Biden Goes on Offense

Hello, everyone. This is J VL here with my best friends. Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the bulwark fresh off of seeing each other in person live out of the house in public and now I’m sick because of it.

I feel great.

Never leave your house.

I that’s good. That’s awesome.

I feel awesome. I’ve got a big week coming up, dinners, dates, bars, concerts.

Tim, you were not at this big conference. Because I’m sorry the chigrammother died, genuinely sorry. Thank you. No. No.

It’s coming off as genuine.

I appreciate that. It came off as engineering because it’s like, Were you really sorry that I

missed it? Or is that part of the interview itself? Sorry that your grandmother did. However, what you missed was JBL attending this conference and still managing to touch zero people. Like the fact that he’s sick and I’m not because I hung out and put my arms around people and took selfies and shook hands.

And JBL literally went through like the back of the kitchen. To avoid seeing another human. And so, you know, had to And it

didn’t work. This is why you don’t have antibodies.

You found me.

Yeah. That’s right.

You didn’t have antibodies. You didn’t make out with enough people in college.

I got four kids schlepping in and out of my house. It’s You didn’t lick any

as many faces as Tim.

That’s

needed. Alright. Michigan.

We had a Michigan primary, a big, huge momentous primary last night, and the the big news is that Donald Trump dominated and that Joe Biden was once again exposed as being incredibly weak and it’s such a danger and Everybody is so concerned about all of the I said you guys are gonna have to care at the show today, but I am kind of worked up over this. Would one of you like to blow this up for me so I don’t have to I

am resistance pilled on this. I don’t know where Sarah is, but, I’m happy to do the the resistance pill take and then Sarah Longwell can do a more, you know, a more even hand. Oh, I don’t know what her opinion is. So maybe we can all just agree. Who knows?

I’ll give you mine now first. Which is that, okay. There’s I think that when the threat on the other side is potentially the end of democracy, always okay to be worried about everything. Okay? It’s always okay to be worried about everything.

Fair.

And so it’s fine if people wanna be worried about the Muslim vote in dearborn or the kids in Ann Arbor, but I I just wanna tell you something. The Wayne County vote, Alright. The uncommitted vote was seventeen percent. Seventeen percent went uncommitted. Not I I’d love it if it was point seven.

Okay. I would love it if Jonletrot was losing by seventy. But it was seventeen percent. I I can’t say the name of the county where Ann Arbor is, but the county You’re

saying just in Wayne County. It was seventeen percent because it wasn’t seventeen percent overall. Was thirteen statewide. Okay. Good.

It was also seventeen in Ann Arbor. So these are the peak areas to be worried about. Like Wayne County Ann Arbor. Seventeen percent. That’s where the privileged white kids are and where the Muslims are with concerns about Joe Biden’s Gaza policy.

Okay. I want to take you back to a time in twenty sixteen. There was another Hope Plus protest vote that happened back then. It was by a gentleman named John Casey. John Casock had no chance to win.

There was no it was not like he had a lot of money and campaigning, frankly, the uncommitted people probably had more resources and effort organizing in Michigan than John Casey did. John Casey in Wayne County. Twenty seven percent. Twenty seven percent against Donald Trump that year. Donald Trump wins Michigan.

I just I don’t remember c panels of nine people on CNN saying, boy, I we need to learn more about these John Casey voters. Like, they want Ron DeSantis. You know, they want their politicians to be kind to one another. They want compromise. That could be trouble for Donald Trump.

Should we learn more about their motivations? Can we profile a couple of them? Can we get a couple of compromised advocates? And and write a big feature article on them and talk to their local leaders as their city council member that voted for John Casey that we can put on TV. I don’t remember any of that.

Because it was, like, okay. It was fine. It was, like, nice job done, Kasek pat on the head. You got low 20s. You know, it was about ten percent statewide.

I think it was thirteen twenty three. You got low twenties. That’s not anything. You can’t win this primary. And so I just the contextualizing around this, I think, has just been totally missed.

You know, even our friends at drudge, you know, drudge, I was on drudge this morning. It’s like way exceed expectations. You know, the times headline, the post headline. Everybody’s, like, problems for buying it. And I’m, like, did they exceed expectations?

They actually didn’t meet my expectations. I was panicked. Let me tell you what I was doing last night, refreshing Wayne County over and over again before I went on TV, refreshing. Cause worried it was gonna be, like, fifty percent. Based on everything I’d heard, I hadn’t been to Winkum.

I hadn’t been to Michigan. I was basing this on the media consumption. I was worried that Joe Biden was gonna lose. Dearborn. He did not.

He did not

lose the tony. He did

not lose city. And so, like, okay. Still, there still could be concerns. We need every vote. But, like, let me give you

one more let me give you one more piece of context before I throw to you Sarah Longwell, thirteen percent of the Democratic electorate went uncommitted. In twenty twelve, when Barack Obama faced Nothing. Eleven percent of the vote in Michigan went uncommitted. So this is I mean, we’re just in line with Do people not remember that Barack Obama, there were a handful of states in which he finished in the mid fifties in the mid fifties and twenty twelve.

Because you sure

I’m mad about drones and stuff.

