And, This Is How Trump Loses His Base with Tim Miller of The Bulwark

The Bulwark's Tim Miller joins the podcast to discuss being a leading figure in the Never Trump movement, the growth of The Bulwark and how Donald Trump is starting to make the mistake of a normal politician. Plus, Tim shares what it's like spending time with the Turning Point crowd and which Democrats could actually reach young men.


0:00 Intro
2:30 Miller's Media Diet
4:34 How Miller Came To Elevate The Bulwark
10:34 How To Understand The Trump Origin Story 
16:12 Who Really Benefits From Trump's Success
26:03 How Do Democrats Win Nationally
34:05 Did Covid Turn Democrats Into The Establishment?
40:59 Miller's Relationship With Charlie Kirk & Turning Point USA
46:17 The Left's Inability To Engage Young People
52:00 Is The Theo Von Voter Up For Grabs?

 

 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Does it scare you that it's over? Governor's race ends and.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I gotta sell by day. I'm a milk cart man.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
My whole childhood is my side. The Republicans were the suits,
right we flipped. Now the Democrats are the suits of
the schools and the establishment. Why are we bombing boats
in the Caribbean? Why are we bulldozing the East Wing?
Why do you care so much about your peace pride?
They three trips overseas and no trips to Red America.
Trump is for once making a normal politician mistake. Hey, Tim,

(00:27):
thank you so much for taking the time.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
By the way, and I know it's taking the time
because as seen on TV, Tim Miller, every time I
turn on cable, how many hits a day do you
do with MS? How many? Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm doing more bullwerd YouTube pits than MS too. I'm
just grinding. This is a content grind, all right, I'm
down here in the content minds. I'm just shoveling away. Okay,
Now it's not you know, there's harder jobs. You know,
I'm not going to shoveling coal. But it's it's you know,
it's a grind.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
So what is it? I mean? Seriously in terms of
content now, in order to stay relevant and sort of
stay in, you know, just the stream of consciousness. I mean,
give us a sense of your day. What's your you
wake up, what's your morning routine? How does it start?

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, Well, part of the reason why you see me
a lot is you're on Pacific time. I don't do
any morning MS MS now. We're coming it ms now
now because I tape the Daily Board pod every day
at nine Central, and so luckily my husband's taking my
daughter to school most days. He's gone this week, so
I gotta, I gotta. I'm like reading Twitter, reading acts
and driving on doing unsafe driving to school this week.

(01:34):
But uh, you know, usually like seven to nine, I'm
just seeing everything that's out there, reading, consuming tape the
pod at nine every day and then it's like off
to the races.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I'm like just just either consuming other people's stuff or
taping stuff until the evening. I do a little parenting
after that, you know, this little child time, and after
dinner she goes to bed, and then I sit in
front of a TV. My husband usually does a weave
gummy and puts on something he likes or if basketball
is on, uput on basketball, and then I'm just like multitasking,

(02:07):
double screening, a little TV, mostly mostly preparing for the
next day.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
What's your when you prepare for the morning the morning up?
What are you reading? Are you reading the Economists or
is it just Wall Street journal blogs? What do you?
What do you? What's your morning read?

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean I do. I
do all the newsletters just to see what everything you're
about to hear me being a former Republican right now,
you know who's good at still even at this day
and age is Drudge. Drudge tells you what is out there,
and I like and it's just a good way for
me to like because then I'm reading all the different
outlets because because he's already curated that ship for me.

(02:43):
So shout out to Drudge. But you know, I read
the poltico ACXS morning newsletters, all the other ones that
people do. Ours Bowlarks morning newsletter is good and uh.
And you know, I'm also like trying to listen to
like what other like newsmakers were doing, you know, if
you were doing somebody else's show, like I go to
listen to that you're showing two X speed, you know,

(03:03):
so you're a chipmunk voice. Try to hear what you like,
what you guys are talking about, Like what the other
big podcast interviews were from the day before. I want
to hear other people were talking about whatever my guest
has done recently. I'm listening to what they're doing, so
and then I'm also like Maga, Like I'm deep in
the Maga verse. I kind of switch back and forth.
Right now, I'm on to ban I do banning. Tim
Dillon's podcast Candice is kind of my little treat because

(03:27):
I just want to hear, you know, which French Israeli
assassins are coming together this week? Who else do I do? Sometimes?
Patrick Bett David, you gotta know what the Maga freaks
are talking about too.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
No, I love that. What about are you a Fox?
I mean a nighttime when your husband's on that gummy
and there's no Denver Nugget game. I mean you're flipping
over to to.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
You know, I don't. I don't subject my family to
this stuff, like just for their mental health and for
the sake of everybody's Like, I don't watch a ton
of cable because you know that's on the TV. It's
like usually it's tough. That's in my ear. So like
that's why I'm more podcast focused, Like I will, you know,
there's Fox clips going around on social I'll watch those.

(04:11):
I'm a Fox guy on the plane, So people sitting
next to me on the plane, if they don't recognize me,
they might think I'm a maga because that's the planes
and hotels. Is when I get my Fox, I can
kind of binge that way see what those guys are
talking about. And that's about my only, my only Fox exposure.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
What I'm curious just in terms of the Bulwark itself,
I mean, imagine when how long ago did you guys
start the bull Wark? How old is it now?

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, it started as like a literally a side hustle
back about God six years ago now coming up on
the twenty in twenty nineteen, basically a year before twenty
twenty election, and the Weekly Standard is that old kind
of neo kon magazine got shut down. The owner of
Philly in Shoots was not happy that Bill Crystal and

(04:55):
Jolie Sykes and some others were were speaking out against Trump,
you know, and they wanted to get and good graces
of Trump, and so they shut down the magazine and
my colleague now Sarah Longwell, was trying to start something
new and it wasn't really getting off the ground. And
then and then when the Weekly Standard shut down, she
grabbed a couple of those guys and asked them to
help her start something. Then me and her world friends,

(05:17):
she asked me if I could, I could also help out.
A couple months later, and so it started then, and
I think that all of us kind of thought it
was a thing that we do to the twenty twenty election.
It was just something like, hey, we want to have
a home for never Trumper's, you know, somewhere where they
could gather do news and commentary. Maybe we could have
a platform to from our perspective, explain why and people

(05:39):
should move away again from Trump. And this was so
during the Biden Biden Trump first election and it just
like took off by accident. And this is going to
feel like a humble brag, but like we weren't even
really trying to create a media company, but it just
really connected with people. I think it was when you
hear from people, it's mostly that like it just felt
like we weren't shitting them, you know, we aren't. We

(06:02):
weren't We're not like a typical political pundit. I'm not
trying to looking for my next job, you know, all
that kind of stuff. The fact that we were former
Republicans and we were kind of without a home gave
us like a freedom that allowed us to be a
little bit more blunt, I think than what you see
from other stuff out there. And and the audience led
us basically, but like took off and and it went

(06:22):
from being a side hustle to a real company, you know,
a couple of years in and we uh, you know,
kind of flipped the switch from it being like a
nonprofit thing that we were doing because we wanted to
speak out against Trump to an actual media effort.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
And when you were there, were you sort of wearing
a couple of hats? Were you still doing consulting? Were
you still doing all the usual work?

