successfully, but it's very clear in their intent is that they've got sort of two buckets of people, right? 06:32 That's why it's like a schizophrenic convention. 06:34 There is one bucket that is like, this is the apocalypse. 06:37 They're coming. 06:37 MSM 13 is moving in next to you. 06:39 And those are like face plays. 06:41 But then there's this other suburban women play, right? 06:44 where they focus on like, you know, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott. 06:48 I mean, you know, I don't want to steal JBL's point, but his idea about earth to traditional Republican party. 06:53 Uh, okay. 06:55 Sorry. 06:56 You wrote the Trump, the earth too. 06:58 I did. 06:59 Tim Miller I wrote it for the triad. 07:00 So I could see how you could be confused. 07:02 And I know that you're not a reader of the trial. 07:04 JVL So that's why she read it, Tim, because you wrote it and not me. 07:08 Sarah Longwell No, I read it. 07:09 I always read it. 07:10 I just read it. 07:10 I thought it was extremely good. 07:12 Anyway, I think that there is an explicit attempt to appeal to suburban women here. 07:19 I don't think it's particularly well done, but I think that's why. 07:25 JVL So Twitter informed me this morning that it was masterfully done and that it's working. 07:30 And this seems to be the consensus on both left and right. 07:36 Sarah, you have sat through dozens, scores, hundreds of focus groups. 07:40 Can you gauge potential effectiveness of it for me? 07:45 Sarah Longwell So I'm doing two focus groups tonight, actually, one with both all with women, but one from Arizona, one from North Carolina. 07:53 And I can't wait to find out if it's working. 07:57 I'm not entirely I'm going to make a prediction that the vast majority of the people are not watching it. 08:02 And that when I talk to them, they will not have an opinion about it, particularly one way or the other. 08:06 But who knows? 08:07 Maybe they are. 08:08 Yeah. 08:09 I think that like here's the thing, right? 08:12 People it's why whenever Trump, you know, does this new tone for like five seconds and the media throws him a ticker tape parade. 08:20 The fact that this looks relatively normal and that Trump is doing things like naturalization ceremonies and pardoning people who have inspiring stories. 08:28 Like it just so exceeds the like unbelievably low bar that we all have for Trump that I think, especially for Republicans, we're desperate, desperate to not look like they're constantly criticizing Trump. 08:40 It's just an opportunity to be like, oh, this is good. 08:42 See, look how normal this is. 08:44 Tim Miller Yeah, so I've got two things with this. 08:46 One is that I, here's why I think it might be working, is that there's this group of people, and there are probably some of the people Sarah's just talking to in these focus groups, that like went for Trump, but didn't like him. 09:01 And for the last six months, all they've been reminded of were all the reasons they didn't like him. 09:05 Like the stupid press conferences and the gassing of the protesters and the psycho Joe Scarborough tweets and the whiny, you know, no responsibility behavior. 09:18 And so they've left him. 09:20 And then now for one week there, they get sort of told, all right, these are the things that I liked about him. 09:26 And these are the things that scare me about the left. 09:28 Could that one week of that help claw some of those people back? 09:33 I think possibly. 09:35 I'm also interested to hear what the focus groups say. 09:37 I'm not ready to weigh in yes or no, but thinking about it through that lens, I think possibly. 09:42 And I do have, since this isn't live, I can say this, it would be breaking news, but just right before I got on, I got a call from the Wall Street Journal who wanted my take on, they're about to break that this naturalization ceremony, at least two of the people were not told. 09:58 that it was going to be used in the convention or filmed or anything of that nature so if it wasn't cynical enough if it wasn't an illegal hatch act violation if it wasn't a totally obviously cynical ploy to use these ceremonies that the president's administration have been trying to cut significantly how many of them we have and make it as hard as possible for people to have them 10:24 On top of that, it was cynical on the most personal level and said they didn't even tell these people that they're going to be used as props. 10:31 JVL Pretty good. 10:32 Can we talk about the Hatch Act, Tim? 10:34 Because this is one of those things like, for instance, the Ukrainian begun impeachment hearings where you have what is a clear violation of the law. 10:47 And the answer is, well, the American public doesn't really care about it, so therefore the violation of the law doesn't matter. 10:57 Tim Miller Yeah, I actually think that this is more clear than the Ukraine. 11:01 The Ukraine issue was so kind of arcane and involved kind of diplomatic norms. 11:07 I do think it was complicated for regular folks to just understand, forget whether or not they care. 11:11 And then there was all of the extended figures of the Donald Trump extended universe and minor characters and everything in the Ukraine thing. 11:21 It made it a little bit indecipherable, I think, for people. 11:25 This isn't. 11:26 This is very decipherable. 11:28 Like the president is using the White House for political purposes and it's inappropriate. 11:33 And like I've said this on Twitter, like the Lincoln bedroom thing. 11:39 How is this any different than that? 11:40 Like Bill Clinton was letting his donors sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. 11:44 Um, it was uncovered by the news outlet. 11:49 Um, the Republicans made a big stink about it. 11:51 The media made a big stink about it. 11:52 And it's, and that stink stuck with them all the way to, it became an issue in Hillary's 2000 campaign against Rick Lazio. 11:59 I mean, it didn't go away. 12:01 And it was the same thing. 12:02 Like the crux of the matter was they were inappropriately using the people's house and 12:06 you know, for political gain. 12:08 That's what the president was doing last night. 