And there was also that there was also the center right, like the Obama Trump voters hadn’t, you know, like, it was, like, in West Virginia, he almost lost a guy that was, like, in jail and it was, like, a Prodo Maga?

Yeah. Randall Terry took me

to the

center of the boat in Oklahoma. Right? The anti abortion activist. This is the point is, I anyway, Sarah, what do you think? Because I look at this and I feel like the media, I hate becoming a media criticism person because and also, I agree Joe Biden is weak.

Joe Biden has worries. But what’s happened is they have taken the idea that Joe Biden is weak, which comes entirely from his head to head polling with with Trump and decided that the lens through which they will view every single outcome, and it’s driving me insane.

I wanna talk about the Republican side of of Michigan. I I do mostly agree with you. Here’s the thing I’ll say about, this thirteen percent. Okay. So Rashida Tlaib’s sister, was out there whipping votes for this.

Like, there was a concerted. Like with JBL, when you talked about it being in line, Beto, like, and, go beta. You’ve never won anything. Alright? I’m sorry.

I know you guys all loved him. JBL once called him raw political horse flesh or have a weird concoction JPO comes up with so gross so gross. And like, you know what? Go away, Bino. You’re done.

Your moment’s over. Anyway, here’s the thing. Sometimes it is good for people to get things out of their system. Sometimes people need a way to say, I’m mad. And, I actually think going and having a protest vote in a primary where it doesn’t matter and has this is a side note, but also part of the main point in which there is a candidate who is exactly the person everyone says Joe Biden needs to be replaced with, which is a young, moderate, just political machine known as Dean Phillips who came in fourth, losing to both uncommitted and Mary Ann Williamson who dropped out

I don’t know. We got back in this morning.

She was so encouraged by her third police visit. She unsuspended. Welcome back

to Yeah. Half of an hour or two ago. Yeah. Why shouldn’t she? Why shouldn’t she get back in Dean Phillips has I’m sorry, but if there is not something out there more dispositive of the notion that there’s just like an overwhelming appetite for an alternative to Joe Biden, like It’s right there and nobody seems to want it.

So, okay. Good. I’m glad I’m glad people had an electoral way to organize express their displeasure and, at a moment when the stakes are non existent other than, and this is what’s annoying. Right? The reason you’re complaining about the media is there are no stakes beyond narrative.

And so to have them be able to get this, like,

that’s their win, right? What they want is to be able to see, like, see, like, we matter, and we are going to take him down if he doesn’t change. And for me, I think if look, if the election were tomorrow, if I thought election were in three weeks, I would be deeply panicked, but it is not. And the conditions are going to change in a variety ways between now and then, and I don’t know if you guys saw old Uncle Joe with his ice cream cone telling us that he thinks we’re gonna get the ceasefire. We can talk about the optics of that, but But the point is, I he could have chosen a different moment to give us important news.

Wasn’t that, like, trying to take a bite first? That was the optics of the thing for me. Like, you he, like, opens his mouth to take a bite and then he’s stuck, and it’s like, just give your answer and then lick.

I can’t take my own piece of feedback. All civilized people take their ice cream in a cup. Cones are barbaric.

I’m just

gonna discuss

that again. If you’re gonna make news, like if you’re gonna you’re gonna say something very presidential, like we’re working we’re going to enter a negotiate or like we’re gonna we’re winning our negotiations on a ceasefire. Like we’re getting there. There’s gonna be a ceasefire. Get behind a podium, man.

Like, those are your big moments. Don’t don’t have an ice cream cone in your hand. It’s it’s not somebody was there was, I don’t know, that Clay Travis tweet about how, you know, grown men, you know, like, what, it’s just stupid. He can have ice cream. I just don’t think he should, like, announce big foreign policy stuff fully eating ice cream.

Or on the driving range.

Or whatever. Yeah. So anyway, my point is, hope everybody feels a little better. Hope you got it out of your system. And now you can get back to the serious grown up business, eventually of of defeating Donald Trump.

By the way, before you get to the Republicans, can I just make a pitch for the Bulwark? If you were listening to this, because I also don’t like media criticism. I hate I don’t care. There’s a lot of media outlets. This is why I don’t like me.

This is why I hate the aunt, the people who are media obsessed critics. It’s like, I was like, I don’t care. It’s twenty twenty four. There are a million media outlets. One of them is right here.

We’ll tell you what we really think. Wasn’t really that big of a deal last night. The uncommitted thing. Also, Joe Biden shouldn’t eat ice cream and announce Israel. So, you know, tell your pals if they’re just looking for real talk and they don’t want nine person panels analyze izing the Dearborn City Council.

This is a great place for them. This is good. This is we don’t need to meet your critic. It’s right here.

K. Agree. Republican side. Okay. So Tim and I were texting about this or slacking or something.

I’ve actually been deeply interested in Michigan. So both in New Hampshire and in South Carolina, they were not just open primaries, because actually Michigan is two. But they were open primaries that had long lead up times. So Nikki Haley spent, I believe, sixteen million in South Carolina. And Sarah Longwell spent five hundred thousand in Michigan.