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, initially I was still doing consulting. I was doing
still MSS, but less I was like a guest person
on the circus, So I was doing some media. So
but I had some PR clients and then I had
some political clients. Like, like I said, it wasn't like
a tradition. I didn't really see myself as a media
person or a journalist at the time. I you know,
in twenty twenty. In additionally the bullwork, I was doing
Republican Voters against Trump, which was like a full time job.

(07:05):
I was like, it was a political I was a
political director of that, and we did a bunch of
that was one of a grassroots effort to get videos
from people who used to be Republicans to explain why
they weren't voting for Trump in twenty twenty. And so,
you know, it's basically after that election. I can't remember
the exact timeline, but a little while when we realized
it was resonating with people that I just said, no, okay,

(07:26):
I'm done. So I got rid of all my PR stuff,
stopped doing all, you know, and just you know, I
got some good advice form a mentor who's just like,
you can't do both well, like he got to pick
a route, and so you know, I kind of myself
and others of the Bulwark sort of decided, okay, we're
going to lean into this, and I couldn't be happier. Man.
I got to tell you, every time PR flax sends

(07:47):
me a pitch, like I want you to get my
boss on your podcast. I feel bad. I just it
just warms my soul. I'm like, this was this could
have been me. There's an alternate timeline where I'm begging,
you know, I'm begging Gavin. I'm like, hey, well you
have my client, the CEO is just trying to do
thought leadership. Well you have them on the Gavin Newsom show,
you know. And and so I'm happy about that life switch.

(08:09):
It's been good to me, you know what it was.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
But when when did that switch happen with you? I mean,
obviously you grew up, and I don't know if some
of the origin stories are true that you literally got
goosebumps watching a Bob Dole speech. That's true, by the way,
this of course you probably said it because no one
has ever uttered those words in history.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
So that's true. Good OPO. One of the other things
in my origin story is I started a Republican APO
Research FORERV, and that's the dark part of the origin story.
So we don't need to go through that whole timeline.
But that's good OPO on me. I know it when
I see it. It was true. Man, I look, I
told that story. I think in part because I think
that everybody that gets you know, there's a reason that

(08:51):
I think people are cynical about politics is because a
lot of people in politics are cynical, you know, and
they become cynical over time. But pretty much everybody that
gets into politics got into it because at the start
there was like a little ember of something that was real.
And like I was a little bit for Bob Dole.
For me, I mean, I'm a little cheeky, but I
did get I did get goosebumps watching Bob Dole. I
do remember that. And uh, but you know, I believed

(09:15):
in like the America is a shining city on the hill.
We like, uh, free markets and free people and you know,
back to back World War two champ put World War
champs and all of that. Like I believe that as
a young Republican like I was into that part of
that America is great and that we should try to
live up to the ideals that the country has espoused.

(09:37):
And Bob Dole did that in his speech, and so
did all the Republicans in their convention speeches that I
watched as a kid and then growing up. And I
think that to me was the thing about Trump was
like it brought back a little bit of my earnestness,
because you know, you get into politics, you start working
for candidates, you start spinning on behalf of them, you
start bullshitting on behalf of them. You care more about winning,
you know, losing the game of it, than you care

(09:59):
about while you got into it. I think this happened
to a lot of people, and Trump got in there,
and I was like, wait a minute, all the things,
all the reasons that got that I was earnest about
this at the start. He's not for any of those things.
He's shitting on all of those things, you know, And
I think that in suddenly that was I hate to
give Trump credit or anything like that was like a
gift to me, to I kind of get me. I

(10:20):
think back focused on the things that I actually, like,
genuinely cared about, rather than like the stupid politics of politics.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
And your politics were aligned in that spirit sort of
compassionate conservatism, rallying the armies of compassion, breaking the toll
booth down in the middle class, sort of Bushisms, but
with Jeb Bush formally with huntsmen and some goodnatorial campaigns
Nikki Haley and others. So you know, was it I mean,

(10:48):
was it the escalator and Trump or did it come
after the escalator in twenty fifteen and Trump where you
started listening to this or was it those debates with
Jeb and where you like, who the hell is this reck?
Who's this d Rex?

Speaker 1 (11:01):
God? I wanted to get up there and debate and
to debate him, you know, I know honestly, man, this
is why like sometimes Dan, Democrats or liberals or whatever
will come up to me and be like, thank you
for doing this, for your courage and standing out, Like
it wasn't that for me. It just wasn't a close call.
Like I didn't like Trump from the second. I didn't
like him back in twenty twelve. You mentioned the Huntsman campaign.

(11:23):
Remember in twenty twelve, Romney went to Vegas to get
Trump's endorsement. I'm with Huntsmen at the time. I end
up being with Romney in the general, but I'm a
Huntsman in the primary and we're mocking him. We mocked
him both internally and publicly. To public, I was like,
this is embarrassing, Like why are you doing this? Like
this guy is a phony, he's a racist, and you
know we shouldn't be coddling up to him, and so

(11:46):
I didn't like him way before the escalator and like
and it went, and his whole campaign to me was
just an affront to everything that I shared about. I
didn't here's an admission against interests because I'm so be
like a political analyst. I didn't believe he could win
up until the minute he did. I just did it.
I even thought in the primary. I was like, eventually,

(12:08):
when it gets down to Trump against Cruise or Trump
against Rubio, people will come to their senses. I just
I misjudged him totally as a political force initially, I mean,
no longer obviously, but I know he was. I found
him totally repulsive in every level from the second I
saw him.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
And so it begs then the question that you in
some respect to answer. There wasn't a moment in that
campaign then where you said this guy's gonna win. I mean,
you kept I imagine seeing those moments like there's no,
he's not a war hero, comments McCain. There's no way
this guy gets through until he did.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, No, I mean no, I would say, yeah, I
guess I would say this, and I knew he was
going to beat us, like October. So don't get me wrong,
I didn't think Trump was a total joke, Like I
just I felt like and I knew that the Republican
Party was a base of support for him. I just
didn't know if it was fifty plus one, you know.
And to me, the moment actually was after Jeb had

(13:05):
already lost and I was working on an anti Trump
superpack at the time. And you remember that debate with
Rubio where Rubio like makes fun of him and says
he's got small hands, but Rubyo basically says he has
a small dick, the current Secretary of State. And I
was like, I watched that debate and I thought, Okay,
this is the moment that it turns for him, right
Like Trump has lost the alpha. People will be like, okay,

(13:26):
we can't go with this con We'll pivot, you know,
the voters will pivot back. And the opposite happened. Rubio
ends apologizing to him, Trump gains more. And for me,
it was at that moment I was like, oh man,
he's going to win the primary for sure, and the general.
I again, and he did lose the popular vote in
the general. I think that the thing that I missed
looking back because there was never a moment I thought
Hillary's gonna win. I'll just admitut it. The thing that

(13:48):
I missed is that I thought that there's always this
thing I went back to in twenty twelve after Romney lost,
where Stuart Stevens, who's a fellow never Trumper, was Romneys
chief strategist. He said during our kind of autopsy process,
he's like, look, Romney got the same amount of the
white vote that that Reagan got in his landslide election

