Trump Moves to Fund Putin’s War While Betraying Ukraine (ft. Sarah Longwell)

What if Bruce Springsteen had never become the superstar he is today? I'm Will Anderson and this week on my music history podcast The Monday Music Club, we're talking about the making of his breakthrough album Born to Run with the guy who wrote the literal book on it, Peter Ames Karla. He had put so much of himself into his music, like all of himself. I mean, it was hard for him to have romantic relationships that could last, you know, he didn't really do anything, but put all the energy into his guitar. It's a fun ride, so listen to the episode right now by searching for Monday Music Club anywhere you get your podcasts. How much have you spent on your pet's medical care this year? Maybe more than your own? 25 years ago, it was very rare to hear of a pet having an MRI. Now it's kind of standard if a pet presents with an issue. Big corporations and private equity have seen all of this and have rushed into the sector. While your vet bill is so high, that's this week on Explain It To Me. Listen to new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Will Anderson and this week on my music history podcast The Monday Music Club, we're talking about the making of his breakthrough album Born to Run with the guy who wrote the literal book on it Peter Ames Carla. Okay. We're doing it live. We're doing it live in a less below Riley way. It is 11 a.m. on the East Coast. There's like a ton of politics and so Sarah Longwell from The Bullwark is here. Publisher of the Bullwark hosts the Folk School podcast. The most best-sellingist author I have ever encountered. New York Times and all the less. How do you eat an elephant one foot or a time, which I absolutely adored as I told you. Thank you for being here. Thank you. And I loved your book. You've been everywhere. Your book is amazing. And you know what? What I love about it is we can come on here. We can rage. And we're going to disagree, but we're going to do it. We're still love each other. Are we going to disagree? You're like one of the good ones now though. I know. Isn't that what I've learned from what's going on on Twitter? I don't know how you deal with all of this by the way. And people hate me, but I actually enjoy being hated by the right more than the left. That seems like way worse. Yeah, the thing that I tell myself on this and that I think is mostly true and is evidenced this weekend by Ukraine taking out the Russian bot farms in the drone attacks. You can see how many on both the far left and the mega right are bots. And so, you know, when you know it's a lot of bots that are amplifying, you know, a small cadre of voices. The other thing is I listen to real people all the time. And so I know Twitter is not real life. I just know that it's not. So it doesn't worry me that much. So we're just mentally ill that we hang out there anyway. We are, we are sad. So everyone, make sure you stay for the whole episode of two mentally ill women who actually just love to be insulted on Twitter for funsies when they could be spending time with their children because we love you anyway. I do want to start with what's going on with Russia. So I kind of can't believe this. I can't believe this happened, but it always brings back 2016 vibes. For me, when everyone's like, oh, you should apologize for saying that Donald Trump, like, has a thing for Vladimir Putin. And then you're like, look, he can't stop doing it. He's now claiming that there is a quote-unquote energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. President Zelensky does not feel that way. This comes after a number of senators called on Trump to reverse his plans to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel in the wake of rising prices. In the House, legislation has already been announced to block the deal. Justin mid-September, Congress passed and Trump signed the Lindsey O Graham sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. Before you take Sarah, I just wanted to give a little bit of background information on this deal that President Trump struck a few days ago with President Putin. When he announced it on true social, he measured everything in tons, which seemed very strange for him because at best, he might say gallons. And the reason that he did that is because he got us 13 to 14 hours of diesel relief. A total order of 1.8 million tons is 82 hours of U.S. use. So three days, 10 hours at maximum, that we are going to be gifted for this tremendous deal that lift sanctions helps Iran, Russia's very happily, been by their side throughout this conflict that is taking American lives. As we speak, what say you? Well, I want to emphasize this because I think that Americans are just waking up to this fact, which is that we are helping Russia subsidize and share intelligence with the Iranians who are currently killing American soldiers at numbers that Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon keep downplaying or lying about. And so when you think about the way that this is all connected, and it's going to take a while for Americans to really understand this, is just how much Trump, because he is in the thrall of dictators, both the G and Putin, but Putin's always had. And here's the thing, you, people seem to think like Putin's got something on Trump, right? Like he's got and who knows, maybe these people are all insanely corrupt, like you don't, there doesn't have to be like a p-tap for Trump to get cocked by Putin, because he just loves dictators. And I was talking about this with JVL earlier today, and it sort of goes to this point about sort of the never-Trumpers. Sometimes people think on the right, they say, well, you betrayed your principles. And on the left, they say, you know, you guys are not left enough or progressive enough on policies. The thing about the never-Trumpers, at least the ones affiliated with the bulwark, is that what we knew about Donald Trump from the very beginning was that he did not believe in the American experiment. He did not believe in liberal democracy. He doesn't believe in pluralism, he doesn't believe in free speech. He likes dictators. He wants to be like dictators. And so our opposition stems from the fact that this is not a guy who believes in the Constitution or any of the things that anchor the American experiment. And it is no more evident than in deals like this, where he is willing to sell out American lives and his own attempts in this war of choice in Iran, because he wants to glaze Putin, because it's going to lower diesel by like three cents. For a minute. Yeah, for like a minute. Yeah, so obviously, I mean, you know, a lot more about the never-Trump cohort than I do. But I will say that what sticks out to me when this happens, because this does