Bill Kristol: Pure Oligarchic Greed

Speaker 1 Noticed unwanted facial volume loss after GLP-1 weight loss? The weight came off, but volume loss and dull, sagging skin are making you look older.

Speaker 1 Now you can reclaim your youthful-looking appearance. Learn more at faceafterweightloss.com.

Speaker 2 That's faceafterweightloss.com.

Speaker 1 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 1 Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Speaker 1 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 1 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 1 Get early access to Black Friday pricing right now. Sofas started just $699.

Speaker 1 Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washable sofas.com.
Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
It's Monday, so I've got Bill Crystal, of course, but a little bit of housekeeping first.

Speaker 2 After Bill's righteous rant about the Trump donors, I'm going to have a little monologue about white rural rage.

Speaker 2 You may have suffered through the social media discourse about our recent guests and their book on this topic. And so I've got some additional thoughts, so make sure to stick around for that.

Speaker 2 We have an update for the big mailbag fans out there. And by the way, if you want to send in a mailbag question, you send it to BulwarkPodcast at thebulwark.com.

Speaker 2 But our very first mailbag was Cindy, who was thinking about moving to Doer County because she wanted to make a difference. And Door County is a 50-50 county in Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 She had some ancestors that lived there, and she's going to move there for six months to volunteer. She reached out to the Wisconsin Democrats, and she's doing it.
Cindy's moving to Door County.

Speaker 2 And so amazing. We're so happy for you, Cindy.
And if you're in Wisconsin, if you're in Green Bay or somewhere in that region.

Speaker 2 Put a comment in here and we'll put everybody in touch and make sure she gets a warm welcome there. One more thing.
We have two events coming up. We have May 1st, our first trip to Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 What's up, City of Brotherly Love? We will be in you May 1st, May 15th. We'll be back in DC at 6 and I with George Conway.
You may have heard of him.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to get Claudia in the building, but I haven't heard yet whether she's going to be able to make it. So go to the bulwark.com slash events to get tickets for both of those events.

Speaker 2 Bulwark.com slash events. All right, this afternoon, we're eclipsing.
We won't have another total solar eclipse in the contiguous 48 until 2044.

Speaker 2 That's assuming that God does not punish us with another one, as Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested, was happening this time. So, Bill, do you have some eclipse glasses?

Speaker 2 Do you feel like God is judging your actions? And that is why we're going to have this historic event this afternoon.

Speaker 3 You know, I'm not really as into the eclipse either way as a lot of people are. I've never, as I said to Susan the other day, I've never really been that interested in the heavenly bodies.

Speaker 3 And I'm sure that's a failure on my part, a lack of scientific curiosity or something but i anyway i hope some people enjoy it that's it you're man that cares about what's happening here on earth feet on the ground do you also not like movies about kind of like what's happening out in outer space i mean like everyone in my age i saw star wars when it came out and all that but no i've never been much of a science never been a science fiction person so i think there isn't the conventional view that there are two kinds of people for kind of casual relaxing reading this was maybe true 50 years ago not today mystery readers and science fiction readers And I do think there's something true to that.

Speaker 3 And I like mysteries, you know, like actual things set here in England or America or anywhere, and in which, you know, detectives solve crimes and it's semi-realistic at least.

Speaker 3 And science fiction, I don't know, but I don't, not being judgmental here.

Speaker 3 There's a lot of great science fiction.

Speaker 2 You're not making fun. You're not begrudging.
It's another bulwark divide. I'm more on your side of this.
We do have a couple of nerds.

Speaker 2 I believe at least Jim Swift and Andrew Egger have traveled to prime eclipse locations, which, you know, God love you. Whatever brings you joy.
It's an interesting travel choice, though.

Speaker 2 All right, we've got a lot of business with Mr. Trump.
You wrote in the newsletter this morning, really a strong newsletter, if I might add, about

Speaker 2 Donald Trump's comments with some rich donors. You can't believe a fucking word out of their mouth.

Speaker 2 I'm a little frustrated by the media just blindly repeating that Donald Trump's saying that he raised 50 million in South Florida today. Like, let's see the numbers.

Speaker 2 All right, first, before we just believe whatever this person says. But here is a quote that Maggie Haberman had had from inside the fundraiser.

Speaker 2 Trump, he was recounting the shithole countries discussion, which he claimed was fake news back when it happened.

Speaker 2 But now he's admitting that it actually happened and he's reflecting on that controversy. I said,

Speaker 2 why can't we allow people to come in from nice countries? I'm trying to be nice. Nice countries, like Denmark, Switzerland.
Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland?

Speaker 2 How about Norway? And, you know, they took that as a very terrible comment, but I felt it was fine. Bill,

Speaker 2 what were your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think Maggie and Michael Golder, co-author, also report, and this is based on an attendee who told them about this, who I take it is a Trump donor, right?

Speaker 3 You have to pledge $800,000 to the Trump Victory Fund and the RNC and that whole medley to get in.

Speaker 3 So presumably, this is a Trump donor kind of cheerfully recounting this wonderful evening at Paulson's house in Palm Beach. And

Speaker 3 they chuckled, according to the

Speaker 3 attendee. So they chuckled at this denigration of immigrants and Trump reveling in his denigration of immigrants, if they're not from the Nordic countries, the Aryan countries.

Speaker 3 I did two medicine research yesterday when I was struck by the piece in the New York Times, which people should read, really.

Speaker 3 You know, this is such a big deal back in the 19 teens and 20s in America, right?

Speaker 3 This eleventh, the Nordic race, you know, the race, we're losing the race, the purity of our race, and led to very, very bad results in the real world.

Speaker 3 And Hitler loves some of it, incidentally, not to go right to Hitler, but why not? That's a true fact, you know. Anyway, yeah, so these people all chuckled at it.

Speaker 3 These donors, of course, I look quickly at the list that is available, I think, of the, it was like the sponsors or something, the original hosts who signed up.

Speaker 3 They do not all have names that make one think that they are from, they are sons and daughters of the American Revolution or Nordic or...

Speaker 3 or Teutonic or Aryan.

Speaker 2 There's the usual medley. Or Native American, for that matter.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but there's the usual medley of American names, which is good. I mean, right? It's America provides opportunities for wealth and success.

