Ben Rhodes: Is Trump Stumbling into a Wider War?

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Bullwork Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. I'd like to welcome back to the show Deputy National Security Advisor for Barack Hussein Obama and co-host of Pod Save the World. His latest book all we say, The Battle for American Identity was released earlier this year. It's Ben Rhodes. What's up, man? - Hey, Tim. Good to see you. As well yesterday at the beginning in this little intro, I said the Trump of a kind of quiet this week. So I'd say I'm on, we did a lot of silly stuff. And by the time the show aired, like he was already renaming lakes again, you know? And I don't even know that it's worth talking about it. He's such a loser and it's so embarrassing. But that did happen between the taping and the airing yesterday. - The Canadians have a former head of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, who's like methodically and rigorously in his own hand probably going through the terror that he's gonna reimpose on us. And Trump with his own hand is just drawing on lakes and renaming things as usual. - Yeah, expanding the area of the hurricane. Yeah, I liked how Karni really mauged us with the use of the word hydronims in his statement. Like Trump is obsessed with hydronims and I was like, all right, well, I, Trump certainly doesn't know that word, I had to Google it. It's good, it's good, it's good usage. - You gotta go to the Soros, yeah. Mark Karni's like a welcome to Soros, man. Like we, we're not fighting someone in our own way class in the trade war here. - We have a bunch of domestic politics to talk about. At the end, on your sub-stack notes on the stories we tell, you've had two good ones in the last two weeks that touch on things that affect me, resistance, one discourse, and hatred of NS Canter. So we will get to know of those things at the end. - Okay, yeah, good. - But I gotta start with foreign policy, you know, your expertise. I guess we'll tie this NS Canter. I wanna do the Brian Winhorse thing about connecting dots on a couple of stories I've been reading in the news. And since you actually have sources you talked to, I'm wondering what you think about all this. So C.I.A director visits Moscow. The Wall Street Journal reports that depletion of our weapons stocks in the Iran War could be motivating Putin to consider making a move on NATO. The NATO Secretary General has a meeting with the U.S. Undersecretary Elbridge Colby, just a little unusual. U.S. Intel, we've seen these reports for a while now, we're warning Eastern European countries about Russia plans to test NATO. There was a leak of a letter that three Baltic commissioners sent to the EU president about a deteriorating security environment and increased frequency of airspace violations in the Baltics. And the Sun tabloid has Creml and insider steering Putin that was prepared to drop a tactical nuke. So, you know, I'm tying like Elbridge and Ratcliffe in the warnings. And it feels kind of like the lead up to the Ukraine war. When a lot of people are like not taking that that seriously and our Intel people are like, no, really. Like this is happening. I don't know, what do you think about all that? - Yeah, and I've been talking to people in Europe and some of the people kind of worked on these types of things over the last decade. And I think there is a feeling that there's rise in concern that Russia could do something in Europe. That could take different forms. One is like a direct attack on European soil targeting places where they manufacture some of the drones and rockets that are going deep into Russia. The Russian idea being, okay, if you're giving them the weapons that are hitting places like Moscow and St. Petersburg, then we have a right to attack the factory in Germany that is producing that. There's lesser things they could do. They've been doing sabotage operations. Like there have been fires set in Europe. There have been things blowing up in Europe. - The drones at the German air base. - Yeah, drones just shown up. They could also just begin a more aggressive version of what they did in Ukraine in one of the Baltic states or Moldova. You know, there was a great story recently at times about like literally Russian training camps dudes with guns and preparing sabotage operations in Serbia, ostensibly for Moldova. You had NATO undertaking kind of military exercises to kind of show, you know, some deterrence. But yeah, I think it is a tenuous time. And there is a feeling that as Russia is kind of on the back foot here because of the Ukrainian drone capability that one way they might lash out is by, you know, trying to impose a cost on Europe and test whether their NATO lines can respond to it. - I wanted to kind of flashbacks of how we got here. And there's a really embarrassing action story from March about the Trumps. I'm going to start with the lack of preparations I want to talk about, but like even going back to Biden, as you sit here now, like does it feel like we were outweighing, you know, world war three concerns and underweighing how much we could have been helping Ukraine, you know, kind of given where we are now. And it seems like we might be walking into, I mean, not world war three and like the nuclear sense, but like, you know, an increasingly globalized conflict anyway. - Yeah, I worry about two things. The increasing globalized conflict, right? The way in which this comes together with the war in Iran, the closer collaboration between Russia, China, and North Korea, Iran as against, you know, the United States and Europe. I also just worry about something that doesn't like look like World War Three, but there's just kind of creeping violence into Europe, you know, like more and more of these sabotaging, drone strikes, cyber attacks, and the reprisals on Russia. And it's not right to tactical nukes, but we're just learning to live with more and more and more violence and conflict. You know, on this one, as someone who's been willing, you know, to second-guess the Biden administration on things, they had a tough fucking problem here. I think in retrospect, and again, I say this like with empathy that this is not easy to deal with at the time. There were kind of two paths that might have been able to have been taken. Like, one is kind of a premised question. Hey, we're not that concerned that Putin's action will use nuclear weapons, and we're really going to start pouring more and more weapons in as fast as possible to give the Ukrainians an advantage. Another is, frankly, if you look at the contours of the front line, it's not that dissimilar from where it was pretty early on in the war, like after the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023. And so the other road not taken might have been like, what would it have looked like, and it might not have worked, took kind of really drive towards a negotiated settlement earlier, like beginning in like 2023. Now, the Ukrainians didn't necessarily want that. But the reality is, what concerns me is that where this thing ends up is probably not going to be that dissimilar from where it could have ended up, if somehow you've been able to do that then, and meanwhile, a lot of people have died. I can sense that hippie roads is more interested in a negotiated settlement path. Well, I'm intrigued by the weapons path. Yeah, well, I hear you on the weapons path. The natural security people, I've been in all these meetings. You tend to take the middle option, you know? That's like anything else. It's like back when I was in PR, and you had a client, you're like, we're going to give you a crazy option or like a very conservative option, or like yours, yeah. So we've been kind of living with the middle option for years now. And the Ukrainians, by the way, have broken out of that because they're drone manufacturing basically is the more like aggressive weapons option. And they're actually having some success with that to your point. So I think that does bear some scrutiny, but we'll see where it goes. Speaking of paths to take in, this is the aforementioned March story about drones. This is my guy, Mark Caputo, that broke this. Ukrainian officials tried to sell the US, their battle-proven technology for downing Iranian-made drones. They made a PowerPoint presentation showing how it could protect American forces and their allies in the Middle East war. Trump administration dismissed the Ukrainians only to eventually reverse course a little while ago. Yikes. That is a miss that has like a ton of implications, actually. - It has a ton of implications because the first point is, you know, Tim, I've been talking this endlessly, but like everybody you talk to in the Middle East is like the damage to these US bases