Rick Wilson

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to Lincoln Square. It's the Strategy Session tonight.
I am joined by Joe Trippi, one of the most
brilliant democratic strategists in our in our lifetimes. I'm also
joined by Jeff Timmer, a man who has been reviewing
the US Canadian border crisis intimately this week and preparing
an escape route.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Just I was looking for asylum, right Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
So look, guys, I wanted to start out and I'm
a little fuck out it tonight, sorry about this. We're
I'm wearing the headphones tonight because there's some audio thing
with my computer right now and I don't care for it.
So I want to start out by looking at this
grotesque weekend with Trump. I want to I want to

(00:45):
start there because there are big things to talk about,
but this weekend was it was grotesque. This was another
example of Trump's fundamental disrespect of American soldiers, sailors, marines
who have lost their lives in defending this nation. The

(01:09):
horrible truth social posting the the I mean, I guess
the thing that struck me was there was a speech
clearly written by a speech writer that talked about these
young men and women who have died for our country
over the over the history of the nation. But it
was interrupted constantly by the what about me, the seer stories,

(01:29):
the aren't I grant I've got everything I've done? So,
I mean, guys, does this ever trickle down? Does this ever?
I mean, I know I'm asking the wrong question, but
does this ever? Is there anybody who's ever gonna say,
you know, chief fuck off?

Speaker 3 (01:47):
No, you know, I talked about my.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Son or my daughter, or my husband or my wife
who died in service that way.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Because it was just was it was so uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Well, we've seen, we only have evidence of when you
look at Donald Trump's outrageous tweet on Memorial Day, you know,
the one about losers and suckers, a long one, the
other one about enjoy the speech. You know, as we're saying,
who doesn't enjoy you know, flag draped coffins. But but
you know, when you think about it, he does tweets

(02:20):
like that, comments like that in front of the camera
several times a day, every day for the last ten years.
It's not like this is an outlier. It's it's yeah,
that's what he does. And no, the answer is no,
they're not going to do anything about it. They roll
their eyes. I didn't see it. You know, that's what
Mike Johnson and John Thune are going to say, Well,

(02:40):
I didn't see that. I don't know about it.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
I don't read those Twitter things.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
Ok So, no, this, this doesn't. This speaks.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
We know who Trump is. He says it several times
a day, every day. He's he's he's a person without
a soul, without any regard for other humans, with the
magisty of the power of the office he has. But
what it says is it exposes and we should be
concentrating on what it says about the rest of us.
I mean, we know where we stand. But when I
said the collect of us, we tolerate this as a nation.

(03:14):
The Republican Party tolerates this as a party. This is
this is who they are. They can't separate themselves from this,
yet they're not treated that way by the media.

Speaker 5 (03:25):
That's also there's there's the recordings all over the damn place.
I mean, like even I mean, you know at the
uh you know, the ceremony in Annapolis for the when
they were swearing in the new the new Navy. Uh,
you know, people graduating there and uh, you know Theo's

(03:48):
midshipmen and he's admonishing them to not not marry a
trophy wife. And what I'm saying, which, but what's fascinating
about it. You look at the coverage and it's all
people throwing and throwing their hats in the air after
you know, and no mention of the trophy wives thing.
I mean, so there's no you know, a lot of

(04:08):
this is a lot of this. The American people are
not hearing it, which and we're paying that attention.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
But the one lesson I think.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
And I think you got into this earlier today, Rick,
is you gotta we got to repeat things over and
over and over and over again for the American people
to get it. And so like you know, whether it's corruption, corruption, corruption,
I mean, everything he does, we've got to put in
the one frame and keep plowing that field instead of,

(04:41):
like I said, the oh even the coverage you know,
laying reaf at the at the tomb of the unknown soldier,
the footages of him, the president laying reef at the
you know, and they're saying things over it, but there's
no None of the stuff that Rick was talking about
got reported on any of the networks, not that I