So they had time in New Hampshire and in South Carolina to really like gin up the kind of anti trump coalition. A lot of independence turned out that it’s unclear that they were people who would have voted in a Republican primary if they had something better to do, but they like wanted to go out there and cast a vote against Trump. So at Michigan was gonna be a much purer you know, un engineered, unorganized test of Nikki Haley with the party. It’s interesting to me is so she got twenty eight percent. Okay?

She got twenty eight percent.

We’re down

to twenty seven, actually, since she

was checking. But but but that’s fine. That’s fine. So, but this is the reason that that number was interesting to me is that if you go back to South Carolina and do you look at not the full total. So everybody is saying forty percent of Republicans voted against Donald Trump in the South Carolina primary.

That’s wrong. Because there were tons and tons of independence that I’m not sure are even right leaning independents. Couting in those numbers, if you looked at self identified Republicans, who voted for Nikki Haley in South Sarah Longwell was twenty eight percent. And so to me, I think we are getting closer to a pretty real stick picture. And to me, this is one of the reason it jumps out at me is that there’s a number I’ve been kind of living by in my persuasion work, which is if seventy percent of the Republican Party believes the election was stolen.

That means there’s thirty percent that doesn’t. And as JBL noted in his triad, which I read, she puts up Saddam Hussein who’s same type numbers among voters who do not believe. Republican voters who do not believe the election was stolen. And so that is an incredibly important persuasion constituency, including, and also if you go back to JBL’s focus group podcast that he did with me. One of the things that’s notable about two time Trump voters who don’t wanna vote for him again is it is about his election denialism which led to January six which was after they voted for him again in twenty twenty, right?

Then they saw that. That’s one of the reasons that they’re out. So that number, that twenty eight percent, I think that’s our universe. That’s what we’re working with. And for me, what’s, I think, a little bit exciting about that.

The reason I get got kind of pumped about this is You know, Donald Trump is telling people, forget what Nikki Haley’s saying about Trump. Think about what Trump’s saying to Nikki Haley voters. We were at this, conference this weekend. A lot of, t shirts that said permanently barred because Donald Trump is telling those people he doesn’t want them in the coalition. And that’s true.

Nikki Haley also said today, I think the party may have changed away from, what did she say? I can’t remember her exact. Oh, you

think so, Doctor.

Yeah. That’s right. But it’s like Wow. It’s like, wait, look, it’s all coming together. Things are starting to people are starting to understand that this thirty percent actually no longer belongs in the same coalition with Donald Trump and his voters who all think the election was stolen, who are steeped in grievance, And this twenty eight percent, those are the big margin makers.

That is a decent number. That’s not nine percent. That’s not six percent. Okay. That’s a big percentage and I like it.

I like to see it. So anyway, I felt good about Michigan last night, and I I’m interested in what you guys think.

Well, I didn’t feel quite as good as you, but, that’s nice. I like that kind of. That’s you’re sort of you’re sort of trying to get me jammed up a little bit here. I basically identified the same observation issue, but through a negative lens, which I think is tell which I think telling. Right?

But which is like we we confirmed something that all of us basically knew, but we hadn’t yet been able to confirm. Which is that, like, a big percentage of Nikki’s New Hampshire and South Carolina vote was people that were not Republicans. And that they’re they’re part of this other group. Some of them are red dog Democrats. Some of them are never trumpers.

Some of them are people. Some of them are lips who hate Donald Trump so much. That they had nothing better to do on a Tuesday than to go and vote for Nikki Haley. Right? Because they, you know, just are doing anything possible and good on you.

All those people that went and did that as compared to Beto. Good on those people, bad on Beto. As far as, you know, what your what your response is to Donald Trump if you’re if you’re from the left. So I think that it confirmed that the group isn’t as big as some people hoped. Could kind of confirm with me that it’s about what we think.

Right? Which is what, you know, which is that it’s not even a third. It’s not like you’re really squeezing you’re gonna call it a third. Maybe it’s a third in Massachusetts, but it’s not a third most places. And once we get down south, it’s gonna get even lower than twenty Right?

But south the south under except for Georgia, the south doesn’t really matter.

So this is Michigan. This is Michigan. Right? This is not Arkansas. This isn’t, right.

Exactly.

So it’s a swing state. So I I I I share your encouragement about that. I share JBL’s encouragement. I think that my big takeaway, which is similar to what you’re talking about about that group that believes the election was legit in twenty twenty. It’s the same group as JBL has pointed out that think the economy is either okay or good or excellent.

Nikio is winning with those people. To me, what that says is that those people to vote against Trump are at least reachable. Right? Like, that there is a group of people that’s more than a quarter less than a third that that is at least getting news from some place besides Facebook and News Max and Tucker Carlson and Fox or Fox. Right?

And so that doesn’t mean that they’re gonna vote for Joe Biden. No. I’m not saying that. You know? But that means that they can be messaged to.

And so that gives us our challenge. Right? So from March to November, it’s like these people are gonna hear the message. Whatever whatever contrast message Joe Biden wants to deliver, whatever contrast message, Sarah’s efforts, you know, on the act activism side and persuasion side wanna deliver, etcetera. And so I think that, you know, is is now, are, like, kind of our known known, you know, and we learn that.

And and it’ll be really confirmed next Tuesday you know, we’ll we’ll be able to just kind of see the differences in different types of states and different types of demographics on Super Tuesday. But, you know, I think that that was a a noteworthy lesson lesson.