and facilities as far worse than, you know, or being told, right? I mean, we took some hits that we might not have taken, had we moved more aggressively to adapt this Ukrainian technology. I think the other important lesson going forward though, Tim, is like you innovate on the battlefield. The Ukrainians have been in it for years, and they've made breakthroughs in both offensive drone technology and in defenses. And my sense, Tim, is that like at the same time that the Pentagon is shoveling massive contracts at the door to like Don Jr's drone company. And we're building like the world's most expensive drones. What the Ukrainians and the Iranians have shown is that like you can make pretty cheap drones in your garage that are like more effective. Like smaller drones swarming or more effective than like the Battlestar Galatica being designed in Silicon Valley, you know, or Don Jr's company that is getting like no big contracts. And so I do think that there's a, you know, the hippie and me who, but who also realizes natural security is necessary. Because like, hey, we could probably say some money on the defense budget by, you know, embracing some of the technology that the Ukrainians have innovated on the battlefield rather than, you know, giving Don Jr a blind check. - A lot of talk from the Silicon Valley guys, you know, it's like Paul Murlucky, the Andral guy, and how great that they're going to do to help us militarily. I had lunch with him once and he picked his nose and ate it. And so maybe that should have been a warning that maybe these guys weren't as good as they seem. But yeah, what is clear is that Ukrainians are the best in the world at this right now. and like, this is the end of the video. this gets the future of Ukraine's defense, but they need this like on the back end of the war as they're part of their deterrence, right? And we'd be dumb, not, I mean, I assume the Trump, like, you know, he just doesn't like Ukraine. So he's probably like, I'll get out of here with that sort of technology, you know? And that's a big mess. - Yeah, and now this is impact and kind of the nexus of all this, right? I mean, you know, who knows? Russia, the Iranian president and Putin are being next week at the Shanghai cooperation organization, summit in Kyrgyzstan. They're talking about like nuclear energy production and sharing, but who the hell knows what else they're talking about. And I do think that like the depletion of our patriots is kind of informing like, you know, different tactical options for both Russia and Iran and both wars that were entangled in. - Yeah, and, you know, I mean, on the far end of risk of potentially Taiwan, right? I mean, because, you know, the window that people who worry about Taiwan worry about is the second half of the Trump administration, right? When the U.S. is probably at its low point in terms of global standing-- - God willing. - Yeah, distracted by a million, yeah, God willing, seriously, allies are divided. - The Donald Trump Jr. administration at 29, you know, we haven't been able to see the bottom for a year, right? That's a good point, that's a good point. So, yeah, I mean, it's never good at a time of heightened global conflict in the act of wars to be running out of munitions, particularly defensive ones that you need to protect your allies. - We talked about this a couple of times ago, you're on and your previous book after the fall. And, you know, a lot of that is like reflective of us and, you know, kind of the mistakes of the American-led world order and things we could have done differently, but another part of it is like fears of what a different-led world order would look like and why it's so important that we do better. And, as we're sitting here now and you wrote that what, eight years ago, it's been a long time, seven, eight years ago. And, we're sitting here now and the like prospect of a China-led world order is feeling even more likely than it did when you wrote that book. And, I'm just kind of curious kind of how you see sort of the China interplay as it stands today. - I think it is more likely because their strategy for Trump has been to kind of punch him back in the face when he picks on them. But, meanwhile, like kind of quietly, go about building their own parallel world order. And so, as Trump is, you know, pissing everybody off with his tariffs, the Chinese are there to say, "Hey, look, you know, you may not like the terms "of your deals with us, but at least you know "what the terms are and they don't change." You know, Mark Carney had this line that the US now makes deals in pencil, not pen. The Chinese make deals in pen and guess where Mark Carney's going. He's going to go to China. That's one thing, the AI of it all. Like, the US is building the most expensive AI in the world. We've got Claude, we've got, you know, chat GPT. But what most countries want is like cheaper open source models that can create efficiencies, robots to do shit, you know, industrial efficiencies. And I think we're going to look up in a couple of years. And there might be these giant IPOs for, you know, anthropic and open AI. But, meanwhile, most of the world could be running on Chinese AI. And then, meanwhile, they're kind of parallel institutions, they're kind of belt road initiative institutions or just kind of spreading out. They're getting pretty almost near dominance on certain critical minerals. Trump, despite all his talk about that, has not really done anything about it. So, yeah, I think we're beginning to see the outlines of not a Chinese dominated one, but let's just say in a fractured world order, a place where the Chinese are potentially in a stronger position than the United States. And everything Trump is doing is literally just driving countries into the arms of the Chinese. And in the long run, Tim, the dollar's reserve currency is one of the ultimate targets of the Chinese. And they don't want to get there tomorrow 'cause it'd be too disruptive. But, you know, the moment in which the world starts to move away from the dollar, our standard of living becomes impossible. - Where are all the China hawks that criticize you? And it's kind of funny. It's funny to go back to the things six months ago when the Iran war started, some of the right-wing hawks, you're seeing this like Galaxy brain, Twitter threads, about how Trump is doing 4D chess. And this really isn't even about Iran. It's about China, you know, and it's about solidifying our power. And boy, that doesn't look very good. - Well, 'cause they thought it was like this kind of board game where we were gonna like take the Iranian oil somehow and take it away from the Chinese. And we were like bombing like railroads that the Chinese uses part of the Belt Road Initiative. But losing sight of the fact that that, like that's not how the world works. You don't just like bomb a country and then get all of its oil, you know? And the underlying fear caused by the United States being this bull in a Chinese shop and doing something like the Iran war confirms exactly what the Chinese have been saying about us. - Right. - For a very long time. - And look at Kuwait, for example. Like this is just one example that's what it goes through in a story about how Kuwait has had very good feelings about the United States, given the way that we came to their defense when Saddam invaded them, Gulf War I. But like, how are things looking right now around targeting their civilian infrastructure, they're targeting their water disalination plans, energy installations, and they're looking around and these US bases here helping us are making us less safe. - So two things I point to you, 'cause you kind of want to look at the world's kind of swing states, right? And the Gulf states are the ultimate states, because of the Gulf. - Yeah, they literally are the, you know, 'cause they've got, in a cash poor world, they have tons of cash. They obviously have tons of natural resources. And they've kind of been on our side, but like the UAE, the Saudis, like they play the footsie with the Chinese and a bunch of stuff. And look, you're right. It's not just that the bases, you know, don't make them safer. The bases are endangering them. Like they are being attacked because they host US bases. And that could lead them on the back end of this war to make some pretty fundamental choices about who they want to be aligned with. And at least wanting to hedge against Reliance News. Let's, what about South Korea? Like in the middle of a war in which the United States yanked away the Thad Missile Defense System, it's like the most important Missile Defense System for the South Koreans in a potential conflict. He then just decides to reignite his love, unrequited love affair with Kim Jong-un who no longer even