(14:11):
and he lost, and he's like, there's not much that
much more juice to squeeze out of the white vote.
Like we're doing We're maximum we're maximizing. We got to
do better with with with voters of color. And so
I just kind of thought that, like Trump was never
going to be able to get, you know, enough vote
from minority communities. And little did we know in twenty
sixteen that the white vote we weren't even close to

(14:33):
the mass. Like Trump got a working class white vote
that was just off the charts, and he just totally
changed how you know, the the coalitions and and then
obviously in twenty four we could talk about this, he
ends up doing better with working class black and brown
voters do. But you know, so for me like that,
I just I just misjudged, you know, that whether there'd

(14:53):
be enough votes for somebody like him, This total mistake.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
I want to go back to his appeal and try
to get a little forensics in terms of your own
deeper relationship to understanding the why he's he's as successful
as he is. But I'm curious. You know, you wrote
a book, best selling book, and you you it was
a humorous book. It was very insightful book. It was
universally praised for being just self critical and honest and

(15:19):
reflective in terms of just the mask that so many
people put on, and a lot of people's faces grew
into him. Yours didn't necessarily grow into it. You you
you felt some complicity as a Republican, but you started
to recognize these larger trend lines and in these deviations
from sort of traditional conservatism and the like. But walk

(15:40):
us through that, just I mean, I know this is
old territory for you, and I don't want to pave
over the cowpath over and over on this, but but
I am curious just your own reflections on just why
others decided to sell I don't want to say it,
but I got some needpads behind me, the Trump the
Trump's signature, sary needpads. Why they decided just to bend

(16:01):
the knee. Sell out is you wrote about it, but
maybe you could eliminate us a little bit.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
More sure, And I focused on the DC political class.
So answer that question based on that. I do think
it's totally different if you're analyzing voters, like why did
voter like where euro compoters go for him? Like why
did DC political class get put on the k e pats?
And I think back to one of the conversations I
had with like a consultant for the book, and he

(16:28):
wasn't one of the main characters in the books. He
didn't want to go on the record, he's on background.
But I still did a bunch of those interviews anyway,
just because, like you know, as soon as you learn things,
when people are just telling you the truth, if they
don't think their name is going to be on it.
And he said, he said, do you look man, And
he's like, my I'm doing ads for Republican candidates. My
wife is mad at me. All my friends think, you know,
all her friends think I'm a racist, Like it's creating

(16:51):
problems in our life, like everybody's shit talking us every
you know, and and he's like, you know, I feel
like I know he's a clown, but the only choice
I have is to like look at the one or
two things that I agree with them on and like
really hold on to those and ride heard with him.
And I felt like that was like the most revealing

(17:11):
conversation I had because it's like pretty embarrassing thing to say.
Actually he said that. I was kind of like, you
realize that I'm still going to know you said this
even though I'm not going to put your name on it.
But anyway, I thought it was honest, and it was
an honest moment. I think that there's just a club.
You get into a club in DC, and you don't
you don't want to have to admit that, like your
side is the bad side. You know, you want to

(17:33):
still have you want you want to still have career.
You know, part of its money, of course, part of
its access to power. Part of it's the feeling of relevance.
I think, particularly for kind of men, their job is
so tied to kind of their significance as a person,
you know, and their their self esteem, and I think
like that that was it. It's more of just like
a cultural element of d C where it was like

(17:55):
it was easier for people to say I'm going to
go along with something that I know is bad at
some level than it is to say, Okay, I screwed up.
I was wrong. Or is it that it is to say, oh, man,
I'm going to go out into the wilderness. I'm going
to go take a job, a different job. You know
that that makes that is less important seeming right, Like,
I think that that was a lot of it. And

(18:16):
you see this with the politicians and Washington too, you know,
like they they just want to be in the mix.
Like that is the phrase I kept coming back to
more than anything. I think that every a lot of
different careers have different issues. You know, if you're in
Hollywood you want to be famous, if you're in New
York and finance you want to have money. In politics,
all of us we have it, man, I have it.
Like is this kind of sense of I want to

(18:37):
be in the mix. I want to feel like I'm
mad or you know, and and sometimes that's more important.
I don't know what you think about this, even than
like having power, because like having power has like responsibility
associated with it, like being around power, and like being
being able to feel like you're you know, sort of
bs in with people and you know the inside scoop
that's easy, Like that's that's feeling important without having responsibility.

(18:59):
And to me, you know, there are a lot of
different reaces for different people, but that's the one that
I think describes why most of these guys stuck around
with him.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, I remight have just in terms of just the
parents of power you and having power of Hovelle who
said that when you became president Czechoslovakia it de geniused him.
He talked about the constraints of office and that at
the peak of his influence. Uh, he had the kind
of influence that Gandhi had and never served today as

(19:28):
prime minister, king never served today as president, and that
was moral authority. And of course time in jail. He
talked about fact he was more powerful in many respects
in jail than he was as president of his reflective country.
I'm taking liberties here, but it's in the spirit of
what you're saying in terms of just being.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
In the one example. This will resonate with you. But
like I don't know. I think about There's a quote
from Chris Christy was on like a different podcast. I
was listening to him and he's like, you leave the
governor's office and the lights turn off and nobody's calling
you anymore. And he's and he's talking about it is
like as he's describing, and I think he wants sympathy,
but it sounds kind of like sad. It's just like
he's saying, like, this is the hardest thing I had

(20:07):
to deal with. I had to deal with all this stuff.
Like the most hard thing was like I left drum
thlocket and nobody called me. And I think that all
those guys in the Senate, in the House and women,
they look at Cheney and Adam Kinsinger and some of
your listeners that look at them and say, man, how
that is so great. They'll be able to tell their
kids that they did this great thing and they have
all this recognition. But the guys in the Hill look
at and they say, what does Liz Cheney do in

(20:28):
the morning, Like is she doing She's just being a
mother and a great Like she doesn't have a job. Now,
nobody's calling her and nobody's you know that, like that
like feeling of importance is the ticket for a lot
of these guys.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
It so resonates with me. I'll never forget the first
speach I gave when I was mayor elect, and I
did the same as governor elect. I said, I'm the
future ex mayor at San Francisco. I said the same thing,
a future ex governor. Having that mindset of the temporary
nature of this, but also the freedom that comes from
that and not trying to hold on to that and
become someone you're not. It's so, I mean, I've seen that.

