Wrapping 2025 with Jon Favreau and Tim Miller

[music] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the weekly show podcast. My name is John Stewart. I will be your host for this lovely afternoon. It's Wednesday, December 10th. This is the final podcast that we are doing this year. We will be back, I think, in the, maybe the second week of January. You know, old people need a good time. You know, it used to be when you're younger, you go on vacation. I believe I am going to be convalescing. I believe that is the proper term for ladies and gentlemen over 60 years old who are taking a little bit of a break. But we will be back then. And when we come back, publishing on Wednesdays instead of Thursdays, which I know will make a really, I don't want to say crucial difference in your life, but the impact will be sensational. And we're delighted because it's the wrap-up episode of the year. We're going to do a wrap-up type thing. We're going to grab a couple of our favorite punitive type individuals and talk to them about how they're viewing about the year in rewind and how they're feeling in terms of optimism for the future. I'm sure it's going to be all rosy people. That's how we've been living this thing. So let's get to, let's get to them right away and jump into our year-and-review episode. Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, what would a year-end wrap-up be without two media moguls? Moguls? That's right. You heard me. Moguls. I don't throw that word around lightly. I mean it in the sincerest form. John Favreau, founder of Crooked Media and Host of Podsave America and Tim Miller, host of the Bullwork podcast. Gentlemen, welcome. What's up? Thanks for having me. Thank you for taking time from your media empires. Yes, upstairs in my house. My kids' room is right over there. Is it really? Oh, yeah. That's the beauty of podcasting. Favreau, by the way, mentioned this earlier. He has to, let me talk about what a sucker this motherfucker is. He has to get in a car and drive to some place of business in LA, no less, where he breathes shared air with others. Well, it's a progressive outlet. So there are a couple of masks, a couple of those people. There's always two. There's always two. And you always say, oh, are you sick? And they go, I don't want to talk. Then you have to move along. Gentlemen, as a year end in review, let me ask you this. We shall begin with this. I think it's the question of the era. How many years has this year been? Tim, you go first. Who could say I don't like on the one hand, I'm like, how is it Christmas? I haven't bought a single present yet. And on the other hand, I feel like every day is a lifetime. And so I don't have a great answer to that, but it's been a slog. I'll tell you that. It's been a slog. It is a slog. Favreau, how are you holding up? I'm holding up. Okay. It's been a long year, but it's also been like a long decade. I'm really feeling the the fact that we've been dealing with this in some former fashion since 2015 now. And it sort of feels like that's the only life I know. Guys, I didn't want to say this. I'm 24. Really? Look what this has done to me. Look at this. I look like I sleep in a meat dehydrated for God's sakes. The fuck? This is what I've got the Kerry Lake Vaseline on the lens thing to try to help me. I should smooth that and get some some good diffusion that's going on here. As people, so it is the inevitable contradiction. So the rise of your media empires coincides with the sort of attention economy that is occurring. Is it symbiotic? Yeah. At this point, you know, people used to say to me during, you know, the Bush years, you know, I think Larry King said this to me once. You know, George Bush gets a reelected. That good for you. You you hoping for that. And I was like, no, I have children, Larry. How do you separate sort of your professional engagement and success from that feeling of it is it is you're having to wade through a turd mine to get there? Yeah. Uh, it's a good question. Um, we're catching, we're catching favor on a reflective day. Catholic guilt for me. We're going to reflective day with favor. I mean, I look, if if Donald Trump exited the scene tomorrow and our politics returned to some semblance of normalcy, which probably hasn't been normal in my whole life, but some semblance of normalcy in our audience went away. Like, I would take that trade easily any day over continuing this shit storm that we've been in for a decade. So that's, that's that. Um, I think what has propelled me this year more than anything else is just sort of a rage. Um, yeah. Uh, Tim is, Tim is nodding, by the way. When you said, what has propelled me as a rage, I just saw a glint of recognition. Well, I'm usually like the, the hopeful guy and I still, you know, I still have some hope, but I'm just, I'm so fucking angry that we are here and that we're dealing with this and that it's been, um, as bad or worse, uh, then, uh, then we imagined in, uh, in 2024 and before Donald Trump coming back. Tim, on the emotion, we'll wear, where you are. Would that a similar kind of, uh, rage, v optimism and no, no, no, a deep abiding rage. Yeah. And, uh, and anger. Um, and I don't look, for me, though, I also, because this has been our life, because it's been a decade, I've tried to process. This is like, this is just a job now. Like, this is a, this is our life. Like, this is it. Like the, I don't, I did everything I could think of to try to convince people in my tiny little way to not vote for this person the first time or the second time or the third time. And I was, I lost two out of three. And, um, and, you know, we have to deal with the consequences. And so I, I think I could get up in some days I just, I'm like, it's just a lunchpale, man. It's just like, we got to get up and talk about this shit. And, um, and, and I think that's the only way to deal with it. And how, let the emotions, you know, I, I said last year when I was thinking about this, how's I going to deal with it emotionally? I was like, I'm only going to get mad and upset about the things that make me really mad and upset. And like, there's a lot of, we'll talk about it on the years. A lot of crazy shit that happens. That's bad. It's like objectively bad. But like, doesn't really affect me emotionally. And I just do, that's healthy. I think, you know, you can't, run it at 11 all the time. And then when something happens, it makes me really upset. I get on, get on here in my little hole. I walk up to my little hole and I get upset with people. Right. And I scream. Yeah. And I scream. I think that, yeah. People, and I, and I think people want that because they're all screaming at their phones. So we might as well scream together. Two, two things from that that, that I find interesting. One is, so, you know, Tim, your frustration, you were coming at it from it, you know, the Trump voters were inside the house. Yeah. You know, you were