The New Blame America First Party

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m J VL here with my best friends. Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. Thank you for joining us.

However, you’re doing that, whether it’s over, the podcast or the YouTube subscription page or or all of it. This will probably be the worst show we’ve done.

It could not possibly be worse than last week with AB. I’ve had several people tell me that they had to stop listening to that podcast because they were starting to look for razor blades.

Well, this is pretty bad due because we’ve had a horrific terrorist attack in which, you know, over a thousand people so far have been killed and more people have been it’s just horrible. But we have to talk about it because it’s quite important. On October seven, we woke up in the morning to a horrific terrorist attack, in the Gaza strip thousands of rockets fired off to penetrate and bamboozle the iron dome system, and then thousands of Hamas fighters streaming across the border and massacring civilians, almost almost exclusively. Men women and children, where they lay, it it almost defies imagining how terrible it is. This really is, Israel’s nine eleven.

There was only one good thing that I’ve read in all this, which is, the Atlantic had an interview with a, guy. Did you guys see this? Yeah. Guy who spent the entire thing in, the safe room and his kibbutz, here are things, you know, the way people live. This guy lives with his young family on a kibbutz right next to the border.

And the way these houses are constructed is they all have safe rooms to, shield them from rocket attacks and that the safe rooms are where the children sleep. The safe rooms are always your children’s bedroom so that they will be I just can’t imagine living life like that. Anyway, but this guy is locked in the safe room for, like, ten hours, calls his father, who is a retired Israeli general in Tel Aviv. And this this man, this grandfather, and his his wife, the grand mom, hop in their car, and just drive down to go and save their their son and his family and their grandkids. It’s an unbelievable story.

Am am I right? It was Yair Rosenberg had this in, in the Atlantic. I think that’s it. Anyway, we’ll put it in the show notes. That’s the only thing that I’ve read in all this that that left me not feeling broken.

The unimaginability of it is so key. Right? Like, for me, it’s like almost hard to mourn for a minute, you know, for a while. The way that I for whatever reason, unfortunately, we’ve gotten used to enough to school shootings that they like hit you and, you know, and there’s like a grieving and morning process, but it’s like just the scale of the death at, you know, there’s a music festival mass death, the death in people’s homes. I like the images of bloody cribs, and kids bedrooms, and then the knowledge of, still yet unknown, really, like number of hostages?

Like, the hostage taking is, like, out of a movie.

Yeah. The hostage taking is an element that we’re not used to. Right? Like, there is no nine eleven analog to that. Right?

Because that that the horror then becomes ongoing. Right. So it’s gonna be it’s gonna be very bad. Israel is going to go to Oregon to Moss. This is gonna be an invasion of Gaza.

Gaza is a very densely populated spit of land, and There are going to be many, many, many civilian casualties there. It’s going to be horrific. There isn’t a lot to say about the horror, I don’t think, but we can talk about the broader implications.

I have one thing to say about the horror.

Please. Go ahead.

There’s the scale of the life that’s been lost. But the cruelty so I was thinking I sort of haven’t been able to stop thinking about this this babies, the thing with the babies, where they killed forty babies. And and then there’s, like, a a mini fight about, well, did they behead all the babies, or did they just ahead some of it? Like, it’s like it’s like two It’s too much to take in, but when you you think about what it takes to do something like that, right, because we are hardwired as humans to protect babies. Which means that to do something like this, and then to take people that you have either raped or broken their bones and dragged them through the streets to cheering audiences.

Like, the scale of the hatred is to me the thing I can’t quite process. Like, the scale of the life loss is is horrible, but, like, I don’t know. Like, we we’ve lived through enough atrocities to sort of be able to understand that. What I can’t understand is the scale of the hatred. The ability how somebody can find it in their in themselves because it’s like it’s like the sociopathy of a serial killer, right, that you can’t understand.

But, like, in a mass mobilization of humans, where they, like, collectively agree that they’re gonna do this to other people.

Well, this ties to the other thing. It’s the dehumanization of Jews. I mean, that’s what it is. I mean, it’s it’s it’s it’s the view of Jews as non as non human. And so it it takes it out of the the context of how you would deal with humans or how you would act in inherently as a human to protect a baby.

It’s because you don’t see the baby as human.

There is a a very significant American cultural difference about this, which is like our approach to history here. We can’t you know, Americans don’t remember what happened five weeks ago. We view Jim Crow, which was, like, you know, Condaleeza Rice was, the, a targeted Jim Crow. We view that as something that happened, five thousand years ago. But you go to other cultures and other parts of the world and history is much more alive and vibrant to them.

And the Middle East is one of those parts of the world where you know, like history is important and people carry around, you know, grievances and grudges for none of this is meant as judgment, but just to explain why I think Americans have such a hard time processing so much of this stuff. Because our culture is so Bulwark looking immediate, the, you know, what happened yesterday is gone and who cares about it. And it it gives us a blind spot, I think, for for looking at and analyzing other parts of the world sometimes. So, let’s start with the the US response. I’m in the process of writing for Wednesday, my newsletter saying that I think Joe Biden has handled this from the American end about as well as we would want any American president to do so.

Let me Let me just give you guys a quick rundown here. Within hours of his first briefing, early Saturday morning, Biden is on the phone with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin unite in Yahoo. Who he has not been friendly with.

For good reason.

He puts that aside. He tells netanyahu that we will provide Israel with whatever is needed. He is then all through that morning in constant contact with the Nasdaq team speaks with King Abdullah of Jordan has twenty eight conversations with various leaders and sources in and around the region over the next twenty four hours or so. The very next day dispatches the USS Gerald are Ford carrier battle group to the Eastern Mediterranean to try to send a message to Rand and others to, you know, keep a lid on things. When October nine puts out a statement in which he fully supports Israel, and says nothing about whether or not, you know, nothing about restraint or, you know, We basically lead to the de escalation, right, into that.