happen regularly. That President Trump does something that is so egregious, that even people who usually stay in line have to jump out of line even for a few minutes and say, hold on a second here, this is all Vladimir Putin's fault. There aren't, you know, millions of dead Russian children. He's been bombing gas stations. He's been bombing schools, hospitals, places of worship, literally anywhere that he wants. And we have to be clear about that. And then I get to not the never-Trump Republicans, the actual Republicans who are still serving in Congress, but clearly can't stand this, like a Brian Fitzpatrick or Don Bacon, who is retiring. And Brian Fitzpatrick is the original co-sponsor of this Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act, which he's going to force to the floor by a discharge petition. It will obviously pass. This is to block any purchasing of Russian oil. And I see that that he's still calling something like the Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act. And I just think this doesn't exist anymore, fellas. Like, I mean, yes, Reagan literally doesn't exist anymore. But this idea that your party is rooted in anything but MAGA and whatever this one guy and then the few right below him that will go along with absolutely anything that he takes a shining to should mean that it is time to decamp. And I'm not saying you come with us like what you guys at the Bol work done. That's very different than what a lot of people that I even know who are never Trumpers, but can't get there, you know, to become part-carrying dams. But it's humiliating to me to see that that's the name of this bill. And you just look so out of touch with reality on the ground for modern day politics. Yeah, I mean, one of the things you discover when you sort of come from the right is how much none of the people who sort of raised you up as a Republican, none of them meant it. They didn't mean that character counted. Like, they clearly they didn't care whether or not character counted. I think we're going to get to this to this live streaming shooting Like they're going to do putting somebody up in front of a firing squad. The pro-life community didn't mean it. The idea that we as Americans had a leadership role in the world, they're just abandoning that. And when you talk about the Republicans who are staying on board right now and how humiliating it is for them, it's not humiliating. It should be humiliating, but more important, that it should be soul crushing, like it should be, they should be filled with shame. They have abandoned every principle that they suggested they stood for and it's evident right now. They're watching it happen. They're letting Donald Trump. They're not standing up to him. They're pretending like they are like you're seeing some people for electability reasons be like, "Oh, I was against the tariffs and we should end the war." No one's taking a principled stand and I think what's incredible in this moment is the way that the voters are abandoning Trump. And the elites are staying on board despite the fact, and one of the reasons I wrote the book is because I do think Democrats have a generational opportunity. The pro-democracy coalition has a generational opportunity to go on offense against this hollowed out nothing of a Republican party that is built entirely on a cult of personality around Trump because they don't stand for anything and as a result, they're screwing everything up. And so Democrats, if they can seize this moment, I think can show the country how hollow everything that Trump has done has been. And why the Republican party stands for, I think Brian Fitzpatrick used to be one of the good moderates. I've been on a ton of panels with him. I like him. He's married to my colleague. He seems like a lovely fellow, but why are you hanging out there anymore, bro? I mean, lack of testicular fortitude. But I do think that the voters in these districts who choose a dawn bacon and who choose a Brian Fitzpatrick would be open to them even hanging out as independence, right? I mean, we're seeing this all over the country. That Democrats seemingly have a chance at picking up some seats that we have no business winning because they're running as independence. And they're saying, you know, I don't fit this mold. I don't think that the leadership of the Democratic Party is speaking to the concerns of the people. And I want you to talk about that a bit more with this generational opportunity that you outlined in the book because I agree with you and remain frustrated at the leadership's inability to seize that moment because the popularity of the Democratic Party is not ticking off as Donald Trump's unpopularity ticks up as well or down. I don't know the right way. You know what I mean? He's like below the bush line and we're still like around the bush line. He is. He's below the bush line. However, here's what's vote hub had this really great chart where they showed how each of the candidates, so they would pull people and say, like, what do you think of the Democratic Party in terms of its extremism to the left that's too far left? And that's one dot. So that's like 50% of people think the Democratic Party is too far left. And they'll be like, and do you think that Roy Cooper is too far left? And it'll be like 25 points lower. And so the individual candidates right now, not all of them, but a lot of them are beating the too far left moniker by simply not running as somebody who is too far left. You know, they are very well suited. And this is where, look, I am frustrated with the lack of offense from the Democratic leadership. On the other hand, I think with the exception of Maine, they did a pretty good job on candidate recruitment. I mean, New Hampshire, Alaska, North Carolina, Texas, like they really, I'm sorry. Iowa, and like the Kansas, the ability to have found people, because this is politics. Like, I've sort of abandoned the, you know, they should be more moderate versus more progressive. And the question is, is do they fit the place that they are running? And so when you're in Kansas and you've got a preacher, like, now we're talking, or, and look, and James Talleriko, I think, has done a really good job because they really wanted to paint him with all his woke one content. And he just said, no, I disavow the woke one. I'm running a totally different way. And it is working for him. I list of voters and focus groups. And they think he just has sort of nice young man energy in the face of a real scumbag, like Ken Paxton. And the thing I was talking about before about how bereft the Republican Party is for actual content has led them to a bunch of candidates who are these empty suits of nothingness. Like Ashley Henson in Iowa. No good. When John Allsoft, when he was doing his debate the other night, I was watching that was like a live execution. Like that one. He's dead. He's dead. Stop hitting him. He's already gone. Yeah. I was watching Mike Collins. He was like, just like in a puddle of his own urine, unable to, he's like taking notes the whole time. He's probably going to be struggling away because he can't look up because he's so defeated by John Allsoft. Like, he's a crappy candidate. They're not even like her show walker and Kerry Lake were these bombastic, terrible candidates. Now they're just these nothing candidates where the only thing they have going for them is to say Donald Trump had every right to go into a run and they don't have any other answer. There's just nothing they stand for. Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree with you about what's going on with Mike Collins. And Allsoft has just shown an ability to body to everyone in his way. I mean, some of this is obviously preconceived, but even when he gets caught, you know, in the hallway by reporters, he's relentlessly on message. And there is a moral sting to the stuff that he is saying that sits with people where, you know, he's talking about Selma and invoking, you know, civil rights era obviously was very close with John Lewis, which makes a big difference. Support for the show comes from Zbiotics. 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Visit hymns.com/moderates to get personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair loss, sacs, testosterone, and more. That's hymns.com/moderates, hymns.com/moderates. Individual results may vary, and stopping treatment may result in weight regain. Everyone's talking about the prospect of a democratic wave in the midterm elections, but here's something that matters just as much. The battle to control state legislatures. That's the most important thing we should be focusing on right now. The GOP has a trifecta in 23 states, which means if they control the governor seat, plus the statehouse and the state senate. For Democrats, it's 16 states. Meaning that the opportunity to pass the policies that the majority of our state supports, like increasing minimum wage, legalizing marijuana, codifying abortion. If Democrats flip just a handful of state legislatures, the majority of Americans will now live in the state under full democratic control, which could have big policy implications. That's all on the table with the Democratic trifecta. This week on America, actually, we're in Wisconsin, and we talked to Francesca Hong. We have an opportunity through Wisconsin to actually start improving the brand for Democrats. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to say, so you went and you said New Hampshire was on your list. And I would like you to make me less nervous about New Hampshire than because I know Chris This papas was the right. right candidate, but the Senunu brand and the Senunu force is major. And I feel like we are sleeping on being the correct level of concern about New Hampshire and this idea that we live in a world where we could pick up an Iowa or a Texas and lose New Hampshire. And potentially, more than 50% odds to my mind that we're not going to pick off Maine, which was the number one target and, you know, winnable seat. Well, it's the best thing. It's like the rest of these places is right. Right. You look, it was going on the governor level. And then what's happening in this Senate race in Susan Collins does not present as well as she did in 2020. And she has taken a lot of votes that the average manor would not be happy with and yet is still leading in polling margin of error. But she was trailing Sarah Gideon the whole time in 2020 and one by eight. Listen, you wouldn't be a Democrat if you weren't wetting the bed over the polls. And that is, that's good. This is, this is, I, I have now spent the last decade around a lot of Democrats. And if there's one thing I've learned is that you're perpetually nervous. And you know what? Yes. So am I. This is my most Democratic trait now is that I too live with polling PTSD and all of the worries. I will see a new Hampshire. The level of the polling miss because Papas's point is, is plus six plus seven in most of the polls. I know if you spend some time on real clear politics and you get some of the Republicans ones in there, it might seem a little more narrow. But I think I have been waiting. And I think a lot of pollsters, I'm not a pollster. I'm qualitative. But I think people have been waiting to see whether or not Republicans come home, whether there's an enormous reversion to the mean. And you start to see things get better for Republicans and Titan going into the final stretch. That's not happening. And because I do qualitative work, the thing that is different about voters today than has ever happened in all the time I've been listening to them, which goes back about eight years is that Republican voters are actively mad at Trump. I've never seen it before. Now, granted, I'm doing a lot of finding people who are Trump voters who now disapprove of them. As I'm saying, he's doing a somewhat bad or very bad job. But that poll is getting so much bigger. And you were asking this question earlier, you know, I have heard, I think it was Charlie Cook who talked about, and I got to say, I arrived at this metaphor myself too. But I don't want to give him credit because he's been out there talking about it where there's this blue wave coming, but there's also a red undertow. And I want to talk about how undertows give waves their strengths. And I have my pet theory. And we'll see if this turns out to be right. But I'm going to stand by as a theory right now is that the people who are getting hit hardest by Trump's policies, mainly tariffs, gas prices, and therefore affordability across the board, as well as data centers are all in rural areas. The rural areas as where Donald Trump puts up Saddam Hussein type numbers in general elections, they tend to decrease in the midterms because dams now have the educational structural advantage. But Trump does these rallies to try to get people out and it's like hyped and say, I'm on the ballot, I think it's those rural voters, that they're going to, that's the undertow, that they stay home. And so if you are able to both do persuasion with the independence, independence, break heavily your way. And this isn't, sometimes people, Democrats think there's only two places to go. It's like, well, we shouldn't spend our time trying to get Republican Trump voters to win them over. And I'm like, no, you're trying to get right leaning independence. You're trying to get people who might, like, they are not partisan Republicans, but they vote for Republicans often because they don't like Democrats. Question is, can you get them to break your way? And when