Bill Kristol: Limp Opposition

Speaker 2 In our nation, we don't follow.

Speaker 3 We lead.

Speaker 1 We don't wait for permission.

Speaker 2 We move first.

Speaker 1 So while others talk about AI, Booz Allen puts it in space.

Speaker 2 That's right, in space.

Speaker 1 Because real leadership, it's about building what nobody else can. Coding so we can't lose.
Making America stronger, safer, faster. It's in our code.
Find out more at boozeallen.com/slash our code.

Speaker 6 What do you think makes the perfect snack?

Speaker 1 Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.

Speaker 7 Could you be more specific?

Speaker 8 When it's cravenient.

Speaker 3 Okay. Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right now in the street at AM PM, or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at AM PM.
I'm seeing a pattern here.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, we're talking about what I crave.

Speaker 7 Which is anything from AM PM?

Speaker 5 What more could you want?

Speaker 2 Stop by AMPM, where the snacks and drinks are perfectly cravable and convenient. That's cravenience.
A.M. P.M., too much good stuff.

Speaker 3 Hello, and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
Delighted to be here in person with Bill Crystal on Monday. I was up in D.C.
for some meetings.

Speaker 3 I snuck in a car seat headrest concert on Saturday. You're a big car seat headrest fan, right, Bill?

Speaker 5 I wouldn't even ask. I'm scared to even, I'm terrified to even ask, what is, is car seat headrest one thing or two things?

Speaker 3 Or three things. It's a one.
It's a band. It's a band.
It's a Virginia local guy, Will Toledo. Yeah, it's really good.

Speaker 3 Folk, folk music? Not exactly, I wouldn't say. Kind of like a gloomy rock.

Speaker 3 Gloomy is good. Gloomy is good.
It fit my mood.

Speaker 3 I wonder before we get into the news, the real news, you were doing a big fan of the Bezos wedding coverage this weekend?

Speaker 5 I'm following it minute to minute. I'm just fascinated.

Speaker 3 Everybody's outfits.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I had a lot of thoughts about the outfits.

Speaker 3 yeah yeah well i guess it was in venice that's all i know about it yeah i gotta tell you nothing has happened to make me more pro-Zoron in the last month than the Bezos wedding I know I saw you you announced your anti-anti Zoron and I gotta tell you I'm the more I see of Jeff Bezos the more Zoron curious I start to get which I know is a wrong impulse but I'm I have to be honest about my feelings I mean this I mean that's not to overthink this but there's a reason a ton of people became socialists or social democrats at least, democratic socialists, a century ago, because they saw the plutocrats, right?

Speaker 5 I mean, it is like not, that is not, that is a real thing. And I do feel like we're reliving this a little bit.
I'm not quite as, I'm still anti-Zoran and anti-anti-Zoran.

Speaker 5 I'm trying to keep both, but the Bezos, what was it, just grotesque and it cost $50 million?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, and he's like, he invited Trump because he's sucking up, if Trump didn't go, but he's like sucking up to him because he wants the rocket money.

Speaker 3 And it's like, do we really, does the richest, the whatever second richest man in the world, third, need government handouts?

Speaker 3 He's got to suck up to the authoritarian to get more handouts from the government. Yeah.
And then the wedding itself, it's like,

Speaker 3 I honor second marriages. You know, that's good, but we can be a little bit more demure about the whole thing.

Speaker 3 I don't think so. A little more demure.

Speaker 5 I don't think so. Not if you're a Bezos, but the richest people are the most, are the biggest suckups.
I have not seen a good, deep sociological explanation of that, though.

Speaker 5 It is contrary to what we'll say.

Speaker 3 Cuban and I talked about it a little bit.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and Cuban's answer was deeply unsatisfying, if I have to say. But it was, you know, it was kind of more just like

Speaker 3 they are

Speaker 3 psychologically like

Speaker 3 they're competitive. You know, and they like want to do well and want to win.

Speaker 3 And like in this environment, it's like, well, if this is what we got to do, you know, for my business story, you know, they're survivors, you know, if you've, if you've made that kind of money,

Speaker 3 you know, it's not usually by accident, right? Like, you know, there's some bodies buried along the way. I don't know.
That was the Cuban answer. It's not deeply unsatisfying.

Speaker 3 The whole thing is deeply unsatisfying. But we do have one good billionaire, soon-to-be trillionaire.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you're ready to listen to this, but I want to read to you, I think, the most penetrating critique of Trump's big fugly bill from anyone. This was over the weekend.

Speaker 3 The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country. Utterly insane and destructive.

Speaker 3 It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future. That's Elon Musk, the former shadow president.
And that's pretty crazy.

Speaker 3 Everybody was like, oh, they made up and Elon's not going to, you know, Elon's going to back down because he wants the rocket ship money or whatever.

Speaker 3 I mean, that is about as tough a critique as I've seen from any Democrat.

Speaker 5 I guess he knows a lot about electric vehicles and understands that

Speaker 5 he likes the subsidies, but there's something crazy about subsidizing coal and non-subsidizing clean energy, right? Which is literally the way they're going.

Speaker 5 Which incidentally, there's not even an, as I can see, there's not even like an economic ⁇ there are fancy economic arguments for why we shouldn't do away with coal and why it's not as dirty as people think and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 5 And we shouldn't subsidize Teslas too much. That's all reasonable.
This is just the culture war, right? I mean, it's like we're going to just really go out of our way to dig more coal.

Speaker 3 Is that really a good idea? They're also like stop. You know, it's, I had Nick Chris off on a Friday.

Speaker 3 We were talking about kind of the stupidity parts of Doge, to give you the other side of Elon, like these cuts that didn't actually save anything, actually cost money.

Speaker 3 That's happening on the green substitute street, right? It's like we, I forget off the top of my head, I think it was, we've already purchased the electric postal service cars,

Speaker 3 but now we're canceling the part where they can charge or something. I forgot all the, like some part of the electrification of the, the postal service cars is already done,

Speaker 3 but this bill is like we're canceling all of the money for anything associated with anything that happened under Joe Biden's effort.

Speaker 3 So they're just going to be stranded or we're going to have to sell them to, I guess, people that want postal vans. Postal service.

Speaker 5 There's a big market for postal vans. Don't they open on the wrong side incidentally?

Speaker 3 Is that right?

Speaker 5 Yeah, doesn't the postal worker get out the other side or out?

Speaker 3 Trives on the wrong side.

Speaker 5 Maybe I made that up.

Speaker 5 It seems that way in our

Speaker 3 date. So anyway, okay, well, that's the only complaint.
The other big news about the BBB and what I want to spend most of the time on here today is Tom Tillis.

Speaker 3 So actually, let me back up for folks who are not watching the

Speaker 3 back and forth of what is actually happening with the bill. So over the weekend, the first vote is always this vote for cloture, which is basically a vote to bring the bill to the floor, right?

Speaker 3 And so a lot of times things get blocked during this step. Like it's not an unimportant

Speaker 3 step in the hurdle in the process for people who aren't Senate procedure nerds. And the Republicans in the Senate have four, have a basically a three-vote margin, right? Because J.D.

Speaker 3 Vance can cut the tie. So you can lose three Republicans and still pass anything with the tie.
So Rand Paul is a no on this. Ron Johnson's been a no because of the spending.

Speaker 3 One cheer for Ron Johnson or no? Zero cheers for Ron Johnson?

Speaker 3 Did he flip it? Did he flip it? Yeah, yeah. That's what's 51, 49.
He flipped in the last.

Speaker 5 The president satisfied his concerns about Spencer.

Speaker 3 Yeah, got it. Okay, so it was him, Paul, and then Tillis.
Right, Tillis, who he gets to in a second, who's retiring. The interesting part of that to me was like, if you just have Tillis and Paul,

Speaker 3 Collins and Verkowski could have killed it, but they both ended up being foreclosure.

