00:10 JVL Hello, everyone. 00:11 This is JVL. 00:12 Welcome to Next Level. 00:14 I am here today with Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark. 00:19 Sarah, fresh off of Morning Edition, talking about your big piece. 00:25 Tell me, how was that? 00:26 Sarah Longwell Going on NPR. 00:27 It was fine. 00:30 JVL Did you do an NPR voice? 00:32 Sarah Longwell I don't that's no I get nervous on NPR because I, you know, you know me, I'm like hysterical the way that I talk. 00:39 And so I just I worry that I'm not like calm enough for 630 in the morning. 00:44 NPR dulcet tones. 00:46 I don't know. 00:47 Did you listen to it? 00:47 How do I sound? 00:49 JVL I did not listen to it, but I just know that whenever I used to get the call for NPR, I would always try to do my peach sweaty voice. 00:56 People like to talk about my sweaty balls, my famous sweaty... You know this, right? 01:00 The fantastic Alec Baldwin, peach sweaty, delicious... Do you guys not remember this? 01:07 Anna Gasteyer and Molly Shannon, one of the great... 01:11 Tim Miller saturday night live bits ever because their bang-on impersonation of npr voices is amazing i just remember all the dudes that i've ever known saying that thing you just said that i don't want to say because it's gross i do remember but i was a child and i mostly you know enjoyed the uh gross part of the joke i didn't really understand the nuance of the npr joke because i was a young conservative in the suburbs i didn't 01:39 know any npr listeners unlike sarah now who gets nervous because she's a coastal elite um quasi red dog democrat and so she has a lot of friends who listen so you know a little different kind of cultural cultural touchstones for me okay so sarah you just went with your normal voice and your normal high energy optimism and what did you tell the good folks listening to npr 02:06 Sarah Longwell Well, they got a four-minute version of what anybody who listens to The Secret Pod or this podcast know that I've been kind of banging on about for the last bit here. 02:17 But one of the things – the piece that I wrote sort of stemmed from – I was reading a piece about the insurrectionists getting arrested, about the FBI, and what the sentences were going to be for a lot of these people. 02:35 And there's just, you know, there's hundreds of them that have been arrested that are facing somewhere from, you know, convicted between one and 20 years in jail. 02:44 It was a life-ruining event for those people. 02:46 And as well it should be for the people who are beating police officers and, you know, forcing their way into the Capitol with zip ties looking, you know, to do harm to cops. 03:00 Congressional leaders, it was one of the most effective parts yesterday of the Democrats. 03:05 Impeachment managers, when they showed that video, it reminds you just how scary all of that was. 03:12 But what's interesting to me is how Donald Trump is facing a certain measure of accountability, right, through this impeachment trial. 03:18 Now, his conviction... 03:19 possibilities notwithstanding, there is a mechanism by which to hold him accountable, which is impeachment. 03:26 And of course, there's a legal way to hold the people who actually attack the Capitol accountable. 03:32 But there's basically no accountability. 03:34 For like the middle tier of elites, like all of the congressmen, all of the senators, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Madison Cawthorn, you know, Paul Gosar, Louie Gomer, Kevin McCarthy. 03:47 These guys are all just going to skate. 03:49 And and especially, you know, right now you've got. 03:54 know hawley and cruz and the other quarter of senate republicans who were prepared to object to the election some of them backed off after the capitol was attacked but a bunch of them went forward with it even after it was like those people all fomented the lie that and amplified donald trump's same lie that the election was stolen and objecting was all about kind of hype manning uh donald trump's central lie so what do you do with the people who 04:22 filled those rioters' heads with poison and then pointed them toward, I mean, Donald Trump really pointed them toward the Capitol, but these people were all part of sort of 04:33 Yeah, poisoning their brains. 04:35 And like, not only do Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley get to skate, but now they're sitting as jurors. 04:41 It's like crazy. 04:43 They are jurors in the Senate trial. 04:45 They are witnesses to the crime and they are accomplices to the crime. 04:50 JVL Literally accessories. 04:51 Sarah Longwell Literally accessories. 04:52 JVL Both before and after the fact. 04:54 Sarah Longwell And this is like a thing that I think is sort of just starting to take hold, but I've been saying it for a while, which is the reason, the main reason that these Senate Republicans are so unlikely to convict Donald Trump is because to do that would be to hold themselves accountable. 05:11 They would have to, it would be an indictment of their own behavior, or at least their colleagues' behavior. 05:16 Right. 05:17 Like if you're and frankly, Mitch McConnell did this when he said Donald Trump and other powerful people fed the mob lies. 05:24 He is talking about Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and the other objectors, but he doesn't name them by name. 05:30 And to convict Trump is to convict them. 05:32 And like, what is Mitch McConnell going to do if he convicts Trump? 05:34 He's got to turn around and be like, and yes, many of my colleagues were responsible for this, too. 05:39 Does he going to is he going to have to carry that water? 05:42 So I just think anyway, that's what I was talking about. 05:44 That's what the piece is about. 05:47 What did you think of my piece? 05:59 JVL Why are you pushing this divisive? 06:05 Why are you so fixated on the past, Sarah? 06:10 I thought you wanted to unite the country. 06:13 Looks like hypocrisy to me, Sarah. 06:15 Sarah Longwell Yeah, yeah, yeah. 06:17 You know, not to bring up French Village again. 06:19 Yes. 06:23 Do it. 06:24 Listen, here's the deal. 06:25 For us to move forward is like this. 06:27 I'm sorry, Sarah. 06:28 I thought you. 06:32 And I think that gets at something very true, which is to move on. 06:35 There has to be an element of people acknowledging. 06:40 Tim Miller You were a good government centrist that wanted to unite the country and just move forward as we've been asked to do by. 06:47 Sarah Longwell corrupt, was stolen. 06:49 And I think that we should bring all the pressure possible to bear on those elected officials. 06:54 I mean, part of the point of the piece is to say... Hugh Hewitt and Rob Portman? 06:59 Yeah, I don't understand why you're... Social pressure. 07:02 And that during this impeachment trial, people should be reminded, editorial boards should once again call for Hawley and Cruz's resignations. 