May 4, 2025 • 42 mins
Former Tea Party Republican Congressman, and now hardcore Anti-Trumper, Joe Walsh has dire warnings for all of us. America's failure has been a failure of imagination -- unable to imagine what Trump would try to do. Prepare for the 2026 elections to be cancelled, for the military to go after civilian protesters, and anything else you thought was far-fetched. Walsh has an inside understanding of "the MAGA cult" but he also has a gift for constructively engaging with them. Listen to find out more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
our adversaries.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
theories large and small.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
This is mission implausible. So today's guest is Joe Walsh.
He's a political commentator and former radio talk show host.
He has a podcast, he's on Substack. He's a regular
on TV. You've probably seen him. He was a politician
who served in Congress as a former TEA Party favorite.
I think even ran for president in you one time.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
It was for a brief John, just a brief moment
in time I challenged Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well it's more than we did, so God bless you.
So let me start out. One of the things you
do that I think is really impresses is you travel
and speak to groups who don't agree with you around
the country. So how do you engage with people who
espouse conspiracy theories like about the twenty twenty election or
January sixth or Q nine or anything else with that matter.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It ain't easy, John, Jared good to be with you both.
Look and I know you know my history. I used
to be a really divisive politician. I was part of
the tea party class. I went to DC to raise
hell and burn it all down. I voted for Trump
in twenty sixteen. Boom boh, what was I thinking? And
(01:36):
then in twenty eighteen I came out against him publicly,
took a blow torch to my career, and then I
tried the primary him in twenty twenty. So I'm in
a weird position. Of all the really well known never
trumpers out there, I'm the only one that comes from
the bowels of the Maga basse. I call myself a
(01:58):
reformed maca gang banger. But because I had that start,
I still engage with his supporters every single day. And
because John, like I was really divisive. I think the
countries dangerously divided. People like me help to divide the country.
(02:19):
I'm on a mission the rest of my breathing life
to try to do something about that divide, and so
I engage on a regular basis with Trump's voters, but everybody,
when you.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Engage with them, do you try to change their minds?
Do you try to sympathize? What do you find the
best way to deal with people who really still are
MARGA believers?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
You guys are more expert than I am. I will
say publicly when I go on TV that my former
party is a cult. So these folks, most of whom
are good folks, most of whom used to be my supporters,
they're members of a cult. And so that's my mindset,
John and Jerry going in. I got out of that cult.
(03:04):
I want to try to help them get out. And
I've found that the only way to even have a
shot to do that is to very slowly and respectfully
just continue to put little nuggets of truth in front
of them repeatedly until they're kind of up against a
(03:24):
wall and they don't know where to turn. And I
find that when I can get one of them in
a place like that, then the potential for the light
bulb to go off is there to one.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Extent, Is this something we've always had or this is
something that's being manufactured with entertainment and the news ecosystems
that we live in and the news feeds that we
consume you're on one team or the other. But what
makes what turns it into a cult?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I do think we are dangerously divided, and I felt
this way before Trump got elected. I felt this way
and I said it when I was in Congress back
in twenty ten, twenty twelve. I think America is a
married couple on the verge of a divorce.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
I really believe that, and.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I felt that way before Trump. I think Trump is
just like the ugly consequence of being a married couple
on the verge of a divorce. So I think the
divide is there. I think it's real. I think this
two hundred and forty nine year old experiment in awesomeness
is at a weird point. What Trump did was he
(04:33):
took advantage of how divided we are and he fed it.
Some politicians see were divided, were broken, Our social contract
is frayed. Let's try to bring people together. And Trump no,
fuck no, Trump does the opposite. This is how I'm
going to win. I'm going to try to further divide us.
I'm going to get Americans more angry at each other.
(04:57):
So that was something new. And then and I gotta
be honest, We've only got two political parties. I come
from the Republican Party, my former party. I left it
became fully radicalized. I say that often people like me
helped to radicalize them. The Tea Party led to MAGA.
(05:18):
But the base of the Republican Party has always been
primarily middle age, older white people. And these middle age,
older white people, for a long time have felt like
everything's against them. All of our institutions, government, the media, academia, Hollywood,
all left of center, and there's truth in that. So
(05:40):
along comes Trump and he says, man, I'm going to
be your guy. I'm going to go after all these things.
I'm going to go after CNN, They're the enemy of
the people. I'm going to go after Hollywood and all
the rest. And so he enabled this white base to fully,
proudly and loudly come out from under their rock and say,
(06:02):
we are the Republican Party. Finally somebody's listening to me.
We're going to get white Christian nineteen fifty four America.
That's what they say to me.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So when you talk to these groups, the ones that
listen to you and seem to be taking it on,
what is it that resonates. Is there certain issues that
sort of matter to them? Is it the economy? Are
a culture of things? What things? Do They start to say,
I see where you're going to. Maybe maybe I'm willing
to listen more.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
So I'm not a Democrat and I'm not a lefty.
And even though I go on MSNBC a lot, I'm
not an MSNBC person. So I come from their family.
I come from Mauga's family. I left the family, and
in a weird way, like they look at me as
a trader because I left the family. But then in
a weird way, they'll listen to me because they know
(06:53):
I'm not of the left. So I have found I
still have a lot of hate listeners. So there's always
been a curiosity like, I don't get it, Joe, why
don't you like Trump?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Again? And I find that when I.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Focus on relentlessly the rule of law, democracy, you lose
a fucking election, be a man and accept the loss.
Come on, Billy, that's what we do. That's what you
taught your kids to.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Do, right man.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
And so it's those kinds of things that kind of
make them feel a little guilty. They know I'm not
like I'm a big gun guy, a big gun rights guy,
so they know I'm not going to come for their guns.
So because they know I'm generally with them on most issues,
they'll listen to why I most opposed Trump because he's
(07:46):
a threat to democracy. And even if they don't agree
with me, these are folks who always claim to adore
the Constitution. That's what the Tea Party was back in
the day. So come on, Steve, you can't send somebody
into a l Salvador jail without any due process. Come on,
(08:08):
that's not right. And I find John when you keep
putting that in front of them, not pounding them over
the head, but just trying to get them to think. Eventually, again,
some of them will stay in dialogue.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
The cult thing is interesting. It gets thrown around about
a lot, and I struggle with it whether that's a
good metaphor or not. But when I talk to died
in the world democrats, I'm riding with Biden to hell
or high water, and then you can hear that conversation
about what's good or what's bad about the Democratic Party.
But with mega folks, they find it really hard to
(08:42):
make even one small concession like the ones you've been
talking about Look, I watched January sixth on TV. We
all did like it wasn't a day of love. They
were beating the shit out of policemen. That's never okay,
never okay, beat the shit out of policemen. And yet
getting that extreme, that concession from them is almost impossible.
(09:02):
And for me, that's the cult part.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That's actually a fascinating case study. Because I was thinking
about January sixth, and I've said this before, it was fascinating.
For three maybe four days after January sixth happened, I'm
on conservative talk radio around the country. Trump's most die
(09:26):
hard supporters for three to four days were stunned and
sickened and called in and said, oh my god, Joe,
this is bad. There was a window there where even
his most hardcore folk said nope, nope, nope, And that's
(09:47):
really interesting. Then what happened. Then eventually Republican politicians started
to defend and excuse Trump and Hannity and all the
idiots on Fox News. Boom Boo boo went down the
same road, and I swear to God, within two weeks
all of those hardcore folks were.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Joe yar wrong.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
The FBI was behind it. It was the deep state
and they were gone. But there was like without the
media or the Republican bullshitters in their faces, even the cult.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
They even thought.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
This is bad, which is interesting because that suggests that
a lot of people know what they're saying might not
be fully true. But in another way, it's bad because
it suggests that the hatred for the other side is
so strong that I would rather say something I know
to be false than agree with the other side, like
(10:46):
what Jerry said with Biden. Like Biden was the president,
he brought it at least he brought in some smart people.