Speaker 3 Now, Collins is saying that she is leaning against in the final vote, but she wants to, she gives deference to Jon Thune on what he gets to bring to the floor. As if, Like this is the fucking 1700s.

Speaker 3 But so they had a chance to kill it. Tillis has been the most vocal.
While this is all going on, while he announces that he's going to oppose

Speaker 3 advancing it to the floor, he also announces that he's going to retire. from the Senate.

Speaker 3 He joins a long line of brave Republicans who

Speaker 3 finally oppose Trump right as they're about to walk out the door. Hello, Bob Corker, et cetera, et cetera.
We could go down the whole list.

Speaker 3 So, I want to play, this is Tillis on the floor explaining why he's going to vote against us.

Speaker 9 They can't find a hole in my estimate. So, what they told me is that, yeah, it's rough,

Speaker 9 but

Speaker 9 North Carolina's used the system, they're going to have to make it work.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 9 So, what do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding's not there anymore, guys.

Speaker 9 In the White House, amateurs advising the president, are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.

Speaker 3 I love the infantilization of Trump at the end. His advisors are tricking him.
It's his second term. He's been around for nine years.
He's like, and it's like, oh, he's being fooled by Russ vote.

Speaker 3 And it's like, maybe the president just doesn't actually give a fuck about the so-called promises, the promises that he made, Tom Tillis. So anyway, there's like a lot to unpack here.

Speaker 3 I know we both have a lot about the political cowardice of him retiring, but let's just talk about the actual policy side of it.

Speaker 3 So it's interesting that it's the Medicaid thing that he, that's the deal breaker for him.

Speaker 3 Hawley, who also was talking a big game about not wanting Medicaid cuts, he gave maybe the most interesting and cynical

Speaker 3 defense for his vote,

Speaker 3 which kind of alluded to what Tillis said in that clip there where he said, in two or three years, Trump's going to break his promise.

Speaker 3 Hawley basically is like, I'm going to vote for this, and then we're going to not actually do the cuts in two or three years, right?

Speaker 3 And so that's basically the Hawley argument for jamming this thing through.

Speaker 3 What do you think about the whole kind of back and forth on the Medicaid side? Then we'll get into the Tillis retirement.

Speaker 5 I mean, Medicaid cuts are real. Jonathan Cohen, our colleagues, written a ton about this.
It's going to cost 10 million plus people health insurance.

Speaker 5 It has spillover effects for reasons that are too complicated to explain, and I probably couldn't explain, onto Medicare and Obamacare itself.

Speaker 5 And so it'll hurt some people who are getting insurance there too.

Speaker 5 And so it's nice that Tom Tillis is somewhat subtly, I could say, having voted for a million Trump budgets in the past and for the repeal of Obamacare in 2017 and everything else.

Speaker 3 Would people have lost health care in North Carolina during their Obamacare appeal? I think they would have.

Speaker 5 The North Carolina situation is a little interesting, and that's not worth again, because they did expand.

Speaker 5 They were a purple-ish state, Republican-ish state that chose to expand Medicaid because of Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor, and he was able to get a Republican legislature to go along.

Speaker 5 Having expanded Medicaid, this would now cut back and affect the federal support for that expansion, which is why these 600,000 people are going to lose it.

Speaker 5 So I guess he's in a slightly different position now. He's decided that this expansion that every Republican incidentally and the national level was against was a good thing.

Speaker 5 Maybe he could make that rethink his general allegiance to Trumpian and Republican orthodoxy. But there's no evidence of that.
Can I just go on about Tillis for a minute?

Speaker 5 I wrote some dietary about this this morning. And

Speaker 5 so he, on his way out, he says and said, Lee, he's really going to work hard to have a Republican successor. He's going to, in fact, want to work with President Trump to have a Republican successor.

Speaker 3 I've got the quote I want to read for you, and then you can cook on it.

Speaker 3 So, because he was asked who he wants to replace him, and he says this: not Mark Robinson, because he would probably lose by 20 points.

Speaker 5 Other than that, he's the lunatic guy, friend of yours, who ran last time.

Speaker 3 He's a friend of mine because he ate pizza in the back of a porn shop. He's like, That's the crowd.

Speaker 3 You did a lot of coverage.

Speaker 3 You will agree to that. I do like porn chop coverage, porn chop-related coverage.

Speaker 3 Anytime you don't give me a story where a man is sneaking a pizza into the peep show, I am going to cover it on the podcast. That's true.
So anyway, not Mark Robinson.

Speaker 3 Other than that, here's the quote. I'm here to get a Republican to come behind me.
That's the last thing I would want to leave as my legacy.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 So he wants a Republican who will vote for Trump's forthcoming budgets in 2027 and 2028, which will continue, of course, to cut all all kinds of domestic programs and carry out the Trumpian agenda.

Speaker 5 Tom Tillis has been, I mean, he's, I know him slightly, I think he's a decent person.

Speaker 5 He kind of would like to do, his Republican Party would be one we could live with, but he's gone along with everything, everything. He was a key vote member of the Heckseth nomination.

Speaker 5 Wasn't he the guy who was teetering on the balance? He voted for Heckseth, for Tulsi Gabbard, for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for Pam Bondi, for Cash Patel.

Speaker 5 I mean, And incidentally, he doesn't seem to express much regret about what's happening in some of these areas, the politicization of the Justice Department, the mass deportation some of us think that's kind of as important as i mean not to minimize medicaid but you know but no not a word about not a word about that not a word about the 150 billion dollars is it in the bill to i don't know triple or quintuple or something the size of ice and the whole detention and deportation program it's nice that he's concerned about his medicaid constituents but

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm even lower on him than that. That's good.

Speaker 3 Here's another quote from him in his retirement announcement. It's become evident that leaders who embrace bipartisanship and independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.

Speaker 3 And I guess he's talking about himself there, but like, what did he do?

Speaker 3 What was his bipartisanship and independent thinking? This whole thing. So he retires right on the heels of Don Bacon retiring.
And Don Bacon is

Speaker 3 the Republican House member in Omaha who, you know, will tweet things about Ukraine that we agree with. He'll occasionally tweet criticisms of Trump, but he never was a holdout on any important bill.

Speaker 3 He never did anything to block any major Trump agenda item. And the two of them are like, well, the

Speaker 3 leaders who embrace bipartisanship and independent thinking are becoming an endangered species. Well, it's because

Speaker 3 you're endangering yourself. I mean, like, they're doing it to themselves.

Speaker 3 It's not like there is some invasive force out there that is like killing, you know, of, all of the, you know, fauna in an area.

Speaker 3 Like it's they've decided to self-deport from Congress because they don't want to deal with the hassle.

Speaker 3 Like Tom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, like they could have all got together and actually tried to embrace bipartisanship and independent thinking.

Speaker 3 They could have gone across the aisle to Chuck Schumer and been like, what do we agree on? Like the four of us and the Democratic Senate Conference.

Speaker 3 This is how legislative bodies work all over the world. Like Lisa Murkowski referenced this and when she was asked about this in a podcast recently.

Speaker 3 She was like, you know, coalition governments are not uncommon. There's a coalition government in Texas in the state legislature, in Alaska in the state legislature, in a lot of European countries.

Speaker 3 If they really want it, if they really cared about what it wouldn't be exactly what we would want, right?

Speaker 3 It wouldn't be a bulwark agenda that Mitch McConnell and Tom Tillis would be putting forth, but they could have given weapons to Ukraine, protected Medicaid, whatever other pet issues about the whales Murkowski has in Alaska and

Speaker 3 the lobsters that Maine, that Susan Collins cares about.

