Normie Kabuki Theatre

Hello, and welcome to the next level podcast. I’m Tim Miller, here with my best buddies, Jonathan Varian Last, and Sarah Longwell, let me tell you why I’m in the host here today. Two reasons. I can’t schedule my life myself. I’m I need a I need a scheduler.

I need a Priya, but I don’t you know, I can’t afford that. So

Priya is my schedule. Yeah. Just in case anybody is not like the universal name for someone who schedules things. Like Siri.

If any of you have like a seventeen year old who doesn’t wanna get paid and wants to be in my inbox, maybe let me know. I was flying across the country. Is it Duke on Tuesday where I spoke to a class with some next level fans, including a guy who told me that his boyfriend sick of the sound of my voice. I have that affected It also

gets said in my house.

Oh. And then I flew across the country and today I’m in Palm Springs, so I’ll be on panel with Carl Roe. Maybe we can get to that later. And the other reason I’m in the host here is because Jonathan, which which variant do you have? Right now.

You’re a little sick. Your skin doesn’t look good.

All of them. Yeah. All of them. I somehow, I I flew up all over the West Coast and was in rooms with hundreds of people and didn’t get COVID, but I came home and I

got whacked with COVID again. Well, that feels conspiracy. Can

I just say really quickly, we’ve had this conversation? You tried to tell me, I had to wear mask. And I was like, no. You know where I’m gonna get sick? I’m gonna get sick in my house from my kids.

Yeah.

That’s right. That’s right. Okay.

Well, there you go.

Thank

you. Yeah. You know, you’re gonna

get it to me. Strap it on. Not like you. Not like the episode where you strapped it on, Sarah,

to

a point where you had to turn off your camera mute and run off screen to go throw up, which

was

really which is, like, Tim and my head pops. I could just, like, hear Tim. Luckily, Tim talked long enough. That I had the whole time.

Complete up you.

Yeah. And, like, get back in my chair, turn my camera back on before he was done talking.

That was epic. Well, because I was in the host here today, I had a big I put a lot a lot of effort when I’m gonna host. I had a big show map for you guys. We had to blow it up this morning. Show map is totally blown up because our great leader, the Mount Rushmore of Sarah Longwell, the man with a mural.

She is a mural in her home to him. And man. Well, let’s just let’s just go to the audio tape. Sebastian, let’s hear what Larry Hogan had to say this morning. Will you support whoever the nominee of

the Republican Party is in twenty twenty four?

I I imagine that will be the case. I’m I’m access to find out who the nominate’s gonna be.

Well, that I’m assuming that no one knows, but it might be Donald Trump. So you’re saying if it’s Donald Trump, you’ll be willing to support him.

Yes. As I’ve said, you, I don’t think it is going to be down. But we’ll cross that bridge or jump off that bridge when we come to

it. No.

Wait a minute. That was a little Omar Jackson. Earlier you said you’d support the nominee and then you said we’d cross the bridge. I’m not letting go of the lake. I’m like miles Garrett.

If Trump is the nominee, does Larry Hogan support him?

Yeah. I just don’t think it’s gonna be the nominee, but I’ll support the nominee.

Hugh is a dogged interviewer, not Hugh Hugh when he’s got a cock on the

show. Selectively. Selectively, dogged.

Let’s let’s just really quick for a quick fresher before we get into that. We also have a clip. What what was Larry Hogan saying about Donald Trump maybe about a year ago? Does

president Trump have blood on his hands? And then no question in my mind that he was he was responsible for inciting this this riotous mob this was an insurrection. And, you know, they stormed the capital and threatened to kill the vice president and put the lives of of of people in danger, and and he had a huge part a huge role to play in that.

JBL, do you have the shirts? Do you have the shirt on

you? I, you know, I don’t. I don’t have it right now in my in my confinement. But, Sarah, would you like to tell people the catchphrase? JBL is always right.

I’ll just say he has issued a a clarification. Reads thusly, To be clear, my position on Trump hasn’t changed. Trump won’t commit to supporting the Republican nominee, and I won’t commit to supporting him. As I’ve repeatedly said, I fully expect to support the Republican nominee. I don’t believe will be Trump.

Here’s the thing. That clip that you played of Hogan after January sixth is how he usually talks about Trump. When I heard that Hugh Hewitt thing this morning, like, my day dissolved because I was like, this cannot be true. He can’t believe this. He’s been very clear.

That he would not support Trump. He says it on TV all the time. He holds Trump responsible for January six, etcetera. In the Republican Party, He is the best you’re going to do, the exception of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsinger. Right?

Like, he’s the third best of all the Republicans that exist. So seeing this this morning, that it sounded like he was, like, saying, I’ll support Trump if he’s the nominee. And then when I started, like, freaking out about it. And and I said some things on Twitter because it came in the wake of literally right before I went to bed last night. I had tweeted there had been news that he was gonna say that he was gonna run-in twenty twenty four or that he was thinking about it.