Speaker 2 It's concerning, actually, that there is a normal medley of Americans that are donating to Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 I'm sure it's slightly disproportionately, you know, on the Teutonic side, so to speak, and the Nordic and Aryan side.

Speaker 3 But so I looked up John Paulson, who I don't know at all, the hedge fund billionaire who's the host.

Speaker 3 And it turns out, I had no knowledge of this, that his father's from Ecuador, and his mother is the daughter of East European Jewish immigrants.

Speaker 3 And they met at UCLA, you know, a state institution of public higher education, which I'm sure everyone in that room thinks should be defunded because A, why is the state wasting money on educating poor kids?

Speaker 3 And B, you know, it's probably woke or something. So you'd think someone in that room would have thought, you know, this isn't, I'm like my parents or my grandparents.

Speaker 3 These are the people Trump not only wants to keep out, but just has contempt and scorn for. But there seems to have been no such reaction.

Speaker 2 No. And sometimes I feel a little awkward when getting this earnest and high-minded, but it just is, it is true.
It is what it is.

Speaker 2 You wrote this, you ended the newsletter today with political leaders once tried to urge the wealthy to look beyond their immediate comfort, to act for the greater good, not pull the ladder of opportunity and advancement up after them.

Speaker 2 And the more responsible of this group themselves criticized the inevitable temptation to wallow in the smug self-regard and indulge in fanciful grievances, not in Donald Trump's America.

Speaker 2 This is like right. And obviously, there were conservative politicians time immemorial that said that we should cut taxes and that people should be rewarded for their success.

Speaker 2 And we can have debates over that. But there is a category difference between that and between

Speaker 2 denigrating people based on their race, between celebrating people only because of their financial success, which is another element of what is happening at this.

Speaker 2 Donald Trump just lavishing praise on these people and focusing only on what the government can do to make their lives

Speaker 2 even easier.

Speaker 3 Yeah, wealth is success, according to Trump, and it's all about success. And there's not even the obligatory nod that used to happen, maybe slightly obligatory to the scientists and the artists.

Speaker 2 I'll take a disingenuous obligatory nod. Can you at least give me that?

Speaker 2 Somebody messaged me this, and they're like, Tim, you missed that sometimes these rich people were grin fucking you and then screwing you behind your back. And I'm like, I'll take that, actually.

Speaker 2 I'll take it. You know, just give me some obligatory nobles oblige.

Speaker 3 Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, that you want that hypocrisy of, you know what, we also respect the scientists and the artists and the do-gooders and the philanthropists and the people who've made wonderful discoveries that have helped mankind.

Speaker 3 But there's not even the pretense. I mean, there's not even, as you say, a nod to that anymore.

Speaker 3 Nor is there a nod to America as a nation of immigrants, which, again, is something people said, and then they went ahead with whatever policies they wanted to go ahead with to some degree.

Speaker 3 So I do think that's important, though. You know, the obligatory nods signify something.

Speaker 3 They signify a certain deference to a kind of liberal democratic norms and history and probably limit, therefore, the scope of the pure oligarchic greed.

Speaker 3 And in particular, the scope of of the authoritarianism.

Speaker 3 I mean, for me, that's what's so striking about Trump and all these huge donors who've done so well in America, so well over the last 30 years, under the horrors of the Obama administration and the Clinton administration and all those rhino Republicans running everything.

Speaker 3 Those people have suffered. John Paulson has suffered so much and all those other

Speaker 3 people writing checks for a million dollars. They've suffered so much in America that they just have to embrace this authoritarian.
And it's too earnest. I mean, I get too worked up about this.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, no. I'm earnest.
This is my other two thoughts. It's not earnest because fuck these people.

Speaker 2 And it's like, I have a practical and an ideological thought one more while we're getting ourselves riled up. On a practical matter, I also just think that they're making a bad choice here.

Speaker 2 It's like the economy is not going that great in Hungary. And I think that just risking completely breaking down the American institutions and taking a...

Speaker 2 a flamethrower to them in the form of Donald Trump's second term might not turn out as well as they think. Just as a practical matter for rich people who are listening.

Speaker 2 The other thing I just think is worth mentioning is, you know, sometimes people of our ill look at the progressives who want to say, talk about everything being white nationalism, this white nationalism, this thing.

Speaker 2 Maybe they're overstating it. Maybe there's a little bit too much talk of this, white nationalism.
Maybe sometimes they're exaggerating. And certainly in cases, there's exaggeration.

Speaker 2 But I mean, a statement that we should only bring in people from Denmark and Switzerland in a room full of rich people.

Speaker 2 is kind of literally white nationalism, you know, and so a lot of times you get the pearl clutching over the use of this term.

Speaker 2 And like that is what's, you know, the explicit argument that Donald Trump is making, that this is a country we should protect America first, and we should only bring in white people.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's his explicit argument.

Speaker 3 And well received, apparently, by all these dozens of super wealthy donors who've done so well in America.

Speaker 2 Good stuff. That's uplifting.
One other thing my note here is rich people suck. This was

Speaker 2 rich Trump donors suck. Rich Trump donors suck maybe is what I should have written.
Okay, the other thing. Can I just add one thing?

Speaker 3 I mean, rich Biden donors are a mixed bag. I'll stipulate that too.
And I wasn't a big fan of the Radio City musical, you know, glitzy thing.

Speaker 3 And I got it criticized by some people for saying I didn't think that was a brilliant political move by the Biden campaign.

Speaker 3 Maybe they could have raised the money a little more quietly and not been so boast so much. We raised so much in such a public way and all.

Speaker 2 Podcast associated with that.

Speaker 3 There's a little too much courting of donors, even on the left. Having said that, at least the limousine liberals do have the sense that they're supposed to be dedicated to something bigger.

Speaker 3 And maybe sometimes they aren't, and they're selfish and hypocritical. But it is, as you said earlier, it's kind of a category difference, I think, to some of these Trump donors, right? I mean,

Speaker 3 they are trying to do well, but realizing they live in a broader democracy and they have some obligations.