(21:03):
I've seen It's interesting, Chris said that, Governor Christie, but
I've seen that over all my life. I've seen that,
And you're right, it's there is a you develop a
little empathy for it. I know people call it pathetic,
et cetera, but it is what it is. And you're right.
People are, you know, punch drunk there. They live way
past their prime and they're just desperate to be something,
and they've forgotten that it's not about being something.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
About going to scare you a little bit? Does it
scare you that it's over governor's race ends? And yeah,
you know you.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Got to I gotta sell by date. I'm a milk
carton man. I mean, I'm well aware of it. And
everyone's talking about who's the next governor. You're like, I
don't want to talk about it because it's honestly, it's hard.
It's like, give jesus, I'm still governor. I'm still but
I had the gift and I don't want to get
too much into me here at all into me. But
the gift was having gone through this as an ex mayor.
And I'll never forget. I mean literally walking downstairs as

(21:54):
everyone was walking upstairs, all the press and everybody else,
including ninety percent of my old staff for the new mayor. Uh,
and they're swearing in. It was like no one cared. Literally,
game over. They care. You thought they cared about what
you thought two days prior two days later. Yeah, don't matter,
which proves that you know your status today. You know,

(22:16):
a little bit of humility, a little bit of grace.
It's the desk, it's the phone. It ain't about you, brother, Uh,
you know, and and you come and go, you.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Know, yeah, and that's it. You want. I feel like
people want something. When they asked you about this wire,
Republicans went along with them. Something a little deeper than that,
because it like feels so shallow. That's like, really, that's it.
They just want to They just want to feel important
and get phone calls and go on Air Force one.
And it's like, yeah, that's what it is for most
of them.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, it's it's a it should be. I'm with you,
And I think the people that thrive are the ones
that have a sense of meaning, purpose, mission, and are
willing to buck conventional wisdom. Say what they think, take risks,
learn from their mistakes, make mistakes, be accountable and evolve
this and grow be human. And I you know, I
hope politics are starting to reward a little bit of that.

(23:05):
And it pulls me back. Now do you think part
of Trump's secret sauce is that perception that I don't
need this, I'm so rich, I'd rather be golfing. I'm
doing this for you. How many times he said that
in debates, so many times he's trying to bloviate, you
know that he was able to sell that, at least
to people.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, right, they're coming after me, like I'm the one
standing between them, coming after you. All that kind of stuff.
I do. Look, and Trump has a lot of skills.
You know, I hate to give him any credit for anything,
but like he's won twice, so like you have to
just acknowledge it, right and say what can we learn
from it? Sometimes I worry that democrats like learn about
the wrong things because he's like he does so much

(23:48):
right and it's like what is actually resonating? And and
I think that like the sense that he's not a
conventional politician has benefited him so much, and it's just
and and a lot of it is like, let's the
old Supreme Court line about porn, like you know, when
you see it, like it's hard. Like sometimes sometimes traditional

(24:08):
politicians feel like they're not that politician y. Sometimes outsiders
can sound kind of traditional, right, like it's it's a
little bit there's not a Trump for a million reasons,
does not seem like he's a normal politician. And at
this day and age, we could get a sociologist out
here or figure out why it is, whether it's our
phones or globalism or whatever, Like people feel un served

(24:32):
by traditional politicians. And I could argue against people on that.
I can yell it's on blue in the face about
how like yeah, life, it's like there's bad things about
America today. But like in the grand scheme of things,
you know, we've been served pretty well by the post
World War two establishing an order. Like you can make
all those cases, but it's just like that, people feel

(24:54):
what they feel, and people feel let down by regular politics,
regular politicians. They're looking for people that have you know,
that can that present as being outside of that, and
Trump just does like that's just you know, he just
has that. He doesn't have to try. He exudes it.
And so I think that's benefited him a great deal

(25:17):
when you look.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Back, you know, and we speak of learning lessons and
trying to understand and absorb success and failure in politics,
do you do you think? I mean, and I don't
want to, we don't have to go too far down
the rabbit hole of the Democratic Party. But you know,
the forensics around why Harris may have lost, and you know,
and everybody's theories of the incumbency penalty or interest rates

(25:41):
or it's inflation scars, or is you know, is it
insufficient you know, differentiation between what was perceived to be
the incumbent Biden or the timing of his departure in
one hundred and seven days et cetera. Do you look
back though more deeply that the parties. There's trend lines
that have become more headlines today that go back down
kides with our party, with my party, where we've kind

(26:02):
of lost our way, And what are those issues if
you if you feel that way, what are the issues
that you think that you would identify that we should
be more I think sensitive too.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, people love hearing from X Republicans tell them what
Democrats should do, but I'm going to do it anyway.
So there are two things that stand out to me.
Like one is just that I could speak of from
being as a former Republicans, as Democrats ability to compete
in red states. It's just like it doesn't feel like

(26:35):
Democrats are even trying anymore. And it feels like the
Democrats got out of touch culturally with what was happening
in red states. And I understand why, you know, I like,
there's a lot of things I think that you know,
you can look at the progress starting with U back
as mayor of San Francisco all the way through that
of Democrats pushing forward gay rights, and like you can

(26:56):
talk about a lot of stuff and say, hey, you know,
a moment in a racial reckoning and like all you know,
go through all these issues climate dealing with climate change,
like there are good reasons for all of it, but
eventually you get to a point where it's like, man,
Democrats can't really even compete right now in Iowa, Florida, Texas, Ohio.
How do you how do you become a national party

(27:18):
if you don't have a message for those folks. And
and I think that there's been a lot of complacency
about that, and like rather than just like really accepting
it and saying, hey, you know, what can we do
to communicate to people in these states that we care
about them and center them and like put them forward.
You know, I think that's funny. Centering. I just use

(27:39):
this kind of lefty word. And democrats understand it like
every other context, the importance of of representation and and
and centering of every demographic group except conservative Americans or
men and young men, right, Like, you know, it's like
you get what you get what you have to show
up in black communities, You get why you have to

(28:01):
show up to talk to you know, seniors, You get
like you name the group, Okay, we'll show up and
demonstrate that you care about red America, and I just
like I'm trying to think of who, like Beto was
the last person that I thought like, I actually really
tried to do that without like losing his center as
a as a liberal or progressive. How are you to
find himself? He showed up and they knew he showed up.

(28:23):
He tried to make it part of his brand. And
he only lost my three in Texas. It was the
best race in Texas they've had. Say, there's something about that,
just like showing up and trying. The other thing is
just accepting like heterodoxy in general on different stuff. And
this is my big thing, man. Like I got into
an argument with our friends of Cricket media on stage
with a bunch of different Democratic strategists. When I made

(28:46):
the point, I was like Trump moderated and some things
like a lot of Democrats don't want to accept that.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah, or so no, it's true. There are a couple
of issues where you're.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Right, and so what did he do though? He ran
against the establishment of the party from the left end
the right, He's like the established the party has been
too weak on immigration and crime and racial or whatever.
I'm going to run to the right of them on that,
but on war, on social security and medicaid, our medicare,
rather on gay issues even a little bit. He ran

(29:17):
to the left and said, oh, no, the party has
been wrong about this, and didn't just say he was
moderate about it. He's like, no, these guys are idiots.
They're starting to take away your social security, They're getting
putting in stupid wars. These guys are idiots. So he
ran to the left aggressively. And I just think that
if you just look at the last ten years of Clinton, Biden, Harris,

(29:37):
all good people, none of people have any issue with
They all kind of ran as status quo. And if
you look at the big candidates for Senate and governor's races,
most of them all ran as like various versions of
like kind of mainstream liberalism whatever you however defined. And
I just think that the Democrats, when they think about
opening up the tent, it needs to be more than
about just like accepting people like me, but like really

(29:58):
opening up the tent and like thinking about how you
can run against the establishment in certain ways, and whether
that's on economics or on foreign policy. You know, you
can have somebody on the show to be like, really
it goes back to Clinton and corporatism, so we to
have cared more about working class stuff. Maybe maybe I
guess I'm just saying I'm open to any of those things.