But he screwed up Afghanistan. It was a complete debacle.
It was terrible. They provided really poor support and way
too late. I think for Ukraine too old. He should
have left early. He should have just done one to
all those things I can say, and I don't think
of myself as a Democrat or Republican either, but at
(11:08):
least yeah, you don't hear that from the mega side.
Is it because they hate the other side too much?
You know, we lived overseas working for our country, trying
to collect intelligence on Russia, China, Iran terrorists, enemies of
this country. But these people seem to think the enemies
are the other party, not foreigners who want to do
as harm.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
It was a perfect storm, a combination of who the
Republican Party base was and how long they felt beaten down,
and then along came this demagogue. I can remember John
and Jerry when Trump first started running in twenty fifteen,
(11:50):
and they had one of the very early debates with
Jeb Bush and my Lil Marco and all those nuts.
And I remember again, I'm on the radio, I'm on
Fox New and all the smart Republican establishment people. Every
time Trump would talk and he'd say crazy, stupid shit,
all the Republican establishment people would say to me, Joe,
(12:12):
this is a fucking joke.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
He's done.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
But at the exact same time, his voters, my listeners,
my supporters were eating up everything he was saying. So
right away then I knew there was something different that
was going on. I think this had been building for
a long time, the Republican Party establishment, and I wasn't
part of it.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
They hated me.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
They ignored their base forever, and their base has always
been really scared about the changing country, the changing demographics,
the browning and blacking of America, the open borders, legit
concerns where you need to sit these folks down and
(12:59):
educate them and tell them how we welcome all God's children, white,
black and brown. But they had real concerns about the
changing face of America. The party establishment just ignored them.
And then along came tea party people like me, and
we inflamed them.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
So by the.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Time Trump came along, and he came down that escalator
and he said, I'm gonna build a fucking wall, a wall.
Remember how stupid that first was when he said it,
And I'm going to keep brown and black people out.
And everybody laughed, except for Republican voters.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
They loved it.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
To them, he was the first one, after fifty years,
who had heard their concerns. But they dug their finger
claws into him at that moment and they've never let go.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So let's take a break to be back in a
Roman I struggle with things like like Russia. So just
today it's out in the press that the Ed Martin,
the guy who's up to be district attorney for DC
guy just somehow forgot that he appeared on Russian television
(14:15):
one hundred and fifty times and never mentioned it. To Congress. Oh,
is that a problem that Artie is an arm of
the Russian intelligence services and Russian propagama machines. And how
is this being accepted? Like the Russians are the bad guys,
at least they were. And so you've talked to a
lot of people, how did they square that circle?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Part of it is because Trump's siding with Putin, because Trump, so, Joe,
let's not question it. I get a lot of that
the other aspect, and I think you'll find this in
our history. And I come from the right. Look, the
left has their issues, but there's always been a desire.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
For a strong man on the right.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
The right in America has always been more susceptible to
authoritarian guys. When I was in Congress, I was the
poorest member of Congress if I had a dollar over
the last seven years, for every time a Trump supporter
said to me, Joe, I don't mind that Trump's acting
(15:22):
like a dictator, as long as he's given us back
the stuff we need, as long as he's bringing America back.
So part of it is a yearning for an America
where men were men, women were women, and men married
women and women married men. And Oh, by the way,
there was that plant in town where my dad worked,
(15:43):
and everything's changed, and we forget so many of us
forget that even twelve years ago, Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton opposed same sex marriage. So to the base, to
the Republican bay, this shit's been changing in a nanosecond.
(16:03):
And so then you combine that with what I've found,
which is they're yearning to have a strong man deliver
that America back to them. I say often my party,
they've given up on democracy. They call him the cult.
I think it's an authoritarian, embracing cult. They want a
(16:24):
strong man to deliver a certain America back. That then
extends to Putin, it extends to Erdawan, it extends to
strong men around the world, who, by the way, Trump
has an affiliation with, and Trump knows that his base
is very open to authoritarianism.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I do think there's something in our country about masculinity
in America. What's happening to young men and what I
see about you and I see with Adam Kinsinger and
some other people. They seem to be having some sort
of impact on the mega folks because they talk like,
you know, again, I'm a sixty year old white guy too.
You know, I played sports and got in fights and
(17:07):
stuff like, man up, man, what you're doing is wrong,
get your shit together, like I think in some sense,
people want someone who has occured to their conviction, says
thing they believe. It sounds like when you first talked
answered the first question you said, you're having an impact
when you say to someone that's wrong, man up. Like
(17:28):
that seems Oh, I get that. Like you're asking me
to tough en up. You're right, John, I think that's right.
I think that's perceptive. I certainly don't fucking talk like
a normal politician. There's a yearning for authenticity in our politics.
It's been there now for a while. Trump gives the
illusion that he's authentic, which is bullshit because every word
(17:48):
out of his.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Mouth is a lie. But there's a yearning for that.
This is the democrats big problem. They all sound like
fucking politicians, and many of their male politicians sound like
absolute whossies. It's a weird thing in that Trump's support
among young men has really grown. It's a scary thing.
(18:10):
And they listen to a lot of these podcasters like
Joe Rogan and some of these other bros. There's a
real problem, you guys, know, disinformation and lies that are
spread out there. I believe in the marketplace, I believe
in a million different places to go get informed. But man,
what a dangerous world it is because you listen, if
(18:32):
you get your news from a Joe Rogan or a
Tucker Carlson, Hello.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
You're done.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
But yet they give the appearance of being tough guys.
Tough guys. Are they tough guys?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Though? Like I see jd Vance and I think of
a high school loser, like I like it a musk.
Is he really a masculine tough guy? Tryump? They look
like weenies to me. And people are act like they're
the toughest guys going.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
They're the antithesis of what strong men should be. They lie,
they cheat, their corrupt, They never take responsibility for anything
they ever do wrong. That's not masculine. But they don't
give the appearance of being nerds. They give the appearance
of being tough guys. And a lot of it is
(19:17):
just through the smoke that they blow this disinformation. It's
a real issue, and I'd argue that we've I think
so much of this is just the pendulum swinging. We
shit on men like a little bit and kind of
shit on young white men a little bit, all good stuff,
and we need equal opportunity for black men and brown
(19:40):
women and everybody. But there's been a backlash because I
think certain elements of the left push too hard on
some of this shit, and along comes Trump and says,
I'm gonna boom, I'm gonna get us back. So Trump's
now going to be a dangerous overreaction in the other side.
But we're living in a po feelus moment, and all
(20:01):
that means to me is we need politicians who are fighters.
Trump gives the impression of being a fighter and his
people do even though John I agree with you, they're
bullies and bullies are cowards.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
What's your sense now, of course this can change. What
are the sort of the ultimate thols of politics now,
especially on the right. Right now we're racing towards are
already they're a face off with the Supreme Court. Is
there a plan do you think inside of like the
coterie of folks inside of the White House or inside
of Manga Republic Party to like to break that. It's
(20:35):
like we're going to go like we're going to disengage
from the judicial system, and we're going to disengage from
fair elections. Where does that go? Where does it take us?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Let me sound like a conspiracist. I think the greatest
failure of this Trump era to steal the nine to
eleven commissions phrase, has been a failure of imagination. Yes,
I think that we have not imagined how far Trump
would go, how bad he would get. If us three
old white dudes were sitting around twenty years ago talking
(21:08):
and I'd have told you, you know what, there's gonna
be an American president one day soon who's going to
lose an election, and son of a gun, he's not
gonna accept the result.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Nope, first time he's not.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Gonna do it.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And then you know what, John and Jerry, he's gonna
commit crimes trying to overthrow an American election. You guys
would have thought I was smoking something. He did that
that all happened. So are there going to be midterm
elections next year?