He was considering running in twenty twenty four. And I had, like, you know, earnestly but sort of jokingly tweeted that, like, my account was gonna become a Larry Hogan twenty twenty four Stan account going forward. And, like, garbage people like Red Steves, like quote tweeted that. And so I had all these people in my mentions who were saying, like, LL, like, you know, obviously, he doesn’t have a chance. He doesn’t have a chance.

As though I haven’t listened to voters over the last four years, and am not acutely aware that they are not interested in the pragmatic, sort of, centrist governor from Maryland that what they want is a, like, culture warrior sociopath. Like, I understand how limited his lane is, which is part of the reason that I was perplexed by this because if you are Larry Hogan, let’s say your Liz Cheney, the only way you run is by trying to capture a gentleman’s ten percent in the same lane. Right? And and to be clear, the clarification, when I first read it, I was like, oh, this is good. Like, he walked this back.

He did not mean it. He didn’t mean it. You

think he was just trying he just wanted Hugh Hugh to like him. Was that why he did that? He just he couldn’t he was just he was he was he was he was he was he was charisma was just so overwhelming that he couldn’t resist. Or I don’t

know. When I listened to that clip, I had seen it written out. Mhmm. And the part where he says, yeah, looked like him saying yes to me, when it was written, when you hear it, it’s he’s using it as like a bridge a language bridge as he kind of obfuscates. Mhmm.

But the the clarification doesn’t say he won’t support Trump. And it actually like took me a minute to sort of realize that he’s not actually saying he definitely won’t support Trump. He’s saying He won’t commit. He’s not saying that he’s committing.

Well, because Trump hasn’t committed to supporting the nominee. If if Trump were to commit, to supporting the nominee. And then Trump were to somehow miraculously become the nominee. Then he might have to or he might have to write in Ben Sasse. Right?

I mean, you you never know. You never know what he’s what he will have to do. The good news is DeSantis will bail all of these guys out. Yeah. Right.

So they they’re not gonna wind up having to to confront this.

The reason that I liked the idea of Larry Hogan running is not because I think Larry Hogan has a chance of winning. It’s because in my optimistic worldview, somebody who’s going to be in the race who is going to do something other than sort of suck up to Donald Trump is important to have. That that,

like, it can have a salutary effect. On the overall party. But he won’t suck up to him. He’ll just, like, do his own thing. Right.

I mean, he’ll, you know, he’ll do, like, I’m a centrist problem solver. He just won’t say bad things about Trump. The case say that’s the past. I don’t wanna talk about that anymore. Right?

Yeah.

But that’s but that’s worse now. So here’s the thing. So there I actually I wrote a whole piece that I scuttle, that I had to scuttle because before did you even look at a JBL? I wrote a whole piece for you this morning. Let’s

read from it. And

it was about how no. No. No.

He

he did look, he clarified and walked it back. I think he did not walk it back nearly far enough. He’s not saying the right thing can unpack that a little bit more. But he’s not saying what we thought originally he was saying, which is that, yes, if Trump’s the nominee, I’ll support him. Right?

That’s not what he say. Right? He’s

just refusing to say that he won’t That’s

right. The difference is you can’t live in the same moral universe, right, of saying that Donald Trump is responsible for January sixth that he tried to subvert the election. Like, if you’re clear eyed about that, a token has been, you can’t say, and I would support him in any universe. Right? You have to be unequivocal about that.

Because like saying he was important to me, I was like, okay. So the piece that I wrote was like, it’s over. Because it’s not just him. It’s Sunu Nhu too, and they both are saying the same thing. Sunu Nhu actually is not clarifying.

He is saying. Yeah.

That’s why this is a

new clip. If Trump’s the Republican nominee, do you support him? If

he’s the nominee? Yeah. Yeah. I would I fully plan on supporting the Republican nominee. He’s not gonna be the nominee though.

Mean, that is a real hypothetical.

Isn’t that isn’t that? I mean, given your critiques of him over the past, isn’t that walk walk me through how you get there if you think that If you’ve been as critical as he’s been, if you’ve let’s look at the joked and sort of half joked that

that he’s crazy. Well, look at the alternative. Okay. So, Sunu is being very clear. He’s saying the thing that I thought Larry Hogan was originally saying.

Trump Kudoor preferable to Biden. So I, this morning, went from somebody who was in my optimism thinking You could get people like Sunrunu, like Hogan, who are like better case scenarios, more pro democracy have been more clear eyed, to both of them saying that they would support Trump if he’s the nominee, which I was like, okay, that’s disqualifying. Like, that’s the end of it. And sometimes it is about sometimes I do feel like I wrote that piece goodbye to the good Republicans. I didn’t include Hogan in that piece, but I did include Sunu Nu.