12:10 And so I don't, maybe it's true that people don't care about that, but, but I think rather than like reporters being pundits and deciding that maybe they should just report that, that, that what they were doing is against the law and inappropriate. 12:24 And, and by the way, instead of the Democrats deciding that it's silly, you know, maybe they should hold hearings about it and, and do what Rush Limbaugh used to do. 12:32 And, you know, about, about, um, 12:34 about the lincoln bedroom i mean i think that that there's this if the media is going to only decide that something is a big a scandal if it's like a secret scandal or if the other party makes a big deal out of it then like the other party has to start making a big deal out of it or the media is going to start behaving better like those are the two options and so i think the democrats got to start making a bigger deal out of stuff like this and the media's got to start behaving better 12:59 JVL Sarah, there's this truism that actual voters never care about process arguments. 13:08 The Hatch Act feels like a process argument situation, the type of thing that people like us get ramped up about but which will move exactly zero votes anywhere. 13:19 Yeah. 13:21 Do you agree? 13:22 Do you disagree? 13:23 Sarah Longwell No, I actually really agree with Tim's point. 13:26 I think that these things can become an issue if people treat them like they're the issue that they are. 13:31 And this is one of the things where I think, look, I'm not the media. 13:36 But I do think the media has failed. 13:38 in a way where they, just like what I just said about the low bar, he wins with this sort of soft bigotry of low expectations for Trump, right? 13:48 Where they all expect him to break the law. 13:49 And so rather than printing stories about how he is breaking the law and it's a real issue and then creating that as a bigger issue, it's just a straight reporting. 14:00 He's breaking the law. 14:01 If more people made a big deal out of that, instead of acting like 14:04 pundits were there instead saying like yeah he's doing this thing but voters don't care like well voters might care if you if it was made to be the big deal that it is if they understood that it was corrupt right i think like there's no education like voters don't care about it because it's not being framed at all for them 14:22 Tim Miller So JV, I noticed you haven't provided any takes. 14:24 You've just been asking queries. 14:25 And I'm wondering if that's because you were just like drinking a lot of painkillers on your vacation and haven't actually tuned in. 14:32 And we're hoping that you could get by without anybody noticing that. 14:36 JVL I had a painkiller last night. 14:38 I mean, I would say this. 14:40 I disagree with you guys. 14:43 I think that this is the type of thing that will not move a single voter anywhere. 14:48 Yeah. 14:48 And I believe that that is, I mean, we're going to sound like a broken record. 14:54 This goes back to our age-old disagreement, which is that I think this is further evidence of the fact that it turns out our entire system of government is just on the honor system. 15:06 And once both the principals no longer care about honor and the voters no longer care about honor, then we're just screwed. 15:17 There is no way forward. 15:20 Nothing works. 15:22 And, you know, Donald Trump was the guy who discovered that this was all being done on the honor system and happens to be the first United States president ever who did not give a crap about honor, period, the end. 15:35 And I just find it hard to believe that a country which was told that the president said to the 15:44 authoritarian leader of China, oh, you're going to build some concentration camps? 15:49 That sounds great. 15:50 Go ahead. 15:50 It's going to say, oh, no, Mike Pompeo violated the Hatch Act. 15:56 Well, that's a bridge too far for me. 15:59 Tim Miller Well, JBL, okay, let me just object to that. 16:01 Why... 16:02 Okay, everybody likes to use the hashtag because it sounds silly. 16:06 It does sound silly. 16:07 That's true. 16:08 But let's put that part aside. 16:10 What about the fact that we don't want to kink? 16:14 That these actions, like holding a political convention and having an honor guard and having them play music feels like a really weird North Korean or old Europe monarchical thing. 16:30 And, like, that makes people uncomfortable. 16:33 Doesn't that go in contrast to the whole kind of American spirit of what we want, of what people want? 16:40 Could we not break through with voters on that? 16:43 Like, do you really want this creepy wannabe king using the White House for this shit? 16:47 JVL I don't think there is an American spirit on this stuff. 16:51 There may have been 10, 20, 40 years ago, certainly, like, 200 years ago. 16:57 But now... 16:58 The negative polarity is such that we have, as Adrian Vermeule said out loud, you know, like I said out loud multiple times over the course of the last six months, maybe we should be going back to having a king who really embodies the will of the polity rather than relying on all this election stuff. 17:15 You know what? 17:15 He is saying out loud what his side all thinks because everybody has basically decided that 17:22 that this liberal democracy stuff is all bunk. 17:27 All that matters is that my side is running things. 17:29 And you even see this on the left when you have, you know, you look at the polling data on people talking about First Amendment and free speech and then hate speech. 17:40 There is a lot of, you know, if my side is making the rules, then I'm all for locking stuff down. 17:47 And I think it's the same thing here. 17:49 I just think this whole experiment has hit its terminus. 17:54 The American experiment? 17:55 Yeah, that one. 17:58 Tim, I mean, you can fight with him on this. 18:01 Sarah Longwell I I've been fighting with him about this for months and months and months because I disagree with this. 18:06 Tim Miller Uh, I think that the American experiment has reached its terminus. 18:09 Sarah Longwell Yeah. 18:10 I mean, like I agreed to climb as a choice and that, you know, people are, are far too unserious and every, some of JBL's other critiques of it, but the conclusion that he arrives at is that like America's finished and I just, I'm not, I'm not there. 