Speaker 3 But they don't even try.

Speaker 3 They just retire and then finally show a little bit of backbone at the last possible second. Like we've seen this story so many times now.
And then

Speaker 3 they do a woe is me thing. Oh, people are so mean to those of us that want to try bipartisanship.
and it's dangerous. Like, we're getting mean male.
And I'm just like,

Speaker 3 the whole thing is so pathetic. It's just like unbelievably pathetic.
Like, you are a U.S. Senator.
Try.

Speaker 3 And in this last second, it's just going to be this limp opposition where he gets to pretend to be on the moral high ground on the Senate floor and not stop anything.

Speaker 3 They're going to end up jarrying this through today. We're taping this Monday morning.
The final vote on this is probably going to be late tonight or early tomorrow.

Speaker 3 They're going to have the votes on it almost certainly.

Speaker 5 I like the it's become evident formulation that, you know, it just there's no room really left for statesmanship and for free thinking. Really?

Speaker 5 That just became evident like last week. Maybe that became evident, I don't know, January 20th, 2025.
Maybe it became evident in the Trump's Republican Party a lot earlier.

Speaker 5 Maybe North Carolina is kind of a swing state. Maybe he shouldn't have supported Gasp.
I wouldn't even mention this.

Speaker 5 If he's watching, he'll die and kill over in shock.

Speaker 3 Maybe he shouldn't have supported Donald Trump for re-election to the the presidency maybe he should have told people not vote for harris just vote right in whoever the favorite son of north you know coach k or something or whoever the favorite son of north team smith you know the favorite son of north carolina is did he campaign for nikki haley again like that's not that's not my choice exactly it's not doing exactly what i wanted but i don't remember tom tillis being out there banging the drum for how the republicans should nominate a statesmanlike presidential nominee so now he's shocked and um he's gonna support lara trump that's what's gonna end up happening yeah he's gonna end up complaining complaining about bipartisanship and lack of statesmanship.

Speaker 3 And then he's going to end up endorsing. And then he's going to probably end up supporting Lara Trump for Senate.

Speaker 5 Trevor Burrus: The one thing I would say Tillis and Bacon did to their credit is they were both actually pretty important in getting the Ukraine aid through a year ago.

Speaker 5 Now, that was sort of against Trump's wishes, so they get a little credit, but they had half the Republicans on the Hill with them, including the Speaker ultimately, and Thune at the time, and was a McConnell arrested leader, whoever, anyway, they were both for it.

Speaker 5 So it wasn't quite the same as standing alone against Trump.

Speaker 5 But Ukraine, speaking of Ukraine, they could have insisted, as you say, four of them could have gotten together and said, we're not voting for a reconciliation bill that doesn't have aid for Ukraine.

Speaker 5 You got $100 billion for ICE? How about $50 billion for people who are actually fighting for freedom, not fighting against freedom, the Ukrainian armed forces?

Speaker 3 Oh, sorry.

Speaker 5 I mean, you know, and so

Speaker 5 they did nothing. And now he's a lame duck.
He can't do that.

Speaker 3 But he doesn't even need for him. He's got Rand, actually, which is not going to vote for anything, so that's a bonus one.
He's got to recruit two other people.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And the whole thing is just so dispiriting and pathetic. And like just a word about one other thing.
Also, Idalysis Slott came on last week.

Speaker 3 Also, this part that like bipartisanship and independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.

Speaker 3 No, bipartisanship and independent thinking are extinct in the Republican Party because you're in a cult. And literally, you might be replaced by the president's daughter-in-law.

Speaker 3 Like, she is the top candidate to replace you in the Senate. Like, you're in a cult.
That's, it's not true, really, in the Democratic Party.

Speaker 3 Like, sure, Mansion and Cinema took some heat, you know, so I think that's probably what he's referencing. But I had Alyssa Slotkin on last week.
She's happy to work with Republicans on stuff.

Speaker 3 I had Tammy Baldwin on a couple months ago. She's happy to work with Republicans on stuff.

Speaker 3 A lot of times on here, we're complaining about how the Democrats are too willing to work with the Republicans on stuff, Whitmer and others.

Speaker 3 So, like, that's also just not, it's not true, like, broadly.

Speaker 3 It's excuse making.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and Hakeem Jeffries is getting beat up from the left for expressing discomfort with your friend Zoran Mantandi. So, you know, I mean, he's got, which is fine.
He's expressing discomfort.

Speaker 5 It'll probably end up supporting him, and maybe he'll support Cuomo at the end if he ends up rerunning and so forth. Who knows?

Speaker 5 In Fairfax County, right near where I live, but congressional district next to where I live, there was a primary Saturday, a firehouse primary.

Speaker 5 The party ran for the special election to replace Jerry Connolly, who died a month ago. And

Speaker 5 Jerry Connolly's former chief of staff, who's now, I think, on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, 62-year-old guy, moderate Democrat, won with 60% of the vote.

Speaker 5 So within one week, Mom Donnie wins in New York,

Speaker 5 young, firebrand, you know, lefty, and centrist establishment Democrat wins and is going to go to the Congress from Virginia. Yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 5 It's a sort of, and neither is complaining about the other, you know, I mean, that I know of. You know, they may not love each other, but they're going to be in the same party.

Speaker 5 And I know that, so there is a fair amount of free thinking and diversity of thinking. It's too much for some of our friends on some issues.

Speaker 5 You know, we could do without a couple of things that Mom Danny said and so forth. But I mean, in the Democratic Party, yes, not.

Speaker 5 Well, speaking of not the irony that you might end up supporting Lara Trump and not coming to ghost with the fact about the Republican Party, you know who's not mentioned in his six, seven paragraph, I don't recall, resignation letter?

Speaker 5 Donald Trump. As you say, these things are just happening.
It's really unfortunate what's happening in American politics. You know, I mean, who could have thought it coming?

Speaker 5 Who could have thought a guy who demagogued his way to the presidency, to the nomination of 2016, tried to launch a coup in

Speaker 5 2021, comes back afterwards. On January 20th, pardons everyone from January 6th, makes explicit that he's running a basically pro-January 6th administration.
I won't even go into all the details.

Speaker 5 Stuffs the Justice Department, blah, blah, blah, blah. Who could have thought that that would be a problem for American politics?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I got into an argument with your friend, Carl Rove,

Speaker 3 on a panel. I think it was back in January.
And it was a friendly argument, but it actually centered on Tillis, so I want to to bring this up, because

Speaker 3 he was basically making the case that like it's good to have somebody like Tillis in there. We'd rather have somebody like Tillis in there because,

Speaker 3 you know, when push comes to shove, he's not crazy and he's not going to push crazy stuff.

Speaker 3 And I was on the side of... Not really, actually.
It's maybe net zero. Like maybe it doesn't matter at all if it's Tillis versus a crazy person because Tillis votes like a crazy person, essentially.

Speaker 3 Or maybe it's actually net harmful because Tillis provides a patina of coverage to vote for MAGA for people like Karl Rove and for people who read Karl Rove and the Wall Street Journal-type Republicans.

Speaker 3 And so we went back and forth on that. And

Speaker 3 the news to me is just like, it's sort of a pointless argument because all these people are just,

Speaker 3 again, they're checking out. They're extinct themselves.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 in the end, the only time they ever show any backbone is when they're already one foot out the door.

Speaker 3 And it's reminiscent to me of the 2016 primary where the toughest anti-Trump speech that every candidate gave, except Jeb, was their concession speech.

Speaker 3 Scott Walker, Rick Perry. You don't remember this now because they've all gone on board, but all their concession speeches were like, we must stop Trump.
He's a danger to the party.

Speaker 3 And Cruz, as late as the convention. Yeah, Cruz, yeah, as late as the convention, right? It's the same.
It's just a Senate version of all that.