they vote, and I think the answer is yes, on top of Republican staying home. Yeah, it's the, um, the double haters and the low propensity votes. That's right. That's right. Just the keys to the kingdom. And I was heartened to see that both of those demos and the last several high quality polls, uh, Fox, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Sienna were breaking Democrats way. I would add to your list of policies that are really upsetting, rural or traditional, right leaning voters is healthcare. Yeah. Totally. They're just, I mean, this has been forever more that there is no actual alternative to Obamacare, despite, um, them voting to repeal it 75 times or whatever the number is. Uh, you do. People know that the big, beautiful bill had enormous healthcare costs. Yes. And I will give the Democratic Party its flowers on that. They made that very clear to people that they will go to the mat fighting for your healthcare. Um, one factor in all of this, um, that could play a tremendous swing role is Elon Musk. Um, he is amplifying misinformation, like it's his job, um, and kind of as his job, I guess now, we'll send us to space and ruin our elections. Uh, election officials in Colorado and Washington have warned about misleading information from must America pack, including texts asking Colorado voters to confirm a quote unquote ballot request that they never needed to make. The pack also runs votesafe.org. They should not let Elon Musk be able to buy that. Um, a registration site that collects and may share users personal information. And then there's this controversy surrounding the Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Tolerico, right when commentators, including Spencer Pratt, GOP strategist Carolyn Ratt Caroline ran. We're pushing claims that Tolerico was at the Lindner Center of Hope and Ohio mental health facility. Instead of being home, recovering from the flu, as this campaign said, conservative influence or Nick Sorter claimed Tolerico had been treated at the center, citing an employee and sharing audio. Both Tolerico's campaign and the facility have denied the claim must amplified the rumor on acts. And it also appears got a community note for a while taken down on the audio that confirmed the opposite of what the right was saying. Um, I want to add in, I wasn't familiar with this, uh, Trump ie guy before this Tolerico story, this Ryan Amaker, um, who was shopping around the story that Tolerico wasn't a diabetic who got the flu and got really sick, but was actually in this mental facility. And he shopped it to journalists, including Sarah Gonzalez at the blaze who said, like, this can't get through legal. Like, are you out of your mind? And now there's an enormous back and forth. Um, I imagine lawsuits will come. Hopefully we wouldn't an election first. What do you make of what Elon Musk is doing? And what do you think about this Tolerico saga? Well, it just go away as a thing because we've got an election in less than a month or do you think it's going to be pervasive as a plotline? Okay. A few things. Number one, the party that claims that it's deeply concerned about voter integrity, uh, has allowing, um, Elon Musk to do all kinds of deceptive advertising and is obviously promoting a lot of voter deception right now. Um, he is spending more money in these midterms than he spent in the general election of 2024. He's spending more money in these midterms, um, much of it deceptive. And so, uh, people, and part of why that is, it's obviously interesting from the perspective of how much, uh, Republicans are freaking out when they're trying to flood the zone with a lot of crazy stuff. Uh, but remember when Elon said he was taking his ball and going home, it was right when he also said Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. Uh, and he said he was going to make it his life's purpose. And I think it was after, uh, the big, beautiful bill, uh, because he said this is going to raise inflation. This is like politically illiterate. Uh, and I think it had some things in there that he didn't like like cuts to EVs. Uh, and so he was like, I will make it my life's mission to make sure all of these people are defeated. Donald Trump did something to him to threaten whatever contracts and everything else because Elon Musk is showing up like a very good boy to help Republicans in every way they can. Speaking of which, the other thing he did is with this Nick's Sorter is the guy who ran with this, uh, Talariko is in a mental institution and story on Twitter. Elon did everything he could to put his thumb on the scale in favor of that story being everywhere. And I need to give a shout out to bull work, uh, reporters will summer and Andrew Eger who got the entire recording because what they did, this next Sorter guys, they called up a mental health facility in Ohio, which based on some, I really need will summer to do this from, I'm sure they're doing magma Mondays, uh, over there and Will's gonna really break this down. But somebody got the idea in their head that because there was a plane that they took off from like Austin and landed in Ohio. That's owned by a Republican, by the way, who loves Donald Trump. Cause he would be like, James, let me, let me give you a ride to your mental health facility. That's right. Uh, keep an eye. So there's a plane, just a plane that goes. And so they assume they say Talariko's on it. So then they call up this mental health facility, get this poor worker on the phone and berate her for like all of this to ask her. And then they release, she's clearly what, when they, when they, when they release like four 25 seconds of it where she's just trying to get them off the phone. She's like there's no one here by that name or they check that you know whatever. But the timelines didn't match it. Like very clear. It was very clear from the gate that he was at, uh, uh, he's the new elements, as it is, he's the most great. Like while they were claiming he was in this mental institution, the dude had the flu. Okay, but this thing was everywhere on MAGA Twitter on Sunday and Elon was doing everything he could to push it around, um, which is how he thumbs the scale with this algorithm. This is a lot of why the thing that keeps me up at night is how many Trump allies now own our means of communication, either the platforms on which news is disseminated or the actual news stations themselves, CBS, they obviously just got CNN. The Washington Post, whatever. Um, anyway, Elon, uh, and this is, Elon is turning me into a communist, uh, where I want to tax his wealth because he has too much, I mean, tax all of his, like so much of it at JVL has this theory like we should definitely nationalize SpaceX, uh, we should nationalize Starlink. And I am, you know, I don't like nationalizing