Real quick before we leave Michigan. Nobody seems to want to talk about this, but the Michigan State Republican Party kind of a mess. Michigan state Republicans are the the crazy people who marched on the capitol with long guns and had a bunch of guys arrested for coming up with an idea of kidnapping the governor And then they had this this ultra maga crazy Christina Karamo who was, you know, made ahead of the party. She won the election to be head of the state party. Things got so bad.

They voted her out, and she she basically just declined to be thrown out and kept insisting that she was in fact still the head of the state. Do you know

the best part of the story? Do you know the date of when they voted to throw her out when she refused to accept it?

Was it the ides

of March? January six. January. She had a Michigan state Republican Party insurrection, three years. That’s an actual one to the day.

Do you also know that Christina Karabo ran for Secret Podcast State in Michigan and that had she run had Gretchen Whitmer not put up this ten point when, like, and she, like, so she would have been running the election, which is what they wanted. She was one of the big election in ours who ran for secretary of state in twenty twenty two, she got blown out, and now the party has figured out they need to get rid of her. Unlike the Arizona Republican Party, which just gets crazier and crazier.

So, yeah, yesterday, the Court in Michigan finally said, no. You’re you’re not get get out. You’re not the head of the Republican partying. So she’s out in the Michigan. But isn’t this again, I mean, I understand what the polls say.

But between the fact of having a very popular Democratic governor in place in Michigan and the state party’s organization being an utter cluster fuck. Again, I just it makes me feel a little bit better about Biden’s chances in the state. Maybe it’s great.

I think that this matters more in lower in lower races, but I do think it’s interesting. And I think that kind of a side story you know, which, you know, sort of she wrote about with regards to the Iowa, Ohio Senate race. This kind of mega eating itself story is something real and worth watching. And I was to I I I kind of didn’t realize, you know, so Tuder Dixon who ran against Gretchen Whitmer. The scales are falling from her eyes a little bit as well.

She she’s she’s four trump. She’s four trump, but she has been part of this criticizing Coramo. Criticizing about how mega is not taking this serious, you know, like criticizing some of the election denialism. I think don’t wanna overstate it, but I think kind of betrayed that maybe she didn’t feel like she was fully candid about her views, about the twenty twenty during the midterms and and is doing a little bit of a mea culpa on that side, but, you know, still she still she is not she’s not Liz Chaney ing, but I think that’s interesting. Right, to see that.

Like, when you see somebody like Tudor Dixon in a state like Michigan and being like, guys, things are bad. Like, we actually have to change course here. We’re turning people off we’re, you know, we’re not being truthful. Like, this is I I I think that if, you know, that it’s different if, you know, a Pete Meijer can you know, somebody that’s a moderate out there is doing that and have a tutor Dixon doing that. I think is, you know, noteworthy that she sees problems under the hood.

I did wanna ask you guys or at least start floating this idea, the polling has been overestimating Trump’s strengths. They’re good about that too. They’re good about that too. In a lot of these races, not by crazy margins, but you know, five, six points, in a lot of these places, eight points. And I am just wondering if there hasn’t been You know, because when I see the polling, the head to head polling between Trump and Biden in Michigan, it’s got them up by a few points in Michigan.

I’m just so skeptical. I’m not skeptical in Nevada. I’m not skeptical in Georgia, but in Michigan where Gretchen Whitmer just won by ten points, like, a year and a half ago. Thirteen months ago, I don’t know. It seems like a big swing And Trump also lost in Michigan last night.

Like, I just really are we sure about this? It feels like depaul’s that maybe they’ve over corrected from their shy Trump voters and we’re getting some, I don’t know. I have

a different theory. I’m glad you brought this up because I’ve been looking at this to JBL wrote some so what you think too, JViel. But, there are two things that could be happening. One of them is what I was talking about earlier that doesn’t really say much about the general. It’s just that Bulwark are having trouble.

Measuring the excitement of these, like, high info basically lives and they’re like, come on. This is many people really gonna show up, you know, to vote against Donald Trump for Haley. You know, it’s kind of it’s hard to model. Right? How many of these independents are gonna show up.

And so I do think we’ll learn more about that also on Super Tuesday, you know, in the closed primary states. I I think it’ll be interesting to see. Hopefully, we got a couple of good polls in closed primary states so we can kind of compare that the more optimistic potential theory is that, like, the Trump ballot number is kind of a number for him. And that, like, the people who the there are a lot of people who are saying they’re undecided or whatever, that really are kind of decided that they don’t like Trump. Yeah.

And her and her just kind of, you know, splashing around hoping that something better comes before November. And this is where third party becomes dangerous. But that was basically what happened in twenty two. Right? In a lot of these places with the Charlie Sykes and And, you know, in in Nevada, this happened in Georgia, right, like, where where Republicans were kinda getting their ballot number and the people that were, like, still saying that they’re undecided in October basically broke to the Democrats.

Like, don’t get some. It’s not a hundred to zero. But, like, that was an inverse of what happened in sixteen. Like, a lot of times, a lot of what people talk about as a pull air in sixteen wasn’t really a pull air. It was just that everybody that broke in the last four days broke for Trump.