Speaker 3 And when Biden says, I'm going to raise your taxes, they at least pretend to go along, even if they're quietly hiring some lobbyists to work on the Hill to prevent the taxes from going up.

Speaker 3 The Trump donors, it's all just, hey, I cut your Trump says to them, this is quoted in the piece in the Times, I cut your taxes.

Speaker 3 And give me some guidance on which kind of tax cut, further tax cut would be more helpful.

Speaker 3 I couldn't quite follow the Times' little abbreviated account, but he wants to just help them as much as he can. There's not even a pretense of this is for the greater good.

Speaker 2 Indeed. One other thing from Trump from this comment: the Resolute Desk is beautiful, Mr.
Trump said. Ronald Reagan used it, others used it, and Biden's using it.
I might not use it next time.

Speaker 2 It's been soiled, and I mean that literally, which is sad.

Speaker 2 Again, like in the last week, Donald Trump has accused Joe Biden of using cocaine and of crapping, like literally pooping on the, on the Resolute desk.

Speaker 2 I don't know what I really want the media to do in this sort of situation, but we go through these cycles of where we had to spend three days, you know, rending our garments over whether Donald Trump literally meant bloodbath or figuratively meant it or whether he's talking about the auto industry or whatever.

Speaker 2 And yet Donald Trump just gets away with this stuff.

Speaker 2 Like donald trump can just go out there and be like joe biden is on cocaine and wears diapers and it's like okay well there's no there's no expectation that mike johnson and mitch mcconnell you know speak out and say no actually we're working with joe biden right now and bipartisan legislation and you know he's a decent person we disagree on policy he's not pooping himself right like there's no expectation that that happens there's no expectation that that conservative commentators do the right thing.

Speaker 2 Like this imbalance is just a continued frustration of mine that I feel like is just Barron's mentioning. I don't want to contribute to the problem by not bringing it up.

Speaker 2 Like the media doesn't bring this stuff up.

Speaker 3 Totally agree. And I would just say the media would bring it up if Republicans criticized it.
That becomes the story.

Speaker 3 And the media should bring it up anyway, but it's a little harder for them, just on their own, so to speak,

Speaker 3 freestanding, to sort of go crazy about this or not just crazy, but even make any kind of big deal about it. But you're right.

Speaker 3 There was once a time, and there should be a time, and it really is important for the health of the country that the party be a party and say, well, in this case, we think our presidential nominee has gone too far.

Speaker 3 And the last time that happened was, what day was that, October 7th, 2016, when they rebelled against the excess Hollywood tape for about 24 hours.

Speaker 3 And once that subsided, I don't know, they've just gone along and gone along increasingly cheerfully and unhesitatingly, I would say.

Speaker 4 Master distiller Jimmy Russell knew Wild Turkey bourbon got it right the first time.

Speaker 6 Kentucky born with 100 years of know-how.

Speaker 7 Our pre-prohibition style bourbons are aged longer and never watered down.

Speaker 9 So you know it's right too, for whatever you do with it.

Speaker 8 Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon makes an old fashioned or bold fashion for bold nights out or at home.

Speaker 11 Wild Turkey Bourbon, aged longer, never watered down to create one bold flavor.

Speaker 13 Copyright 2025 Party America, New York, New York, never compromised, drink responsibly.

Speaker 1 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 1 Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Speaker 1 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 1 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 1 Get early access to Black Friday pricing right now. Sofas started just $699.

Speaker 1 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 4 Master distiller Jimmy Russell knew wild turkey bourbon got it right the first time. Mellowed an American oak with the darkest char.

Speaker 9 Our pre-prohibition style bourbons are aged longer and never watered down. So you know it's right too, for whatever you do with it.

Speaker 8 Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon makes an old-fashioned or bold fashion for bold nights out or at home.

Speaker 11 Wild Turkey Bourbon, aged longer, never watered down to create one bold flavor.

Speaker 6 Copyright 2025 of Party America, New York, New York, never compromised, drink responsibly.

Speaker 1 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 1 That's right, sofas start at just $699.

Speaker 1 Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabric.

Speaker 1 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 1 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 1 No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back.
Upgrade now at washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 2 We have some other news this morning. Donald Trump has released his position on abortion for now.
Let's take a listen to a clip of it.

Speaker 14 The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land.
In this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different.

Speaker 14 Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others. And that's what they will be.
At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.

Speaker 2 Just as

Speaker 2 somebody that had to write papers in college, it's impossible to diagram that sentence. There's just

Speaker 2 a lot of nonsense, a gobbly gook there. Politically speaking, Bill, what do you think about where Donald Trump has landed on this?

Speaker 2 He's going to say, just whatever the states think, whatever y'all want to do is fine with me.

Speaker 2 Please don't blame me for anything you don't like when it comes to abortion, seems like the stance he wants to take.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that overturning road stuff I was so proud of. Well, that's actually just throwing it back to the states.

Speaker 3 And if you live in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Arizona, you've got abortion rights protected in law to some considerable degree. And right now you have governors who will protect it.

Speaker 3 And so

Speaker 3 don't not vote for me because you fear a national abortion ban. So I think in some short-term tactical way, it's probably a reasonably clever move.

Speaker 3 And do we think any actual pro-life leaders are going to, I mean, there'll be some carping at Trump today, but are they actually going to jump ship? I know, what do you think, Tim?

Speaker 2 I'm not sure there'll be any carping. I saw Matt Schlapp of CPAC just off having to have his insurance pay out a big number after a sexual assault accusation.

Speaker 2 He tweeted out that they've polled people at CPAC and that this is a popular position at CPAC. And so I don't even know how much carping there's going to be.

Speaker 2 I worry that it could be effective. I do.
I keep looking back to the midterms.

Speaker 2 And I think that clearly the two big things that helped Democrats were democracy, concerns about threats to democracy, and abortion rights, right?

Speaker 2 And if you just look at the places where the Democrats did well, if there were legitimate concerns about abortion rights, and if the Republican candidates were MAGA extremists who wanted to overturn the election, the Democrats tend to do well.

Speaker 2 If there were states where the Republican candidates were at least in the ballpark of normal and where the voters felt like their abortion rights were relatively secure, California, New York, the Republicans did well.