And then yesterday, October tenth makes a really extraordinary speech. And, like, I won’t even start quoting it, but it’s the com people are already saying the most pro Israeli speech of any sitting US president since, like, Truman. In the founding of Israel. And I don’t know if you guys have the chance to watch it. It was

absolutely extraordinary. By far, I think his best the best speech he’s given as a president. I I mean, I think that on all accounts just presentation, you know, he didn’t. He didn’t have his, like, soft elderly voice. Right?

You know, and there is a forcefulness to it. There’s also a genuineness. Right? Like, you could see a lot of times it definitely feels like he is on, intentionally on message, right? Like a scripted?

Scripted is maybe the word I’m looking for. And, this was obviously scripted, but it felt very personal. You could see, you know, the emotion in it. The forcefulness, the willingness to buck, you know, the left. I know we’ll talk about this more in details, some elements of the left, right?

You want to do it explicitly to give that forceful speech and then to have his press Secret Podcast within hours of that, or maybe even within the hour of that, I explicitly criticize to leave in Omar by name. I I just thought like there was a period of an hour where it was like the administration is making abundantly clear, like where Joe Biden is on this? So the world is clear so that there is no question. And I think that took, you know, a little bit of political courage, but also think it was just very important for him to do, and it’s something that a lot of us have been wanting from him. Right?

Like, like, show us that. Passion. It’s been something that’s been kind of missing. Right? You know, he has this reputation as being empathetic.

He’s like so good at eulogies, eulogizing. Right? And it’s like, oh, that has felt missing at times, from from his public persona. And so, you know, I I just thought it was really it was really moving. And and I thought important.

Here, a handful of things he did not do. He did not tweet out any threats. He did not call anybody dogs. He did not alienate any of our allies. He did not endorse war crimes.

Is in retaliation. In fact, you talk specifically about, you know, one of the things that makes countries like Israel and America better is that we do act within the laws of war.

That was really important, by the way.

And he did not criticize any of his domestic political opponents. Most of whom rushed out to take shots at him. Tim Scott said that Joe Biden has blood on his hands. Tim Scott, who’s the good Republican. Biden just assumes that America is unified, basically, and his only real criticism was for the handful of democratic socialist leftist types.

Who have been very bad on this. That’s where his criticism was for, not for Republicans. And, Sarah, for people like us, and I don’t know how this plays with the rest of But for for people like us, does it get better than that at the presidential level? Like, I, like, is there anything missing that we would have asked for on our wish list for a president’s reaction to a a crisis like this?

I mean, more. That’s more of this. To to Tim’s point, like, I think for me, personally, you you are you JBL find Biden to be often like it’s you and I are watching different people because to me, he is obviously sort of halting and not able to rhetoricly, I think give us what we need at this moment which is frustrating for me because I think that, like, we need so, like, leadership is so desperately needed. And so when I saw that speech, I was moved and I was grateful. It and there have been moments like this where I something happens in the world, and I’m so glad that Joe Biden is president and not Donald Trump.

The war in Ukraine is another one, and I think just where things are internationally, having somebody like Biden who both has experience, and like the proper temperament and also the correct in my opinion. And I think this is where the three of us are pretty united. The correct orientation around what it means to have American leadership in the world and to especially American moral leadership. So, like, I have some criticisms of Biden right now that, you know, we can talk about where, like, I haven’t always loved this administration’s posture on Iran, or the Saudis, but at the same time, those are the kinds of things that I think you know, we can have sort of policy disputes over, and I think there will be some rethinking from the Biden administration after this about some of their policies. I hope they refreeze the billions of dollars sitting in the bank, for Iran.

But in terms of the moral leadership and the moral clarity, and moral clarity is what’s needed in this moment. Right? One of the things I I object to so much about what Tim Scott did because the blood on his hands wasn’t his first comment. His first comment was like Joe Biden’s weakness caused this. Joe Biden’s appeasement cost us, like, that was his first statement.

And I gotta tell you. I tweeted this, but it’s it really I feel it very deeply that the Republican Party that I came to know early in my career was one that understood that when terrorists attack, You blame the terrorists. Like, the terrorists are at fault that your We

shouldn’t have to say that, but here we are. We do.

No. No. No. Because, well, this was something for me in in after nine eleven, in my in the music I consumed often and and and the American left, not all of it, but there was a a sort of an immediate, like, well, this is because America does these things. Like, we deserved this.

We brought this up.

So angry at us.

Yeah. This is why they’re angry at us. And, like, I actually think that there is good reason to have nuance and good reason to think about the impact that obviously we have in the world and to not but the the the tendency to turn around and see like we deserve this, we blame America first. Right? It’s what Jean Kirk Packler called blaming America first.

And to me, it was like a manifestation of the fact that there was a lot of people who don’t like America who live here and who wanna immediately reframe what terrorists did as somehow our fault. And to watch the Republican party do this, out of the gate, take what terrorists did and say that it was America’s fault that it happened is wrong. And gross, and literally the thing we used to criticize about our political opponents. Yeah. And to me, one of the deepest moral failings of my political opponent at the time and is now just like replete through the Republican Party.

I mean, we’re like days into this and like the way you respond to something like this is that you support. And again, I just, like, there were missteps. There are actually missteps, like, blinking had a really weird tweet. Yeah. You know, there were, like, some early stuff that didn’t.

