00:03 JVL Hello, everyone. 00:05 This is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark. 00:11 Hey, Sarah. 00:11 Sarah Longwell What's up, JVL? 00:13 JVL Yeah, I'm doing great. 00:14 I'm doing great. 00:15 Woke up this morning to see a Substack writer call me deranged. 00:19 Over the east wing of the White House thing. 00:22 It is no big deal. 00:23 The president is totally within his authority. 00:25 Presidents make alterations to the White House all the time. 00:29 This is the smallest thing in the world. 00:32 This is not what you should spend political capital on. 00:35 The more I've thought about this, the more dug in I've gotten. 00:40 Because one of the... Oh, that doesn't sound like you. 00:44 Well, it isn't always like me. 00:45 I mean, often you and I will talk about something on this show and I will end with me going, no, you know what? 00:51 You're right. 00:51 You turned me around on this. 00:52 Sarah Longwell I know, but you've written a lot of triads about this East Wing thing. 00:56 I mean, three. 00:58 JVL I just felt like, I mean, part of the Trump superpower is like he just does a thing and we go crazy about it for one day and then we move on to the next thing. 01:08 And I feel like maybe we should spend more than one day on this. 01:13 But one of the straw man arguments about my freakout is like, oh, you know, are we saying we should make this the center of our campaign, the top priority? 01:22 Yeah. 01:22 The answer is no. 01:24 It doesn't have to be any part of anybody's campaign, but it should be a state of policy position for people who say they want to become president as Democrats. 01:32 And as far as like the list of priorities, 01:39 I understand that it would be a higher on the list of priorities to, let's pretend we have President Gavin Newsom. 01:47 It's January, 2029. 01:48 Yay. 01:49 It is more important for him to reform the FBI, the Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security, right? 01:58 Yes. 01:59 Think we'd agree? 02:00 Yeah. 02:00 But here's the thing. 02:01 Reforming those things is going to be incredibly hard. 02:04 It's going to take a lot of political capital, may require acts of Congress and legislation. 02:08 And doing this thing, undoing the destruction of the East Wing, he can do in about 20 minutes. 02:16 It costs nothing. 02:18 You just sign the piece of paper and it goes away. 02:22 And my point is that anybody who is unwilling to do the easy thing is never going to be able to do the hard thing. 02:32 This is all about willpower and seriousness of purpose. 02:36 If you don't have the willpower to just press the button to undo this, you are never going to have the willpower to dismantle ICE and reform the FBI and all of that stuff. 02:50 Because that stuff is hard. 02:52 And that stuff will require lots of fights and you need buy in from other stakeholders. 02:57 And so if you're like, oh, I can't undo the I can't restore the East Wing in the White House because that's I'm sorry. 03:04 You're never going to do anything else. 03:06 All the other stuff, you're going to let it slide. 03:08 Sarah Longwell Man, I thought I was going to agree with you on the East Wing stuff, but I, boy, I don't agree with you at all on this. 03:14 And it's not that I think you're deranged, but the idea that it is a prerequisite to knock this down. 03:23 And here's the thing. 03:23 I get it. 03:24 Actually, I don't think you're deranged. 03:27 I agree with you that there is a reason that we feel emotional about 03:33 about him destroying the east wing and in in a lot of ways it's because it encapsulates a bunch of things that trump is doing he is uh a he's lying about it right he lied and said he wasn't going to touch the east wing so that's a that's one thing that we object to about trump like this has all the hallmarks of the reasons that we think trump is unfit he is doing it uh without yeah buy-in from people also 03:59 And this is really the nature of my pushback to you, is he is focusing on this at a time when Americans want him focused on affordability. 04:13 And because he is a narcissist and because he doesn't actually have his own plans for how you, you know, he has like a few beats, right? 04:22 It's like tariffs, immigration laws. 04:26 I'm going to tell you that prices are going to be lower, but I don't actually have any policies to lower them. 04:30 So I'm just going to cut taxes and hope that takes care of it. 04:34 Uh, and this construction is Trump's like toy and him tearing it out the East wing feels metaphorically very on the nose. 04:45 The guys tearing apart the institutions, the, the, of, of our, uh, Republic and, 04:52 Our democratic republic. 04:54 And that feels awful. 04:56 And so we're getting this visual representation of it. 04:59 And we're like, so it feels super icky. 05:03 But I got to say, as a political matter, the idea that you focus on this as a campaign matter. 05:11 JVL Not saying I focus on it. 05:12 I'm focused on this as a government matter. 05:15 Sarah Longwell And I just I think that this is a cosmetic like it is. 05:20 Sure. 05:21 And so it is. 05:22 And and and voters won't won't care about it. 05:24 Not even a little. 05:25 JVL So that's why you should just do it again. 05:27 This is I am not saying that this should be part of a campaign. 05:32 Sarah Longwell But you're saying it's like a prerequisite for anything else. 05:35 I actually think that the good judgment, a person of solid judgment who is going to get our democracy back on track is the kind of person who knows what to ignore and what to focus on. 05:45 And that is small ball. 05:47 But it costs nothing. 05:49 JVL It costs nothing to do. 05:51 Sarah Longwell That's not true. 05:52 No, it's hugely disruptive to the place where everybody works. 05:56 JVL You sign the piece of paper. 05:59 It costs no political capital. 06:01 You do it on day one, you never think about it again. 06:04 Sarah Longwell You have, that is like, it's a major construction project. 06:07 There's a reason Trump is obsessed with this. 06:08 Like, this is just like a practically speaking thing. 06:11 Makes no sense. 06:11 Like it, I look, I hate it. 06:14 I hate it. 06:15 I also think that it is not a thing to focus on. 06:18 I think it is not, I don't think. 06:20 JVL Not saying it should be focused on. 06:21 I'm not, I'm not. 06:22 Sarah Longwell Yes, you are. 06:22 You've written three triads being like. 06:24 JVL Because I think it is important for somebody to do the thing. 06:28 Not talk about the thing. 06:30 Do the thing. 