(05:03):
mean I'm not talking about cable. I'm talking about anything.
It's just amazing, you.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Know, folks.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Earlier today here on Lincoln Square, I had a great
conversation with Brian Taylor Cohen about how Republicans do messaging.
Jeff and I go, you know, we come from that world,
and the cohesiveness of their message, the repetition of the narrative.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Over and over and over and over and over and
over again. It strikes me.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
You know, I've been pondering this a lot in the
last few days that we see these stories about Democrats
are assembling at you know, five star resorts, and they're
contemplating these twenty million dollar programs like how to Speak
two Men, And I'm like, first off, try speaking English, motherfucker.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
If I may quote Samuel L. Jackson or misquote Samuel L. Jackson.
It strikes me over and over again.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
It's like, there's no secret sauce here, hidden away. There's
no there's no four hundred page PowerPoint deck that's going
to solve this problem for Democrats and the and for
the protomocracy movement, for the center left and center right.
It's just repetition and storytelling and narrative and repeat, repeat, repeat,
and and right now the corruption stuff, you know, as

(06:22):
I liked say, it's the killer app I mean, we
saw in the last few days, woman pays Trump a
million dollars to come to a Trump meeting, her son
gets a pardon. M Trump has these million plus dollar
a plate people for a crypto dinner that look that
looked like something was like in the trash can of

(06:42):
BUCkies for the for the what they were served. The
plane is now a done deal. They're raising three billion
dollars more for crypto investments, whatever the f that means. So,
I mean, guys, I feel like the corruption thing has
reached critical mass or is reaching critical mass.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, he's signing, you know, some deal with with the
government of Vietnam to build some luxury resort there and
then they're going to get a carve out on tariffs.
You know, if you put money.

Speaker 4 (07:14):
In it, you know, it's like.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
UAE and uh and uh and cutter and and Syria.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
You know.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Now he's he's this is I mean, it goes, it
goes beyond crony capitalism, but it is I mean that's
where foundation is.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
No.

Speaker 5 (07:31):
But it's fasking about this Normally, normally the bribe is offered.
You know, somebody comes to the official and says, look,
if I give you a million dollars or if I
put a lot of money into your campaign account, can
you give me the you know, can you do this deal?
I'm bribing you, right, bribing the cop or whatever you bribe. No, No,

(07:52):
this is asking for the bribe. This is going to
the country to Vietnam and saying, dude, you're giving me
that golf course or you're not going to get you
or your tariffs are going up. Guess what happens, you know,
And he is literally out in the open demanding bribes,

(08:14):
using the power of the United States, of the people.

Speaker 4 (08:17):
Of what we have built in.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Using it as the stick to demand bribes from anybody
who wants anything from us. I mean, it goes back
to the perfect call with Celenski, Right, it's the same thing,
demanding the bribe and that it looked.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
But I do think that's instructive.

Speaker 5 (08:41):
Because Rick, I do agree with you about corruption is
the killer app And that's why I'm starting to think
we need to stop, you know, letting the distraction of
what he says on Memorial Day the go and that
it's a distraction. We need to keep the focus on

(09:04):
the corruption, on just how corrupt and every day bang
away on the obvious corruption that is happening every nanosecond in.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
This with him and his and his cronies.

Speaker 5 (09:20):
And I think there's starting to see science that that's
really starting to break through.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
But we have to like just keep pounding it and
not move off.

Speaker 5 (09:30):
Oh geez, he said this today, or he did this yesterday,
or even me talking reminding everybody that or a few
that that he said no trophy wives. And then you
get into the whole thing about well wait, that's the
pot calling the kettle black all that.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
But it's all.

Speaker 5 (09:47):
Distracts we we actually participate in it. And by the way,
it's a problem growing up in the Democratic Party. It's
always been the Democratic Party's problem that it will not
repeat repair, that it doesn't get and understand the power
of actually and the attention span. It's not just people's

(10:08):
attention span. But it's like you're down to network TV.
Is the news is like you get a nine second
sound bite these days, not the kind of right. Yeah,
so no, this is you got in that environment.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, and I think it's it's done.
The corrupt. You know, we've got the bang.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
The telling people over and over again, he's stealing from you. Right,
it's not just that he's ripping of these these bitcoin
weirdos off, the things he's doing with with Elon and all.
He's stealing from America. He's stealing from you. He's stealing
from you. Your life is going to suck more because

(10:49):
he's taking things and changing the economy, changing the rules
to help his friends and to fuck you. Jeff, I'm sorry,
jump in.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Well, the we get distracted to the extent Trump can't
follow a strategy and has no strategy except he has
this preternatural ability to distract. I mean, his attention span
doesn't exist, but his ability to just throw out things
Gulf of America, send out some weird tweet on Memorial

(11:22):
Day or every day, and not everybody talks about that.
And you're right, we're not talking about the the self
inflicted damage he's done to the economy and wiping away
trillions of dollars of investments in this country and the
fact that we are still on the precipice of a
recession as we get into the the you know, the