Was like seventy five twenty five. Yep. And and and we’ve seen the inverse of that recently. And I do wonder if we’re kind of seeing a continuation of that trend in these primary pulls. Don’t know.

JBL, do you have something else on it?

No. I I just think that Trump’s number is gonna be between forty four and forty eight percent and forty eight percent is his absolute ceiling. And, you know, like, Biden’s challenge is just consolidating the other fifty one. Right? I mean, that’s that’s literally the entire ball game, and I do find it hard to believe that anybody who has not broken for Trump yet does so.

Right? I mean, he’s he’s so known. He’s so polarizing. He’s so ever present. Like, if if you’re not for Trump now, You ain’t ever gonna be for him.

Focus group Sarah Longwell some different thoughts on that, but we’ll, you know Yeah.

We don’t have to unpack that one right now, but

Well, you and I have a whole show we can do on Friday. Alright. Joe Biden. He’s on Seth Myers. Today, he’s giving a speech about crime.

He met with congressional leaders yesterday. He got the state of the union next week. On the twenty fourth, he gave a speech to governors fall and the twenty third to speech to the National Governors Association on the twenty first couple campaign speeches in San Francisco

to the border.

He is out there. Out there living on the edge, talking to people, being present, doing all the things we want. So yay?

Yay ish. Yay ish. Here’s the thing. So let me give him some let me give him some some credit for a couple things. So number one, The Seth Myers response on age.

So, you know, Seth Myers gave him just, again, the softball version of the thing everybody’s thinking, what about people who say your old? And he had, like, instead of being like, you know, like, the way his campaign gets when people, like, do this or the way he gets cranky about it, he’s kinda like, look man, the other guy’s old. He can’t remember his wife’s name. Just sort of not quite what happened. Actually, It was like the Marla maples thing, but anyway, and and he said, you know, it’s not about age, it’s about old ideas.

And gee’s got old ideas. He wants to take us backwards. And I was like, this isn’t it, but we’re onto something here. This is close to a thing. I feel like we’re getting there.

I I sort of liked that because I do think Joe Biden has a real opportunity to say, Hey, look, I’m not your future. Like, but I care about your future. And like, I’m the one who cares about your future, and that guy only cares about his future. And only cares about running for president to get out of jail and, you know, like, I just I think that I think they’re working on something and I think that is a much better version of what I’ve seen before. His execution on it was medium.

And I do think

take medium.

You know, it was medium. It was medium.

Medium, medium well. Medium, medium, medium, even medium.

He sort of trailed off and kind of forgot what he was saying towards the end of it. And I gotta say when he, I have a tough when he walks in, I mean, he he is just there’s a shuffling way that he walks and I the thing that people say in the focus groups that I really lands with me because they do the same thing. You feel a human need to reach out and steady him from your living room, from wherever you’re sitting, you wanna take his arm. And, like, I think that’s, you know, I think that’s a tough spot for him to be in, which is why I think he should stop giving speech This is my, this is my big, this is my thing that I think is not good. Stop going and giving speeches.

I think he needs to be out there with his arms around people preferably so they can give him some support, two I saw it on

a podium speeches earlier. You’re give you’re giving, contrary takes

When did I say podium speeches?

Well, you said you wanted him behind a podium if he’s talking about Gonsal?

Well, you know, if he’s gonna do so, like, I think that as a Giving a major foreign policy, like, delivery of something new that’s newsy, I think you shouldn’t have an ice cream cone on the scene. That’s my big thing. I think that for campaigning, like his campaigning MO needs to be super duper human. And needs to accentuate his strengths and diminish, his So, like, you know, I just I would see, I think a lot more shop floors, arms are, like, and, like, getting in rooms with people great,

I think Did one Charlie Sykes

speeches are a little I I don’t know. Whatever. He’s gonna have to give some speeches. Obviously, he’s to give a state of the union’s speech.

I like his dumb speech. I use stump speech is quite good.

Okay. Tell us about

that incident price system speech. Yeah. He’s funny. You know, he he just he hits all the notes you expect. And he talks about getting stuff done.

He talks about, you know, like, we we went and we attacked insulin prices. Because that matters to you. If you’re diabetic and you’re getting squeezed by pharmaceutical companies, he talks about the Republicans trying to block the chips act and then showing up to take he’s like, you know, I mean, take take credit for the ribbon cutting ceremonies as we’re building factories. It’s a very, it’s a very, very heavy kitchen table. Like, look at the list of accomplishments I’ve done.

Speech. And I think that’s what everybody has always said he needs to do. Right? You you can’t run on the January sixth stuff gave to run on? Did you make people’s lives better?

And I

don’t know. He made people’s lives better.

Yeah. I, I do think nobody’s watching these speeches. And so right. So I do think maybe, what could be useful here’s my here’s my campaign strategist hat for the day is I’d like to see some like forty second TikToks. That’s like one sentence of him talking about insulin and then one sentence of Trump talking about whales.

You know, one sentence of him talking about chips act, one sentence of Trump talking about the machines, the voting machines, you know, and be like, okay. Here’s what, you know, one person’s talking about this one talking about that. So I’m sure we’ll see more of that. I will I thought, again, It should just be noted because we do plenty of noting around here and everywhere that that he’s he’s been they’ve been hiding him too much. Right, that he needs to be out there more.