Speaker 2 Florida, I guess, would be the one counterexample to this trend. But besides Florida, that was pretty much the trend.

Speaker 2 And so I do worry that, you know, there's some practical set of voters that doesn't want to lose abortion rights or does not want the Tennessee zero-week abortion ban, but who prefers Donald Trump for whatever reason on other issues and might choose to vote for them if they feel like abortion rights are safe because they live in Wisconsin, whatever, and their governor is a Democrat.

Speaker 2 How many people is that? I don't know, but it's not zero. And I think it's going to be incumbent on the Democrats to really focus a campaign to message to those people about what the threats are.

Speaker 3 Aaron Powell, no, I think it is his licer cunning kind of understands.

Speaker 3 He's always understood that abortion was a problematic issue for him, and he's always tried to have a little distance from the most fervent pro-life parts of the party.

Speaker 3 He certainly has gotten a little further in that direction here based on the 2022 results.

Speaker 3 For all that, he's kind of a lunatic and kind of doesn't want to listen to reality and kind of lives in his own bubble and so forth and drinks his own Kool-Aid.

Speaker 3 And I guess, you know, he's not impervious to a a certain kind of electoral reality and hearing voters.

Speaker 2 Well, he doesn't care about this. He doesn't care at all.
And he's impervious. He's in his own bubble on things that he cares about, his own ego,

Speaker 2 the fact that he won, his narcissism. He doesn't actually care about abortion.

Speaker 2 Him not actually caring about abortion rights doesn't mean that the threat to abortion rights isn't real. And that's kind of the conundrum that Democrats face in making that case to people.

Speaker 2 That's why, I think.

Speaker 3 But I think the one thing I think Democrats will be tempted, and they should do this to some degree, to put up all the old quotes of Trump sounding much more dogmatically and for life and talking about a national ban and boasting about overturning Roe.

Speaker 3 I'm not sure that's really going to convince people. For one thing, I don't think a national ban is really practical, given that it would take 60 senators, presumably.

Speaker 3 Maybe the Republican Senate would change the rules, but then Susan Collins would get off forward, et cetera. I don't know.

Speaker 3 I feel like that's going to be hard to sell, that if you vote for Trump, you're going to have a national ban on abortion or even much of a national restriction.

Speaker 3 What I think you could sell much better is he has no principles at all.

Speaker 3 Anything you like about Trump, he could just as easily toss that overboard, which is pretty much true with one or two exceptions.

Speaker 3 I think he does believe in being nicer to dictators abroad than to democracies. That's kind of one of his core principles.
But pretty much everything else, you know, God knows what he could do.

Speaker 3 And I think that the notion that he's a totally unprincipled, you know, authoritarian. only in it for himself.
I think Axelrod said this to me on the conversation I did with him.

Speaker 3 And I take it this is based, didn't really elaborate, on some focus groups and polling, that Trump's in it for himself. And you are just along for the ride.

Speaker 3 And you may like some things he's saying, but you can't count on them

Speaker 3 manifesting themselves in any actual action that will help you.

Speaker 3 I kind of feel like his betrayal of the pro-life forces, what could make as much of an issue of that as sort of saying, well, he's deep down, he's still plotting to do that national abortion ban.

Speaker 2 I think that Axelod's frame is right. I do think that Trump's going to continue to appoint judges.
These judges

Speaker 2 are going to have oversight over various abortion rights, IVF rights, earth earth control pill, right? Like all of that is something that is relevant.

Speaker 2 I think that Mike Johnson, that's why I've continued to suggest that the Democrats do a little bit more to elevate Mike Johnson's profile. This man is the speaker of the house.

Speaker 2 This person definitely wants a national abortion ban. Is that a risk worth taking? I think that all of those messages are potentially convincing.

Speaker 2 The other thing Mark Caputo, who writes our Magaville newsletter, flagged, is that it seems like he's going to have to vote in Florida on abortion.

Speaker 2 He's just going to be one man voting, but he lives in at Mar-a-Lago, and Florida has a ballot initiative on upholding the six-week ban or not.

Speaker 2 Eventually, somebody's going to have to ask him about that, I assume. I don't know.

Speaker 2 He might just be able to get out of it with word salad, but I think that's an interesting subplot.

Speaker 3 Yeah, agreed. Agreed.

Speaker 2 Okay, we've got house dysfunction. They're back.
They've taken the holiday. Kharkiv is just being bombed.
Speaker Johnson does not care about that.

Speaker 2 They've been on a lengthy vacation, but they are back now in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 2 Here's a quote from Marjorie Taylor Green about the challenges facing Speaker Johnson in the coming weeks.

Speaker 2 If Johnson passes the $60 billion to Ukraine and then follows it up with FISA reauthorization, you're going to see a lot more Republicans than just me coming out saying his speakership is over with.

Speaker 2 Huge divisions. on both of these issues for Johnson.
What say you about what to expect here in the coming weeks?

Speaker 3 I mean, I've been moderately hopeful on Ukraine. There's such a clear majority in the House for it.
And Johnson at least has said he kind of wants to make it happen.

Speaker 3 And I think he's under the threat of a discharge petition or maybe a couple of different ones if he doesn't make it happen.

Speaker 3 But I'm also, he's managed to draw it out and maybe he'll just keep on drawing it out.

Speaker 3 And at some point, the Republicans who do want to do the right thing have to drop the hammer and say, okay, we're going to a discharge petition with the Democrats, not some sort of fake discharge petition that sort of creates yet another piece of legislation that then has to go back to the Senate and so forth.

Speaker 3 Ultimately, the real hammer would be if five of them said, you know what, we're going to support Jeffries for Speaker for like two weeks and get this legislation through.

Speaker 3 And Jeffries will make a deal not to change the committees even for that time. I don't know.
There are things they could do if they were serious.

Speaker 3 And they all claim, some of them, you know, I think in good faith even, really do want to do the right thing on Ukraine, but the party loyalty is so deep and the, I don't know, lack of imagination, I guess, and fear of maybe political retribution that they just can't liberate themselves from pleading with Mike Johnson to

Speaker 3 help an ally fighting in the largest land war in 80 years against an unbelievably brutal dictatorship. I mean, can't they do a little better than pleading? Aren't they elected representatives?