(11:42):
end of the second and third quarter of this year,
and we all do it.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
I do it.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
We chase the rabbit rabbit that comes out there, the
verbal vomit that the insanity that comes out out of
his mouth. He's not lucid, but that's not necessarily the
primary bad trait that he has right now. He's never
been love. He's not okay. We can argue whether he's

(12:15):
more sane or has more dementia now than he did
in twenty eighteen. I have no idea he's He's always
been a corrupt lunatic who wakes up on the gibbering,
barking side of the bed every morning. And so how
do you how can you tell when he's getting crazier?
But we can tell when he's doing actual, real damage
to the economy, doing real damage to the national security.

(12:36):
We don't even talk about the purge at the National
Security Council that happened on Friday night and on this,
you know, the weekend, because there was so much fuckery
that happened this weekend. And then the corruption, which the illegality,
the economy, and the security they all tie together. That's
what matters most the Democrats to they're many of them

(13:00):
are trying but they're off. They're paying attention to different
things that they think are the primary area they should
be focused on. When they're they're focusing on the trees
instead of the forest.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
You know, I saw something I saw Gary the chess
master and Russian discipline.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
Disn't it say something? I think? What's interesting? He says,
like it was a mistake to think of Trump as
an autocrat.

Speaker 5 (13:31):
Uh, and more as the Putinization of America, that it
is about favor for himself and the closest people around,
the most loyal, closest people around them. They get the
rewards and they're.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Stealing it from the rest of You're well.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
It's nineteen it's nineteen ninety one in the in the
former Soviet Union.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
Yeah, and we are. What we're seeing witnessing is the
Putinization of a America.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
Trump is actually creating the enrichment of himself and everybody
around him, the most loyal around him and everybody else,
either punishing them, threatening them, or again demanding the bribe,
which is exactly how Putin rose.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
As you said, Rick, and you know that that stage
of he would.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Take, he would he would say, okay, here in this oblast.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Which is folks. It's basically like a state.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Uh here in this oblast the aluminum factory is owned
by the Communist Party. But okay, say if I give
you the illuminum factory, will you give me twenty five
percent of the rev And Serge would always.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Go, yeah, what that been? Help man?

Speaker 1 (14:48):
And I think we're I think we're reaching that point
very quickly. I think I think the corruption of Silicon
Valley leaders who paid Trump the million bucks to show
up on the stage at the inauguration, they're they're learning
that he's going to screw them too. I mean Tim
Cook was they called Tim. They were like, oh, Tim

(15:11):
Cook's the one who gets Trump the best. He's the
Trump whisper. Okay, how'd that work out for you, Tim, Yeah,
one of the most admired people in business who fell
into a you know, a one oh one style Trump trap.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, you got just like we saw in Russia. They're
using the public monies to create these circumstances, and then
they're realizing the setting it up to receive the private
profits from this for Trump and those who paid proper
tribute who he deems acceptable. You you elon, you can

(15:50):
come in and break the entire fucking government with your
doge stupidity and steal all the data, you know, stop
the investigations into you, and end up positioning yourself for
all these other contracts because now you have all this
data that was provided to the government by your competitors,
including probably their proposals that you may not have seen.

(16:13):
So that's your payoff for the three hundred million dollars.
That's a pretty good ROI for Elon there, for him
to now say, I don't need to invest any more money. Yeah,
because he got one of the biggest payoffs in the
history of the world. But that sets up the model
for how Trump is going to operate with everybody else.

Speaker 5 (16:29):
Well, you're seeing that again with truth social I mean
basically whatever is you know, it's issuing three billion dollars,
raising three billion? Where's three billion coming from?

Speaker 1 (16:45):
And again and again when I hear Joe, when I
hear Democrats say why can't we have our own version
of the media, Why can't we have social media platforms?
It's because if you go to democratic funders and say
we'd like to do a new social media plot, we'd
like to do a new streaming platform, they look at
you and go But we have MSNBC.

Speaker 4 (17:05):
Yeah, well, as you know, I've been trying to do
that for that.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
I was just gonna hear it.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Those men working on a decentralized, user driven social media
platform called says that. You know, it's just astounding to
me that on the right, these people wave a magic
wand and it's suddenly like, oh, would you like three
billion dollars for your crypto investment scam?

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Sure? Would you like?