(30:19):
But what I would like to see is the Democrats say, Okay,
people feel like the party is not representing them, we
need to run against what the party has been doing
to show people that we that we hear them. And
I think I feel like it could be on a
lot of different things. I think maybe it's cultural issues,
maybe it's economic issues, maybe it's foreign policy. I don't
what I mean, is it is it gun issues?

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Where do you see? I mean, just in terms of
breaking them down and breaking it down a little bit
more pragmatically on a subset of issues. I obviously we
get into the whole pronoun issue, the cultural normancy, the
issues around trans rights and sports, But I mean, where
do you start to see the contours of that or
or is it are we way off? Is it more
just the populism of a Bernie in an AOC and

(31:02):
my dummy that meets sort of a bandoned maga base.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, I mean, I guess my answer to this is
we should try different stuff and see what sticks and
like let let one thousand followers balloom, right, and like
instead of trying the same thing over and over again,
like what's the definition of insanity?

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Right?

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Like I look at I would answer your question like
if I could make a lab candidate like of you know,
if you get into Madden or NBA a two K
where you have to create your own candidate, like if
you created your own person. And these are not my
personal views, So I'm just assessing what I think would
be smart politics. Like I would think that a candidate

(31:40):
that like run that has some bernieish like on economics
of saying, hey, we're going to run against the billionaire's
class and we're gonna, you know, create a new text
bracket for the top zero point one percent. Uh. And also,
by the way, I think that we, you know, should

(32:02):
really be supportive of our police and law enforcement and
like and I'm not just gonna say this, I'm gonna
make one of the centering things of my campaign that
we fund a lot of We put a ton of
money into the cops, and I have cops behind me
on stage when I'm doing events. And also on foreign policy,
I think maybe we should, like you know, Trump is
terrible and irresponsible and he sucked up to all the dictators.

(32:24):
Or there's one thing that he's right about it maybe
we should spend a little bit less. That's not my politics,
by the way, what I just laid out, but like
that's something that's like totally different than what we're seeing
from democrats. I mean you you know, you could say
people paid lip service to any of that. There's the
James carvel op ed recently where he was like, you
should be populist and you should make sure that everybody

(32:46):
knows it, and like that is to me like a
big thing, right, Like, so I don't I'm less prescriptive
on I think it's just defund the police. I think
it's just you know whatever, corporism or you know whatever
are the typical things you'd hear. I just just woke,
like I think that it's it's more just like people

(33:06):
want to hear from somebody, Like people want to hear
from candidates like are are authentic and passionate about what
they're passionate about? You, I guess the last time. One
example of this is I get like red state democrats
running calling me sometimes like what should I do? What
should I do? Nobody ever listens to me, so we'll

(33:26):
see this will be maybe they will not. I'm sang
it on your podcast. The I'm like, pick whatever issue
it is that you agree with Trump for the most
on and talk about that all the time, and like
you can be a mainstream Democrat on everybody else on
everything else, but talk about it all the time. Don't
just like put it on your page, you know, just
maybe like this is the one thing that Democrats were
wrong about that he was right about. And I and

(33:48):
you know, I think that just as a political strategy
seems to me like potentially more fruitful than being very
prescriptive about this sort of never ending fight between the
Hillary and the Burney people. You know, what do you.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Make in that context? And so much of a substance
and obviously policy that marks a value proposition and a
lens to which you see the world and obviously connect
with voters in that respect or or or repel voters
depending on that perspective. What about the asymmetry in terms

(34:25):
of ability to communicate that message at scale. It's one
thing to be out there on a stump speech in
a town hall, to be Beato's so good in those
settings and over and over and rep rep, Rep, Rep, Rep. Rep.
It's another what's sunshine and highlighted, you know with Rachel
Maddow versus what's highlighted with Sean Hannity and the asymmetry

(34:46):
on the Hannity side of that equation. Well, maybe not
with Rachel, but she's the anomaly. But the dominance they
have in terms of those propaganda networks to shape shift
and to flood the zone terms of a counter narrative,
what do you make of this the communications environment that
we're in today.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
I think I have a little bit of a different
view than what some of the others have said. Unlike
the Democratic autopsy, I don't think that there's like a
huge shortage out there. And I say this with love,
like democratic propaganda, like pro democratic I don't know. I
mean there's a lot of stuff. I frankly, I think
that the Biden administration probably could have used more criticism

(35:29):
from inside the left media probably would have been a
more helpful thing for the party than for the Biden
administration to have more cheerleaders. Here's what where I think
the big miss is. I was just looking at this
yesterday or at the end of the year, so you
see all the lists, like the top ten Spotify podcasts,

(35:49):
neither of us are on there. I'm going to tell you,
and and we were the number four most searched congrass.
I'll take what I can gress. I don't know, I
don't know. Pulling up we talked, but here's and then
all the exact name is. What I observed was that

(36:09):
like the the right leaning cultural stuff is dominates. You know,
it's not like Fox right. It's not like the top
podcasts are not Fox podcast It's not like Sean Hannity's podcast.
Nobody listens to that. Here we go, I got it
right now, Joe Rogan, theovon are one and two Sean
Ryan Show, but you'll probably spent four.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
For four hours with him. Remarkable guy.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, actually that's right stuff, Huberman Lab that's right wing.
And then you've got Tucker which is which is more
like kind of cultural right stuff now, I mean like
a race of conspiracy Land, and Tucker's going so crazy.
So there you go. I mean you look at that
and it's like, well the Daily is on there, it's
the New York Times podcast, so that's just news left,
kind of center left news. It's reality information. So I

(36:57):
just look at that. In my takeaway is man, during
the Obama years, I was on the I was on
the losing side of this one too, because I was
a Republican then, like the Democrats dominated the culture, right,
Obama's on ESPN doing his pick and doing his marsh
Madness picks, and like athletes around and there weren't podcasts,
weren't like proliferating them. But you know, if you looked
at like what athletes and musicians and you know, these

(37:20):
huge cultural figures, they're all pro Obama.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
You know.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
The the Republican response to that was like that pathetic
maccain ad that we did. It was like you're a celebrity,
you're too popular. Yeah, yeah, that's how you win votes,
so you know, but that we had nothing, so that's
what we did. But he tried to make it seem
like he had a big ego. So that is the
big shift to me. And and you know, I think

(37:44):
that and where.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Was I mean, tim, where was that shift? When did
that shift? When do you start to see that shift occur?
Is it the culture personality? Is it the shiny object
that's Obama in his unique ability to capture that? Is
it the shiny object of Trump and his ability to
capture that on the on the flip side Kennedy Center Honors,
we can get to that and all the rest.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, a little person personality and both like objectively Obama.
If you just look at the candidate's Obama, McCain, Obama, Romney, Trump, Clinton, Trump, Biden, Trump, Commall,
whatever you think about it, and be like, who is
who is like the bigger personality? It was Obama, Obama,
Trump or Trump, right, and so the bigger personality one
four out of five. So that's part of it. I
think that there was also and you got into this