07:09 I 07:09 You know, we should see businesses saying that it's going to be a bright line in the sand for them in terms of donating to these elected officials because they were looking to overturn an election and lying to voters. 07:21 So anyway, I would very much like us to unify as a country, but you cannot do that without naming the lie and having people be held responsible. 07:34 Look, you know what? 07:34 I'm a conservative. 07:35 I believe in personal responsibility, even if the Republican Party no longer does. 07:40 Tim Miller Yeah, here's the problem. 07:41 Obviously, I completely agree. 07:43 Here's the problem. 07:44 This is what is making me so filled with anger. 07:47 I had a former colleague and friend last night text me at like 11 o'clock, and he said, I'm concerned about your blood pressure meter, just monitoring your tweets. 07:58 And it is hard because they're all guilty. 08:01 and none of them are going to get their comeuppance. 08:05 And, you know, it is all the people you named, but it's also Fox. 08:08 It's also the heads of most of the conservative media outlets, if not really all. 08:15 I mean, some of them, you know, you've got the, I think JVL wrote about this with National Review. 08:20 You've got National Review and you've got Ben Shapiro. 08:22 Like, some of the names of these outlets, like, they said that Joe Biden won, but, you know, their outlets won. 08:29 published insane conspiracies about voter fraud, right? 08:32 So it's like, okay, you're kind of guilty too. 08:38 Every single senator supported Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who ran on a pro-coup platform the night before the insurrection. 08:44 Um, so, you know, and now we have to listen to all their bullshit. 08:48 You know, you have to listen to Marco be like, boy, do we really have time for this? 08:53 I mean, we've got pretty, I've got pretty important stuff on my plate. 08:56 I mean, we only spent a year on Benghazi and I did take a two week vacation down in Miami after, you know, there was a domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol that killed a cop. 09:06 But I, 09:06 I mean, I think that we're in a little bit of a hurry here, aren't we? 09:12 So I just... 09:14 It's tough. 09:14 It's tough. 09:15 I want to focus on the Donald Trump accountability, but I completely agree with you. 09:20 I love the accessory to the crime point, and I wish I would have read your piece more closely before I went on Brian Williams last night, so I could have used that. 09:33 But... 09:34 It really does fill me with rage, and I think I kind of want to move off this to something else about my rage. 09:42 I don't know. 09:42 Does JVL, do you have anything else on Sarah's Marvelous piece, which we all concur with in the full? 09:47 JVL Yeah, no, it's a great piece. 09:49 Tim, you're a little hot, by the way, so turn that game down while I talk at you guys. 09:57 We've been talking about this since August, that we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that they are going to be Rolo Tomasi. 10:09 One of my favorite movies of all time, LA Confidential. 10:13 Guy Pearce's character has, in his head, the name has created this character, Rolo Tomasi. 10:21 And Rolo Tomasi is the guy who gets away with it. 10:23 And that is what motivates him as a police officer. 10:26 And that's what the entire conservative intellectual and Republican Party apparatuses are going—apparati, apparatuses, whichever—are going to be. 10:39 They're all going to—so Lou Dobbs will get chucked by the side of the road, but he's old and going to die anyway. 10:46 And, you know, Maria's okay. 10:48 She's going to be fine. 10:50 The Fox primetime lineup will be fine. 10:53 Chris Steyerwalt will be fine. 10:54 All these people— 10:56 Even the ones who kind of hopped off the truck at the end without ever admitting their culpability, they're all going to be fine. 11:06 And however much that offends us morally, the bigger concern is how are we supposed to make this all work going forward? 11:15 Tim Miller I just want to mull on the offending us morally a little longer because I don't know about you guys, but it's hard sometimes because we're during this virus where my only human contact is with the nanny and her wife, who are also my friends because they listen now. 11:36 Hi, Lori. 11:37 um the uh um and like twitter right so it's hard for me to tell whether other people are as mad as me but i rewatch i rewatching that 13 minute video yesterday i i was just consumed with anger and rage i mean these are people carrying trump flags and 11:58 Confederate flags. 12:00 They're like stabbing out the eye of the police officers. 12:03 I mean, obviously we're talking about Brian Sicknick often and he gets mentioned as well as he well should. 12:08 But I thought the Hakeem Jeffries point the other day on the floor. 12:12 I mean, there are dozens of police officers who've sustained serious injuries on the lost fingers going blind. 12:18 Two have committed suicide since then. 12:22 They're carrying the flag of a political candidate. 12:24 I mean, this looks like something out of the Mussolini era. 12:31 JVL Which is, by the way, something that's never happened before. 12:33 It's un-American. 12:34 Joe Biden does not have a flag for Joe Biden that people fly in front of their houses, right? 12:40 Mitt Romney and John McCain did not have flags with their names. 12:43 Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. 12:45 This has never happened before. 12:46 Tim Miller Yeah, exactly. 12:47 And so, yeah, it feels foreign, right? 12:51 It feels like these sort of nationalists, you know, fervors that you get outside, that you see on the news or in history books. 12:59 And so, you know, I'm watching that 13 minutes. 13:02 And the Capitol is being stormed. 13:04 And I'm just, I'm consumed with anger. 13:07 That every one of these people that Sarah just mentioned in her piece, and that didn't get mentioned in her piece, because the list is so freaking long, of people that enabled this and coddled this and allowed this to happen when there were so many warning signs, when it was so obvious that something like this could happen, that it happened in our Capitol building, something that I have, I think all of us, you know, who liked government growing up and who cared about this, like Revere, 13:31 And it just seems like there's an astounding amount of people, both in our politics, who are doing this for reasons of political convenience, but also outside of our politics, regular folks who are just like, well, that was just kind of something that happened. 13:47 I don't get the sense from people that there is just this 9-11 level outrage and anger and horror and sadness and desire for community rebuilding. 