Speaker 3 It's like, oh, finally, now that I'm retiring, I can do the right thing. And it's like, well, if you weren't going to do it while you were in, then what was the point of having you?

Speaker 5 Yeah. And incidentally, the one thing that Tillis and Susan Collins do do is perhaps hold seats that might otherwise be endangered if they didn't have that moderate patina in those states.

Speaker 5 So goodbye. I mean, good riddance.
You know, they are votes ultimately for the Republican majority in 95% of the case.

Speaker 5 And that's doing a lot of very, very bad things and not opposing Trump and confirming Trump's nominees in 95% of the cases. So forget it.
So I maybe.

Speaker 3 But Tillis in Mississippi, maybe we'll take, because it'd be a free will, the five times

Speaker 3 he's opposed.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I guess so.

Speaker 5 But no, so I am for Mark Robinson. Now that

Speaker 5 I hadn't really thought about it until we were talking, but Tillis mentioned explicitly your friend Mark Robinson. I'm for him being the nominee.

Speaker 5 And I think some Democrats are putting $50 million in some dark money pack to make Mark Robinson the nominee so we can lose by 15 points so we can get a Democratic senator from North Carolina who might actually do something about some of these horrible things that Trump and MAGA are doing.

Speaker 3 And by the way, and one last thing on this: oh, bipartisanship is dead. You know who the Democrats are trying to recruit in North Carolina? Their leading candidate?

Speaker 3 Roy Cooper, the kind of moderate governor who would come to the Senate and govern and want to govern in an independent and bipartisan fashion. And who are the Republicans going to nominate?

Speaker 3 Either Trump or the RNC chair who like replaced Ronna Romney because she wasn't sycophantic enough.

Speaker 5 And wasn't into the election denying stuff enough, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah, those will be the two leading candidates

Speaker 13 she's been thinking about this sleepover all week but i think about her food allergies all the time fortunately her doctor prescribed zoler omalizumab it's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens Zola 150 milligrams is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods.

Speaker 19 While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic.

Speaker 21 Don't use if you are allergic to Zola.

Speaker 22 Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis.

Speaker 23 Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis.

Speaker 24 Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue.

Speaker 26 Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis.

Speaker 29 Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens.

Speaker 25 Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported.

Speaker 28 Please see Zolair.com for full prescribing information.

Speaker 32 Ask an allergist about Zolair.

Speaker 33 This is an advertisement for Zolair Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

Speaker 7 Time for a sofa upgrade? Introducing Anibay sofas, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices. Every Anibay sofa is modular, allowing you to rearrange your space effortlessly.

Speaker 7 Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy.

Speaker 7 Liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam lets you choose between a sink-in feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Speaker 7 Plus, our pet-friendly, stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price.
Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your living space today.

Speaker 7 Sofas start at just $699 with no risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get early access to Black Friday now.
The biggest sale of the year can save you up to 60% off.

Speaker 7 Plus, free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washable sofas.com.
offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply

Speaker 3 two other things on this bill murkowski i think we should save a word for lisa murkowski uh who i'd love to have on the pod i would love to have you senator murkowski uh she came on to this bill i guess because she cut a deal for alaska where the snap requirements now i think the parliamentarian kind of ruled against part of this but there's going to be some carve out for the cuts to snap which is food stamps for alaskans originally i think it was for people in the non-contiguous states Yeah, that's how they were able to justify it.

Speaker 5 I don't think you can quite legally, maybe in the Senate, literally say Alaska is exempt from this. You have to have a fake kind of, you know, surface rationale that doesn't name the state.

Speaker 5 So the two non-contiguous states, Hawaii and Alaska, are exempt from the, I don't know what they are, the FRA requirements or something.

Speaker 3 That's an absurd thing to do. And it's a ludicrous rationale to vote for a bill.
I understand

Speaker 3 caring about Alaska and all this. But there's a lot of other horrible stuff in the bill, as you mentioned, all the ICE money.
Lisa Murkowski is for that.

Speaker 3 Just the redistribution of the tax tables in an inverse way,

Speaker 3 just the irresponsibility on the debt side. And there's plenty of other reasons to oppose it.

Speaker 3 The funny part for me, though, is like, is the Hawley, I've had, like, you bring back Hawley, who like thinks he cares about this. It's like, I don't know, why didn't Missouri get this deal? Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean? Like, why is it just Alaska? And shouldn't Josh Hawley have like, you know, drove a harder bargain?

Speaker 3 I guess maybe he hopes that the Missourians don't know what contiguous means, so they don't realize that they're getting a raw deal.

Speaker 5 Aaron Powell, Jr.: If this is a good thing, I mean, again, if the Democrats had any,

Speaker 5 you know, they should stand on the floor and point to Murkowski, but they won't do that because they like her and she works with them on some things, not many, but a few.

Speaker 5 And maybe they're right not to, I don't know. But I feel like it would be nice if they said, you know what, if this is a good deal for Alaska, why isn't it a good deal for the other 48 states?

Speaker 5 Why are you imposing, I mean, by definition, if you think this is the right thing for you, shouldn't it be the right thing for everyone else?

Speaker 5 And why are you imposing these draconian requirements that are just fancy ways of getting people off Medicaid? They're

Speaker 5 fake anti-fraud and so forth requirements.

Speaker 3 And I had a quote on that. It's all just more paperwork.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Which is very, the efficient, the Doge conservative view is just like, we're going to make the paperwork as onerous as possible.

Speaker 5 Right. So if it's good for Alaska not to have this paperwork, why shouldn't it be good for the other states? I don't know.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I concur. And I think we'll see a lot for the Democrats today.
We'll be monitoring that because they're going to have the vote or Rama and all that. So

Speaker 3 we'll see.

Speaker 3 We can give some awards out tomorrow to whoever did the best. One other just item, because I don't think I've mentioned it on this bill.

Speaker 3 They have a ruled that there's going to be no, you're not allowed if you're a state to do any AI regulation for five years. And if you do some, you're not going to get the infrastructure money.

Speaker 3 I guess it's going to some of the

Speaker 3 old

Speaker 3 power centers. It's just like, this is such a backwards bill.
It's like, you're not going to get the money for your energy production. which is not going to be green or climate conscious.

Speaker 3 And if you do any regulation on AI for five five years, I mean, neither of us are experts on AI, but I've seen enough as far as like how quickly, you know, the progress has been made. And who knows?

Speaker 3 Maybe it's maybe it plateaus from now for five years. And, you know,

Speaker 3 we'll see. But that's not what the smart AI people say.
Like, most of the smart AI people say there's going to be exponential advancement over the next five years.

Speaker 3 So it's like, we're going to make a rule now that you can't do any regulation on this at all if you're California, where you're the state that houses all these companies in 2029?

Speaker 3 That seems insane to me.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's one thing if they want to say, but the federal government's going to step up and really resolve this, but I don't see a lot of

Speaker 3 the opposite.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 3 this is the handout to like the Mark Andreessens of the world. That's what they want.
They just want total laissez-faire government when it comes to artificial

Speaker 3 human intelligence.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you can't really make it up. I mean, it's, like,

Speaker 5 you know, we're going out and snatching hardworking immigrants who've been here for decades, who are doing jobs, you know, and working hard and paying taxes and so forth, raising families because

Speaker 5 we want deportation, because

Speaker 5 we believe in the great replacement theory. So that's there.
We've got hugely intrusive government, the mass ICE agents, and all this.

Speaker 5 AI, which is kind of a serious issue and might do a lot of damage to the country and the world, much more than a few immigrants getting picked up at

Speaker 5 7-Elevens to take day jobs. AI, we're not going to touch it, right?

Speaker 11 She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time.