Everybody agrees with this. Yes. He has been out there more. So just as a statement of fact that should be acknowledged, he’s he’s out there more so far And

it’s good. In

that front, and that’s good. One week. See, you know, hopefully that keeps going. I I think the one to me that stood out that I think was a good contrast was having, Moscow Maroney. No.

I I guess that’s that’s eat Mormonism. But whatever, Mike Johnson, in the Oval Office. Right?

Mhmm.

And he’s nagging him. I liked that. Also. We need alpha Biden a little bit. He, you know, doesn’t have to troll, you know.

Obviously, he’s not gonna be Donald Trump. Doesn’t have to be cruel. Doesn’t have to be outside of his his brand, but I like Mike Johnson is short, you know, having him in the Oval Office, having Joe Biden being like, oh, yeah. You got that. You’re all over that on the budget.

You know, just a little a couple little negs on him. Again, it was it was a b plus, you know, like, his timing is still, you know, anyway, it’s not like Barack Obama delivering it, but it is what it Like, it’s Biden. I think that is, like, I think him the contrast between him and Mike Johnson is good. And I think trying to alpha Mike Johnson a little bit and be what’s happening over there guys? Like, I think spending the next couple weeks being like these guys are these guys are pathetic.

They they say they got their shit together. They said they can’t even fund the government. They can’t do the border. They can’t do Ukraine. Like, I wanna do all this stuff.

What are you doing over there, guys? Come on. TikTok. Right? A little bit of that, I think, is good, and I, and I liked his energy.

In the in the Oval Office meet up there with Kamala and, and the leadership of of both sides.

So let’s let’s talk about the house stuff. Because we’re, yeah, we’re gonna do the government shutdown thing again. I’m super excited. Field, we’ve seen this movie before. Joe Pertacone, our boy, Joe, has been all over this.

His stuff is great. I feel like if I read Joe, I don’t really even need to read very many other congressional reports. If you’re not signed up, go go over to the Bulwark and sign up for Press Pass for Joe’s newsletter. It’s really so good. It’s good.

Sarah, where is this going and what does it matter? Are you gonna do a focus group and somebody, you know, is anybody gonna say? Those those house people really don’t have their act together. That’s bad.

So here’s the thing, the the more often this happens the more it does start to stick with people a little bit. But you, we did a focus group about with people on Congress and you know, they they were the Republicans, they were much bigger fans of Mike Johnson than they ever were, of Kevin McCarthy. And because

he’s not a rhino.

No. But I noted at the time, the dichotomy or the the conflicting priorities that they had, which is what they really want are people to get things done, but they don’t want any compromise. And so the mechanism to getting things done, which is compromise, you know, they don’t seem to sort of recognize that I will say one of the things I went kinda I was going deep on this to try to figure out, like, okay, what is the freedom caucus? Like, what do they want? What do they want him to do.

And you know, they did a letter. So first of all, there’s obviously the sort of cutting spending, but they also have things that they want him to do as part of a deal to keep funding the government. And it was like a bunch of nutty things. Like, reduce majorca’s salary to zero. This is one of them.

It was like defund planned parenthood. What were some of the other ones? They were like, it was really silly, ridiculous stuff. It wasn’t like a serious, like, here’s the thing how we can, like,

come back to you.

It was like every minute, at which and so anyway, I just, reading that letter from Chip Roy and some other dummy reminded me of how on serious these people are.

Yeah. I was like, I got a big kick out of, I I do suffer through. You really if you’re not a DC bill, white person. You really do only need to read Joe Bertacone’s newsletter, but, you know, because I gotta do content, I suffer through a punch bowl and these guys minute by minute updates and Jake Sherman and these people, and they’re like, yes, or it was yesterday or Monday. Like, Mike Johnson has a new offer for Joe Biden.

He’s like, he wants to delay the government shutdown to March eighth. I was like, I had to pull out my calendar. I was like, what’s today? And I was like, oh, right. It was supposed to be March second or something.

And so he’s like, oh, alright. I got a six. I’ll give you six days. Uncle Joe. And it’s just they he they have no idea what they’re doing.

They’re lost. They’re flapping around, you know, looking for Mike Johnson is Like, the just the fundamental reality, which is unchanged, is that he can’t pass anything. Doesn’t really matter what his offer is. He needs Democrats to pass anything because the gates, the Roy. You know, it’ll be a different group of people every time.

Sometimes it’ll be the hard line, true con, freedom caucus, you know, Tom Massey. We can’t fund things group. Sometimes it’ll be the mega, performative, you know, Anna Paulina Luna, Bobert. Like, again, it’ll it’s a rotating cast of crazies kind of depending on on the issue, but, like, they can’t they can’t do anything. And so I think the question is we do have, like, potentially, their total incompetence could end up working out in favor of people that want to get things done.

I have, like, a slight amount of optimism. I think maybe a little more than Joe. Like, you look at Brian fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania Republican to to give him credit. Like, there’s a handful of people that are like, okay, guys. Like, I’m gonna be serious about this.