14:02 And maybe I'm missing it. 14:06 I don't know, because I'm just lonely in my house in Oakland. 14:09 But that was the thing that really struck me yesterday. 14:15 And obviously listening to Raskin is just how... 14:20 just being reminded once again how absolutely horrifying it all was. 14:26 And that, like, I don't think that there's really anybody that, you know, I mean, I think there's some Democrats, obviously, in Congress and some Democratic commentators, but, like, there's not any surprising people who are living up to the moment and treating that with the gravity that it deserves, in my opinion. 14:44 JVL Maybe that's wrong. 14:46 Did you guys see somebody who was one of the reporters in the gallery was keeping track of what the Republican senators were doing during that video play? 14:56 Did you guys see this? 14:57 Sarah Longwell Yes. 14:57 Staring at their hands. 14:59 JVL Just staring, like doodling. 15:01 What? 15:04 You're a sociopath. 15:05 What? 15:07 I don't even know what to say about that, right? 15:09 The weirdness of it is so you know people are going to watch you and to feel so untethered to moral responsibility that you don't even feel compelled to pretend to give it your attention. 15:25 That's the extra step, right? 15:27 I mean, look, you expect sociopaths and people who are amoral to disregard that sort of thing and simply look for their own ends. 15:37 But these guys are so untethered to shared communal norms and so far away from ever being held accountable for who and what they are that they know they don't even have to pretend to pay attention to 15:53 They don't even have to pretend to be fair. 15:58 That's the other thing that jumped out at me. 16:01 So that vote we had yesterday afternoon about, again, whether or not the Senate was going to simply fulfill its constitutional duty, which is shocking to me, right? 16:11 I mean, the fact that you have first only five and then only six Republicans even willing to go along with the proposition that, yes, it's okay to hold the trial— 16:22 whether or not they vote to convict or not. 16:25 Because this has been established as yet another litmus test for them. 16:29 But they don't even feel the need to pretend to be open to listening to the arguments. 16:38 Tim Scott and Ted Cruz both saying almost the exact same words. 16:43 None of this matters. 16:44 The outcome is ordained. 16:47 Nobody's even pretending that they'll, hey, I'm a juror. 16:49 I'm going to listen to both sides and make my 16:52 That's – it's weird, isn't it, to not feel like you have to pretend to be – In the most literal sense, nothing mattered about the constitutionality argument. 17:03 Tim Miller I mean, Cassidy changed his mind. 17:04 Good on him. 17:04 But it was – you know, Joe Neguse from Colorado, I was so impressed. 17:08 They were citing almost all conservative scholars. 17:11 They cited Jonathan Turley owning himself. 17:13 You know, on why this is constitutional. 17:15 Every logical, every point was logical. 17:18 It was coherent. 17:19 And then you had the Bruce Castor, you know, like just sort of rambling about nothing. 17:25 And then an angry man like shouting about how the libs are bad. 17:28 Like, literally, the defense could have been, fuck you, Donald Trump did want people to storm the Capitol, and he's sitting down in Mar-a-Lago, and he's happy about it, and he's watching TV right now, and he just is loving the fact that I'm rubbing this in your face right now, because I want to drink your tears, libs. 17:45 And what? 17:45 How many Republicans would have said it was constitutional? 17:49 JVL One more, maybe? 17:51 You get up to seven? 17:52 An excellent point. 17:53 If Sidney Powell had walked into the chamber as the president's witness and simply put both middle fingers in the air and gone, suck it, bitches. 18:03 If that had been the president's argument from his legal team, we would have had the same vote yesterday. 18:08 And, and at the same time, none of the Republican senators would have felt the need to pretend that they had been persuaded or not persuaded by it. 18:15 Sarah, you've been very quiet. 18:18 Why are you so quiet, Sarah? 18:19 Do you not feel heard? 18:20 Sarah Longwell No, I agree with all this. 18:21 I talked a lot at the beginning. 18:24 Yeah. 18:25 First of all, I'm not sure that the argument wasn't just sticking two metal fingers in the air. 18:29 I mean, there was no appreciable. 18:33 I mean, I'll just my take on the on the day was, you know, I watched the Raskin, Naguse, you know, and they were they were superb. 18:46 But also part of the reason they were superb is that they have an unimpeachable argument to make. 18:51 I mean, the idea of how was it like the idea? 18:54 I thought that it was so excellent that they honed in on this idea that if you if you make it so that you cannot hold a president accountable for what they do in January, they kept talking about this January exception. 19:05 that not only is that, like, absurd on its face, but that it actually creates this incredibly dangerous precedent where any president, while still in office, could do something in their last month that is horrible and have no mechanism for accountability. 19:21 And, of course, that is a key point. 19:24 But watching... You think so, Doctor? 19:28 Yeah, clearly true. 19:30 So, but the thing that I watched... 19:32 That video was incredibly... 19:35 Compelling's not the right word. 19:36 I will tell you, I will admit that I, like, cried during the video because I was... Mobs are so terrifying. 19:45 Like, just mobs where there's no... 19:48 Right. 19:49 Obviously, the whole point of a mob is it's devoid of any rationality. 19:52 People are being egged on by each other, watching that woman get shot, thinking about the fact that she probably, you know, that there was a bunch of people who told her lies and made her mad enough to be pounding on that Capitol door and that she got shot essentially because the cops were trying to figure out, like, what do we do to push people back? 20:09 And like somebody had to had to be killed in order for them to get them to stop. 20:14 It's just so horrifying. 20:17 Yeah. 20:17 Watching those cops get be like squeezed in the doorways and thinking about, yeah, all the emotional and mental trauma. 20:25 I always go back to thinking about the police officer who told his story, the one that you saw. 20:29 People sometimes think that it was Sicknick, the one who died, that the mob was beating, but it's not. 20:33 That guy's alive. 20:34 And he told the story. 20:36 Of the mob getting him on the ground and they started chanting, shoot him with his own gun. 20:42 They were going for his holster and he just starts shouting out, I have children. 20:48 And every time I think about that, I get so upset. 