Speaker 3 Aren't they supposed to act when something crucial is at stake?

Speaker 2 They really only need three. I mean, you're asking for five, but there have been so many retirements.
There's so few of them that are required.

Speaker 2 There's a letter, you found the newsletter this morning from Mike Pompeo to Johnson.

Speaker 2 We write as individuals, it's him and the head of the Hudson Institute, as you consider the path forward in the House of Representatives for the national security supplemental that includes critical replenishment of U.S.

Speaker 2 weapons stocks and support to our allies. We encourage you to lead with conviction and bring the aid package to a vote.

Speaker 2 I think we're kind of past the point of no return on leading with conviction, but

Speaker 2 the Pompeo factor of all this is interesting.

Speaker 2 I mean, he's like the one person that has just tried to walk this MAGA isolationist, but also I'm still, you know, I still believe in the post-World War II world order, you know, tightrope as much as anybody.

Speaker 2 Does he have any influence anymore? Or is this just a retired guy powling at the moon?

Speaker 3 He's been to the Hill. Hudson has brought him, he's, I think, associated with Hudson now.

Speaker 3 Hudson's brought him to the Hill several times, and I'm told he gets good attendance of Republican members of Congress, and they respect him.

Speaker 3 And so he's not like bringing, you know, one of us us rhino-types or never Trump Republicans to the Hills. So maybe he could do good.
It wouldn't hurt if Pence and others weighed in on this too.

Speaker 3 And Nikki Haley could, you know, she's been good on this. And obviously, she's taking a bit of a break after losing to Trump.
But again, she can write a letter. I don't know.

Speaker 3 I feel like this is the moment when you see what's happening in Ukraine, it's so horrible.

Speaker 3 And it's so shameful that we're not doing the minimal thing we could do, which is simply send them the weapons. I mean, I personally am sort of open to no-fly zones and much greater NATO and U.S.

Speaker 3 involvement, but I know that's probably a minority view and I shouldn't even say it, so I won't.

Speaker 2 But if the Bulwark podcast, if you can't say it on the Bulwark podcast, where can you say it?

Speaker 3 Good point. Okay, I said it.

Speaker 3 But anyway, I hope others have a sense of urgency. I give Pompeo credit because he didn't have to do this.
He's probably taking some grief for it. And I wish more people would weigh in.

Speaker 3 But I wish the actual members of the House who are elected officials by their constituents,

Speaker 3 they don't work for Mike Johnson. In the old days, and I mean, for all of American history, they have often been splits in parties, and that's fine if you don't agree with something.

Speaker 3 And here they don't agree clearly, and it's a very important priority. I would say the Biden administration has not ratcheted up the pressure on this.

Speaker 3 I think they've wanted, and this has been reported, to give Mike Johnson room to move, not look like he's being beaten up, make it his own choice.

Speaker 3 I can see that as a tactical matter, but I think at some point pretty soon, if Biden's serious, and I assume he is about Ukraine, he needs to kind of make an issue of this to the country the way, you know, Reagan would have made an issue on a major foreign policy issue, or Bush in 07, even though the war in Iraq was so unpopular, defending the surge, President Obama on the things he cared about.

Speaker 3 I mean, I think this could use a little more pressure from the White House if Johnson doesn't do anything this week or next.

Speaker 2 Trevor Burrus: I could also use some more trolling. We had Jared Moscovitz on last week, who is a Democrat from Florida.

Speaker 2 And he's done a nice job, I think, of kind of pantsing Comer and Jim Jordan on the impeachment stuff. But not every Democrat needs to be sober and responsible.

Speaker 2 We We like sobriety and responsibility, but we could use a couple of guys over there in the House really shaming them and making them

Speaker 2 suffer some political penalty from this dysfunction and the stalling.

Speaker 2 And I think that maybe whether the Ukraine issue itself can carry political penalty or just the broader issue of like, these guys can't do anything. They went on vacation.
They're back.

Speaker 2 He can't do anything. They can't govern.
They don't care about governing. I do think a little bit of more trolling than that would be.
I agree. Welcome.

Speaker 3 You know, they always sometimes show up with those big, what are those cardboard things, what are they called on easels? You know, sometimes it's a chart or a photo.

Speaker 3 How about photos of Kharkiv, which is the second largest city in Ukraine, which is being just destroyed purely gratuitously, no military reason at all, just to kill Ukrainians and make the city less and less habitable in Ukraine.

Speaker 3 Destroyed by the Russian Air Force. That's where I do think, you know, NATO Air Force, why exactly don't we declare it a no-fly zone?

Speaker 3 But leaving that aside, we could help Ukraine with obviously anti-aircraft and Patriot batteries and so forth. And that's what they were asking for.
They're not asking for us to intervene.

Speaker 3 So people should go to the floor with those photos and say, you are not doing anything and innocent people are being killed by a brutal dictator. And it's the easiest thing to do in the world.

Speaker 3 Send them the weapons.

Speaker 2 Totally agree. And can I just say, you might actually be providing some political help here by, we maybe might need a headline.

Speaker 2 Let me just read tomorrow's newsletter, Bill Kristol, no-fly zone over Ukraine, because that allows moving the Overton window.

Speaker 2 You know, it allows you to be like, well, at least I'm not crazy like Bill Crystal calling for a no-fly zone. I'm just calling for weapons over here.

Speaker 2 Maybe you can help move the Overton window a little bit. Thank you for that suggestion.
I want to finish with

Speaker 2 watching women's hoops this weekend. What a tournament.

Speaker 3 A little bit. I had to give a talk weirdly.
It was scheduled ages ago yesterday afternoon at a local kind of community organization. So I missed most of the Iowa game.

Speaker 2 Was Princeton the local community organization that you're talking about?

Speaker 3 No, I was in Princeton during the week. This was North Virginia Jewish Community Center.
Very nice people. But yeah, I was in Princeton, and got cheered up in Princeton, actually.

Speaker 3 The students were perfectly sane and intelligent. And I had a nice talk with different kind of groups of them as part of my little half day at Princeton.
And they gave a broader talk and stuff.