Speaker 6 Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, Omalizumab.

Speaker 12 It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

Speaker 16 Zola 150 milligrams is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods.

Speaker 19 While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic.

Speaker 21 Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair.

Speaker 22 Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis.

Speaker 23 Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis.

Speaker 24 Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue.

Speaker 26 Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis.

Speaker 29 Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens.

Speaker 31 Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches, and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported.

Speaker 8 Please see Zolair.com for full prescribing information.

Speaker 32 Ask an allergist about Zolair.

Speaker 33 This is an advertisement for Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

Speaker 7 Life gets messy. Spills, stains, and kid chaos.
But with Anibay, cleaning up is easy. Our sofas are fully machine washable, inside and out, so you never have to stress about messes again.

Speaker 7 Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Speaker 7 Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Speaker 7 Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.
That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Speaker 7 Get early access to Black Friday pricing right now. Sofas started just $699.

Speaker 7 Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com.
Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 3 Okay, I want to rapidify through a couple other news items. The

Speaker 3 UVA president James Ryan also resigned. I guess the DOJ was looking into their DEI policies at UVA.
This seems like simultaneously to me

Speaker 3 absurd government intrusion and authoritarian creep and also

Speaker 3 kind of a weak need submission in the face of that.

Speaker 5 Certainly the first. I mean, really kind of amazing, right?

Speaker 5 If the policies are - there's no evidence the policies were unconstitutional at the time or were any different from 9,000 other institutions' policies.

Speaker 5 But if they were, they should have ⁇ I think they were willing to change them. They did change them.
They wanted a scalp. They got the president, who was near to finishing up his term anyway.

Speaker 5 My sense is that he didn't. But clearly, the board told him, was willing to pay that price.
I believe if the board had said, we're with you, you know, this is outrageous.

Speaker 5 We're the proud state of Virginia. Virginia, the origin of, you know, of the American Revolution and give us liberty and give us death and all this.

Speaker 5 We're not letting the federal government tell us who our president should be. But of course, they are letting the federal government tell them who their president should be.
And why?

Speaker 5 I believe it's partly because 14 of the 17 members, if I'm not mistaken, of the Board of Visitors of UVA are appointed by Glenn Yunken and the Republican governor of Virginia.

Speaker 5 And they all have to get along with Donald Trump because, you know, Young, if he gets lucky, maybe maybe he could be Donald Trump Jr.'s vice presidential candidate in 2028. Who knows?

Speaker 5 Maybe one of those guys on the board of visitors can get a cabinet position if one of the original ones gets sick of it. You know, I mean, it's really the degree.

Speaker 5 But it is seriously, I mean, it shows how deep the authoritarianism and the authoritarian corruption goes, right? And we're not Hungary. I mean, America, come on.
You can't take over.

Speaker 5 You can't intimidate the media. You can't take over universities.

Speaker 3 You don't hear much from your governor.

Speaker 3 Whatever happens, I don't know.

Speaker 5 We have a good gubernatorial campaign going, which hopefully Abigail Smanberger will win. I think she will.
And Mike Ashero will win in New Jersey.

Speaker 5 We'll have two good, moderate, hawkish, and competent Democratic governors in two pretty important states.

Speaker 3 Speak of hawkish, we had a little, you know, kind of tit-a-tat last week over Iran. Some new news on that front.

Speaker 3 United States obtained intercepted communications between senior Iranian officials discussing the strikes. Apparently, their remark was that the attack was less devastating than they had expected.

Speaker 3 Atomic weapons inspector in a separate story says that potentially they could be back online in months.

Speaker 3 Some of this stuff is like,

Speaker 3 how do you even determine it? It's like

Speaker 3 Intel people with agendas are leaking one way or the other.

Speaker 3 I don't know that we're getting the full picture. That said, I think one thing we do know is like

Speaker 3 And it wasn't the overwhelming victory that Donald Trump had said. And so if he wants to keep maintaining that line,

Speaker 3 that is going to create tensions both with reality and, I think, with Israel probably in the coming months. I don't know.
What do you make of all that? No, I agree.

Speaker 5 And especially with reality.

Speaker 5 I mean, his original statement, one reason I was a little accommodating to it, or is he said something, incidentally, if they try to rebuild it, we'll go back in and do this again, something like that.

Speaker 5 Remember, that was a very original statement. And so, okay, that's the right attitude to take.
Plus, we don't know if we got everything.

Speaker 5 So, you got to, as Adam Kinzinger said, I think yesterday, you know, fine, load the planes back up and go in three days later and do some more damage and maybe get a better damage assessment.

Speaker 5 That's not Trump's attitude. He wanted it to be one and done, great victory, peace in our time.

Speaker 5 He's now going towards a deal, it looks like, with Iran, that will be a betrayal of his hawkish supporters. And I mean, so, I don't know.
You could end up with the worst of all worlds, right?

Speaker 5 He's bombed. He's not going to bomb again.
The Iranians have taken the hit. The regime's in power.
No regime change.

Speaker 5 And, you know, they've set back some, I'm sure, but they'll reconstitute the nuclear program in secret and maybe with more.

Speaker 3 And meanwhile, Israel doesn't want the deal. Right.

Speaker 3 And they've got Mossad agents clearly inside Iran. And who knows?

Speaker 3 What else can we do?

Speaker 5 Maybe they can keep just blowing things up and keep on delaying it, which isn't the worst outcome, I suppose. But it just shows, again, how I'd say I thought there was a moment of

Speaker 5 minor hope, fleeting hope there for Trump as commander-in-chief, but he's really busy frittering away whatever

Speaker 3 possible good he did sorry I had to dash that for you

Speaker 3 we'll keep monitoring speaking of the Iranian regime still being in place there's another story that got in my craw this weekend that I just want to talk about with you for a second you've you were just talking about all these deportations at 7-Elevens this one is even worse this is happening in the New Orleans suburbs it's close to me An Iranian woman who's lived in the United States for 47 years and has no criminal record was detained by federal agents last Sunday.

Speaker 3 So she's now been in detention for over a week.

Speaker 3 As she was gardening outside of her home, Donna Kashanian, 64, was handcuffed and placed in the pack of a pickup truck by agents who arrived in three unmarked vehicles.

Speaker 3 She was transported to Mississippi, where she spent the night, now a week in, spent the night in jail, and then to the south, back to the South Louisiana ice processing center.

Speaker 3 This is very efficient, where she's been for the last week. She came to the United States in 78 on a student visa, applied for asylum, asylum, but her claim was denied.

Speaker 3 Federal officials granted her a reprieve to stay in the country, though, provided she followed the law and appeared at regular immigration appointments.

Speaker 3 Family members said she has never missed one of those appointments and never been accused of a crime. James Gunn

Speaker 3 is in New Orleans reporting on that.

Speaker 3 And this is just so insane. And it comes, I should put one other piece of context around this one and get your reply.
Why did this happen?

Speaker 3 Well, we don't actually have to guess because the DHS put out a press release that that was talking about all the Iranians that they nabbed

Speaker 3 after the bombings. So the ICE, I guess, decided because we were in this skirmish with Iran that

Speaker 3 it was the moment to go down their checklist of any people

Speaker 3 who they have who are Iranian and go find them and spoke them out.

Speaker 3 Again, it's like the Venezuela thing. Maybe there's a couple of bad Iranians on that list.
I don't know. I'm pretty sure that Donna Kashanian in Lakeview was not a supposedly perceived

Speaker 3 Iranian agent planning a counterattack in the country.

Speaker 3 But like that's

Speaker 3 she was purely targeted based on ethnicity and race and country of origin.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and I think the targeting is the interesting part. I mean, interesting is not the right word, but kind of

Speaker 5 the grotesque part, right? That they went out. It's not like sometimes they go to some place where there are a lot of people, some of whom weren't documented.
They pick up a lot of people.