(38:23):
at the pot at the beginning of the year when
you're trying to you know, when you try to Charlie
and others of like where was. I think that there's
a big COVID shift, and I think that there was
kind of a back a lot and people are in
their home, people are frustrated. A lot of this was unfair.
So I'm this, I'm just saying this is an observer
not as not as right because like two man people
died of COVID. The Republican standal COVID poorly. Ronda Santis

(38:44):
was maybe the worst COVID governor besides Andrew Cuomo. Like so,
you know, they're terrible policies. But culturally, there's this sense
that like the left was wanting people to stay inside,
keeping people from doing stuff. There's a backlash that just happens,
like and there's a backlash to it. And Rogan was
at the forefront of that. But there are a bunch
of others, like a lot of the comedians, And I

(39:06):
think you tie that a little bit. This is you know,
I'm not a woke critic. I think a lot of
that is stupid, frankly, but like you tie it into
the fair or not. Comedians were feeling like also they're
being stifled a little bit, and they're like, there's cancel culture.
I just I think that happened, like whether it was
fair or unfair, people felt that way. And these new

(39:30):
cultural figures emerge who were anti establishment, you know, going
against you know who the suits were. My whole childhood
is my side. The Republicans were the suits, you know,
and it's like we flipped, right, we flipped. Now the
Democrats are the suits at the schools and the establishment
and the Republicans became, you know, the ones who are
like go out you know, who cares about the disease,

(39:53):
you know, go out there and party and make out
with whoever you want to say you're racist jokes, and
like we can think that's bad as a culture, but
that is it happened, right, And so how do the
Democrats kind of grab some of that back in a
way that it's still core to values?

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Right?

Speaker 1 (40:10):
How can you how can you be anti establishment again?
How can you engage culturally with whether it's comedians or
you know, fitness or what across sports? Across bord Pablo
how many Pablo Tori is doing this kind of a
lefty sports you know in space, Like there's how do
you do it?

Speaker 2 (40:28):
How do you?

Speaker 1 (40:29):
And I think to me, if like the the anti
mega movement broadly defined, like that is our challenge more
than like let's have another left wing propaganda network, I
think it's I think we're fine on that front.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
It's interesting and by the way, I appreciate that just
sort of foundational perspective that it's not necessarily about a
platform or a network necessarily just sort of amping up
our talking points, that it's it's a deeper cultural thing.
It's interesting when we read Charlie Kirk on that show.
He made the point that many have made, but he
really reinforced it, and it gets to the next point

(41:06):
I want to bring up with you. He talked about,
you know, politics, this notion of being downstream from culture,
but he said it is culture. It had morphed, it emerged,
and that extended in a conversation we had about a
year ago to the issue of men and boys, and
it's an issue I know you focused a lot on
and I was actually surprised. I didn't fully appreciate how

(41:26):
much time and energy had focused on turning point USA
And how do you actually have been to some of
Charlie's events and you saw this thing emerging. You certainly
absorbed it. Obviously the rest of us woke up to it,
and I hope the Democratic Party is waking up to it.
Multi ethnic, it's not just white men, but young folks, Galloway, others,
Richard Reeves, so many that have been writing talking about this.

(41:48):
We've been highlighting this as well, and doing a lot
in my day job as governor dressed this issue. But
talk to me a little bit about what you've seen
in this space and how we can address that issue.
In the spirit of our conversation, just a moment ago
as well.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah, yeah, I did. Every year I went at the end.
I think I'm a skip of this year. I just
can't take it. But I went to their year end fest.
It's called America Fest as a turning point festival. I
did you ever see the movie Catch Me if you can? Yeah,
it's uh. I had running a little little joke with
Charlie about how like it was like Tom Hanks and
Leo like they like we meet every Christmas. It's like

(42:24):
we're on opposites and I don't know who was the
cop and it was the thief. I guess maybe I
was the cop and he was the thief. But what
either way, Like it was like we every Christmas, like
a week before Christmas Day at that festival, I went
to Arizona and I usually write an article about it,
but usually it was like to watch and consume and talk,
and I could talk to the team and be like
what is that? Like why are you coming to here?

(42:44):
So it's very different than me being a young conservative
like I was. I was an outlier. I was I
was a Michael J. Fox, you know, Alex P. Keaton,
you know like a little briefcase and the blue blazer
and like that was high school conservatives. When I was
growing up, high school conservatives like TPSA events. There was
like there were like basically two types of people there.
One was there was a very Christian church revival element

(43:07):
to it, and then there was also like kind of
a friddy party element to it, and maybe a little
intermingling between the two. But like both of those were
coming and they're having fun. Like they had fun at
that at those festivals every year at the end of
the year. I never had a fun at a single
seapack when I was in college. I never went to
a single college Republican event that was fun. Those guys
were having fun and when but it was a lot

(43:30):
men we should just observe and so, okay, what is
happening with that? And like and I would ask them
a lot of those guys, like what are the issues
that brought you to this? And without a doubt and
the old three legged Reagan stool frugal Dundell when I
was a kid was you know, social conservative, fiscal conservative,

(43:50):
foreign policy, strong military, tax cuts, and pro life to
short change, like those would be the three that you'd
hear most this. Yeah, this group opposite too many wars.
I don't want to go into wars anymore, anti woke, strong,
you know, anti immigrant, some of the white replacement stuff
gets into the scarier stuff. But like that's what they
would say, right, Like, those are the things that they

(44:11):
cared about. It wasn't cutting red tape, cutting taxes, government efficiency.
There's a little bit of pro life stuff, but wasn't
really you know, the other you know, guns doesn't really
come up, and certainly wasn't strong militaries the opposite. And
to me, that's like, okay, that needs to tell you something.
If you're on the other side of that, All right, well,
how can you reach those guys? The Democrats aren't going

(44:33):
to reach the people that are concerned about the diversifying country. Okay,
like that some of those people are out of reach.
But the other group, like guys like young men who
are just feeling I should have said financial insecurity, getting
jobs and stuff. Young men also young men who are
feeling like it's hard for them to go find a
job outside of college, who feel like, you know, the

(44:55):
establishment doesn't really care about them anymore, and they only
care about every other Demo a group except them. They're
worried about going off to war. They don't want to
be sent off to war. It feels like the Democratic
Party should have a message for that person, like you
know what I mean, Like they're not like some of
them are unreachable. You know, I hear from Democrats now
I are like, why should we do this? Like why

(45:15):
talk to the Charlie Kirk people who cares they're not reachable.
It's like, no, there's some of those kids or the
red hat kids are going to be mega. You know,
some of them are unreachable obviously, but there is a
category of young men out there that feels, yeah, economically insecure.
It feels like they're not being heard, and they don't
like the foreign wars and it's not hard. Feels like

(45:38):
a you know, a cloned Obama could reach that person.
You know, none of that is really that far away
from what Obama's message was. So I don't know. I
think that they're more reachable than people think. And a
lot of it is based on effort. It's based on
not actively alienating them and maybe you know, thinking about