20:51 He lives with that for the rest of his life. 20:54 Just think about the trauma that that is. 20:56 And then... 20:57 To hear Jamie Raskin talk about his personal loss, but that was the part that's really moving is the idea that he brought his family there so that they could be together after that horrible loss to show them something good and something decent about the world and instead they get caught in the insurrection. 21:16 They think they're going to die. 21:17 And his daughter's response is that I never want to go back to that Capitol again. 21:22 And like that to me was incredibly, there's just like a devastating, shattering, 21:27 thing for him to say and you know and he he gets um he holds it together in a way that i just like couldn't believe because i was sitting there sobbing and then the emotional roller coaster of going from that both the legal arguments and the emotion to castor who's just an unbelief like it it did like i don't i don't ever believe that these guys play four-dimensional chess or eight-dimensional chess or whatever 21:51 But the fact that, like, Jason Miller or Kushner or somebody reached out to Maggie Haberman to kind of float, like, this is all in the plan. 21:59 Like, he's doing this on purpose. 22:01 There was this part of me that was actually like, I don't believe that's true, but there is this part of me that's like, 22:07 Is this guy distracting? 22:09 He's basically just throwing feces against the wall in order to distract from the incredibly cogent emotional case we just heard. 22:17 Because, of course, lots of people today are talking not as much about how good the Democrats' case was, but about how bad the Republicans' case was. 22:26 And I will just say for Shulman, to at the end of his rant, where he screamed for an hour straight... 22:33 to read a poem and also burst into tears. 22:38 Like, all I could think was that he was overcome with shame and his soul was leaving his body and that's why he was emotional because I could not understand. 22:46 And he was just like, the other guy cried, so now I'm going to cry. 22:49 Like, it was horrific from start to finish. 22:52 And to me... 22:53 There is the cynical part of me that didn't think anybody would change their mind that was basically like elated to see Cassidy just be like, yeah, I just watched that thing happen. 23:02 So of course I like one team made an argument and the other one didn't. 23:05 So I changed my mind. 23:06 But the shocking thing is not that Cassidy changed his mind. 23:09 It's the rest of them didn't too in the face of that. 23:12 Just be honest. 23:12 Tim Miller Did you watch this? 23:13 Did you watch this? 23:14 I want to give you a little bit of scenes. 23:15 I gave all my thoughts about Castor in the article yesterday, which everyone should read if they haven't. 23:19 but i was while i was writing it i had my phone on mute and so tyler was downstairs watching the my husband was downstairs watching uh this on tv and um this is this is the text that i'm receiving from him i want to i want to get this is this an argument a really long wind up to a point uh next the next text who who the hell is this goober the next says now he's walking us through his edits 23:42 The argument that I started with, there has been an argument. 23:44 Has he even stated his position? 23:46 I'm so lost and I'm sober. 23:47 This is fucking wild. 23:49 This is really his lawyer. 23:52 I stopped writing and looked at it. 23:53 Sarah Longwell And that was the good one. 23:54 That was the good one of the two. 23:57 JVL I mean, I know. 23:59 So one of the things that struck me about the video was... Now you're taking down the temperature. 24:07 The incredible... 24:10 restraint shown by the Capitol Police. 24:14 Because if you guys recall during the summer, one of the things that conservatives said over and over and over and over again was basically that if a policeman gives you a command and you don't follow it instantaneously, then you ought to expect to be shot dead. 24:35 Do you guys remember hearing that? 24:37 Look, I mean, sure, maybe the cops shouldn't have killed black person XYZ, but black person XYZ did say to get out your wallet or to stop getting out your wallet or to turn around or to get out of the car or to stand on his head or whatever. 24:55 And he didn't do it in the first five seconds. 24:58 He didn't do it in the first five seconds. 24:59 And so if you don't do what a law enforcement officer demands in the first five seconds, you simply have to assume that you're going to be shot and killed on the spot because that's how law enforcement, if you don't want to die at the hands of law enforcement, then simply do whatever law enforcement tells you to do instantaneously. 25:22 I did find myself thinking watching that video and watching the... And again, I should say, I think actually that what the Capitol Police chose to do in not using deadly force, with the exception of that one occasion, was heroic. 25:42 And had they started shooting people, it would have been much, much worse because they would have been immediately overrun. 25:48 We would have had hundreds of people dead. 25:50 And it really would have been another 911. 25:53 It would have been awful. 25:56 On the other hand, you know what I'm saying? 26:00 Tim Miller Yeah, I do. 26:00 I remember being lectured about my Jacob Blake take for being too aggressive, saying, well, you know, he didn't listen to the cop. 26:07 He had multiple warnings. 26:08 There was a knife, I guess, in the car. 26:11 And, you know, so totally reasonable to shoot him in the back seven times while his kids sat there and watched. 26:19 JVL So do good conservatives think that the Capitol Police should have basically opened fire on everybody? 26:24 Yeah. 26:26 Tim Miller That's a great question. 26:27 I don't know. 26:28 We should go on the commentary pod and see. 26:29 JVL Is that the official conservative position? 26:31 I haven't heard that. 26:34 Well, it should be, though, right? 26:35 I haven't heard anybody saying that. 26:36 Or is that only for black people? 26:38 It's very hard to keep track of all this. 26:41 It's very hard. 26:42 Anyway, it's all very bad. 26:45 Tim Miller The flags, stabbing. 26:46 Some of those videos, and I've seen most of the videos, but to Sarah's point earlier about the mob and your point about the police... 26:55 I haven't seen those close-up videos of the cops with the plastic shields. 27:05 I don't know what the right term is for that. 27:08 JVL Riot shields. 27:09 Tim Miller Yeah, the riot shields. 27:10 And then you had the people with the Trump flags and the pro-Holocaust t-shirts standing right up front and pushing. 27:21 And they're asking for new patriots to come to the front. 27:24 JVL We need some fresh patriots. 27:25 Patriots up here. 27:26 Which is literally the type of thing you would have heard during the 30s when you had the street wars between the brown shirts and the red shirts in Europe, right? 