private companies. That's not for me. But then there's the other part of me that's like, I don't know, man, I don't know. I don't know that we can live like this, uh, with Elon Musk having this much power and also with the taxpayer subsidizing so much of what he does. Um, anyway, I just, there's other things like Tina Peters, just other, other evidence of Republicans trying to like screw around with the election results right now, you know, Trump pressuring pull us to letter off the hook, uh, you know, all of their work, that did work, which is crazy. On a journalists note, I don't know why he was like had that great libertarian left-leaning reputation. And then the Tina Peters part of it. I mean, I'm not saying it's like running for president. And then this is what's gonna, you know, dog him on stage. But like, it seemed unforced error territory. It did. And this is, I think, um, in some ways, uh, where I want Democrats to be more ruthless, uh, you know, and this is, you know, ruthless without, um, cruelty like rule, ruthless is, is on things like this where they have got to get it in their heads that they need to prosecute and hold accountable. These people to create disincentives for having, yeah, my old style conservers, we love incentives and disincentives. You have to disincentivize criminal behavior, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Corey Lewandowski, Christie Known. These people are all corrupt right now. They're all doing an enormous amount of corruption every day. Democrats, I hope they've got their oversight hats on, um, because those are the people don't impeach Trump. Go after those people as soon as you get the gamble. Yeah, I think, uh, Congressman Garcia has gotten a memo on this. And I do think the move, which I was going to say about Pete Hague Sass, that the interest in hauling someone like a Hague Sass in, I, I think is much more tantalizing than like we've seen what happens when you go down this road with Donald Trump. And I would argue that there would be more ammo than anytime before, save for January 6, which was, you know, pretty clear cut case of fomenting an insurrection and trying to subvert a free and fair election, uh, but the sheer amount of money and grift that this family is taking in, you know, billions and billions of dollars. And we're all supposed to care that we're renaming AI super intelligence is not just smack in the face of the American public. And I've gotten some flak before for saying like the voters are smarter than that they know. And I did see Trump at the rally over the weekend where he said, I say the stupidest shit. And you all just clap and like, then a lot of them clapped. And I get that that happens. There's a seal like a fact at some of these rallies, but the voters that you are talking to, right? The folks in these rural areas, um, they know enough to know that the guy isn't focused at all on anything that meets their top 10 level priorities. And I've been overwhelmed the past few days even with this Russia deal. And then the online stupidity around James Talleriko is in, you know, a facility wearing a, you know, a straight jacket and, you know, shaking instead of putting on some cologne and heading out to me, in case he must crave that they will do anything not to govern. Yeah. They will abandon work, they will go home, they will support stupidity, the conspiracy, illegality. And I couldn't think less of them. I think it would be impossible, except I want to talk about this live stream execution situation. Um, so there are questions now as to whether the execution of the Ford hood, Ford hood shooter, Nadal Hassan will actually be live streamed. This will be the first military execution since 1961. Trump most recently has said he hasn't made a final decision on the live stream question after the Pentagon and Pied Hexeth said that it would be. There's been a lot of backlash to the plan. Here's Vice President JD Vance. I don't know if that's actually going to happen. Let's, let's sort of see what I think is going to happen in December when, when he's executed. But what I try to remind people is, look, this is a guy who committed, in my view, the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9/11. The people that he was meant to treat, the army soldiers that he was meant to treat for mental illness and other problems, he took them at their most vulnerable and gunned down these people where they live. So whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don't forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people. Now that said, I mean, look, if it's ultimately live stream, I'm not going to be watching it. I thought that was a big deal that he was like, if you're going to do this, like, I'm not looking at that shit. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Dude wrote a whole book recently about his conversion to Catholicism, his like, faith journey, and I still find that the best that he can do is I don't know whether that's going to happen. But to your point, there has been a lot of pushback on this because it's on American. Like, we don't do this. This is what this is what the countries we say we oppose to. This is what dictators do. And anybody who is an expert in terrorism will tell you live executions is like fodder to recruit so many more terrorists against the United States. Like, nobody would endorse this from a human perspective, from a tactical perspective. But the reason that they're doing it, and this is why these guys are, their cruelty is always both, you know, they are inherently cruel, and it is a cover up for how weak they are. But also, usually a distraction from mistakes that they're making. Like, they announced this live streaming, Hegseth, and that's the live streaming of the execution at the moment that the news was breaking, that they were undercounting the death toll in Iran. And that Trump was announcing a deal with Putin. Like, you just always feel like this is part of their. And it's starting to have, it's starting to have diminishing returns in large part. And I want to go back to something you were saying before. Look, this idea, sometimes we say voters, like voters are smart. Well, no, not all voters. I mean, the people who stand there when Trump's like, I could say any dumb thing and you guys would clap and they're like, you're right. Those people aren't smart. And those people aren't getable. But a lot of other people, and this is what's happening right now with with a lot of voters is smart can like, it's more that they are aware of the contrast, right? They are feeling negative personal consequences in their life, mostly through affordability gas prices. Because Donald Trump didn't go through Congress for any of them, they do not believe that it was Joe Biden. They think it