But, like, Joe Biden clearly came out quickly and was, like, Here is where we’re gonna stand. I’m gonna say it clearly, and everyone’s gonna be with me. And they, like, locked it up, and that is how that is their and I’m I am grateful for it. I think it’s like exactly what the moment needs. Some people will accuse us of being neo cons or whatever, but like This is actually about defending democracy.

Also, sorry, now I’m just ranting, but like one more thing, which is the Josh Hollie move money out of Ukraine and give it to Israel.

Thank you.

The thing is is that the moral of looseness that it takes to not see that what we are dealing with is a dangerous world in which democracies are under assault, where in Russia, they can just invade and take your country Right? And in and and Hamas is able to to murder and humiliate and parade hostages and and people they’ve raped them. Like, that people don’t see that these things are connected in the immorality of them and that what we as Americans are called to do that, like, our leadership world. Our role is to say you cannot do these things, and we will stand with the people who are the victims in this, and we will we will stand against the aggressors. Like, that is what we do.

Anyway, that’s that’s the end of

I mean, in in Josh Holly’s defense, at least he isn’t taking the went as Andrew Tate line, which is that Hamas is good, actually. I guess there’s that.

It is worth just putting a finer point on, and I was I I’ve other Biden thoughts. I I would like to get to, but like on the Tim Scott and Holly thing. Like the Tim Scott line on this is like would have in two thousand and one. I’ve been too far out there for Michael Moore. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, had Michael, like, had the most far left, like, agitator of Bush, you know, come out in October of two thousand and one. And said George W Bush has blood on his hands. Like, there would have been widespread condemnation of that notion. Know what I mean?

You can get into the policy implications of this, but the idea that that George Bush is in league somehow or is at the same level as some involvement with. The actions of a terrorist group that would just smash a plane into a building and kill mothers and daughters and sons and you know, that Joe Biden would at some level have the same blood in his hands that the guy that beheaded the baby has. Like, it’s fucking despicable. And Tim Scott is, like He’s a good guy. Than the median Republican.

Right? Mean, he’s in the dead center of the Republican party. It isn’t this is it is not Marjorie Taylor Green. Right? Like, it is not Matt Gates.

Right? It is like, the center. And and that is that has been so I hate the word normalized. It’s like been so this kind of hatred of the other internally. And like our domestic tribal has been so normalized within the Republican Party that they think now that it’s just like whoever the twenty year old that writes Tim Scott’s speeches are just like, oh, yeah.

We can just be like Joe Biden. It’s like Joe Biden has blood in his hands. Joe Biden did this. And, like, that is just it is despicable. And it, in in addition to just being absurd, you know, I interview right before I was interviewed, the guy who’s in Israel for the Secret Podcast.

And it’s like, the notion that people in Israel would look at this and be like, you know, who who has a little bit of blood on their hands? Joe Biden. It’s like it’s preposterous. It’d be preposterous for people that like are actually dealing with this. Like, in addition to being offensive, it also is just like it you know, it it would make no sense to the people actually dealing with this.

You know, as they are ranking the the potential causes of this. So so anyway, like, that is just Kathy wrote about this this morning, but, like, I I feel like totally in arms about the Tim Scott thing. And it is and and I think that the Biden speech, and this is tying back to bind really quick. To Sarah’s point of more is more. Like, the only critique you could possibly have of Biden as, like, give that same speech three times today, maybe.

I don’t know. Like, give it during interviews. Go out there. Because just put the mirror up to these fucking Republicans I do not make it possible for them to say that. Just say, like, you know, make them look ridiculous with your seriousness, your sobriety, your passion, in defense of Israel, you know, to the point that finally it did break through yesterday afternoon.

I did notice and they’re they’re good folks know, our friend’s a commentary Jay Pod, you know, complimented this. That commentary has been no friend to Biden, you know, that’s not JBL over their commentary. Right? But even moving over, I saw a couple of Fox people, even the hated Greg got fell to I ranted about on Charlie’s pot on Friday. It was like, you know, that was pretty good.

Right? That’s like force that to happen to isolate these disgusting, you know, attacks on our domestic foes as if you don’t understand what the real threat is and who the real enemy is. I mean, like, Tim Scott wouldn’t say that’s about Putin. About, you know, if you’re saying worse shit about Biden? Then you’re saying about Putin?

Yeah. Like, it’s time to recalibrate.

So we had some some bad reactions on the left as well. If the the elected level couple members of the squad. Who I don’t wanna get them wrong, but I think it was Rashida Tlaib and Omar Omar. Elan Omar. Very bad on this.

Some deescalation talking

in from some of the more normal folks like Markey. Ed Markey gets booed in at a rally in Massachusetts, which is encouraging. He talks about deescalation?

Bad activist groups. The Harvard student groups at Harvard, there was a Time Square, right down the street from me, there was a big pro Palestinian rally with people holding up swastikas and stuff. People gathering, again, far left outside the opera house in Sydney, Australia chanting, gas, the Jews, So there there is certainly a left problem on this, and there has been for a long time. But I wanna try out a thesis that I have for you guys. Which is that we have here as well as we do on the rule of law, a realigning moment in the parties, where polarization is working in a good way on the Democrats.

So you have Biden and, you know, John Federman, who is basically a commie, right, also be totally good on this. Every high level elected Democrat has been absolutely rock solid on Israel. I don’t I don’t think there is any Anybody

needs that credit. Doing some work there.

Really? I don’t know.

Just Katie Border account is high level. She’s been okay No. At best.

I would counter the back bench. Right. I mean, I I don’t think she’s anybody in Democratic leadership. Yeah. Sure.

Anyone the actual presidential administration has been very good on this. Mean, I wonder if we are going to have a realignment in the way we did on vaccines. So people may not remember this, but prior to COVID, Vaccine skeptics were fairly evenly distributed between the left and the right.