coming at it from a more conservative perspective. I think for John and I, it always felt like an oppositional place. Our frustration probably went more towards how can you not to the Democrats present a more coherent and thoughtful and affirmative case other than, I think this guy is fucking nuts. Don't you? Doesn't everybody see that? But having that happen, I don't want to throw this to the Metz, but like the Metz recently lost Edwin Diaz to the Dodgers. That's what it feels like to be a Democrat, to be a Metz fan. But you're coming at it. You were the, you were on the Dodgers. Yeah. I don't do baseball metaphors, but I'm going to go with you on that. But yeah, it's a family. I'm going to make it. Yeah. I'm going to do holidays. It's a family. You know what I mean? Yes. It's more personal. I'm pissed. You know, it's more personal and you get more upset. I do that. And not that you go, you know what I mean? But like, there's just some, there's a different level of valence. There's like the narcissism of small differences. That phrase, like, I get the most mad at the most normal Republicans. Does that make sense? Like they know better. Like Marco and, you know, whoever, all the way down the line, the people that I knew personally. And I do think that like in your creates a different body response, maybe, then being mad at somebody that you think has been stupid and wrong the whole time. That's so interesting because John, I don't know about you, but my, my feeling is rage against fecklessness. That idea, you know, Kamala Harris wrote a book a hundred and seven days. I only had a hundred and seven days. I couldn't put together a coherent governance plan. And you're like, well, it's been a year now. Like does anyone over there have chat GPT? Can you fucking just throw that in there? Like, hey, what's a good affirmative liberal case for you? Can I like, what's, what's your frustration? It is with that. Maybe not primarily because I do think like you have to you know, Republicans and Republican politicians have agency and, and so do voters. Look like it's been, it's been 10 years of this. All of us are to blame. You know, like everyone. Everyone has a little dark. But you know, I know we, we all try to blame someone else, but it's like, we all have a little stink on us here. You know, voters, media, Democrats, Republicans, but no, I do, I am very, I find myself very frustrated with the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians because I just, I can't believe we haven't configured this out yet. And that we are still making the same mistakes that we made, I don't know, in 2016 on. It's just like we haven't learned many lessons. John, to to that point. you're making, he came down the escalator in 2015, and I remember being gleeful. I thought, oh my God, Yosemite Sam has just entered the race. A cartoon villain, I mean, who chooses the escalator, the least powerful mode of getting down, you know, you might as well come down on a fire pole, and then he comes out and these Mexicans are this, and blah, blah, blah. And I thought, oh, this is just gonna be a funny circus that we're all going to joy ourselves. And 10 years later, did you guys watch any of the rally last night? - Yeah, unfortunately not the whole thing. - Yeah, that's the lunchpale part of the job we were talking about earlier. I only did, I did a strong 14 minutes, I think. It was the one I could take, yeah, maybe 16. - All right, so what was, I'll tell you what jumped out to me. A, it felt a little bit like when you see a big star from 20 years ago playing a state fair, like where they go out there, and like everybody's just kinda sitting there like just fucking do achy, breaky heart and let's go. - Yeah, yeah, the heat, his heart really wasn't in any of the affordability message that he was supposed to, - Right. - Which he told us, which is always, this is, you know, you got to give him credit for that. He's like, oh, my chief of staff is making me do this, and they're telling me not to call it a hoax, but it's a hoax, and let me show you all these charts, and he started, how the hell are these charts up about inflation and the Biden administration, and you know, no one really cares about the charts. And he's like, - Oh! - And he's like, let's do one more chart since they're playing so well. And it's like, you know, he is funny. That was, it's a funny joke. But his heart's not in what voters actually care about, or what most voters actually care about. His heart's in, you know, going off on Ilhan Omar and Somalia and immigration stuff. But that's also, if you notice, for the audience, until he plays the hits. - Yeah, that's their watchtower right there. - Somalia was the good stuff. I thought, I mean, it was really gross, and the good stuff for him, like working with the audience. Like, you know, the, he did like five minutes on Ilhan Omar last night, and to me, I thought it was the most telling, 'cause A, it was the crowd response was probably the most into that. - It's the crudest. - Or maybe the fake three more years, or maybe the fake four more years champ. And it's like, he needs a foe. Like, that's what, that is the thing he's good at. He was good at, you know, making Hillary into a foe. He's good at making Harris and Biden into foe. He's good at going after elites. He's good at going after immigrants. It's been tough for him on the economy. He doesn't have a foe, right? Like, he tested out Jerome Powell. You know, like, you know whose fault it really is. It's just, can I have Jerome Powell over at the Fed? - It's my favorite image of the year, the two of them in hard hats. - Yeah. That didn't really land. - And he's like, you're over budget, and Powell looks at, and it's like, that's a different project you've dumbfucked. - Yeah, Somali and sort of much, much, you know, more in line with the type of thing that his folks are gonna respond to, you know. - It's not just that his heart wasn't in it though. It's that, I think he has become even more out of touch in this second term and in the first year. Like, he's doing the, last night he was doing the, your kids don't need 37 dolls. Like, we're like two weeks out from Christmas, you know? - Right. - He went two or three. - That's going to your house. - Is the best it's ever been, you're all doing amazing, make your children at Christmas. - Cry. - And also, like, I just fired the architect for my new ballroom because he couldn't build it big enough or fast enough, so while I'm-- - Well, cold enough. - Yeah, I'm sort of using gold leaf all over the White House, but, you know, two dolls, two dolls maximum. - Two dolls, maybe three. - So, I'm going to throw out, to the, to the, to the Santa's. I'm going to inject a little bit of that MDMA in this thing. I'm going to throw a little bit of ecstasy into the room. The thing that it strikes me as, and the reason why I bring up sort of the state fair analogy or that the, the vein of this