was Donald Trump's tariffs and Donald Trump's war. They know that. And in contrast, they say, you told us, you were going to lower prices and you weren't going to get into any stupid wars. You did get into a stupid war. You haven't lowered prices. And also, and this is why I maintain firmly that voters would not care about the reflecting pool or the ballroom or any of that if things were going well for them. But the fact that it's not means it draws the contrast to Trump's corruption. And I get pushed back to from people who say, look, voters think that all politicians are corrupt. So corruption is always kind of a losing place to go for public opinion. And I'm like, no, that might be true. Do voters do think that everybody is corrupt? That is true. But you can get them invested in the scale of Trump's corruption because of the scale of their own problems in their lives about how much they think that Trump isn't paying attention to it. Like they can see his focus on the ballroom is not about making things more affordable for them. And so that is changing the perception of voters right now. And I'm not saying there was vote for Democrats. I just think they won't show up. Yeah, that does take us to a place that makes me sad because I want to be the 100% turnout person. I think it's really important that people exercise their right to vote. And I know that in 2024 we would have just lost by more if more people had turned out to vote. So yes, I know that the couch surfing issue is a real one. And I hope one day to be back in the realm of when we all vote, we just win by more. Perhaps. perhaps that won't be the case for November 3rd, but I wanted to add to your analysis, which I completely agree with, and that it's just like all of these kooky things that they're doing, kooky grifty things, they're just taking a magnifying glass to the fact that they are not working. No one is doing their job while the rest of us are expected to get up and go do it no matter what, and that they're getting ungodly levels of rich off of it. Yes. But I also think that there is a big misread of the American people going on as well, and that I didn't get it. Like I heard Tony Hinchcliffe at the garden say that Puerto Rico was like a floating island of garbage or whatever, and I thought people aren't gonna like this. And I heard they're eating the cats and the dogs about the Haitians, and I thought, this is so racist, right? Like I understand I might have a lower tolerance for racism than the average GOP voter, but no one's gonna abide by this, right? Like you have Mike DeWine out there on fire, you know, screaming about how graded Haitians are, you even have Rhonda Santas defending them, right? As of a few months ago. But a firing squad, live streaming, a firing squad for a paraplegic on top of it. This guy will be sitting in a wheelchair unless they string him up, which feels not only un-American, but you're in like Salem Witch Trials territory here. I think it's a fundamental misreading of the appetite for cruelty and blood lust that Americans in this country have. And I think that it's one of those moments where you also see that Donald Trump is a kid from Queens. More than he is whatever Pete Hagsseth is made of and that he naturally recoils from the idea of doing something like this. Like he goes to a lot of, you know, brash or like loves boxing. And it's like, oh, incredible, like knockout. I don't know if the guy's ever looking forward. He's just with you know his sides. Who am I talking to, right? Who's coming up to me to be like Mr. President or Mr. Trump when he was just a businessman here? And I think that this election would actually be the one that the floating pile of garbage and the cats and the dogs and this live streaming of an execution would actually hit people where they would say, these are bad people. - Yeah, I just, but again, in large part people's eyes, people are much more willing. There was a guy in a focus group one time who said something that just stuck with me because I heard versions of this but he said it so clearly. He said, look, I hate Trump. He's like, and I'm going to just close my eyes and turn off the TV and I'm going to vote for him and enjoy his economy because that was their expectation. And I really think that there is for a lot of voters who are deeply cynical about politics and this is kind of where the double haters are. It's like a box on both their houses. And so their only judgment is lesser of two evils going to make my life marginally better. And that's what people expected out of Trump but they were overwhelmed. This is a really true thing. People are willing to overlook a lot of horrible stuff if they think their economic well-being will be better. - So you're saying that the live stream would be okay as this economy was worried? - No, I'm just curious. - I'm just saying what I'm saying is is totally out of touch. - No, no, what I'm saying is that I think that you are right that this cycle, it would hit harder but it's because people's defense of, he's a good businessman who's going to make my life better. They don't have that. And when they don't have that, people are more willing to open their eyes to the horrible disgusting stuff. Now the live streaming though, I also think is uniquely, like you said, this just hasn't happened. And I think they're misjudging the American people in saying, and not because Americans will be like, no, this was a horrible terrorist and maybe even, and maybe most of them will be saying, I don't say any of that, but they will be like the idea that we are live streaming it. Something about it, it feels wrong in their stomachs because actually human beings, I think generally don't like to watch other human beings suffer. Like it's kind of built into our DNA that like, we don't like to watch other members of our species die. That's why we're, I think that's mostly in there. So, no, I think I actually, I would bet you right now, I bet you the live stream doesn't happen. I bet the backlash is so severe they can it. - Technical difficulties. We're getting the IT man out here. I'll say, and I want to talk about what just happened this morning at Ilan Omar's residence. But Sarah Eisen from CNBC was on Bill Maher on Friday night. We're talking about this. And she brought up, she was friends with James Foley, the American journalist who was beheaded on live stream, essentially. And she was like, everybody knows what that felt like for the people who caught a glimpse of it. People also know what it felt like to see Charlie Kirk murdered, you know, just over a year ago. And the disbelief, right? How many people thought it was AI? This is impossible that this is actually happening just like on Twitter, on a random afternoon. And I hope that they get the message loud and