writes love letters. He just sends troops to Ukraine to fight with Putin. And he's canceling military exercises. What if South Korea is like, you know what? We're just gonna have to cut a deal with the Chinese. Like we don't like it, but we got no other choice. Europe, same thing like on the tech issues, right? There's a lot of concern in Europe about being overly reliant on American tech because what if Trump comes along and just switches it off so he can invade Greenland? And so you're hearing about digital sovereignty but also that can lead to the Europeans being like, well, let's just buy the cheap Chinese AI. And a few years ago the U.S. would have said, don't do that, you know, just like we said, don't use Huawei. I don't know if those arguments carry a lot of water anymore. - What worries do you have? Some of your lefty pals, sometimes I see on TikTok are like, what, who, let's Chinese world orders fine? Like maybe we should just, maybe it's better even, you know, like what fears would you have about like a continuing on this trajectory? - Well, I mean, obviously their political system is one in which you wanna talk about a mass surveillance state. - Yeah, I wanna be clear when I say lefty, sometimes the listeners get confused about all the lingo these days 'cause liberal, you know, we're changing all the words. I'm a liberal now, you know, I'm talking about like the far edge, the anti-America, like the little corner of the left. - Yeah, I mean, I guess to be fair, like, you know, in some regards like the Chinese have not gone around starting wars, right? But at the same time, like their political model is one of, you know, complete, total control, complete mass surveillance that's already built there. And, you know, essentially the places that have become kind of under Chinese dominance have not benefited from it. They get into debt traps, like they become kind of the vassal states of like a different empire, you know? And, you know, like you need somebody to help create collective action to solve problems. And even from like a left standpoint, like that includes climate change, right? And among other things, where's the Chinese are kind of just trying to hoard and dominate clean energy sectors, right? My argument to the left is someone who's like very sympathetic to a lot of their critics, American bar policy, makes a lot of those critiques myself, is it would still be better. There's this presumption that the United States can do nothing right in the world. And therefore, we should just kind of close up shop. I'm sympathetic to some of that. There's a lot we should just stop doing, like dumb wars. And I think we don't need a trillion-eft dollar, you know, defense budget and all the rest of it. But I would still rather the United States tried to do good things in the world. It would be better. And where I think we are, Tim, is like we're not going back to something we run. We need to negotiate the new terms of the world order. Like the United States, China, a whole bunch of other countries. We should be entering an era of negotiation about what comes next. Because if it's a competition for who's going to dominate, either the US or China or recommend Russia, that's kind of a recipe for more conflicts and less, you know, let's just say less good outcomes. - The other thing impacting the swing states that you mentioned in the Middle East is the Israel relationship. Obviously that is impacting the swing states here in America too. I want to talk to you a bunch about the Democratic side of this. But there's just this one story that cover eyes kind of, I think, reflective of the political situation that Israel is facing here on the Republican side as well. Responsible statecraft had this. The Israeli government is running advertisements on the Ted Cruz podcast, a competitor of yours in mind, behind both of ours in the rankings, I think. But he does have another job. Cruze is podcast, we don't have a FEC, really. Any more? And so I don't know who would look into this, but Cruz's podcast has a strange licensing deal with IHeart, where revenue associated with the advertising sales goes to Cruz's Truth Encourage Pack, which supports his political endeavors. The company's given at least 1.7 million in digital revenue to Truth Encourage Pack since 2023. So if the Israeli government is running advertisements, it does feel like a foreign government is giving money to the pack. - Yeah, well, first of all, Truth Encourage, those words used, you normally associate with Ted Cruz. - Well, he did have the courage to go on to talk to Carlson's podcast. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. - Truth, I don't know about truth. - That's the last time he exhibited some courage. - He had the courage, probably not either, fleeing from Mexico. Yeah, I don't know. - Look, there's a lot of ways to think about Israel, obviously, today. Like one simple thing I would suggest to people is just remember, it is a foreign country. Like it is not like an appendage of us. And so foreign countries generally should not be putting money into the packs of American politicians. When they are doing that, they are usually going to want something in return for that kind of investment, you know? I mean, part of what my arguments on Israel have just been is like, if we just treated Israel like another country, a lot would change. Like, you know, in terms of military assistance, in terms of stuff like this. And at the same time, like part of what's frustrating me about this kind of stuff, Tim, is it's like, if you point out, I mean, I remember I wrote a piece for the Times and I took some shots at a pack for how they try to use money to influence politics. And they're like, well, you can't say that, that's a trope. Like you're raising money and spending in campaigns to get an outcome. I'm not suggesting that that's-- - They'll say, well, it's Americans. It's not really foreign. And so you're advancing this kind of conspiracy. And it's like, well, when I've been starting to talk about this lately, I've been like, well, I'm lead part Lebanese from my mother's sandwiched Lebanese. So I'm like, if it was, there was a Lebanese American pack, like spending $30 million in a primary race to support a candidate that was on the opposite side of the Israel Lebanon conflict. I think people would be like, this is pretty strange. Like even if it was American Lebanese that were spending like that much money, right? - Absolutely, it's an American pack. But there are a lot, I don't like money in politics generally. Like I don't like how fossil fuel companies spend money in American politics. Like it's not just A-pack. But like, it's also like not the best strategy for them. Like I don't think they have a problem with like the Ted Cruz podcast listenership. Like I keep hearing about this vaunted Israeli PR campaign. And if the PR campaign involves like buying ad space on, you know, Ted Cruz podcast, I'm not sure that's where they have a problem, you know? - No, I think there's been a backfire. - Yeah. - Obviously like a big backfire from people that would not really have cared one way or the other. I think again, I think that particularly on the left, people who are super engaged, you know, who maybe just have generally good feelings about Israel and feel like obviously the Jewish state, I think there should be a Jewish state and all that. And then they're like, wait a minute, but I live in Michigan. Like why is there so much money coming into this race? Like especially after, you know, at least how we seen, you know, Israel conduct themselves in Gaza and the West Bank is just like, it feels out of whack. It's having the effect of having people, you know, have a like a negative backlash effect rather than a persuasive effect, I think. - It is because people notice when you spend $30 million on ads, you know? And so the first thing is it's just feeding the backlash. Like because it's get money out of politics and we're uncomfortable with this and like, you know, but the other thing I'd say, Tim, is that, you know, people sometimes, you know, who are more pro-Israel, will say, why is Abdu'l talking so much about, you know, Israel? Like, Abdu'l is running on like Medicare for all. If someone comes in with $30 million, they're the ones that are making the race about, you know, like a witness test on Israel. It's not Abdu'l, right? You can't simultaneously say like, we don't like how much American politics and democratic politics in particular is becoming about this one issue. At the same time that you're then getting into all these democratic primaries and pouring all this money into, you know, and they're not obviously advertising my Israel 'cause they know that democratic voters don't agree with them. But it's not like we