that's so tapped into something deep and dark in the Merck spirit seems to be waning, that if you look at somebody in his, he's an authoritarian, right? He wants to run this thing. He wants us to be more like Russia and more like Orban and all those things. Generally, authoritarians in their first year are legitimately popular. That the things that the, I'm going to take care of the drug dealers and I'm going to kill the, and I'm going to deport the Somalis and all those things that are the trappings of kind of a more darker authoritarian thing. Usually play pretty well in the countries where they're deployed. He's not that popular. And is that the thing that maybe gives you a little bit of like, oh, wait a minute, maybe this lunchpale shit we're doing? Maybe it's working, or maybe it's his own incoherence that's causing this. Hey, kids, this holiday season, you know, you don't have to let big wireless and your over-priced phone don't suck the joy out of the holidays this year. You don't have to, you could. I don't know you. You could be scrooge. You could be a bomb buck type of situation there. But right now, all of Mint mobile's unlimited plans are 50% off. 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(upbeat music) - I make a zone here, it's like I'll maybe take a half dose with the MDMA, 'cause I'm with you on him. He's made a lot of problems for himself. I think that the nativism and the kind of right wing authoritarianism, I don't know that's going anywhere, I think you just have to-- - That's still high, that holds it to peel. - Yeah, you gotta hang around some young mega voters for any, like the time, and you'll see the trajectory we're on that is still scary. But Trump himself, like the ability for him to control power, you know, I look back at the year. And in some ways, I think about that inauguration picture with all of the tech billionaires. And I think maybe the seeds of his demise were really right there. Like I do think that he has lost touch with the types of people that came into his coalition late, who like really were pissed about inflation, who really were kind of pissed about the way the COVID governance happened. You know, these kind of young men that we all talked about, who like are more libertarian-ish, but they had economic concerns, and they didn't like the establishment. And Trump ends up like ensconcing him, and with like the richest people in the world, and doing them favors, and doing nothing to actually help regular people. And I think you're seeing the results of that, and his numbers going down. Like I don't know that he's lost like the core mega base, like people that are injecting newsmax into their veins or have not turned on him yet. But like that layer of people, you know, the manosphere types, and Hispanic voters, and other folks who like came in in this last time, who voted for in the third time, that maybe didn't the first or second time, I think that he's really alienated them. And it's hurting his political standing for sure. - Yeah, I think his political standing is probably weaker than it's been at any time in the last decade, save for, you know, after he tried to foment an insurrection. - Right. - The capital. - It was pretty dicey there for about a couple of weeks. - I truly believe that that's been reduced to some sort of subtextual footnote, that, you know, there was also that. If I remember correctly, there was when he tried to overthrow the government of the United States from America. - Yeah, it was that. - And then right behind it concerns over inflation. - Yes, no, absolutely. - Yeah, so his politically he's rarely been weaker, but he's also never had more power than he does right now. And so my concern is that, so the good news is definitely, I'll take the full hit of MDMA. - All right, bring it. - Oh, I'm getting some water. - Let's hit the rave, man, the rave. - Yeah, like I think the off-year election showed us that I feel like relatively hopeful about the midterms because of this, but I do think that he and the people around him also are not going to let go of power easily. And he has proven the past that the more cornered, he is the more dangerous he is. And so if I'm looking ahead to next year and the year after, what I worry most about is that he lashes out and abuses his power in ways that are even more harmful and dangerous to the country as he gets weaker politically. - You think that as he's more cornered, it'll do, 'cause I'm always struck by that juxtaposition that you're talking about. When you think about the shit that he's done, like, okay, January 6th, and there's no question that January 6th was the culmination of a two-month strategy to overturn that election in any way possible that it can. good. Then there's the, I've got the Epstein files, the QAnon, uh, sort of power that surged through my campaign and got me to like, but I'm not doing that because I've done doodles of pubic hair with like messages of like, and please don't tell anybody about all the girls we fuck like, you know, all those different things. And we line up all the unbelievably like unprecedented through 250 years of attempted republic governance, uh, of a country, a historical, uh, you know, consent to the governed experiment that we're trying. And we lay it all out there. And the uptake of it is always like, so I think we're going to do better in the midterms. I think, I think the Democrats, and not even that good actually. I don't know that we're going to take the Senate. Like, we're going to do a little better in the midterms, maybe one house, not the other. What has happened to our, our zeal, our revolutionary goals of like, have we been reduced to a guy overturning, you know, a unitary executive overturning everything. And the best we can hope for is like, there's a swing district in Georgia that I think is really, I'll tell you, they're primed if we just get a centrist in there. Like, has she beaten us down? I mean, the, the, the concern, and this is where I get annoyed with Democrats is the concern I have is we are in a cycle where, um, one party takes power and then they don't, uh, deliver in a way that solves people's concerns and, and alleviates their distrust in their government. And so then the party and power gets thrown out and then the other party comes back in. And that would be difficult enough for democracy if both parties were normal political parties. But we are playing, uh, a bit of Russian roulette, uh, with these parties because one of them, uh, wants an authoritarian takeover of the country, which is the one and power right now. And so for Democrats, there is a way to look at this like you just did, Jon, which is, okay, we can, um, he's going to be unpopular because he has not fixed people's chief concern, which is costs and inflation and affordability. And so based on that, we can maybe take back the house, maybe take back the Senate, but maybe not, right? And then, and then