18:23 Um, 18:24 But look, the essential thing here that Trump has done, and we've talked about this a lot, is that he overwhelms the system with corruption. 18:34 The reason that the Hatch Act looks silly is because it pales in comparison to all the other corruption that is omnipresent in the day-to-day. 18:43 And part of the reason that the media doesn't hold his feet to the fire on this is because it becomes impossible because there's just so much of it. 18:50 JVL Do you remember what Kellyanne said when she was charged with this stuff? 18:53 Kellyanne Conway literally said, as asked by a reporter, she goes, yeah, go ahead. 18:58 Have me arrested. 18:59 This is their attitude. 19:01 Sarah Longwell Yeah, and they're bad and hopefully and they should be voted out and then we should demand accountability on these things. 19:09 Tim Miller I just want to go back to the Lincoln bedroom thing really quick, just this analogy. 19:12 And so maybe you're going to say to me, things have changed in 20 years, maybe, or 30 years, however long it's been. 19:17 Maybe that's the answer. 19:18 But this was an abuse of the White House. 19:23 People complained about it. 19:25 He got negative media coverage. 19:27 Bush and Obama didn't do it. 19:29 Like, you know, that was an example of an abuse of power that there were negative consequences for, and it yielded a result where people stopped doing that. 19:39 I just don't understand why we can't just do that right now for using the White House for really gaudy, you know, Kim Jong-un-esque political events. 19:51 JVL So this is actually a pretty good segue into topic two, which is my... 19:58 The new paradigm that I'm using to look at the election is that this election is essentially a paradox in that we have as clear as we have had and as stable as we have had a lead for one candidate over another going back probably to like 84%. 20:17 And it has been Biden plus six, seven or eight almost the entire time, even dating to the theoretical matchup polls before Biden was a declared candidate. 20:29 Trump has never led. 20:30 He's never been closer than six, I don't think. 20:33 He may have gotten like five point eight once. 20:36 And it's been, as Harry Anton and CNN has said many times, the biggest lead by and most consistently by a challenger over an incumbent president in the history of polling. 20:50 That's the one side. 20:50 So we know what people think. 20:53 We know what the voters think about this. 20:56 On the other side, because of COVID and then because of Trump, 21:02 we have more uncertainty as to what the actual outcome would be than maybe any election we've had ever. 21:12 Because all of the polling may turn out to be utterly useless if you have some very large percentage of votes coming in by mail and then aggressive challenges, both at the federal and state level, to disqualify ballots and a prolonged fight over, well, this signature only tangentially matches this other signature on the voter ID and registration card. 21:35 then you're going to have the problem of fewer polling places, longer lines. 21:39 You have no idea what turnout is going to look like, where are college students going to be, right? 21:43 On November 3, are college students going to be at college? 21:45 Are they going to be home? 21:47 Everything about the actual vote casting and vote counting is as uncertain as it has ever been. 21:54 And this puts us in a very weird, weird place. 21:59 And I find it... 22:01 actually quite alarming because again, if you were going to say the American experiment is finished, what would be the classic result? 22:09 The classic result would be a clear majority opinion of the public on one thing and then an election result showing another thing, which is wildly disputed and which has both sides crying foul. 22:23 This is what failed states look like. 22:27 Tim Miller Well, I like my new chair and a podcast with JVL because I always kind of feel like I'm the darkest one in conversations with people. 22:35 But I'm like a bright shining beam of optimism compared to you, JVL. 22:40 And so I do appreciate that, Connor. 22:44 I just... 22:45 I think that you're right. 22:47 I think that in this sense, there is a potential very, very bad worst case scenario in this election, which is essentially that Joe Biden wins a very close election. 22:57 There's a lot of chicanery around voting and vote counting. 23:01 and you know donald trump um uh you know comes out of that actually being a narrow victor and mass protest riots blah blah blah i mean i i don't what is the percentage of that i don't know four two six i'm not sure but i feel like we've had a run of bad luck here so i'm hoping that we don't you know kind of draw that uh draw that card i mean i think that in the more likely results 23:31 is that either is that Donald Trump wins, you know, or Donald Trump loses clearly and then like whines about the count on Twitter and like send some tweets about it. 23:42 And then there's like this minority, maybe 18% of the population that thinks for all of eternity that Donald Trump got robbed by the deep state and the elders of Zion and the, you know, pedophile ring or whatever. 23:55 Yeah. 23:56 And that's unhealthy for our democracy as well, but it's much more survivable than the situation that you paint. 24:05 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I mean, I'm actually a little bit with JBL on this, where I am pretty worried about how the election is going to look. 24:15 I think that even, Tim, you know, your scenario there where Trump wins narrowly, I actually think there's a different scenario that's much more likely, which is that all of the polls 24:25 that have surveyed people on how they're going to vote show that people who are going to vote for Joe Biden disproportionately are favoring mail-in ballots. 24:33 And the people who are going to vote for Donald Trump are disproportionately going to show up on the polls on election day. 24:39 And so I think that you set up a scenario where on election night, which is when people are used to having elections called... 24:45 you see Trump doing far better than any of the polls suggested. 24:52 And it starts to look a lot like it did in 2016. 