clear. And this does feel like one of those things that JD Vance might be hardcore messaging behind the scenes, just be like, this is absolutely not possible that this happened. - Yeah, and I mean, look, I don't know, because I had no faith whatsoever in the pro-life community to believe anything that matters, but it is possible. They probably don't publicly buck Trump. But there is got to be some internal backlash from, actually, I don't even know if this is true. One would think, one would hope. One would think that there would be at least some of the Christian groups, some of the pro-life groups that would be pushing back behind the scenes hard against this. I, you know, it's funny on Charlie Kirk. I wrote that day, somebody said, don't, like, don't look, you know, like, or somebody said to me, you know, it's on there, and I avoided it. Like, I made sure not to look. I didn't want to see it. I don't want those images in my head. And I think most Americans are like that. - Yeah, I, I saw it just scrolling like normal before my show. And it was one of the people who was hoping that it was AI generated. I was like, there is no way that this can be real. Like, whatever you thought about Charlie, just like, how, how, and I, I mean, we should talk about it some other day, but the security report that they released is fascinating about what actually happened on that day. - I'm Seth Matlinz. And on this week's episode of Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing, I'm talking with streetwear legend, Jeff Staples, who in 2005 designed a Nike collab, which was the pigeon dunk that caused a riot, resells for thousands of dollars, 21 years later, and gets the credit or blame for bringing sneaker culture to the masses. In our conversation, we talk about why you can't buy your way into culture, no matter how big your check. Why 40 hours of meetings a week with none of them talking about what the customer actually wants is the most common way he sees businesses destroy value. And why, when I asked him what he'd destroy with all the power in the world, Jeff said likes and comments because if likes and comments existed when he started, he never would have made the next thing. Creator Destroy, it's a business show, a marketing show, and the show that argues they've always been the same thing. From the wisdom is company and the Fox Media podcast network. - What if we told you that there was one thing you could eat to reduce your risk of death by about a quarter? - Interested? - And what if we added that this magical substance can dramatically lower your cholesterol, improve your mood, and keep your weight stable? - No, it's not protein, it's actually fiber. The least sexy, most overlooked nutrient of all. But what is fiber? How could one nutrient do all those amazing things? And how can you get enough? Is a powder you stir into some water going to do it for you? All that plus the strange tail of the gorilla poop obsessed, father of corn likes in the latest episode of Gastropod. Buying Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. The investigation is ongoing and no findings, no findings of wrongdoing have been announced. They have moved on from the, she made six to 30 million dollars thing that actually went through an ethics investigation. Tom Holman was on TV this morning talking about the ongoing criminal investigation. But like they're looking for paperwork that was filed when she was a child. Like that she's going to have in her house now. Like I, I don't understand besides election interference and racism. What could be going on here? - Well, this is breaking and so I hate to opine on it too much. However, I will say that. this administration has absolutely not earned the benefit of the doubt in any way to assume it is anything other than the weaponizing of the Department of Justice's idea. She was a young girl refugee and you can dislike her politics, but to me, I think one of the few things, there's a couple things going on. One, you were talking earlier about New Hampshire and that being a place where you're worried about it. One of the states I was thinking about is Minnesota. And one of the reasons is that even though there was the shootings of Alex, Prattian, Renée Good, and the entire community push back, there's also a lot of people who are very upset about the fraud that in the Somali daycares. And so I think that part of this is to kick up more sort of animus around that because they think they might have a shot in Minnesota if I had to guess. And also to amplify it just as a general election matter. Look, this is where you see the Trump administration knowing that they are going to lose fair and square. And so they are pulling out every stop. And this is why this is why we should be extremely vigilant about whatever they do, come election day, Trump call, Trump announcing a martial law or a state of emergency or any of the things that is in his power to do to try to mess with voting. But like, these are the early signs of it. It's what's Elon's doing. It's the the taloriko was in a mental institution. It is the Elon Omar is getting her house treated. But like, we know they've gone after Komi. They went after the Olympic got the medalist over the reflecting pool. Yeah, and X that's right. Jay Powell. Yeah. Jay Powell. None of them have gotten gone anywhere, right? None of them haven't gotten anything. So I don't know that we should. Except for Bolton. They did get Bolton on something real. I'm one of the. I'm one of the things. Not. Yeah. But I just I think that we should assume that it is simply a weaponization play, a racist play until they prove otherwise. Because much like Donald Trump announcing that there was an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia only to have that be absolutely not true and disputed by them. Like, these people are liars. And so we shouldn't trust anything that they say. I will say it's not a particularly serious point. But there are a lot of memes on the internet that Peggy Flanagan the Senate candidate in Minnesota is the love child of me and Julia Roberts. And aesthetically, I totally see it because I have much thinner lips than Julia Roberts. But I can totally see how she could be our child. That's really interesting. You know, as a as a as a Australian, you know, my wife and I would often just like, you know, do belly bumps and then shout baby. And that's how we conceived our kids. Is that what you and Julia Roberts did? Totally. Yeah. Honestly, I would give basically anything to be able to belly bump Julia Roberts and say baby or do anything with Julia Roberts. Let alone make maybe a new U.S. Senator. Sure. I'm glad you brought up in Minnesota because I do think that we're sleeping on the level of concern that we should have. And also part of that is