Speaker 3 Actually,

Speaker 3 sort of cheered me up a little bit. You know, maybe the young ones will save us.

Speaker 2 There's not like hanglider memes or any pro far left, you know,

Speaker 2 overthrowing capitalism,

Speaker 2 none of that.

Speaker 3 I mean, they may not have come to talk to me if they were into that. But the students had it's been pretty quiet there.

Speaker 3 Princeton has the big advantage of being A, it's kind of Princeton, which has a different tradition, maybe. And B, it's not in a big city.

Speaker 3 If you're a professional activist, you're in New York or Boston, and then you just hop on the subway and go up to Columbia or to Harvard Yard and, you know, cause a huge amount of trouble.

Speaker 3 They're not probably living in Princeton if you're a professional 27-year-old left-wing activist. So they're kind of a little bit insulated.

Speaker 2 Fair. And maybe I was discussing about this on the Next Level podcast last week about how I was at USC for a week doing a study group.
And same. And the USC campus was great.

Speaker 2 My study group had a diverse set of views on Israel-Gaza. We discussed it.
You know, there were members of the group that were very much pro-Israel. They held an event.

Speaker 2 It was about freeing the hostages, which I attended on the quad. And there was no, you know, any of the kind of like, whatever, nobody's throwing feces at them.
There was no counterpro.

Speaker 2 So again, one school, maybe USC and Princeton, both private schools, self-selecting, maybe in a certain way.

Speaker 2 But I was equally encouraged that people felt free to share their views, pro and anti, what was happening in Israel on campuses.

Speaker 2 And that, you know, some of the doomsdaying about the fact that the youth are too afraid to give their opinions was not what I experienced at USC either.

Speaker 2 Okay, I do want to, on women's basketball, before I leave you, I have to just rant about one thing, if that's okay. Would you mind just listening to a rant?

Speaker 3 Happy to.

Speaker 2 The Final Four was amazing. It was so good.
And Sarah and I talked at length about women's basketball on the Secret podcast. So if you're not a Bullwork Plus member, this is your chance.

Speaker 2 to join the Bullwork Plus. Go listen to the Secret podcast if you really want to hear my thoughts on, you know, kind of like analyzing the strategy of the various teams.

Speaker 2 But the UConn Iowa game, I watched at a bar in New Orleans, and it was rocking. Fans on both sides, just people were so into it.

Speaker 2 You know, you would have thought it was a Saints game or something, the level of interest in UConn Iowa. I watched with my daughter the championship at home, and that was a great game.

Speaker 2 USC was wonderful. But because I was at home, I was suffering through social media while I was on it.
And a few things that I noticed, the right-wingers that want to just take all our joy away.

Speaker 2 You know, we had Steve Dace who was tweeting about as great as Caitlin Clark is.

Speaker 2 All her records are going to be broken by some young freshman at the Citadel who decides he feels pretty and wants to pretend to be a girl.

Speaker 2 Megan Kelly, who is the self-appointed protector of women's sports. I was looking at her feed this morning.
She's posted several times about the women's tournament.

Speaker 2 Nothing nice about any of the players. She insulted Daunce Daly, coach of South Carolina, for saying that she'd be open to having a transgender woman playing in women's basketball.

Speaker 2 She was calling some random person, a reporter, a disgrace for abandoning our daughters, blah, blah, blah. I don't really want to get into that.

Speaker 2 We can debate transgender sports action, but the thing that like that bothers me about all this, Bill, is like...

Speaker 2 The people who are out there like donning this mantle of being the self-proclaimed defender of women's sports don't like women's sports.

Speaker 2 And I admit, I'm raising my hand. I'm new to this.
I'm new to caring about women's basketball. I'm loving it.
I've been loving the tournament.

Speaker 2 And I've always felt the thing is it's like I care much more about Don Staley's opinion about protecting women's sports.

Speaker 2 One of the best women's basketball players herself, who's now won three championships as a coach, who has to coach these young women, who is with them day to day, who cares about them, who's obviously competitive, who is crying and just a beautiful moment.

Speaker 2 And her congratulations on Caitlin Clark was very beautiful. I care a lot more about Don Staley's opinion about how to protect women's sports than I care about Megan Kelly's.

Speaker 2 And so, anyway, if you're out there and you feel very strongly that transgender women shouldn't play in women's sports and that you want to protect young girls and young women, I feel like the ante for holding that position is also actually enjoying women's sports.

Speaker 2 So that's anyway, that is my rant. That was just driving me crazy over the weekend.
And it was a wonderful tournament.

Speaker 2 And, you know, the people that are trying to kind of ruin our joy in the culture war are really pretty evil, I think. So I don't know if you have any final thoughts on that or any meditation.

Speaker 3 That was well said. I take your point about the, you know, obviously they should care about and like what they're claiming to defend.
The other thing is they just are so into ruining everyone's joy.

Speaker 3 No one was thinking about it. I mean, everyone enjoyed the women's Final Four.
There were interesting stories about at least three of the teams, maybe all four of the teams, obviously.

Speaker 2 Caitlin Clark, Paige Bucher's off an injury at UConn.

Speaker 3 Great player, but SC seems to have been, again, I haven't followed this much, but SC, a generational team. I mean, just right? I mean, UConn.

Speaker 3 And instead of enjoying it or letting the rest of us just enjoy it and keeping their own thoughts to themselves, you know, so how much of the culture war really is about them being unhappy, them feeling a sense of grievance and wanting to make the rest of us unhappy.

Speaker 3 You really wonder about that, right? It's not about, is it about any actual issue they talk about?

Speaker 3 Or is it they think they see people in America enjoying themselves in a kind of healthy and good-natured, but also competitive way? And they say,

Speaker 3 I hate it when those people are enjoying. America in 2024.

Speaker 2 There's an element to this. And their critique is always of the left.
It's like, oh, the left wants to take our joy away with the language police and all this.

Speaker 2 And I think this is the Joe Biden advantage. This is the great Joe Biden advantage: that there is a coalition, the new silent majority of people who just want to enjoy women's basketball.

Speaker 2 You know, who just want to enjoy women's basketball, and they're not interested in the language police.