24:55 And meanwhile, there are, for no nefarious reasons, but for a series of bureaucratic reasons, the system is very overwhelmed by the number of mail-in ballots. 25:05 And so people are counting extremely slowly and 25:08 And then there's instances in some places, credible instances, where people mailed in a ballot and they showed up to vote as well. 25:14 And so Trump starts going nuts about the idea that there's fraud, widespread fraud. 25:18 It starts calling for people, you know, for them to call. 25:21 He's already tweeted this, that he wants the election called on election night, which favors him. 25:25 And it just opens up this gray space. 25:28 for there to be things just to look muddled and to not look like Americans are used to them looking and for then tons of litigation to drop and for people to be in the streets. 25:38 And there's this phenomenon now they're referring to as the blue shift, right? 25:42 So if you remember, Kyrsten Sinema on election night was behind 25:46 Martha McSally. 25:48 But as the votes came in and were counted, she became the winner. 25:53 But that was days later. 25:54 And Doug Ducey, of course, certified that election, but Donald Trump was tweeting about how it was stolen and rigged. 26:00 And I think that you're about to see that whole thing happen on a national scale. 26:05 And I think JBL's point about it dramatically impacting what we... 26:10 I mean, these polls are only as good as A, a snapshot in time, and B... 26:13 if all the people who are registering their opinion go and vote that way, um, or, or just go vote and, and like, we're going to be in a weird environment. 26:22 Tim Miller Uh, so I'll just obviously entered institutions guy and Donald Trump is a man, baby guy and say that I, we had an election not that long ago in 2000 where the result was unclear for many months. 26:36 Um, and, um, 26:38 You know, obviously, there's still segments within the Democratic base. 26:42 It feels like that race was that election was stolen and they bring it up from time to time and they're bitter about it. 26:47 And it impacts their view of our government and our democracy and our institutions in a way that's unhealthy. 26:52 But, you know, we moved forward. 26:55 They didn't then throw their party into the into a dictator ship. 26:59 Following that, they nominated John Kerry. 27:01 and donald trump you just said it in arizona like already played this game before and all he does is send a couple of whiny tweets i like he just he hasn't demonstrated that much interest in being a strong man like even his strong man stuff like he wants other people to do you know like the like lafayette square and like what you know miles taylor has been testifying about on the border uh 27:25 He hasn't demonstrated the will to kind of follow through on this kind of stuff. 27:30 Now, maybe that all changes. 27:31 I'm just saying, given what we know now, I feel like whiny Trump tweets and a minority of the Republican base feeling like this election was stolen from them in the similar way to how the Democrats do in 2000, but with having someone spur them on in a much more irresponsible way than Al Gore did to be kind of the most likely outcome from here. 27:53 So there's sunny side, Tim, for you. 27:56 JVL So understood. 27:58 So take away the optimistic versus pessimistic view of this. 28:05 What I'm trying to get at is that even the most basic arithmetic of this election is totally unknowable. 28:13 It's a black box. 28:14 And so we had 126 ballots cast in 2016. 28:18 And I don't think that anybody could either 28:23 could do anything more than just make a wild ass guess as to the number of voters we're going to see this time around. 28:30 I mean, if I told you that the number was going to be 20 million less or 20 million more, we would both say, yeah, OK, those are probably about equally likely. 28:41 Tim Miller right i mean i agree with that i agree with that it's very unknowable and and by the way just as a quick point the republican strategist that i talked to for that rolling stone thing i mean that's the smart ones like that's their case for winning but it's both of those two options right it's that like covid creates a big dip in democratic voting um but i think that's less for them they were talking less about the fact that they see big enthusiasm and that there's a lot of like 29:07 you know, non-college white voters that there could be a bigger surge and people realize that might be wish casting, but that's what smart people on their side say. 29:16 So I agree with you. 29:17 I don't think even, you know, the people who are the biggest data nerds have a sense for it at this point. 29:23 Because you have enthusiasm way up with COVID as a massive wild card. 29:28 Sarah Longwell And JVL, I want to say I really appreciate your take here because I think if you go back and listen to the secret pod from maybe six weeks ago, you will find a bunch of you arguing that Trump has basically no path and me constantly arguing that things are up for grabs because of all of the things with mail-in balloting and how different that was going to make things. 29:46 So I'm just going to fight you. 29:48 I'm just going to fight. 29:49 Yeah, okay. 29:50 JVL I have totally... You're always right. 29:51 Sarah Longwell I'm going to declare that a victory. 29:53 Yeah, we'll see JVL thinks he's always right, but I think in this case... 29:56 JVL What I was talking about was the sort of assumptions that we lived in a world of free and fair elections and that we weren't a banana republic. 30:03 I mean, this was before the president started talking about moving the election date and started ordering the postural service to disappear sorting machines and stuff like that. 30:14 I mean, it's just crazy. 30:15 Okay. 30:16 Also crazy. 30:17 What's happening in Wisconsin? 30:19 Sarah? 30:19 Sarah? 30:20 Sarah Longwell So I'm only going to talk a little bit about the facts on the ground on Wisconsin, because I think that they're still, you know, unfolding. 30:29 You know, I was even as we were sitting down, I was trying to figure out, you know, there have been so there were there has there has been another shooting of an African-American. 