Speaker 4 (21:35):
I don't know. Put a gun to my head, I
won't say there will be.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
I firmly believe knowing people around Trump, they are licking
their chops at the opportunity to use the military, law enforcement,
and the military against Americans. On the streets because they
(22:00):
are hoping and anticipating these protests are going to grow
and maybe get violent, and they are just dying to
stomp down on them. Declare martial law, invoke the Insurrection Act,
and if things don't look good in twenty six for Republicans,
the tyrant will come out and say, Nope, no elections now.
(22:23):
So crazy talk. I just think you gotta prepare for it.
The jackass is beyond joking about running again in twenty
twenty eight. Go ahead and don't take him seriously if
you don't want.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Wow, that's scary, And I think there's true. I mean
he's attacking law firms, he's attacking anyone that can hold
him accountable, attacking institutions, education, all those things, and so
it is a real threat.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Do they have a plan?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
That's true. That's the thing is the way he's totally
fumbled the economy. He suggests to me that he likes
people coming to him, he likes being in charge, but
he actually is not very smart and not thinking ahead
very fast. Yes, he wants to be the strong man,
but if he's blowing the economy in the process, is
he at a risk of losing those people? He would
(23:14):
need to support him.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Like Trump, doesn't believe in many things except for Trump,
but he believes in two things, both of which should
scare us. He I'll say it, he adores Putin. I'll
say it. He's a fucking Russian asset. And if he's
not man, he's the most effective non Russian asset.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
That's ever lived.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
His devotion to carrying out Putin's agenda has always been there.
And the second thing he's always believed in is tariffs
from the time he was a young man. People who
are with him believe that he believes with these tariffs
there will be some a short term, but he really
(24:01):
believes this will get to the other side and things
will be great. Most people around him are poor tariffs,
and they're trying to talk him off that ledge. That's
one issue that could mess up his plans. But play
the devil's advocate and running with conspiracies. If I were
a conspirator, tariffs are actually a great way of exercising
(24:23):
power because you can pick favorites and punish enemies for corruption,
you get exactly right, corruption your ability to exercise power.
Support me, you know, elon Musk, give me a quarter
of a billion dollars and I'll support Tesla one thing.
When we were on the inside at CIA, you know,
CIA does not engage in economic espions.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
We don't do it. And one of the reasons we
don't do it is say we get a revolutionary new
widget that the Germans built, Right, we steal it from
somehow for some reason. Who do we give it to? Right?
Which US company? Right? We can't favor one over the other.
And when I saw Trump just with Tesla vehicles in
(25:06):
front of the White House doing this, you know that's
corruption right now, if he had different there were different
US car makers, that would be different, but just favoring
one over the other. But that's power. And the other
conspiracy is the press too, is I don't know. You
look at Fox News and we're not really having all
that big of an economic problem, right, I mean, it's
only twenty percenty or four oh one case gone, like
that's not a big deal. Who cares, right?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
But it is interesting though Trump lies as he breathes.
He can lie about anything and everybody believes him. He'll
have a more difficult time lying about the economy because
we all live it. And even Fox News is going
to eventually maybe have to report it. I think the
only conspiratorial mindset that's in the White House right now
(25:49):
is they want an absolute lock on power. They don't
want to lose the twenty six elections. They'll do anything
to prevent the elections from happening being fair. And they
really do want violence on the streets. That's part of
their equation. They're hoping that happens.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I don't disagree with you. I don't know. At least
the national security area that Jerry and I worked in
the FBI, the DoD see this way, the culture was
such that I don't think people would follow illegal orders.
Now that may change. They may have pushed it through.
There may be enough people in the military that will
(26:33):
follow things like like if we were inside Jerry and
they said, okay, we want you to spy on Canada
and invade Greenland and stuff, it just is so far
gone people would quit or not do it. Although that's
not you know, those are foreign policy decisions, and they're
maybe stupid and you may not want to do them,
but it's different from violence on the streets in America
and going after Americans. That's a really it's a really
(26:54):
dangerous thing. And what do we do.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
It's really dangerous.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
But look at the bad people he put in charge
of Defense and the FBI and Justice.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
But are they smart enough to do this? Like, Okay,
so we worked in a big bureaucy in the CIA.
You put Ratcliffe in charge, he's a dummy. He puts
some he brought a deputy in who's never been an intelligence.
They really just don't know how to pull those strings.
I mean, the big organization, there's a lot of people.
You don't just give some sort of order. You probably
(27:25):
don't even they don't even know how to give an
order through the system, like it's it's a professional organization
with lawyers and people in different areas and different offices.
So yes, you got bad people in charge, and eventually
that could lead to really partisan institutions. But I don't
think it's there yet.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
They could be wrong, John, but they think among rank
and file, say in the CIA, they've got more support
than we might think. They've told me that in the FBI,
in the CIA, in Defense, in Justice. I don't I
worry that it's there yet either, agreed, But I think
(28:03):
part of the whole equation here is just to create
chaos and then blame the left, like imagine a situation
where things got really ugly next year and Trump did
declare whatever, and our military was out on the streets
and Donald Trump said, with all of this going on, man,
(28:24):
we can't hold elections now. And some my home state, Illinois,
a Democratic state.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
JB.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Pritzker comes out and says, screw that, we're holding elections
in Illinois. But then there's confusion in Illinois and half
of the election workers don't want to work in Illinois,
and you could envision just utter chaos where we couldn't
have a functioning midterm election.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Okay, shut it.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
All done, shut this.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I'm just gonna excuse me. I've just poured myself a
shot of whiskey here and in the morning.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
This is why I drink taki legit irish.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
You gotta drink. You gotta drink whiskey.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Hold on, let me ask quick question while you're thinking
for good for it. The one thing is, yeah, you
create that chaos inside so that you are in charge
and you're more powerful, But in the meantime you are
weakening the state. There are others out there. The one
thing about the terrorists, for example, going after China, I
think Trump's view of China is like a twenty year
old version of China that he thinks they can manipulate
(29:26):
them and they need to come to us to sell things.
China has moved way ahead. They have incredibly these dark
factories that don't have lights in them because it's all
run by robots. Like they are moving ahead. They're becoming powerful.
They're starting to become powerful militarily. These games that we're playing.
Trump says silly things. His people may think that's oh yeah,
(29:46):
maybe that's true, but it's not working. On the rest
of the world. All of these other leaders are saying,
this guy's an idiot, and we are making ourselves weaker
visa each China in these other places in the meantime,
and that can't be a good thing for United.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I think because of that, John, I think ultimately Trump's
gonna back down on all of this terrriff stuff and
save face because I just I know the smartest people
around him are anti tariff. So I can see a
scenario where he walks away from tariffs and claims that
(30:22):
some sort of victory.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Let's pass for a second, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
So you came from a Republican party that thought different things, right,
So free trade was a good thing, all those type
of stuff. The notion that you could invade Greenland, you can.
We can probably get minerals and work with the Danes
to get whatever we need from Greenland. We could put
we used to have five or six military bases there,
and we say we need it for defense. I'm sure
we could build five or six military bases there if
we wanted to. We don't need to take it from
(30:57):
anybody to do that. You're saying the people believe in isolationism.
If you're a former Republican, you don't believe that. So
when you talk to those people, how do you talk
to them in a respectful way? Would they start to say, oh,
I see, we do need the rest of the world.
It sounds nice to say we can do things ourselves.
Totally get it, but that's not the world we live in.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
And here's why, John, that's a more nuanced conversation with
the base, and I don't have as much success with that.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Like I.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
We'll get into a conversation and okay, guys, you want
to retrench from the rest of the world and leave
Europe alone, And okay, fine, But when somebody invades France
in the UK in fifteen twenty years, we're gonna have
to do something about You can walk them through that history.