06:32 That's all. 06:33 If Trump can do it because the White House belongs to the president, then the next president can undo it with the stroke of a pen. 06:41 Sarah Longwell Sure, they can. 06:42 And then it's done. 06:43 And look, and maybe the thing is, is like I sort of don't care one way or another if they do it because I don't think it matters that much. 06:51 I think it's a weird. 06:53 I don't know. 06:54 I don't know that obsessing about this or acting like this is the point of what the person should do. 07:00 I want somebody who will. 07:01 JVL I'm not saying it's the point. 07:02 I'm saying it is one of the things. 07:04 And if you can't do this thing, then they're never going to be able to do the other stuff. 07:08 Sarah Longwell I disagree. 07:09 I just don't. 07:09 I don't see this. 07:10 This is not like to me. 07:11 It's not a litmus test. 07:13 They will find excuses. 07:14 JVL They will find anybody who isn't willing to do this. 07:18 will find ways to wriggle out of not doing the other stuff and will say, well, I mean, yes, I should reform the Justice Department. 07:26 Sarah Longwell I don't think these are related. 07:27 JVL People don't care about that. 07:29 Really, they care about the price. 07:30 I'm just going to pass more infrastructure spending. 07:33 And if we can get more money into West Virginia, that's how we convince the red voters of West Virginia that we're on their side. 07:39 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I just this to me does not seem related at all. 07:42 Like somebody can come in, be a reformer, undo the things that Trump has done that really matter, like the way he's approached the FBI, like he's approached USAID. 07:51 There's all kinds of ways. 07:52 But this idea that that is related, they're not related. 07:56 I see. 07:57 I can see they've become emotionally related to you, but they are not. 08:00 JVL Well, no, I think they're related because one is easy and the rest are hard. 08:04 And somebody who's not willing to do the easy thing is never going to have the stomach to do the hard things. 08:08 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I just I just I like totally reject that premise because I don't think they I think I hope somebody comes in ready to do the hard stuff and ignore the cosmetic stuff. 08:21 JVL The good news is we're not going to have free and fair elections anyway. 08:24 So I'm kidding. 08:26 You know, I'm kidding. 08:28 We might we might have free and fair elections and we have to proceed as though we will. 08:32 Sarah Longwell So I just, I talked to a lot of election experts about this and I asked this question all the time. 08:38 And you know what they say? 08:39 They say actually like, so far, 08:44 The election administrators, when Trump has tried to lean on them, including Republicans, in fact, definitely Republicans, they rely on state law. 08:53 Like, this is a federalism for the win. 08:56 And if you go deep on the election stuff, I'm not saying Trump's not going to try to mess with the elections in some way, but I am telling you in terms of him saying, like, give me the voting machines or anything that he's tried to do to lean on election administrators has not worked. 09:12 so far. 09:13 JVL No, I, uh, look, I, uh, probably, probably, well, probably maybe w w there's no alternative, right? 09:21 You can't, you can't throw in the towel and you can't, all you can do is proceed as though there are going to be free and fair elections, right? 09:31 I mean, that, that, that's the only course of action. 09:34 And so that's what we do. 09:36 Uh, 09:37 that said like, uh, so I want to talk a little bit about the Ed loose piece and financial times. 09:43 I'm a financial times nerd and I love it. 09:46 And I wish it didn't cost a bazillion dollars a year. 09:48 It's really expensive. 09:50 Um, but absolutely worth if you, if you can afford it, it is worth your money. 09:55 Um, Ed loose has a giant piece today. 09:59 Uh, and, 10:03 What did you make of it? 10:04 Because he talks to like dozens and dozens of people in and around Washington. 10:09 He has outstanding access. 10:11 And like one of the people who says like, yeah, I'm kind of worried about free and fair elections is Mark Warner. 10:16 Sarah Longwell Mm-hmm. 10:16 JVL Who is not a resistance dem. 10:18 Like who is a... 10:19 Sarah Longwell He's like a third way centrist. 10:22 JVL Yeah. 10:22 And he said to lose, among other things, you know, when when Trump was sworn in, there was a lot of talk about like free and fair elections. 10:31 And I just thought it was ridiculous. 10:32 But now we're at the point where I'm starting to get concerned. 10:35 Yeah, I think that's about like the sensible place to be. 10:38 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I mean, and this is where just on the election piece specifically, what I don't like is saying like we won't have free and fair elections and assuming it's a fait accompli. 10:48 I do think we are going to be in a fight with Trump, who is going to try to almost probably out in the open in a way that he's been pressure testing and seeing that nobody – 10:58 really is standing up to him. 10:59 Although again, election administrators have because of state laws that require certain things from them that the federal government isn't allowed to interfere with. 11:08 And so they can just say the state law says no. 11:10 And so far he has, nobody's buckled for him on this, but Trump has made it very clear. 11:17 He doesn't respect any of these lines, right? 11:19 He's going to do constitution. 11:21 He's going to do power plays all day long. 11:25 Now, 11:26 Whether or not he tries to do those power plays, like, outside of norms, but inside the law, which is what he's doing with redistricting. 11:35 You know, it's not illegal to do mid-century redistricting. 11:38 It's just not what we do. 11:40 And so he's doing that. 11:43 So... 11:44 Him trying to find ways to put his thumb on the scale, 100%. 11:48 That's not the part about that piece, though. 11:50 I mean, I sent that piece around this morning because there was a part in it that was, to me, like the nub of the nub. 11:59 And it was him saying, talk to all these elites, all these people, and they all say the key to pushing back against Trump is for people to stand up to him. 12:10 But also, I need to be off the record because I'm not going to stand up to him. 12:14 JVL There's like four people in here who are willing to go on the record. 12:17 Sarah Longwell That's right. 12:18 And I think that this is – and I should have talked about this more during our discussions around No Kings. 