Speaker 5 Some of them aren't there. They weren't undocumented.

Speaker 5 I still think it's stupid and bad to treat them the way they've been treated and to kick them out of the country if they're doing no harm, but at least, okay, it happens.

Speaker 5 Or if they pick up, they're going after an actual criminal and in the course of it, they pick up people he's hanging out with who are undocumented.

Speaker 5 They went, this take a lot of work to, they had to go, someone went through the whole computer, you know, Iranians who are, who are, why do we know that she's Iranian and that she's there?

Speaker 5 Because she's been reporting every year or month or whatever she's supposed to report, right? She's like diligently following the rules she was given.

Speaker 5 And now you're out, so Pam Bombi could put out a press release.

Speaker 3 And there was, right?

Speaker 5 Wasn't there a big thing about we're getting those Iranians here? You know, we've got 12 of them already deported because

Speaker 5 it's so it's really grotesque.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and we're going to deport her back to where? We literally just bombed Iran. Yeah.
So we're going to report deport her back to the Ayatollahs where she hasn't been in a half century.

Speaker 5 No, we'll send her to South Sudan or to Iran or Rwanda, some other place. And no, it is grotesque.
I mean, the degree of just,

Speaker 5 as I say, it's one thing to have a harsh and even cruel, I would say, immigration policy, but okay, it's a policy, I guess you'd say, and we can just debate it. But this is not even that.

Speaker 5 This is, for the sake of the press release, we're arresting a woman who's minding her own business and has lived here for almost 50 years, you say.

Speaker 3 So 47 years, she came in school.

Speaker 5 So Pam Bandi can strut around. I mean, DHS, it should all be defunded.
It should all be, oh, yeah, I'm sorry, Christina.

Speaker 3 That was bad.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that was. They're bad.
Pam Bondi's bad, too.

Speaker 3 Just

Speaker 5 Different departments.

Speaker 3 Family bowl strut, I think.

Speaker 5 Yeah. DHS really, I sort of had come around to defunding ICE about a month or two ago, but now I'm just on the defund DHS thing.
Would this country ultimately be safer if there were no DHS?

Speaker 5 Maybe there should be TSA. I don't know.
And are they part of DHS?

Speaker 3 They're pretty anti-TSA.

Speaker 3 But they're harm.

Speaker 5 I'd say they're mostly harmless. I mean, they're, you know, to me.

Speaker 3 Can we do just a quick aside? It's been 24 years since 9-11 and people are still taking off their shoes. It's a ridiculous system.

Speaker 5 You should invest in the, what's it called? The pre-check.

Speaker 3 You don't have to take off the shoes.

Speaker 3 I don't. I'm not taking off my shoes, but there are still people taking off their shoes.
And they've changed how much money did we spend? This was my doching.

Speaker 3 They've changed to the new scanners for the bags. And the system is worse.

Speaker 3 The system is worse now. Now they do the thing where they centralized it so your bag goes in and then someone's watching it.
But like sometimes your bag just sits in there now.

Speaker 3 And I'm getting fucking annoyed. And I'm like,

Speaker 3 how is the system less efficient than it was in 2003? Two years after 9-11. So, no,

Speaker 3 I could get rid of all of it.

Speaker 3 Tom Nichols said he was against DHS from the start.

Speaker 3 So he said it's a principled stand for him because something about efficiencies and any of the elements of DHS that they do could also be done alongside others.

Speaker 5 They existed, obviously, or many of them existed before DHS existed in different departments, you know, Treasury and Justice and other places.

Speaker 5 And there's, I think, remember at the time, this was a classic case. We began by talking about bipartisanship and all.
This was a wonderful bipartisan centrist thing.

Speaker 5 I think it was Lieberman and Collins, and I love Joe Lieberman and I respect Susan Collins. This was going to make it all better.
And sometimes all that bipartisan stuff doesn't work too well either.

Speaker 5 You know what I mean? It might have been better just to leave these agencies where they were. But anyway, DHS has become kind of, but the money that's going to DHS,

Speaker 5 it's going to become, it is, I mean, it sounds hysterical to even say it this way, but it is going to become virtually Trump's internal police force.

Speaker 5 And you put that together with the troops that he's mobilized, which you've all decided, I guess, is fine.

Speaker 5 They're still out in L.A.

Speaker 5 There hasn't been a riot in L.A.

Speaker 3 in two weeks, has there been? Since before the Iranian army. They're out, but they're

Speaker 3 the Marines.

Speaker 5 The National Guard and the Marines are out there. And they've laid the predicate very explicitly in Trump's memo and elsewhere to use the troops wherever else they want.

Speaker 5 And it's not only the Supreme Court, I can just get on that.

Speaker 5 Are they doing anything? I mean, the district courts have tried to do a few things. Supreme Court basically slapped them down last week.

Speaker 5 And so for all I know, maybe there's some case chugging its way legally through the court. Chief Justice Roberts is telling us all not to get too upset.

Speaker 5 You shouldn't shouldn't really criticize the judges. You know, they're really, it's just a sore loser if you criticize the judges.
Didn't Roberts say something like that on Saturday?

Speaker 5 I mean, another established Republican who's useless, if I could say. Anyway, the courts aren't going to save us.

Speaker 5 But it's bad. It's bad, the DHS.

Speaker 3 There's going to be more people in ICE detention than in the federal prison system if this thing all goes, if all they get all of their plans. Like, that's how big their plans are.

Speaker 3 I'm glad you mentioned the military in the streets. I'm now tweeting just basically once a day.
It's like, are there still military in Los Angeles? Like, why?

Speaker 3 Why?

Speaker 3 They don't even offer a stated rationale, and everybody just kind of has moved on. It's not on the news.

Speaker 5 My friend Tom Jocelyn, with whom I did a very good, if I could say, podcast yesterday, people might watch it at the Bulwark on Sunday.

Speaker 5 Very, very good forest, not trees kind of look at the progress of Trump's authoritarian agenda over the eight months since he was elected.

Speaker 5 It's pretty scary when you step back and look at everything that's happening. On the troops thing, that's an important part of it, you know, normalizing that, getting people used to it.

Speaker 5 So when there is a riot somewhere or some real disturbance somewhere, suddenly there's not 4,000, there's 24,000, you know, and it's not just National Guard, it's Marines and so forth. So

Speaker 10 she's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time.

Speaker 6 Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolar, Omalizumab.

Speaker 12 It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

Speaker 16 Zolar 150 milligrams is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods.

Speaker 19 While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic.

Speaker 21 Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair.

Speaker 22 Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis.

Speaker 23 Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis.

Speaker 25 Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue.

Speaker 26 Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis.

Speaker 29 Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens.

Speaker 25 Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heartened circulation problems have been reported.

Speaker 28 Please see Zolair.com for full prescribing information.

Speaker 32 Ask an allergist about Zolair.

Speaker 33 This is an advertisement for Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

Speaker 7 There's nothing like sinking into luxury. Anibay sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

Speaker 7 Anibay has designed the only fully machine washable sofa from top to bottom. The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Speaker 7 Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Speaker 7 Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anabae has you covered. Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your home.

Speaker 7 Sofas started just $699 and right now, get early access to Black Friday savings up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Speaker 3 Add a little

Speaker 7 to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 3 Just one more thing on the Iranian woman because I was just thinking about this.

Speaker 3 The idea that I can understand why

Speaker 3 you know people on the national side would be like, well, you know, it's like, whatever. She didn't didn't follow the rules.

Speaker 3 It's like, this is just how things have worked throughout the whole country. I was thinking about this.

Speaker 3 I was looking at the woman. It made me think about my mother's grandmother.
So my great-grandmother on the maternal side, Taiti, she came from Lebanon.