They don't think that far ahead. It's a movement and
(31:52):
a base that believes, damn it, take care of ours
right now. Fuck the rest of the world, Fuck all
these treaties, fuck NATO and all the alliances.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Man, take care of ours.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
And like so he invades Greenland like that wouldn't even
they wouldn't care about that. That's just that's fucking kicking ass.
We're kicking ass. That's now part of America.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
One of my core concerns about the mega Republican Party
is it doesn't have principles so much as it can
be led anywhere. Pro galization, anti globalization, pro tariff, anti tariff.
These things can change on a dime.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
All of my former Republican colleagues in Congress, and all
of my former right wing media people, they've all made
a practical decision to support him, advanced their career, stay
in the game. All of that get elected. But the
average Trump voter out there, I still believe most of
them believe in certain basic things, and their devotion to him,
(33:03):
their leader and they're they've been waiting decades to finally
get a shot at revenge to everything that's been punching
at them has blinded them to their I do believe
most of them. When I can get them down on
a conversation about the Constitution, most of them still will
(33:26):
admit they fundamentally believe the Constitution. But they've put this
over here for now because Joe. Sometimes Trump has to
break the rules. Fuck do process, get these people out
of here. But it's not constitutional, Steve, Joe, I believe
in the Constitution, but right now Biden let way too
many of them. Man not to excuse them, but I
(33:48):
still think they have the potential to have the basic
good belief there, most of them, not all.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
When you meet these.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
People and you're not talking politics, yeah these are Oftentimes
they are nice people. We share a lot of common things.
We share sports teams, we share living in America, we
like to eat at the same restaurants, and all those
kind of things. I think it's what Trump has done successfully,
and it started like didn't start with the people like
Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Is they create a false
straw man, a false story, and then they attack that
(34:20):
and tear it down. And so yeah, if you tell
everybody that you know you're suffering because of those people,
then yeah, you hate those people. But the problem is
the first story wasn't true. Trump at the end of
the day, if you actually look at what he's doing,
it's not helping all those people that are so angry
and they want the government to help them.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
And there's always but John, here's the beauty of what
they do. And I used to do some of this
when I was an idiot on the right. There's always
a little bit of.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Truth in what they say.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Like, oh my god, five years ago, there was a
grammar school in South Dakota that decided we're not going
to sing religious Christmas carols. You can only sing Rootolph
the Red Nose Reindeer. And you go on my radio
show or Fox News that night. Oh my god, you
can't sing religious Christmas songs around America anymore. So they
(35:12):
take one little thing, blow it up. Oh, the Democratic
Party wants to defund the police. No, a couple crazy
leftists said that. So there's always just a little nugget
of truth that they can grab onto and blow up.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I mean, because you can live in Idaho and be
upset about foreigners or that trans You've never seen a
trans athlete in life, but it's, oh my god, that transience.
It's like every rated these stories like I don't care
about trans athletes, and I don't want criminals runn around
our streets either.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
But you know, it's fear, John's it's fear I find
at its core. That's at the bottom of every conversation
I have with a Trump voter. And I love these people,
but there's a basic fear that Trump's been able to pound.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So we're talking about one size, I'll say it. The
Democrats suck. It was like, really, that's all you can
come up with, And I look at what the Democrats produce,
and unfortunately only have two choices. It's like, really, they're
pulling out the Toledo mud hens right to play the Yankees,
and I don't know what to do about that. In fact,
(36:23):
that's the opposite of a conspiracy. They fucking couldn't conspire
to do anything. They can't make a plan.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, Jerry, it's a real problem because and someone like
me now for the last seven years, in essence, I
am a Democrat temporarily, and they're a real problem they're
a mess. Look for three months last year, I campaigned
every single day in a battleground state for Kamala Harris,
and everywhere I went, again, we're talking about regular people.
(36:54):
Regular people would tell me, Joe, I know Trump's an asshole,
but the Democrats are snobs who look down on me.
I heard a variation of that everywhere I went. So
regular working class Americans who aren't weird like us, they
think about this stuff maybe once a month. They had
a choice between an asshole who at least said he
(37:17):
was going to do something about these Haitian migrants that
are eating cats and dogs, or the Democratic Party that's
utterly ignored the issue of immigration. So they went with
the assholes. So the Democrats problem is, what the fuck
you snobs, you elite us, wake the fuck up. You've
lost touch with working class people. If they stay that way,
(37:41):
oh my god, no matter how bad Trump is, they
could keep winning.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
So they need assholes on the Democratic side.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
You know what, Jerry, they need fight, Hey, they need.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Fi people could fight. Ye many people under the age
of seventy five.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Bernie's a fighter, but he's like eighty three. When I
went to Congress ten years ago, college educated people sent
me to Congress voted Republican. People without a college degree
voted Democrat. It's utterly flipped. In the last ten to
twelve years, the Democrats have become out of touch and elitist.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
The challenges this country faces and the challenge that the
world faces at this time are so complex that one
party really doesn't have the answers. There's no one politician
that's going to be able to solve all these problems
for people. And which goes back to your original tough
guy thing is like sometimes Americans they say they're upset
that the government's not helping them. More like, well, tough enough.
Some of these things are not going to be solved
(38:37):
for you. We have to work together to make the
best of it for ourselves. And at the end of
the day, as bad as we think it is, we
live better than every generation for the last two thousand years.
Americans for the most part are not starving. They're not
scraping through the streets or not yet shooting each other
in the streets. They have enough food. A lot of
(38:58):
people have the world strongest computers in their pockets, so
we didn't have to figure out we have to redo
the narrative to suggest, yes, there's things that we need
to figure out what are bad and we need to fix.
We have to realize the rest of the world is
moving forward. We can't just sit here. But the government's
not gonna solve some of these problems for you.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So you talked about a pendulum. Okay, we've swung too
far to the left, and you're right. You know, gay marriage,
like twelve years ago, my grandmother Irish immigrant, she couldn't
have thought of she was hand to marry Irish. She
had to marry Catholic. My parents like they had to
marry Catholic, but they didn't need to pa they could
marry Italian, you know. I you know, my parents just
(39:38):
wanted me to marry a woman, right, you know, they
didn't care whether it was a you know, and my kids, like,
I don't get a HyET. I just hope they're happy.
So that's a huge amount of change. But the pendulum
did swing, So it's swinging down to the right. Are
we gonna naturally Is there a law of gravity or
fit political physics that's gonna bring us back towards the middle,
or are we like freaking stuck on that is the
(40:00):
ticker is like stuck on the right.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Now, fuck that. I'm a dark irishman.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
You're not gonna get rosy scenariot of me. I think
the jury's out. I know the pendulum has swung now
far in the right. I don't know how long it's
gonna stay there or close to over there.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
A lot of people voted.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
For Trump who are not part of his do or
die base, and I remind Democrats of this every single day.
They have already factored in how bad he is, in
the bad shit he does. But I do think, I
really do think we're at this moment where the country
(40:40):
has to decide if we want to stay together. And
I think we've been in this period now for eight, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve years. I think we're gonna be in this period
for a while. I think things are gonna get violent.
Can't help but get violent, because we ultimately have to
decide if we want to stay as one union. And
I don't think we're close to that decision yet.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
It's tough because it doesn't break up geographically very nicely.
It's neighborhood to neighborhood and those type of things. Joe,
next time we want to slid our throats. We'll have
you back on the show.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
And I told you this wouldn't be happy.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Actually, thank you for what you're doing. Because you are
out there, You're getting attacked from both sides. But I'm
glad you're doing it, and I hope a lot of
other people will start to do it because I think
this country and the people live here are worth it.
You know, it's at the end of the day. I
think some of the people are going to come around
and realize, hey, we looked at politics as entertainment too much,
and we need to actually start thinking about it as
(41:36):
solving problems. It doesn't solve all our problems, it doesn't
entertain us, it doesn't make us kill off our enemies,
but it needs to be able to solve problems. And
so I thank you for what you're doing, Thanks for
coming on with us, and we'd like to have you
on again.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I hope, Thank you, guys.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, Jon Seipher,
and Jonathan Sterr.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 5 (42:05):
Mission Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable
Pictures for iHeart podcasts,
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
our adversaries.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
theories large and small.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
This is mission implausible. So today's guest is Joe Walsh.