don't know where the money's coming from, right? - Yeah. - And I think every time they lurch into these spaces, it creates more backlash. - I saw some pushback to that point on Abdu'l, but just I just wanna go a little bit more to what you're saying on the establishment of the pro-Israel side of this dispute. - Even a Michigan, like it's kind of strange, like Hillary Shulton's Congresswoman, you know, talking about how she would rather not be a Democrat if Democrats are not going to support fully the state of Israel and everything they do, Hayley Stevens, I kind of said this weird, misive to Politico earlier this week after she lost where she was like, my critics came at me in very personal and anti-zionist levels. I don't even know, it's kind of a funny saying, I can't even really like know what that means, how you can be attacked on anti-zionist levels. But they're talking about this. It's like a fundamental critique, right, of Abdu'l. And on an issue like where there's a disconnect between where they are and where the base is. Like maybe you think maybe some of our listeners think that's bad, or maybe they're on Shulton and Stevens's side of that dispute, but like, yeah, just if you just look at the numbers, like they're way more Democratic politicians who are in the Steven Shulton camp and way more Democratic voters who are in the Abdu'l camp. That's just his reality. - My point about this is like if any poll you look at, you're up to kind of 70% or more of Democrats who want to fundamentally, they don't want to provide assistance to the Israeli government. They believe that war crimes are committed in Gaza. And like you're not gonna just kind of make that go away and stamp that out. 'Cause there's another piece of this that I think is important for Democrats. As every now and then, they try some new whack and mull strategy to make this go away. And so recently, it's been the kind of coordinated statements against Sassan Piker and Jared Mosquets. The most pro is real member of the Democratic caucus being put in charge of a subcommittee responsible for Middle East policy, not a subtle move by the Democratic leadership there. Another problem with this, Tim, and again, listeners who, don't agree with my views on Israel. The one thing I would ask them is that this isn't just like over 'cause Gaza. You had Gaza, then you had a warner on that again if you have your eyes open, you know that BB Netanyahu was part of, not entirely responsible, but part of persuading Donald Trump to do that. - The West Bank? - But that's what I was gonna get at. This isn't gonna get better. Like look at the West Bank, look at what's happening. Like that's gonna continue to happen. Like everything that the Israeli government says and is doing suggests they're just gonna continue to take more and more of the West Bank. There's gonna continue to be these violent attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians. Like that's gonna keep coming. Let's just think in terms of election cycles in the next two years. It's not like Israel's gonna swing back to Gitsak Rabin here and we can all just get it on with things. And so the people who look like they don't understand what's happening are the Democratic established from politicians who are just trying to kind of keep this at arms length and make it go away. And I think there's a lot of ill will from 2024 when Democrats are told to like shut up and fall online because how many times are we gonna be told to do that? - Yeah, I've said this before, but it's just a really big bone. And I especially had it this week. I get especially frustrated with the idea that like, oh, you know, the Piker discourse or whatever. Obviously he says a lot of things that I've found gross. He extremes 10 hours a day and we disagree with a bunch of stuff. And somebody sent me an old tweet of his where he was talking about how much he loved Bashar Assad. So like me and Bashar does agree on a lot of it. But again, like he's a supporter of a goal he's not a goal. And like, and if your concerns are about anti-Semitism and you're like bringing back Nazi illusions, it's like, okay, well, like the current government is like was running a foreign gulag, like a literal gulag based on that they sent people there based on the color of their skin and the red tattoos. Like that's, I, I, I wasn't a concentration camp, but like, you know, I know it was on the way where we were sending people there, you know, just based on their ethnicity. And we have these detention centers running out. Like the Iranian professor I've been talking about that we have and, and Dilly didn't do anything. As a green card holder, we're holding an internment camp. And like, does microtters not have to answer? It's crazy. Like I, I don't even, has microtters even talked about that? It's like, if you're concerned about this and like, you know, creeping fascism in racism and putting people on camps based on their race, like, does microtters doesn't have to talk about the El Salvador gulag? Has anyone asked about it? I've duals been asked about it, son. Piker, like a thousand times. It's like, okay, ask about that. But like, why that frustrates me when people say that they're like concerned about the human right side of this and, and like, microtters gets this free pass from media or commentators, actors, whatever. Let me add another one, which is like, I remember being in Munich, right, in 2025. And JD Vance comes to the Munich security conference and gives us speech, you know, basically endorsing the AFD, like a neo-Nazi German party. Like, my family were German Jews, including some who perished in the Holocaust. Like, I'm not suggesting we shouldn't talk about any, any symptoms and left. I am suggesting like the, the discordance between a Twitch streamer saying things that at times trigger people and the vice president of the United States flying to Germany and telling them they need to be nicer to their Nazis. Yeah, where is microtters on that? I could as microadjust the pro AF. not see party, I think yes, I think yes, because he doesn't criticize. And I think part of this is like, okay, well, we're not even gonna ask the Republicans because like the Democrats are having this, I think in some way, well, counterproductive politically, but healthy as part of an organism. At a minimum counterproductive. Yeah, extremely counterproductive politically, but like kind of healthy as like an organism to like have people say what they really think. Like there is no disagreement. Like Trump's has fascist mass thugs in the streets and we have Kimps and we're supporting the fascist governments in other countries and ag microodders. Everybody is on board. Like there's no critique being offered from within their coalition. There's no critique. I guess actually that's how to do it. There's one critique. There's like the Tucker side of the party don't seem to be more anti-Semitic actually. It's the only critique. But the scale of the outrage about Assam Piker is so much greater than JD Vance and AFD or you know that we have people saying we're saying people the gulags. Let me put it this way. Even if you don't agree, like I've been on Hassan stream, I don't agree with a lot of stuff. He says actually and I, but I don't think he's any semi. But let's put that aside. Let's say you disagree with me about that. There's not even a crack open of the door from from people who have these views that we need to kind of pay attention to young people here. Like the Democrats need young voters to win elections, to knock on doors. Young voters have been telling you for years that this is a very important issue to them. And it's a gateway to them trusting you. It's not just about Israel. It's like if I'm feeling gaslit on this issue, well, how am I going to trust that you actually are going to fight to lower prices? Like this is what Mumbani figured out that if he showed that he would stand up to the party establishment on Israel, like that guy seems like he's got some balls. Like maybe he actually will try to bring free child care in like lower prices, right? And so the way these statements are put out the way that this issue is treated, it's not even like they're just trying to disaggregate and say like, hey, can we just like isolate some of this more extreme rhetoric that we don't like? It's more just like shut up, right? And if you listen to Hassan Piker, like you're a bad person, you know? Well, like millions of people listen to Hassan Piker. We have to be doing addition here, not subtraction. I'm a big 10 guy, like Jared Mosquitz has a place in the Democratic Party. I don't agree with them. But so should Hassan Piker's listeners? Like, what are we doing here? Like when we've been losing, like we've been losing, we shouldn't be like trying