27:35 When it was always fascist gangs versus communist gangs. 27:39 This is what, you know, we need new comrades at the front! 27:44 Tim Miller What the fuck? 27:44 Which fucking country is this? 27:46 Yeah. 27:46 And but then the pushing, I mean, some of the very close up pictures where they were they're pushing forward and they're like using the, you know, flags and other materials they have and are like pointing like right at that one was like the cop's eye. 27:58 It was like almost at his eye. 28:00 And now I can see how I guess a cop was blinded. 28:05 I do feel like we should get more profiles of some of these Capitol Police because I totally agree with you, JBL. 28:11 I mean, I don't think that there's a widespread appreciation for the kind of danger that they were in and the restraint that they used. 28:20 JVL The restraint they showed, again, which was the right thing to do. 28:24 Sarah Longwell And the heroism of some of them. 28:25 I mean, you know, I don't know the Capitol well, but when you were watching the video, I think now that you understand, I can't remember the cop's name, it's bad, but the black cop who basically... Eugene something. 28:38 Yeah. 28:38 So when the mob is coming up the stairs, what I know now only from like reading reports of this, if he'd gone the other direction was... 28:48 where, like, Pence was. 28:49 Like, it's where they would have gotten to actual people, and instead he lets them chase him and keeps sort of backing up in the opposite direction. 28:59 Like, is taking, is literally diverting them away with his body, letting them chase him in the wrong direction. 29:05 And, like, I don't know, why hasn't that guy gotten the... 29:08 If Rush Limbaugh can get a Presidential Medal of Freedom, like, why isn't there one around that guy's neck? 29:13 I was watching that part. 29:14 It was one of the parts that really made me... 29:16 Like just it's just super emotional to watch because he was just making split second decisions with face down with angry people coming at him. 29:24 And he's saving everybody. 29:27 JVL I believe he escorted Kamala Harris out the steps of the Capitol on Inauguration Day. 29:35 Sarah Longwell We can we can we can do that. 29:37 That's that's not enough. 29:38 JVL Yeah, that's no, it's not that man should never he should never pay for another drink in his life. 29:45 Right. 29:45 I think we could all agree that every time he walks into a bar, his money should be no good. 29:50 Sarah Longwell Yeah, but it just does seem weird. 29:51 Anywhere in Washington. 29:51 It just does seem weird that the stories are not being elevated more. 29:55 And this was sort of part of the reason I wrote the piece again is that it was one thing for a lot of these businesses to kind of pull their donations right after the insurrection and everything. 30:04 But it feels like in the intervening few weeks, the edge came off of everybody. 30:10 Right. 30:10 And, you know, you're just waiting for everybody to sort of tiptoe back the way that Kevin McCarthy tiptoed his way back to Trump at Mar-a-Lago. 30:17 And the point is, is that actually, like, the accountability for this should be forever. 30:23 Like, they should never be able to turn away from this. 30:26 And that is, like, that's what's gross about the doodling and the looking at their pads because it is the... 30:32 physical them turning away and not looking not looking at the thing that they did that they're responsible for that they should have to grapple with and be held accountable for 30:42 Tim Miller Yeah, and the positive side of that, that's exactly right, Sarah, because it's like, again, there's the weaknesses of all these analogies. 30:47 Obviously, this is not the same as 9-11, but you remember after 9-11, for very good reason, you know, in conservative media and among, you know, really the whole country, but I think a special emphasis among conservatives, like there was, you know, people would wear the, you 31:07 You know, and like the New York police hats, they get honored at football games and baseball games as they damn well should have been. 31:14 Right. 31:15 So this isn't this isn't a criticism of that. 31:17 This is to say you don't see any of that. 31:20 You know, you don't see any people like buying Capitol Police, you know, regalia or. 31:25 to honor them and to honor their, their bravery. 31:29 You know, you don't see any, you don't see Fox news specials about, I don't think like that's not that I've seen about officer Goodman or about some of these other policemen who have, who have suffered injuries who haven't gotten recognized as much. 31:42 Right. 31:43 I mean, like people don't like there has not been nearly that kind of, you know, sort of rallying around the people who did, 31:52 JVL But that's because after 9-11, you did not have 45% of one of the two major political parties approving of the 9-11 attacks. 32:01 And that is literally what we have right now. 32:04 We have just under half of the Republican Party saying, yeah, you know what, actually, they were fighting for my freedoms. 32:12 Sarah Longwell You know, I actually wonder if it has something to do with... 32:15 In the aftermath of the attack, there was a lot of the videos. 32:19 I think people were pretty confused about the role of the Capitol Police, right? 32:22 Because you did see a lot of videos, too, of some of the police looking like they were kind of just throwing their hands up and letting people by, you know? 32:30 And, like, remember there was a couple of the cops taking selfies with people. 32:34 And so I think that there's some... 32:37 It's not like crystal clear. 32:39 Like, I think some individuals behaved badly and some individuals behaved heroically. 32:44 And it's not as like a complete picture. 32:46 JVL Sure. 32:47 We got a couple hundred guys there, right? 32:49 I mean, whenever you have a force with, you know, more than 20 people. 32:53 You're going to have a bunch of people acting heroically and a handful of people acting foolishly or cowardly or unwisely because people are people. 33:02 But on the whole, it's all very bad. 33:06 And I find it very hard to feel optimistic about where we all go from here. 33:18 I know, Sarah, you're not there. 33:20 Sarah Longwell Can I give you something? 33:21 JVL Give me something. 33:22 Sarah Longwell Okay. 33:22 JVL Give me something. 33:23 Because I am, as I told the Star Spangled Gambling podcast this week, they asked, where am I on the future of America? 33:30 And I said, I'm short on America. 33:32 I am not long on America. 33:33 I'm shorting this place. 33:35 Sarah Longwell Yeah, I don't like that. 33:39 I wouldn't short America. 