Speaker 3 Her husband was probably in an arranged marriage situation or something, something at least in that ballpark, was older. My great-grandfather came over, got a job, worked, brought Titi over.

Speaker 3 They had seven kids, you know, grew up here. Three of them, at least three, served in World War II.
I was reading the diaries of one of my great uncles, who I wrote diaries about his time.

Speaker 3 He was in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

Speaker 3 So I was reading the diaries of that day and like the following days that he was writing at the time of the letters he was writing home to my great-grandmother.

Speaker 3 But it's like, she didn't really learn English that well, and her English was poor. Did they really follow the American laws?

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, and it's, it was like the early 1900s, like the rules were very different back then right and um you know similarly to this woman it's like would you say that she's illegal you know because when you bring this up sometimes people are like well they broke the law to come into this country but she really didn't she came as a student now we're now i'm talking about this this donna kashanian woman in new orleans she came as a student and then applied for asylum, didn't get it, but then they said she could stay, right?

Speaker 3 So it's not like she came across the Rio Grande, right? So similar situation. And I just, I'm thinking to myself, like,

Speaker 3 imagine my great-grandmother being 65, like in the St. Louis suburbs, and like gardening outside the home.

Speaker 3 And I'm thinking about like my mother and my uncles and aunts and like them being kids and like having her be snatched and like handcuffed and put into the back of a truck and then had a bunch of people being like, well, she never learned the language, wasn't really an American.

Speaker 3 And it's like, no, that is how the whole country has happened.

Speaker 3 Like people like this coming to the country, having, you know, my great-grandmother had kids, served in the military she had grandkids who are doctors and like members of their you know community upstate members of the community now here i am blabbing my fucking mouth on a podcast like that's like how shit works in this country and the idea that we're gonna start like taking these these people like like she is not any less of an american than stephen miller in any meaningful way, right?

Speaker 3 Like the whole thing is just,

Speaker 3 it feels very against the American tradition. And I just think it's important that everybody talks about it because you start to see

Speaker 3 this conventional wisdom that came in that like this isn't, it's not good to talk about immigration. That's a good winner for Trump.

Speaker 3 I just reject it because everybody has a story like this, you know?

Speaker 5 I mean, nativism is sadly part of the American tradition too, both in the 1920s, obviously, and in the 1850s, Lincoln was really appalled by it when he saw it with the Germans.

Speaker 5 His great speech in Cincinnati about the prejudice against those who were grand.

Speaker 5 And he famously has that statement about some people are the grandchildren, he says, great-grandchildren, of people who fought in the American Revolution. Some people's parents just came over.

Speaker 5 We're all equally Americans, you know. And no one seems to quite have the nerve, well, not no one, but people should say that more often today.
I couldn't agree more. And the nativism is ugly.

Speaker 5 You know, I used to think, well, it's kind of...

Speaker 5 kind of an unfortunate and weird episodes in American history, but I could see people who were a little freaked out, too many people speaking Italian and too many Irish guys in bars and too many Germans reading German language newspapers and all this kind of thing But actually it's always been uglier than that and it really you see the ugliness now I guess this is why I brought up Titi because of her not lack of English speaking which is not to nag her that that's like a common complaint right of the nativist crowd right oh they're speaking they're reading the German newspapers they're not assimilating like this is just like

Speaker 3 This has happened for 300 years now where this happens, where like they do assimilate.

Speaker 3 Donna has children that, you know, that were doing these interviews, that are, that are, that live in New Orleans, that I contribute to the community, right? Like that's just how things work.

Speaker 5 When I was a little kid, my grandmother, after my grandfather died, moved in with us in our apartment. I guess maybe I was junior high in high school at that point, high school probably.

Speaker 5 And on my way home, I would stop at the newsstand to buy her the Yiddish newspaper, which came out in the afternoon. So like you couldn't, and maybe you couldn't even get it delivered.

Speaker 5 It was already dwindling away in Yiddish.

Speaker 5 You know, I kind of used to enjoy reading a few words that I could, it's written in Hebrew, which I kind of knew enough to read, but the words are Yiddish, which is really more like German.

Speaker 5 So it's just kind of a weird thing. Anyway, it's kind of interesting to me as a ninth grader to try to read three sentences.
But so I used to buy it, come home with this.

Speaker 5 And so she was, she had been here for 40, 50 years. Her son-in-law, my father, had fought in World War II.

Speaker 5 Her daughter was a professor of history. And I was buying her the Yiddish language paper.
Was that so terrible?

Speaker 3 Well, thank God Christy Noam wasn't around back then. You would have been shackled and then thrown into the back of a truck.
English only.

Speaker 10 She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time.

Speaker 6 Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zoler, Omalizumab.

Speaker 12 It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

Speaker 16 Zoler 150 milligrams is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods.

Speaker 19 While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic.

Speaker 21 Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair.

Speaker 22 Zolair may may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis.

Speaker 23 Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis.

Speaker 24 Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue.

Speaker 26 Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis.

Speaker 29 Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens.

Speaker 25 Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches, and rash, parasitic infection, or heartened circulation problems have been reported.

Speaker 8 Please see Zolair.com for full prescribing information.

Speaker 32 Ask an allergist about Zolair.

Speaker 33 This is an advertisement for Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

Speaker 7 Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Anibay. Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.

Speaker 7 That's right, sofas start at just $699.

Speaker 7 Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabric.

Speaker 7 Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

Speaker 7 Shop washable sofas.com for early Black Friday savings up to 60% off site-wide, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.

Speaker 7 No return shipping or restocking fees, every penny back. Upgrade now at washable sofas.com.
Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 3 All right, last thing. I'm going to give people some dessert.

Speaker 3 Is this dessert or not? I don't know. You can decide for yourself.
I suffered through Ross Douth at this interview with Peter Thiel because I'm a sick person.

Speaker 3 And there's one clip that's been going around. And in case you guys haven't had this,

Speaker 3 just the experience of being able to listen to this moment, I want to share it with all of you. You would prefer the human race to endure, right?

Speaker 34 You're hesitant. Well, I.
Yes. I don't know.
I would

Speaker 34 say

Speaker 34 there's so many questions in place. Should the human race survive?

Speaker 34 Yes.

Speaker 3 Some really hard-hitting journalism from Ross Doubt here there.

Speaker 3 Ross gets some tough, gets some slings and arrows around these parts, but he's asking the tough questions, do you want the human race to endure, Peter Thial?

Speaker 3 It seems like basically the answer is no, but he doesn't want to say it. So he comes around to yes after 30 seconds.
This is the man that set the vice president in place.

Speaker 3 And it's a little concerning. You and Peter used to hang out.
It's a little concerning the level of influence that these people have.

Speaker 5 Totally. I mean, he's a very smart guy who I 20 years ago thought was an interesting person, eccentric, and his views were clearly a little off the deep end.

Speaker 5 But, you know, interesting guy to have to discuss texts of political philosophy with because he was perceptive and willing to be contrarian, to say the least. People like that.

Speaker 5 It should be a good lesson that, you know, what's interesting, sort of interesting intellectually, maybe not kind of interesting as I thought, honestly, but can be very unhealthy politically.

Speaker 5 And I guess I never, I didn't have anything to do with his success. Obviously, he was already had made zillions of dollars by the time I met him.
But I guess I should have seen.

Speaker 5 I guess he had some political ambitions at the time, but he was like, he was writing checks to the Ron Paul campaign in 2008. It was just kind of quirky, you know, and silly.
But here we are, right?

Speaker 5 I mean, it is the true extremism. I think think the only thing I would say is the true extremism, this is a point Jocelyn made very well.
The movement is really extreme.