Maybe even more months. Really? Maybe more. Maybe more or less than evenly distributed.

And then COVID hits and because of polarization, all of the vaccine seen anti vax crazies are now joint over to the right wing. We don’t have left wing anti vaxxers anymore. Those those people just switch. And I Ron DeSantis is, you know, there’s some pulling data on, you know, opinions of young Democrats pre ten six, right, which shows them being fairly skeptical on is real questions. I wonder if this moment and how unbelievably clarifying it is and how good the democratic leadership has been on this, and also how bad many Republicans are on this.

Does the same sort Bulwark. And we see the the Democratic electorate shifting. Because again, a lot of these people who who are I don’t wanna say pro Hamas, but at least moral equivalency aren’t, like, democrat democrat types. They’re like Democratic socialist to, like, you know, give a lot of side eye to actual Democrats. And I want anyway, I what do you guys think?

I don’t agree with that.

Okay. Hit me.

I I

mean, I hope that that’s right, but I I just we live through all of us. A period of time where, you know, we saw some pretty bad takes from people on our ostensible side, whatever you I don’t know. I don’t know side, right, everybody’s calling themselves on these days, but, like, you know, signs of antisemitism, signs of racism, know, that we’re like, yeah, you know, what’s Charlie’s old line? Like, that’s just the uncle in the basement. Right?

And, like, we can ignore that. That’s just the uncle in the basement. And, we thought that was not actually true and that we’re and so I’m not trying to create equivalency with, like, the Democratic anti Semites to the Muslim banning Trump crowd, but I’m I’m just saying that You have to you have to see it clearly. You know, like, you can’t excuse it away. I’m not saying you’re excusing it away, but you can’t just minimize it.

And I I I think it’s

just starting. I’m just saying I think those people may be getting pushed out of the party.

Yeah. Maybe that happens. I don’t know though. I think that there is a powerful I think the gen z social justice left that does not consider cis white Jews to be part of the marginalized community. I think that is pretty deeply ingrained in the gen z.

Left.

I think once they see the Democrats of the neocon party now.

You know, we’ll make it so. So are you telling me that maybe some of those people become disenchanted altogether with the parties. And like maybe, you know, there is a period of time where you know, green the Jill stein whatever group that grows a little bit, you know, because people are people feel alienated from the democratic party altogether. Maybe that happens. I don’t know.

I think that clearly, you know, to to just speak again to that. This is a weak Sarah Longwell, but to the parallel with the old Republican Party in the way treated their, extreme wing. The Democratic leadership is acting much more responsibly than Republicans did. I mean, I think that most folks But I think you also are seeing it took a maybe it maybe it took a day or two for some of them to gather their courage. I mean, big gretch, Everybody’s talking about big scratch as a potential leader.

Her first statement was atrocious.

So weak. I was so disappointed to see that from her.

She gave another statement a few hours later that was good. Okay. So again, this is progress. That’s things going the right direction. That’s better than what we saw.

The right, which was devolution. Right? Like, people Do

you understand what this is the party of Reagan now?

Yeah. People going more and more over time. So I think there’s signs that elected Democratic leaders are concerned and are a little on unsure turf on this issue about where their voters are I’m optimistic that I I think I do believe in this case it is a a pretty severe minority. I think especially when you consider, like, who votes and older voters, and I think older Democrats, people that are much closer to, the anti Semitic act actions of the past, like people that are closer to nazism, people who’s who lived through that or whose parents did. Right?

I think are a lot a lot more resistant to these notions. Then then the younger Democrats are. And so maybe this is something that, you know, seeing these horrors flushes some of that out. But we’re in a period right now where there is a real I I think I think a real dev intro coalition division.

We’re talking largely about young. And I don’t I hesitate to say Democratic voters, but I mean, really

Fair democratic.

Younger far left types. Right? Maybe they vote for Democrat, but these people who bought Joe Biden was by and large, not their first or second choice.

Sure.

Understand. Also, they have not lived in a world where Gaza, the conflict between Gaza and Israel has been really salient. The last time that there was, like, significant conflict was twenty fourteen. Right? That was that was nine years ago.

It’s almost a decade. Most of these people were kids. Right? So the, you know, they’re being reintroduced to the issue. And, in a way, which I think is very clarifying.

And I I see reasons to believe that the mainstream Democratic Party is going to assert itself and help realign them a little bit.

I think you should go to a college Democrats meeting at your local university and and report back.

I wonder if this is Tim and I have a slightly different perspective having moved in what I would call, like, the LGBTQ intersectionality, community, almost socially to some degree, where you see a lot more of the intelligentsia counterculture types talking, like, lecturing you about Palestine and how, like, and fighting over, like, there was like a fight a while back about pro Jewish LGBTQ group, like being allowed to, like, march in the pride parade. You know, like, there is and and I also think like college campuses, which I don’t think is by any stretch like these things that are coming out of the college campuses, I don’t think by any stretch represent the entire campus. I think we should be careful about painting with the broad brush because I do know one of the problems with the social media environment we live in is that the loudest voices get the most attention. And so it gets really hard to cut through and understand what is the majority opinion versus what is the like majority of crap we get hit with and see Right? And so we’re seeing all these statements come out from these groups on these college campuses.

And I’m like, does the NYU Bar Association democratic bar session. Does that have like six people in it? I don’t know. Right? Like, how many people does it actually represent?

And I think we saw this since like that blinking statement that got deleted is that there is gonna be like a desire on the left, like part of their internal whatever is gonna, like, kick out to be like, but wait, before we go condemning anyone, we need to understand and, like, Actually, this is like where where I think Joe Biden is showing tremendous leadership is that in this moment, There is no justification for what Hamas is doing. This is not the same thing as a discussion even around Palestinian two state. Like, This is unequivocal. You don’t have to say but in this scenario. You just say condemn condemn the the world must come together a moment for moral clarity.