33:40 And one of the reasons is that I have been... One of the things that I've argued to JVL quite a bit that I don't think we'll know for a while is how this actually ends up kind of landing with people, especially over the long term. 33:56 And there's a number of numbers that have come out recently. 34:01 So there's a Gallup poll just today that... 34:04 that showed that the approval of the Republican Party has dropped precipitously, I believe, by 12 points. 34:13 And they're now 11 points behind in their favorability ratings to Democrats. 34:18 And so, and then, you know, when JBL, when you talk about, like, you can look at, there's also another number that I believe is also Gallup that showed that 70%, 70% of Republicans approve of what 34:34 happened or thought that the rioters were justified. 34:37 And that is a that is a scary, scary number. 34:41 But the converse or the inverse was that 29 percent of Republicans thought that it was that they were supportive of impeachment and thought that there should be accountability for it. 34:55 Now, that number is low, but it does, when added with everybody else, mean that there might be a political price that gets paid from voters and 35:05 Because it's not that, I mean, look, it would be better if it was much, much lower. 35:10 But if you do lose, come on, Tim. 35:13 Stop laughing. 35:14 Tim Miller I want to throw some cold water on this. 35:15 I'm sorry. 35:15 Keep going though. 35:16 Finish the argument. 35:18 that's it that's it that i think that i think that you are that you that the republican party will i hope pay some price for this ultimately i just think that every argument i hear like this right now is really you're taking out a magnifying glass and like looking at these poll cross tabs and just trying to find something to tell a good story out of i like that not you and i just think there's a 35:42 There's a trend of these kind of articles and stories of people who are trying to look at the positive side of this. 35:47 And I just think if you step back and consider what happened with that video, you consider what happened on January 6th, consider Donald Trump's unprecedented, unconscionable behavior. 36:01 And it's just like, well, you know, 5% of Republicans have left the, you know, it's like the numbers are ticking down a little bit here. 36:10 And, you know, I'm a little bit suspect. 36:12 Are Trump supporters even answering pollsters' calls right now after the election? 36:17 I would almost say that every poll in my head, mentally, I'm, you know, I'm sort of mentally considering every poll to be about three to five points too nice to Democrats because of non-response right now among Trumpers. 36:31 Yeah. 36:31 So I just, I don't know. 36:33 I'm not seeing it. 36:34 I mean, yeah, there's been a little, some people, you know, want to move on, but a really scary, concerning amount of people were into it. 36:46 JVL So here is the, just to put a bow on this. 36:49 The House Democratic managers, when they talked about the January exception yesterday, what they were essentially saying was not just an outgoing president can do bad stuff. 37:06 The problem is that an outgoing president is now being granted immunity for attempting a coup. 37:14 And what that means is if you're the president, there is an enormous moral hazard here because you could try to mount a coup, and if you succeed, you get to stay in power. 37:25 And if you fail, well, no big, right? 37:30 I mean, doesn't this simply mean that the next quasi-authoritarian president who wants to be American Victor Orban can simply... 37:41 Sarah Longwell take a shot right it's it's being told free shot downfield is that is that wrong well it would be that would be the case if they had voted that it was unconstitutional but that's not what happened i mean they are able to move forward with it six republicans did vote with the democrats and so you know it was deemed that they could go forward uh with the process but what that means is we have two separate we have separate rules for different parties 38:09 JVL I mean, we essentially have established a two-track legal system here where Democrats can't do this sort of thing, but Republicans can. 38:18 And if Republicans hold a majority in the House or Senate, then they simply won't be tried for this, right? 38:27 Am I wrong? 38:28 Am I going too much into Vox land where I'm now so anti-partisan that I'm maintaining that we have separate rules for the different parties? 38:40 Tim Miller I mean, I'm sure there'd be a couple of Democratic bad actors if the things were inversed, but it's just like not nearly. 38:46 I mean, this overwhelming lockstep, I don't think that that's unfair at all. 38:51 And I think that, you know, the other thing is if you look at everybody's behavior since the election, since the insurrection. 38:57 i mean fox is getting like all the big institutions like fox is getting worse not better um you know the rnc and all the state parties are supporting it so i no i i don't think that that's unfair i think that what you're generally seeing is a complete lockstep support of the effort to to to coup with some like with some maybe 39:20 throw a bone, comments opposing violence, and a handful of people like Romney and Kinzinger and some others acting in reality. 39:35 And that's it. 39:36 That's what's happening right now. 39:38 Sarah, can I ask you a question? 39:40 Crosstalk Mm-hmm. 39:41 JVL What do you make of the argument that if somebody speaks 9,000 words... 39:50 And 8,950 of them are, we got to go fight like hell. 39:56 We got to use strength. 39:58 We got to not back down. 39:59 We got to take our country back. 40:01 But in one sentence, they use the word peacefully. 40:04 And the idea that that provides blanket immunity for everything. 40:10 I don't even know how to respond to that. 40:12 How do you respond to people when they try that out? 40:18 Because I can't tell if they're serious or not, but some of them do seem to be serious. 40:22 Some of them seem to think, well, you know, as long as you say peacefully once... 40:27 Sarah Longwell Well, this is part of the same... Because you engage with real people every day because you're a good person. 40:33 Yeah, but it's the same part of psychological defense mechanism that people have used for Trump all along, right? 40:38 You can't take him literally. 40:40 He doesn't mean it. 40:41 It's not true. 40:42 He's always benefited from the fact that he is, you know, 80% clown, 30% authoritarian. 40:49 And so this idea where they're like, well, he wasn't actually saying that they should go commit violence. 40:54 He said be peaceful. 40:56 Yeah. 40:56 You know, that's the argument. 40:58 It's an absurd argument, though, because what it is, is it's the ignore your eyes and ears and dismiss the weight and the context of everything that we know, which isn't just... 41:12 you know, that what Donald Trump said just in the speech right beforehand, which, by the way, what he said was horrible. 