Sarah Longwell and Pedro Gonzalez: Meet the Young MAGA Edgelords—and the One Who Got Away

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to The Bullard Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. We have a massive show for you today about redemption and rebirth, figuring out how to beat Maga. We're gonna do nostalgia, we're gonna have feelings. You guys don't know what you're in for today. In segment two, an ex-magastol war to once attacked my jawline on Twitter, it gives just a second interview since flipping. So there's gonna be some interesting stuff there. But more importantly, in first, she's the publisher of The Bullard, and she has a new book you may have heard of. It's called How to Eat an Elephant, one voter at a time, nom, nom, nom. It's out right now, Sarah Longwell. I've right here. - Let's eat, let's eat, brother. - Ah, let's eat. Some announcements, you're the publishers. We gotta do business really quick. We added a show in Dayton. A benefit show, a fundraiser for the Haitian community there. That is in two weeks, September 25th. So get your tickets, come spend the weekend in Ohio. Everyone loves to spend, you went to college in Ohio, you can find things to do there for a weekend, right? - I'm gonna be a Kenyan next week for the book tour, and I gotta say, Dayton is lovely this time of year. There's a lot of you, if you live in Columbus, if you live in Cleveland, drive to Dayton. It's not that far. - It's not that bad. It's a nice little hotel, a little boutique. The Bullard.com/events, I'm gonna go to Springfield in Saturday too. So come make a little weekend out of it. I'm also live tonight on YouTube, watching JD Vance. And this is Sarah is paying me extra for it. It's Sass or Pay. I've gotta watch JD Vance tonight. So come hang out with us. And Subsec on YouTube and Subsec tonight, we're live. I didn't watch last night, because that was at the chance of rapper concert. I was kind of getting blessed up. So Sarah, I got the jest, I guess. It seemed long and rambly and Trump is bribing people. But do you have any big takeaways from last night before we get to the book? - I mean, I'm in a bit of a book tour news vacuum, but I'll say, obviously I'm still addicted to Twitter, so I've seen the clips. My main thing, I gotta get Andrew Weissman on the phone. Is it legal, Tim? Both of us very much not lawyers. We didn't even ace the LSATs like JBL. But I can't imagine that offering $5,000 to everybody who if Republicans win, that feels illegal. And now, remember when Elon offered a million dollars, like he basically did a raffle? That was for voter registration. Like it wasn't if Republicans win. Like if my team wins, everybody gets to go to the casino. So I just would be shocked if that is not a legal violation. - Yeah, people have messed it. - Not that the law matters that much. - Yeah, we don't, no, we don't, we're not gonna play his voice. But $5,000, he said, if the Republicans win the House in the Senate, it's a little strange because Republicans have the House in the Senate now. But if they win it again, it's a bribe to vote for him $5,000. Also at this morning offering a new $500 rebate check for people, I don't have the details on this yet, but something related to Obamacare being bad and you get 500 bucks. It's the subsidy replacement, I guess. - And on top of those doge checks that are still in the mail, I think, the people-- - Yeah, Catherine pointed this out. Catherine Repel, he had promised a 5,000 stimulus check via the doge dividend, $2,000 via a tear of dividend, $1,000 via savings from the expiring health care subsidy. So people lose their health care, but we save some money to people who could go check for that. Another 5,000 dividend, if the Republicans win the midterms and a new $500 rebate check, all of those has been preven promised. None have hit any mailboxes. And I love that they call it a dividend. It's like, ooh, if we call it a dividend, it's not socialism. You know, it's not all the things we attacked Obamacare for the stimulus 10 years ago, 'cause it's a dividend now, you know? - Yeah, totally different. - So they totally different. He said, it's just like in a business, you get a great windfall in your country and you give people bonuses. Like he gave Natalie the human printer, $45,000, just as a weird bonus. Hey, you said something on TV, you and I were both on a cold the other day. You said something on TV that I actually wanted to disagree with you about a little bit. And it goes-- - But you weren't gonna do it on cable, you wanted to do it here among friends. - I just didn't get a chance if she'd given me another shot at it, I would've come for you. But you were talking about how, it doesn't feel like Trump wants to win the midterms, right? It feels like he's doing everything in his power to just like screw Republicans. And I disagree with that. I just think he's unwilling to do the substantive things that would put him in a better position to win. Like he's unwilling to get rid of the tariffs 'cause he wants to be in a trade war with Canada. He is unwilling to end the war in Iran 'cause he doesn't know how to get out. Now we're into deep. So the substantive things that would change the trajectory for Republicans, he's totally unwilling to do. What he is willing to do, is he's willing to digerrymand or things to hell and be in a gerrymand or war 'cause that was, you know, middle, I go redistricting was a real move on his part. And he's willing to offer a $5,000 dividend and probably deploy ice to the streets. Like he does want to win. I do think he is afraid of the oversight that comes with a Democratic Congress and also with the idea that he's a loser. So that was the part I just kind of disagreed with. - This is a classic Kenyan debate club note, which I like, which is, hey, I'm gonna take this thing that you said the other day, characterize it unfavorably. (laughs) And then, I wanna see my quote. Do you have the transcript? I wanna defend myself from what I said 'cause I don't, I think that maybe I was saying that his focus was out of what was wrong, you know? And he's focused on these other things. He doesn't really care that much about winning the midterms. And that's, I think true. I think he cares about himself more than he cares about whether or not John Hustet wins in Ohio. I think that's the point of trying. - That's almost verbatim what you said, actually. I think you literally said Hustet. And I guess, and this is why it is a, it's a friendly debate 'cause I, maybe you're not saying that he doesn't want to win, but I do think he's afraid of oversight, but I do agree with you also that like, it's not because he cares if the Republicans win 'cause he's like on the team, he just doesn't want Democrats to now hold the gavel on anything. - I have a little bit of a contrarian point that's related to this. And so I'll concede, it's your book launch week. So I'll concede that you have me on that one. I may be overstated by case, because he also announced last night said that he's gonna be traveling around a lot. And this I think goes against what a lot of the conventional wisdom was. And for me, for example, I thought God, 80 years old, even get tired, jet light. I just figured he wasn't gonna do it, but he's claiming he's gonna do it. I do think like the talking point you see and kind of anti-dem circles is like, we love that, get out there. I feel that is a little bit, I don't know, isn't that the best thing you can do? I mean, he's delts these Republicans a horrible hand, you know? He's at the bush line. The focus has not been on people's pocketbooks, right? But like in a midterm, isn't like trying to nag and congeal the people that are still tribally Republicans and devoting like kind of the best thing that he can do? - Yeah, I mean, it's probably different 'cause he's president this time, but he also did this in 2022, you know, for his candidates. And it didn't work. And that to me is the big indicator is that I've always felt this way that Trump has to literally be on the ballot to turn out the people who are the Trump only voters. And I'm just gonna slip in a little book anecdote here where right in my introduction, I talk about that deal book summit when we came and did a podcast right after it. But you know, Kevin McCarthy was in the green room that day and he was sort of preening around being like, Trump is such a turnout machine like and he knew all the county level numbers for what Trump had done on turnout. And I went and looked back at like my hometown and how many voters Trump has added to the turnout. They don't turn out midterms. Like Trump can go hold the rallies. They might even go to the rally, but like when it comes to turning out to vote, they just like can't be bothered. And so that would be my argument, but also to your point of like, isn't that the best you could think you could do? Probably a little bit helpful to juice it. - Especially just given the, you know, where the close elections are at this time. I wouldn't ever seen this in 2022. It's like he's going out to try to help carry lake or whatever in Arizona, which is a swing state. And it's like that might be back firing. You know, going to, I don't know where he'll get, Fort Worth and West Iowa and stuff to try to juice turnout. I don't think it's like really gonna work, but on the margins, could it possibly help some of these shore up a couple of these red states where he won by 10 or 11 points and we got coin flip races maybe. And so, I mean, I figured it will cut both ways in some way. - I'll just say, like he can go to Iowa. He's way underwater in Iowa. Like the farmers are getting cooked out there. And so like I wonder what it will be like for him. I mean, I guess they're still, I'm sure there's Maga Faithful who will turn out, but like he's not as popular. Like as even he might have been in 2022 when he was like, yeah, the election was stolen for me. Like what is he gonna campaign on? I'm very excited for his entire campaign. - Riding people. - Yeah, that's right. He's gonna give people checks. - I'm like, this is it. - And he's gonna talk about-- - It's simultaneously, we are really scared about the socialists, the Muslim socialists, especially scared about the socialists. And also, I'm going to put mass spend in the street round people up and then buy companies and give you the money back in a dividend as that's a cash bribe. 'Cause that's not socialism at all. 