He's a political commentator and former radio talk show host.
He has a podcast, he's on Substack. He's a regular
on TV. You've probably seen him. He was a politician
who served in Congress as a former TEA Party favorite.
I think even ran for president in you one time.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
It was for a brief John, just a brief moment
in time I challenged Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well it's more than we did, so God bless you.
So let me start out. One of the things you
do that I think is really impresses is you travel
and speak to groups who don't agree with you around
the country. So how do you engage with people who
espouse conspiracy theories like about the twenty twenty election or
January sixth or Q nine or anything else with that matter.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It ain't easy, John, Jared good to be with you both.
Look and I know you know my history. I used
to be a really divisive politician. I was part of
the tea party class. I went to DC to raise
hell and burn it all down. I voted for Trump
in twenty sixteen. Boom boh, what was I thinking? And
(01:36):
then in twenty eighteen I came out against him publicly,
took a blow torch to my career, and then I
tried the primary him in twenty twenty. So I'm in
a weird position. Of all the really well known never
trumpers out there, I'm the only one that comes from
the bowels of the Maga basse. I call myself a
(01:58):
reformed maca gang banger. But because I had that start,
I still engage with his supporters every single day. And
because John, like I was really divisive. I think the
countries dangerously divided. People like me help to divide the country.
(02:19):
I'm on a mission the rest of my breathing life
to try to do something about that divide, and so
I engage on a regular basis with Trump's voters, but everybody,
when you.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Engage with them, do you try to change their minds?
Do you try to sympathize? What do you find the
best way to deal with people who really still are
MARGA believers?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
You guys are more expert than I am. I will
say publicly when I go on TV that my former
party is a cult. So these folks, most of whom
are good folks, most of whom used to be my supporters,
they're members of a cult. And so that's my mindset,
John and Jerry going in. I got out of that cult.
(03:04):
I want to try to help them get out. And
I've found that the only way to even have a
shot to do that is to very slowly and respectfully
just continue to put little nuggets of truth in front
of them repeatedly until they're kind of up against a
(03:24):
wall and they don't know where to turn. And I
find that when I can get one of them in
a place like that, then the potential for the light
bulb to go off is there to one.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Extent, Is this something we've always had or this is
something that's being manufactured with entertainment and the news ecosystems
that we live in and the news feeds that we
consume you're on one team or the other. But what
makes what turns it into a cult?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I do think we are dangerously divided, and I felt
this way before Trump got elected. I felt this way
and I said it when I was in Congress back
in twenty ten, twenty twelve. I think America is a
married couple on the verge of a divorce.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
I really believe that, and.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I felt that way before Trump. I think Trump is
just like the ugly consequence of being a married couple
on the verge of a divorce. So I think the
divide is there. I think it's real. I think this
two hundred and forty nine year old experiment in awesomeness
is at a weird point. What Trump did was he
(04:33):
took advantage of how divided we are and he fed it.
Some politicians see were divided, were broken, Our social contract
is frayed. Let's try to bring people together. And Trump no,
fuck no, Trump does the opposite. This is how I'm
going to win. I'm going to try to further divide us.
I'm going to get Americans more angry at each other.
(04:57):
So that was something new. And then and I gotta
be honest, We've only got two political parties. I come
from the Republican Party, my former party. I left it
became fully radicalized. I say that often people like me
helped to radicalize them. The Tea Party led to MAGA.
(05:18):
But the base of the Republican Party has always been
primarily middle age, older white people. And these middle age,
older white people, for a long time have felt like
everything's against them. All of our institutions, government, the media, academia, Hollywood,
all left of center, and there's truth in that. So
(05:40):
along comes Trump and he says, man, I'm going to
be your guy. I'm going to go after all these things.
I'm going to go after CNN, They're the enemy of
the people. I'm going to go after Hollywood and all
the rest. And so he enabled this white base to fully,
proudly and loudly come out from under their rock and say,
(06:02):
we are the Republican Party. Finally somebody's listening to me.
We're going to get white Christian nineteen fifty four America.
That's what they say to me.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So when you talk to these groups, the ones that
listen to you and seem to be taking it on,
what is it that resonates. Is there certain issues that
sort of matter to them? Is it the economy? Are
a culture of things? What things? Do They start to say,
I see where you're going to. Maybe maybe I'm willing
to listen more.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
So I'm not a Democrat and I'm not a lefty.
And even though I go on MSNBC a lot, I'm
not an MSNBC person. So I come from their family.
I come from Mauga's family. I left the family, and
in a weird way, like they look at me as
a trader because I left the family. But then in
a weird way, they'll listen to me because they know
(06:53):
I'm not of the left. So I have found I
still have a lot of hate listeners. So there's always
been a curiosity like, I don't get it, Joe, why
don't you like Trump?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Again? And I find that when I.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Focus on relentlessly the rule of law, democracy, you lose
a fucking election, be a man and accept the loss.
Come on, Billy, that's what we do. That's what you
taught your kids to.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Do, right man.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
And so it's those kinds of things that kind of
make them feel a little guilty. They know I'm not
like I'm a big gun guy, a big gun rights guy,
so they know I'm not going to come for their guns.
So because they know I'm generally with them on most issues,
they'll listen to why I most opposed Trump because he's
(07:46):
a threat to democracy. And even if they don't agree
with me, these are folks who always claim to adore
the Constitution. That's what the Tea Party was back in
the day. So come on, Steve, you can't send somebody
into a l Salvador jail without any due process. Come on,
(08:08):
that's not right. And I find John when you keep
putting that in front of them, not pounding them over
the head, but just trying to get them to think. Eventually, again,
some of them will stay in dialogue.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
The cult thing is interesting. It gets thrown around about
a lot, and I struggle with it whether that's a
good metaphor or not. But when I talk to died
in the world democrats, I'm riding with Biden to hell
or high water, and then you can hear that conversation
about what's good or what's bad about the Democratic Party.
But with mega folks, they find it really hard to
(08:42):
make even one small concession like the ones you've been
talking about Look, I watched January sixth on TV. We
all did like it wasn't a day of love. They
were beating the shit out of policemen. That's never okay,
never okay, beat the shit out of policemen. And yet
getting that extreme, that concession from them is almost impossible.
(09:02):
And for me, that's the cult part.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That's actually a fascinating case study. Because I was thinking
about January sixth, and I've said this before, it was fascinating.
For three maybe four days after January sixth happened, I'm
on conservative talk radio around the country. Trump's most die
(09:26):
hard supporters for three to four days were stunned and
sickened and called in and said, oh my god, Joe,
this is bad. There was a window there where even
his most hardcore folk said nope, nope, nope, And that's
(09:47):
really interesting. Then what happened. Then eventually Republican politicians started
to defend and excuse Trump and Hannity and all the
idiots on Fox News. Boom Boo boo went down the
same road, and I swear to God, within two weeks
all of those hardcore folks were.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Joe yar wrong.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
The FBI was behind it. It was the deep state
and they were gone. But there was like without the
media or the Republican bullshitters in their faces, even the cult.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
They even thought.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
This is bad, which is interesting because that suggests that
a lot of people know what they're saying might not
be fully true. But in another way, it's bad because
it suggests that the hatred for the other side is
so strong that I would rather say something I know
to be false than agree with the other side, like
(10:46):
what Jerry said with Biden. Like Biden was the president,
he brought it at least he brought in some smart people.
But he screwed up Afghanistan. It was a complete debacle.
It was terrible. They provided really poor support and way
too late. I think for Ukraine too old. He should
have left early. He should have just done one to
all those things I can say, and I don't think
of myself as a Democrat or Republican either, but at
(11:08):
least yeah, you don't hear that from the mega side.