41:19 It was, you know, normal rules don't apply. 41:22 You have to fight like hell. 41:23 You're going to lose your country. 41:25 You cannot take this country back with weakness. 41:27 Very clear, very clear. 41:29 Just because he threw the word peaceful in there right before he said, let's all go march to the Capitol. 41:33 I'm going to march with you. 41:35 Does not exonerate him, but it's not just that, right? 41:38 I mean, one of the things... 41:40 I was thinking about this as I was writing that piece is that Donald Trump is culpable on a different level, though, from some from a lot of these people, because he is the progenitor, the originator of the lie, right, in which he constantly said it was a landslide election. 41:55 For two months, he is telling people this was stolen from you. 41:58 They took it. 41:59 It's happening right under your nose. 42:00 And these other guys amplified that. 42:02 Donald Trump said that. 42:03 Then he gives the speech right beforehand to incite them, this whole mob. 42:09 They did a great job yesterday, I think, of providing the timeline when you see how mad people were and how ready they were to be violent. 42:19 And then there's what he said after. 42:23 And this is, I think, the great differentiator. 42:27 When you look at what he tweeted around 2 p.m., mid-insurrection, scaffold hang noose up for Mike Pence. 42:37 And he tweets, not, I hope my vice president Mike Pence is okay, but instead he repeats the lie and says that Mike Pence was too weak, is not doing the thing that he needed to do, isn't being strong enough. 42:51 And then at 6 p.m., 42:53 After people have died, and we know people have died, he tweets, this is what happens when you steal a great landslide victory from people. 43:04 JVL Sacred landslide victory. 43:06 Sarah Longwell Sacred landslide victory. 43:08 And then tells them he loves them and remember this day forever. 43:13 Like that is the thing that is the chilling, disgusting thing that he did where and then although I would sort of throw in, though, that then the people who still voted to object like after that happened, I maybe throw throw them in there, too. 43:30 But but that is really people who want to say he threw the word peaceful in there like that is a willful blindness to everything that we know. 43:42 JVL Okay, sure, but the New York Times fired a reporter for using the N-word in a conversation, so isn't the cancel culture much worse? 43:49 Tim Miller Yeah, and I'm just ignoring that. 43:53 Come on! 43:53 JVL Give me a little something for that. 43:55 Tim Miller I'm sorry for all my straight 9-11 analogies today, but remember how Trump in the 2015 campaign made up this fantasy that there were Muslims cheering on rooftops in New Jersey when the planes hit the buildings? 44:09 Oh, yeah. 44:10 And he was like, that's part of the reason why we need anti-Muslim bans, because these are horrible people that were cheering. 44:15 That was true, like all of the Trump's attacks on other people, which were actually him telling it himself. 44:21 It ended up being true of Trump. 44:23 Trump was the imaginary Muslims cheering on the buildings. 44:27 He was at the White House cheering on the people that killed the cop after it happened and sieged the Capitol. 44:38 JVL Okay. 44:40 I think we should wrap this up. 44:41 Okay, I've got two other items. 44:42 This has been a very angry show. 44:43 Two quick items. 44:45 Tim Miller Also to make you angry. 44:46 Other news of the day. 44:47 Neera Tanden is being confirmed today. 44:49 And I just want to say that me and Neera have disagreed on a lot over the years and fought about things. 44:55 But I have never been more... 44:58 excited to support someone to be nominated for a government position that I don't care about than Neera Tanden to be the head of the Office of Management and Budget. 45:08 Because watching these Republicans like Rob Portman pretend to be mad about Neera's tweets and Lindsey Graham this morning was reading her Glassdoor reviews at CAP because being a mean boss is now too much for Lindsey Graham. 45:24 Saying mean tweets is now too much for Rob Portman. 45:28 Josh Hawley was upset that she took donations from big businesses because, you know, Donald Trump's entire Goldman Sachs cabinet. 45:36 JVL Wait, they read her tweets? 45:38 What's that? 45:38 They read Nira's tweets. 45:40 They read Nira's tweets, yeah. 45:42 They didn't have any time. 45:43 They don't pay attention to Donald Trump's Twitter feed, but they are dialed in on Nira Tanden's Twitter feed. 45:49 Tim Miller One of the senators was upset that, you know, tried to neg Nira by saying, did you know that you tweeted more times than Donald Trump in the past four years? 45:57 And I was like, what? 45:58 with donald trump's twitter habit as a pro was a problem the last four years really so all of these assholes i just wish that the democrats had won two more senate seats so instead of having to sit there like she's doing and being a nice person who's restrained who's just kind of nodding and saying yeah i might maybe stepped a little bit i maybe was a little hot on that tweet i maybe stepped a little over the line that's why i deleted them i'm 46:21 I want to unite the country like Joe Biden. 46:23 Instead of saying that, I really just wish Neera was up there saying, just eat my ass, Rob Portman. 46:32 I don't care. 46:33 Every tweet I sent was right. 46:35 In fact, my tweet should have been meaner, and you guys deserve it. 46:38 But she can't do that, so we can do that on this podcast. 46:41 And I can't wait for her 50 to 50 confirmation that is tie-braked by Kamala Harris. 46:46 It will be the best Office of Management and Budget confirmation in history. 46:50 Sarah Longwell JBL, if you have not gone and watched Rob Portman questioning her, you should. 46:55 Because just if you want to hate your day, because it is the kind of like galaxy brain, him sort of soberly chastising her for her Twitter behavior and asking if somebody should be in a position of leadership who tweets like that. 47:15 I just, it is the kind of thing that has me like, I'm going to go throw my computer out my window so I don't have to look at you again, Rob Portman. 47:23 JVL I would pay $100 for Neera Tanden to have pulled out her iPhone as Portman was talking and tweeted out, Bobby Portman can eat a dick. 47:38 That would have been the hottest thing ever. 47:42 Sarah Longwell It was galling to watch her apologize. 47:45 I agree with Tim. 47:46 I was like, so I became I'm like a radicalized on behalf of Neera Tanden now because I was just like, I like that. 47:54 That is their knock on her is just too on the nose. 47:57 Tim Miller I want like an at Neera Tanden t-shirt that has like the little Twitter bird and that has like eight of her most mean, mean negs on Republicans on the back of it. 48:08 JVL I want to start wearing that. 48:08 Could we start a Neera Tanden's id Twitter account? 