to like kick people off the island. Here's the pushback here. When they represent, when they represent the majority view of Democrats, we're telling what 70% of Democrats think war crimes are committed to 70% of Democrats to stay home in November. No, I obviously agree with you. But here's the pushback that I thought was reasonable. It's from Matt Eglaceus here at this. I think people who want pro-Israel Democrats to get to yes with Abdul Al-Sahad should consider chilling out about this. Then he links to a bunch of your tweets that you've been sending about Mosquitz and Piker and about all this stuff. His case is basically, okay, heard that like Democrats need to get to these young voters. But Democrats also need to get to pro-Israel moderate voters who were important in a list of slotkin winning in 2024. And like, Abdul Al-Sahad and his friends don't seem to be like caring that much about that either. It's a fair point, except we're always the ones who are told to chill out about it. Like again, 2024 happened. In the uncommitted movement, people were frozen out. There was no Palestinian American speaker at the DNC. Like, we were told, hey, be quiet. You know, this is a problem. And everybody could say that, though. I mean, like a moderate Joe Manchin, Dan, or John Bell, Edwards, Dan could say, we're never representing. I don't think everybody could not say that like, we're always told to chill out and be the good sport. My point would be that like, people really do care about this issue because they don't want to provide weapons. They're going to be used to commit war crimes or to annex the West Bank. And in politics, what is the strategy for actually changing the party's position? And at a certain point, like, you can't change the party's position. That's fine. So that's a critique of you. And that's a fair defensive view. Abdul, though, is running a campaign to be a leader of Michigan. And like, it does still feel to me, I don't know, like just as an observer, I'm not living in Michigan. So it's possible to add, I'm not saying, but just as an observer of this and earned media and social media, my grudges really seems like he's working very hard to get to the moderate Alistair Slotkin voters that he needs to win. And Abdul, like, doesn't seem like he's working that hard to get to those voters right now. I agree. So yeah, like, who am I? I'm just a guy. Just tweeting, baby. You're just tweeting from the West side. One of the things I'm trying to do in the world is to shift the party on this issue, right? Abdul has to win a Michigan. Look, it's a human enterprise. The guy had $30 million dumped on him. He's pissed about it, you know? But, you know, he's got to get past that and run the campaign that I think he wanted to run. He's not DSA and he's not a single issue, he's real at all. Like, he's actually used to run single issue Medicare for all, you know? He's got a trade board to talk about now that's going to hurt people in Michigan. Like, he's got prices that are up he can talk about. He's obviously should talk a lot about health care because that's his expertise. So I do, I agree with that piece of the advice that like everybody knows where he is on, on Israel, right? Like, like, he doesn't need to talk about that. The people that are excited to support him on that will do that. His job, again, addition, his job in the next several weeks is to close the deal with these little cislac and voters. That I 100% agree with. Let's do a little more domestic politics stuff. Your book is about speeches for people who didn't listen to our past episodes. They can go listen to what we talked a lot about past speeches. Speechifying feels a little back. Maybe not. I don't know. It feels like, I don't know. There's a moment where it's kind of like, you know, after his own run. It's all short form video these days. You know, it's all two-minute clips. You know, there's some of that as related to speeches. I guess you can talk about that. But the us off strategy of like owning news cycles by giving some like Obama-ish, we should say, speeches on Friday evening, you know, so that people are talking about it all through the weekend. It seems to be working for him politically. I'm just kind of wondering as you watch this, how that kind of intersects with what you're writing about. I think it's really interesting because, you know, part of what I had noticed in writing this book is how the delivery vehicles for speeches change how people speak, right? Radio, planes book, and exploration FDR, TV, Kennedy, Reagan, King, like charisma, social media, Trump, right? You speak for an hour and the algorithm just triggers everybody with it. And then everybody's like, everybody started skipping the speeches and going to the social media video. Like, my argument is twofold. Like, the first thing is that a speech is where you figure out what your argument is. You figure out the story you're telling. Like, I remember writing for Obama in '07, and it's actually a feedback loop, too. Trump is pretty good about this. Like, what are people responding to? Maybe I should talk more about what's working out there. It's where you road test your material, and it becomes the trunk of the tree for all of your communications. So if you know the story you're telling, the coherent story, and Osop has a coherent story, it's about corruption and state capture, and the reason that your prices are high, the reason everything sucks for you is because these guys are enriching themselves and their friends, and they don't care about you, and he ties it all together, right? And therefore, all your social media videos and your interviews and everything else, well, they flow from the story you're telling. Now, the other thing, Tim, which you and I as, you know, I'm like the last of the Gen X, you're millennial. Yeah, what he's doing is such a familiar strategy. He gives a speech, a whole speech. They tweak it each week to have like a topper on something we call the topper. Yeah, the topper, right? He has something that's in the news that he adds to that speech. They clip it in every fucking Monday morning, or Sunday morning, everybody's talking about like this John Osop speech that went viral, you know, and it's usually like the topper. And I knew that speeches were backed him when I saw Pete Buttigieg give a speech from with the exact camera angle, like, you know, Osop, that the camera points up at him, the hero shot, like he's at the podium, like, and Pete did the same thing, I'm like, we're back. Like, but I really truly believe this because what you can do in his speeches, you can tell a coherent story, you can tie the whole thing together, you can figure out what your message is, and then lo and behold, it makes your other communications better. You can, it turns out still control the narrative with a really good speech, with a really clever topper that you can clip and send out. You do have to be good though. You know, and there's a reason I think about some of the candidates that I worked for, McCain and Jeb in particular. I don't know that it was the era or the medium that prevented us from doing this and giving speeches. It was the fact that neither of them were very good at giving speeches. Right. And so I forget whether it was social media or whether it was the local news, you know, like the one minute clip, like, wasn't that good. And so, you know, you work with the way you can work with McCain, started doing more the town hall style thing. And then that was like, really, you know, he's gonna do that. Yeah, he's gonna do that. He's gonna do that. And he's very invoked for a while for bad speech givers. So like, oh wait, we can do this instead. The other thing that, you know, kind of, it allows you to do, besides like frame up the story that you're telling, like in the social media era, it's like just give people something to talk about that you control. Yeah. Like, you know, narrative narrative control. And I do think that like Democrats really kind of lost, have lost the last 10 years, like narrative control. Yeah, they've completely lost it. Because again, what what a speech allows you to do, again, it's you have to communicate outside the speech too. What is the story you're telling? Trump's been telling one story for 10 years, right? And we have to we've lived it. The Democrats have been on all over the place, like they lurch, right? Yeah. like we're just going to talk about abortion or we're just going to talk about health care subsidies and we sound like talking democracies, and you know, to quote our friend Dan Fyfer, like they read the stage of directions. Like we are here now to talk about kitchen tables. We understand that you don't care as much about democracy, you know, and that's a crazy way to do politics