Speaker 2 They're not interested in being shouted down and turning it into a debate about transgender politics.

Speaker 2 They just want to enjoy the tournament and celebrate the young women who were just so talented and so passionate. Maybe that is our advantage as we go into November.

Speaker 2 That is the silent majority, people who just want to be normal. Okay, Bill Crystal, we'll see you back here next Monday.
I'm on the other side with one more rant. I've got one more rant.

Speaker 2 It's a double Tim rant day about White World Rage. Stick around for that.

Speaker 4 Master distiller Jimmy Russell knew Wild Turkey Bourbon got it right the first time. Mellowed an American oak with the darkest char.

Speaker 7 Our pre-prohibition style bourbons are aged longer and never watered down.

Speaker 9 So you know it's right too, for whatever you do with it.

Speaker 8 Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon makes an old fashion or bold fashion for bold nights out or at home.

Speaker 11 Wild Turkey Bourbon, aged longer, never watered down to create one bold flavor.

Speaker 13 Copyright 2025 of Party America, New York New York, never compromised responsibly.

Speaker 1 There's nothing like sinking into luxury. Anibay sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

Speaker 1 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 1 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 1 Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your home.

Speaker 1 Sofas start at 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.
Add a little

Speaker 1 to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 4 Master distiller Jimmy Russell knew Wild Turkey Bourbon got it right the first time.

Speaker 5 So for over 70 years, he hasn't changed a damn thing.

Speaker 7 Our pre-prohibition style bourbons are aged longer and never watered down.

Speaker 9 So you know it's right too.

Speaker 8 For whatever you do with it, Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon makes an old-fashioned a bold fashion.

Speaker 8 For bold nights out or at home, Wild Turkey bourbon, aged longer, never watered down to create one bold flavor.

Speaker 6 Copyright 2025, Opari America, New York, New York, never compromised, drink responsibly.

Speaker 1 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 1 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 1 Liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam lets you choose between a sink and feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Speaker 1 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 1 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 can save you up to 60% off.

Speaker 1 Plus, free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washable sofas.com.
Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 2 All right, we are back. I want to get into the white rural rage kerfuffle a little bit.
For those who were, you know, enjoying their weekend and blissfully missed this.

Speaker 2 There are articles in Politico and The Atlantic arguing that the academic research underlying the book was misused. What liberals get wrong about white rural rage, said Politico.

Speaker 2 A misleading book about rural America, said The Atlantic. There's a lot of Twitter discourse about this.

Speaker 2 A few people sending me messages about how I'm a liberal elitist, blah, blah, blah, for having these people on. And so I want to get into it.
I want to get into the critiques.

Speaker 2 Some of this is a bit of a nerdy pedagogical, inter-academic argument. Some of this is just about the research methods that

Speaker 2 Schaller and Waldman used. Some of that may have merit, but it's just not all that relevant to the broader political questions that we're getting into on this podcast.

Speaker 2 So I want to focus on the effort to take those academic critiques and broaden it out to try to dismiss the argument that they're making, try to dismiss the notion that we've seen any uptick in right-world rage at all.

Speaker 2 We've seen a lot of this.

Speaker 2 There are people out there saying this is just another case of, you know, academics and Morning Joe green room types who never leave the Stella corridor staring down their nose at real Americans.

Speaker 2 And on that part of the charge, I think that there are two minor points that have some merit. I want to get into those.

Speaker 2 But in the big picture, I think that they really missed the ball and that Waldman and Schaller have the argument. So let's take a look at the two points that the critics I think got right.

Speaker 2 The first W is on the semantic point, and that is over the use of the word rage.

Speaker 2 Now, I want to point out during our interview, which, by the way, everybody should go back and listen to the whole thing. And we had a ton of...
feedback on it and a ton of folks listened to it.

Speaker 2 So, you know, if you happen to miss it, you just kind of go back through the archivist a couple weeks ago and go to the White Rural Rage app.

Speaker 2 But during that discussion, Schaler admits that the authors were gilding the lily a little bit with the title. Let's just listen to what he says.

Speaker 15 First of all, and we have pled guilty to this in public appearances already. The title is a bit provocative.

Speaker 15 We use the word rage, but we're really talking about the academic and scholarly construct resentment. But white rural resentment is a lot of syllables and doesn't really fit neatly vertically.

Speaker 3 And as you know, publishers want, you know, one-word blink, Malcolm Gladwell kind of titles.

Speaker 15 We couldn't get it down to one or even two words, but we got it down to three words and four syllables. And so we're really talking about resentment.

Speaker 15 And if you do a search on the galleys of the book, as we've done, the word rage actually appears in the actual texts a handful of times.

Speaker 2 Okay, so I get it. They're slanging books.
This is a business. I had to slang books.
Everybody has to do it. But it is quite the caveat on the title.
And when he said it, I was wincing a little bit.

Speaker 2 And I just think that calling it white rural resentment, making it accurate, might have cost some book sales, but was probably on balance the right call given the backlash now that they're dealing with.

Speaker 2 And so sometimes you just got to take your lumps on this sort of thing. And the fact that he was offering that, I wasn't even really pressing him on it.

Speaker 2 And he just volunteered that showed that they were sensitive and knew that these critics were going to come.

Speaker 2 The second critique was something that I did ask him about, which was whether we can really identify whether the most enraged, resentful groups here are actually the rural Trump supporters or whether they're in these MAGA communities in the exurbs.

Speaker 2 Because in my experience, it's where I've seen the most punisher stickers. Okay.

Speaker 2 And I think this distinction is important and being imprecise is important and trying to suss out whether the radicalization is the same or different or more intense or less intense in Queen Creek, Arizona, where I went to the Scary Carry Lake rally or in Waverly, Iowa, where I lived, where, you know, the town had been hollowed out because of globalization.

Speaker 2 I don't know. Maybe there is a difference in these kind of rural, rural communities or the small towns are acting versus, you know, the kind of Sun Belt exurbs.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 And so I think that that's a distinction that's worth getting into. We got into that on the podcast, and I'm not sure that the book provides a lot of clarity on that.
Okay.

Speaker 2 But here's my big picture defense of the author's broader thesis. Both in terms of the academic data and all of our life experience, there is undeniably a radicalization happening among rural whites.