12:24 I mean I do. 12:24 I kind of always talk about the premise of the Home of the Brave work that we do and everything is this idea that people are the only solution. 12:33 Because our elites have caved. 12:35 They all look like Republicans roughly in circa 2018, just bowing down to Trump. 12:41 The law firms, the universities, the media companies, like everybody is laying down for this guy. 12:49 But to me, having all of them say, the only way you turn it around is to stand up to him and speak out. 12:57 And also, I am too afraid to speak out. 13:00 struck me as like kind of the whole ballgame around elites right now. 13:05 JVL Yeah, it's really, it's pretty bad. 13:09 I want to point to something else in Luce's piece that crystallized something for me in ways that I had not, it's one of the things like we know, but we couldn't put words on it, right? 13:21 So we have often talked, not just us, like everybody talks about how, like obviously Trump prefers dictators to democracies. 13:29 It's why he's much closer with Putin or Orban or Kim Jong-un or Xi than he is with, like, I don't know, you know, the prime minister of the UK or Germany or, you know, or Canada. 13:46 And so Luz has a section talking about Trump's corrupt dealings with, like, the Middle East. 13:55 And here's, I'm just going to read this paragraph because I think it's... 13:58 Again, it's just very profound. 14:00 Trump sees no distinction between public and private. 14:04 States governed by ruling families thus find it easiest to do business with him. 14:10 This leaves America's democratic allies stuck in a perpetual antechamber. 14:14 And here's the money quote. 14:15 This is a quote now from the foreign minister of a large NATO country. 14:21 Even if we wanted to invest in Trump's crypto schemes, we would legally be unable to do it. 14:30 And this is the thing, right? 14:31 Like Trump runs his whole life as pay to play. 14:35 Right. 14:36 And the problem is that democracies, functioning democracies can't do pay to play. 14:42 even if they wanted to, right? 14:44 If Sweden decided, look, we don't like it, but we would like to pay Trump off to get him to do what we want. 14:53 The problem is that they have rules 14:55 and laws in their country which forbid them from doing it. 14:58 This is why Trump hates them. 15:01 Sarah Longwell Right. 15:01 JVL Right? 15:02 Sarah Longwell Yes. 15:03 Can I just, while we're on things, ideas that have crystallized recently for us, there's a guy who I don't know well, and I... 15:14 I've just seen him on Twitter, this guy, Richard Hanania, who was somebody who was like pro-Trump and anti-Trump. 15:21 And I think he is maybe problematic for reasons that I don't know about. 15:25 JVL Fairly problematic. 15:26 Sarah Longwell Okay, is that right? 15:28 So this is my understanding. 15:31 I should probably run down why. 15:33 However, he frequently writes some of the most trenchant observations about the Trump moment of anybody else on Twitter. 15:43 And... 15:45 He had one the other day that said, here's the problem. 15:48 And this is true, but he's framed it in a way. 15:50 I talk about this a lot, but he framed it in a way that I thought was better than the way I talk about it. 15:56 Because I often talk about the scale of what Trump does and how it makes it impossible for voters to get their heads around any one thing. 16:04 And it is why... 16:05 Like if Biden has one one like Achilles heel, it's Hunter. 16:13 Hunter has corruption problems. 16:15 Hunter is not present in the United States, but Hunter is a thing where he has he's using his dad's name for access. 16:20 He's selling his paintings for it's a it's a scandal that people can get their heads around. 16:26 It is something that the entire right wing media ecosystem like went deep on. 16:31 They had pictures, whatever, in the scheme of things. 16:35 other than when Biden pardoned him at the end, which, you know, difficult call. 16:40 I wouldn't have done it because he promised not to, but like, whatever. 16:44 it is minuscule in relation to the level of Trump's corruption. 16:49 I mean, it's not even, they're not in the same universe. 16:52 They're not in the same ballpark, not in the same solar system, right? 16:55 You cannot compare them. 16:56 This isn't both sides. 16:57 This is like nonsense to act like it is a both sides thing. 17:02 But his point and that he made that I thought was really good is even if the media is 17:09 or even if commentary could focus 100% of the time on Trump's corruption, it still wouldn't be enough. 17:20 There's no way to proportionally cover it because you would just have to do nothing. 17:31 This is why they're not built for it. 17:34 They're not built for it because... 17:37 to actually match the scale of his corruption. 17:40 Every single story in your paper should be about the scale of Trump's corruption. 17:45 And absent that, absent that, you end up with something that in no way can encompass 17:55 The difference in scale, the asymmetry in scale that that is doing it. 18:00 And to me, just the idea of like, yeah, to adequately cover Trump's corruption for the from the media or anybody else. 18:09 It would be you just like you can't cover anything else because it's so big, but they can't bring themselves to do that just out of sheer. 18:18 their own like sense of commitment to what it means to be sort of neutral, to be neutral on these propositions. 18:26 JVL They would have to see themselves as like a DA's office, right? 18:31 And reporting on the administration as if it were a criminal enterprise that they were investigating. 18:37 And our media is not built to do that. 18:42 Like it has to assume that like, you know, whatever you think of the administration, 18:49 They may be wrong. 18:50 They may be bad, maybe bad people, but they are not like, they're not intentional criminals. 18:57 And Trump just sees himself as a mafia Don. 19:00 Like it, it is just gangster government. 19:03 And, uh, they're not built for that. 19:06 Um, 19:08 Sarah Longwell Because if you kill one person, it's a scandal. 19:11 But once you're killing like 40, at some point, they're like, how many times can I call him a murderer? 19:16 And I just... 19:21 But can I just... We can move on to Canada, but I would just say... 19:26 We should endeavor to cover him at the scale of the problem. 19:32 Like our mainstream media, I know, should endeavor to impress upon the public how absolutely out of the ordinary all of this is in aggregate, not just in the specifics of every scandal that happens every day. 19:47 JVL This loose piece in the Financial Times, the Financial Times is not... 19:53 It's not even the Wall Street Journal. 