30:39 in the back seven times uh he is still alive at the moment um but it has set off a new round of protests in wisconsin and last night during the protests um three people were shot and i believe two of them are dead um but during the protests this weird thing happened where a whole bunch of just regular citizens showed up with big guns um and shockingly that ended up uh you know 31:06 not going well. 31:08 But, but the two deaths, right? 31:11 Tim Miller I mean, two deaths. 31:13 Sarah Longwell Yeah, that's right. 31:13 Two deaths. 31:14 I think three people were shot. 31:15 Two of them have been killed. 31:18 So, but, but my observation or the thing that I want to talk about besides how tragic all of this is, is that I, I had, I had asked in my focus group now going a couple of weeks back and 31:36 how they felt about the protests, you know, going six weeks on, you know, and, and, and I, I think I talked about them on the secret podcast. 31:44 I talked about them on Charlie's podcast. 31:47 And my overwhelming take was that people still felt very much on this, you know, that George Floyd had been killed and that it was awful. 31:56 And but, um, 31:57 But there was something else in the way that they were talking about it that stuck out to me. 32:02 And it didn't really come fully into focus until I started to see some other data come through that I want to tell you about. 32:09 So one of the things that they were saying in the focus groups was they were all saying, 32:13 And I actually I brought a couple of their statements where I asked, you know, it's been a few months since George Floyd was killed. 32:21 And how do you I just how do you feel about everything that's happening related to that? 32:26 And one woman said, sad about what happened, but I'm sad about the response to it. 32:31 there's good protesting that was done appropriately and well, but I think we're beginning to see already that now there's a lot of rioting and things that are awful. 32:40 My son works in Manhattan and he could see an organization of looting. 32:43 It's nothing to do with injustice or black rights. 32:46 And that kind of thing is just incredible to me. 32:48 Another person said, I have mixed feelings, anger for what happened in the act itself, but also anger about the looting. 32:55 Looting isn't serving the message well, not doing anything for the cause, not adding justice to it, just adding confusion to everything. 33:01 And then somebody else said, I thought it was a horrible injustice, but now it's all a hot mess. 33:09 They're destroying towns. 33:10 It doesn't make any sense. 33:11 It shouldn't be happening this way. 33:13 And it was interesting in this open-ended question how many people automatically jumped to this idea of looting, rioting, and violence. 33:21 Now, of course, part of this is because... 33:23 On Fox News, it is 24-7 around sort of Seattle and Portland and all of the things that are going on. 33:32 But then there was some other data that showed up. 33:34 So Pew came out with a poll recently that showed that violence is now in the top five issues around which people are voting. 33:44 And it is, I believe, 58% of people registered it very highly as one of the things they'd be voting on. 33:49 It was just below COVID, which had 63%. 33:53 And then I went and looked at some data around Black Lives Matter. 33:59 So there had been this enormous surge in support for Black Lives Matter about two weeks after the George Floyd killing. 34:05 People were really on their side. 34:06 And that really came through in the focus groups. 34:09 But since then, the support for Black Lives Matter has re-narrowed almost back to where it was before the George Floyd killings. 34:16 And so I posited on Twitter. 34:20 Tim Miller Is that true? 34:20 I haven't seen that poll. 34:21 What is that? 34:22 What's that from? 34:23 Sarah Longwell It's from Civics. 34:24 Civics with a Q. 34:25 The polling. 34:28 Um, so I, and, and, and it's, it's, that's not the only thing. 34:33 The Washington post ABC poll, uh, Philip bump had a piece about this, which I cited, uh, below the tweet that I had that really got picked up by right wing Twitter that wants to say like, yes, this is an issue. 34:43 But what I said in my tweet was that I think that actually this violence, you know, early on, so weeks and weeks and weeks ago, people suggested that perhaps all of the protesting would were down to Trump's benefit. 34:55 Um, 34:55 And I actually said that wasn't what I was hearing from the focus groups. 34:59 And it wasn't what we were seeing. 35:00 People were overwhelmingly on the side of the protesters. 35:03 And it was almost and I even said in the focus groups, especially with these women, more so than COVID, more so than the economy, the racial divisiveness was the thing that was really they were really disgusted with Trump over. 35:16 But I think as time has gone on and the precipitating event of George Floyd's death, that there has actually been a shift in public opinion away from the protesters as we become as as the protests have become divorced in people's minds from the George Floyd killing, even though. 35:32 They're still about racial justice. 35:33 Right now, people just see sort of violence and looting. 35:36 And there's been a couple of really bad instances. 35:39 I mean, there was one instance where the protesters were at a Ronald McDonald house, which had a bunch of sick kids inside with their parents, and they were breaking the windows below and sort of terrifying people inside. 35:49 And so I think I've had this feeling, based on the data and based on what I was hearing in the focus groups, and I'm going to press really hard on it tonight, that this could be a potential vulnerability for the Democrats. 36:00 And I think that it's clearly showing up in Trump's data, because there's a reason this entire convention... 36:05 And Trump has been really focused on this law and order message. 36:07 And it's what they're pushing with their money because they think it's the one thing that shot that they have to really paint this as a violence problem in Democratic run states and cities and tie it to the Democrats and say, well, this is going to be Joe Biden's America. 