Speaker 1 (17:28):
I mean, look, you look at things like Charlie Kirk
in Turning Point for the last ten or fifteen years,
these billionaires have been flooding him with money so you
can go in and basically take over campuses with this
Turning Point USA crap, and the whole thing really gets down.
I think to this, like, at some point you got

(17:49):
to invest in building things.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
We can show you the path.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
But some point, like democratic donors and when they're out
there saying we're gonna we're gonna pay people to do
a a you know, twenty million dollar study on how
men talk speak fucking English.

Speaker 6 (18:08):
ESTI yeah, study on how men talk, how to talk
to men, but but not spend two point five million,
invest two point five million in building an alternative platform to.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
X where where you know, yeah, yeah, so it's and
I and I think though that gets to it's not
just the so it's the corruption, but on the they
understand that the propaganda machine they built, they keep feeding
it to make more profits from all the eyeballs and everything.

(18:44):
That's what Fox does, That's what Elon does at x UH.
And then they U in Sinclair Broadcasting does it UH
in every local market and.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
That and and.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
That raises more money for them to buy more out
out create more eyeballs.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
We they it's still.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
A donor class on the democratic side that donates in
election cycles and doesn't understand that power that they've been
at for decades. On the other side of investing in
building the platforms, the media, the networks, the things that
you need to have the infrastructure to compete. And that's
why I think, you know, what we have to do

(19:29):
is I mean, that's a different problem that the party
and all and I know all of us have been
trying to get the investment side going, but I think
fundamentally it's about getting everybody to understand the corruption of
Trump and how now particularly with the crypto captures stuff.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
I mean, it's just.

Speaker 5 (19:50):
It's literally airing things for sale and there's no reporting
and billions are getting flowing in and you have no
idea who's who's paid him what to get what you
know what, what he's asking for complete.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
The plane was in plain sight.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
Okay, got that, but but trust me there and you
know this, Rick Jeff is there is billions and billions
flowing into the crypto stuff, and the.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
He and his family and prohnies are swimming in it.

Speaker 5 (20:22):
Not to mention, by the way, the the number of
times he's done, Hey, now's a good time to buy,
and then an hour later announced that you suspended tariffs
and walk and watch the market go rip roaring, and
then after everybody's bought in and they've run it up,

(20:43):
stumps it by crashing it with like oh no, I
was just kidding, you know, well luckily wait yeah, no, no, right.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
Actually the one I did see.

Speaker 5 (20:53):
We talked about this on the on the chat a
while ago, but c NBC has actually started calling it
the taco.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
Yes, the taco trade.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Buy always chickens out taco.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Sounds like I got to get an ad going on
the taco situation.

Speaker 5 (21:11):
Yea, yeah, Well, you know it's well, the The advice
for the for the Democrats.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Or the critique is they're still operating in the game.
They know they're operating is analog in a digital world,
whether it's the way they're responding messaging wise, tactically. You
know Schumer's strongly worded letters, you know the U the
use well we have ms NBC. We don't need to,

(21:43):
you know, worry about says us or you know, investing
in podcasts or or Lincoln Square.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
You know, they're they're used to the infrastructure and system
that they're comfortable with, not realizing that the world has
entirely changed, and that is your relevant to a large extent. Now,
you can't just give in election cycles. You know, as
we within the six months out from twenty twenty six,
we're not going to be here having an election a

(22:12):
year from now if we don't take if we're not
in we've.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Got to often these I mean, our big goal, folks
at the Lincoln Project on that side of the fence,
our big goal is to take back the House.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
It's a simple goal. It is a it's a doable goal.
But we have to start beating these guys up now,
attaching all.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
The corruption to them sticking it to them, gluing it
to them so they can never We've got a POxy
Trump's corruption because just like almost every other thing with
down ballot Republicans, the shit Trump does, nobody else gets
away with. Now, maybe if you're in an R plus

(22:51):
thirty district or something, you can get away with it
Marjorie Taylor Green's district or something. But the idea that
we glue this stuff to them has to start now.
I mean the Republicans. I went back and looked, they
started those trans ads in the spring.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah, last year.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
They started them in April of last year, and they
burned them all through the summer, and nobody saw him com.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
Repeat, repeat over again.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
That's what we Before we wrap up tonight, guys, I
do want to take one quick thing. You know, Trump's
self image and his and his image with his base
is always he's the strongest, he's the smartest, he's the
best negotiator, he's the king of the deal makers, blah
blah blah. And in that regard when it came to
foreign policy, everyone said, listen to what Trump says. He's

(23:44):
going to settle the Ukraine War in one day. It's
going to be over in one day. And even Trump
now has started to realize how much of a bitch
Putin has treated him like this entire time he is
he Even Trump is realizing that Vladimir Putin thinks he's

(24:04):
a stooge because Putin's continuing his war crimes, continuing the invasion,
continuing the attacks.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
And Trump today is that, like it will be bad,
I won't protect him anymore.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Does that motherfucker even know what he's saying at this point,
because he's literally admitting he's been protecting Vladimir Putin?