hopefully eke out, eke out a victory in 2028. But only if we focus only on these, you know, economic concerns that people have. Okay, that's fine. But that is continuing to put a bandaid on a gaping wound that we've had for a decade now. And if we, if we don't have leaders who speak to the broader set of challenges that we have as a country, and not just the ones that voters are saying that they care most about, which are important. But if we don't have that larger narrative and that larger vision, um, then we're going to end up right back here. I want to say one thing about the revolutionary zeal. Please, I think it was your phrase, Jon, because like, uh, this is the thing. Please note him that I am very careless with my wording. So just know that whatever it is that I said, I take it back. No, that's great. I'm right. We need revolutionary zeal. And that's what I meant. Yeah. Maybe, um, uh, you know, maybe you can be the leader of the revolutionary zeal. I don't know, because here's my frustration with Democrats, which is like, we're in your 10 of this. And the last two successful political figures in this country, meaningfully successful, sorry, to gas up fabric right now. I really hate to do that. But it's like a guy who's named Barack Hussein Obama, the Rand is like the ocean should recede in red states. I don't need the first black president. And, you know, we're not reds, like, like very grand ambitions like audacity of hope. Exactly. And then it's Donald Trump is like a reality show host big yet who's like, we're going to build the wall and arrest our opponents. Right. Neither of them were going at all by normal political playbook. And they tried, they tried something new, the establishment and, and conventional wisdom and the pundits mocked them. And they won success, including myself, um, in both cases and, um, and they won overwhelmingly. And it's like, could we learn something from that? I could, could, could somebody try to try, I'm desperate for somebody to try to try to try something. It might not land. It might not be my preferred policies, you know, the great center left, former Republican radical. It might not be that, but what a, and, and we just, and there's not a lot of trying out there of giving people something to get excited about. Right. And that I think is frustrating. I'm going to sing you a song, Tim. I didn't want to have to do this, but I'm going to sing you a song. Please. Mom, Donnie. Whoa. Yeah. Well, she was born in Uganda, unfortunately. So we've got limited cap on his ambition. But isn't that the, the thing you're talking about? So I think structurally, we are more set up for what you guys are talking about now. So we're, we are in a joint custody agreement now. Sometimes dad gets the country, sometimes mom gets the country, but there is no real interaction. It is not, uh, what do they call it? A conscious uncoupling. This has been a, it's one of those divorces that has a lot of, uh, vituperative elements to it. But the structure is also set up now so that these pendulum swings that you guys are talking about to go from Barack Hussein Obama to Donald Trump is, you know, we keep having those pendulum reactions to one another. But now those pendulum swings are set up to be, uh, the gap between them is much more, especially if the Supreme Court grants the executive the ability to come in and just wipe out the entire government. Everybody that comes in there. So depending on which billionaires are the ones that are victorious in whatever they do there, aren't we set up actually not for the thing that, that we're all talking about, which is a healing candidate that brings an affirmative case that finds a way to break through this kind of attention, economy, fog that we've all lived in. Aren't we, aren't we in for a little bit of a rougher cycle than that? Maybe we certainly could be. Yeah. I was worried about this. The favor I was in a friend Ben Shapiro, he's been on multiple panels with him recently, but I was watching Ben. Um, and he was like rationalizing Trump. Uh, I forget who he's in an interview with. I'm out of it. Um, but he's rationalizing Trump by saying that he thinks we're gonna go through the cycle you just laid out, Jen. So he's like, we're gonna have, you know, kind of an authoritarianish right wing person followed by an authoritarianish left wing person. And if that's gonna be the cycle, then I've got no choice but to sign up for the authoritarianish right wing person. And, and I just, I do think there are a lot of forces out there that are like incentivizing that dynamic. And, um, and so I worry about that. And, and that is like part of the reason why I'm like trying to, you know, gently encourage, um, opponents to Donald Trump to have some positive ambition or else, I think that we could end up there. I don't want, I don't want to. I didn't leave one authoritarian side to join up with another one. Right. See, that's where Tim and I, we disagreed a little bit because I was, I was more down with that. You're down. I was more down with not, not authoritarian necessarily. By the way, and I, and I say this in no way, uh, to scare anybody except myself. There is a giant B. Oh, and, uh, at first I thought, oh, look at that giant B outside. And now he's on, uh, my phone. And I realized, oh, he's not outside. And, and it's a metaphor. I wish it was. I think there's a giant. Do you want to kill it? Clearly or, or let it go or just, or just wish it away. I want to find out what's wrong. I want to die. You want to help it? I want to, I want to help this be, uh, desperately not to derail anybody. But if you find me at any point while you're talking going, oh, my God. That's why I apologize to Robert Toll for blowing out the sound. Just when the B came in, I think you were saying that you wanted a left wing spranko. That's what it, well, yeah, that's where we were. You want to kind of like a democratic Franco to, to, to, to just shake things up. Yeah. I mean, I say that sort of, you know, facetiously. What I want is a Democrat who understands that government's role is partially to be a check against corporate power, not a lubricant for it. That when you have government does the shit corporations won't or can't do like healthcare. So like when we talk about, you know, Obamacare or like setting up an insurance pool to all that like, I want government to understand the lesson that every other industrialized sophisticated country understands the market for healthcare is inevitably broken. It doesn't work. And therefore you have to accept that like they've all accepted. We're the only ones who haven't accepted it. And we see our call skyrocket. So if a more robust executive can use the bully pulpit to push through what, like what John was talking about earlier, a policy that could actually solve the problem that we're facing rather than kind of just adding more liquidity to a system that we have that is already broken