'Cause we're really scared of socialism. We don't want socialism. - We definitely don't. - So I'm just gonna give you Trump. - I guess that's true. He will go on. on sort of the anti-socialism tour. Hey, one thing I wanted to ask you about, 'cause I did see this, I saw the 12-cut testimonial from John Fetterman, and I just wanted to bat this around with you a little bit, because I look, I'm sort of been generally enraged by Fetterman, but I'm also like, I don't know. I said, Fetterman was a bad move, guys. This is like this kind of like dirt baggy, whatever, just 'cause he fakes looking like a working class, like the Downwardly Mobile Guy. You know, I was a big Conor Lamperson. So I've always just been like, yeah, Fetterman sucks. But him going and doing this glaze of McCormick at Trump's Trumpopalusa for the midterms is a level of party betrayal. And like, I know he's got it in his head that this is like, well, this is country over party stuff that I'm doing, and he thinks he's a hero on it. That is the one good headline that Trump really got out of this Trumpopalusa, like the whole rest of it, but being able to get a Democrat to show up and say, we've all got to come together, I know that people listening to this podcast will be like, who cares about Fetterman? No one will take him seriously. It's a real signal to people that like, no, no, no, what Trump's doing is fine. - Yeah, the Democrat that had a stroke and can barely talk is the one that really connects with Trump. - He sounds terrible in that video. - Terrible, and he does sound terrible. I mean, he really, he should be getting himself help seriously. I think that Fetterman, I have two thoughts. One, it enrages me even more of that Tom Tillis and John Kornin and Bill Cassidy. It's like, well, John Fetterman is just like having a tantrum with the Democrats. There's really nothing that substantive that he disagrees with the one besides Israel, which I'm about to get to, but like, it's like the whole Trump era for 10 years. There's not been one Republican house or Senate person that does an act of flip. I mean, some of them haven't then retired. But like, it's crazy that it's going the other way, amidst all of these horrors. And the thing about Fetterman, I like a little moment of clarity last night. This is kind of an obvious point, but I think that framed up like this, like explains just how petty it is. If you asked him, what are his substantive complaints to the Democratic Party? He said this in the video. It's like, he does not believe in socialism, an anti-Americanism, and he wants to support Israel. But like, his home state governor is the most emblematic Democrat in the country on those issues. Like Josh Shapiro is not a fan of socialism. Josh Shapiro is pro-Israel. He is about to win in a landslide as a Democrat from his home state. And instead of like siding up to Josh Shapiro and saying, hey, we've got this tag team of pro-Israel, capitalists, Democrats, and Pennsylvania. Like, he's decided to tag up with Trump and McCormack because it's fucking petty and childish. He doesn't like Josh Shapiro personally. - He doesn't like Josh Shapiro. That's right, they're like-- - These people have been mean to him. That's what it's all about. - That's right. I mean, this is, look, I've said this before and Federman is clearly in a very narcissistic phase of his life. I very much doubt he runs again. He might flip just for like shits and giggles because it's about who's nice to him. Like, he is like so susceptible. And I don't know about people with strokes or anything like that. But when I watched that video, the 12 cuts and he still sounds that bad, like-- - For people who don't know what that means. So if you have a short video, you put up a politician or you'll notice this, I'll give you a little hint behind the curtain here. You'll notice this sometimes when I do a monologue at the beginning of this episode or being of a podcast and like, I'll stop for a second and zoom in on me or zoom out. It's because I fucked up and said something wrong. - Yeah. - And so over the course, like yesterday, I had an eight or nine minute monologue. Maybe two or three of those. Federer had talked for one minute and there were 12. - Yeah. They're called jump cuts and they're used to cover mistakes and there were 12 of them. And then what they got out of him was still stilted and clearly like something is on well. And so you just think these Republicans like sidle up to him and love on him. And man, hey man, I love your sweatshirt and shorts. And now suddenly, like, they've got him in the palm of his hands. I was skeptical for a little bit of the flipping. I'm not anymore. - It's interesting. So we'll get to see because I'm going a little bit the other way. He put out a statement about how he ran as a Democrat and he'll continue to be the 51st vote as a Democrat this morning. And I think that, I think that John Federer been like desperately wants to be the 51st vote as a Democrat. Like I think the thing that would make him give him the most joy. - He wants the Joe mention, yeah. - As to annoy the Democrats. But I think if it's not that, if it ends up being 50, 50 or so, I do think the switch is very possible. But I think he would love to be the deciding vote on stuff. And boy, will people not like John Federer and after that? All right, let's do some book stuff. How's it going? How's the book tour going? You're an author now. It's been two days. How are your vibes? - Actually, the vibes are incredible. - Are you reading all the reviews insanely? - I read some. - Before you go to bed. - I read some. You know what I think, I think JVL put it in the triad to drop a review because suddenly, there's a lot of them and they're from our people and they're lovely. So they do make me happy. So yes, I've given them a look, see. Look, I want feedback on the book. I'm excited about the book. I worked hard on the book and I feel like it's a good book. Like I think it's a fun read and that there's a bunch of interesting stuff and I think it was a good chance for me to expand as opposed to talking for one hour. Like we do all the time on News the Day, like my theory of the case. 90 Second Streetwide with JVL was awesome. Hacked house and we had to tell their security that they couldn't stop people from yelling. Like their security is really tight there. There's a lot of them and they're like, if somebody shouts out, we remove them immediately and we're like, ooh, it's not gonna work with our crowd. They're kind of, they're into it. - They're shouting. - They're shouting and we love that. We love that. - There was more a bulwark Sarah origin lore in the book that I expected, which I liked. - Yeah. - I particularly liked the Sarah origin lore 'cause I knew most of it. You know, it's nice to be refreshed. And there were some little monkeys I didn't know about high school Sarah. And then, you know, you did include how I was depressed when the bulwark got started, which I, which is nice. That's a nice thing to have me mention. - That's true. - That's an, you love it when your one mention is in the book is about your depression. But, you know, that's all fun. - Do you feel sad about that? 'Cause I remember I asked you before I said it. I was like, was it fair to characterize? 'Cause this was, you guys gotta remember. Like, I do wanna tell you about Tim at this phase, right? Like, Trump had won, you, it was really hard for you. And it was like hard to get you back in the game. Like, you didn't really wanna get back in the game for a bit. Bill and I came and saw you a couple of times. - That's a better time. - Yeah. It was like my buddy had moved to Oakland. You got long hair. I came to see you and I was like, oh no. Come on, man, you're in a dark place. (laughing) But you bounced back, look at you now. - Look at you now. - Look at me now. I wanna talk about two things that are relevant to the next guest on the show. And we'll put links on that. Obviously you just buy the book and read the whole thing, but you've discussed a lot of the kind of main, I think that listeners of this podcast know the gist of Sarah's theory of the case for the Democratic Party. So I think we can table that. I wanna talk about the Trump's children's chapter and kind of how you see the future going. You know, 'cause I think there is a lot of this out there right now, people are already, people like to get ahead of themselves already. Talking about the post-Trump future. And the book does have a section that kind of looks into where things are going and the young magas. And you even mention kind of the Bernie Broda Maga pipeline and the next guest kind of fits that mold. So anyway, what did you come away with on that? - Yeah, I mean, a lot of the book is rooted in the focus groups. And so we do focus groups with young voters all the time. And young Republican voters. And I think one of the things when I said with the chapter, Trump's children is not about Don Jr. and Ivanka and Eric. It's about all of the young Republicans who don't remember politics before Trump. Like Trump showed up in their formative years and they think that that's what Republicans are about. And he's taught them all kinds of horrible lessons. Some of it is just like the vice signaling as a way to show you're on the team. The things that come out from the young Republicans of so and so, and it's all this Nazi talk and putting people in ovens and this edged lord, anti-Semitic, anti-black racist garbage, is like the way that you show you're on the team now. And the people who are rising to prominence, like when you talk to these young voters and you say, okay, well, who do you listen to? It's Nick Fuentes, it's Tucker, it's Candace Owens, all day long. >> They like gates when he was around. Gates was not going much harder. >> Maggates, that's right. And so there's a, when I say they're not going back to the Old Republican Party, I see this to some of the, to some of the olds, the people who, their Democrats, but the party of Mitt Romney was a fair party. And they were okay. And they're like, well, maybe we'll get back to that. There are still a lot of people who labor under the illusion that we might go back to something like the Mitt Romney, John. >> No, absolutely not. And part of it is that this new generation is coming up. And they have been taught by Trump how to behave. And they're quite toxic. >> They're also not that, I mean, they're ideological along the vectors of like immigration, race, gender, right, more than any of the kind of three-legged stool conservatism stuff that you write about the book for when you were coming up in ISI. You know, it's not, I mean, for better or worse, in some places like they don't. There is obviously an evangelical element of it, but the center of this is not family values and tax cuts and strong military. It's like completely different. It's completely different. And I will say one of the big overlaps, right? It's interesting when you talk to young voters, young Republicans and young progressives sound pretty similar on Israel. Like there's like almost no daylight about young people. Like if you look at the polling for both parties, it might look different. But among these, this new generation, it's not different at all. They are isolationist in their foreign policy and they're anti-Israel in their foreign policy or they have sort of the, they shouldn't control us mentality. And they're also oftentimes more populist in what they want. Like they're more economically populist. And that is why there is the Bernie to Trump pipeline. Like the overlap there is real, especially among these young voters. It's the reason that Trump wildly overperformed with, and I also have to say that the gender divide here, though, is so stark. Like it's the dudes. And like when you do young women, they're all like, yeah, I don't know that I'll get married because like the men are like off the chain. Like they're watching the, their young male peers do the Trump dance and they're like, get me out of here. - You also talk about, you know, the travel of doom and the conspiracism that these guys get drug into. And I wonder, you know, I'm about to talk to Pedro about this, but it's sort of just hard to know that I self. You can say why you are the one that broke away, but life is complicated and that takes deep reflection in time. And so like for you more as an analytical standpoint, like do you have any thoughts on, you know, what is a, what would be useful strategies for kind of like pulling this type of demo out? Like obviously not, you know, somebody that's in a mega hat and is an activist and, you know, like they've chosen a team. Like they're playing a team sport. Like kind of the broader demographic. - Look, I think that life and our times are always, there's back lashes and front lashes and you know, it's always churning. And so I don't think it stays static. And I think that you already see Trump's numbers. He overperformed with Hispanics. He overperformed with black people. He overperformed with young people. Like