19:54 It's so straight laced. 19:56 Yeah, it is. 19:56 It is like an unbelievable. 19:58 And to have a piece like every every CEO in Europe who saw this piece today has to be thinking, holy shit. 20:09 The FT, who is not resistance born, they're telling me that from the ground in America, it looks like Hungary or Turkey. 20:19 Sarah Longwell Yeah, although Luce has been on this beat. 20:22 Oh, yeah, he's been great. 20:23 He is one of us. 20:25 JVL Totally. 20:26 But only because, like, it's real. 20:29 Like, he sees the things that are real. 20:31 Sarah Longwell All right, sorry, go ahead, Canada. 20:32 JVL Canada. 20:33 So in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, there was a commercial ran by, I think, the province of Ontario, which they just... 20:42 ran a whole bunch of Reagan quotes about tariffs. 20:48 And this made Donald Trump very mad. 20:52 He suspended all trade negotiations with Canada. 20:57 And then it triggered the 21:01 Reagan foundation to say that, uh, this was, this was fake news on the part of the Canadians and that they are pursuing legal action for taking the president's words out of context. 21:15 So it seems to be the Reagan foundation's position now that actually 21:21 Reagan would have been totally on board with the Trump trade wars and tariffs. 21:26 Not true. 21:27 The way for us to protect Reagan's legacy is to make sure that today's Republicans see him as being on the side of Trump. 21:37 And I... 21:38 I am interested in this for a couple of reasons, one of which, though, is that Reagan is the only guy that Trump feels the need to claim for himself and to not say was a sucker and an idiot. 21:56 That's interesting to me, right? 21:58 He can say that George W. Bush and everybody else, idiots and wankers and they were suckers. 22:06 But he has to stay on side with Reagan and say, actually, Reagan was a great president and Reagan would be with me. 22:16 That's interesting to me. 22:17 That says something about like the vestigial Republican mind and their need to hold on to St. Ronnie. 22:25 Sarah Longwell I guess, although I got to say, I've listened to Republicans over the last, you know, now we're going on a decade here, basically be like, well, we don't want zombie Reaganism. 22:37 And when, you know, St. Larry of Delaware, I'm sorry, St. Larry of Maryland, my bad, of Maryland, when he... 22:48 kind of started to, he was putting his toe in the water on a presidential campaign. 22:52 He did it with the bust of Reagan, right? 22:54 We've got to return to this. 22:56 And at the time, it was sort of like, I've never heard Trump talk about Reagan in any way, sort of period. 23:03 And so it's interesting to me that on the tariffs, he feels like he needs Reagan on his side. 23:13 JVL Yeah. 23:13 It's weird, isn't it? 23:14 Sarah Longwell It is weird. 23:15 I wonder what that's about other than 23:18 Other than I do think something's happening to Trump in his old age with all these North Korea style, like every single person in his orbit now is kissing his ring and his ass so hard that I think like he just can't abide the ghost of Reagan disagreeing with him on tariffs because he needs to so thoroughly have co-opted the party. 23:46 That even it's the fact that historically so many of the people in the party would have been against everything he's doing. 23:53 He needs to pretend like they were. 23:56 What do you make of it? 23:59 JVL Do you have a theory? 24:02 Well, my theory of the Reagan Foundation, and here, I have this right here. 24:06 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute learned that the government of Ontario, Canada created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan delivering his radio address to the nation on free and fair trade, dated April 25, 1987. 24:21 The ad misrepresents the presidential radio address. 24:25 And the government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks. 24:34 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is reviewing its legal options in this matter. 24:40 Sarah Longwell You don't have legal options. 24:41 You're allowed to just like play tape of Reagan giving a speech. 24:45 JVL They didn't ask permission to play tape of Ronald Reagan, Sarah. 24:50 Sarah Longwell Oh, my God. 24:52 That's embarrassing. 24:54 JVL You think? 24:55 I mean, it's wild. 25:01 It is wild to me. 25:02 And it's interesting. 25:04 Here's what's interesting. 25:06 So the people at the Reagan Foundation clearly sense that in order to protect Reagan's legacy, they need to be on the right side of Trump, right? 25:18 But they also don't want to say, actually, Reagan would love tariffs, right? 25:23 Because he did it. 25:24 He famously was against tariffs. 25:26 So instead, their position has to be, this is a terrible ad. 25:32 It's fake news. 25:34 And how dare they use Reagan because they're bad people. 25:38 And it was misread. 25:41 It's like the way the new move for the young Nazis with their texts, how they say... 25:49 Well, you know, I can't vouch for the authenticity of any of that because AI is so prevalent. 25:54 I mean, who even knows if any of those things were real? 25:58 Instead of saying like, oh, I disavowed those remarks or I shouldn't have said them. 26:02 It's like, I don't even know if it's real. 26:03 That seems to be the Reagan Foundation's position here. 26:08 I mean, you know, it's so edited and selective and they didn't even ask permission. 26:12 So, you know. 26:17 What a bunch of cowards. 26:19 Sarah Longwell Yeah, that's a pretty straightforward one. 26:21 JVL One last thing on Canada. 26:24 Here is Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, after he gave remarks on Trump suspending trade negotiations with the nation of Canada because he did not like a TV ad run by the province of Ontario. 26:40 Sarah Longwell Donald Trump is such a baby. 26:44 JVL Here's Carney. 26:45 We can't control the trade policy of the U.S. We recognize it has fundamentally changed from the policy of the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s. 26:52 And it's a situation where the U.S. has tariffs against every trading partner. 26:57 What we can control is developing new partnerships, including with economic giants of Asia. 27:06 Sarah Longwell But this is... Trump is making China great again. 27:09 JVL The whole world understands reality. 27:13 Right. 27:14 The rest of the world, they know what time it is. 27:16 Mark Carney knows what time it is. 27:17 China knows what time it is. 27:19 It's only here in America that the American people are like, all right, Graham Plattner, how things going for that guy? 27:29 Sarah Longwell So I'm dying to, if you could, you know, I know you need to write three triads about the East Wing, but like maybe I would love to know what you think about this Graham Plattner situation. 