And I think I mean, let let’s not even get to the fact that there are again, I don’t think they represent, like, the mainstream Democratic party, but they are part of the Democratic party. And I think it’s actually I don’t know if this is exactly right. I’m thinking through this, so just don’t yell at me. But, like, to me, it feels a little bit like the defund, the police, which was like, a real thing. Like, it was real, but it still represented, like, very much a minority position.

Like, Nory Democrats do not think anybody should go around to funding the police, but like it’s enough of a movement ish to say, like, it has a foothold strain in the Democratic Party. And I think that’s again, Biden’s leadership matters a great deal because I do think it can correct against Like, it can it can push sort of right thinking people to just have like clarity about this moment and to isolate some of those people, but I also think You’ve gotta show more than this is when I say more, Biden, more. It’s not just Biden, but like, I know there’s a lot of responsible Democrats right now, and they should call out to leave. Like, they should call out Omar on this. They should isolate them.

Biden did. And other Democrats should too.

But by the way, he should I I was literally having dinner. Hello, listener. With a listener of this podcast who’s a little more right than us. Let’s just say. This week and, and is and was offering their complaints about buying them and saying, like, Give me the sister soldier moment.

Give me the sister soldier moment. And then, like, twenty four hours later, I was like, here it is. I hear I hear that here is the White House

press secretary.

The White House press secretary. Like, is there an equivalent example? Of, I mean, I guess, like, MIT. Right? But, like, you know, but then he’s a backbench sender when that’s happening.

Right? Like, there’s this is from behind the podium naming to leave in Omar. But, like, by name and saying, I I I forget, I don’t have the exact quote in front of me. This is outrageous what they what they put out. You know, attacking the victim in this case.

Like, that is not nothing. And I think that there are and and I think it breaks a lot of assumptions about this white house that they were that they’re, you know, too intimidated by the far left, too scared by the far left. And so I I think that’s all good. And I think that the reality is I I I think the reality is that this is an issue that I we don’t know. Like, we’re gonna have to see how this plays out.

Like, is it ten percent of the Democrat party? That is Hamas curious? Is it twenty percent? Like, I I don’t we don’t know. Like, right, can they, can to leave lose a primary?

Can to leave win a primary? Or will people challenge her Like, we just know, or or maybe not maybe Hamas curious is too much. Yeah. I would say

that there’s this strain that’s more like

So anti is real that there’s may that there’s a thought inside them that, like, maybe they do need to be overthrown.

Or look Maybe

the colonizers do maybe it’s something maybe they do need to be fine. Right? Like, what percentage people have that thought in their head? And I do think that it’s important for and now this isn’t the moment for this, but as as you move forward, that for a demo for for there to be models of liberal leaders who are like, BB sucks. Okay?

Like, what he was trying to do with the judicial system and to end democracy and to buddy up to trump is all terrible. And and some of Israel’s policies have been callous. Right? And by the way, in addition to him being callous and and autocratic, he also massively fucked this up. Massively functions.

Yeah. I mean, there are warnings. He’s mister security. Like, there’s old press conferences of him standing next to his wall, his high-tech wall. Bragging about how nobody can get through and then terrorists make it through and it there’s there’s hours and upon hours where innocence are being slaughtered where nobody gets sent.

To defend them? I had, like, how do you fuck up that bad? Like, it is just it’s it’s it’s just a, like, almost unimaginable how bad this of it. So I think that there is room for someone for liberals to model Ron DeSantis is not about blind support for Israel or BB or all their policies. Like, we can criticize.

You can say that we need human rights, but You also have to be clear eyed that this ideology, this anti Semitic terrorist ideology is wrong, and and must be I don’t know if eradicated is the right word, but but must be fought against aggressively. Neutralized? Neutralized. Yeah. Neutralized is maybe a better word.

Let’s move on. The the only other the only other topic worth talking about is the speaker’s race. We had a candidate forum for the house speaker race last night in which Steve’s Glece and Jim Jordan went out there to press the flesh and shake babies and kiss hands. The takeaway seems to have been like, meh, nobody’s really impressed. The one hot hot nugget, I think, was Ken Buck asked them who won the twenty twenty election, and both of them equivocated.

I’m like, well, you know, it’s very hard

to say. And It’s a lot of a

lot of weird things happen.

I almost sort of been more impressed if one of them said Donald Trump, honestly. Like, it’s it’s like it’s almost more embarrassing to wivocate than to just say Donald Trump. One. Like just own your bullshit if you’re gonna fuck if you’re gonna if you’re gonna be a bullshitter, But, like, it’s really mind boggling. To think we’re in this situation.

I mean, who was out there, Ari fleishers out there tweeting? Where’s Biden yesterday? And it’s like, like, where is the minority part? Like, the minority party can’t even produce a leader? Like, you know, I I we’re in the middle of these crises.

Like, ongoing crises and and and one of the, you know, and and one house of Congress cannot do anything. Cannot act. Like, he’s unable to provide money and support. Like, we have multiple ambassadors that we don’t have. We have high ranking military folks that are unfilled.

What if part of the Hamas plan was to, was to also, you know, at the same time, try to distract America by by, you know, having an attack here. That’s not insane to think that that could be possible. And, like, we have huge vacancies in important positions because one party is so incompetent and so unable to govern that they can’t even produce from within their rank, somebody that can lead. And that the that the number one contender that they that we think we might end up with, Jim Jordan, is like a conspiracy at a lunatic. And like that’s who we’re gonna turn to.