through the externalities that capitalism doesn't fix. Tim, does that sound dystopian to you? Not dystopian, no. I mean, you know, we can have chat the details. I'd like to hear, like to see your white paper, sir. No, that's, that's, that's right. You do need a white paper for that. Hey, folks, it's, it's December. It's not up on us. It's called holiday time, which means I'm. I'm already late in terms of getting gifts. And I will be late and then I'll get some sort of a gift card and then it won't be used and then I will feel shame. Only shame, but I gotta tell you something. If you're looking for an actual gift, one that people will actually like, or frames. Or frames, the frames that are like, they're just digital picture frames, right? And you upload your photos and videos, you download the or app, you connect to the Wi-Fi, and then boom, you're sharing the photos and videos. It comes right from your phone. You can use it all year long. And by the way, this is for people who like their friends and family. I'm not for those of you who are mis-entropic. This might actually not be the gift for you. But this is for people who are capable of love and happiness. You upload the photos of the frame before it shifts. It's a perfect gift, it comes straight out of the box, you can use it. Every frame is packaged in a premium gift box. You don't have to be embarrassed by your. Really truly, let's be honest, subpar, present wrapping abilities. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting oraframes.com to get $35 off or as best-selling Carver Matt Frames, named number one by Wirecutter, by using promo code TWS to check out. That's a-u-r-a-frames.com promo code TWS. This deal exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us to check out terms and conditions applied. [MUSIC] This is a choice that the next Democratic nominee and hopefully president is going to have to make, which is Donald Trump has taken a sledgehammer to whatever was left of government when he got there and he has politicized everything. And Democrats, one style and one piece of advice have been, you got to fight, you got to be, they don't play by the rules. Why should we play by the rules? And in some cases, you know, I agree with that. I think that Democrats take the Senate and we have a Democratic president. We should get rid of the filibuster immediately because there is going to be no other way to pass legislation where Democrats are getting 60 votes in the Senate probably in the next decade. More. They can try. I'd like to try that out there. Oh, you think it's right. You're saying they could try to get elected. Trying to win some races in red states. But honestly, it's going to be- It's going to be uphill at this point to get to 51, right? And so we're going to need to get rid of the filibuster. On the other hand, it's like, OK, who's the next attorney general? Do we want someone who's going to go after all of the mega people like they went after Democrats? Or are we actually the party that believes in a government that works and that people can have faith in and trust in and believe isn't politicized? And so you're going to have someone like that. And then if you do that, then that gets a bunch of people really pissed off because now you're not fighting hard enough, right? So there are real choices for the next Democrat to make because of what Donald Trump has done. Do you get rid of all the people, all the crazies in the Trump administration? Yeah, I probably would. But like, what if someone, what if he install someone as Fed Chair, who's really bad? But now you're a Democratic president, and you're going to fire the Fed Chair. And that's going to screw up the markets. Maybe you do that anyway. But these are, I think, the next- I think we are underestimating right now. The choices that the next set of Democratic candidates have to make in regard to like what kind of country they want beyond just what we're going to have in it. No, that's all I am have it. I'm, this is my kind of, this is my kind of hardball. My question is, Favz is optimism is showing. I mean, isn't J.D. Vince or Donald Trump Jr. going to be in charge of the next Fed Chair? Democrats, you know, you convince people and win, you know? But this is nice. I'm talking, no, well, Tim, I'm talking about like these things will be hashed out in the campaign. Oh, God. Oh, yeah, that's why I said Democratic candidate, right? This is going to be a conversation we're having in 27. God. Maybe this, though, is kind of the viewpoint of it, which is, and I hear this a lot from the Democratic Party is, we've got to get rid of the filibuster or we've got to pack the Supreme Court. And what I don't hear a lot of is to what end? Yeah, right. So when they say we're going to get rid of the filibuster, I go, oh, great, what are you going to pass? I think we're going to pass an extension of subsidies to insurance companies that does not in any way address the broken health care and insurance market system. And then we're going to continue along with the kind of failed legislation that does not address in an agile way, the needs of the people you purport to represent. And this is my largest problem. And Tim, I'm so curious about you, though, because you're in this kind of, it starts out as a diaspora. And I imagine that you begin to have more affection for sort of the Democratic side, not to suggest like a Stockholm syndrome. But it's sort of like, you know, I don't know if you've seen Cheryl Heinz on any interviews recently. Oh, yeah. She was like a diet in the wool liberal, you know, all these different things. And now she's just like, MAGA opened their heart to me. And the liberals turned their backs on me. And you're like, right, because you're useful to them, you agree with them now. So they embrace you. Look at the shit they're saying about other people. Like for you has the embrace of liberals changed you politically. Do you still feel the same kind of political mindset or are you in a diaspora? Like, where are you? - Yeah, it's changed me some. Like anybody who's like Donald Trump getting elected twice did not change my ideology at all. I think that's a sign of a really small figure. It's like, I don't know why in a society where you have to be like, oh, the good, the way to show that you're moral and true is to have the exact same views when you're 22, is when you're 82. Like that is what a principled person does. So yeah, I've changed some. There are certain things in particular, like Republican things that we're just, I didn't care about that much, but I just like signed up for the team. You know, on issues that like we're not high priorities for me, that I'm like, you know, you get a little time to think about them and you change your views. I'm way more open. I've also, I've been around way more rich people. And important people lately. And I'm way less impressed with them than I was when I was 22. And so like, I'm