(46:03):
the ways in which the Democratic Party's policies have have
you know, gotten them out of step with them.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Have you seen anything comparable emerging from the prism of
the left or even the center left? I mean, is
there anything not even close analogous to what turned out
and is doing turning and turning on? Uh? These these
these conversations and people and events.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
No, and I don't and you see the energy on
the left. I guess this is kind of a weird
comp But the closest one I could think of really
would have been the Gaza protests. Like that was engaging
a lot of young people. That wasn't really the Democratic Party.
That would be a left thing that was engaging young people.
It wasn't like a group or an event. But guess
my point is, like, what would be an exis you know,

(46:48):
what would be a comp of something where it's like, okay,
you have democratic speakers and media personalities and what an
organizers come together and a bunch of young people meet
and they gather and they have fellowship and they that's
the acts probably like whatever, have fun? Like what would

(47:10):
be I mean, it's Zorn's campaign, there's a little bit
of that, right, Like, but I don't I don't see
any Yeah, it's an original campaign, right, Yeah, But I
don't see anybody trying to do that. And then the
last article I wrote about last year's turning point, you know,
it was a lot of it was making fun of
some of the extreme speakers they had and in the
insanity of it and the tenuousness of the coalition. But

(47:31):
the very beginning of the article I just said, before
I make fun of these guys, you have to just
acknowledge that what they're doing here is there's something that
they're doing here and and create and actually gathering and
organizing and and and there's not there's not a comp
on the left.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
No, and yeah, anyway, well again we can I have
much deeper into this, but to me, it's code read.
I mean, break the glass if it was any and
it's been said by others, but it's absolutely true if
this was any other and you implied it as it
relates to Democrats that seem to have a solution to
every problem and every constituency. But for whatever reason, young men,
we feel like that's that's verboten because somehow it's taking away,

(48:09):
it's somehow scarcity mindset, that it's going to somehow take
away from our advocacy for women and girls. When in fact,
advocacy for women and girls. You ask any mother, ask
my wife. We have two young boys. I mean this
for moms, this is one of the toughest issues they're
coming to grips with. What's happening with my boys, what's
happening with these young men in particular.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, whether it's going to roll back progress, which I
can't I understand, like either for women or for you know,
black and brown men. And it's just like, I just
don't think that's that's the place that we're in right now.
Like there's been a lot Like absolutely, it's great that
there's been a lot of progress. You just look at
the college attainment right now, and like women are doing better,

(48:53):
you know, I they just are And that's okay, Well
that doesn't it doesn't mean that you want you know,
I'm not at advocating for trad trad marriage like an
he went back. But it's just like, Okay, how can
you say to you know, you know, figure out how
to communicate to young men, particularly you know, I feel

(49:14):
like a lot of times this conversation is like about
what's happening in elite schools. And I don't know about you,
but I could not give a fuck less about what's
happening at Harvard and Yale, and like the kids at Buddy,
so trust me. Story about the kid who just missed
the who is waitlisted at Yale and you know has
to go to Kenyon instead. It's like that that kid

(49:35):
is going to be fine, all right, Like that's not
what you're worried about. It's like, it's it's the next one.
And at that next group, it's a lot, it is
a diverse group. It's like it's it's young, it's a
state school, community college, like that type of young man.
It feels like really like that they that they're lost
right now. And the last thing you want to do,
like the what's the worst case scenario that you thrust

(49:59):
these guys into the arms of people who are selling
them snake oil, like to Nick Fuentes or any of
those guys, is that what we want, like to not
to you know, be on our high horse. While you
have a whole generation of young men that are attracted
to a you know, racist, sexist ideology as does their

(50:19):
outlet for their feeling of hopelessness. I don't think anybody
wants that, So let's let's not do it.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Let's signed up to you know that Andrew Tait and
his brother's Hustler's university or something. Yeah, you know, I
mean it's exactly who took over. And I think you're
right the I mean sort of the origin. It's not
the origin story, but it was certainly things accelerated pretty
significantly during COVID, so many people online, all those algorithms
sort of reinforcing.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
And that's how I mean.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
I have my my young son and it's story that
I share. But when he found out Charlie Kirk was
coming on the podcast, he wanted to stay home from school.
Not because he loved him, he just knew all about
him because all his friends, that age cohort, that was
everything on their YouTube.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
What else does he watch? You know, like what of
the other stuff?

Speaker 2 (51:07):
I mean, it just it started with the games. And
by the way, way why I went down to twitch
con myself, and that's why we've had a lot of
gamers on to talk about what's really happening with young
folks and how they're being socially, how they are socially isolated.
But it's not about the gaming. It's not about the platforms.
It's about these underlying issues that we haven't substantially addressed.

(51:27):
And to the extent, you're right that grievance is exploited
by some on the right, and of course Trump was
able to elect totally take advantage.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Of that and just haven't tried. I'm glad you're doing
the streamer stuff. This is like a blind spot for me.
You know, I can only do what I can do, right.
I can hang with the barstool Fridays with me. Yeah,
you do a comedy bros. I can't do Fortnite Friday.
Everybody's got a role to play. Yeah, you can do
Fortnite Fridays. Like, So, THEO Van is one of these
guys kind of comedian podcast Real road Rules. He's Louisiana.

(51:56):
We have a mutual friend I met a couple of times.
Like the idea that Theo Vonne is a Republican voter
is crazy, Like there's no reason for this, Like he
is just like he's a bro that wants to live
his life and like not have people get on his back.
And he is like what he's concerned about. It's health
care issues in his life he's concerned about, like or

(52:18):
not personally, but a family, Like he like the way
that big pharma has taken advantage of people, and he's
seen people health have health care bill issues, and you know,
he doesn't like he is totally non ideological. Like, but
the Republicans tried Trump on his podcast JD did RFK
did he is a Republican now and they like, you know, worked.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
We're still negotiating the terms of which questions we're going
to be asked. Is going to be only forty five minutes?

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, right, made the case to him and it's like
and now you know they're like, but he's like hanging
out with Trump and Ivanka and Jared. It's just like why,
like this didn't have to It doesn't have to be
like this, Like these people are not idea logical. They
have concerns that are very well addressable by people that
have liberal values if they just were communicated in a

(53:09):
certain way and tried. I'd like to thinks at the top,
it's like just to use the same lessons you get
from reaching out to any not that they're not that
he's a marginalized group, but reaching out to any other group.
You know, it's just like showing up matters, representation matters.
Just do like same for these guys gonna agree more.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
And it's it's just important and I want to just
pull one more contemporary thread in this conversation, but it's
important just to remind everybody that the trend lines is
it relates to young folks. I mean, when we say
co read, it's legitimately co red. If you're thirty years old,
you're the first generation in the history of this country
not doing better than your parents. You're one hundred percent.