because the democracy is fundamentally intertwined with the kitchen table issues. It's one thing. - There's no emotional feeling in it. This is the connection to the good speech. This is what Obama was good at. And this is what Trump is good at. It's different emotions, but like you're next, you know, and like, Asaf, this is where both Asaf and Pete have a little work to do on that front. But you can kind of set it in a way that it's like triggers an emotional reaction, you know, even if that's not their natural state. - I think what Asaf needs, like I haven't gone back through all these speeches, like the next step is what is his personal motivation? Like why, why him? If he runs for president, like the next, that's where you make the emotional connection. Like you have to understand, like, not only this person's words are right, their story's good, but like why are they telling me the story instead of anybody else? And I think that's the next step that he can still get there. - Speaking of amazing speechifying, we do have one other kind of rising star on that front on our political scene, somebody just with pure charisma. And I wanna play a little bit of a recent speech by him. And I want you to have the real freedom that comes along with knowing that you are the Lord of your own manner. You're the great Southern-- (audience applauds) The great Southern populist, probably most of you in the room, don't know who I'm talking about, but he's an interesting guy, kind of a crazy guy. His name was Huey Long, and he once said, every man, a king, was the goal of his political program. But no man is a king if their castle is under siege by criminals. No man is a king if they can't take their family out to dinner without being mugged or having their car jacked. And of course, ending the Biden-Border invasion was a big part of why we have changed that over the last 18 months. - Oh, not about appealing. One of the things you're gonna write in the book, though, is the way that comes like the American story is told and re-told and updated. And so I wanted to get your take on JD Vance's update of the Huey Long narrative. - The Lord of the Manor there. - Yeah. - I mean, like JD Vance is constantly trying to kind of speak himself into being something that he's not, you know? Like Huey Long, probably has a hire name wreck and the board podcast and some other places. But I mean, this is a guy that just exuded authenticity, right? Like, you may not have liked Huey Long, but like, you know, you believe that he came from the places that he was talking about to believe the things he'd been saying. Like JD Vance constantly looks like he practiced in front of the mirror at trying to be this weird combination of like a populist and a troll, like wrapped in like a, like Peter Teal constructed, you know, suit. Nothing about it suggests authenticity. - The populist venture capitalist role. - Yeah. - The emotional connection you talked about comes from knowing something about what, you know, John McCain, like I didn't agree with about a bunch of stuff, I agree with him, some stuff. But like, he kind of knew that guy's story and like what motivated him and all made sense. It made sense. Like even if I didn't agree with some of his decisions, like where they came from made a lot of sense to me. - Yeah, this way the JD was a wife part of it. People are uncomfortable to talk about this 'cause you get into, you know, personal territory and this also popped up in the Michigan center race is a little thing recently. But like, it also hurts the authenticity of the story. Like if JD's story is like, and we talked about this last time here on like this populist, like America's blood and soil nationalism. America is an ideal, America is a people and a place. You know, and also to be the Lord of your own manner, we can't have any foreigners in the country. And the most best thing the Trump did was make sure we have negative migration. And also my son's name is Vivek. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Just like what? Like it doesn't make sense. Like the story doesn't make sense. - No, his own life is more in line with the other story. Like we talked about this last time, but essentially he gives his kind of blood and soil nationalism speech and all this talk about that America can't be about the Declaration of Independence 'cause lots of people like that. And they often become American and all the rest of it. But meanwhile, you know, his own house looks more like the kind of composite nation that Frederick Doug was talking about where people come from everywhere and they can intermarry and they can, there's just just discordance here. And a duel like raised that, you mentioned Michigan. I don't know if this is right or wrong. Like a duel's testing out this kind of alpha Democrat. - Yeah. - And every now and then I'm like, oh, I don't know why he went there. But I'm also like, well, it's an interesting experiment. - It is. And it's a very contrasting experiment to what Rob Singen is doing in Iowa. It's just kind of interesting. - Yes, yeah. - It's the opposite, it's the opposite. And you know what, they both might work. You know, that's fine in politics, different things work. Like Trump is married to an immigrant. Like this is absurd. Like the people running the biggest mass deportation campaign since, you know, well, bigger. The biggest in American history, you know, sweeping people up off the street, you know, just like for no reason in some cases. Like, you know, Trump's married to an immigrant and, you know, JD vans his marriage, you know, is in a biracial relationship that, which is great. But like, it doesn't, it's not exactly the Lord of the Manor white nationals and stuff. - Yeah, and to JD's credit, his wife can speak English. So, I do think that's important in contrast. - All right, let's go back to your news one. Resistance won mistakes, reflections. - You know, as a, as a resistor like you, we both were resisted. - Me too, I know, I know. My feelings still got a little bit harsh. Okay, my feelings get a little bit harsh, you know? I understand the pushback, the feeling like Trump won again. So obviously, resistance won't fail in a way. Like, it's sort of like, you know, that's just what happened. And so there's like almost no sense in kind of arguing about that, though there was clearly a failure. It's like you lost the game, you had to do something wrong. I do get a little bit annoyed at you, but like other people who weren't really on the field, not really, no, I a little bit know you one thing. We get to that in a second, but on the broader question, people who weren't really on the field that much, or who are complaining a lot the whole time, you know, being like, you got suck, you lost. And I was like, what are you doing? Do you win? Do you beat Trump? Do you have any wins? Show me, yeah, yeah, where are you? So that does frustrate me a little bit. But anyway, I'm going to try to let my personal issues set them aside and look at this objectively. What were the lessons that you took away from kind of this resistance? One, you know, the page being turned with Vindman and Conway and Goldman, those are kind of the examples you used. - Yeah, I used them as kind of archetypes. And again, I acknowledge in the piece, I'm in a glass house. I was a resistor. I was tweeting like crazy, I had a podcast and you still do. I supported the first impeachment of Trump. But first of them is architects that lead into the lessons. Because Conway is the kind of hyper online, never-trunker, right? Then Vindman is the kind of like noble civil servant, you know, who did a noble thing and just a blowing. But then we kind of, the idea that the resistance is from within the federal government, you know, he kind of represented that line of thought. And then Dan Goldman, the kind of the prosecutor at the first impeachment and the kind of hero holding Trump to account, the problem is, there's a limitation to all this. Like the first one is that I think the hyper online aspects of the resistance, like clearly had a very low ceiling on what they could accomplish. And I did, I singled out the Lincoln Project. But as something where I remember even at the time people, like the most online people I knew would always be sending me these like Lincoln Project clips and you're like, they really got them here, you know? - Like comfort codes. - Exactly, it was less about persuasion and more about comfort food, right? And so one thing is like the hyper online stuff made us all feel like heroes, but was it really out there persuading people? So that's one thing. The second thing is that the kind of deification of men, right, kind of tipped, let's face it, it tipped into sanctumony, you know? I mean, and I wrote about all the