Is it because they hate the other side too much?
You know, we lived overseas working for our country, trying
to collect intelligence on Russia, China, Iran terrorists, enemies of
this country. But these people seem to think the enemies
are the other party, not foreigners who want to do
as harm.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
It was a perfect storm, a combination of who the
Republican Party base was and how long they felt beaten down,
and then along came this demagogue. I can remember John
and Jerry when Trump first started running in twenty fifteen,
(11:50):
and they had one of the very early debates with
Jeb Bush and my Lil Marco and all those nuts.
And I remember again, I'm on the radio, I'm on
Fox New and all the smart Republican establishment people. Every
time Trump would talk and he'd say crazy, stupid shit,
all the Republican establishment people would say to me, Joe,
(12:12):
this is a fucking joke.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
He's done.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
But at the exact same time, his voters, my listeners,
my supporters were eating up everything he was saying. So
right away then I knew there was something different that
was going on. I think this had been building for
a long time, the Republican Party establishment, and I wasn't
part of it.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
They hated me.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
They ignored their base forever, and their base has always
been really scared about the changing country, the changing demographics,
the browning and blacking of America, the open borders, legit
concerns where you need to sit these folks down and
(12:59):
educate them and tell them how we welcome all God's children, white,
black and brown. But they had real concerns about the
changing face of America. The party establishment just ignored them.
And then along came tea party people like me, and
we inflamed them.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
So by the.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Time Trump came along, and he came down that escalator
and he said, I'm gonna build a fucking wall, a wall.
Remember how stupid that first was when he said it,
And I'm going to keep brown and black people out.
And everybody laughed, except for Republican voters.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
They loved it.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
To them, he was the first one, after fifty years,
who had heard their concerns. But they dug their finger
claws into him at that moment and they've never let go.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So let's take a break to be back in a
Roman I struggle with things like like Russia. So just
today it's out in the press that the Ed Martin,
the guy who's up to be district attorney for DC
guy just somehow forgot that he appeared on Russian television
(14:15):
one hundred and fifty times and never mentioned it. To Congress. Oh,
is that a problem that Artie is an arm of
the Russian intelligence services and Russian propagama machines. And how
is this being accepted? Like the Russians are the bad guys,
at least they were. And so you've talked to a
lot of people, how did they square that circle?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Part of it is because Trump's siding with Putin, because Trump, so, Joe,
let's not question it. I get a lot of that
the other aspect, and I think you'll find this in
our history. And I come from the right. Look, the
left has their issues, but there's always been a desire.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
For a strong man on the right.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
The right in America has always been more susceptible to
authoritarian guys. When I was in Congress, I was the
poorest member of Congress if I had a dollar over
the last seven years, for every time a Trump supporter
said to me, Joe, I don't mind that Trump's acting
(15:22):
like a dictator, as long as he's given us back
the stuff we need, as long as he's bringing America back.
So part of it is a yearning for an America
where men were men, women were women, and men married
women and women married men. And Oh, by the way,
there was that plant in town where my dad worked,
(15:43):
and everything's changed, and we forget so many of us
forget that even twelve years ago, Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton opposed same sex marriage. So to the base, to
the Republican bay, this shit's been changing in a nanosecond.
(16:03):
And so then you combine that with what I've found,
which is they're yearning to have a strong man deliver
that America back to them. I say often my party,
they've given up on democracy. They call him the cult.
I think it's an authoritarian, embracing cult. They want a
(16:24):
strong man to deliver a certain America back. That then
extends to Putin, it extends to Erdawan, it extends to
strong men around the world, who, by the way, Trump
has an affiliation with, and Trump knows that his base
is very open to authoritarianism.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I do think there's something in our country about masculinity
in America. What's happening to young men and what I
see about you and I see with Adam Kinsinger and
some other people. They seem to be having some sort
of impact on the mega folks because they talk like,
you know, again, I'm a sixty year old white guy too.
You know, I played sports and got in fights and
(17:07):
stuff like, man up, man, what you're doing is wrong,
get your shit together, like I think in some sense,
people want someone who has occured to their conviction, says
thing they believe. It sounds like when you first talked
answered the first question you said, you're having an impact
when you say to someone that's wrong, man up. Like
(17:28):
that seems Oh, I get that. Like you're asking me
to tough en up. You're right, John, I think that's right.
I think that's perceptive. I certainly don't fucking talk like
a normal politician. There's a yearning for authenticity in our politics.
It's been there now for a while. Trump gives the
illusion that he's authentic, which is bullshit because every word
(17:48):
out of his.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Mouth is a lie. But there's a yearning for that.
This is the democrats big problem. They all sound like
fucking politicians, and many of their male politicians sound like
absolute whossies. It's a weird thing in that Trump's support
among young men has really grown. It's a scary thing.
(18:10):
And they listen to a lot of these podcasters like
Joe Rogan and some of these other bros. There's a
real problem, you guys, know, disinformation and lies that are
spread out there. I believe in the marketplace, I believe
in a million different places to go get informed. But man,
what a dangerous world it is because you listen, if
(18:32):
you get your news from a Joe Rogan or a
Tucker Carlson, Hello.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
You're done.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
But yet they give the appearance of being tough guys.
Tough guys. Are they tough guys?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Though? Like I see jd Vance and I think of
a high school loser, like I like it a musk.
Is he really a masculine tough guy? Tryump? They look
like weenies to me. And people are act like they're
the toughest guys going.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
They're the antithesis of what strong men should be. They lie,
they cheat, their corrupt, They never take responsibility for anything
they ever do wrong. That's not masculine. But they don't
give the appearance of being nerds. They give the appearance
of being tough guys. And a lot of it is
(19:17):
just through the smoke that they blow this disinformation. It's
a real issue, and I'd argue that we've I think
so much of this is just the pendulum swinging. We
shit on men like a little bit and kind of
shit on young white men a little bit, all good stuff,
and we need equal opportunity for black men and brown
(19:40):
women and everybody. But there's been a backlash because I
think certain elements of the left push too hard on
some of this shit, and along comes Trump and says,
I'm gonna boom, I'm gonna get us back. So Trump's
now going to be a dangerous overreaction in the other side.
But we're living in a po feelus moment, and all
(20:01):
that means to me is we need politicians who are fighters.
Trump gives the impression of being a fighter and his
people do even though John I agree with you, they're
bullies and bullies are cowards.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
What's your sense now, of course this can change. What
are the sort of the ultimate thols of politics now,
especially on the right. Right now we're racing towards are
already they're a face off with the Supreme Court. Is
there a plan do you think inside of like the
coterie of folks inside of the White House or inside
of Manga Republic Party to like to break that. It's
(20:35):
like we're going to go like we're going to disengage
from the judicial system, and we're going to disengage from
fair elections. Where does that go? Where does it take us?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Let me sound like a conspiracist. I think the greatest
failure of this Trump era to steal the nine to
eleven commissions phrase, has been a failure of imagination. Yes,
I think that we have not imagined how far Trump
would go, how bad he would get. If us three
old white dudes were sitting around twenty years ago talking
(21:08):
and I'd have told you, you know what, there's gonna
be an American president one day soon who's going to
lose an election, and son of a gun, he's not
gonna accept the result.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Nope, first time he's not.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Gonna do it.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And then you know what, John and Jerry, he's gonna
commit crimes trying to overthrow an American election. You guys
would have thought I was smoking something. He did that
that all happened. So are there going to be midterm
elections next year?
Speaker 4 (21:35):
I don't know. Put a gun to my head, I
won't say there will be.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
I firmly believe knowing people around Trump, they are licking
their chops at the opportunity to use the military, law enforcement,
and the military against Americans. On the streets because they
(22:00):
are hoping and anticipating these protests are going to grow
and maybe get violent, and they are just dying to
stomp down on them. Declare martial law, invoke the Insurrection Act,
and if things don't look good in twenty six for Republicans,
the tyrant will come out and say, Nope, no elections now.