they're the first ones to go. Like they're the last in first out voters. And I put young people as swing voters. They're one of my categories of swing voters 'cause they're just not fully formed yet. And so I do think that if the Democratic party starts putting forward people that young people can attach to who where it's like they're not doing the woke stuff and they're funny, whatever, but they're also like, yeah, and I think we should have universal healthcare. Like honestly, I can see Joe Rogan in a post Trump era floating back, certainly policy wise. And so I don't think that young people are lost. I do think though you have to deal with sort of the edge lordism and the racism that now is this like weird animating, like in-group way of talking. - You had one section that kind of alludes to this and then you said something that alarmed me, which is this is a topic for another book. And I didn't like that you're already thinking about another book when you're writing about this topic. But I just meant I couldn't get into the whole thing. I'm not writing another book going down. - You're causing that a, I don't know, I'm just teasing you. It's about, I certainly can't have you being on the best or less twice when I'm only on once. It's the AI of it all. And this is like the thing that I am really obsessed with right now, but also the most flimaxed by as far as like how to combat it. Like a lot of the advice you have at the book for Democrats are things in our wheelhouse, right? How to communicate better, you know, how to reach out to different demographics and engage with them. Like this is a tougher animal, which is like how to reach people who are getting information where they don't know what's true and what's false and where the other side is more willing to play dirty with it. And I was wondering if you had any expanded thoughts on that. She got into it a little bit in the book. - Yeah, I mean, I think that part of it is, 'cause I listen to voters all the time and they basically don't know how to arbitrate information already. Like the line of, I don't know what to believe anymore. And like that's where the nihilism creeps in. They don't know where to get good information. They don't know what's true. And the AI of it all is about to come along and make the whole thing a lot worse. The reason I said, I don't want to write a whole other, or I could write a whole other book about it, or it's a whole other book is we don't know where it's going. Like I honestly could make that was, I did an event last night and Nick Thompson was there. And so he and I were talking about this. And the odds that AI is both like catastrophic, like they figure out how to launch a nuclear missile and we all end up in the rubble is a non-zero chance. There's also-- - About 10% including some of the people working on it. - Yeah, about 10% according to anthropics leadership. Hold on, side note, can I just tell you how crazy it was that normally when you get somebody who comes out like that and says, we're all gonna die. Whatever, the leadership thing comes out and says, ass, a junior employee, like you should ignore them, whatever, the leadership came out and they were like, yeah, there's a better than 10% chance and we don't know what to do about it. - And the next decade, like you all should be an insane asylum that we should shut down your company. That is too high of a percentage. - Too high. I don't know why anybody would be comfortable with this, but there's sort of this like in intermediary place actually where you could see some positive benefits of because it has this cumulative knowledge of everything when people are like, what is true and they're asking AI, they're actually getting much better answers than they get from their neighbor on Facebook, which is the other place that they were looking, right? So like, it is this- - It is a low bar. We do have a low baseline, we're starting from. - But I also have a ton of fears. So like I was talking about this last night, like I know listening to voters that they often say, like that they're not that informed about a race and the number of people who are gonna start typing in, who should I vote for to AI is about to be really high and people are gonna try to manipulate that, right? Like if you're Elon's- - And our side is to try to manipulate it actually. - Totally. We're entering into an entirely new information battle that like the terrain is still pretty unclear for everybody. - I was thinking on the show the day somebody and Reddit, we were talking about Corey Lewandowski in the next level and I talked about his stank breath again and then someone on Reddit started to thread this. Like is it true that he has bad breath? Is that just Tim Stick, then another Reddit or answered? Yes, Tim one time got hit checked by Corey Lewandowski and his breath was really bad. And I'm wondering if that now gets into the AI system. You know, now like for future, whether now like clawed if ever asked about Corey Lewandowski's halitosis, we'll probably start to say yes. - I think that might be true, you know, I remember putting in information into the system is what I'm saying. When I was young, you know, I, when I was on the road with Rick Santorum as I talk about in the book, he would get asked at every single book event he did 'cause he was on his book tour about the Google bombing that got done where they defined Santorum in a very gross and graphic way. Like it became, and it was like if you Googled Santorum, it gave you a definition that was related to the sex that two men have together when they're very much in love. - Forthie. - Forthie was the word. - Listen to Dan Savage, shout out Dan, and check him out at Savage Love. All right, you gotta get through the train. There's so much good stuff in there. Everybody go get the book, and you got anything else? Any other, anything you wanna leave people with? - Only that, you know, in the early days when we didn't know what was gonna happen, it was like, just think about where it all is now. Your fame, a famous podcaster, we got books, JBL. Let's human beings be near him. I just, I think, I wanna, you're thriving, man. You're thriving. - Thank you, sir, you are too. A lot of personal growth all around. We have a lot more work to do though. They're still in charge of everything. So, you know, the work continues. - That is where the book is-- - One bite at a time. - The book is meant to be an optimistic pitch for how we get out of this mess. - Let's do it together. All right, I love you. Sarah Long, up next. Something that's had a little less nice things to say about Bay Pedro Gonzalez, stick around for that. (upbeat music) All right, I got all my foreign travel out this summer. 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You might not be able to tell from that list that he's an X-Maga He's an X-Maga writer. It's Pedro Gonzales. What's up, man? Hey Tim. Thanks for having me. I've been wanting to do this for a minute You know, I've been on you. I've been trying to get you to do it because you started liking my tweets and retweeting my tweets It was a departure from how you used to react to my tweets back in the old days. Yes, and I was like I want to learn about your kind of conversion And so for people who aren't familiar with your social media antics Maybe just give us a little like speed date origin story of your kind of ideology and What you were doing in Mag world when you were involved. Yeah Well, I used to say horrible things to you and basically everyone who was a Perceived enemy of of Maga. I guess the the long and short of it is I kind of had a elaborate eating face moment But not really what did I help you begin? Okay Because a lot of times we have the people that have like if you look at us in the never-trumpet world It's mostly people that were like moderate Rhino squishes initially anyway Yeah, if you look at the left you want to say the Joe Scarborough's or the Coles or us the bulwark You know, there's some exceptions to that But like for the most part it's gonna people though in Republican politics world in the establishment And so it's like not that it's surprising that they would you know be unhappy with this assault on the establishment Your like story is different. You're kind of more reflective of like the original Trump Core as I've heard you explain it's like you were kind of Bernie bros. Yeah, I'm something about that Millio at this charm, but kind of then more appealing to like the paleo conservative, you know side of things more like an isolationist Conservative and you're kind of a young guy that had some yeah some anger and like the Trump thing resonated with you and like that's Kind of the core of the type of person that Trump first appealed to and so the fact that like you've excelled on it I think is is is notable. So anyway, maybe just talk about kind of that trajectory I think the anger part is like a big part of it like you know my entry into politics and Political discourse was Late in the sense that I was I think I was 2026 when I first got into it and it was also kind of unorthodox in the sense that it was something that I did Because other doors had closed and I didn't know What I was going to do with my life. Basically I was at a point in my life where I was really frustrated with this one thing this one and only thing I'd have wanted to do right And in the background you have this obviously this this growing populist sentiment in the United States culminates in the election of Donald Trump and You know for most of my life I'm kind of just like an ambient California liberal with like somewhat end coherent views because it didn't necessarily think too deeply about it I liked the way that people like Bernie Sanders talked about Wall Street. I like the way that he talked about You know main street being left behind. It made it very easy to naturally be like Disgusted by someone like Hillary Clinton and if not support Trump initially at least view him as kind of like this is a symptom Of something that's been sort of bubbling beneath the surface like people in this country very angry They they feel like they haven't been listened to and this insane like demented clown person is sort of like their Tribune So during this like really tumultuous transitional period in my personal life the country was kind of going through one too right And I basically looked at writing as a way to do the thing that I was not able to do that I'd always wanted to do and like the long and short of it is like I had spent Most of my 20s trying to get into the military That was the only thing I'd ever wanted to do was to get a career in like This this sounds really funny talking about it now But like something like special operations. That's all I wanted to do right. It's a kid that was like I knew that that was the thing I wanted to do was to serve my country at like a high level somehow again You can't talk about that without sounding cringe and embarrassing But but that was like the thing I wanted to do right But I was born with a benign medical condition that was it's a permanent decal for like all the armed services Which means like you can get waivers for some things you can't get a waiver for what I have And it doesn't matter like if you could run fast or swim fast or do a lot of pull-ups or push-ups like Navy or You know army bureaucracy, whatever. It's like on paper. They just see this is a condition. It's a hard list of permanent decals You're not getting a waiver. Well, I spent most of my 20s trying to get a waiver And people like banging on whatever doors I could Making whatever connections I could I was involved with like a different like recruiting pipelines and that were designed to help people get