Mike Johnson: Obstructor of Justice

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m JBL here with my best friends. Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. Guys, this was the week it all happened.

Jim Comer dropped the bombshell, the big one. We have payments from Hunter Biden to Joe Biden. This is it. This is it. This is the moment that Everett Fox and all the people I’m waiting for.

And what we have is Joe Biden is a private citizen loaned his kid money to buy a Ford f one fifty Raptor, and then his kid, again, this is when they were both private citizens. Paid him back with three payments of one thousand three hundred eighty dollars. Three payments. Three payments of one thousand three hundred and eighty dollars.

Wait. It was only a three thousand dollar truck?

No. The the Raptors is a very expensive truck, but I think I think the big guy, you know, that’s what they call him. I think the big guy only loaned him a small amount of money to buy the

Like a down payment or something?

Something. I don’t know. But but the point is, look, don’t get to just because this is in twenty eighteen, and Joe Biden wasn’t president, don’t let and that we’re only talking about, you know, thirteen hundred bucks. Don’t let that distract you from the real story here about the Biden crime family.

Wow. It’s a it’s Chinese money, though. You didn’t consider that.

Oh.

It’s Chinese money. And the Chinese are in there somehow, and you also had to cannot forget my favorite exchange for Jim Commer when he’s on on think newsmax this week. When guy was out there, he was going, you know, you can’t underestimate that you do benefit when you loan somebody money and they pay you back. Yeah. It’s like, you do?

You benefit from that? I Yeah. We’ve got the emails here. I just had to pull this up, of the of the bills. Hunter’s monthly bills.

You’ll be surprised to find out that Hunter wasn’t really doing a great job managing his money. He could’ve used mint. I don’t know. That’s we don’t have an advertising, Yeah. But mint, if you’re out there, or or a competitor to mint, he could use it.

You got a kid in Sidwell, a kid in upenn. I guess, good dad. Paying health insurance out of pocket, expensive AT and T bill. He’s in the Yale Club and the one sixteen club still. Might wanna cut one of those out.

That’s three hundred sixty eight dollars a month. Lot of money on candles. But there it is, reimbursement to JRB. They don’t call him the big guy. I note it here in the email.

They call him reimbursement to JRB. Thirteen hundred eighty bones. It is it’s pretty embarrassing. Aaron Rupar, did a tweet that I thought was was really on the nose on this. It’s frankly pretty remarkable that the chair of the oversight committee regularly blast out press releases, saying new evidence of impeachable pence’s, and they don’t even make the news because everybody knows he’s an unserious dim liar who’s full of b s.

Or because it’s a deep state media conspiracy.

Maybe and I guess here we are talking about it. So, Jim, good news. You know, you made it on the news Max and OAN and here on the Bulwark pod. Cast, next level podcast. We’ve gotta I’ve got a lot to say about this.

We laugh at Jim Comer, and he deserves to be pointed at and laughed at. But it is pretty noteworthy about the state of affairs in the Republican house. I know Sarah, you also wanna talk about Mike Johnson that, like, these guys are this clownish. I mean, Gingrich was clownish in his own way, you know, but then you had Bainer and and and and McCarthy, and there are always some sounds in there. You’d king.

You know, you can always find your your gomers that like to have committee chairs that are this fucking stupid. And and this this big of a

liar, I am committed to lying.

Like, I

Up at the top of the power structure, things are going great. Right, Sarah Longwell,

here’s my question. So before we get to Mike Johnson, here’s the thing that I don’t understand about the Komer hunter stuff is, like, they have amped up these voters. So much to expect that they are going to nail Biden. They’re going to get him. So what are they going to do Like, do I isn’t there a point at which the voters expect there to be some kind of a conclusion?

Sarah, if the voters are willing to believe that Donald Trump had the election stolen from him, don’t you think they’re gonna be willing to believe that something something deep state prevented them from finding the real evidence on Biden.

I do think I do think that’s right. I just it does seem to me that at some point, there would be a sense of, wait a minute. Did they not get him? How could they not have gotten him?

I mean, we’ve I’ve stopped getting emails from our friends who are concerned about the in crime family. So, you know, some people some people are losing faith, I think. There’s something to that. Though. I mean, I I read about this a little bit and and written about this before.

Is it like, if you keep making all of these promises, Like, you have to pay it out some way. Right? And so I’m not I I I hear what JBL is saying. I I don’t maybe not in this case in particular. They have to impeach him or something, but, like, the voters then begin to demand this sort of stuff.

Right? Like, the the bill comes due eventually. Right? And what maybe the bill comes due in the form of, you know, Republicans, in in primaries next year, all have to promise that they are going to do extra judicial, you know, arraignments of Joe Biden and his crime family. Right?

Citizens arrests. Citizens arrests, and that makes them seem crazy. And that hurt them in their primaries. Right? Or maybe they have to, you know, like, you don’t just get off scot free.

You don’t get just get to tell people, and we saw this with January just get to tell people that the president is illegitimate, that that he is running a crime ring. He’s taking Chinese money. And then the next day, be like, oh, nope. Never mind. We have to talk about Kamala Harris’s, you know, whatever.

Schedule.

Tim, the culinary people promised everybody Trump was gonna win and that Hillary and everybody were gonna be rounded up and sent to Guantanamo, and they, like, had specific dates of this stuff. And And and the guy who was basically pulling all the strings literally came out and said, maybe the real conspiracy was the friends we made along the way. And and Hugh

is still It’s still going.

Out and proud going. This is the I you’re totally wrong because this is a lifestyle brand. This is just a thing they do for fun. They don’t need Deborah. They don’t need the wall on the southern border.