And so, like, I know that. Like, Sunu knew went ahead with Balduck after it. Like — Yep. — I I know that. And I I wrestle genuinely with this tension between wanting, they’re needing to be a better alternative.

Like, they’re genuinely needing to be somebody who is not lost to the MAGA mania. And so, like, wanting to pull for these guys who I know are not sucked in by it, and then just watching them fall short time and time again is like, it’s disappointing. I’m like, Glad Hogan walked it back. He understands that it was wrong. He understands he can’t say that he would support him, but he’s not going far enough.

And it’s just because they don’t know how to do it. They don’t know how to exist in a Republican primary. Or think about how they would exist in a Republican primary and, like, just

be clear. Just a few items on this. One, and and we’re we’re in the same boat. So you’re not alone here. I I told Maureen Dowd’s sister last night that I liked Kristin Nuneau at this ridiculous conference that I’m at.

And so I don’t really know why I said I came out of my mouth because it’s like, oh, you know, he’s better than the others. I said, you know, I was just trying to, you know, have some kind of commonality with Morning Dow’s Republican since her. And There we go. And then I came home to this clip, I was like, boy, that rise really long. Here’s the big problem.

We get into this, all this stuff, you get naval, hazy, you get you get impounded brain, you get strategizing about what you can say and what you think you can say to win a Republican primary. Like, the guy did

a coup. A deadly coup. Like Larry Hogan said with his own voice that he had blood on his hands. He agreed with the notion that Donald Trump was responsible for people’s deaths when he attempted a coup. This is madness like your French village podcast.

It’s like one of these tests of like how, like, how far do we need to go for people to just be like, no. Never Trump. Who’d never jump in fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, twenty eight, Don

junior, Barron? Never. None of them. Okay? Like forever and ever.

And and to me, that also extends to people, I, this to know birt personal Tim thing. I am

never anyone that would be for him. So that eliminates the entire party. Right? Which the frustrating part of this. Right?

Which you’re saying? You want there to be somebody that

you could be

for? It’s actually worse for somebody like Sunu Nu to say that if Trump’s the nominee, they’d support him. Like, it’s worse when the normal people say that it’s okay. They build a permission structure. For other normal people who think like, well, Sunrun is pretty good.

Sunrun is a normal guy. Like, it’s worse. Like, it actually could have, like, a worse effect. If the most sane, most normal people are saying that there are circumstances under which that they can endorse Donald Trump. Yeah.

They’re sending a bad signal. They’re sending a signal that it could be okay. And just really quick, one first thing that I wanna get to JBL. Just one sentence. If Chris Nuneau was a banker, not the governor.

If Chris De Nuneau was a banker in Nashville and had all of his existing views and was not doing any political strategicizing. Christian who would have voted for Joe Biden. Right? Right. Like, Christian who fits the exact mold of every person that swung to Joe Biden in twenty twenty.

And so, like, it’s all a farce. It’s all a total farce. Anyway, JBL, how’s your sickness overlapped with with those with those video clips? Can we go to fantasy island politics for a minute?

Please. Because the the thing that got me about the Sunu new clip was his explanation, which was, well, look at the alternative. You know, these pragmatic Republican governors like, talk about Alec, you know, it’s really it’s the real policies and all that. If you just, like, set up one of those, you know, montessori pre k scales, like the wooden scales where kids are learning how, you know, what fits on which and how they can about. And you just started, like, putting policies on either side.

I think that both Hogan and Sunu knew are much much closer to Biden than they are to like DeSantis or Trump.

Hundred percent of

their politically. The truth is if if you were to just take them and erase the the letter next to their their names and turn it into a d. They fit okay with with sort of where the the current Democratic party is. You know, not with the activist class, but, you know, like, could Christian Nuneau win a statewide office in New Hampshire running as a Democrat, probably? Did Larry Hogan win state wide running as a Democrat in Maryland?

I think he’s probably good.

I think probably both as a primary at this point. But, like, what what about John Bell Edwards? Like, what is the different? Like, John Dell Edwards is probably more more conservative on social issues than Larry Hogan. Right?

Like, put put either those guys in a red state. Right? And they would usually be a Democratic governor. And

this is what I don’t understand. You know, when when they start to wealth, We cannot just look at the other the turn of this, you’re on the other side already. I don’t understand, like, it’s all this insane, like I’m sorry. I joined the sharks. And even though the sharks wanna murder me, I can’t go over and hang out with the jets anymore.

And I don’t I don’t understand it. I don’t under like, these guys are not currently in politics. They’re not asking for votes. Maybe they have delusions about futures in public, but why I don’t know. Believe me, Larry Hogan’s future in Democratic politics is at least as bright as his future in Republican politics.

And why these people can’t can’t see that, and then have to go to, like, the weird kabuki aspect of pretending that the Democrats are so terrible. That no matter who the best Democrat is, they could not possibly support the best Democrat against the worst Republican because the you know, just because of the policies. Because they’re there for the serious policies. That’s what I don’t understand and that’s the part that drives me crazy because the truth is if they’re there for the policy not for just the, you know, the Jersey that they’re wearing and, you know, sorry, I got the ink in prison. I can’t I can’t override the tattoo.