in To these these programs But then when that door was shut, there's still this sense of like I somehow want to continue this like Moss cause thing that I had always wanted to do which is like Defend this country that I feel really attached to you know and writing From a conservative political perspective naturally It seemed like like a natural thing to do again. This is like Do this and be on the nose, but you became a literal keyboard lawyer. I did. You know It's that's why it's cringe and embarrassing to him. No, I I'm very self-aware about that. Yeah, and you know This is like in the 2010s so like at the peak of like the culture wars are starting to really take off and it was so easy to fall into like the angry White-wing populous space because it's and you can also see it in my early writing to you like it's very combative and very confrontational it fit the thing that I wanted to do and I believed in it obviously This is true. I think for a lot of people on the populous right and it's why it's so hard for people to like I you know, you can call it the sunk-cost fallacy But I think this is why it's so hard to get out. It's because it's not just like you're you're part of like a party or whatever You're like you're part of a movement you're part of something bigger than yourself You're part of something that's in an existential battle with not just political opponents But enemies who are not you know, we're not debating over policy. We're debating over competing ways of life And so as you start writing your kit. I mean you end up kind of getting deep in I guess what you'd call Kind of mega establishment world. I mean you're a Claremont fellow You know, you're kind of paling around with all of these guys I mean you like you know wouldn't exchange texts with JD and Tucker Just kind of like talk about that process getting in scunds in that world. Yeah, you know after after Trump gets in It was it was weird because again like A friend described me once is like kind of like a forest gump on the right and that I just kind of fell into a lot of these things without necessarily like seeking it out and so you know like how did I get on Tucker? Basically, I tweeted something in like 2019 That he or one of his producers noticed and I got a DM from like someone who had been on the show and they asked for my number And then like next thing I know Tucker's calling me and asking me to come on the show to talk about immigration And you know very similar process with JD like one day like he just Just reaches out of the blue and and I don't think this is unique like this happens with a lot of people on the right And I've heard from people who like are More familiar with the left telling me that it's this is kind of a unique phenomenon with the pop of this right this sort of willingness to just sort of Use the the internet in particular like Twitter as kind of like a networking platform and to into court influencers And kind of blurring the lines between professional, you know, I don't know consultant or whatever and and friend right especially when you're working in media I mean like that was how I Got sucked into that world and it was starting with riding with in conservative Public and magazines then getting picked up by a publication called American greatness from by kiss Chris bus carrier Who's also very close to JDids and then like just From spamming inboxes getting published in like the Washington Examiner the daily caller You know doing this on my own just trying to get published and build my profile And then just like I said like little by little getting noticed and picked up Maybe that's true that it's unique of the of the right the the new right anyways That it's willing to kind of take people and just elevate them based on I don't know they're they're allegiance to the party line or Donald Trump. I mean it's a diffractors, right? And the left is a lot of sociology you can do on this but like sure left is more hierarchical Right more and it's kind of funny that like the rights rhetoric is more about like meritocracy and all those like kind of like The left actually works more as a meritocracy and then there's more it's more competitive Yeah, like there's a long line of people with resumes. You know, it could be It could signal areas for these types of leaders and like there was a vacuum there on the right in 2016 to 2024, right? And so a lot of who I think we're able to kind of fill that yeah So I want to come back to your kind of solid a mask story at the end I want to just since now that that folks kind of understand your backstory I want to do a little bit more anthropology of what's happening in the movement first So he says like where we are now and it seems like you know who the hell knows what happens is Trump the next two years but there's this inflection point, I do think that we're trying to tease out the like this question of like, what is like the actual earnest animating parts of MAGA, like what is part of just a Trump personality cult? You know, like the example I gave on a pod recently was, I think that it might have been reasonable in 2011 or 12 to say like the animating thing about the Tea Party was, you know, budget restraint. And, you know, if you look back at that in 2018, that looks preposterous, right? And so kind of wondering is like, we look ahead, what are the central parts of the people that are going to not do what you did that are going to stay with stay and push it forward? I can tell you what I see and what I think are some important features of the movement. And I think the two most prominent ones that it's not hard for like the average person to recognize is one race and two, maybe two or less should agree, sometimes it overlaps the sex. And this is what I wrote about in the nation, that a big part of the Trumpian rights self conception, a big part of how it justifies everything from abuses of power to corruption, to total allegiance to Trump, or is, you know, presumed success or advance. The way that people are kept in mind is this framing of politics is not just politics as, you know, we understood it in the past, which is debates of a policy that sometimes get heated. But again, this kind of existential battle for the future of the country, but it is very specific sense. And what I mean is, and you kind of see this also with the rise of people on the right using the term third-worldism. It's this kind of marriage between anti-communism, which weirdly enough has been revived, you know, like Trump is trying to kind of revive communism as like a threat ahead of the midterms, but it's also being racialized. What I mean by that is that the real enemy of the right is basically minorities and immigrants and their white allies. And that's kind of how the right understands itself is like, were it war for the future of the country, but only in this very narrow sense, which is this kind of like white, it's so funny for me to say this stuff again because of my background is like, you know, like I was part of like the radical right, and like I was basically part of the problem. Like that's the truth, right? Like I was part of the problem. I made these arguments. I amplified them and you know, fast forward now, and I'm telling you, like the right understands itself as in kind of like a racial conflict with its enemies. And that all, like I said, that also includes whites. That's why it's emphasis, like its main issue is immigration, but it's much broader. The intersection with communism is like this, this word that is not very popular on the right of third-worldism, right? It's like, well, the third-worldism and those type, that type of communism kind of overlaps. Yes. And then there, American enables or whatever. But it goes beyond, but I think it's important to understand that it goes way beyond like to, you know, illegal aliens, whatever. This is very much like a very specific kind of conception of the American nation as like a purified white country against those who would stand in the way of that vision. And it sounds insane. It sounds like extreme to some extent. You're like, this is what like, you know, like resist lives were sang in like 2016, turns out they were right. But then you see like the propaganda that's coming out of the White House. You see like DHS making recruitment videos using like white nationalist songs. Like it's not, it's not even up for debate. Like it's using propaganda that draws explicitly from white nationalist themes and memes and things like. And basically winking at this crowd saying, we are your allies. And then obviously, you know, every week there's like a report about some group chat or some individual who has like some like, you know, like Paul and Grasya, who there's a report about him saying something like, I have a Nazi streak. Like, and that's like super common for the type of person that gets selected and promoted within the Trump administration. I'm not saying that they're literally Nazis. I don't know. I'm sure that there are people that are, but this is how they think of themselves. And that's why this, this idea of this like broad perpetual kind of racial conflict is central to the rights understanding. And now a message from our sponsor, the reading room as of this week Todd Blanche has officially been Trump's attorney general for a month. And the full Epstein files still aren't public. Instead of waiting on government to stop its cover up, the Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial reading room has printed out three and a half million pages. The DOJ has released and built a free traveling exhibit that puts the files on display. The museum you can actually walk through to see the scale of the release files, the timeline of Trump and Epstein's relationship and attribute to the survivors. It's open now in Dallas and then heads out across the country for 20 plus stops in the next eight weeks. 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We were talking about this earlier about how you're you were harsher to Mike Pence and the bullwork was I think when his book came out and one of the key points you make in that review is basically that like Pence was arguing that Trump became fully uprooted and Trump 2.0 and that you know there was some break between the real conservatism of what he was you know working with Trump on and what this new populist monster is and in term two and you you know say that that's basically self soothing. You're saying it that sounds kind of insane to argue that the animating issue here is racialized conflict. The like was that not kind of clear in 20 like when he came down the escalator was it not kind of clear from day one like talking about the Mexican to bringing the rapists and the murders. I think there are elements of it there obviously and it sounds like in retrospect silly to even say like you know it's it's not it's tough. I think that basically he was restrained by people around him. I think that his worst tendencies were restrained. I think that he was bad then in a sense and he got much worse over time and also the fact that he surrounded himself with loyalists and the kind of person that those loyalists tend to be the ones who are kind of obsessed with this like you know like Steven Miller and giving them more power in the second term. I think it's kind of like a witch's brew that amplifies all of the worst tendencies not just in Trump put in the movement. So in some sense like I wrote yes that was it was always to some degree even if it was a lesser degree present than and it only got worse over time but the point that I was making there is you know and again this is like for you know Richard whatever for me to say is that for people like Pence it's like yeah I mean like it's it's