They don’t need any of these things. And the reason they don’t need that is because things are going well in the world. And that’s why they have the luxury. It’s because they’re not worried about unemployment. They’re not worried about, like, you know, losing their houses and stuff like that.

It’s because precisely because things are growing well. And this this is what decadence is.

Then why were there ninety benghazi hearings and why they wrote to appeal Obamacare a hundred twelve times? Right? Like, there, you know, there are some consequences.

These these things, both of these things can be true. I just both of these things can be true that there is going to be, I think maybe some frustration from some of the the talkers and the sewers of I think that the, a, like, it’s, you know, maybe the Bannon types. There’s people who’ve been following this and juicing up their members, or their followers, or their listeners could be like, Boy, this is some BS, and these guys failed us. Like, you could see that happening, but also, like, they will move on to the next thing, and they will you know, are you not entertained? They will find a way to stay entertained.

Can I just talk about Mike Johnson for one second though? I just this is was just

Unlike James Comer, we’ve got a serious man

right

with the gavel.

Neither of you have talked about how pretty I look. I was just doing television. Nobody. I thought

that was sexist. I did notice, and I just assumed you just came from TV.

Uh-huh. Okay.

You look great, though. You look great. I just wanna I wanted to focus on complimenting you for intellectual power, you know, like, your takes, you know, what you brought, the value you brought to the group, but you also look great.

Thanks. Okay. Any so I was just I was on TV and the Mike Johnson thing was, what we were talking about, and I was reminded. So what he did today was he went on out into the he was like, stood at the podium and said, we’re releasing all of the January six footage. But, you know, it’s taken us a while because we gotta blur out people’s faces because the DOJ might prosecute them if they see their face.

And we wanna protect them from prosecution. And there was pretty swift blowback from this because he was saying we’re gonna help them obstruct justice. Like, here’s what’s crazy about this to me, is that they are so deep deep deep deep in this idea of we must protect our own. Like, we are so partisan that, like, the DOJ is not a part of the American body of the rules of law and, like, that we might have to be on the side of actually sending people to jail who break the law because there are people. That, is all just generally insane.

But the thing that was craziest to me about it is that January sixth has now moved through what I don’t I need a name for the stages Maybe one of you guys can think of the name for this, where the first stage in Republican narrative or bad thing that happened, really bad thing that our side did is the first phase is we didn’t do it. Right? It was antifa. Antifa did it.

They did.

Somebody else did it. We didn’t do it. And then the next phase is, okay, we did it. But what about what about the Black Lives Matter protests? That was worse.

No.

No. No. Two tier, you’re wrong. The second stage is it never happened. The third stage is okay.

It happened, but this other stuff they did first. Don’t you never get the critical because that pivot the first pivot is, oh, yeah. This thing is terrible, and it’s all the fault of Antifa. But the next day too is we talked about was all peaceful protests. They were just out,

you know, I

think I did

miss it because then there’s, like, that means there’s four stages to this. Okay. I only hit three on TV. But the last stage is the, yeah, heck, yeah, we did it, and it was good, and it was justified. And, also, we are the victims.

Of the new states. Be persecuted for it. Right? And that is a really critical thing to understand that, like, what Mike Johnson is doing is saying to the voters, and is that that The people who did January sixth are need to be protected from the lawman, from DOJ who is out to get them. And, I find that staggering, and it is worth just us, because Mike Johnson sort of looks normal and as a normal haircut, people just think he might be a normal guy, but this guy is out of his damn mind, and they did walk back the whole thing because they immediately realized like, Oops, we are talking about obstructing justice.

We can’t just but it was basically I their walk back was, like, this tepid weird thing. Didn’t you work with that guy? What’s his name? Raj?

Raj. How are you?

He’s the one walking it back.

It’d be an understatement. Last time we talked about how Bulwark together. Somebody said that I really underplayed it and that I was Raj’s mentor. I was like, I sure fucking hope not, but maybe I don’t know who knows. We’d have to ask

Good job.

I don’t I think you didn’t know that. Thank you. JBL. Thank you.

So when they when they blurred out the images, did they only blur out the faces of the great patriots, but leave the face of the undercover FBI agents and the Antifa agitators in, or did they just do a broad brush and blur everybody?

This is a great question. They were they were doing it was painstaking. I actually wondered if this isn’t just a delay tactic. Like, sorry, we haven’t put out all the footage. That actually does just show people attacking the Capitol because we need to take our time to blur the footage to protect you.

I also I like to do sometimes a, you know, just just to really drive home how obscene it all is and how Republicans get graded on such a different curve. Like, you know, a a counter factual. So everyone was rightfully, including myself, just enraged by the people protesting outside the deli or whatever it was in Philadelphia. Was it the Jewish? Yeah.

The Jewish owner, Jewish Deli. Everyone was enraged about this right fully.

Yes.

And because it was enraging, I want you to imagine that Josh Shapiro, you know, got subpoenaed the footage from whatever the Delhi’s security cam and that he was the only one with access to it. And he decided to release it. And he decided to blur the faces of the Palestinian of the whatever protesters outside there to protect them because he’s worried that they’re part of his base and he might need their vote in the next election, etcetera. I Bari Weiss would literally have exploded in California. Like, she would not have been able to live another day.

And she’d

be right.

And she would’ve been right to me, but her self brain would’ve exploded. I want you to go to the free press tomorrow and see if there’s any articles about what Mike Johnson is doing. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. And and, like, there’s this whole cottage industry of people out there, folks interests or whatever that, like, do this sort of thing.