In this time of crisis and the serious time, the Republicans, the court the normal Republicans are like Joe Biden has blood on his hands, and I’m gonna turn to the guy that covered up wrestling rapes. Like, who is a, like, a conspiracist? Who is one of the leaders of the stop the steal movement. Like, that is who they’re turning to right now in this moment. I mean, it is, like, it is really gobsmacking.

Yeah. So instead, they’re in a closed door session as we tape. And they’re in the room where it’s gonna happen. Or actually probably where it’s not gonna happen.

It’s probably not gonna happen. It’s

not gonna happen. Like, these guys are it’s gonna vote a million times And honestly, like, six of the moderates should just go make a Kim Jeffrey’s speaker. Like, I know Make one

of themselves speaker. Real.

Yeah. Make one of them. Make a deal. Make a deal for a coalition government. I know it’s fantasy politics.

You get a portrait. If you make yourself speaker, you get a portrait just like Robin.

Kevin Bacon. Can you hear me? Like, I just look, the reason that the Democrats didn’t stand up for Kevin, which, by the way, even with the what a crap you know, they had no reason to. Kevin didn’t ask them. He didn’t try to do anything.

He didn’t try to to be in coalition with them. Don Bacon or one of the other lawler I mean, I know lawler’s, they’re all mad at the Democrats because they wanna blame them instead of like actually looking inward at the absolute shit show that is their own party. But, like, go build a coalition with the Democrats, make some deals, and you work with, you know, the fifty to sixty really normal Republicans, which no longer includes Nancy Mace, by the way. She was just out of her mind.

Did you say fifty or sixty?

Fifty or sixty? Yeah. Okay. I know. I know.

Just I it it might be aspirational. I’m just trying to think about here’s here’s this is what I was thinking. Actually, you guys tell me what you think about this. Because part of me that just like can’t fathom not doing something to govern while this is happening. Like, don’t you think that this requires a shift in perspective?

I I so I had a bunch of people calling me about, like, the coalition government stuff or like people were floating in, everybody’s talking about it. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Everybody stopped. Like, get a grip on yourself. They hate each other right now.

No one’s building a coalition government. And then something like this happens. And you think, aren’t there just enough grown ups who look at this and think my god. This isn’t a moment when we can just afford to not have a speaker of the house, to not be able to make important foreign policy decisions as part of as the third branch of government. And like before it ends up being Jim Jordan who will never fund Ukraine and will continue to have this motion to vacate at one and will allow it to, like, this thing to play itself out over and over again.

Like, you’re telling me no one can step forward and put to get, like, cobble together, an agreement by by appealing to their better nature. They can’t

even do a speaker continuing resolution where they keep McHenry in there for a month.

Yeah. Like,

they can’t just be like, okay, guys. We can’t come up with anyone. So we’re just gonna keep the angry leprechaun in there for a month so we can at least fund Ukraine and Israel and keep the government open and, like, make sure that we have ambassadors. And do

it through Christmas. We’re gonna do it through the new year.

Do you guys have thoughts on how much scalise wants it? Because at this point, I do kinda wonder, like, you know, dude’s got health problems.

But, like, a real health problem.

Right. That’s what I’m saying. He has a real health problem. Like, for who for what. Right?

Yeah. I mean, I I just think that’s the question. Right? I I don’t I I don’t know what scalisa’s desire is. I don’t think he has a McCarthy esque fetish to see his head on a bust.

But I do think that there is some percentage Sarah Longwell thinking fifty or sixty. That might be aspirational. I don’t know. There’s some percentage of people that

Not fifty or sixty percent. Fifty or sixty individuals.

Individuals. Right. I got that. Who, who privately, at least, are expressing the scalise that they do not want Jim Jordon. Yeah.

Right. And that he is the alternative.

I’m just basing it too often number of people who did vote to certify the election. Like, if I if I use that certification number as, like, Some percentage of those people could, like, they have, like, at least the the the judgment to know that she would have certified the last election. Those to me are probably your people who aren’t, like, wild about a gym Jordan.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they fold, by the way, but I think that’s the I think that’s what’s driving us.

Let me let me give you the Bulwark case for Jordan. If you are one of those fifty or sixty responsible Republicans who look at the party and say, are you effing kidding me? We’re gonna make this guy speaker, he is manifestly unfit for the job. You also look around and say, on the other hand, we’re gonna pre nominate Donald Trump And, there’s nothing Jordan can do as speaker that won’t be outdone and made worse once Trump is the nominee It’s only for, another year and three months at which point we will live in an entirely new political reality and how much damage can this do? And why don’t we just like fine?

Take it. Have Jim Jordan there. I wash my hands. Right? I could see that as being a pretty rational reaction if you are just a normie Republican.

No?

Yeah. Yeah. Especially, if you add to that, that those people, like, privately are seething at the Freedom caucus and privately hate them and are and, you know, you could see them saying, fine. You guys be in charge for a while. See how you we’ll see how you like it.

You know? Now now I get to be the troublemaker that’s complaining about you and causing problems for you all the time.

Can I just say this is one of those times when I I get a little, I get torn on this because there’s a part of me that thinks Jim Jordan should be speaker because Jim Jordan represents the Republican Party? He’s not an outlier, and in fact, Kevin McCarthy was a bit of an outlay. Like, Kevin McCarthy was pretending. Tim made this point on the AB, podcast, which I listened to, and I thought it was a great point. Kevin McCarthy.

You listened to that podcast?

I did. I wanted to see how, how it was without me. Answer was pretty good. That’s just good. But Tim made this great point where Kevin McCarthy got the speakership by doing all the wrong things and lost the speakership by doing the right things.