not a surprise that Trump was never truly a conservative like all you had to do was listen to him talk. There were other things I wanted to include in that piece as well that kind of make this point you know there was a debate that between him and Ted Cruz were Ted Cruz like slammed him for endorsing like European healthcare systems the thing in particular Germany and Trump basically said yeah like I do think that we could learn from from you know healthcare systems in countries like Germany and Ted Cruz's response was like see he's not a real conservative what people like Cruz didn't understand then is that was part of Trump's appeal that he was willing to kind of break the mold on the GOP orthodoxy it's economic orthodoxy it's immigration orthodoxy and I didn't include that point I think as I ran out of space but basically the point that I was trying to make there is like for Pence to say like well we didn't know he was too conservative like it's just ridiculous like that was part of why he won in the first place in 2016 and I think that for Pence it's a combination of him like lying to himself or being misleading or dishonest for political reasons but maybe also there's like guilt there that's like unresolved because like I noted in that piece Pence's whole thing was kind of to be like a fig leaf to to conventional conservatives like look you're right this guy's you know he's got weird ideas but economics he says horrible things but immigrants but Mike Pence is there you know and if Mike Pence is there and maybe to some extent this is true like he'll be restrained you know like Mike Pence would not sign on to this if the guy was terrible and I think maybe for Pence deep down there's like there's something that he hasn't worked through there and I can't bring himself to confront which I think a more contemplative person could have written a much better book for that reason and I mean like I know it's hard by the way I'm speaking from experience so I mean Pence I think by going as far as you have gone it's basically an admission that it was all I was about to say that it was all for not but actually worse than that that's a great admission admission that you're an enabler of this thing that you now identify as this great threat yes and it's much easier to you know kind of constitute a fantasy path where like it was the moment that they set up the gallows on the ball that like Trump broke from true conservatism and everything that Pence was involved with before that was was a different thing not even there by the way I mentioned this in that piece like I had to read the passage like twice because basically Pence not only sort of downplays January 6 as just an event you know there was the consequence of Trump's most passionate supporters is what he calls them, but he basically frames by Biden as much worse in the sense that Biden's policies, like his attempts to cancel student loan debt, were a much greater assault on the constitutional order than what happened on January 6th, which is why he writes that people that had wanted a return to order with the election of Biden were basically robbed of that hope. And then Biden does like crazy socialist stuff and then order was restored in 2024 when Trump won. It's like, what are you saying, Pence, you know, it's like make up your mind. When it was Trump bad, was he bad on January 6th, was he bad in 2024, was he bad on the campaign trail, was he bad after he won? It's not coherent. And I really think that apart from the obvious answer, which is just, you know, I think he launched a think tank and there's, he's obviously trying to kind of stage like a recon keystone. conservative donors. Yeah. You know, it's easier. I know this crowd. That's rich conservative donors that hate us at the ball, because it's like, is it, because they just want to focus all of their anger on the left's excess. Yes. That's what the book does. Yeah. And you go back to your word soothing. You're like, that's the soothing thing to do to prevent you from having to kind of look internally. All right. I'm going to tell you that I am starting to get jealous of my visitors. Some of you who are watching the ball takes feed may have seen that my buddy, Kamkanski, he was down here visiting me a couple of weeks ago. And we're not going to get into his personal issues, but he needs a comfortable mattress. All right. He's 24 going on 60. And he got into the guest room. The next morning woke up was like, damn, bro, that he looks mattress. That is comfy. And I was trying to think, boy, I need to be sleeping in the guest room more. I might need to get a couple tips with my husband, just so I can get a really good night's sleep over there. All right. He looks mattress came, I don't know a few months ago, and I have to tell you, we are super excited about it. Everybody's come to visit. That is excited. My parents are coming to visit. They're podcast listeners. Now they're going to know that they're going to have a company mattress. Why are you denying yourself this? JBL liked the Helix mattress so much that he gave it to his favorite child. You're not supposed to have a favorite child, but he does, and he gave them the Helix mattress. Well, more than you need to know, you get free shipping and seamless delivery, 120 night sleep trial and a limited lifetime warranty, and it's happy with Helix guarantee rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. So go to helixleap.com/thebullwork for 27% off site wide, exclusive for listeners of this show. That's the Labor Day Sale. That's helixleap.com/thebullwork for 27% off site wide for their Labor Day best of the Web Sale. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixleap.com/thebullwork. I want to go back to what we were on the core elements of MAGA. This kind of, I guess, the steel manning for them, the more winning the poo in the tuxedo version of this would be like this, the fight for Western civilization, which doesn't include a lot of the elements of the founding when it comes to liberal principles, but is really more just about white ethnic and religious elements of Western civilization. So that's part of it, that fight. And then the other element that you mentioned was the sex talk about what you meant by that. Are you talking about trans or women's roles? The right has this weird relationship with women where, on the one hand, for the longest time, it's been this movement that conceives itself as upholding the family, as the building block of any healthy society. But on the other hand, in the era of Trump, I guess you could argue that there was a kind of like chivalrous element to that position, right? It's a kind of benevolent form of patriarchy. In other words, with reciprocal rights and duties and obligations between men and women. And of course, if you're a feminist, you're like, well, that's already bad enough. That's already implicitly very sexist and intolerable. Well, the right in the era of Trump, I think, makes that look very tame by comparison. Because it's not just like the woman's true role as to be a mother, but there's a kind of like, women are part of the problem when you look at how they vote. They vote with their feelings, basically betray us on issues like immigration, because they have too much empathy. And therefore, women are, to the degree that is possible, they need to be deprived of agency. They need to be kept at a politics. They need to be pushed out of the movement. They need to have as little influence over public life as possible. And any woman who disagrees with that is implicitly somehow like contaminated by feminism and part of the problem. And I guess you could say it's like not really a surprise that that would happen in the era of Trump, right? Like this is not particularly a guy who's known for women's empowerment. Right. Yes. And, but it's just remarkable how ugly it's gotten in, I guess, the second term. Like how openly the right like, distains women, like there was this record about the growth and like basically most of the jobs, I think over the last year have gone to women. And you know, I saw this today, just let me just give the backstory to those for people who have seen it online. So a report came out basically that like an economic sport that said a lot of the job growth this year has gone to women. Ken Paxton sent this tweet, he goes, "Thanks to President Trump's leadership, American women are leading the way in our economic comeback, then there was this like huge backlash against him for that." Of all the things that the American Paxton about, like a ton of right-wing accounts, one guy Joel Weben lost my vote, another, you know, Megan Bashman, my fellow talks about how he doesn't get it, you know, this is all part of the feminist's plan to make women work. And you know, this is a huge disaster, a huge, just a ton of backlash against him for praising the idea that women are going back to the workplace. Well, and if you took a closer look at the data, it's like, it's not really like what I thought, I was like, well, yeah, I mean, like they tend to gravitate toward some of the only fields that are consistently growing like healthcare. So it's like this makes sense. But the reaction from the ride, I think is that in that particular instance, it gets it what I'm talking about. This like, psychotic, inco-ate anger directed at women. And I think like digging a little deeper, there is kind of a philosophical element to that, which is what I alluded to, that women are kind of seen as like on the one hand, the people that are sort of oppressing men and subjecting them to the long house, basically this idea of like a social and cultural panopticon in which women prevent men from really being men and, you know, are sort of a feminizing boys from early age. And on the other hand, that women are kind of seen as like the carriers of empathy, which is a weakness. Obviously, if you're trying to cultivate like a hard right movement, well, you can't have women around who are like making us reconsider our positions based on our feelings, right? Because then you won't be cruel to like immigrants, you won't be cruel to minorities. And I think that's really fascinating, important and under explored part of the right is this idea of like we need to reduce the influence of women as much as possible for these reasons. So if you expand that out and you're projecting ahead politically and let's, we're just assuming that Donald Trump has an either like decided he wants to try to stay or, you know, like some of the more crazy tail outcomes, but like there's a normal succession race. What you would say, which I think feels right, is as long as the next standard bear from the party is willing to wage this war on foreign immigrants, black and brown immigrants and their domestic white allies. And as long as they are, you know, going to push for traditional gender roles and engage in the culture war on these fights where they prop out whether it be WNBA or Lindsey Clancy or whatever, like as long as the right, as long as they do those two things. And they say Trump has been good. Like that's probably sufficient, like that's mega, right? Like they can probably drop everything, like tariffs and whatever, whatever other like land of Trump thing you want to say, as long as those three boxes are checked, they're probably fine. And that takes us to JD Vance. And it seems like he's a good fit to me for that. I mean, the childless cat ladies, you know, he is at the cutting edge of this, the eating the dogs and cats, he's at the cutting edge of that. He's decided that the true Catholic faith is anti-immigrant because Jesus meant like love your literal neighbor, like your next door neighbor was the only person you had to love. And