We’re like, get held to the ex it’s extremely high standard in these sort of situations. So, Mike Johnson, I think nobody would talk if we weren’t talking about this, nobody’d talk about this. Right? Like, I I I I’m so happy you brought this up Sarah. It is absolutely crazy what they are doing.

It is crazy. And because republicans, like, we’re the law and order party, rah rah. Like, Like, there there there is this kind of they they can’t get held accountable with with law and order voters, you know, for the way that they’re subverting the law and protecting people that may or may not have attacked police. Many police got injured. We have our you know, sergeant Gannell, people with with the actual in, like, injuries defending the capital.

And the whole thing is is outrageous. And and and, like, I think the point to your what you’re saying, Sarah, besides the hypocrisy, is just that they’re so deep in their own naval on this that they can’t even see that.

But the the key point you you hit there, Tim, is that it’s because the voters let them get away with it. Right? If the voters were not letting them get away with it, then the rest of the media, the rest of the world wouldn’t let them get away without it. Right? If Joe Biden was gonna win sixty five to thirty five, then everybody would be beating the crap out of Republicans twenty four seven.

But the answer is the voters are totally fine with all of this. Now maybe they’re not fine enough to win. Right? Republican voters. Right?

Maybe they’re not fine enough to win a national election. But in terms of, like, we’re basically, like, you know, a forty five, fifty one country or a forty four, forty nine, or whatever. And so, like, how many times can the New York Times or the Washington Post or the economist or, you know, CBS or CNN say, you know, as happens every day, this is insane. These two things aren’t the same and have the voters reflect at some point, they just Okay. We’ll just everybody says this is normal.

Little treated is normal. Here are both sides.

I love Liz Cheney, Emma on Nicole today. Was really spot on on this, where she was like, at this point, Mike just released everything. Okay. Like, I’m I want people to see it. Like, I I think that there was a period of time where I think rightfully you know, the media and many of us and, like, the responsible pro democracy circles are like, don’t, like, this is irresponsible.

Don’t do this. We can trust the January sixth committee. We don’t want the bad guys to see the corridors in the capital or the exit routes or whatever. And and I I think that was legitimate. But, like, at this point now, that Tucker’s gotten some of it and we’ve had some released with redacted, you know, we blurred people’s faces and given them their antifa masks digitally.

Like, at this point, just show it all. Just like, call their bluff. Just like, alright, Mike, let’s do it. You know, let’s do it. Show let’s let’s show it all.

Maybe you should host a viewing.

For forty thousand hours.

It’s a lot of hours. It’s a lot of hours of footage.

Alright, Tim. We got a special message from one of our sponsors. Hit

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Thank you. Theiotics for sponsoring this episode and for my good times.

Hello. It’s Wednesday.

Sky Ferrero was great, by the way.

I also don’t. Is that, like, America? She was

like an

indie she was like an indie pop singer in the in the late in the early twenty tens, like, twenty thirteen. Was what really her peak. And, and she was, like, seventeen years old, and she had a moment. And then she kind of disappeared and she’s back. And I just couldn’t have had a better time.

Magical. There’s a there’s a Republican debate tonight. You’re not gonna watch it. I don’t know who you are. I’m gonna

watch you.

I don’t know. I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the viewers. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you do with your life.

But I do know that you’re not gonna watch this debate. It’s because it’s on a cable channel called News Nation. News Nation. Just very recently.

Is it also on rumble?

A record. It may be on rumble. Who can say? News Nation set a record. Their biggest day ever in total viewership.

Would you like to would you like to guess their average number of viewers during the day with their biggest viewership in history? Five hundred thousand.

Oh my god. No. It would be more like forty eight thousand.

Sixty three thousand. Oh. Sixty three thousand.

That’s a good guess for me if the price is right style.

That’s true. And when that So that’s what Cuomo. Cuomo, his mom, his brother.

Is is O’Reilly on that one?

O’ri is a No.

I don’t know if a round is on Vargas for a lot of the ABC people. Yeah. The point is the point is VRNC is going around like doing favors to a cable network instead of trying to get the cable networks to do favors for its candidates. And there’s only one possible explanation for this, and it’s because the RNC understands This isn’t really a debate, and it’s not really a campaign. No, Sarah Longwell

mean, I there’s a little bit of intrigue on this one. Nikki Haley is she has pulled even with DeSantis. Pulling even in Iowa. Money’s moving to her. DeSantis has had another unbelievable new cycle of I mean, I don’t even know if it was last week or the week before we were doing the NBC news cycle where they got in the went to Fisticuffs, but now they’re there’s, like, somebody lasted, like, two and a half scaramucci’s and now she’s gone.

Right. The head of his the new head of Neverback Downpack already out.

Gone. She’s gone. And then, Adam, I had not realized that Adam lacked salt, was also running. He’s also stepped aside which means

They were roommates, I think. They were, like, law school roommates or something.

I had forgotten that little piece of trivia. But they, like, the death spiral is so bad. They can’t keep anybody there. So anyway, I mean, I don’t know. Nikki pulling into a hearts.

There’s something there. You know, after the Coke endorsement and if she has a big night, the other question is

So why is the RNC hiding her on news nation?

The news Nation thing I don’t understand.

It’s also airing Sommashing the hells on the Megyn Kelly show. I don’t know if that’s a screaming thing. I want some free beacon, maybe you want some free beacon stream at rumble and the c w. It’s on the c I bet the c w gets good ratings. But is Moisha

still on? CW?

I don’t know what’s on the CW. I do challenge though. Our viewers because we should get sixty two thousand YouTube views on this show.

Yeah. We crushed it last week. We had like a hundred thousand.

Yeah. We should do this. Because because we this YouTube show should absolutely dominate news nation and the garbage that they’re putting forward. It’s a cable channel geared towards teenagers. Yeah.