(22:23):
So crazy talk. I just think you gotta prepare for it.
The jackass is beyond joking about running again in twenty
twenty eight. Go ahead and don't take him seriously if
you don't want.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Wow, that's scary, And I think there's true. I mean
he's attacking law firms, he's attacking anyone that can hold
him accountable, attacking institutions, education, all those things, and so
it is a real threat.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Do they have a plan?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
That's true. That's the thing is the way he's totally
fumbled the economy. He suggests to me that he likes
people coming to him, he likes being in charge, but
he actually is not very smart and not thinking ahead
very fast. Yes, he wants to be the strong man,
but if he's blowing the economy in the process, is
he at a risk of losing those people? He would
(23:14):
need to support him.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Like Trump, doesn't believe in many things except for Trump,
but he believes in two things, both of which should
scare us. He I'll say it, he adores Putin. I'll
say it. He's a fucking Russian asset. And if he's
not man, he's the most effective non Russian asset.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
That's ever lived.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
His devotion to carrying out Putin's agenda has always been there.
And the second thing he's always believed in is tariffs
from the time he was a young man. People who
are with him believe that he believes with these tariffs
there will be some a short term, but he really
(24:01):
believes this will get to the other side and things
will be great. Most people around him are poor tariffs,
and they're trying to talk him off that ledge. That's
one issue that could mess up his plans. But play
the devil's advocate and running with conspiracies. If I were
a conspirator, tariffs are actually a great way of exercising
(24:23):
power because you can pick favorites and punish enemies for corruption,
you get exactly right, corruption your ability to exercise power.
Support me, you know, elon Musk, give me a quarter
of a billion dollars and I'll support Tesla one thing.
When we were on the inside at CIA, you know,
CIA does not engage in economic espions.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
We don't do it. And one of the reasons we
don't do it is say we get a revolutionary new
widget that the Germans built, Right, we steal it from
somehow for some reason. Who do we give it to? Right?
Which US company? Right? We can't favor one over the other.
And when I saw Trump just with Tesla vehicles in
(25:06):
front of the White House doing this, you know that's
corruption right now, if he had different there were different
US car makers, that would be different, but just favoring
one over the other. But that's power. And the other
conspiracy is the press too, is I don't know. You
look at Fox News and we're not really having all
that big of an economic problem, right, I mean, it's
only twenty percenty or four oh one case gone, like
that's not a big deal. Who cares, right?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
But it is interesting though Trump lies as he breathes.
He can lie about anything and everybody believes him. He'll
have a more difficult time lying about the economy because
we all live it. And even Fox News is going
to eventually maybe have to report it. I think the
only conspiratorial mindset that's in the White House right now
(25:49):
is they want an absolute lock on power. They don't
want to lose the twenty six elections. They'll do anything
to prevent the elections from happening being fair. And they
really do want violence on the streets. That's part of
their equation. They're hoping that happens.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I don't disagree with you. I don't know. At least
the national security area that Jerry and I worked in
the FBI, the DoD see this way, the culture was
such that I don't think people would follow illegal orders.
Now that may change. They may have pushed it through.
There may be enough people in the military that will
(26:33):
follow things like like if we were inside Jerry and
they said, okay, we want you to spy on Canada
and invade Greenland and stuff, it just is so far
gone people would quit or not do it. Although that's
not you know, those are foreign policy decisions, and they're
maybe stupid and you may not want to do them,
but it's different from violence on the streets in America
and going after Americans. That's a really it's a really
(26:54):
dangerous thing. And what do we do.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
It's really dangerous.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
But look at the bad people he put in charge
of Defense and the FBI and Justice.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
But are they smart enough to do this? Like, Okay,
so we worked in a big bureaucy in the CIA.
You put Ratcliffe in charge, he's a dummy. He puts
some he brought a deputy in who's never been an intelligence.
They really just don't know how to pull those strings.
I mean, the big organization, there's a lot of people.
You don't just give some sort of order. You probably
(27:25):
don't even they don't even know how to give an
order through the system, like it's it's a professional organization
with lawyers and people in different areas and different offices.
So yes, you got bad people in charge, and eventually
that could lead to really partisan institutions. But I don't
think it's there yet.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
They could be wrong, John, but they think among rank
and file, say in the CIA, they've got more support
than we might think. They've told me that in the FBI,
in the CIA, in Defense, in Justice. I don't I
worry that it's there yet either, agreed, But I think
(28:03):
part of the whole equation here is just to create
chaos and then blame the left, like imagine a situation
where things got really ugly next year and Trump did
declare whatever, and our military was out on the streets
and Donald Trump said, with all of this going on, man,
(28:24):
we can't hold elections now. And some my home state, Illinois,
a Democratic state.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
JB.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Pritzker comes out and says, screw that, we're holding elections
in Illinois. But then there's confusion in Illinois and half
of the election workers don't want to work in Illinois,
and you could envision just utter chaos where we couldn't
have a functioning midterm election.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Okay, shut it.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
All done, shut this.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I'm just gonna excuse me. I've just poured myself a
shot of whiskey here and in the morning.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
This is why I drink taki legit irish.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
You gotta drink. You gotta drink whiskey.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Hold on, let me ask quick question while you're thinking
for good for it. The one thing is, yeah, you
create that chaos inside so that you are in charge
and you're more powerful, But in the meantime you are
weakening the state. There are others out there. The one
thing about the terrorists, for example, going after China, I
think Trump's view of China is like a twenty year
old version of China that he thinks they can manipulate
(29:26):
them and they need to come to us to sell things.
China has moved way ahead. They have incredibly these dark
factories that don't have lights in them because it's all
run by robots. Like they are moving ahead. They're becoming powerful.
They're starting to become powerful militarily. These games that we're playing.
Trump says silly things. His people may think that's oh yeah,
(29:46):
maybe that's true, but it's not working. On the rest
of the world. All of these other leaders are saying,
this guy's an idiot, and we are making ourselves weaker
visa each China in these other places in the meantime,
and that can't be a good thing for United.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I think because of that, John, I think ultimately Trump's
gonna back down on all of this terrriff stuff and
save face because I just I know the smartest people
around him are anti tariff. So I can see a
scenario where he walks away from tariffs and claims that
(30:22):
some sort of victory.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Let's pass for a second, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
So you came from a Republican party that thought different things, right,
So free trade was a good thing, all those type
of stuff. The notion that you could invade Greenland, you can.
We can probably get minerals and work with the Danes
to get whatever we need from Greenland. We could put
we used to have five or six military bases there,
and we say we need it for defense. I'm sure
we could build five or six military bases there if
we wanted to. We don't need to take it from
(30:57):
anybody to do that. You're saying the people believe in isolationism.
If you're a former Republican, you don't believe that. So
when you talk to those people, how do you talk
to them in a respectful way? Would they start to say, oh,
I see, we do need the rest of the world.
It sounds nice to say we can do things ourselves.
Totally get it, but that's not the world we live in.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
And here's why, John, that's a more nuanced conversation with
the base, and I don't have as much success with that.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Like I.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
We'll get into a conversation and okay, guys, you want
to retrench from the rest of the world and leave
Europe alone, And okay, fine, But when somebody invades France
in the UK in fifteen twenty years, we're gonna have
to do something about You can walk them through that history.
They don't think that far ahead. It's a movement and
(31:52):
a base that believes, damn it, take care of ours
right now. Fuck the rest of the world, Fuck all
these treaties, fuck NATO and all the alliances.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Man, take care of ours.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
And like so he invades Greenland like that wouldn't even
they wouldn't care about that. That's just that's fucking kicking ass.