Amy Clowershart is such a powerhouse. You know, you talk about like a sod level wins. Putting up numbers. Yeah. She's racking up. I mean, her humiliation of Eric Schmidt was the happiest that I was that entire week. And using please bring back dirt bag as a way to describe people. Especially because it's such an apt moniker these days. There are a lot of dirt bags. And you don't have to curse for it. Last thing, we got a new press secretary Katie Zachariah. She's taken over the position vacated by Caroline Levitt, who was a new colleague of mine. Just a little bit background. This woman is crazy. She's a prolific truth socialer. She was a commentator on Newsmax. She's on a lot of appearances on Fox, promoted Pizzagate, QAnon, accused it, accused elites in the Democratic Party and Hollywood of running child sex rings, eating people, set 80% of women who got the vaccine had miscarriages, pregnant women, like Bill Gates is a eugenicist, like, pick your crazy theory. She has supported it. Why do you think that she was the choice? I'll allow your Scott Jennings hardest hit joke. I do think that the, you know, no offense to Fox News. But this is, this is like DEI for Fox News. Flunkies is like the press secretary role. I'm not sure if just being on CNN is what cost Scott Jennings that or because Donald Trump just really likes hot blondes who will engage in every conspiracy that he throws out there. I mean, I do think as he ratchets up his crazy, he needs people who have no compunction about being in it with him. Right. And so I suspect that the, it was like, so will you defend me on, I mean, they look at our truth social and says great, you will defend me on everything. You will never have a problem with whatever insane thing I do if I try to, you know, call in the National Guard with elections and declare martial law like you'll back me up. And, you know, increasingly, this is why, you know, you wonder why his cash betel still at the FBI, uh, despite being wildly incompetent. Um, and just like jetting off with his girlfriend, who they just got in great, great, great. Oh, just engage. I think so. Yeah, they may be married. Uh, no, I think she said went and got the law involved. Oh, maybe they did get married, actually. Now that you're, you could be worried. I think they're worried. And now they're making, but we would have heard more about the what I'm following. They're not super, super close. We don't know about. I can tell you like every detail. And I'm like, engage your married. I'm not particularly sure about. Okay. I don't know, but I can tell you he's really, really bad at his job. And in any other, um, in any other scenario, he would be long gone, but Trump is looking for flunky loyalists. Like that's their version of D.I. is just will you back me up on every insane thing that I say. But I was sorry for Scott not to get it because, um, I might disdain for him, um, has no limit. Uh, and it would have been a little bit fun. Like I will say one of the things that I have fun with nowadays is watching Trump humiliate all of the people who've ever defended him. Like watching the anti-anties that I do a lot of battle with who are people who are like, well, I don't like Trump, but you know, Democrats are worse. And I'm like, oh, yeah, they're like, he won't get us into any stupid worse. I'm like, okay, how are we doing? You know, well, he'll be better for the economy. You sure about that? Tell me, tell me now. Um, and so the human, the ritual humiliation that he does of bad faith actors, I do enjoy it. And I was, I was looking forward to seeing that happen to Scott, but I don't think even Scott as bad as he is, is not crazy enough for what Trump needs for the last two years. Yeah, I think that that's correct. I also wonder if this is just a very shortly. It's like, this is an interim job filling and they're going to look at what happens in the midterms. They're going to have to get through that month period where they are going to scheme and lie and file lawsuits that mark a lious and normize and will eat for breakfast and then we'll wake up. Hopefully with everyone's morning, no problems after all of the lawsuits, which I know are going to come and then maybe he'll say, I'm going to find someone else to take us through the last couple of years. Um, so it interim press secretary, I think more than the real deal, but she doesn't like, I watched a decent amount of tape of her, she does not have machine gun lifts like Caroline. Um, and whatever you think about Caroline and I've been on the record many times, um, talking about her various lies and how she played defense for him. I, she could do the job like she worked skilled in doing it. Um, this seems less so, uh, to be polite right before we got on. I saw the Josh Turek went to the border to film and add with border patrol endorsing him. And I love him for it. And that was to your point about candidate quality where actually these guys and gals are running just stellar campaigns. Um, they are. And here's the for people, there's people who will say, uh, they're going to be really mad at the idea that it seems like he's running as a moderate. And I'm like, it's not, that's not exactly what's happening. Like, I think these candidates could be quite progressive on economic issues, on health care, but like, and also securing the border. And like, it does not have culture and culture war. And culture war. That's right. I mean, that is what my book ultimately says. There's people who are like, this is Sarah trying to drive the party to the right. And I'm like, it's not actually like the economic policies, the populist, uh, economic policies, Medicare for all those types of things, they're enormously popular. Yeah. With voters. And like, they're kind of ideas that I think their time has come. Uh, but they also voters also want the border closed and they want less of the woke stuff. And so like, you do, those are, that's not moderate versus progressive. It's much more heterodox. It's much more just meeting voters where they are. Yeah, I like to, because I get, you know, Scott and I get the question like, what is the raging moderate? Just a winner. Yeah. And that can be a totally a winner. You know what I like? I like winners, Donald Trump likes winners. Now it's time for us to like winners. Annie Andrews also direct to camera. I do not support trans women and women sports. 'cause you notice that most of the disinformation ads that are out there now are back to being about trans issues. - Oh, they got, 'cause all they got. - All you got, little, whatever's. Cash was always only engaged. Sarah knew it, I was behind the times. Thank you for joining me. I always love to hang with you. - Me too, it's the best, thanks for having me. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)