Then they they would actually be pretty okay with this form of the Republican Party. And maybe they would maybe they could be maybe they would vastly prefer Niki Haley as a nominee. Right? And and they could say, look, Joe Biden’s fine, but I would prefer Nikki Haley to Joe Biden. Great.

I prefer Mike DeWine to Joe Biden. Great. Like, all those things are understandable. But to pretend that, like, the Mongoing is somehow more more aligned with them as a pragmatic matter getting things done for the American people is insane. And the fact that they will pretend that that’s the case, just tells me they’re not serious people.

So

here’s the thing that I struggle with. I struggle between the analysis piece, which, of course, he should just be never Trump. And, like, the pragmatic part of me that thinks, how do you get yourself out of where where the republican party Like, if the Republican party as it currently stands as an existential threat, to democracy, to sanity, whatever. And you wanna nudge it in positive directions. Like, the people who hate us think that, like, that’s what they’re doing with DeSantis.

They’re absolutely not doing that with the scientists. If there’s not somebody like Larry Hogan, I don’t know. Like, I I want somebody who is not this mag aversion to, like, root for, to hold up as an alternative, and maybe there’s just no path for that anymore.

Yeah. It’s over. I

think there’s a path to do it. Right? You could do it. You just have to be honest. When you’re when you’re asked questions like this, you have to be honest and say, like, look, I’d support Mike Pompeo.

I’d support Mike Keayley. I’d support Mike DeWang. You know, he could list all the Republicans support, but there you know, it’s possible that there may be people who I who who I won’t support if George Santos were to win the the Republican nomination, I would not support him. And in the same way, I wouldn’t support Donald Trump. And, you know, and you just have to let chips fall with that where they may instead of engaging in this weird fantasy stuff where you’re pretending that reality is different than it is.

Right? Because that’s the thing. You can’t you can’t change things by living in a fantasy world. Right? You can’t change

things by by making pretend. You have to do real talk. And here’s the real world of the party. There is a way to nudge the party back to something good. It’s just not what Larry Hogan wants.

It’s not what we want. Like, that party is gone. Like, there aren’t a ton of classically liberal major parties anywhere in the world. Like, it’s a uniquely American thing and, like, the party is gone. The way to nudge the party in a good direction would have been to have the J.

D. Vance that wrote the book. Run for Senate in Ohio on populist culture platform and say Donald Trump is a liar and he’s lying to you and the election wasn’t stolen and the vaccines work. But otherwise, I’m with you on all this other shit. And that doesn’t gonna be a party I like or Larry Hogan is gonna like.

Larry Hogan has a much better chance nudging the Democratic Party to his side and working with Abigail’s You know what I mean? Like, that is the real world that we’re in. And that the world that they’re in, like, it makes me crazy. It’s like, there is no nudging. The nudge is over.

Maybe in twenty five years. Or something. You know? I you know, the democrats, like, nominated an actual socialist, Democratic socialist, and then there needs to be a capitalist party. You know what I mean?

I got I don’t know. But there’s no what are we nudging it to? What’s the plan? Hugh Hewitt’s listeners? Like, you’re going to Hugh Hewitt show, and you think you’re gonna win them over.

They’ve spent the last eight years being sold Donald Trump propaganda. Like, what do you think the listeners want?

I understand that. I I guess I thought and I still think. That if somebody took a principled stand, and they were like, no. Donald Trump did a coup. We cannot win with somebody like this.

This this person like he just said, exactly he said. This person’s been lying to you. I do think that there is not a there’s not a big lane for it, but there’s like a meaningful lane. Like, now he’s in this sour spot. Right?

Like, Hogan is now went from somebody who could have occupied that lane, so, like, similar to a Liz Cheney lane, where I think if somebody occupied that lane well, and was pushing back again, broad salulatory effect on politics in the party potentially. Like, it just it has an opportunity for some good, which is I think what I constantly strive towards. But instead, he’s in that bad place where now he doesn’t have a principled anti Trump position. Right? He’s not he’s not a principled anti Trump voice nor is he doing the thing that the rest of them are doing with endorsing Trump’s.

Like, there’s no constituency for that. Yeah.

I think that’s that’s exactly right. He’s in no man’s land.

That’s a good transition into your poll, Sarah, which tells you what the lameness. Here we go. I’m pulling it up here. Cheney, fave, unfav, sixteen fifty nine. Sergeant.

Yeah. Which isn’t nothing. But what do you think Chinese favorability would be in a democratic primary? Probably like forty. Higher?

Yeah. Definitely higher. And same same with Larry Hogan. That’s what I’m talking about. But anyway, more on the poll.