36:22 Now, of course, the obvious rejoinder to that is, well, this is actually happening in Donald Trump's America. 36:26 And that's obvious, but I'm not sure. 36:28 Tim Miller The other rejoinder might be that, you know, it was Donald Trump's chief strategist who, you know, robbed his own supporters to build a fake wall. 36:35 That's Donald Trump. 36:36 That's, you know, broken the law time and time again. 36:38 All of his staff members are in jail. 36:40 It's kind of a weird, weird, weird messenger for the law and order. 36:43 But I guess the law and order really only means that like black people have to follow the law. 36:47 Right. 36:47 Not not rich white people. 36:49 Sarah Longwell Yes. 36:50 And I stipulate all of that. 36:52 That doesn't change the fact that if support is dropping across the board for protesters, that there's not a kind of recency bias in people's minds where they end up rewriting a lot of the things that Trump did that they were furious about, his overreach. 37:07 Right now, so in Wisconsin, they're sending in the National Guard, not just the Wisconsin National Guard, but Trump is sending federal troops. 37:13 He's been tweeting about it today. 37:14 And so I guess my question for you guys is, do you see... 37:19 A possibility that this could actually work to Trump's benefit and help him with suburban voters. 37:28 Tim Miller Jamie, I want to kick that one to you because I'm riled up and I'm just like right now my little blood pressure is growing over here. 37:34 So I just kind of want to let it build and build while you answer. 37:37 JVL Then I can I can let your tea kettle boil. 37:40 Yeah, I mean, is it possible? 37:42 Yes. 37:43 You know, funny, Sarah, listening to you talk about the movement in the polls on this, I thought about the Ukraine stuff. 37:50 I don't know if you guys remember, but there was a moment when it looked like there was a huge shift in public opinion on Ukraine, right? 37:57 It was right after we got the smoking gun letter, I think. 38:00 Was that it, right? 38:01 With the good bro-go in it. 38:03 And everybody was outraged. 38:05 And then three weeks later, it had just been normalized. 38:07 Yeah. 38:07 Like, yeah, this is just a thing the president does. 38:09 He's a good Republican. 38:12 We got to support him no matter what. 38:13 And all the critics just shut up about it. 38:15 And maybe that's what this is, right? 38:17 It's, you know, everybody. 38:18 So what you will get is you will get people, well, I thought that the George Floyd thing was terrible. 38:23 But but this other stuff with the with with, you know, Jacob Blake, that was I mean, that was very different. 38:30 Right. 38:30 I mean, he was he was really, really bad. 38:32 And, you know, he wasn't innocent the way George Floyd was. 38:35 And now look what they're doing there. 38:36 I could absolutely see that. 38:40 So much of this, I think, God, I'm going to sound like I work for the nation or something. 38:45 I just feel like it's impossible to disentangle it from race. 38:50 I mean, all it is is coded appeals to racism. 38:55 And the racism is so endemic and shot through. 38:58 I was blown away by, there's a moment in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, one of their pieces about last night's protest, right? 39:08 Where a guy who seems to be a white militia member murdered two people who were out protesting. 39:15 And there is a scene which is witnessed by by a reporter from the Journal Sentinel. 39:23 And there are a bunch of guys with long guns standing on the roof of a dry cleaner and like sighting at people and stuff. 39:32 And the cops come by and they say, hey, you got to get down off that roof. 39:36 And the gentleman with the guns say to the police officers, no, we're not coming down off this roof. 39:44 This is our building. 39:45 We own it. 39:47 I have to ask you. 39:50 What do you think the law enforcement response would have been to an unarmed person who did not immediately comply with a police order to get down off of something? 39:59 Do you think the police would have said, had it been an unarmed black person saying, no, this is my house, I'm not getting down from there, do you think they would have said, oh, oh, my mistake, I'm sorry. 40:07 Yes, you can stay since you own that building. 40:10 We're not going to force you. 40:11 That wasn't a lawful order we were giving you. 40:13 Do you think they would have fucking shot him in the head? 40:16 And this is... 40:17 All of this stuff is, again, I sound like a crazy radical in this, but I just have run out of other ways to view any of these interactions and any of these political dynamics as anything other than political. 40:37 Just coded appeals to innate racism on the part of Republican voters and Republican leaners. 40:43 Am I crazy, Tim? 40:44 Tim Miller Well, you're asking the wrong person because I'm like, I've turned into a totally nation reading Oakland radical on this. 40:51 But it's just look, stipulated, stipulated. 40:54 The looting is bad. 40:56 Everybody agrees that looting is bad. 40:58 You know who else agrees? 40:59 Here's Joe Biden. 41:00 Just right now, we've been talking about this. 41:02 Burning down communities is not protest. 41:04 It's needless violence. 41:05 Violence that endangers lives. 41:07 Violence that guts businesses and shutters businesses that serve the community. 41:12 It's long past time for the presidents to tell militias and street gangs to go home and to stop glorifying people famous for pointing guns at protesters. 41:19 I mean... 41:21 you know there's joe biden everybody's like why won't the democrats condemn the looting every time somebody asks joe biden to condemn something he condemns it i got i don't know what more you want joe biden to do so like is a political matter is this gonna work you know yeah probably i don't know it worked last time people don't like looting people don't like 41:43 You know, uppity black people, you know, who are who are trying to get back there, you know, you know, take back control of their lives. 41:54 I say that in their words. 41:57 Right. 