much, you were ever impressed with them. Yeah, I'm much more open to, you know, the extensive taxation of the wealthy than I was when, you know, I was, I was convinced by the poll, the year-up poll, my self up from the bootstrap stuff that I, you know, learned as a college Republican. So I've had some changes, but there's also stuff. I think that, look, I think that in you guys, I'm sure you're with this, you know, I haven't gone full native. The Democrats have not done a good job governing. A lot of the places where they're in charge of everything. So I'm not on board for everything the Democrats have done. I lived in San Francisco around Oakland, I lived in the day for a while. The day wasn't governed that great. And now they've got Lori in, is more of a center guy. And I think things are getting better. So I, I'm not on, you know, Chicago's not being governed that great, right? I don't think that the National Guard should go in and that we should have the, you know, jack booted thugs, menacing people. But I don't think the mayor of Chicago's doing a particularly great job. Well, I, and I think Pritzker would have questions about that if you were to run for president. So, you know, I've had some changes. And I think that just going back to your zone point about how Democrats could think about this. Zoran, like, Zoran's messaging is grand. And like the movement is grand. But the ambitions, like, aren't that grand, right? It's like free, but it's, it's tangible stuff for people. It's free buses. It's rent control. It's we're going to cut some of the red tapes so that you're, you know, the food, food, you know, truck guys can survive, you know, can survive the whole all trucks, right? And so, you know, I, I'm fully on board with all of that. I think it would be a big risk for the Democrats to come in and say, we just listed out all the things that need changed. It's like, okay, well, we're going to put in the Swedish health care system. Sure, I would be fine with that. I have no love for this current health care system. I'm not going to go to the math sources over that. But like, you know, that, that's going to be a rocky transition. And that might lead us right back into a mega to mega 2032. And so I just mean that like, there's a lot of stuff to consider. It's, it's complicated. So, Tim and I joke that our politics have sort of moved now so that we have the same politics. Like, I've moved towards Tim and he's moved towards me. And so we don't disagree on anything anymore. That's a bad clip for you on TikTok, Farrell. I know, you know what? This is part of it. When you run, when you run for governor of in California. Tim, this is part of it. I don't give a shit. What do you guys try to do to me? I don't give a shit. Alex here, you're fucking me up. But one way that I've sort of rethought my own priors on this is the delivering on the campaign promises is just as important as the boldness of the promises that you make. And so I do like, when I think back to the 2020 primary on the Democratic side on health care to stay with that example, it was an entire every single debate. Every single time they all got on stage, it was, they were debating the finer points of various Medicare for all proposals. And if you didn't have Bernie's, you had to explain why you were lesser than Bernie and why you weren't as committed to health care as Bernie was. Everyone on that stage knew, including Bernie probably, that you're never gonna pass just a clean Medicare for all. Some people had pretty bold plans that would be just light years better than we are right now, you know, that thinking of like Pete Buttigieg was like Medicare for all who want it. So you have a Medicare program. You can have people choose into it and then it slowly kills off the insurance system, right? That would be amazing. But so we're debating all the stuff. Joe Biden wins. And what do we get? We get an extension of the health care subsidies because that's all that passed, right? Now, what do you think that would be? - Oh, and they also got to negotiate the price. of four different drugs. - Four drugs, yeah. And the other ones are coming soon. - Coming soon. - You won't believe it. - And so what do you think that does to all the voters who were thinking, oh, we had this big debate about health care and then we went in 2020. So there's gonna be real change coming. Like I'm pretty excited about this. And so, and I think that Mamdani Point is instructive here, which is Mamdani's success is gonna like completely hinge on whether he delivers the promises that he made. That sounds obvious, but like if you can't do free buses, if he can't freeze the rent, then it's not like people's fears are like, oh, he's a, you know, Muslim socialist who's gonna, you know, institute Sharia law. I know the real fear is that he just doesn't manage the city well and doesn't deliver on his promises. And so therefore, it deepens cynicism and it makes people less likely to participate in politics. And so I do think that our ability to deliver on the promises we make has to be as important as the promises themselves. And so you need a path, a realistic path to get where you say you wanna go. - And a coherence to it. I mean, one of the things that strikes me about this administration, I'd love for you guys to think about is the utter incoherence. He's a wonderful announcement president. He makes great announcements. We're gonna have, we're gonna cut drug prices by 1,000%. He never actually follows up. I mean, China is gonna buy more of our farmer soybeans than in the history of soybeans. You're gonna have to, we may have to plow over Omaha to plant more soybeans because of how much China's gonna buy, and then they don't. And then Caroline Levitt goes out and says, under Biden, China didn't purchase any soybean. Just a flat out fucking lie. They actually purchase more than they're purchasing now. Just coherence, the price of, there has to be a price for incoherence. There has to be a price for somebody who's gonna get us in a war to stop drug trafficking while partnering a guy who literally moved mountains of cocaine into America. Surely coherence has to be a part of this at some point. Surely. I mean, surely. And stop calling me surely. Surely. I think it is, I mean, I think he's paying the price for it right now and his approval ratings and then we saw it in the off your elections. Like there is, there is a price to it, but I think that the key is, and what's frustrating, is there's only a price to it when you are lying to people about something that they know you're lying about because they're experiencing it in their own lives, right? And so him going out there last night and being like, it's an A++ economy and affordability is a hoax. That is going to hurt him with voters. It is hurting him with voters. On the other hand, when he says like, well, I'm getting the worst of the worst off the streets for immigrants, like if you don't live in a community where ICE has been rating the community and he's telling you that these immigrants committed all these horrible crimes and now he's cleaning them up, so it's more possible for you to believe that bullshit because you're not experiencing it in your own lives. So I do think that the economic trouble that he's facing is the thing he can't run from with just all of his usual bullshit. - Well, some of the two is sowing the seeds of our destruction. I mean, you know, how do you make America stronger by completely gutting our research capacity? - Right. - In anything. So maybe these things don't pile up Tim. What do you think is the thing that's going to start to create a sense? 