letters I signed, you know, and defense of the, you know, this norm or this, I think the federal bureaucracy's great, you know, 'cause I'm a big government guy, you know? But we leaned so hard into it that it played writing the idea that of these are the establishment people, the Democrats are the establishment, they're defending the government, they're defending the institutions. - I have a cringe Instagram post with VinVin, I think the caption is called "Saved America" from 2021, not quite. - Yeah, and then the Trump impeachment, the first one, the second one was obviously necessary, but like it played in this idea that all these people care about and the resistance is Trump. Do they care about what I'm focused on in my lives, right? But the core problem, too, is that the whole premise of the resistance, and this is the kind of feature, not the bug, was Trump is an aberration, and we represent like America and he doesn't, and therefore inevitably, like gravity's gonna catch up to this guy, Mueller's gonna nab him, or he'll get him peach 'cause of VinVin, or inevitably he'll lose the election, right? And I don't think he would have lost that election without COVID. This isn't me saying now we have to go back in time and examine the white working class grievances of people in West Virginia. This is me saying like, hey, wait a second, Trump represents like deeper, you know, yes, those grievances against globalization, but there's also xenophobia and anti-immigrant feeling and a kind of deification of celebrity and rich guys like Trump and even con men like Trump, like, and he had captured something real and all this populism that was pissed off at everything. And by casting as an aberration, we didn't take seriously, like the-- enough the deeper currents that were behind Trumpism. Now look, sure, we some of us did at the time, but we can't argue with the results. And I'd say Tim, just to, I actually thought about adding the bulwark into this as a positive, by the way. I'm not just saying this, because if you look at bulwark 2.0, you're a little grittier, you're doing a deeper reckoning. You're doing something different than you the first time in the same way that I'm trying to do something different, because I think, frankly, if I'm now just pick on myself, but I think it applies to a lot of people. Like, we secretly felt kind of like heroes. Like, we're here on the Vanguard defending democracy. And that's not inviting to people. Like, and it's not enough to talk about Trump with the Sharpies. You got to talk about why Trump with the Sharpie means that he's not paying attention to the things that you're actually pissed about in your lives, you know? So there's a lot there, but that's the summer. I agree with this, and I think it's important to really, and I'm like trying hard. So I genuinely appreciate the complex. I'm trying to hard to actually reflect on stuff. And obviously, you know, again, at some level, this was a failure, and we should reckon with that, because he's fucking back in there. There were two things I just wanted to bring up from the piece. That are, I think, kind of comforting reckonings for the left. Yes, because it's like, you know, these are easy things to say, because it doesn't really actually require that much reflection. And one is, as a personal nitpick, which is about poor Liz Cheney. Yeah. You write this. Liz Cheney was even enlisted as a leading surrogate for Kamala Harris, ignoring the fact there was little evidence of a non-alete never-Trump coalition. I agree with the broader point, but I have a quick quiz for you. What was Liz Cheney's convention speaking? So do you remember where she spoke? I don't. I was referring more to her in Pennsylvania at the end. Yeah, she wasn't invited to the convention. Yeah, she had like three events with Kamala. My point is just like, I think it's really easy to like look at this. I think this is a shorthand, which is like, oh, the Liz Cheney thing. And it's like, well, I don't know. I feel like there are a lot of mistakes that you could look at to the Harris campaign about ways that it did not resonate. And it's kind of like, if you're in the left coalition, it's like easy to be like, you know, the big mistake with those two events that she definitely was Cheney in Pennsylvania. Like that signaled the wrong thing. And it's kind of like, well, I mean, Liz was trying to help. I don't know. I don't know. By the way, so number one, I don't blame Liz Cheney for this. You know what? She was trying to help. Like, I blame that. Like they did bring her out in high profile events. And like, I think the final week of the campaign is key swing states. So I think Pennsylvania maybe was constant. And they kept stepping on the rake of being the establishment, right? Like, whatever you think about Liz Cheney. And I know you, you know, like have things like more things about her than I do, but and I like something's about her. Her name is Cheney. She represents, you know, most Americans hear Cheney. Like they don't think January 6th committee. They think Bush Cheney, they think Iraq war. And there are a lot of ways in which the Democrats, like repeatedly, were telling people like, hey, look at us. We had the backing of these establishment Republicans. We're bipartisan. When, in fact, what Trump had figured out was, I believe the way Trump got credibility with voters is by breaking the Republican Party. By being like, I understand how mad Republicans and Democrats are at the Republican Party. And I'm willing to blow it up. And so, again, like Liz Cheney caught my strays. But it's more about that's indicative of a Democratic Party mindset. I mean, I remember Tim, like looking at the, and I'll give you a lefty, another lefty thing, that Comma Harris convention speech when, you know, she's talking about like, we need the most lethal military. It's a very like 2002 Democrat. We're still trying to convince people that we're going to like, we're willing to go fight wars. When, in fact, like that, that's not what people want anymore. You know, and so I think the Liz Cheney thing is indicative of a mindset that we didn't understand that, you know, that ship is sailed. And I also do think that, you know, I earned some green rims or at least virtual ones. They're these narratives that play out on cable where Liz Cheney is a hero for January 6th. But I don't know how much that filters down to Wisconsin. And, you know, and I do think Democrats lived too much in the green rooms and through the first Trump term in the binary. Yeah, I totally agree with that race. I mean, I guess my point was more, sometimes I get frustrated with the left criticism because I was like, you know, was a pretty important election. Was the easiest choice of my lifetime. Liz Cheney was begging the Harris campaign to let her do it. And she's like, I'll do whatever you want, literally. I just know this personally. They didn't fucking call her back until October. And then it's like, and then meanwhile, you got a bunch of people that are, like, shitting on Kamala the whole time. That's right. You know what the big mistake, you know what I mean? That's like that environment. I'm just kind of like, why weren't you offering to, I don't maybe, and maybe if Kamala said no, then it's like a kid that's on her. But I think that there was not a ton of excitement to help her from some of the people that were that are critical. Okay, my other netback is just this one of your top lesson. I thought it was funny. I thought you were going to mention it and then you didn't. Online energy is not a shortcut to electoral success. I agree with that about the resistance one. I also wonder if it's also true about the current kind of online energy for the DSI left. And I don't know if it's true or not. But I think that like right now, there is like a lot of sort of assumptions that it's popular and it's working because it worked in some primaries. And because it gets you a lot of retweets, talk about this is maybe the most offensive thing I could say to DSA posters. But like, is there actually some parallels between the big, you know, online DSA accounts and George Conway, actually, in lack of trying to persuade and more of, you know, aren't we, so aren't we doing so well right now? Sorry, George, I love you. Sorry to both sides of that comparison. I know both of you will hate it. Yes. I think that's fair critique. I think if you look at the DSA candidates that get meaning like real traction, right? Like Mamdani is not just posting, right? Like he's modeling a different kind of politics, right? Both in terms of his agenda and also just he's literally showing up every single place. He's talking every single person he can, right? He's the best example though. That's kind of like me using Assof