27:40 But let me tell you just as an overview what I like about this story. 27:45 Because this story kind of has it all. 27:48 It has a... 27:52 One of the most important races of 2026 is going to be whether or not a Democrat can defeat Susan Collins in Maine, who has thoroughly beclowned herself over the... 28:07 course of the trump era somebody i would have defended and did defend uh in up through 2020 and she was you know she voted to impeach uh him and uh bar him after january 6th but she has fallen in line and she's been um you know i i am now in sort of like the moderates are not there's no they're not doing us any good she's deeply concerned sarah yeah it's pathetic in defense of her no no no she's very concerned 28:34 So this race matters a great deal. 28:37 But it frames up a whole bunch of different phenomena that are going to be, that really matter for our politics. 28:46 One is Graham Plattner, who is a young, he's younger than I am. 28:52 I think he's like 41. 28:54 So he's a grown man, but he's in political years quite young. 29:00 Former military military. 29:02 Young enough that's got a lot of social media history. 29:05 It's all coming out. 29:06 So he is untested, unvetted, not somebody who's recruited to run. 29:10 Somebody who just decides to jump in, catches some fire as a former Marine, talking about sort of, I would say, he's trying to do sort of an economic populism. 29:23 Hey, I could talk to young men. 29:26 So it's a gerontocracy question because Janet Mills is 78 years old, I believe, and she is pledging to run for one term or she would be 78 at the time being elected. 29:40 And so so there's the gerontocracy question. 29:43 That's not the only divide, though. 29:45 It's also a divide between the establishment and the Democratic Party and what I would call an insurgent candidate. 29:53 And it also has like the social media, like how they communicate. 30:00 Graham Plattner is somebody who just keeps doing videos with a little mic attached to his shirt and talking directly to the camera, communicating directly with people. 30:11 Janet Mills has a press department, clearly a good oppo team, although it doesn't sound like this stuff is actually that hard to find. 30:18 And it is dividing Democrats right now over what kinds of candidates they should have. 30:27 And there was just the first poll in the race, and it was this... 30:31 like blowout for Graham Plattner. 30:34 Now the poll was taken before what came out was that he had some kind of a insignia tattoo on his chest. 30:41 JVL A little Nazi-ish. 30:43 Sarah Longwell Yeah, that apparently... 30:45 But it also has... 30:46 This is another element of the story. 30:47 So I know in my head, just from my scrolls, that he is alleged to have referred to it as my Totenkampf. 30:56 So, of course, because we live in this hellscape of a timeline, I'm having to learn new Nazi phrases. 31:05 But also, I don't know how true that is. 31:08 We're just getting this haze of information right now. 31:12 So... 31:14 What do you make of him? 31:17 I heard you say on TNL that you think nothing, because Lauren Egan, our Lauren Egan, went and sat down with him, did a great interview with him, and you thought he sounded sort of like any other candidate, like kind of a nothing super interesting. 31:33 JVL No, I, so not totally, but there, there are flashes of authenticity, but then there are moments when he really just does sound like an ordinary candidate, like where he just, he sounds like somebody who just comes out of candidate school and is talking like every other polished candidate. 31:52 Yeah. 31:52 And I think that's not great. 31:54 Um, yeah. 31:55 uh can we just dwell for a moment that his his explanation for the for the nazi tattoo have you heard his explanation that he was a drunk and he didn't super drunk and they just like the the they went to the tattoo parlor and uh there was oh that that thing right there that's like printed out that's hanging up as one of the clip art things that i could choose look at that on my chest yeah let's go 32:23 We want somebody whose judgment results in drunken Nazi tattoos being a United States senator. 32:28 I guess the whole idea of being a senator is judgment. 32:32 Anyway, unimportant. 32:35 I here's here's what I will say. 32:37 I understand what Democrats want from Graham Plattner, and it isn't. 32:44 What they really want isn't a guy who can be MAGA coded. 32:53 What they want is somebody who can be dominant. 32:57 And what they're really hoping for is a guy who can take attacks like this stuff on all of the legitimate things that he has done and said, and just shrug them off like it doesn't matter. 33:09 Who's not going to go into turtle guard. 33:11 Who's not going to, they want someone who can absorb this stuff and just be like, fuck that. 33:16 I'm not getting out of the race. 33:17 I'm going to fight you. 33:19 That's what they want. 33:20 Sarah Longwell I think that's right. 33:21 JVL I don't know if Plattner is the guy to do it, but like the people who are hanging on for Plattner or who see something in him, I think that's what they're hoping to get is they want a dominance politician, their own dominance politician who doesn't care about media attacks. 33:37 who is not going to apologize for things, who's going to shrug them off, and that the voters are going to stay with him for, for ancillary vibe-based reasons. 33:48 And I think Plattner is the current, like, best hope for that. 33:51 Because that's not what Mills is, right? 33:52 Mills is... 33:54 just another competent, yes, old, but let's pretend she wasn't old. 33:58 Let's pretend she was only 70. 34:01 She would still be a category difference. 34:03 She's a normal politician whose political appeal is, hey, I was your governor and I was a pretty good governor and the state did well and I enacted a bunch of policies and I worked with the legislature and we're going to evaluate my fitness for office based on those things. 34:22 And I think Democrats are in a place where they no longer believe that that is a winning political strategy and a winning political proposition in America. 34:31 And they need somebody who can dominate on vibes and be totally unapologetic and just pure aggression. 34:42 And I'm not saying Plattner is that I, I, I am agnostic on that. 34:46 Um, 34:48 In fact, I think he's probably not because he seems to do a lot of apologizing. 