41:57 I mean, yeah, there are racist people out there that look at this through a racist lens. 42:01 And Donald Trump's, you know, attempts to to try to pit people against each other are going to work. 42:08 But there are other people for whom this doesn't work. 42:10 You know, and that's the thing about those focus groups is that for a while, the George Floyd thing was working more than COVID because people were pissed that Donald Trump, you know, wasn't bringing the country together in the face of a grotesque murder of a black guy. 42:26 And this thing yesterday, you know, with Jacob Blake or two days ago, I mean, he was executed. 42:36 I know that he lived. 42:37 I don't understand how he lived in front of his kids. 42:41 His kids were in the backseat of that car. 42:43 He had his back to the cops. 42:45 What were they... 42:46 I don't understand. 42:47 They couldn't have tackled him. 42:48 They couldn't have tased him. 42:49 They couldn't have held him. 42:50 What were they worried about? 42:51 They had to shoot him seven fucking times in the back? 42:54 JVL If you look at the timeline on this, Tim... 42:56 Within literally two minutes, like 137 seconds of the cops showing up, they have opened fire on an unarmed guy. 43:04 And that's the sort of crazy type of thing that can only happen if your police officers are grossly incompetent or willfully malicious. 43:16 Tim Miller There's a culture where it's okay. 43:19 I mean, like I said this in the newsletter, in the United Kingdom last year, the police killed three people. 43:23 Obviously, we're much bigger than the United Kingdom, but there were 1,100. 43:27 JVL About 1,000 times the size of the United Kingdom. 43:31 Tim Miller Yeah. 43:32 I mean, there are multiple countries in Europe where they killed zero people. 43:36 The police killed zero people. 43:37 In Japan, the police killed two people. 43:39 I mean, we don't have to just accept that this is okay. 43:43 And so, yeah, I mean, some of the looters are out of control, but the guy that killed people in Kenosha wasn't an Antifa looter. 43:53 He was a white nationalist who came to work with the cops to defend the town against the looters. 43:59 Yeah. 43:59 I mean, there are radicals on both sides of this who are acting inappropriately and acting violently. 44:05 Donald Trump is trying to use this for political gain. 44:11 And the Democrats should be doing as much as they can to... 44:17 defray that advantage. 44:19 And thank God they nominated Joe Biden because he's willing to do it. 44:24 He's willing to condemn the looters. 44:25 But they also should defray that advantage by putting this back on Donald Trump. 44:30 They haven't mentioned Jacob Blake's name for two days at this convention. 44:34 Has George Floyd been named at the convention over two days? 44:36 I don't think so. 44:38 So, yeah, he had a couple of speakers of color who talked about how great Donald Trump is. 44:43 And that's great, elevating diverse voices. 44:45 That's great. 44:46 But this is happening in this country because of the actions of the government and the actions against black and brown people. 44:57 And the president doesn't want to do anything about it. 44:59 And even if the Black Lives Matter's numbers have come down... 45:01 That's a message that's working in the suburbs and working with soft Trump voters. 45:05 And we saw it. 45:06 And the Democrats should continue to press that and not not, you know, be like guilt tripped by people about like this handful of Antifa looter assholes that don't actually represent the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party nominated Joe Biden. 45:23 JVL Sarah, you have this look of utter pain on your face as though Tim and I are turning off swing voters left and right as we speak. 45:30 Is that is that what's happening? 45:32 Sarah Longwell You know, it's the thing is, is like substantively, I mostly agree with what you've said. 45:39 But as an analytical matter, right, I am like Wisconsin's a swing state. 45:46 There is, people are tired of violence in general. 45:52 And that should automatically work against Donald Trump, you'd think, in a normal world. 45:58 I'm just not sure that it will. 46:01 Yeah. 46:02 Because I think that Donald Trump is the one braying about law and order, braying about this happening in democratic cities where they seem like they can't get things under control. 46:11 Donald Trump gets to look like he's the big guy. 46:13 And like, I don't know, Midwestern swing voters, that's what I'm thinking about. 46:17 And I'm thinking about how this plays with them. 46:19 And I'm just not sure that it... 46:22 that all of the stuff that you guys just said, I agree with, but I'm worried that the tide is turning. 46:28 Tim Miller Let's talk about this frame for your, this is a serious question for these voters. 46:32 So it's just putting on our analytical hats, not, not righteousness hats, but like is the frame of I'm Joe Biden and I actually have called Jacob Blake's family and George Floyd's family. 46:42 And I care about this and I want to heal the country and looting is bad. 46:46 And I speak about that clearly. 46:48 Um, 46:48 Is that frame worse than Donald Trump's frame, which is that Antifa is running wild and killing your communities, and it's all Antifa's fault, and I've never heard of George Floyd or Jacob Blake. 47:00 I'm never going to talk about them. 47:02 Which is a better frame for the voters that are up for grabs in this election? 47:06 That's a genuine question. 47:07 I think Joe Biden's. 47:09 Sarah Longwell Let me put it a different way, because JBL raised something that is exactly what I just said to a Wall Street Journal reporter who was asking me about this question. 47:16 JVL And I used the journal called both of you guys about different stories, but not me. 47:23 Interesting. 47:26 That's okay. 47:26 I'm used to it. 47:28 Sarah Longwell I was, I was the whole thing about impeachment. 47:31 This is a really good example of where I felt like Democrats had a real advantage, right? 47:38 Public opinion is like cement. 47:39 It is soft at first and then it hardens. 47:42 And the public opinion was really soft around impeachment. 47:45 Oh my gosh, he did this thing and it was a big deal. 47:47 And it was the public opinion was moving hard against Trump. 47:50 And then Trump dumped millions and millions of dollars in oppo on Hunter Biden and muddied the entire Ukraine question. 