Like, we’re gonna put it together a serious proposal and, you know, we’ll we’ll, you know, use you know, different congressional machinations to figure out a way to get this thing on the floor and to force a vote on it. And I like that might I might Johnson might be so weak that that that, like, that I do think there’s a door open to that actually happening because, like, they don’t have an alternative plan. Like, literally, the alternative plan is, like, will you give me six more days to figure out a plan. I got some current plan.

Did you see? What’s that bow tie wearing guy who was speaker pro temp for like toot mchenry? Mcquette, like, they are starting a dog on Mike Johnson, some of these guys, just being like, what is this guy doing?

Do they do a motion to vacate? If he Caves?

I think the embarrassment factor. I think that Mike Johnson is really benefiting from the fact that, like, I these guys They might not have much dignity left, but they have just enough that they’re like, can we really go through the humiliation of seventeen more votes? For two days. Like, I think the Mike Johnson might get to stay just because they refused to humiliate themselves, like, share. But I don’t know.

That’s all he’s got going for him, really.

So IVF Talk. We, Tim, we did a big Sarah Longwell and I did a big IVF thing at, principles first over the weekend.

This is

So Tammy Duckworth and the Senate has reintroduced a bill to protect IVF, and Republicans are just killing it out of hand. Here’s senator Roger Marshall, Republican from Kansas. I don’t see any need to regulate it at the federal level. He’s from Kansas. I think the the Dobb’s decision puts this issue back at the state level.

And I would encourage your state legislators to protect in vitro fertilization. What is this accent?

Have you been to Kansas? That’s Have you ever been to Kansas? Topeka?

That’s Fockorn. That’s literally the Fockorn Lighorn.

I know, but he’s from Kansas. Fockorn Lighorn is from, like, I don’t know. South Carolina or something.

It could say. Here’s a here’s Senator JD Vance who’s a opposed to the bill.

From Ohio.

It is idiotic for us to take the bait. That’s that’s his explanation.

I mean, he’s a little bit correct. In the sense that, like, this is it’s not any I mean

cancel Sarah.

No. No. No. No. No.

No. Hold on. It is this is offense. Good for Tammy Duckworth. Like, good for Democrats.

Go on offense. Make them vote against the IVF protection bill. Make them do it over and over again. And so, yeah, is this, is this Democrats being like, Hey, guys, we’re gonna make you defend this insanity. It is.

And so it’s bait a little bit, but also just because it’s bait, JD Vance, doesn’t mean that, you’re not showing your true colors when you refuse to support it.

Yeah. And this is just a total replay of the gay marriage thing. Yeah. Right. It’s the same thing, basically, where the the the Republicans have given the Democrats, just, a lot of rope on an issue that divides Republicans.

That’s bad for Republicans politically. And it’s it’s a bed of their own making because it’s their judges that they put, that they put forth. And, you know, their policies that they supported and and done coast, you know, this is why you don’t co sponsor a bill in the house that you think is totally hopeless but that is a signal, you know, that that gets you on on-site with the activist groups on the right. I mean, you know, and so they they’ve made their bet on this. And, and, and, and, by the way, it is bait, but this is why I liked the gay marriage play so much for the Democrats in twenty twenty two.

When when the right policy and political expedients align, you’re in business. K. That’s when you’re in business. Press on the gas pedal. Right?

And that is true here. You know, I because who knows? I don’t you know, who knows? Right? Joe, like, everybody close your ears if you don’t wanna be triggered.

Joe Biden has a stroke two days before the next election, and the demo and and Donald Trump wins, and Republicans get fifty senate seats because they win every contested senate race. I there’s not a zero percent chance that is happening. I’m not predicting that. Right? But So doing things that would put protections in place in the event that the Republicans have a super majority in the Senate sometime and that Mike Johnson is a house speaker and they have three Supreme Court and Donald Trump is president who the fuck knows what they would do.

I so I I don’t I don’t really think that, like, I that it’s an acute threat. Like, I didn’t think that overturning gay marriage was a really acute threat, but it’s a possible threat. And so why not do the right thing, protect it, take the political advantage, and move forward. So, yeah, I think that Docworth is doing the right thing on this.

Alright. Last item, Tyler Bobert. Young Tyler Bobert, twenty two year olds, whose mom is a just a

super liberated grandma

who likes you

at Hansey at Off Broadway Production

Production of national traveling shows, he was unfortunately arrested for stuff. Twenty two counts seems like perhaps allegedly he’s connected to a string of car thefts and burglaries. And I, Tim, you you are the soul of compassion.

I am, poor. I just I didn’t like that I was hard Tyler Bovert was in the rundown. You know? He’s twenty two. He’s going through some things, figuring shit out.

Probably shouldn’t have probably shouldn’t have robbed any cars. You know, probably shouldn’t have done that. We don’t know. Probably.

You definitely shouldn’t have.

Yeah. Definitely shouldn’t have definitely should have. Do you see the do you see the tweet that was going around by, like, the far lefty guy.

Oh, yeah.

It was like We

can’t hijack planes.

Like, we can’t protest He was complaining that that that pro the Gaza protesters get criticized no matter what they do, but it was maybe not the best way to express that point because he was like, We can’t protest. We can’t shut down highways. We can’t hunger strike. We can’t hijack planes.

We can’t set ourselves on fire. We can’t

self immolate. It’s like, what? No. Yeah. Yeah.