The interesting thing about the poll for me is and here’s here’s a chance to put on your Sarah’s maybe right t shirt. I I

know what the t shirt says.

I teach you a little bit in LA over Nikki Haley. We have a Nikki Haley announcement coming. You’ve discussed. And if people haven’t seen the poll, it’s on the website, the most interesting finding of the poll that was focused on is twenty eight percent of the transporters said they would following into to the independent bed. J.

V. L wrote about that in the triad. But there were some sub things that were interesting. I I think we weren’t talking about. The playlist of my favorite was pretty good.

She isn’t in Liz Cheney territory. Here it is. The Haley forty seven eleven. The the favors isn’t not that high, but the unfade is really low.

Wait.

Is that the overall favorable or is that just the favorable with people who like Trump.

You’re right. That was just with Trump. That’s right. You’re right. Forty seven Haley eleven.

You’re right. She was up in the sevenies with the whole party. You know, I was teasing her saying that on the stage saying that she was gonna get her ass beat, what do you think? Did that poll change your view on the DeSantis Trump binary at all? Or is that Is that absurd?

I mean, I I my view hasn’t really changed, but but I was interested in that number. My

view hasn’t changed either. I just I think that her chances are not great to become the Republican nominee. I do think her chances are better than Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, any of the Mike Pies, Like, there’s a whole group of candidates that people would talk about as somewhat top tier or middle tier maybe that I think she could outperform. And part of it is that in the focus groups, you have talked about this before, she gets brought up, both among swing voters and like the normie ish side of the Trump voters. Like, she has good name ID.

I think you can stand out from all the white dudes sometimes if you’re a woman, but they They do know who she is in a way that they don’t know who Glen Younggan is. They don’t know who Larry Hogan is. They don’t know who Chris Anuno is. They don’t know who Mike Pompeo is. I mean, I’ve heard Mike Pompeo comp like once or twice.

Like, Nicki Haley comes up as often, if not more often than somebody like Mike Pence. It actually definitely comes up more often than Mike Pence. Yeah.

Pence with that same group of Trump first forty six forty five.

Yeah.

Like half of them already hate them. And, you know, double check out. So okay. Let’s just play it out. Let’s just play out Nikki for me.

Because I I I still am very I couldn’t be lower on the possibility, but if she’s starts from this base of people that she like, she’s running, you know, you’ll get the national review, get the DeSantis fanzine people that’ll say she shouldn’t be and she’s just helping Trump blah blah blah. What what a path for her look like? Rondesantis not running and Trump dying. Is there another path besides Rondesantis not running and Trump dying for Nikki Haley?

No. I guess it’s that Ron DeSantis and Trump split the hardcore MAGA vote and that, like, it’s in a three way that she is able to kind of emerge as the most like, a normal a more normal effusion candidate.

Right. I

don’t think that’ll happen, but, like, I guess, that’s my only plausible scenario. Because here’s the thing about Nikki Haley, you know, I I first of all, I just I do wanna give her points for getting in first. I think that there is a bunch of cowards out there waiting for other people to get in. You know, Mike Pompeo is not doing anything right now. Mike Pence isn’t doing anything right now.

He’s working on blurbs for the soft cover version of his book. And

she’s like, you know, somebody’s gotta go in first, and and they’re gonna, like, take the, you know, early hits from Trump.

But I She has not taken the early hits from Trump. Isn’t that interesting?

Yeah. It is. What is your take on that JBL?

I think Trump realizes that he needs a bigger field. Right? So the more the more the better. You know, I mean, I know there are theories, complement theories on on that, but I don’t think that that’s what’s going on. I think that he understands that he’s gonna need a big field.

Who

has compromise on who?

Sarah’s not on Blue and not on Twitter like you, JBL. I know you pretend not to be on Twitter the resistance.

In the resistance

world, there’s a conspiracy that bubble up based on I don’t even know what, that they had a little twist. It’s totally unfounded, but it is totally unfounded and sexist. Oh,

it was you know what? I know what it was in. It was in that wolf book.

Yeah. Oh, that’s right. It was the Michael Wolf book.

That’s nice. I remember when that happened because I was outraged. At that on Nikki’s behalf. That was back when I was really I was still standing Nikki hard.

Yeah. I’ll I’ll say this message, Kaili. She is a much better retail politician than anybody else who is likely to be in the Republican field. The problem is she really doesn’t know who she is. Just her vacillation over the Trump stuff, the whole, you know, her whole Trump saga is just proof of somebody who doesn’t understand what they think or why they think it or why they’re running for something.

And I just think that that almost never flies in presidential politics, even taking, like, the maga and rhino cock stuff out of it.

Yep.