Speaker 2 One of the book's critics included this line in their article in Politico.

Speaker 2 Our research, the critic is a researcher, our research found that just 27% of rural voters, including 23% of rural Trump voters, think that if the opposing candidate wins in November, people will need to take drastic action in order to stop them from taking office.

Speaker 2 They go on to say that's the same percentage they see in urban and suburban areas. Okay.

Speaker 2 But here's the thing: just,

Speaker 2 just 27%,

Speaker 2 just,

Speaker 2 Like, that is an insanely high percentage. One in four, 23% of rural Trump voters, one in four think that drastic action would be needed to stop Biden from winning re-elects.

Speaker 2 Do we have a baseline on what that number looked like in 1996? Because I don't think there were one in four Dole voters planning drastic action to stop the Clinton re-elect.

Speaker 2 Okay, something has changed. And there's another factor you have to consider here.

Speaker 2 We've seen with our eyes what these people mean by drastic action and how drastic action looks in different communities over the last eight years.

Speaker 2 You remember the women's march in the pink pussy hats? That's what left-wing drastic action looked like following Donald Trump's shocking victory. All right.
It was protests. It was peaceful.

Speaker 2 There was some rage there, no doubt. I had some rage.
But the way it manifested was within

Speaker 2 like a normal band of how you would expect people to protest in a democratic society. Now, compare that to what happened on January 6th.
All right.

Speaker 2 So we saw what drastic action looked like on January 6th, beating up police officers, storming the Capitol, raising a Trump flag over the Capitol and taking down the American flag.

Speaker 2 So yeah, it worries me a little bit when one in four Trump voters are already stating that they are planning drastic action.

Speaker 2 Here's another thing that those of us who actually venture out into Red America have seen. All right.
There's a tangible uptick in radical right-wing political statements happening.

Speaker 2 My in-laws live in rural West Virginia. Not great airport options there.
God love you. But, you know, sometimes we got to fly in different places.
We're trying different things.

Speaker 2 What's the best way to get there?

Speaker 2 For 17 years, I've been doing a lot of driving around rural North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, rural Appalachia, going to their house, going to different communities near where they live.

Speaker 2 And, you know, back in the late 2000s, 2009, 10, 11, the political signs I saw were mostly leftists that were mad about the fracking that was happening in these rural communities.

Speaker 2 The last few years, Trump signs with quite a few F-words. Fuck your feelings.
Trump 2024. Fuck you.
You know, Trump forever.

Speaker 2 So an index marking the number of fuck your feelings signs I see driving through rural West Virginia might not be academic rigor, but it's not nothing. All right.
Like that's happening.

Speaker 2 The same story is true with the Oath Keeper stickers. Look, I drive a lot between doing the circus and between driving to Louisiana, driving around Louisiana, driving through Texas.

Speaker 2 The number of Oath Keeper stickers that you see on cars, on the highways is notable. The radicalized crowd I talked about, I go to these events.
I've seen these crowds. The crowds are different.

Speaker 2 The crowds at Mitt Romney events versus the crowds at Cary Lake events are different. The crowds at Trump events versus the crowd at McCain's events, it's different.

Speaker 2 What Tim Alberta and what David French have written about.

Speaker 2 and the evangelical churches in these communities, the changes that are happening there, the number of Trump flags and the boats in Florabama.

Speaker 2 All right, I'm just telling you, again, anecdotal, but I have friends that go down to Florabama for the beach. They used to invite me.

Speaker 2 Now they're kind of like, I don't know, gay family with a black daughter, probably, I don't know, that you probably want to come right now. It gets pretty weird.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of very political, drunk people now at the beach in Florida. Okay.
These are all anecdotes. All right.
But you put them all together. How about the mass shooters with their manifestos?

Speaker 2 We've read the manifestos. It's not nothing.
All right. We're not imagining these changes.
We aren't reversed racist elites for noticing the changes.

Speaker 2 So if some rural expert professors want to have a white paper off with Shaller and Waldman on their thesis, make it more precise, I'm all for it. All for it.
But

Speaker 2 to take the critiques and then use them to dismiss the thesis outright demands that we not believe our lion eyes, that we not notice what happened on January 6th and what's happened all across the country in many of these communities.

Speaker 2 We've already seen up close the consequences of what happens when you ignore threats like this. So, speaking of our lion eyes, hope you wore your eclipse sunglasses this afternoon.

Speaker 2 We're going to see you back here tomorrow. We're going to do it all over again.

Speaker 3 Peace.

Speaker 3 You're not bad, but you're not good.

Speaker 3 You just say that you misunderstood

Speaker 3 and light,

Speaker 3 but a try

Speaker 3 ain't gonna be no

Speaker 3 close to sun.

Speaker 2 The Board Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

Speaker 8 Cast up to cast, and nothing's biting.

Speaker 3 That's fishing for you. And honestly, that's what online fishing is like for hackers, too, when Cisco Duo is on watch.
With Duo's end-to-end fishing resistance, the waters always stay calm.

Speaker 3 No ripples, no splashes, just a hook that never gets a bite.

Speaker 3 Cisco Duo, fishing season is over. Learn more at duo.com.

Speaker 17 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culture Eastas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 16 Hey, Bowen, it's gift season.

Speaker 17 Ugh, stressing me out. Why are the people I love so hard to shop for?

Speaker 16 Probably because they only make boring gift guides that are totally uninspired. Except for the guide we made.

Speaker 17 In partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts meet incredible value, it's giving gifts.

Speaker 16 With categories like best gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto.

Speaker 17 Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have.

Speaker 16 Check out the guide on marshalls.com and gift the good stuff at Marshalls. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture Eastas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 16 Get ready for your next TV obsession, All's Fair.

Speaker 16 Starring Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Nisi Nash-Betts, Tayana Taylor, with Sarah Poulson, and Glenn Close, a team of fierce female divorce attorneys leave a male-dominated firm to start their own.

Speaker 16 Filled with scandalous secrets and shifting allegiances both in the courtroom and within their own ranks, these ladies know that lawyers are a girl's best friend.

Speaker 16 Don't miss All's Fair, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.