I know. That’s why I thought Mo shows maybe on that. That’s what was on when I was a teen in in eighteen seventy two. So the thing I like about this show is that you guys always make interesting points and so and you’re engaging even I disagree with you, I couldn’t even get to care. Like Sarah Longwell me.

I started falling asleep hearing Sarah try to tell me to care about this debate. Nothing against you. I just I’m sorry. They are losing by forty five points.

You aren’t interested in whether or not DeSantis drops. Do you know that he so I have a report today that he has been telling people, secretly that he wishes he had, waited a cycle. You don’t care

at all. Shit.

Yeah. No great. Cool.

If only he read the triad because I can’t I I wrote that piece, like, seven different times.

Riverdale was on the CW. And now had they put this had they put this debate on, like, after before Riverdale? Might’ve watched a little bit of it.

It’s not the

one where they did Roswell and Arrow were on the CW.

Yeah. The Archie

is going up too. Go back to the Santons. Go back to Santa. Stay on topic.

Fine. Well, I’m sorry that Tim’s edD’s so bored.

What is there to say? I’m sorry. What is there to say about the topic? Let me tell

you the Denium.

Sarah, I’m interested.

Ron DeSantis could drop out. Nikki Haley could move into a really, like, a pole position second. He ends up having to drop out. And then Chris Christie drops out too. The people in this debate Christie made it, which I think is interesting.

And Christie’s because they’re up in the degree of difficulty here in terms of making the stage. And so he made it, which I find surprising. And then Viveache. So there’s Viveache, Nikki, DeSantis, and Christie. It’ll be a small group.

Oh, and Bercum dropped out. Did you see Bergam dropped out? Yeah. This was, like, when somebody dies and you’re, like, oh, that person was still alive. When Bergam dropped out, I was like, oh, he hadn’t dropped out yet, which also makes me wonder, is that other guy still in?

Asa? Is Ace still in?

Ace is still in, I think. I’m sorry. Just really quick as a point of privilege. There’s no such thing as a pole position second. Okay.

You can’t be in the pole position for a second.

Somebody’s gonna go one on one with him eventually or, like, and that is that’s gonna be at least an interesting conversation.

Let me ask. Why do you think somebody will go one on one with him? Because let’s pretend that tomorrow night after the end of the debate, every drops out except for Haley. Donald Trump is never gonna just debate Nikki Haley.

No. I know. Like But there will be a two person race, and she will get

I guess.

Much more attention. And, you know, it’ll probably be a seventy, thirty split. But that I think that that is a more interesting conversation than Trump forty points ahead and then there’s an undercard. Like, at some point, the undercard you needed to stop.

Explain to me why this debate is interesting in a way the debate between Mary Ann Williamson and Dean Phillips would not be interesting.

I think it’s interesting because I don’t know. I’m kinda because Nikki Nikki Haley Let me actually let me try. Pretty interesting.

A meaningfully better chance of being the nominee right now that than Dean Phillips?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. Not the least

of I would agree with that.

Yeah. Absolutely.

I don’t agree with that.

Okay. Well, first of all, let’s just take your you say this, and I I don’t like it when you say it. I don’t think it’s I don’t think it’s good. I think it’s bad morally. But if Trump dies, which again, I am not wishing for that.

But but, if he dies, I care who is in that second place position. I would like for Ron DeSantis.

Also, there

was only two things Rhonda Santis could have done that would have made me happy ish. Right? He could have beat Trump because like I have said all along, anybody but Trump is preferable is my preference. Okay? So he could have beaten Trump.

That would be one thing. Or I need him to crater in the most embarrassing, horrible way so that he is gone from politics forever. And I want Nikki to just I do want her destroying. Like, I have some skin in the game. I’ve also and look, I’m just gonna admit this.

Nobody likes it when I say it. But internally, I’m rooting for her somewhat. I can’t help it. Like, there’s a part of me that, are

we all?

Yeah. No. I’m not not rooting for her against Trump. I’m like rooting for her just, yeah, in general. I mean, I’m rooting for her against trump specifically, but, like, I’m also rooting for her against these other people.

Like, I’m rooting for her against Ron. I’m rooting for her against, even Chris Christie, like, did anybody see Chris Christie came out and, like, knocked her around for her abortion stance? This stuff makes me crazy because what is he doing? He only has one job. And if he’s not gonna do that job, he should get out and let her take his vote.

Because that’s who they’d go to. They’d go to her.

So I need a shirt.

What? That’s why I

need a shirt.

This is what dropped out, Christie.

About Chris Christie the whole time. Everybody got mad at me.

I hope this is crystal time.

I’m also right about Nikki Haley. That was meaningful. The best pitch you made there. I don’t know how long it’s been going for, but the best thing that you almost got me interested by saying, if Trump dies, then there would be a race for a second, and that would be interesting, and maybe Trump will die. So that that was that’s intriguing.

The race

for second. Be definitely in second to the status.

Of course. Yeah. I guess. I would I rather that, I guess. I would I rather it enough to spend an hour watching Megan Kelly on news nation with them?

No. I don’t. I don’t. I I I don’t wanna CW.

That would be brand new information.

I don’t want it that much. I wanna know. I might watch a couple

of things. Don’t forget Tom fitton will also be asking questions. This is a perfectly normal thing that a normal, totally, you know, respectable cable network would do. They would hire Chris Cuomo and let Tom fitton do their debate

In the tight stories. You’ve ever seen. Just all arms of that guy.

You know what? But news nation, They’re not left or right. They’re just for common sense.

Common sense. Right down the middle. Yeah. I don’t I got nothing. I this I I have one other sentence I guess on the debate.