34:53 Sarah Longwell His apologies so far have been the best part about him. 34:57 He's given a good apology. 34:59 JVL Democrats want a psychopath, I think. 35:02 They would like to have their own Patrick Bateman. 35:05 Sarah Longwell I don't know about Patrick Bateman, but I think you're right about the dominance politics piece. 35:10 More importantly, I think that people – 35:15 And this is where you've got to... 35:18 This is like the real tension that I think is pretty interesting to watch and that I don't have... 35:24 I'm trying to sort of reserve my judgment on this exactly. 35:28 I texted some people about the tattoo because this is one of those stories where I'm always like... 35:34 is it really a Nazi tattoo or is it a skull and crossbones? 35:38 And like, he didn't really know. 35:40 And once it was on his body, like he was making a joke about it. 35:43 Now, not saying any of that's okay for a U S Senator. 35:46 I do think that we are going to enter a timeline in which we need wartime generals, not peacetime generals. 35:58 And where, uh, everybody's going to have now, if they're young, uh, 36:04 a big social media history. 36:08 And for people who get into politics, they tend to be people who have had lots of opinions. 36:15 And I think, like I've said before, I think as a culture, we are going to enter a phase of how much do we hold it against people 36:25 what they said in their, let's say 20s or early 30s, if they renounce it now, right? 36:31 If they say like, well, I said this in a particular time at a particular place, here was my mindset. 36:36 And maybe I have some personal... 36:39 like journey sense of that. 36:41 Because if you just, if somebody, if I blew up, let's say I was running in Pennsylvania and I was just the hottest new, this is young. 36:49 Look at this young person, former Republican. 36:51 I'm getting tons of media attention. 36:53 Boom, story comes out. 36:54 She used to work for Rick Santorum. 36:55 When she was a lesbian, worked on his book tour and all of a sudden all the Democrats who had sort of liked this idea of like, okay, this is a lesbian who seems capable of talking about stuff. 37:06 And like, I forgive her for being a former public, but like Santorum, I can't do it. 37:09 She must be psycho. 37:11 She must be a psychopath. 37:11 She was like a gay person coming out who was on his book tour. 37:16 And so like, then I've got to be like, okay, let me explain this. 37:20 that I didn't work for Rick Santorum. 37:21 I worked for a publishing company. 37:23 That publishing company published his book. 37:24 It was my job to go and do this. 37:27 And that I quit right afterwards and started working in... 37:31 I can see the way a quick snapshot of a way that you were can be blown up into not who you are now. 37:44 And it doesn't reflect both the way you've changed and the way the world's changed. 37:48 That said, I also think there's probably a pretty big world of difference between like, hey, we want somebody who is younger, who's making fewer apologies. 38:03 It would be good if that person had less to apologize for and one of them wasn't like a Nazi tattoo on his body. 38:10 Sure might be. 38:11 Sure might be. 38:14 So I am, this is one of those where, because I am both, Maine is just one where I don't have, it is such a weird place. 38:23 It's like Alaska, where there are really specific kinds of places with really specific kinds of people. 38:30 They do not fit. 38:31 We already, our politics is upended in a way where it doesn't exist along a linear center right, center left, libertarian, you know, spectrum. 38:38 But like, 38:39 In those places, in the outer limits of the country, you get some really, you know, specific kinds of people. 38:45 So I don't know if – I'm not going to opine a ton on the race until I've done some focus groups there. 38:52 But I am fascinated by it because – and I think people should watch it because I do think it's becoming a real – that primary is going to be a real – 39:03 litmus test uh or not even litmus test it's going to give us a real window into and it is it is pulling people apart like like you got liz smith and the pod guys really defending platner um obviously lots of other sort of the the grizzled um 39:22 political folks wanting to go sort of safe with the janet mills uh i'm always kind of like is there not or we do we don't have a happy medium in here like maybe like a young military person who doesn't have five year old person who doesn't have nazi tattoos yeah and is capable of speaking in complete sentences so i would caution people on the platner mills thing this way um 39:48 JVL There is no way to know which view of this race is correct until we get a result. 39:56 Everything is theoretical, right? 39:58 And, you know, you, you can say, uh, we, you know, I think that there's a better chance of beating, uh, Collins with a young dynamic guy, um, 40:11 and the baggage doesn't matter, but nobody really knows until we get there. 40:15 The proof is in the eating, right? 40:20 And we will find that out. 40:24 Like either Plattner will be able to shrug this off and move forward and dominate, in which case he'll beat Mills, or he won't. 40:34 And there's no like we could argue about what we think will happen. 40:37 And that's fine. 40:38 But like we don't know. 40:41 And we'll see. 40:43 Right. 40:43 If he is the goods, if he has the goods, then he'll win. 40:48 And if he doesn't, then she'll beat him. 40:50 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I will say there's something, though. 40:55 There's something, though. 40:57 For the people who are big, you know, Graham Plattner stans, I think, okay, I think, like, let's give it just a minute. 41:03 This guy just came out of nowhere. 41:04 Like, let's just take a hard look at him before anybody gets all, like, no, we've got to defend this guy. 41:10 JVL You don't want to go crazy anointing him the second coming. 41:14 Sarah Longwell But I do think here's one thing that I just if if you've got the two most charismatic Democrats running, one's got a Nazi tattoo and the other one was like defending from the river to the sea at the same time that you've got Republicans putting out like having one, you know, Trump nominee saying they've got a Nazi streak. 41:36 Where did all the Nazi stuff come from? 41:39 Where is like this is I just it is deeply concerning. 