you know, so he's got the family issue, I guess. But besides that, I don't know. That makes me kind of feel like he's a better fit as a successor than some like pundits laugh people believe. What do you make of that? Like Rubio? Yeah. Absolutely. Look back at the killings of Renee Good and Alex Prety, you know, and especially in the case of Renee Good, you saw these two things come together, race and sex. Like, I don't know if you recall the vicious terms in which Renee Good was attacked after she was killed. Like, these were not fringe figures. It's like Matt Walsh basically saying that, you know, this woman was like a disgusting lesbian and, you know, she deserved what she got. And like, and again, like fairly mainstream figures all saying the same thing. Like, if she had been like a true and proper woman, she would have been home with the kids and this would have never happened. But, you know, she was like an uppity person. Of course, it wasn't even true, right? She was dropping her kid off at school. go back and revisit those tweets and you can see how psychotic it was like every aspect of her life was just like blown up and made into a sort of like a poster child for everything the right hates. And then it happened again with Alex Freddie, you know, not a not a female, but a white guy basically and seen more importantly as an ally of immigrants and therefore deserved what he got because he got in the way of law enforcement. None of that was true. Like in both cases, the Renee good and Alex Freddie stories and the white were completely wrong like detach from reality. But in particular, the Alex, Alex Freddie case, Vance was one of the people who helped promote this false picture of him as an assassin. If you remember, Steven Miller referred to him as a would be assassin, I believe, and Vance boosted that. And then when he was confronted about it by reporter who asked him, like, would you like to like issue like an apology or like a statement to the Freddie family and Vance smirked and said, for what? When I saw that clip, I was like, this is going to blow up on the right because it's him demonstrating that he just did he's a cold blooded killer, right? That he's cruel. That he's willing to bear witness to violence so that the right can get what it wants. And then smirk at like the stupid reporter who asks him if he feels any sense of contrition. Like when I saw that, I was like, one, it's going to go viral into like, Vance knows exactly what he's doing. He knows what crowd he's playing to. And like, I can see someone like him being a much better fit as a successor to Trump than Mark Rubio. Like, I don't like Rubio either, but whatever you want to say about Rubio, it's hard to see Rubio stooping as low as Vance's morally and more importantly, trying to wink at this particular crowd of people. You know, that includes individuals on the right who look down on his, his wife and his children because his wife is Indian is in laws or immigrants and his kids are mixed. Like, you have to think about what kind of a person like Vance is willing to try to court that part of the right that sort of looks down on your family because they're not purely white. And you're thinking to yourself like, I need to make sure that I'm sending the signals out that these people know I'm on their side. And that they can trust me to be like the based torch bearer for Donald Trump. You know, I told you I wasn't going to make you come on here to do burn book. But obviously, as you're kind of coming out of this, JD Tucker, you know, are all navigating this, right? And JD was like one of me and then he becomes one of you, right? And then, you know, so he's moving different directions, you know, and then Tucker ends up having to leave Fox. Like, it's your communicating with them. Like, what's your sense like the way in which they're processing all of this and like the path that they're taking to try to appeal to the audience they need to get to? Tucker is very difficult to get a read on. When you're talking to him, it's never clear that you're talking to like a real person is the best way I can put it. It's like he's always sort of wearing a mask. There are some features of Tucker that are like consistent, but then there are other aspects of him that are really slippery. I think it's true that he's probably like, unwell, psychologically. Like, this is like, I hate to sound like an armchair psychologist, whatever. But I mean, but like, do I really need to, you know, like he just had a guest on where they were talking about how like Algebra is like fake and like Jewish nonsense. And that it's not a real math, you know, and Tucker was like giggling as his guest is saying this stuff like, okay, so I guess it's not that outrageous to suggest that he's unwell. I think it's gotten certainly worse since he left Fox. If he was effective rhetorically of Fox is because of his writers and the people around him that like hemmed him in and controlled him. And once those guardrails removed like Trump, he just, you know, went insane or rather revealed that he was always kind of like out there. And he's just very dishonest and very slippery Tucker. I'll get to Vance like in one moment, you know, he's like, I love Chop. The next moment he says, I hate Chop. And this was him before he becomes a big surrogate for Trump in 2024. He's he's telling people in private. He's saying in public that he's like, well, not actually much less on public, but in private, he's like, he hates Chop. You know, he's like done with him. Yeah, he's like, he's telling, you know, he's like anybody who's had a private conversation with Tucker, myself included about Trump during that period will tell you he like he hated him. He got the guy was a joke. And then all of a sudden, like after leaving Fox, he gets in bed with the Trump family. By Trump family, I mean like his biggest advertising deal after leaving Fox. I think his first and biggest one was with a company titled on junior. It's called, I believe it's called public square. And then he goes to the campaign trail, he tells Russell Brand, like, you know, I love Donald Trump. And, you know, he's also he's the peace president. And then, you know, he gets elected. And then he's just back and forth. Right now he's off the Trump train. But importantly, he's promoting Vance now. You know, he's like, guys, Shucks, I was wrong about Trump. He's a liar. I could never I never saw that coming. However, you should trust me when I say that Vance is like the real deal. And Vance is very similar to Tucker in that he's very slippery. Like I remember conversations with him about about this type of character on the right who years ago was was scrutinizing him precisely because of his family background. Like, you know, your wife is not white. Kids are mixed. You know, can you really be trusted to be like an ally to like the hardcore immigration restrictionists who for them immigration is not again, merely a policy issue. It's it's an existential. It's whether or not this country will be more or less white. Can we really trust you, JD? And I remember him, like, just talking to him about this particular type of person. I basically just characterize them as like racist libertarians. Basically, this fact should have the right that thinks like there actually there's no real issues with like the economy. There's no real issues with anything. There's just too many brown people on America. And like if we just have fewer brown people like everything would be fine. And I remember like he was receptive to that. This is like a critique. He wasn't receptive to be. No, to what I was to that framing. And then yeah, I mean, that was like three years ago. And now he's he basically said, you know, like he occasionally like when he's for like absolutely forced to we'll say something like I hate Nick Fuentes, whatever. And that's it. He's he's very reluctant to criticize that part of the right, which just a few years ago was attacking him. He's very reluctant to criticize them because he understands that on the right, it's called counter signaling. Like he knows that counter signaling could expose him as someone who's not really on board with a program. I want to kind of go over that because that's an interesting journey. So you can see Vance. And we can see this publicly. And you're just like having a handful of conversations privately, but like kind of grasping at like, you know, how can I ingratiate myself into this mega edge like through influencers that are like you like just not outside the bounds of acceptability, right? Like what are the ways that we can kind of, you know, how can I court them one of the ways that I can talk about this like it's a strategic thing. It's a little sociopathic. I think it's a strategic effort, you know, and it's like he goes through that effort and then kind of comes out the other side being like, you know, the only way to do this is actually just to go ahead and fully body up to the most race as far to the right because like there's unless you abide by the no enemies to the right posture, like I'm going to end up being, you know, Mike Pence for somebody else. Yeah, you'll you'll become suspect. You will not be viewed as like a reliable ally who's willing to do what needs to be done. And I mean, there's this slogan that briefly became popular on the right. It was hard in your heart. It's funny. Like I think a bit often, I think it was maybe right after Trump got elected. It's sort of making the rounds online. People just random influencers saying like hard in your heart kind of like get ready for what's coming and Trump 2.0. And I think that that's one way to understand Vance is that he that's that's what he has done in a very cynical way because he knows that if I want to be like the undisputed error, like if I want to cast out any doubt that I am the the true and only like error to Trump, this is what I have to do. The one other thing in advance on to get your pick your brain on is this kind of alignment with the pro tech side of things, the kind of AI accelerationists and and teal. Again, like I was trying to parse out what MAGA is and ends up being like you could imagine a version of MAGA that is like in a lot of ways Ron Paul was kind of proto MAGA more than some of this other stuff. And there's some differences of course, but like you could imagine a version of it that is like a little more libertarian and is kind of hostile to the surveillance state. Maybe an era Alex Jones type of more of an Alex Jones version of MAGA. I thought like still has the racism still has some of the other you know the conspiracy theorizing, but like is more hostile to you know big tech. And that doesn't seem to be what's developing with this crew. They seem to be accommodating themselves quite well to the kind of volunteer flock AI world. Part of my like introduction to the right was unusual in that I started by reading a lot of paleoconservative thinkers and there are a few things that I think anybody's familiar with the Paleos know off the bat. One is they're typically a lot smarter than like the contemporary right-winger whether you disagree with or not like a lot of these guys have PhDs, they're more cerebral. And one is also very paranoid. And so you know pick your Paleo. And they had a lot of influence on people who don't like know the philosophical side of this on on patty can and on Ron Paul like in different ways but like that. That's sort of the part of the part of the movement. Yeah and Paleo's matter because a lot A lot of paleoidias and rhetoric influenced the new right in the age of Magga. I think David Brooks published an essay in the New York Times in which he said that like Sam Francis anticipated, a very controversial paleo