One other sentence in the debate.

Go ahead.

And what is gonna happen in the debate that be meaningful. It’s gonna be different from the other debates. Like that’s it substantively. Who cares? Like what?

We’re just it’s a figure skating thing. We want Nikki to give them the old high heel to the neck. Hopefully, she like, she gives a high heel to the neck. That’s what we’re hoping for.

To mimic

to who.

To DeSantis to sanctimonious?

Yeah. I’d like to see it.

Or to Trump? I don’t know. Is somebody gonna attack the person’s winning back? I just got an update. I I I I do have to self fact check here.

I earlier, I said Nikio is losing by forty five points and maybe that she should attack trump harder. She’s actually losing by fifty one points.

Where? Yeah.

I was gonna say forty five points.

You look at a national point?

Yeah. I’m looking at the national real clear politics national average. She’s losing by fifty one.

Yeah. But it’s tons tons of time, Tim.

I’m yeah. I know that politics ever lost

by politics. You know,

I’m sorry. Let me move to Iowa. You’re right. Right. It’s really getting neck and neck in Iowa.

Thirty thirty three. She’s down by thirty three in Iowa.

Yeah.

Thirty three. I always breaks lake Tim. That’s a former operative. You know that.

You guys are you are annoy what’s annoying to me about Tim is that what are what are we we are sorry. We’re of observers. And, like, we are you can’t if the fact the idea that you can’t be interested in any of this stuff is stupid. Of course, you can be interested in stuff. If Nikki Haley, beats to Santos in Iowa, and then he drops out, that’s still fun.

That’s that’s the good stuff. That’s all we get. Before we go into the health scape of Donald Trump versus Joe Biden and what might be one thousand one thousand third party candidates. Oh, also did everybody see the Washington Post today? The big headline was Chaney, not ruling out third party bid.

Did see that?

That’s a head fake.

That’s a head fake too.

I assume that so.

But I told you how much this third that she’d start her book door and it’d just be like, Liz Jamie third party on top of everybody else.

In your defense, Sarah, this is a politics pod guess. So ostensibly, I should care about what happens in a political debate. I just don’t. And so I just am trying to be my authentic itself for the listeners.

If I have to watch Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis debate and talk about it, I am gonna watch the Republican primary debate.

I look forward to hearing your

take on it.

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Self care. That’s what I’m

doing on Wednesday. Alright, dude. Do you guys wanna do, like, thirty seconds on federal and, and stuff, or can we just move right on to the Harris youth poll? Because I really wanna give Sarah the chance to to give us the poll.

I wanna do two seconds on Fatter and, and and if that’s okay. I was not happy with one thing Federman did, which was he did the cameo. With what’s his fucking name?

He did who? George Santos.

Khutosh. So John Feremy paid

George Santos three hundred forty seven dollars to troll Bob menendez for him.

Don’t do that. Listener viewers. Look at me. Do not give George Santos a dime. If you think to yourself, I wanna give somebody for Christmas, a cute George Santos thing.

No. Give it to the poor. K? Give it to a food bank. Do a cameo with somebody who has integrity.

Tripping on a stairs and he needs to buy a new fake watch. I mean, you know, like a man is

Don’t give that man a penny. So I’m mad at you about that John Fenderman. Since that featherman’s been amazing. I mean, just going on the view and just owning Bob Linda.

Did you know anybody who two years ago, literally two years ago this month was writing that Federal would absolutely be a senator from Pennsylvania and probably would be a top presidential contender?

Somebody wasn’t. I don’t remember.

Did you know anybody who did that? A top

tier presidential contender. Just settle down on that.

Aside from the stroke, I’m telling you, in a world where he never had the stroke, he is absolutely the top of the list. Okay. Hundred percent.

He has exceeded all of my expectations. Although it would be clear, I wouldn’t say my expectations of him were, like, that high. But he is and here’s the thing. It’s I’m actually not the biggest fan of, like, his sort of constant shit posting style. He is at his best, honestly, when he’s doing things like he’s on the view, and he’s just showing moral clarity.

Like, he has shown In a, in a world of just a whole bunch of people who, like, obfuscate and come up with their sidelined and ways, he is, like, has been as clear eyed as anybody and he articulates it, you know, the, the stroke, he still talks in a way that feels straightforward and real and that he believes it.

Amen. Yes. He doesn’t seem to be scared, by the way. For good reason of the, oh, a ban we’re an abandoned Biden. Oh, we’re these far lefties, and we’re gonna go along with, you know, we’re gonna go along with the Muslim banner instead instead of buying over all this.

Like, FEDerman, you might have thought that FEDerman would have been one of the ones who would have been most vulnerable to Right? I mean, a, he came. That was the the more progressive side was his base. He isn’t a politician that has had as much, you know, kind of experience and kind of dealing with this sorts of stuff, but absolutely not. He he has not been and it’s for good reason because this is a tiny group of people Amasa has like a one percent approval rating in this country.

Our friends at politico wrote about the swing state Muslim leaders who launched a campaign to abandon Biden in twenty twenty four. And then they listed the people. And these leaders is, like, a guy that beat his wife and another person who does most of his interviews about how he likes how he thinks we should have whipping as a form of punishment instead of jail.

What’s sharia law?

Yeah. We should have sharia law. It’s like these people.

Good guy who is pro Hamas. Who’s objectively pro him off.

Yeah. That’s the group.

You know what? The democratic party doesn’t want guys like that in the company.

So so anyway, so federal man has not, like, cowered at all. To that group, which is I I guess a low bar, but it is just important to say that when people are stepping over the low bar and doing it clearly, particularly since there are so few people that are doing that. And that’s the only bar we’ve been asking for from Republicans, right? This whole time. That’s all I’ve been asking for.