41:44 and I get it if he just had a drunken like I can sort of see I texted some military folks and they were like I don't know everybody's got a skull and crossbones of some kind and it is they were like they found it totally plausible that he got a drunken tattoo and then had and then like ironically ironically called it my totem comp and I was still like if somebody told me 42:14 hey, like, you accidentally got some Nazi insignia on your body. 42:19 I would be like, it is? 42:20 Oh, no. 42:22 Guess I better do something about that pretty quickly. 42:25 JVL It's not great. 42:30 It's stuff I don't understand. 42:31 Partly because I'm not part of tattoo culture. 42:34 I have no tats. 42:36 The tattoo thing sort of happened in America, like, 42:40 Well, whatever. 42:41 We do a whole thing about tattoos. 42:42 I think tattoos became re-mainstreamed in America because of Allen Iverson. 42:46 But we'll talk about that some other time. 42:50 Give people some good news about Trump polls. 42:52 And this is great because I'm going to react in real time here because I don't know anything about them. 42:58 Sarah Longwell So there has been sort of a spate of polling that has come out. 43:05 Most the Quinnipiac poll and the AP Nork poll were some of the bigger ones. 43:13 And I 43:14 So one trend that has been – so obviously we do not jump on every poll that comes out. 43:20 I think there's a lot of reasons why just each individual poll is sort of meaningless. 43:25 But as a trend, one of the things to really watch that I think is pretty interesting has been just the – 43:32 And part of the reason it's so interesting is that Republicans really looked at this after the election and said, we are winning with Hispanics. 43:39 Like we have made inroads with Hispanics in ways that are going to completely change the contours of the party. 43:47 JVL So what we need to do is start just rounding up Hispanic citizens on the street and zip tying them. 43:54 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I mean, I don't think that it's just that, actually. 43:58 I think the reason that Hispanics voted for him. 44:01 was economics. 44:03 I think they were one of the groups that really moved in a swingy way over costs are being, costs are too high. 44:10 And, but they are just, his numbers with Hispanics are collapsing. 44:15 So let me just read you this. 44:16 The October survey from the Associated Press, Newark Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 25% of Hispanic adults have a somewhat or very favorable view of Trump down from 44%. 44:28 In an AP Nork poll conducted just before the Republican took office for the second time, the percentage of Hispanic adults who say the country is going the wrong direction has also increased over the last few months from 63 percent to 73 percent. 44:41 So the real drop in favorability for Trump, that's just like a big shift. 44:50 Only someone had warned them. 44:52 Yeah, I know. 44:54 But I just, I think the reason, so Hispanics make up about 10% of the electorate in 2024. 45:01 So they, you know, it's a big percentage. 45:04 And I think Republicans have been very excited about this performance, especially because the Hispanics are in a bunch of key places like Arizona. 45:13 It's one of the reasons Hispanics moving more Republican is one of the reasons that Texas went from a place that was 45:18 People were feeling like, oh, as more Hispanics vote in Texas, we're going to see better results for Democrats. 45:24 But the Hispanics in Texas were like, no, no, no, we're Republicans, actually. 45:27 Not so dissimilar from Florida. 45:31 So this drop is... 45:34 is very meaningful. 45:36 The two groups that have really been abandoning Trump are young people and Hispanics. 45:43 That is where you are seeing his numbers go down. 45:47 The other thing I wanted to mention is there's been this Quinnipiac poll where Trump has now reached the lowest levels that he has ever been 46:00 on the economy. 46:02 And they had just 38% of respondents say they approve of the president's handling of the economy while 57% disapproved and 5% didn't have an opinion. 46:14 Trump's previous low on the economy was a 39% approval rating, a marquee hit four times, including just last month. 46:22 And this is like without COVID, right? 46:27 And this is where Trump, right? 46:29 I know that this was never your favorite argument, but it's just something I heard over and over and over and over again, which was people thought Trump could do something about the economy. 46:37 And this is, this goes back to our first. 46:40 He's made it worse. 46:41 He's made it worse. 46:42 JVL He took a good economy and he screwed it. 46:45 Sarah Longwell He took a recovering economy and made it fail again. 46:48 And voters are noticing. 46:51 There's a bunch of other polls that have come out recently where Trump is just getting... 46:56 They all say the same thing. 46:58 And it's funny because his overall approval is falling. 47:04 Well, in the aggregate, it's hanging on around between 42% and 43%. 47:11 We'll see once all of these polls get... 47:14 put into it because he's doing pretty poorly in a lot of them. 47:20 He is down in a lot of them at 37%. 47:22 And most of that has to do with his handling of the economy. 47:27 And this is where I think as we get into the holidays and people are like really just continuing to get sticker shock, I do think this is just the thing I've got my eye on. 47:40 But his approval on the economy, which is supposed to be one of the things that help him, is abysmal. 47:49 JVL That would be nice. 47:52 You and I talked on the focus group that will be out tomorrow about the Jersey election. 47:59 It worries me a little bit that the race between the Republican and the Democrat is so close there. 48:05 It's an open seat. 48:08 We'll see. 48:10 I'm saying it's polling pretty close. 48:12 And if the polling is correct... 48:16 It just makes me, again, nervous. 48:18 Right. 48:18 And that's one of the things we said late in the episode, you asked me what I was looking for. 48:22 I'm going to look at the exit cross tabs. 48:24 Yeah. 48:25 And I'm going to really, really be interested in what happens with how does the Hispanic vote break down? 48:30 I don't care as much about turnout for Hispanic, whether that's up or down. 48:33 I care about the breakdown of it. 48:35 And how does the 18 to 35 vote break down? 48:39 And do we see the same things that we've seen in polls manifest in an actual election? 48:47 Sarah Longwell Yeah, the polling is close. 48:49 I do think it's pretty important in both the Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill race that they went by large margins. 48:58 If those margins are narrow, that is a problem. 