thinker anticipated everything that Donald Trump would say and do like decades before it happened. But again, you read the Paleo's and you'll find deep skepticism and basically paranoia about everything but more importantly, the federal government. And you can see it also in the language that you would regime Leviathan. Never government. Again, this is important because like after Trump wins and Trump 1.0, even although Trump is won, like this kind of rhetoric is still very popular on the right. Like you look at the books that were being written at the time, like Trump versus the Leviathan. Right. Because like the deep states all still in there. They're still doing all these machinations, even though we won, yeah. And like I remember when I was a Claremont fellow, you know, they had this table where they had like free books and shirts. And I think this is like 2021. And the books all had names like that, you know, dismantling the administrative state. But then there were these shirts in the middle of the table that said hot gulag summer. And it was like an inside joke, the idea that like, oh, raw rebels involved and end up in the gulag, whatever. I think it's remarkable that that has all completely gone away. And Trump 2.0, there is like no sense of like maybe the thing that we're calling a regime of life and it's going to be turned on us at some point. It's like, no, give Palantir the keys to the kingdom, give, you know, Elon Musk access to like all the federal government's data, let him run wild. Like we have nothing to worry about. Our guys are in control. If you're afraid of the government in the era of Trump 2.0, it's because your, you know, your brown as the right would say, I'm not joking. Like that's actually the language they used to frame these issues. Like hating Palantir is brown coded. Like that's actually what these people say. Or that you're like insufficiently hardened to what must be done. Or the third is that you're like, you know, subversive in some way or I get in the fourth to be that you're like, you're leftist basically. And therefore, you should be scared because we're in control now. Right. And it's just this complete inversion of the right mood toward the government in Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0. And then again, like you said, like this, this also this complete reversal and how the right and how it conceived itself in terms of its relationship with the government going back to these like influential paleos who like, like I said, like, although they're obscure and forgotten, I think most of them are even dead, like, we're very influential on the maggot movement. It's interesting. It's kind of like, Rand now is the person that's like speaking out against us as sort of the, whatever, like actual ideological successor of that kind of part of the paleos. Okay. We could do a whole hour on that. And let's see. Commenters, let us know if you want to. We do have to close on Pedro. And I couldn't have you on without doing this. So get excited. Oh, no. We want to talk about your, you know, you falling off the horse and all that. Here's the distance that we've gone to spend this 45 minutes together. Are you ready? Here's an exchange of tweets, you know, I have five years ago. You criticized a young gay, young skin staffer for having pronouns in his bio. I replied defending him, saying he seems like he's doing a good job. I don't know what's wrong. Why are you making fun of the gay, young skin staffer? It escalates from there. You replied, oh, no, I've upset the jawless guy from the bulwark. I replied, congratulating you on your conversion therapy. You said, you're actually married with kids and I'm an androgynous creep adjacent to pedophiles. I said, your kids will read this someday in cringe, bro. You said, I won't have to explain to my kids how I couldn't find a better job than being Bill Crystal's housecock. You went on to talk about my mutant genes and I learned a word that I've stolen actually after that. You made fun of my physiognomy, my undecernable male characteristics and then you went for the jawline again. So that's not great. I mean, there's definitely some homophobia there and then there's the famous, or at this point, you reference it a little bit at the beginning on the leprosy eating face meal with you had to like the bright bar people turned against you because you're for the Santa's and link some text in which you said some anti-Semitic stuff, you used the word negris. That's kind of a long journey from that in 2021 to this in 2026, being here and saying like the main issue with these guys is that they're like in a race war. Like, how do you how do you explain that journey to people? How much time do I have? As much as you know, that I'm just kidding. Man, I don't want to make light of this stuff that I said back then because it was disgusting and like, I'm not just saying that because I feel like I need to like, I don't know, it's so difficult when you're like in any capacity like a public person that says things that public, you know, that are public, or like as you said, my kids will someday read because when you decide to go a different way, it's always kind of viewed as like face saving or like ass saving or like insincere, but for me, like for me, and again, this, this sounds funny in retrospect, supporting DeSantis was an expression of my dissatisfaction with MAGA and not just Trump, but with MAGA. And in some ways, I was as delusional as Mike Pence and that I thought maybe there's a different way we can take, you know, maybe like whatever you might think of DeSantis, he wasn't Trump and his movement, I don't think would be his, his, his, he wouldn't enable people the way that Trump does, maybe, I don't know, maybe, again, maybe this is residual delusion, but that was why I supported him. In other words, I was already very disaffected and looking around myself and just being like, what, you know, what have I been part of for the last however many years? And it became a lot reeler for me when people that I knew started to amplify these attacks on DeSantis and his wife, like DeSantis was a pedophile that he like cheated on his wife when she had cancer, like I remember sort of just being again, it sounds so funny, but like shocked that people that I knew is like fellow travelers like, wait, hold on, I like, okay, I get it. It's a primary, but like really, like you're going to call him a pedophile? You're going to say these like horrible things about his wife. And again, it's like, yes, because he said that he did that with Ted Cruz, right? And it's all Trump. So that's when I became like even more outspokenly, not just Trump and anti-Mega, which is why I, I came out of the crosshairs and I got obliterated. I remember the day that that happened, I was giving a talk to some like, I don't know, they were like hill staffers, like young hill staffers about basically how to try to do good under an evil empire. And then like as I'm like giving that talk, I'm like, my phone is like blowing up, evil empire is like a dramatic, you know, way of looking at like DC, right? Okay. And then my phone's like blowing up and the bright part story has dropped in that moment, like Arthur Schwartz, Don Jr., like there's a coordinated push to just get this out there and, you know, and the Tucker calls me and like, he tells me like basically why it happened and who was responsible for it. And it's just like, who am I to become, you know, like public enemy number one for Mega, right? It was just so bizarre that they decided to just single me out and destroy me. And like, that's the question that people will ask me is like, why did they do this to you? Like, not like you didn't deserve it, but like, no offense, but you're not a big deal. Like, so why did they decide to crucify you in a very public way? I don't know. Maybe the most obvious answer or the clearest answer would be to make an example out of somebody. Like, this is what happens if you, if you step out of line and try to leave, we'll do this to you too. Like, this disproportionate response, like my wife who's not political at all, who's at home with our son and she was pregnant at the time, with her second. And she like held it together when I got, until I got home from that trip. And then she just like broke down because she was like for someone who's not political at all, like not interested in politics and she's like, you know, what are people telling me about you? Like, I don't understand why is this happening? And this period of like introspection that I was already going through intensifies and the attacks continue by the way they didn't just stop it by part. And by the time that Trump get through liked it, I'm like, I'm off like, I'm, I mean, I was already off, but like, I'm really off to the point where I'm like starting to turn, not just on like obvious bad actors, but like starting to be more critical of people that were formally like fellow travelers, like Claremont, basically, like now I, like I think Claremont is a terrible organization. I think they've, they have no principles at all. I'm saying this is a form of follow. Like, I think they've completely sold their souls to, to Trump and Trumpism. But what got me to that point was Trump's reelection. And then the way that the right tried to get people to revel and cruelty, like it's not just we're doing mass deportations, but we want you to partake in it at a distance with like, you know, ASMR deportation videos. And it was like very clear to me that it was always intended to dehumanize people, but like in a really unusually sick way, even for Trump people, right? And then the killings of Renee Good now, it's pretty happened. And it just sort of like hit me that if that were me, like if I were driving home and some like untrained, like more on who works for the federal government were like, pull me over because of the way I look. And, you know, like drag me out of my car because he doesn't like a response that I make and then just executes me right there. All those people that were cheering for Renee Good and Alex ready to be killed would do the same for me. Or for anybody. Like, this is a mindless, dangerous movement. that is enabled by, you know, the president of the United States. And I mean, at that point for me, it was like, I'm not just going to limit like criticism to like people that again are like obvious bad actors, but like the entire conservative movement that I've been part of and I don't think can can be saved in the foreseeable future. I think people wouldn't hear that and go, though, okay. But like, would you have gotten to this point if you had not, like, had forced introspection via like text message doxing? I mean, like, you're participating in a lot of the cool stuff. Well, I mean, like I said, it started already with DeSantis. I was already kind of like slowly reevaluating everything, including like the nasty rhetoric that I've undertaken. And what I will say is that being like thrown out of the window of a 10th story building, which is what that felt like, was necessary. Like, it was one of the worst things that happened to me. It's really like hard to, I don't know, if you've never been there, it's hard to explain with that, what that feels like. I still haven't, I only have gotten over it, but at the same time, it was good in the sense that it, like, guaranteed, the funny thing is I probably still cutting on back. Like, this is the important thing about MAGA is like, you can actually go, like, and there are examples of this, by the way, guaranteed internally guaranteed within you that you couldn't do it again, because like frankly, they would have been excited to have you back probably the late text made more based. I