I haven’t asked them to go full Tim Miller, but just to be like, These crazy wild outside storm in the capital screw these people. These people are insane. And I, you know, I love America. I love the constitution. Joe Vines, the president.

That’s all we’re asking.

This happened, the Texas Republican Party held a vote over whether or not they were gonna ban people, like ban its members, from associating with neo Nazis, and the vote failed. It’s like the easiest lamp in the history of and first of all, if you have to have a vote where you’re gonna like, hey, we maybe we need a rule telling that our members shouldn’t meet with neo Nazis. That’s a problem.

Then they can’t go to Nick Fuentes’ conferences. Right. And also Democrats, you have got to relax. The way that that political article flew across the internet, and everybody is looking for signs that Joe Biden is just gonna crater support over the Israel stuff or whatever, and people I don’t know why people are addicted to the bad news Biden things. Like, it’s all terrible.

Not this guy.

Okay. That political story, like, I don’t know how many people know that that was just, like, four guys who are, like, the worst guys ever, and one of them was a literal trump supporter. Like, stop sharing these things and, like, freaking out about all of them. Just calm down.

Calm down.

And also armed, but, like, not all about this.

And also politico.

Yeah. Politico.

Calm down. You know? Like, you don’t need to click step out. Okay? Things are going fine.

You got bought by like a German industrialist. Okay? Like, it’s fine. You don’t need to chase clicks anymore.

Alright? Alright. So we have a new poll, the Harris X youth poll from Harvard surveying voters eighteen to thirty. A lot of interesting stuff in it This is gonna dovetail very nicely, Sarah, with the conversation you just had on the focus group with Peter Hamby. That was the first episode of the focus group in a long time that didn’t make me wanna put my head into an oven.

That’s nice. That was a really good episode. Here’s the big takeaway from the from the the poll. It’s very good news for Biden. So there has been a decline in youth voter enthusiasm to vote in the twenty twenty four election.

But almost all of that decline comes from Republicans and then independents. Democratic young voters, still very, very excited, with, like, a two percent decline, double digit declines for independence and Republicans. And you see this even more when you break it down by college, non college, college educated young people, who are again core constituency for Democrats, still very elevated interest in voting. It’s the non college people who have seen the the decline. Here’s the the most important thing.

So they broke out Biden’s lead in the youth vote by propensity vote. So there’s like everybody then there are registered voters and then there are likely voters. And amongst everybody, biden is only plus eleven. Among registered voters, plus fifteen. Among likely voters, he’s plus twenty four.

In twenty twenty, he was plus twenty four among eighteen to thirty year olds. So this is pretty good news for him. The bad news is that when you start throwing third party candidates in there, things go sideways for Biden. So the third party stuff is right in the Sarah Longwell, wheelhouse. So I would just like to put a quarter in the machine and let you go.

So I do have a little bad news. I’m just gonna say up front, which is that I don’t like Harvard Harris as a pollster. I don’t think they’re that good. That’s you can take that for what it’s worth, but they are one of my,

Is this like a, like, a personal vendetta you have? Is the Harvard Harris for a lesbian that, like, you guys had a had a conflict with at a bar back in the day or is, like, a substantive.

How do you guys spend my twenties? You wanna spend my like fist fights at bars in my twenties, and and those people didn’t go on to become bolsters. Like, I don’t know. So, no, I just, I don’t think it’s a particularly good poll and I think it’s not super well rated. But I, I have found them to be outliers often.

Okay.

Okay. So anyway, but that’s neither here nor there. I I wanna stick to the call side of it, which, I agree. It was a good episode. Part of it was because Hamby is so good.

Peter Hammy was just excellent on

the show.

It was really you that was good.

Oh, okay. Great. Thank you

for that.

I show up

to the focus group, not for the yes, but for you. Unlike on the Sunday next level show where I’m there for the guests.

Well, it’s funny.

Well, that’s so true, though, on both points. So I that’s fine with me.

Okay. Well, my wife and father-in-law both recently told me that they would like a lot less of me talking on the focus group podcast and just get right the clips of the people that they’re there for the clips, and not so that’s fine. I take that.

Hard disagree. That’s

fair feedback as well, I think.

Anyway, to me, the most interesting piece. Now, I think you should go listen to the show, but I’m gonna give you what I thought, really surprised me listening to the young progressives. Just how focused they were on their local races. And, so, yes, they were down on Biden, They were really annoyed at the idea of another Trump Biden rematch, but every single one of them was gonna vote for Biden. Every single one of them was deeply alarmed by Trump, which is a thing that I have seen over and over again.

It is why I am less in the bedwetting category than some of our Democratic friends. I do sort of want people to, like, wake up. I want Democrats to start fighting back and want the Biden campaign to start pushing a lot harder to have more sense of urgency. However, I do think that I just see this over and over again with the groups, especially with Democrats or even swing voters, is that when push comes to shove, Trump’s on the ticket, they’ll vote against Trump, which is why the third party stuff is so bad because, again, you are building an anti trump coalition, not a pro Biden coalition. But this piece where the these young people seemed very clear.

So many of them brought it up where they were like, yeah, okay, whatever. Like, obviously I’m gonna vote for Biden, but, like, I’m excited to vote at the local level. I think their local candidates are more diverse. Tend to be younger. They feel more connected to them.

They care a lot about abortion, and making sure that they’re having an impact in their local races and making sure that they have pro choice candidates. And so I wonder if there’s not the makings of a real reverse coattails election, where actually you, you know, normally it’s like the presidential, the co tales go down to the local level, where Democrats actually focus hard on getting people out on local issues and that that redounds to Biden’s benefit.