We're kicking ass. That's now part of America.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
One of my core concerns about the mega Republican Party
is it doesn't have principles so much as it can
be led anywhere. Pro galization, anti globalization, pro tariff, anti tariff.
These things can change on a dime.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
All of my former Republican colleagues in Congress, and all
of my former right wing media people, they've all made
a practical decision to support him, advanced their career, stay
in the game. All of that get elected. But the
average Trump voter out there, I still believe most of
them believe in certain basic things, and their devotion to him,
(33:03):
their leader and they're they've been waiting decades to finally
get a shot at revenge to everything that's been punching
at them has blinded them to their I do believe
most of them. When I can get them down on
a conversation about the Constitution, most of them still will
(33:26):
admit they fundamentally believe the Constitution. But they've put this
over here for now because Joe. Sometimes Trump has to
break the rules. Fuck do process, get these people out
of here. But it's not constitutional, Steve, Joe, I believe
in the Constitution, but right now Biden let way too
many of them. Man not to excuse them, but I
(33:48):
still think they have the potential to have the basic
good belief there, most of them, not all.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
When you meet these.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
People and you're not talking politics, yeah these are Oftentimes
they are nice people. We share a lot of common things.
We share sports teams, we share living in America, we
like to eat at the same restaurants, and all those
kind of things. I think it's what Trump has done successfully,
and it started like didn't start with the people like
Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Is they create a false
straw man, a false story, and then they attack that
(34:20):
and tear it down. And so yeah, if you tell
everybody that you know you're suffering because of those people,
then yeah, you hate those people. But the problem is
the first story wasn't true. Trump at the end of
the day, if you actually look at what he's doing,
it's not helping all those people that are so angry
and they want the government to help them.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
And there's always but John, here's the beauty of what
they do. And I used to do some of this
when I was an idiot on the right. There's always
a little bit of.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Truth in what they say.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Like, oh my god, five years ago, there was a
grammar school in South Dakota that decided we're not going
to sing religious Christmas carols. You can only sing Rootolph
the Red Nose Reindeer. And you go on my radio
show or Fox News that night. Oh my god, you
can't sing religious Christmas songs around America anymore. So they
(35:12):
take one little thing, blow it up. Oh, the Democratic
Party wants to defund the police. No, a couple crazy
leftists said that. So there's always just a little nugget
of truth that they can grab onto and blow up.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I mean, because you can live in Idaho and be
upset about foreigners or that trans You've never seen a
trans athlete in life, but it's, oh my god, that transience.
It's like every rated these stories like I don't care
about trans athletes, and I don't want criminals runn around
our streets either.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
But you know, it's fear, John's it's fear I find
at its core. That's at the bottom of every conversation
I have with a Trump voter. And I love these people,
but there's a basic fear that Trump's been able to pound.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So we're talking about one size, I'll say it. The
Democrats suck. It was like, really, that's all you can
come up with, And I look at what the Democrats produce,
and unfortunately only have two choices. It's like, really, they're
pulling out the Toledo mud hens right to play the Yankees,
and I don't know what to do about that. In fact,
(36:23):
that's the opposite of a conspiracy. They fucking couldn't conspire
to do anything. They can't make a plan.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, Jerry, it's a real problem because and someone like
me now for the last seven years, in essence, I
am a Democrat temporarily, and they're a real problem they're
a mess. Look for three months last year, I campaigned
every single day in a battleground state for Kamala Harris,
and everywhere I went, again, we're talking about regular people.
(36:54):
Regular people would tell me, Joe, I know Trump's an asshole,
but the Democrats are snobs who look down on me.
I heard a variation of that everywhere I went. So
regular working class Americans who aren't weird like us, they
think about this stuff maybe once a month. They had
a choice between an asshole who at least said he
(37:17):
was going to do something about these Haitian migrants that
are eating cats and dogs, or the Democratic Party that's
utterly ignored the issue of immigration. So they went with
the assholes. So the Democrats problem is, what the fuck
you snobs, you elite us, wake the fuck up. You've
lost touch with working class people. If they stay that way,
(37:41):
oh my god, no matter how bad Trump is, they
could keep winning.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
So they need assholes on the Democratic side.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
You know what, Jerry, they need fight, Hey, they need.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Fi people could fight. Ye many people under the age
of seventy five.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Bernie's a fighter, but he's like eighty three. When I
went to Congress ten years ago, college educated people sent
me to Congress voted Republican. People without a college degree
voted Democrat. It's utterly flipped. In the last ten to
twelve years, the Democrats have become out of touch and elitist.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
The challenges this country faces and the challenge that the
world faces at this time are so complex that one
party really doesn't have the answers. There's no one politician
that's going to be able to solve all these problems
for people. And which goes back to your original tough
guy thing is like sometimes Americans they say they're upset
that the government's not helping them. More like, well, tough enough.
Some of these things are not going to be solved
(38:37):
for you. We have to work together to make the
best of it for ourselves. And at the end of
the day, as bad as we think it is, we
live better than every generation for the last two thousand years.
Americans for the most part are not starving. They're not
scraping through the streets or not yet shooting each other
in the streets. They have enough food. A lot of
(38:58):
people have the world strongest computers in their pockets, so
we didn't have to figure out we have to redo
the narrative to suggest, yes, there's things that we need
to figure out what are bad and we need to fix.
We have to realize the rest of the world is
moving forward. We can't just sit here. But the government's
not gonna solve some of these problems for you.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So you talked about a pendulum. Okay, we've swung too
far to the left, and you're right. You know, gay marriage,
like twelve years ago, my grandmother Irish immigrant, she couldn't
have thought of she was hand to marry Irish. She
had to marry Catholic. My parents like they had to
marry Catholic, but they didn't need to pa they could
marry Italian, you know. I you know, my parents just
(39:38):
wanted me to marry a woman, right, you know, they
didn't care whether it was a you know, and my kids, like,
I don't get a HyET. I just hope they're happy.
So that's a huge amount of change. But the pendulum
did swing, So it's swinging down to the right. Are
we gonna naturally Is there a law of gravity or
fit political physics that's gonna bring us back towards the middle,
or are we like freaking stuck on that is the
(40:00):
ticker is like stuck on the right.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Now, fuck that. I'm a dark irishman.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
You're not gonna get rosy scenariot of me. I think
the jury's out. I know the pendulum has swung now
far in the right. I don't know how long it's
gonna stay there or close to over there.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
A lot of people voted.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
For Trump who are not part of his do or
die base, and I remind Democrats of this every single day.
They have already factored in how bad he is, in
the bad shit he does. But I do think, I
really do think we're at this moment where the country
(40:40):
has to decide if we want to stay together. And
I think we've been in this period now for eight, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve years. I think we're gonna be in this period
for a while. I think things are gonna get violent.
Can't help but get violent, because we ultimately have to
decide if we want to stay as one union. And
I don't think we're close to that decision yet.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
It's tough because it doesn't break up geographically very nicely.
It's neighborhood to neighborhood and those type of things. Joe,
next time we want to slid our throats. We'll have
you back on the show.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
And I told you this wouldn't be happy.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Actually, thank you for what you're doing. Because you are
out there, You're getting attacked from both sides. But I'm
glad you're doing it, and I hope a lot of
other people will start to do it because I think
this country and the people live here are worth it.
You know, it's at the end of the day. I
think some of the people are going to come around
and realize, hey, we looked at politics as entertainment too much,
and we need to actually start thinking about it as
(41:36):
solving problems. It doesn't solve all our problems, it doesn't
entertain us, it doesn't make us kill off our enemies,
but it needs to be able to solve problems. And
so I thank you for what you're doing, Thanks for
coming on with us, and we'd like to have you
on again.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I hope, Thank you, guys.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, Jon Seipher,
and Jonathan Sterr.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 5 (42:05):
Mission Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable
Pictures for iHeart podcasts,
Hosts And Creators
Adam Davidson
John Sipher
Jerry O'Shea
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