know, right, for how they understand themselves. No, but for me, it was like, I'm done for good. There's no going back, burn whatever remaining bridges they are, but also like a huge part of it that was not political was how I understood myself as a father. You know, again, going back to what you said, I kind of just like was able to step out of myself. I thought like, would my kids be proud of their dad looking back on like what I had done with like MAGA? And if I continue doing that, any answers probably like no, I don't think so. And I've only spoken about this like twice. One was with the nice people from the Know Your Enemy Potter now with you, which is why it's kind of like disjointed and like it's like pulling out of my guts, but this will sound very sentimental, which by the way, I think is good. And I think there's a real reason why the right hates like empathy. But it was focusing on being a father, like focusing a lot more on my kids, on my relationship with my wife and this sounds very funny, but I read the road during this time. It's a book by Kormat McCarthy. It made it tremendous. Like if I were to say that that look contributed to like saving my life, I would not be exaggerating as funny as that sounds, but it really made a huge impact on me and just impressed upon me that there was like there was no going back. And the only thing that mattered was was what I do from this point on. And a big part of that is again doing what I think would make my kids proud. So I don't think that's all sentimental at all. When I wrote about kind of the people that from the first term and why we did it, Elisofera who was in there and quite after January 6, like I didn't know her at all. And we sat together for like hours, just kind of drinking wine and like talking about why she went in and why she flipped. And like this is where she ended in the exact same place. And I was moved by that. But like at least me feeling a little bit like, how do I put it? I was moved enough by it to use it as an insult for other people in hopes that it would shake them as evidence by our exchange. But like at least me wondering why there isn't more of that? I don't know. I don't know because I think that a lot of you're listening and like a big part of what our project here is. It's like, how do you pull people out? And it's like, I don't know, you know, at some level you hear the advice, but it's like, well, if you shine the mirror in their face, and if you tell them, you know, if you call them names, like that just makes them dig in deeper. But then like what's the alternative? I don't know. Do you have any any deep thoughts on that? Like how to get other people to kind of reckon with the ugliness of it? I don't think there's a formula that you can reliably apply to shaking someone out of it. I think everyone's different. And like I said, there are examples of people that were DeSantis partisans and were defenestrated. And then basically apologized to MAGA and were allowed back into Trump world and got jobs in the Trump administration. It all comes down to the individual. It depends on your character. It depends on, you know, your situation in life. Are you a father? How do you understand yourself as a father? Initially, for me, like being a dad in a weird way, like made me more conservative, but in the wrong way, because I was, you know, caught up with, like, culture war stuff. And it's funny. Like I was actually talking to somebody recently who said who like, who had his first kid and he said, having a child radicalized me and I said, stop. It's very important that you understand that like that you separate politics from being a father because I like, I'll tell you right now that it can make you miss what actually matters. And what what you should be focusing on is like not protecting your kid from like the left or whatever, or like liberals, but actually just being a father and being there for your kid. As opposed to it becoming sort of like part of your overall political aesthetic of personality, which I think the right does. And I think this contributes to why some people when they're attacked, double down, but I don't like, I don't think there is a formula. So you have no advice for us on how to make new paydress? No. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think shame is a pretty powerful motivator. So like, I mean, the things that you said at the time, they didn't bother me, but looking back, I mean, when you're confronted with all these statements like that, it's like, yes, they were right. And so it helps, I think in that sense, but there also has to be kind of like a something that triggers it. I think there's a, there's a neo conservative, maybe Ergen Crystal, who said that a liberal, I'm not sure if it's Ergen Crystal. Mugged by reality? Yes. Yes. Yes. Served as a liberal. It's been mugged by reality. Yeah, it's very similar to that. Like you have to be kind of mugged by reality as a member of MAGA in order to realize that you were wrong. And okay, this is not a complaint because like I deserved it. But I see cases where this is a type of story you see, unfortunately, pretty frequently. It's like someone who voted for Trump and then like someone they love gets deported. You're right. And they say like, I didn't think you would happen to me in the response. We laugh at them. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard for me not to do that, Pedro. I know. It is hard for me to do that. You could, you could try to shame me though. Maybe I'll think about my behavior too. That's fine. I'm open to that. But like, he also ran three times on this fucking thing. I don't know. It's part of the way it was. It wasn't going to be on my topics for you. It was going to be part of my things. It's like, you're Hispanic. It was obvious from the start that he was going to be targeting Hispanic immigrants. And who knows how that ends. And I don't know. It's not good to rub it in their face. But isn't it also like, okay, hello? Well, I can try to address that question. I don't think it's below the belt. But the thing about how to respond to these cases of people basically getting what they voted for good and hard. It's like, I think it's okay to not, it's a funny term to use your okay. It's understandable for people to do that to say, like, well, you got what you voted for. I think as long as the possibility of them being allowed back into the, like, in the other side is not closed off. Because ultimately, like, you want to convert those people into allies and to people who will help you vote, you know, this stuff out. Otherwise, like, what's the point of all this, right? That's what I do. And conservative is privately complained to me, but I'm like, I can't, this is really the final straw for me. I can't, I can't take it anymore. I'm always like, are you going to vote Democrat? Are you going to actually put that frustration into practice and like encourage someone else to get out, get yourself out, or like, vote damn or whatever? And if the answer is no, then I'll just tell them, then like, I'm sorry, then like, you, I don't, I don't think you're, you're basically just venting to me. Like, I'm not a, I'm not a therapist. It's understandable to kind of like, do the, know, liberate face thing. But at the same time, like, I think there should still be a path for people like that to, to come back in and help you somehow to be part of like the opposition. But on the question of like identity, I don't think it's unusual that it's, it's actually not unusual at all, but there's, there's been a large constituency of like Hispanic man who supported Trump and in particular because of his, not just despite, but because of his immigration platform. And there's different reasons for that. Well, first is Hispanics, Latinos are not a monolith, you know, like Cubans have different concerns than like Mexicans and Venezuelans and stuff. Cubans are getting that good, though, right now. Yeah, yeah, they are. Yeah. But I think for, for my part, it's this idea of like, I don't think of myself as Mexican American. I think of myself as American. My parents are immigrants from Mexico, but I grew up very Americanized. I've never actually thought of myself as anything other than American. And some of like my earliest experiences and people that are like leftists, like campus leftists and becoming really angry with them was them basically telling me like, you'll never actually be fully American and that you're kind of suffering from like a false consciousness and you've been whitewashed and like, you know, like you, you've been and brainwashed into lovingness. society that hates you, and this is like the 2010s, basically, leading up to the election of Donald Trump. And that very much influenced how I looked at identity, not just identity politics, but identity as a whole, and then also immigration policy, because you think to yourself, there's a difference between me and this other type of person who's coming from the same country that my parents came from, that there's some kind of a dividing line there. And I think that when you're conservative, it's easy to believe that it is that simple, that that line is so easily drawn, but it's not. And I think the Trump era has really just kind of driven that home. Ultimately, I mean, this is part of why even on immigration, my views of moderated dramatically, I think because if you believe that you can deprive a human of their rights, of their dignity, that doesn't stop with their immigration status, right? The way the Trump administration treats and views immigrants, it obviously doesn't stop with them. Like, again, look at Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Look at basically anyone who they view as obstacles to their agenda, so it's complicated, and it wasn't just like, I don't know, at least for me, it was not just a sort of like, well, it's not going to affect me, I'm one of the good ones, whatever. It was an actual thought process about the idea of identity and how identity is basically a series of layers, and I think this is also really important because for the people on the right and the left that are just basically trying to destroy anything like a kind of civic nationalism or a common conception of what it means to be American. I think that's really dangerous because you don't get rid of identity. You just scratch off one identity and the one that's beneath it rises at the surface. And I think the most obvious one is like racial and ethnic identities, which is what the right is doing, which is what it's done more and more and what it's arrived at now is like, it's not enough to be an American, yet to be a heritage American. What does that mean? What's a very specific kind of white American, you know, and basically from there there's a kind of hierarchy of, you know, who is truly American? So we'll do another hour on identity ideology and the tech right another time. If the people allow it, we'll see what they say in the comments about the page against all those upsets. I really appreciate it, though. I want to close. I just want to do like, can we just have a little jaw comparison to see what the, I like for the viewers on YouTube to just comment on who's jawline they think is better or worse. You have a good jawline too. We can draw it. It's not like I haven't been thinking about that for five years or anything. We all live cucks have feelings too, okay? That's better because I'll read him his, his sub stack is called Contra. And I hope we'll get to checking with you again soon, all right, brother? Yeah, thank you. I will see you. The board daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzaly Skipper and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brow.