Well, that relates to, I guess, my big observation from the Harris poll is the, yeah, just in the continuing changing coalitions we have right now in the trump era. It’s like the reliable voters are people that are Democrats. I It’s not across the board. Right? There is a reliable voter republic incident, but but as it just generally speaking, Democrats are doing better with reliable conscientious voters.

Right? People that turn out and wanna turn out. And and we see that in the numbers. Right? And and then we start talking to people that are non reliable Trump is more appealing to them on on balance.

I get that now he doesn’t take the lead or anything with immigrants, but just by share, right, like a vote. Trump is more appealing with the non reliable voters. This is true. With older folks too, but I just thought it was particularly stark with this younger cohort. And I don’t think there are a lot of democratic strategists and commentators really.

I mean, I guess the people that are really paid for this to figure this out, but the commentators that, like, haven’t that sunk in in the activists. Right? Like, they’re still in this this framework from the the two thousands. Right? When it was true that there were a lot of non there were a lot of Democrats that weren’t turning out.

There were young campus people who were smoking pot. They were you know, younger voters of color that that were disenfranchised and maybe have access and and, you know, for a variety of reasons and, like, their whole systems were about turning these people out. It’s kind of like most highly conscientious people don’t you wanna turn out. There are some Democratic voters that you wanna turn out that I think a little lukewarm on Biden, but your anecdote there that a way to do that is to get them to care about the local races just shows stereotypically, like the type of person we’re talking about here, which is like a conscientious person that’s likely to vote. You know, that is not the case.

Like, in Obama Romney, Right? You can we’re just stereotyping here, but a stoner sitting on their couch at Ann Arbor deciding whether or not to vote on Tuesday. If they voted, it was probably gonna be for Obama. Alright, a stone or an Ann Arbor sitting on their couch who’s deciding whether or not to vote, it’s kind of a coin flip. Now, Right?

Like it’s like that has changed. Like that that that that dynamic has changed quite a bit and that was very stark for me. I kind of knew that, but just how dramatic that change was in the in the Harvard poll, even even if it is off a little bit. It was still, like, super noteworthy.

So I have a question for both of you. May maybe I can answer, maybe you can’t. One of the reasons I haven’t been able to get my head around the general election matchup numbers between Biden and Trump is because just I don’t know how to put this euphemistically, but generational turnover. Right? The the Trump does very well against much older voters.

Biden does very well against much younger voters, it’s four years from the last time. A lot of those Trump voters are dead. I mean, I mean, this is just it’s just fact. Right? Some number of people who voted for Trump in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty are simply no longer with us.

And, you know, another big chunk of the eighteen to thirty has come online. I just look at it. I’m like, jeez. I mean, even with all that, where where are those generational turnover numbers? Why is that stuff not working its way into the poll numbers.

And maybe the answer is that, like, it’s because Biden is weak with, you know, so many other groups that all that generational stuff gets swamped. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Do you guys have thoughts on this?

I mean, I haven’t looked at what the death rates are for voters in Pennsylvania Johnson, Arizona, Michigan and Nevada. Because that’s where it’s gonna matter. Yes. There was more in redder, redder areas. Ultimately, but also in the early days of the pandemic, there was a lot of, you know, disproportionate numbers of minorities who were dying from COVID.

I’m not talking about COVID stuff. I just mean, like, you know, natural causes. You know, when somebody who was seventy six and voted for ten to twenty twenty may not be aware.

I’m just looking at the fact the deaths and mortality. We’re dying about a thousand people per a hundred thousand just to make the math easy. That’s only point per year. That’s only point one percent. No.

So maybe it’s like twenty

four percent. Point four percent. You have another point four percent coming in. Doing fast math here. I’d I’m a I’m a political polycom

major. Of one percent. Right? Yeah.

And I think that’s getting offset. Think that’s getting offset right now by by Biden’s weakness and other with other groups. Yeah.

And the fact that a lot of the Republicans who came in are now coming in as Republicans for Trump. Right? They’re coming in because they like Trump specifically as opposed to eight years ago, there was a bunch of Republicans who were like, well, this isn’t what I wanted, and, like, those people have moved. So Alright,

Sarah, can I ask you one other question about from your handy conversation? Mhmm. Well, I think maybe the most interesting thing you guys talked about was young Republican voters. And how the young Republican voters are not, like, just sticking with Trump, hoping to go back to, like, normal, moderate, good Republicanism the way, like, so many old Republican voters are, especially in media and conservative elite worlds These are people who, like, their entire form of experience politically is Trump, and that’s what they’re there for. Yes.

Like, they wouldn’t know what to do with a Mitt Romney or a John Baker, and it might not even appeal to them.

Or Nikki Haley. Like, when you ask people, you know, who do you like? The there were only three names. It was Vivek, it was DeSantis and it was Trump. And, and many of them, he just said, like, look, I’m a Trump stan.

Love Trump. Think he’s the best. It was interesting, listening, you know, the people somebody did talk about the debt. Like, there were some people who talked about policies, but, like, A lot of them jumped in with why does believe in biology and that men are men and women are women. And I was people jumped they jumped the culture stuff And I guess when I was that age, we talked about I like, the culture stuff was a pea I’m sure I it wasn’t like I was doing focus groups back then, but, like, We just talked about policy so much, and I’m I’m aware that perhaps that is a selection bias or that’s the people I was around and that perhaps it’s always been a lot of people who are drawn to the Republican Party because of the Cultural War issues.

In fact, I’m certain that that’s gotta be true. But I was surprised by how little policy seemed to matter to these young folks.