48:12 Where we just now, now that she has to be responsible, where the as a satire, I mean, this is a satire where it is just all the things that she would tweet if she were not now like being a grown up. 48:26 Sarah Longwell Would that be OK or would she take that the wrong way? 48:28 Well, I don't know how useful that is to her. 48:30 What I just can't believe is I just don't know how these senators saw her tweets, because for the last four years, they have assured us that they have not been looking at Twitter. 48:38 They have not seen the tweets that come out. 48:42 JVL If only Nero had said something like, you know, I just have a really authentic communication style that lets me talk to people in ways that aren't orthodox, that aren't the way you people do this in the swamp. 48:56 Tim Miller Not PC. 48:57 JVL I'm not PC. 48:58 I'm not PC. 48:59 I just talk to real people in real ways. 49:02 And I understand that it might be unorthodox and you guys might have a problem with it, but you know, the people have spoken. 49:09 Tim Miller Okay. 49:09 My final, my final topic of the day is, is about Britney Spears, obviously. 49:14 And we need to free Britney. 49:16 I, I, I was a Britney, you know, fan as a young man as in the closet, you know, obviously like, yeah, hit me baby one more time. 49:25 And then as you know, I, I sort of re I, 49:28 established some Britney fandom at the Gay Beach House in Rehoboth. 49:36 But I have to say, I was never following the Britney news level of a fan. 49:41 And so this documentary that is on Hulu right now, it is astonishing how badly we treated Britney. 49:49 um the bob ehrlich who i thought was kind of one of the normal republicans it was my impression back in the 2000s um his wife said that he she she wishes britney would die uh because of the what she's doing to young people like diane sawyer was like grilling bob ehrlich the larry hogan of 1990 he was yeah yeah uh who was screwing 50:10 JVL Sick burn, huh, Sarah? 50:12 Tim Miller Sick burn. 50:14 Diane Sawyer was grilling her about why she was so mean to Justin. 50:19 She's on interview shows where they're asking her about her boobs when she was like 19. 50:23 I mean, she couldn't go anywhere without people taking pictures of her and using the worst ones and putting it all over magazines. 50:33 People were horrible to Britney. 50:35 And then after she went crazy, which any normal person would, given the way that she was treated, her father took control of her entire business and catalog and still controls it to this day. 50:51 So Britney Spears is an adult woman in her 40s who does not have control over her own finances. 50:57 It's in a conservatorship. 50:59 that her father owns. 51:00 And this documentary is about the effort to free her from this conservatorship, which I support 100% and would welcome any Britney stans listening to write an entire article for The Bulwark about freeing her, because I only have one hour's worth of information on this. 51:14 And I just want to say I fully endorse the Free Britney movement. 51:20 And I think that thinking about the Republican Party as a Donald Trump conservatorship is really kind of a relevant metaphor for what's happening in our politics. 51:31 JVL Can I just take the other side of this real quick? 51:33 Please. 51:34 The entire history of popular music in America over the last 75 years would be wildly different if all rock musicians had their finances placed into conservatorships. 51:48 And it would probably be better. 51:49 So you're pro-conservatorship. 51:51 I thought you were going to say you're pro-being. 51:52 Well, it would be better for their lives, right? 51:55 I mean, you know, I feel like fewer of them would have died before the age of 40. 52:00 Tim Miller This is illiberal, JVL. 52:02 This is fascist adjacent. 52:05 And, you know, we're in a fight for the country right now where the illiberalism versus liberalism and democracy versus authoritarianism. 52:13 JVL But then they could have created more art. 52:15 And this feels pretty authoritarian. 52:16 I don't think that's true, actually. 52:17 So Jim Morrison doesn't die because, you know, he doesn't kill himself because... 52:22 Look at the guys that survived. 52:25 Tim Miller The last five Rolling Stones albums are not exactly great art that our culture requires. 52:30 You need to have a little bit of crazy to have great art. 52:34 JVL So being a great popular artist requires two contradictory skill sets. 52:41 You need to be an artiste, but you also need to be a CEO. 52:45 And very few people are capable of doing both, Mick Jagger being one of them, right? 52:50 Sarah, you look like you're going to stab your eyes out. 52:52 Sarah Longwell She was a child. 52:53 She was a child then. 52:54 Now she's a grown person. 52:55 The idea that she can't have her money back now is ridiculous. 52:59 Yeah. 52:59 JVL Ridiculous. 53:00 Okay. 53:00 Maybe it goes a little far, the conservatorship. 53:03 But having somebody else be the CEO of the artist's life while the artist just gets to be an artist doesn't sound like the worst idea in the world to me because then they won't go broke and kill themselves with drugs. 53:15 Tim Miller This is so rabid-jacent, this take. 53:18 This take is so rabid-jacent. 53:20 Sarah Longwell This is what J.B. Ellis' worst is when you're like, oh, yeah, you actually believe that individual liberty is not a good thing. 53:27 How did you ever live in the conservative ecosystem? 53:32 JVL Very uncomfortably. 53:33 I did not agree with many of the things in the conservative world. 53:37 And as it turns out, conservatives didn't agree with many of the things in the conservative world either, so it was fine. 53:42 That was a true statement. 53:44 Tim Miller Anyway, free Britney. 53:44 JVL All right, guys. 53:46 Extra long show. 53:47 I'm pro-Britney. 53:48 I'm super pro-Britney. 53:49 Sarah Longwell You say extra long show at the end of every show. 53:52 Tim Miller These are just how long our shows are. 53:54 These are just how long the shows are. 53:55 JVL The original conception of the show was three 12-minute segments. 54:00 Nothing ever goes longer than 12 minutes. 54:02 And we have not done a show under 50 minutes in months. 54:06 Sarah Longwell Maybe we should revise our thesis then. 54:09 JVL We have revised it de facto, just not de jure. 54:12 We haven't. 54:12 Tim Miller let's just ask any of the listeners who made it through our anger and into the britney rant and are now here 59 minutes later would you like this to have been a 36 minute episode are you happy with 59 minutes please email jvl at the bulwark.com i don't care don't do that email me my normal email address uh which all of you guys have anyway all right tim sarah bye bye