No. You can’t wait. The first two

things were okay.

Actually, the first two things were okay. Hunger strike was fine. Yeah. Like, that was okay. If you wanna do that, that’s that’s up to you.

But, no, you can’t, you shouldn’t self immolate.

So Definitely shouldn’t hijack.

Definitely shouldn’t self immolate. You definitely shouldn’t hijack playing. You definitely shouldn’t rob cars. But, you know, I don’t we do we don’t we don’t need to go dunk it onto. We don’t need to have our own hunter Biden over here.

We don’t need to dunk a twenty two year old who’s may who is, you know, whose mom is in the spotlight who never should have been in the spotlight, by the way. You know, she owned a restaurant and rifle, Colorado, the, like, bikers, frequented. And so he wasn’t supposed to be in the news, you know, and so, and so he’s kinda dealing with things maturing. And I I don’t know why you wanna pick on these people so badly JBL. I think it’s rude.

I’m sensitive to young men who are dealing with their

Course Tim is right. His kid had to be raised by Lauren Bobert. Like, he’s been punished enough. I don’t think we have to pile on with I I I like the leaving families out of politics, as a rule. It feels like as a as a we used to kinda have that and we don’t anymore and You know, I’m sad about that.

Now, to be fair, when you, install your kids in the White House and then let them, like, run your foreign policy and Take your own sister as a galley here. Yeah. He’s a twenty

two year old with a wispy mustache trying to create a little trouble on the western slope.

Alright. Well, I have a deeply personal argument against all of that, but I will save that further.

I wanna hear it.

You know, I, so I went to Quaker School, Quaker School through sixth grade, and the Quakers had basically only two punishments. He acted out in school, and the first one was called the red bench. And the red bench was a bench that was the color red that sat in, like, the middle to central stairwell on school. And if you were bad, you were sent to the red bench. And it would basically it’s basically like being in the stocks because every you know, all the other kids come by you heading to and from class and be like, oh, Mike, did you see Mike was in the red bench?

Mike was at the rate. It’s terrible. And I was sent to the Redbench once, and I it was I was in second grade, and I was utterly terrified that that thing was going on my permanent record. I did not tell my parents until I was in my mid twenties that I had been to the red bench, And it marked me for the entire rest of my life. I, you know, I I don’t think I ever got detention ever once I hit, like, real school where they did things like gift detentions, I never touched any of the marijuana because I thought I can’t do that.

If I do that, I’ll get caught, and I’ll go to jail, and it’ll go on my permanent wrecked.

And you never casually took something out of a unlocked car just to kind of be a

Never had a you did that to all my friends?

My friends are having I’ve I’ve heard about people that did that, you know.

All my friends who’ve got

fake guy jeans

were like, come on. Come on JBL. We’re gonna fake IDs. I said, you can’t do that. If you get caught with a fake ID that’s against the law, and it could go on your permanent record and you won’t get into medical school.

Be on Tyler Bover’s permanent I don’t understand why you’re upset. You’re you were right. This is this will be I’m pretty sure that the thefts will be on his permanent record.

And national podcasters talk about it. It’s I’m

just saying everybody in life should go through with a a paralyzing fear of things

going on their permanent

records.

I don’t think her.

Just like I did.

I don’t believe. Okay. I don’t think that that’s right. I just like

to state for the record that somewhere between JBL’s, like, insane notion of justice for twelve year olds or whatever. And Tim’s just stealing stuff from people’s cars.

Still anything. I’m just saying that check that Jetta was a game I had heard about in Boulder. That’s all I’m saying. Lot of people didn’t lock their jettas. I don’t know what the overlap was on that, but I did.

Okay. I did hear about

between these two, Miss Krients, there’s somebody like me who, you know, Did the stuff that teenagers do while not doing things that harmed other people actively like stealing from them or Whatnot.

Fair. Speaking of which, we can I have a final point on this and the actual seriousness? Hunter Biden is testifying today. Okay. So unlike to tie put Tyler who’s, you know, gonna deal with the local authorities in in Colorado.

The house republicans. This was, something that Madeklas was on the, flagship with me the other day, said, seventy hours they’ve done. Seventy hours of hearings about hundred by then. We have a nice seven minute chat here about Tyler. Seventy hours.

And now he’s going in front of them today. And I do think that, you know, maybe, again, tying back to the Tammy Duckworth thing, tying back to the Joe Biden be on offense on this. The down answer would be be on offense about this. This is absurd. Like, we’ve reached the point of absurdity in if if if we’re gonna be going past seventy hours of Hunter Biden and and the only piece of actual evidence you thought you had about his dad turned out to be Russian disinformation.

So let’s By a guy who’s, like, probably going to jail for lying. Yeah. You should talk about that guys.

Alright. Good show long show. Everybody, go check out. It was very long. Or at least it felt long.

You yawn.

Go check out. I saw you yawn.

I saw him yawn. I saw him fighting that yawn a bunch of times.

Go check out the flagship pod with Tim Miller who’s on loan to us on Wednesdays. It is absolutely fantastic. It’s great. Come sign up for my newsletter. Come see Sarah Longwell great pieces in the Atlantic monthly.

And, And we’ll catch you again next week. Please.

Bye.