Speaker 5 Trump is a ridiculous con man who doesn't understand a word that Peter Thiel has ever said about any of this and doesn't care and is in it for himself and the grift and a little old-fashioned bigotry and so forth.

Speaker 5 But we should not underestimate the true extremism of the authoritarian movement. And Trump is on board with it.
Trump is right, in his own way, is what's the expression, riding that tiger.

Speaker 5 And this is Tom's point. He can't get off.
The idea that he can just say at some point, this just got a little far. I mean, he's tried to say it once or twice.

Speaker 5 Why are we deporting the guys my hotel friends say is useful to keep the hotels going? And then Miller says this and the movement says this and suddenly Trump, yeah, I guess we have to do that.

Speaker 5 The degree of authoritarianism we can get with a buffoon like Trump as its as leader of that authoritarian movement or the nominal leader, I guess I've slightly underestimated that.

Speaker 5 I've always thought that would be a bit of a check on the extremism. Maybe it's a bit of a check, but it sure isn't much much of one.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I agree with all of that. And I'll just say for the listeners, if that little morsel wasn't enough and you want the full meal,

Speaker 3 there is also like a five-minute discussion of who the Antichrist is on that podcast. And Peter Thiel suggests it might be Greta Thunberg or a Greta Thunberg-like figure could be the Antichrist.

Speaker 3 So anyway, if that's the problem.

Speaker 5 But Peter and Ross agree there is such a person around. It's just a question of identifying the right person.

Speaker 3 I think they both agree that the Antichrist is out there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I was like peter suggested might be greta thoenberg and then they he goes on a weird tangent and i was like man that was strange and then like four minutes later ross is like i want to circle back to the antichrist question

Speaker 3 it's quite the podcast i'd encourage you guys to listen um lastly my only other thing is and it relates to the ai stuff i agree with all of you on the like the near-term acute authoritarian danger I'm just now increasingly starting to monitor the monitor though the medium-term like tech oligarch fascist authoritarian danger.

Speaker 3 Like the degree to which they do not care about humans. Like that is a funny quote, but it is an anti-human movement.

Speaker 3 A lot of these guys really do think that we're going to go into the singularity or that we're going to like our, whatever, our head is going to, like, we're going to be mutant figures.

Speaker 3 Like they really do think that that is coming. And

Speaker 3 it is, it's a, it's an alarming ideology. And tying it back to the thing I mentioned earlier, like that they have inserted themselves so deeply into this.
this

Speaker 3 like really like there's no actual necessary overlap between the nativists and like but like the nativists and the more traditional mega culture war element is a much more potent force and that they have kind of like inserted themselves into it with this anti-human ideology and that they are going to now you know make sure that dr strange love out in silicon valley can do whatever he wants without any oversight

Speaker 3 i'll leave people with that alarming thought so i don't know if you have any thoughts.

Speaker 5 I think it's a very important point. You know, that's why a guy named Mike Brock has this very recent.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, Mike Brock is.

Speaker 5 That's good. So I've spoken to him once or twice.
I don't really know him. And his most recent one is very interesting.
He says, exactly your point. And then he says,

Speaker 5 what they don't understand, the plutocrats and the AI types, is they're going to get eaten up ultimately by the pitchfork-wielding populace. And that's how it works often.

Speaker 5 It is sometimes how it works, but I guess I'm slightly on the other side of that, which is, I don't know, these guys are powerful, the AI plutocrats.

Speaker 5 And can't they just continue to manipulate manipulate and exploit the foolish, you know, bigoted nativists?

Speaker 5 I mean, either way is a bad outcome, whichever one is exploiting the other, or they just stay in a kind of tension, slight tension, but they agree that what they

Speaker 5 agree about what they hate,

Speaker 5 what they have in common in terms of their hatreds.

Speaker 3 But I agree.

Speaker 5 I'm a little freaked out by the AI plutocrat side of it.

Speaker 3 And that's a real, and they are, it's a very good point you make.

Speaker 5 They are, it is kind of anti-human.

Speaker 3 All right, everybody. Man Bill Crystal in person.
When we get in person, it gets really dark. Everybody else, we'll see you back here.
I got a fun podcast tomorrow.

Speaker 3 Might have to be a double header because we're going to do

Speaker 3 a little bit of something offbeat. But then I guess we're also going to talk about the news.
So we'll do a little bit of both. We'll see you all back here then.
Peace.

Speaker 3 When the call came down the line

Speaker 3 up to the platform of surrender.

Speaker 3 I was broad, but I was kind.

Speaker 3 And sometimes I get nervous when I see an open door.

Speaker 3 Close your eyes, clear your heart.

Speaker 3 Cut the cord.

Speaker 3 Are we human

Speaker 3 or are we dancer?

Speaker 3 My sign is vital.

Speaker 3 My hands are cold.

Speaker 3 And I'm on my knees.

Speaker 3 looking for the answer.

Speaker 3 Are we human

Speaker 3 or are we dancing?

Speaker 3 Pay my respects to grace and virtue.

Speaker 3 Send my condolences to good.

Speaker 3 Here my regards to soul and romance.

Speaker 3 They always did the best they could.

Speaker 3 And so long to devotion,

Speaker 3 you taught me everything I know.

Speaker 3 Wait, if I

Speaker 3 wish me well,

Speaker 3 you gotta let me know.

Speaker 3 Are we human

Speaker 3 or are we dancing?

Speaker 3 My sign is vital,

Speaker 3 my hands are cold,

Speaker 3 and I'm on my knees,

Speaker 3 looking for the answer.

Speaker 3 Are we human

Speaker 3 or are we dancing?

Speaker 3 The Bullworth Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

Speaker 35 She'd throw things, wander, and started hoarding.

Speaker 35 Mom's Alzheimer's was already so hard, but then we found out she had something called agitation that may happen with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. And that was a different kind of difficulty.

Speaker 35 So we asked her doctor for more help.

Speaker 1 Seeing symptoms like these in a loved one, it could be time to ask their doctor about Rexulti, Rexpiprazole 2 milligrams, the only FDA-approved treatment proven to reduce the symptoms of this condition.

Speaker 1 Rexulte should not be used as an as-needed treatment.

Speaker 1 Elderly people with dementia-related psychosis have increased risk of death or stroke, report fever, stiff muscles, and confusion, which can be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent.

Speaker 1 High blood sugar can lead to coma or death. Weight gain, increased cholesterol, unusual urges, dizziness on standing, falls, seizures, trouble swallowing, or sleepiness may occur.

Speaker 1 Learn more about these and other side effects at Rexulte.com.

Speaker 2 Tap Ad for PI.

Speaker 35 I'm glad her doctor recommended Rick Sulti.

Speaker 1 Talk to your loved one's doctor. Moments matter.

Speaker 2 Master distiller Jimmy Russell knew Wild Turkey Bourbon got it right the first time. So for over 70 years, he hasn't changed a damn thing.

Speaker 2 Our pre-prohibition style bourbons are aged longer and never watered down. So you know it's right too.

Speaker 2 For whatever you do with it, Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon makes an old fashioned or bold fashion for bold nights out or at home.

Speaker 2 Wild Turkey bourbon, aged longer, never watered down to create one bold flavor. Copyright 2025 Capari America, New York, New York, never compromised, drink responsibly.

Speaker 26 What does Zinn really give you?

Speaker 36 Not just smoke-free nicotine satisfaction, but also real freedom to do more of what you love, when and where you want to do it. Why bring Zinn along for the ride?

Speaker 36 Because America's number one nicotine pouch opens up all the possibilities of right now.

Speaker 25 With Zinn, you don't just find freedom, you keep finding it.

Speaker 3 Find your Zen.

Speaker 36 Learn more at Zinn.com.

Speaker 36 Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Speaker 5 Nicotine is an addictive chemical.