(53:48):
If you look at college graduation, it's going to be
two to one at the UC's and csus here in
the next five years women, which is fantastic, but two
to one drop out rates. You see it rates. You know,
deaths of despair, suicide rates. If you go to a morgue,
you know five bodies, four of them are men from suicide.
And it's all these major issues that are shaping things

(54:12):
in more ways and more days. And I don't think again,
our party, my party is doing enough to advance.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
It's probably going to make it worse, too, right, I
mean probably right seems talk.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
About just that economic anxiety just briefly in terms of
what it seems now Trump himself is recognizing that he
has to reconcile that he appears now it's not just
the wrecking ball on the East wing, but that he's
took a wrecking ball to this economy and tariff impacts
are starting to now float through to consumers, at least
the anxiety at first, and now the reality of that

(54:46):
we'll see. We saw it in terms of cost of
Halloween candy. We're going to see it with the cost
of Christmas toys. Trump himself this week is in Pennsylvania
sort of a reset. How serious do you feel? I
know Democrats were so prone it. This is it for Trump?
This is it? Do you do you feel like though
there is something the fact that Susie Wilds did direct

(55:07):
Trump to focus a little less on his Peace Prize
and maybe focus a little bit more on, you know,
the seeds of a I do.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Here's the good news. We've talked about all things the
Democrats need to do better. Trump's about to make it
easy if you just want to walk through the door. Honestly, Like,
because you talk about that same group of people were
talking about is like the A'm not the ideologically rigid
conservative folks, all right, Like that's not what we we're
talking That's not what I'm talking about is the people

(55:36):
that came to Trump, disproportionately men, but not entirely, that
felt like, you know, politics as usual wasn't serving them,
that we were wasting too much money overseas, not taking
care of people back here, that you know, we're caring
too much about the people at the border and not
people in this country, and that you know, he was

(55:58):
going to fight the status quo on behalf of them
and make their life better and easier and things maybe
we get cheaper. That was like, has pitched a lot
of those folks, right, and he's failing. He's doing opposite,
and they're noticing, you know, and you look at that
first row of people that I've noticed, you I. You
watch those comedian pods, It's like Joe Rogan's not so
sure about it lately. This guy Tim Dillon also doing

(56:20):
a lot. Andrew Schultz, like all these guys were for
Trump in the end, and they look at this in
the same guy like, people, what is your focus on?
Like why are we bombing boats in the Caribbean, Why
are we bulldozing you know, the East Wing? Why do
you care so much about your peace prize? Why have
made three trips overseas and no trips to Red America
right like Trump is making. Trump is for once making

(56:43):
a normal politician mistake. Trump's made a lot of his
weird mistakes, you know, Trumpian stuff, gaffs and racist stuff,
you know, but this is just normal politician mistakes. He's
getting out of touch with what his voters want. And
I think it's very real. And I think that people's
economic insecurity right now is real. I think it's going
to get worse probably for the combination of Trump's own

(57:05):
policies and the AI stuff. I think it's going to
make it even more challenging, you know, rather than getting better.
And and you know, I just think that if those
of us that want to move on from this can
offer the can offer the people that were attracted to
Trump an alternate alternative and say, hey, look, yeah, he

(57:28):
promised you all this, didn't he didn't do it, I
you know, rather than be like, oh, we told you so,
it was obviously not going to do it. You got pulled.
I like to do that from time to time, but
I'm a podcaster's a politician shouldn't do that, you know
what I mean. It's like, okay, instead of that just
be like, hey, look, we heard heard you know you

(57:49):
want to appeel to care about more about your problems
than all this other stuff, and we're going to start
doing that. I think it's a big opportunity. And I
think that Trump has real problems, not like, oh the
end is near, not like things won't be bad the
next three years. They will be not. Well, it's impossible
to j d Vance or Don Junior or whoever this
the next president. It's possible, right, But it's like he's

(58:09):
creating a real opportunity because he's losing people that were
in his coalition on that economic stuff and also on
the immigration stuff.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
And on immigration what and we didn't even get to healthcare,
so was speaker Jeffries. Uh, you know scale of one
to ten, is that a nine? Or is it or
is it a one until we make it a nine?
Because that's the political response.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
I mean, it was like teetering before. Not to gash
you up or anything, but it was teetering before the
redistricting move. I can tell you the there was a
moment where it's like, if you guys in enact, if
Virginia didn't act, if none of the state's just and
if the Republicans went full throttle, which they ended up
not doing for a variety of reasons and voting right,
tech got overturned. There was a moment a couple of

(58:55):
months ago where I was like with the nerd math
nerds like looking at the maps, and it was like
they might just be able to rig their way into
to the fact that no matter how good the Democrats do,
they can't get a majority. Like they were close to
being able to rig the whole mat and and that crumbled.
So kudos on that. So I think it's probably like

(59:16):
a seven or eight, you know, I think that it's
likely that who the hell knows what a year holds.
A lot of things can happen between now and then.
Part of that seven or eight is, who knows, maybe
Jefferies has an insurgency, incident's own party, Like, you know,
a lot of things can happen between now and next November.
So I don't know about a nine, but I think
things will good and scenio a lot of Jeffers.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Jefferies is in there in six months if enough Republicans
start to resign.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Yeah, keep resigning. Yeah, and they know it, you know,
they see it that it's not going to happen for them,
and that's why a lot of them are resigning. So
I think that's good news. I do worry, though, I'm
the nervous Nelly podcaster. Yeah, But like I look back
at twenty two and I think the big narrative out

(01:00:05):
there was red wave, red wave. Then it didn't happen.
And it didn't happen for two reasons. One was people
were pissed by jobs there and there was there really
was a turnout, particularly among women on the abortion issue.
That should be noted. Also because Republicans nominated a bunch
of lunatics and like and cost a couple of races
that they didn't shouldn't have And I was in Arizona

(01:00:26):
following that race closely, and there was Katie Hobbs had
no business winning that race. For example, that was the
Governor's race, centur race. But there are other examples of places,
and so you come out of it, come out of there,
and it's like, oh, it wasn't a red wave, this
was great, things are going good. Biden nomics is fine,
and we all see what happened. So and I just
always looked back. I got an argue with the Biden

(01:00:47):
person recently, where they're like, you know, it was reasonable
for us to think it was good because there was
no Red wave, and I was like, you lost the
House that year. It wasn't that good of a year,
Like you lost the House still, And so I just
I don't want to get in a next year and
have the Democrats get into complacency where it's like, if
it's a really good year, Democrats should take the Senate.

(01:01:09):
It's a really good year. They they shouldn't as be
Speaker Jeffreyes, it should be Majority Leader Schumer if it's
a really good year. And if the Democrats don't take
the Senate in a year where Trump is fucking everything up,
then that should tell you a little bit something about
the Democrats will have more work to do to appeal
to people in places like Iowa, Ohio, Texas, to go
back to the beginning of our conversation, if we can't
win any of those states. And so that would be

(01:01:30):
my take on the midterms. I think things are looking
good for the House, which is important, but I'm there
should not be complacency about the status of the political
status of the Democrats.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
I don't think, hey, man, well I'll take a seven,
an eight for for a nine. But hell, the fact
you brought up the Senate. Uh we will end on that.
Tim Millar, thanks for being with us today.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
All right, brother, I appreciate all the work you're doing
out there. Let's stay in touch. We've got to do
a flip sometime soon, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
I know we have to do. We absolutely have to do.
I haven't We haven't done that yet. I know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Right, We'll see you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Appreciate you.