Right? Because his incentives are inverted or the the morality and incentives in the Republican party are inverted. So I I just think Jordan, people should see who the Republican Party really is. And the more the Republican Party gets to hide behind the, like, quaffed hair, of, of a guy like, Kevin McCarthy, the more they put, like, a nor even though he’s an election denier, even though he’s a trumpist. Right?

He’s meaning to be kind of the fusion between the old guard and the Maga takeover. And, like, let Maga take over and show people what it really is. I think that’s sort I think that’s kind of important. I disagree. Well, hold on.

Okay. The reason I’m torn is that on the flip side, it has real ramifications. Real ramifications. The biggest to me being that Jim Jordan will not fund Ukraine. And that’s a real consequence, an important major consequence.

But I I don’t know what to do about the fact that this is the Republican Party, and we need to expose that this is the Republican Party. And we need to beat this version of the Republican Party. Like, Democrats have to take the House back and I am torn.

I don’t think that seeing the true face, the Republican party is gonna change anybody’s mind because Donald Trump is the true face, the Republican party. He’s crazier than Jim Jordan. Everybody has seen him for seven years, and the country is still basically like, yeah, okay with it. Right? I mean, peep people have seen who it is.

It is much better to have somebody like Kevin McCarthy who, again, and I I am not just lamenting him because he’s gone. We were all very good about giving him credit when he did, like, the two or three good things that he did as speaker. Kevin McCarthy actually did do a couple of good responsible things. Right? He supported Ukraine.

He voided the debt ceiling and passed the CR to to make sure we didn’t have a government shutdown. And those are the things that he paid a price for. It is better to have somebody like that because that contrast, which is what you’re you’re saying. Like, we have to make the contrast better for voters. The voters are so stupid that they have been given all the contrast in the world.

There is no not how many people can name the speaker of the house anyway? Right? What percentage of the American public can name the speaker of the house or knows what the speaker of the house is or does? I just don’t think that any more contrast is gonna change any outcomes. It’s better to have somebody who’s quasi responsible who is gonna, like, you know, five percent of the time do the right thing.

This is where I think as you know, I think you’re you’re wrong when you are you think about the Republican Party as monolithic as opposed to there being a percentage of it that is persuadable. Because one of the things that I talk about a lot is this kind of Reagan hangover, the way that the Republican Party runs on perception fumes, right, where people are like, no, it’s the responsible foreign policy party or it’s the, you know, it’s much better on the economy. And like a lot of that is, people still have this image of, like, well, this is the party of of low taxes, freedom, American leadership in the world. And, like, you do have to show those people that’s not what it is. And frankly, I still see a lot of people including Democrats who think of Donald Trump as like an aberration.

Like, there’s normal Republicans and then there’s Donald Trump, and they do not realize that, actually, Donald Trump is now, like, a median Republican. And I think if you think about it like I do, which is in terms of margins, and how do you pull margins away from this dangerous version of the Republican Party to build a big broad pro democracy coalition then you’re like, let him see Jim Jordan, because otherwise Kevin McCarthy kind of normalizes it for those voters. And I think getting those voters see how damaged the party is is actually a challenge, and it’s been a challenge in part because as long as Liz Cheney was still there. As long as Mitt Romney was still there, there’s this ability to be like, but I’m one of those republicans. And I think you sort of need to

Yeah.

Pull that curtain back.

That’s fair. That’s case I can make for it.

I agree.

Damn, you’re not in the long. You had something to say.

No. I agree with Sarah. I don’t know this is I I don’t I don’t think that there’s a good, clear answer to this has been a running debate internally I’ve had for seven years. I was always at the view. I was like, I think that Corey Lewandowski should have been Donald Trump’s chief of staff and Laura Ingram should have been as, you know, secretary of state, and we should have just rip the band aid off as quickly as possible.

Many people lecture me about how irresponsible that is and how lives would have been, like maybe we wouldn’t be here. I don’t know. We don’t know. Like, it’s a counter factual, but I don’t anyway, Kevin McCarthy is gone. And I don’t see like a meaningful difference guess is Steve scalise gonna cut if you came to me like the options are Jim Jordan and I know Ukraine funding or Steve scalise and Ukraine funding, I guess I would say Steve scalise but like beyond that, like, he’s not any fucking different.

Right? He’s just like a little he’s just like a little bit less weird. And so I don’t know. I I I do see that there could be a marginal advantage to letting the creepy and weird. And if this party determines in twenty thirteen in the face of this horrific terrorist attack in Israel in the face of Russia invading Ukraine, that they wanna put forth like the two biggest buffoons and the entire party as their presidential nominee and as their congressional leader then like, okay, then let’s fucking see it.

Let’s ride it out, I guess. And if the people want that, then I don’t know. I really there’s some I’ve been looking at at, property in Uruguay.

So

Now you’re talking my language because that’s what the people are gonna see, and that’s what they’re gonna ask for.

Gotta stay in bright folks. Sorry. This is always

good, not a good show, a very depressing show, a very dark show, but, but a useful show. So,

can I can I tell you a story? Can I tell you a story? It’ll chew you up.

Is it happy? Please make it happy.

It’s kinda happy. So Tim just invoked Laura Ingram, and I was at a conference recently, and Laura Ingram spoke just before me. And, and she, she What

sort of conference has her and you?

I’m

not gonna go into it, but I’m just gonna say that That’s a

very strange lineup.

It was meant to re there was meant to represent like a range of views and so she was there. And the and the audience was being was just incredibly polite, to her. And I was, like, sitting listening to her just, like, twitching in my seat as she proceeded to say things like, some of the the worst things were like that the news that she was just reflecting back the anger that exists. Right? She’s just there as like a vessel, right, reflecting it back.