You can be a really gifted retail politician. And a really good political talent. And if you don’t understand what it is you stand for and and why you’re running for something other than it’s the next brass ring for you to get. Primary voters don’t tend to like that. I

think that’s right. I

also think that’s right, but I think that there’s a more practical reason that that she has no no viability. And that is what’s going on in the conservative media world? Jacob, you’ve got a great try out about how DeSantis is buying up the grifters. John Shade had a good piece that linked to your poll, Sarah, in in New York Magazine about this. It’s pretty astonishing.

And I think kind of underappreciated shades like the one ring in the bell about this. How does scientists has a full lock on conservative media everything from the maybe Trumpers at the national review, all the way over to, like, antivax, freaks, and grifters, like Bill Mitchell. And all those folks are already planting their flag. You know, and so, like, where is the oxygen gonna come from for somebody like Nikki Haley? So, like, in an imaginary world where DeSantis collapses or doesn’t run or whatever, that world is all gonna splinter again.

You know, a lot of them go back to Trump and some other people. Right. It’s not like the scientists goes away and Nikki fills that. Right? It would have to be someone else from the maga multi verse.

It’ll be interesting in your focus groups there till I kind of hear the people’s information diets. And I just think it’s gonna be very very pro to scientists. So

it’s really pro to scientists right now. Here’s the one thing. So Nikki Haley’s announcement, and then because I tweeted about it, I was talking to reporters most of yesterday, and everybody’s doing this, like, gaming out the field, exactly what we’re doing. Look, I I I wanna game out the field in terms of I wanna make sure that Donald Trump does not win the Republican nomination, that there is no way for him to claw back in, and I wanted to understand the size of his plurality. What is the size of the always trumpers?

But gaming out the primary is really hard because we’re all missing one crucial piece of information. Which is the political talent of all the people involved. Now we have hints about some of them because we’ve seen them. They may not be on the national stage, but they’re on the local stage. But I haven’t even seen Trump himself, you know, in his full force.

I haven’t seen Trump toe to toe with anybody. Nobody seemed to Santos, toe to toe with anybody. Last time I saw to Santos, toe to toe was with Charlie Christ, and he, you know, was given that, like, awkward answer when Chris accuses him of running for president, and he just stands there awkwardly and, like, with a weird smile. I was like, is this guy politically talented? I don’t know.

Is Nikki Haley? To JBL’s point, I agree completely she doesn’t know who she is. But does she come out? Like, tan rested and ready? And she’s got a platform.

She’s got something to say. I heard a little preview when she was talking, I think, because people are, you know, they know that she’s gonna do this announcement and she’s talking about, like, generational change. And I was like, okay. That is not unique to you, Nikki Haley. Everybody can claim generational change from these, like, old from from Trump.

Who guys are eighty?

Yeah. Like, that’s not a pitch for you. And also, I thought Tim was gonna go on. Nikki Haley is, like, nothing has changed more in the Republican Party than the way it approaches foreign policy over the last ten years. And if you’re Nikki Haley and you’re running in twenty twelve.

One of the big things you’ve got going for you is this and let’s say you’d been, you know, you’ve run the UN or you’ve been our our UN person. Like, you’d have that foreign policy experience. Those would be part of your chops. And neither just a NeoCon, and that’s not gonna get you anywhere. Yeah.

No. Now that would be a huge weakness. Right? I mean, the Ukraine thing would be a a huge weakness for her in the primary. And she’s gonna be nominally pro Ukraine because she’s a serious person.

Think about it this way. Right? What was her signature issue as governor? She took down the confederate

flags. That’s right. Right?

And today, in the Republican primary field. That’s a non starter with Republican voters. That will get you killed by Republican voters. They have no interest in that.

We had confederate flags over the national capital in the meantime. Yeah.

But, Tim, hold on. Wait. Can I just ask you something?

Yeah, please.

No. But just this idea that if if if Rhonda Sanchez did crater let’s see. He he has no political talent, actually, and the whole thing falls apart pretty quickly. Scott Walker situation. Yeah.

But,

like, you don’t think Nikki Haley is the next stop?

No. No. Further national

review daily wire?

Maybe national review. Right. This is what I’m saying. I think you end up fracturing. The the like Rhonda Sanders’ strength right now is based on his public you know, his his media strength.

Right? Like, that’s what it’s all about. I mean, it’s all hype over, you know, him yelling at these reporters and then playing these games. You know, like unculturable issues in the gas stove and blah blah blah blah. The

college board.

Exactly. And so who likes all that? Well, everybody. Right? Like, that is the thing that unites the party right now.

Being good at trolling the lips. Right? And so we don’t actually know what his opinions are, unlike Ukraine and some of these other controversial issues. So that may end up being something that that ends up getting him crossways with some of these media outlets. But my point is, if DeSantis goes the way Scott Walker and just tanks and goes back to Tallahassee eat his ham sandwiches and like, what you had have is Nikki would start to get support from the National Review Crowd and some others, you know, your guy, Dentsens and, like, people like that.