48:00 Republican sentiment on it froze and then began to move back in Donald Trump's direction. 48:05 And right now he is pushing one issue, which is the law and order issue. 48:08 And he is framing himself as the person who could do it. 48:11 And he's going to dump a hundred million dollars in swing States talking to white voters about why he's the law and order candidate. 48:18 Now you tell him, and I, so my concern, and it's not a, it's not a like three alarm siren. 48:23 Cause I think you're right. 48:25 Joe Biden is Joe Biden. 48:26 And it's not, he's not, you know, 48:29 handling this the way I think Elizabeth Warren would be handling it. 48:33 But I do worry that it could turn into a vulnerability for Democrats. 48:37 And that's the question I'm posing to you, is seeing the world not as we want it to be, but as it is, could it be a vulnerability? 48:45 And I'll just say one other thing, which is 48:47 I saw the clip of that Ronald McDonald house in downtown Chicago where there was these groups of men that were breaking the glass on the downstairs. 48:56 And, like, I found it very affecting. 48:58 I was outraged that there was just people for no reason breaking the windows and terrifying people with sick children inside. 49:06 And, like, when you know that these voters are seeing that on a loop in the media that they consume – 49:13 So I think it's visceral. 49:15 Tim Miller What do those guys have to do with Joe Biden, though? 49:17 I mean, yeah, I agree. 49:20 I can see that this could be a potential issue for them. 49:23 And if Joe Biden could wave a magic wand and make everybody stop looting, he should do that. 49:28 But he can't. 49:29 He doesn't have any political job right now. 49:34 Do you really think that the Ronald McDonald House looter guy is going to be able to be 49:40 tied to Joe Biden? 49:42 Like that Joe Biden is going to let the Ronald McDonald looters roam free? 49:47 The crime bill guy? 49:49 I don't know. 49:50 I mean, maybe. 49:50 I could see how that would work for people who are stuck in the Fox disreality loop who are never going to vote for Joe Biden anyway. 49:58 But for the swing voters? 49:59 Sarah Longwell I think you're right. 50:00 So here's one thing I'll say. 50:02 I think you're right that it is not at all sticking to Joe Biden at the moment. 50:05 My concern is that Trump is going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to make it stick. 50:10 And that is the one area where like Trump hasn't really had a play. 50:15 Right. 50:15 He can't get a toehold on Biden with anything. 50:18 He can't get it with China. 50:19 He can't get it with covid. 50:21 There's just there's nothing. 50:23 He can't get it with the socialist frame. 50:24 This is the one place where I think it is possible that they could lay a glove on sort of Democrats writ large and try to tie it to Joe Biden. 50:35 JVL So what is the answer for Biden? 50:37 If you guys were running his campaign and you recognize this as a potential area of vulnerability, what would you tell him to do? 50:49 Sarah Longwell So it's actually a tricky question because on one side of things, you don't really want to fight on his turf, right? 50:56 You want to be on offense, on the things that work for you. 50:58 And if you're Joe Biden, that's Trump's failures on the economy, on COVID, that he is divisive and that you are a uniter. 51:05 I do think that though Joe Biden should be making it clear, he's issuing press statements in which he stands with the peaceful protesters but condemns the violence. 51:16 I'm not entirely sure it's sufficient. 51:18 But Tim, I'm really interested in what you think. 51:22 Tim Miller I think that Joe Biden's running a really great campaign right now. 51:26 And so I haven't actually watched the video that he just put out about this. 51:30 I just have read the quotes that I read to you. 51:34 Sarah Longwell Wait, did he put out a video? 51:36 Tim Miller Yeah, he just did a straight to camera thing addressing the, I mean, addressing the Jacob Blake killing is the point of it. 51:42 But he also addresses the looting. 51:46 And I think that's good. 51:48 Yeah, I think it's good. 51:50 I think that Joe Biden is doing the right thing on this right now. 51:55 I mean, I think that they should monitor it and be careful to speak out at times when it's appropriate to speak out and to condemn it. 52:07 And I think that in the debates... 52:09 It's going to be very important that he's forceful in condemning this when Trump tries to pin this on him. 52:18 But I don't know. 52:20 I've kind of stopped sitting in the chair of like trying to give pundit advice to the Biden campaign at this point because like... 52:28 Maybe it's been luck or accident or sheer genius of, you know, Steve Ricchetti. 52:35 But I mean, every move they've made so far has been correct. 52:39 And I've been pretty impressed by how they've staved off the tendency that literally every other single person of the two dozen people in that primary had to kind of appeal to the lefty Twitter wing. 52:54 They haven't done it. 52:55 And so I think stay the course is my advice. 52:59 JVL Well, that was a good show, guys. 53:01 Tim, you have always wanted us to disagree more. 53:03 And I think we hit that mark today. 53:06 Tim Miller Would you agree? 53:08 I agree. 53:08 I like disagreeing. 53:09 That's good. 53:10 Nobody wants to hear us all tell each other how great we are. 53:12 I mean, if they want to do that, then they can look at Twitter. 53:18 We keep retweeting each other and there are plenty of vehicles. 53:21 Sarah Longwell Just so I don't get angry emails, to be clear, because this got me in trouble on Twitter, I'm doing this as an analytical matter. 53:26 I'm telling you what I see in the data and expressing a concern that is not my opinion about things. 53:32 I'm with you guys in a lot of the general outrage, but I think I see a shift happening, and I'm worried about it. 53:41 JVL I'm not sure I believe you. 53:42 I read what Soledad O'Brien said about you, Sarah. 53:46 I know what kind of person you are, lady. 53:50 Sarah Longwell I have been reevaluating my life choices. 53:52 JVL I ladied you. 53:54 All right, guys, good show. 53:55 We will talk again at the next level next week. 53:58 Peace out.