You were surprised by how little policy seemed to matter to Trump supporters?

I mean, I don’t know. I guess

because you’re part of it

is, like, you’re you’re just leaving college. And so a lot of times, like, you’re coming to your conservatism because you’ve been debating with the left on campus and you think, you know, you’re you’re looking at, I don’t know, you’re, like, like, you talk about issues coming out of college. And as in a way that I think is different for people who are just, like, in their forties.

I have

a lot more on this topic, but but I’m gonna say for another date. I just thought that just the clips I thought we’re very clarifying about why the kids that were Republicans were Republicans and the progressive kids. God love them. Like they had a lot of feelings.

They did a

lot of anxieties, and I just I kinda wanted to hug them and be like, it’s gonna be alright. Gonna be alright. I hear you. There’s a lot of bad stuff. I I even if it’s not gonna be alright.

So, you know, was it gonna be alright for Matt Damon and and goodwill hunting? No. You know, who knew? Robin Williams wanted to just sorta, you know, help him get through it mentally, help him get through his trauma, his personal we didn’t have that word back then. Everybody wasn’t talking about their trauma, but Matt Damon had trauma and Goodwill Hunting.

All these kids have their trauma, and I just I wanna hug them. And, like, then the then the Maga Kids were basically like, I don’t really like trans people, and these people are annoying. Like, really, like, everything else just kind of washes away. Like, the the progressive kids had a lot of concerns about society. They wanted to have fixed and the conservative kids thought the progressive kids were annoying and didn’t like trans people.

Like, that was basically the gist of it.

You didn’t get a sense. These conservative young Republican types were reading a lot of Bill Buckley and Russell curve.

I didn’t.

That they had they had really drunk deeply from the the Strouse it now.

Yeah. Nobody mentioned the road to surf them. Oh,

That’s so interesting because I have to say that is what most of the young Republican types when I was in college were all about.

Same.

It was like reading books that were forty years old and but not today. Today, it’s just I don’t like trans people and those other people are annoying. Interesting. Good to know.

Yeah. I do I gotta say, there were I mean, The the thing about the the lips that I couldn’t get over was just, like, it’s the existential angst of it all with the dems, like, and they do sometimes when when people are just so on brand, like, the girl who was just like, well, my grandmother You know, she’s old and she has real problematic views. And Joe Biden’s about her age, so I assume he has some really problematic views, but I just, like, Amazing. Amazing stuff. It’s funny, but mostly the kids were alright.

The conservatives actually had a much more positive outlook though. Mean, this is the thing. The conservatives are much more optimistic, whereas the dams are just grim about the future and where we’re headed.

How could they conservatives be also optimistic when we’re living through American carnage? And, this is, you know, everything is terrible. I guess he’ll come back and fix it all unless the deep state stops him.

Yeah. It’s been a long show and so I know JBL is ready to end, but we should just leave you. We should just leave you with JBL’s favorite stat from the poll. We don’t need to talk about it, but we just we really should leave you with it. JBL.

Do you wanna do you wanna share it or a jagmeet?

Say, I I will. I Will Saletan has has said, and maybe she’s right. I I do not, like, keep my own private pollster rankings. And so it’s entirely possible The Harris X Harvard youth poll is is garbage.

Sixty five percent of the eighteen to thirty year old

surveyed said that their personal finances were good. Seventy percent said that the economy is bad. Just like everyone else. Just like everyone else. I think that I’ve basically finally won the, like, Haiti Economy is okay argument, although I’m just gonna keep doing wheelies on it and spike in the football.

Oh, you guys can

decide whether he wins this. He’s he’s this weekend’s focus group pod is me and JBL just listening to one young person after another, talk about how impossible the economy is for. No. Not just, you know, some of the young people. It was everybody.

We talked to everybody.

It was everybody.

K. We can wait till some of

them light now. So, anyway, I bring that to you and you guys can make it what you will. Tell me tell me that I am wrong, and I’m just missing the deep personal pain they’re feeling or it’s that they were, you know, with well, inflation is cooled. So that now what they’re really it’s mortgage interest rates. That’s what’s really and when mortgage interest rates go flat, or tick backwards a little bit, then it’ll be pork belly futures.

Have you seen the rise in pork belly futures? How can we live in a country

for people? Gross.

Inflation is not cooling. It is just not going up as quickly. It was before. No.

That is wrong. That is that is wrong. Inflation was flat. Last month.

Yeah. So it’s still high. So it’s still it’s, like, not going down.

No. It’s not. It has not gone. We’re not going to go down. If if if prices go down, then we are fucked.

That is that is called deflation, and deflation is accompanied by economic calamity.

Inflation. We could go for stocks.

We didn’t have a lot

of different inflations. And that’s fine. But just don’t put them don’t say. Sure. But don’t say, like, the people are still mad that they’re about how expensive their grocers are.

Whatever. I’m not gonna read you

this They’re making more money.

We do it for an hour. We do it for an hour on the focus group. God. Should check it out.

I can’t wait.

I do not understand. You know, like a year ago, I had a hundred dollars, and that could buy me a hundred dollars worth of goods. And today, that hundred dollars worth of goods cost a hundred five dollars. And sure, I’m making a hundred ten dollars now, but I’m still very mad. People are the worst.

Good show, long show. It’s been a

great show. I thought.

And I’m just excited.

Everybody I want everybody to really enjoy the DW tonight. Lip on, Tia and Tamara. Flip on Riverdale, you know, see what the teens launching on the season.

Roswell. Remember Roswell? People.

Send me some send me pictures of Tom Fenton’s shirt, and, I’m just gonna hang out. Bye.