That was one, two, that, like, The news shouldn’t be boring. Like, you don’t watch, like, why do you tune in to watch Taylor Swift at the football game, and it’s like, because it’s entertaining, and so, like, she’s not gonna do boring news, whatever. So I was up next. And, like, I was kind of on a panel and, like, we were kinda having a mishmash conversation that I didn’t really think was going anywhere. So I was just like, you know what?

I’m gonna talk about. I would like to talk about what Laura Ingram just said. And I

What did you say?

Well, that just because we have to we wanna respect other people’s views does not mean we have to sit and be gaslit and lied to by Laura Ingram, and that the news is actually what we do to get information to make good choices about our democracy. And then I hit the guy hosting the panel. Like like I was you know, flailing my arms around getting all worked up. And I was like, it’s not entertainment. News is not entertainment.

It’s different. It’s a different thing. You don’t compare them. Anyway, I lost my mind and went on quite a rant. And then, and the audience, I scratched an itch for that audience.

The audience was the they they needed they needed somebody to have expressed, that what we just heard from our Ingram was like a load of garbage. Slow clap

and then one at a time starts standing up. No.

No. No. So then the next thing that happens, like the weirdest stream you’ve ever had You’re just on you’re just up on stage. It’s like nine thirty at night. You’ve been you just you just ranted about Laura Ingram.

The audience is with you and then all of a sudden, Rain Wilson just comes on stage. Dwight from the office. He’s next. And right from the office is like, you guys and your politics, it is just just the whole poll political enterprises untoward and, you know, it’s it’s we should be spiritual and, whatever. And he was just like, criticism.

I so I lost my mind a second time, but time, it was on Dwight from the office. And it was like

At him? On stage?

He was saying it was like in the general direction of the people I was on stage with. Yeah. It was about the idea that, like, the idea that politics is inherently, like, evil and dirty. Like, is wrong. Okay.

And first of all, politics is like the civic thing that we do together to decide how we are going to be governed. Like, he took he came up afterwards after the program, and he gave you a big hug. It was very nice to give you a big hug, but then proceeded to tell me that the way that we should elect our leaders is that we should everybody in America write down on, like, a piece of paper, who they think should be president? He was like, who do you think would win then? And I was like, I don’t know, Oprah.

And he was like, well, then, wouldn’t she make a better president than Joe Biden or Donald Trump? I was like, she’s not running for president. You can’t script people into service. Also, what you just described is a secret ballot. And, like, then what people would do who are on the secret ballot is, like, they’d raise some money, you know, and then like pretty soon they’d form a coalition.

And pretty soon you’d have political parties sending a lot of money. Like, I just I just wanted to scream. Congratulations.

You invented American democracy. You are

you are the best of us, Sarah, and I’m happy that you hug Doreen. We’ll and that you had had this moment of Zen with him, but I and I do not want to insult whoever invited Laura Ingram to to this weird event that you are at, but I gotta I gotta fucking say. Like, these people should be banished from society, Lorraine. Laura Ingram. I’m there’s I I hate this idea that we need a range of views and that Laura, we need a responsible crowd of Laura Ingram.

And that Rain Wilson could come on stage after hearing from Laura Ingram and then you and doing a pox on both their houses speech. Fuck you, Dwight. Okay. Fuck you, Dwight. I was always on the side of John Krasinski in that show in the first place.

And, like, pull it together. Okay? Sarah Longwell clearly in the right, and we could acknowledge right and wrong. And, you know, this whole, don’t be like don’t be just trying to be like, oh, there’s Laura Ingram over here being like, oh, we should deport Mexicans and the news should just be pretend angered Rile people up. And then, oh, on the other side, we’ve got the person that’s like, the news should be serious and educate and screw both of you.

We should all instead hold hands and do yoga. Screw that. Dwight. Come on.

To be fair, he was he was very lovely man.

I’m sure. He was

very lovely man. I just

I’m lovely and misguided.

I just it was lovely, but, like, this idea of, like, like, I’m your job is politics and your job is stupid. I’m like, I’m not telling you how to write your, you know, next comedy show. Like, that’s not my I don’t know anything about that. But, like, I’m not sure that you’ve got politics, like, on the lock. I’m not sure you’ve grok’d, like, what’s happening here and how this thing’s going.

But, but he was super nice and super lovely. Laura Ingram was awful and, like, was, like, smug and smarmy and, she

looked like skeletal in person? Does she look like a a skeleton human hybrid.

No. No. She went out. She looked lovely. She’s very tiny, you know, small.

But but,

Did you ask her about her love affair with Dennis. No.

There was no there was no interaction. Like, I didn’t get to do I was just like next. Like, I would like she she was off and then I was on, on with like a like a panel. But the Here’s what I here’s what makes me happy. I I just I felt very if I had not said something, I would have spent all night laying awake in bed.

I’d actually did this anyway. I laid awake in bed and thought of other things I wish I’d said. But at least I said something. The church store called.

They’re all out of you.

Sarah, I am proud of you that you said something. You should feel good about that. I just I wanna say to you and to listeners and everyone out there, If you do have an opportunity to see Laura Ingram in the future, I think maybe a good entry to that conversation would be. How did it feel to be rejected by to Sousa and then to show up at his wedding like a spurned wife because that seems like a pretty strange thing and a pretty sad and pathetic thing and it’s interesting that you still have him on your show even though he’s hideous and a liar and he used to have as you know what in you. That might be something to mention to Laura.

I think we’re gonna have to cut that. I don’t like that.

That might just I just suggested that might be a potential alternate way to deal with Laura

on the show.

That goes on the show. Guys, good show.

Long show.

We’ll see you on a Sunday show. If you haven’t, hit subscribe. Hit the thumbs up. Give us five stars. Do all that stuff.

Bye.

Bye.