'Cause even when we say like he's not that popular, like I don't understand how he's even in the 30s, right, frankly. - Yeah, the research thing that makes me sad, I just wanna say one sentence on that, is like some of the stuff that's in the most destructive that he's done actually isn't gonna matter at all. And that's really, that gets you into a dark place and to wind it, have some bourbon. Because, you know, we won't even know. We won't ever really be able to say, right? Like was it because of that cut that we weren't able to deal with this disease that we weren't able to have this discovery that we could have had, right? And then on the USAID cuts on top of that and all the vulnerable people throughout the world have died. And, you know, Cheryl Hines doesn't understand why liberals are mad at her, you know, all of that. - Well, that was the most, even I saw, I think it was Nicholas Christoff made a great point, which is for all the mega people that are upset about Nigeria attacking Christians, like nothing will kill more Christians in Africa than cutting off USAID. - So that's sad. - Nothing, yes. - But I don't think that will matter. To me, what has mattered, you know, and I spent a decent amount of time like listening to like Maga, Jason, media to try to see what's like resonating. And for them, like, or listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene lately, for, you know, like there wasn't genuine feeling, like the America first thing really did resonate with people. - As it has for 150 years. - Yeah, and there's obviously, there's some racist elements to that that I just, I deplore, but like just this idea that the government doesn't care about us. It cares too much about the elites. It cares too much about our foreign, you know, adventurism and militarism. And I think that you think that Trump, as I mentioned before, with like having all the tech guys being his new BFFs, bombing people in Venezuela, blocking the Epstein files, you know, caring more about his peace prize than he cares about the food, bank lines, and Kentucky. Like, I think that is his real vulnerability and that he seems to just become just like any of the other elites that have let people down. And it would be, for the Democrats to best capitalize that they need to find a messenger who can, without the racist parts, speak to that, right? Like speak to the fact that like, I do care about your stuff, right? - Or without the racist parts, where's the shush? - That is fun. - Yeah. - You got no shush on that. - Yeah, it's not as fun. - It's that, it's, John, when you think about sort of, because you guys live more in the world of these pundits. Tell me about the conversation that occurs not on television, where people, you know, how many times is Marjorie Taylor Green just recently say, you won't believe what Republicans say about Donald Trump when they're not on television or you won't believe the things that they say to me. You know, what is the conversation below the conversation? - Yeah, Favz, what's Ben Shapiro saying to you in the green room? - What is Ben, John, you and Ben, I think-- - We're so tight now. - At Hanukkah first night, I think it was, which is really the night, but by day six, there's very little enthusiasm for the candles. (laughing) I think we all agree on that. But, do you, 'cause I've always said this, the real news is what people are talking about in the green room of the news network, not the sort of performative news that you see, you know, being delivered every night. That's where the truth is. - Yeah, I mean, I think on the Democratic side, look, I try to keep, my whole goal is to narrow the gap between the on-mic conversations and the off-mic conversations. But honestly, on the Democratic side, the conversation is like, what are we, we don't have anyone for 2028, what are we gonna do? Like no one, like people can, this is why I'm trying to be honest about this. People can tell you that they're really impressed with one candidate or the other, or they think this one's gonna win, or this one has a chance, but it's either something that you say in public to not piss everyone off, or it's something you tell yourself to make yourself feel better, and you sort of get to the point where you're like, "Yeah, I could get on board with this one. "I could maybe get on board, this could work." - So when Democrats say I'm so impressed by our deep bench, they're completely lying. - I think either to themselves or to other people. I will say I am not impressed with a deep bench. - Some people are definitely lying to themselves. I guess I had a Democratic, very prominent Democratic strategist, Oman Barrison, but like he gave me the deep bench thing just like a month ago. And I was like, what are you talking about? Are you serious? Is this a bit? And he was like, no. So some of them have convinced themselves. - It's a big bench. There's a lot of people on it. - And by the way, Trump could fuck everything up so bad that it doesn't matter. - Do you have a sense of, with the Republicans, like when Marjorie Taylor, Green comes out now, nobody tells the truth until they decide not to run anymore. And even then, people are a little bit reticent. So when they talk about that, we can all relate it to kind of the Emperor's new clothes. Like, is anyone ever gonna say it when it still means something that the Emperor has no clothes? Or are we really sentenced to this sort of backroom conversation that is the real conversation? Like, I would love to know, and I know Tim Yuryson had a spat with Scott Jennings, but like, I would love to know, in his quiet moments, when the Demogorgans visit at night, like, what he really thinks about all this shit? 