49:01 Even though Democrats have been improving on the generic ballot, like that number has been going up quite a bit. 49:06 It's actually at its highest level that it's been. 49:08 I think it was like 47 to 41, which if that's true, that is blue wave territory. 49:15 That's like, you know. 49:16 2018. 49:19 But we'll see. 49:21 I am. 49:22 Guys, we are. 49:23 It's Friday, October 24th. 49:26 We are really close to Election Day. 49:30 And that is going to tell us some things. 49:34 JVL We're going to find out. 49:36 One other thing. 49:37 In a couple hours, you and I are going to sit down with Sunny Bunch to tape a movie club about rounders. 49:44 I don't want to spoil it and do any, but part of me wants to talk with you a little bit about it now. 49:49 You love rounders, right? 49:50 Sarah Longwell I do. 49:51 I do. 49:53 But I, again, hadn't seen it for a long time. 49:56 But you know what I noticed this time? 49:59 I think harder about the movies when I'm going into the movie club, which is bad because then I end up feeling like, 50:07 I've always loved Rounders, but I watched it with more of a critical eye. 50:10 But one of the things I noticed was it was at a really low Rotten Tomato rating. 50:14 Really? 50:15 It was like 67%. 50:17 And I was like, wait a minute. 50:18 But then I watched it and I was like, all right, because this movie's nuts. 50:21 Like, this movie, it's great. 50:25 But, like, what John Malkovich is doing is... 50:30 JVL I won't hear a bad word about John Malcolm. 50:32 Sarah Longwell No, it's not a bad word. 50:34 It's so fun. 50:35 It's really fun, but you've got to be there for it. 50:40 JVL I'm only paying you with your own money from last time I stick it in you. 50:45 I know. 50:47 Sarah Longwell He's like, no, he's incredible. 50:50 I love it, but you just have to be there for it. 50:51 JVL You are. 50:52 I, I, here's what I'm just going to confess. 50:53 What I'm nervous about is I am nervous that I'm going to have a wrong opinion about Gretchen malls character. 51:00 Yeah. 51:01 You are going to. 51:04 Going to have to chastise me for my wrong opinion. 51:07 Sarah Longwell Well, I can't wait to, I can't wait to hear it. 51:10 JVL And I, I will tell you one, one thing. 51:13 I don't think you've, you know, this. 51:16 I got to hang out with Martin Landau once. 51:18 Sarah Longwell Oh yeah. 51:19 JVL So he's in it for, for just a very brief piece. 51:23 He's, he's one of, he's pivotal though. 51:25 He's pivotal. 51:25 So he is one of Matt Damon's law school professors. 51:29 And so I, I've never told you this about Martin Landau. 51:33 Sarah Longwell Not that I remember. 51:34 JVL So I was, uh, backstage at, I don't know, back when I used to do TV a lot. 51:40 Um, I think it might've been the Dennis Miller show on CNBC forever ago. 51:45 Yeah. 51:45 And he was a, Martin Landau was a guest and I was, uh, just backstage with him. 51:50 Not even the green room, but like literally just 10, 10, 15 minutes, just hanging out. 51:54 And I was just like, I got to have a chance. 51:57 Martin Landau's here. 51:57 I'm going to go talk to him. 51:59 And so I went over and introduced myself and I was like, I'm just such a fan of all your work. 52:05 And I was like, oh, that's so kind of you. 52:07 I said, I love your daughter's work. 52:09 Juliette Landau's. 52:10 She was great on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 52:12 I was like, oh, you know, Julie's work. 52:14 Oh, that's so kind of you. 52:15 So we started talking and I, I asked him a question and I said, oh, 52:20 I got to ask you about North by Northwest. 52:23 He said, okay, what is it? 52:24 So he plays Leonard, who is the henchman for the big bad in North by Northwest. 52:31 Sarah Longwell Okay. 52:31 JVL And do you remember, you must love North by Northwest. 52:34 Sarah Longwell I mean, I had not, I didn't even know he was in it. 52:36 Now that you, I have to, I'm trying to remember who he is. 52:39 JVL He's so young. 52:41 And he is the, he's, he's the lead bad guy. 52:45 Okay. 52:46 I said, I got to ask. 52:50 are you playing Leonard as gay? 52:52 Because I always got just an undercurrent of that. 52:57 And his eyes lit up and he said, yes. 53:02 I'm so, I'm so honored you picked up on that. 53:05 And I was just like, ah, it was such an amazing, I, it was a big moment for me. 53:12 Sarah Longwell Okay. 53:14 JVL No, that I had picked up on an acting choice that this legend had made in one of the greatest movies ever made, which North by Northwest is my Prime of Miss Jean Brody. 53:27 Sarah Longwell Okay. 53:27 JVL I love the crap out of that movie. 53:30 Sarah Longwell For Movie Club, we are going to watch the Prime of Miss Jean Brody. 53:32 I'm going to make you guys. 53:33 I've sat through now a lot of your guys' dude movies. 53:39 JVL I like them all. 53:40 I wouldn't say a lot. 53:41 We've only done three episodes. 53:43 Sarah Longwell Okay, well, they've all been that way. 53:47 I mean, I love them. 53:48 JVL I can't wait to do Prime of Miss Jean Brody. 53:51 I can't wait to watch Sonny Squirm while you ask him what he thinks about the Prime of Miss Jean Brody. 53:58 Sarah Longwell Do you know that was like an X-rated film when it came out? 54:01 What? 54:01 You haven't seen it. 54:02 You don't even know what I'm talking about. 54:04 JVL I don't. 54:05 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I don't. 54:06 I've got the original. 54:08 It's not. 54:08 Well, not X-rated. 54:09 Maybe it was unrated, but it was one of those like an adult film because there are some there's some naked people in it. 54:17 JVL Oh, that's so funny. 54:18 For some reason, I always thought this was like a black and white 1943 picture. 54:22 Sarah Longwell No, it's in color. 54:23 And it is Maggie Smith at her most beautiful and alluring. 54:29 And it's based on a novel by Muriel Spark. 54:32 And it's incredible. 54:35 JVL I love Maggie Smith. 54:37 I love Maggie Smith so much. 54:38 I can't even tell you. 54:40 All right. 54:41 Well, uh, everybody, you've got all sorts of Sarah JBL content coming at you to keep you, to keep you warm this weekend while the Republic crumbles around us. 54:50 Rebecca, take us home. 54:53 Rebecca Black I'm waking up in the morning Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal Seeing everything, the time is going Ticking on and on, everybody's rushing Gotta get down to the bus stop 56:40 Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday. 56:44 Today is Friday, Friday. 56:48 We, we, we so excited. 56:52 We so excited. 56:54 We gonna have a ball today. 56:57 Tomorrow is Saturday and Sunday comes afterwards. 57:07 Crosstalk Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 58:15 Rebecca Black the weekend.