But then then many of the mega people that are right now going back and forth with DeSantis and Trump and being very pro DeSantis like it ties to you with that turning you point USA, festival that I went to. All those folks would just go back to Trump. Right? And then maybe somebody else emerges that can you can kind of pick up your daily wire, that Ben Shapiro, you know, that’s kind of broad center of the MAGA part of the party. I don’t think that’s any of the people we’ve named And I think that probably what would end up happening after Santa Sanks is Trump ends up kind of with sixty and then there’s like this divided other thing.

And I just don’t think that Nikki has because of her policies that she’s a woman. I I all across the board, I just don’t think she can unite people like DeSantis has.

Yeah. I I genuinely think that if it’s neither DeSantis nor Trump, then the most likely nominee is somebody who is not even in the conversation. And it is most likely to be somebody who’s not a political figure, but it’s a culture war figure. A TV host or somebody like

that. Chris Ruffo is gonna be president.

Yeah. Carrie

Lake, I think would be a do a better job of uniting the conservative media than Nikki. Right? Desantis is uniting everybody. Right? So Carrie would lose the national reviews in the Wall Street Journal ad board and guidance.

Right? Like the handful of that crowd. But, you know, I think that all the people at the turning point USA festival

Charlie Kirk and Tucker and Laura Ingram and they all come around on it. Right? They would have she’d won that governor’s race.

Right. But, I mean, I think even now. Yeah. Think

about that. What is that margin? That margin is seventeen thousand votes.

Yep.

Right? And if those seventeen thousand volts go the other way, I think that all of the DeSantis stuff is tempered by well, I don’t know. I agree with that. Governor Lake, maybe I mean, if I don’t wanna go for for Trump, look at what she’s done over there. Right?

And she’s now in the state house owning lids on her own every day. Right?

Yep. I love the board. But the fact that she

lost is part of what has confused this dynamic. It’s good that all of those people lost, but it’s given me this sense of of possibility. I think that’s just to go back to our early thing is like, I’m listening to the focus groups. They’re ready to move on from Trump. Like, yeah, they’re talking about DeSantis, but their relationship with DeSantis is shallow.

The election denier is all lost, so people are kinda groping around the party’s in fighting, the maga on maga violence within the party is really increasing. And, like, it’s fracturing and they don’t have, like, a clear path forward. And so I’m just, like, you know, all their cracks you can open, you know, you can start pushing into them. That’s not what people are doing, though. Like, that’s

Marjorie Taylor Green.

Yeah. No. I know.

Marjorie Taylor Green would be a good possibility. To fill that. Okay. I wanna go before we finish. JBL’s gonna do an awesome policing livestream tonight with Bradley Balco who I’ve loved forever.

So everybody should tune into that. And we’ll make we we don’t it’s been a good show and a long show. We don’t wanna go too long for for JBL. This is COVID since he’s got to perform again later. But I didn’t interview with Brooke Jenkins in San Francisco, who’s just more of this law and order DA that’s out right now, which kind of comes at an interesting time right after all of these, you know, cops like murder Terry Nichols.

So I just wanted to kind of put a quarter in the machine on both of you. JVL, you’re gonna be, I think, representing the Cook abolish that all cops are bad laying tonight. But, like, where do you think all of this kind of shakes out? Like, is do do you think that there is the the Brook Jenkins thing is just not tenable because of these these tiring nickel situations come up like some person like that

can’t emerge in the Democratic Party or this a political question or a policy question? Because the policy question is, like, how do we fix the criminal justice system? The answer is it’s not Unfixable. Okay. So then it’s a political question.

There are too many different problems, and they’re all localized. But you can’t reform criminal justice. Because everything is done at the state or the local level. And, you know, you got, like, eighty five thousand different law enforcement organizations and they all have their own cultures and histories and problems. And then, you know, it goes all the way up to the judges.

And then all the way down to, like, medical examiners and it’s just it’s tough. Politically, I think that the Jenkins, that is the the way for Democrats to go, which is the Biden. It’s like we need more cops. We need to pay them better. They need to be more professional and we need to spend more resources on training and have them be better.

I think that’s the obvious winner, I think. And you you wrote the piece on this. Right? We need more cops, we need fewer guns. And the reason we need fewer guns is because we gotta make sure these cops don’t feel like every time they pull somebody over a traffic stop, they’re gonna get gunned down by somebody with an AR fifteen.

And you you make that two pronged pitch and you let the let Republicans freak out about it even though both of them are both of them are reasonably popular positions.

Do just wonder if that’s even tenable to the Democratic Party. And the problem is you have these two highly emotional visceral issues. Right? You have the death of this these young black man and particularly tired of your girls just a fucking maddening, and you just wanna scream at the comps. And and then, you know, you have my video, Sarah.

And I I’m one of the people who’s walking down SF and, like, with my head down, with my music, on, not like paying that close attention to what’s happening on the street. So it was even for me to kind of go over there taping the video. I don’t know if you had a chance to watch it yet. It just went up, but there’s this guy, like, trying to get a vein, putting a needle in his vein for, like, three minutes, like, outside the whole foots in downtown San Francisco. Right?