Speaker 4 (24:21):
Mm hmm, well it's my mind.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
As someone else said, Putin needs to watch out because
Trump might have.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
To all cap him.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Ha ha, yeah, I mean that's the way, you know Trump,
it's worth, it's right to be afraid of what can
happen from all of this. But he's so fucking comical
in the idea that he's strong when he is that
he is nothing but a weak fool boob buffoon. And

(24:54):
no country, no leader of any country respects or fears Trump.
Our allies might fear what he's going to do, but Putin,
the the the oil shakes that he met with last week,
North Korea and China. They laugh at him, and they
know they can manipulate him. They give him the pomp

(25:15):
and circumstance that he wants because it's the way to
manipulate him to get what they want. It's so simple.
He's like a child in their hands.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
It's like a child.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
They're not they.

Speaker 5 (25:28):
I think that they're as much as they fear what
he might do, you know, how he might what they're
The problem is they are they are now in.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
Fear of the American people. In other words, that we
they It's not that they don't trust him anymore. They
don't trust him at all.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
But now like, are we going to stand up and
and take and revolt or are we gonna, you know,
just go along with this too, like the Publican Party has.
And that's where I think bang Away on corruption, making
sure that every American knows twenty twenty six.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
Has to be the end. This is the beginning of
the end. Today.

Speaker 5 (26:12):
The end has to happen with wiping them out of
the House and maybe if we can get the movement
growing big enough and hard enough, taking the Senate too.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
But it's got to be that's the goal. Twenty twenty
six has to It's all or nothing.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
In my view, this is this is the big This
is the big last hand of cards, guys. This is
where you know, we either we either play and we
win or I don't know what comes next. I mean, so, well,
there you go, just on, just been scouting locations in Canada.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
So how was the vacation though, you guys have a
nice time.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Oh yeah, our neighbors a couple of days. Yeah, it's
it's always always lovely, friendly entry and great culture and
great cities. I missed the king though, and drove around
out of one.

Speaker 5 (27:07):
You know, well that's yeah, who gets How the hell
do you get it's so out there with the fifty
first state thing that you actually get the King to
right to Canada, say, the.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
First time in seventy years that they've has shown up
here to do this and deliver a very clear, loud message.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
You know. There's don't say Trump doesn't bring people together. Yeah, well, guys,
I want to thank you as always for your insights, folks.
This is you know, we try to make this show
kind of like our conversations that we're having all day
in our chats and on our calls and on our
zooms inside LP and and just so everybody on this

(27:55):
watching this nose. You know, I've been making notes tonight
We're going to go out. We'll make some career option stuff.
Now we'll start messaging on that across our platforms, across
our systems that we use, and and these conversations are transparent,
and you'll see the results of what we do in
these in these in these conversations, because this really is Yes,

(28:16):
it's for you guys, but this is also for you know,
Joe and Jeff and Stu and my team and our
other social media guys, our political team. These are conversations
we're having all the time, so we might as well
like open the gate a little bit, show you guys
a little bit of what's behind the curtain, because it's
not a secret what we do. We're not this, there's
not some like submarine under the water thing. We're gonna

(28:38):
tell Trump's people what we're gonna do to them, and
then we're gonna do it. Thanks for watching, everybody. I
hope you will listen to my podcast, which is the
Lincoln Project Podcast, also The Enemy's List. Also every Friday,
the Elephant in the Room where I pull back another
little curtain. Check out the Trippy Show, Jeff's occasional podcast
that pops out of the blues, sometimes with fucking ridiculously

(28:59):
good guest like Justin Wolfer is in it.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
That was so good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
But you can catch our reading, our writing, our podcasting,
our video stuff at Lincoln Square. You can also catch
me on my substack at the Rick Wilson UH and
we will see you guys again next Tuesday night.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Thanks for watching, folks,