as the example for a good resistance one figure. You know, some people are just talented and can overkill. I guess my point would be the DSA's how far they can go. Look, I don't think there's any world in which the DSA like becomes a democratic party. Like, I don't think they think that. They want to move the party to the left uncertain things, right? That happens in politics. Like every freaks out, but this is a kind of normal occurrence. You know, the Tea Party wasn't the first time this always happens. Like an activist wing comes in and they're trying to pull the party in a certain direction, left or right, uncertain issues. And I guess what I would say is you're right. That the success of that effort is not going to play out online. It's just not. It's going to depend upon how good are these candidates in different places. You know, and again, Don is the best example. I mean, in a way, like Angie Nixon, Florida, like she, she's going to have a hard time winning that general election. But it's that Florida democratic party, you know, you know, the stem from far has gotten pretty sclerotic over the years. I think it's probably good for them that she won't come across. I don't think she's going to win the race, but I think it's probably good. But no, it's good because she ran a better campaign. And the message is like you don't, you know, like you guys are out of touch with these voters. And I'm on the ground doing the work and talking about the things people are really upset about. And you know, like that will regenerate that party in some fashion, right? And so I think you're correct. It's like it's not going to come from like, you know, I don't know, you know who the DSA posters are, like the, you know, Matt. I was going to pick on poor Matt 14. I know, but he was going to have to die. You know, so I was like, he's just the first day that comes down. It's good as to him that he's the George Conway at the first day in the course of mind. And huge what I'd say about the DSA posters too. Like they have the wrong definitions of success in some ways, right? Because just posting Medicare for All is not going to make Congress pass Medicare for All. Like the point is, like this is how change happens in politics. And now I'll get dunked on by the left on you. But like you're never, you're not going to pass Medicare for All the Next Congress. I don't think. I mean, happy to be proven wrong. Like the more you've set a barometer of the more and more people that are for this kind of single-payer system, like you, you've turned the public option into the mod position, you know, which was the like left position in the Obama era. Like that's how change happens, right? That's a win, right? Right now, I'm against any arms sales, Israel. The mod position has become cutting off assistance to Israel, like financing of those sales, right? Like that's a win, right? So like part of what you're doing, and this is why primary success matters. Even if not all those primary successes, or you know, we can look at the kind of quality varies, that the party's going to have to kind of readjust to that. And by the way, if they don't, they're going to have problems too. Cause then they're going to have this endless internal civil war. That's why I think this piker stuff is so stupid. It's an unforced error because it's like, we can't fight an internal civil war when we have an existential threat to the country here. Except the fact that the party's moving a bit to the left. Okay? It doesn't mean that Matt 14 is going to be writing the agenda and picking the, you know, every committee's sign in the next Congress. I agree with that. I just think that, yes, stated, the resistance one strategies didn't work. That does not mean like, there's no syllogism. That's like, that means that okay, there's new thing that we're doing. That's really hot online. Now that, that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I don't know. It might be worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, like we one, I, I don't know. Like it wasn't that good. Hillary won the popular vote though. She lost. Like, obviously, I'm not arguing that we should redo the Hillary campaign. But yeah, this is where my small sea conservatism comes at things can be worse than the old strategy It's just because it's different doesn't mean it's better. The online piece I agree with you on I will say then you're not made different this like here. I'll send up for the not the DSA but look the progressive Clinton Biden and Harris all ran as as moderates, you know, like like it's not like we haven't tried that Well, I mean Harris ran as a moderate like only in the construct of being an anti-war person Well, she wasn't Medicare for all she wasn't You know on some of the cultural issues. She was in the sour spot. I've talked about this before It's kind of like she was in she was seen as a progressive on all these social issues And like if you're just defining it based on healthcare and foreign policy she has seen as a moderate So she's like running as a moderate on health care and foreign but it was like kind of the inverse would probably be better That's fair. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and I think that I think that there's this goes back to like my easy comfort food You know the now the lefty comfort food, which is okay, well if we fix the the health care and foreign policy part Then that's good. We don't have to deal with anything else and I'm kind of like Those are things everybody kind of agrees on except for, you know, Hillary Schultz And sure Those are things that are easy to kind of in some ways right? It's like the other stuff is a little more challenging and Rob That's where you got to look at it like a Rob Sand, you know, so we both hate endless canter I ranted about him on Monday. You wrote an article about him. People can go read it The short of it is and as canter fooled both of us and maybe didn't I don't know he we he connected with both of us on human rights Issues that we care about you had dinner with him even I Dinner them I had mine my podcast. Yeah. Yeah, yeah now he's doing fight me bros stuff with women basketball It's sad because basically the person I met you know back in 2019 I thought had real moral 30 like he'd sacrificed real things for his political beliefs about turkey and air to gun and he's taken that currency and And and and now taking it all the way to like Messing around with female basketball players telling Americans that you know Don't agree them to shut up like which is kind of counter to the whole free speech vibe that he was putting off and just kind of feeling a bit like someone who Is trying really hard to be like a blist maggot influence or Yeah, he's on the payroll someone's paying him. Yeah, I think it's America first before it's it's more since that It's like I can and they're the ones falling him around with cameras. I don't know It's like a little bit more offensive. Yeah, yeah to be someone that was positioning themselves with somebody that cares about human rights to then just become like a down rate down rate troll Well, it makes you go back and look at some of his stuff because like his next act after turkey was about China And he's writing like you know down with Xi Jinping on the sneakers and then he's like, you know Blaming the NBA for him not getting another contract and going on Fox and and I was like okay Maybe like you know and it's really like you know I don't like a lot of things about Xi Jinping But it makes even that feel like an an entry point It was like I can get booked on Fox if I because basically went on Fox and said the NBA's hypocrites because They talk about black lies matter not China and even at the time. I was like, well, I don't know like if I'm like a you know American, that's a very reason black American like I probably would spend a lot more time thinking about You know the state of block communities in this country than you know Hong Kong which is something I care about right but in retrospect It makes a lot of what he did feel calculated and that's you know, yeah, that that sucks Ben Rhodes, I appreciate it. We went along in a Friday So thanks for all the time. Good show long show. Oh, it's happy to do it and we'll be talking we'll be talking again soon I'll read you next time in L.I. All right cool sounds good all right later, man Everybody else will be back on Monday with Bill crystal. I love having Ben Rhodes on Friday cuz then build the crystals right after him It brings a lot of balance to the Gold work universe. We'll see y'all Monday come The Bullwork Daily is brought to you. Thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper associate producer Anzli Skipper and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brett