So that’s also extremely visceral, something that that draws the people. And I just think that this is an easy thing for Republicans just be like, fuck it, you know, back to blue, etcetera. Like, how do the Democrats kind of navigate that to those two issues? Do you think, Sarah? Is it navigable?

Politically within their coalition?

Yeah. Because I think the bigger part of their coalition wants them to do something about this. I think you’ve seen that in some of the referendum on some of these elected officials. DC is also a pretty liberal place. You guys aren’t in DC, but there is a tent in camp tent, a few locks from the White House.

There has been a ton of violence, a ton of drug use. It’s chased out all the businesses, like, right downtown. And I walk right there, it’s super scary. People are naked, and it’s incredibly sad. And but I feel like there is a like, it’s just like with so many of the difficult issues to grapple with.

Like, democrats should have a position of we are going to tackle this. We’re just gonna do it with humanity and compassion and like a sense of that these are human beings, which is not what Republicans do.

Yeah. And

look, there’s obviously like a million, like, sort of side long policies to that in terms of how you approach homelessness, how you approach, like, the lasting impact of the pandemic, how you approach the fact that there aren’t houses being built in a lot of these cities. And so, you know, I think Democrats have to talk about what their solutions are. They can’t just ignore it. This is I think what’s frustrating is people get frustrated feeling like Democrats are just ignoring things, and then they start to reach for Republicans because at least Republicans are talking about it.

Yeah. Tim, can I ask you, so I watched the video, I have not read your PC out? I started the piece. I kind of fell for Brooke Jenkins over the course of your, like, five minute thing with her. And I couldn’t tell if you were, like, kind of as in love with her as I was feeling or if you were trying to push back against her.

A little bit of both Give me the director’s cut, Tim Vue. I really liked her. It’s kind of crazy. You’re getting

this age now. Like, we’re peers. Like, she’s like a year older than me. Right? Or same age.

You know? So, like, we’re, like, graduated high school the same year. She said, we’ve got kids at her same age. And, like, we would definitely be friends. I was really disappointed.

We couldn’t go get a beer. Our plane was to do this over beer. But, like, being the prosecutor in San Francisco is kind of a high security job. So they were calling me and they’re like, oh, we’re gonna have to sweep the bar and send And so I was just like, fuck it. That’s not worth not worth the problem.

But that she was someone that you would wanna have a beer with. And remember, in LA, when I was asking Favreau, I was like, this is frustrating that California has all these problems, and none of these California politicians, like, seem to, like, want to deal with any of them. Right? It’s all, like, oh, Republicans bad. Like, progressive stuff, great.

Like clap clap. None of them are like, oh, we should maybe review some of these things. She is just noble shit on all that. And she did not, like, Chase, it’s just lecturing the white lips who wanna tell black communities what they want, what they’re anti racism and with kind of an edge. And I I thought I was like, that’s pretty bold.

You know, well, I don’t know politically how viable that is within the Democratic Party. I think it might be, but I you don’t know, that I thought she was She was great. I was super charmed. She didn’t take the bait at all. I kept trying to do the higher political office thing, and she would not even give me an inch.

Which is probably right. She’s got a very big important job that she needs to maybe try to make San Francisco, like modestly less than an open air drug market before doing something else, but I thought it was great. That was cool as she did it.

Honestly, I my vibe with her was that we could plop her in a fourth box of this show and she would totally fit in and would be one boss. I thought

you’re gonna say we could plop her into, like, the senate. But yeah. That too.

Yeah. She might have higher aspirations than sitting on a podcast with us.

As great as it’s been, a great show, a long show. I’m gonna go see Carl Roeve. Any tips for me before we go? I’ll probably be less charming than Brook Jenkins. Me and Karl discussing the future of the Republican Party?

I

mean, he’s another one. This is part of the discussion. Right? He’s another one who he’s been critical of Trump. Yep.

Right? He’s an outsider, but he’s been mostly clear. But, like, if Donald Trump’s the nominee, would he support him?

Oh, yeah. I would be interested to know what Democrat he would most fear as a twenty twenty four nominee. Okay. I don’t know if he’ll answer you honestly because Roeve is not famous for giving, like, unvarnished opinions. Yeah.

I’m gonna be asking that offstage.

Just because I was choppy on the top half of the show. I wanna be clear that where Larry Hogan is is wrong. He’s gonna have to figure out how to have a much clearer anti Trump stance if he wants to do anything in the Republican primary.

Two words, Say them. They’re magical. They’ll work for them. And, you know, we’ll do this all again next week. Hopefully on Wednesday.

Maybe I won’t double schedule myself, but we’ll see how it goes. Catch you all next time. I don’t remember what JBL’s usual sign off is. So peace and hairdries.