'Cause certainly, like Dan Bungino, recently now as the FBI deputy director, said, oh, all that conspiracy shit. Well, I was being paid. I was being paid to lie to you, and stir up discontent and trouble, and all kinds of other incredibly negative emotions to undercut the authority of the United States government. But now that I'm in it, I just wanna let you know, like, we're all good. - Yeah, I guess I'll just look. These guys don't talk to me as much as they did the first term, you'll be surprised to know. So I have like a somewhat limited vantage point. - Right. - Our boy Scott Jennings, I think he's, I think he's vying to get it himself. I think he's become the person he pretended to be. So I don't know that he has quiet moments to be honest. Maybe he does, but I don't know. I think that what you're seeing though, like where you can kind of get a little peek into what's happening is in the frustration from the House of Representatives members. It wasn't just MTG. Nancy Mase has spoken out about this recently. Police Daphonics running away, running for governor, a bunch of people retiring. There's just another one from Texas today. And they all say the same thing. like we're not doing it. anything. I don't feel like we're accomplishing anything. And, um, and, you know, they can't blame the person whose responsibility it is. But what is it that Nancy Mason, at least Daphonic, thought they were going to accomplish? Like, they seem like just bomb throwers. I mean, at least Daphonic is a pretend, like, I think underneath all that is probably, uh, someone much more sober. But like, what exactly is Nancy Mason frustrated about not accomplishing? Yeah, it's a great question. Look, I think part of it was when things were going well, I think that they were happy to do what you just said, right? It's like, oh, hey, look, you know, we're in a drink liberal tears and go on Air Force One and go to the, you know, parties at the White House and, and we're winners, so it doesn't matter. But Trump's poor, but I think what's revealing about is that Trump's poor political standing means it's not as fun anymore. And so they do want to be able to say, oh, hey, you know, whatever, whatever it is, like the Epstein thing was a real break for them, you know, on a variety of other issues, they want to be able to go home and say to people, we're doing, I am like trying to deliver something for you economically. And instead, they're not doing anything. John, do you find Democrats like during the Biden cycle? Did you find a very similar thing where all the sudden some Democrats were like, you don't understand? Because I didn't see much of that. You know, none of them were very few people were coming out and going like, yeah, I'm not sure this guy's up for a reelection campaign. Yeah, look, there was anyone who was, uh, close to the White House was even privately spinning the same shit that you would hear in public with, like, maybe taking it down a few notches, but like, he's he's tired. He has his days, but he's good. You know, I was in a meeting with the other day. He was so smart. He and it was it's, yeah, it's, it's very like, you know, participation trophy kind of thing. It's like, he's stayed up. It sounds like a parent teacher conference. You can't but let me show you a picture. He drew this. Remember Jill Biden after that debate when she came out on stage and was like, Joe, you answered all the questions. And like everyone, it was why are we doing this? I know. I can't. You're traumatizing. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. But anyway, yeah, no. So you didn't, but but people who weren't close to the White House. Yeah. That was the same thing. Look, this happened, but this was, this goes back to like 2016. If people who weren't close to the Clinton campaign were like, oh, really? Not a great candidate, but like, you know what? Donald Trump is so bad that she obviously has to win and we just got to, we just got to get her there. And I just, I cannot, I cannot go into another presidential cycle where it's like, you know, the person isn't the best, but like, they've got to be better than JD Vance. And I think we can just get him there. I think we can, it's just a compare him to JD Vance. And we'll get him there. You want something affirmative? If you're like me, and I'm assuming that you're not, I'm assuming you're taller. And more than likely younger and, and more vibrant, but you're not a fan of the firing, you know, like firing people. So you know what you do? You find the right candidate. It's in the first place. That saves you the problem there. Use indeed. Dead sponsor jobs help you stand out and reach the exact people that you want faster. 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Speaking of JD Vance, let's pivot for a second because Donald Trump will, he's 79 years old, as much as he threatens the, you know, we're going to change the Constitution or there's a lot of things we're looking at. That talk is quieted somewhat based on popularity. And certainly JD Vance would be seen as, as most vice presidents are, the person that's going to inherit this. But I think most people look at JD Vance and go, "Doesn't have the magic." Like Donald Trump gets away with, there's a certain antibiotic resistant kind of being to Donald Trump. Shit doesn't stick to him. He's able to get away with saying the most horrible shit and it doesn't seem to affect that dude doesn't have it. And Rubio doesn't have it. So they're going to be back to, okay, now we're stuck with Pat Buchanan's platform. But without Trump's ability to somehow put gold leaf on it and make people not see it. I'm with you on that, Hobie. I don't, maybe we can compete on this and have some sort of competition. I don't know that there's anybody that has more disdain for JD Vance and me. Like I found him utterly contemptible. I'm up there. I like that. Yeah. You guys really do agree on everything. Yeah. And somebody in public life, your entire life that you like less than JD Vance. And it's literally like mass, you know what I mean? Epstein. I mean, like it's hard to find somebody. I think Steven Miller is up there. Okay. So I hate Vance more. So anyway, with that big wind up, he's a learner. He's a learner. Like, you know, I think it would be, it's a little bit of co-opio. He's a shapeshifter and he's good at it. I think about him on TheoVon's podcast, what manuscript guy from here on Louisiana. And he did fine. Actually, I mean, it wasn't my cup of tea, but they did some cocaine jokes. He seemed kind of, he didn't seem scary. And I could see how he could, you know, kind of learn how to adapt an appeal in a way that's better than he is now. But he would have to soften the, you know, Steven Miller is only able to be there because Donald Trump dilutes the poison. Sure. Yes. Right. That's true. They may not, there may be no difference or distance between what they actually believe, but you can't feed that shit. I truly believe this. I'm not one of those people who believes that America at its heart. I think this nativist era we're living through is anithetical to our actual country's spirit and being. Like, I really do. I don't think people dig this. And Miller's poison has to be filtered. And Trump is the perfect vessel to be able to do that. You take that away. And when people get a real taste of this shit, I don't know. I, I, maybe I mean naive. No, I, I think there's some truth to that. But I don't think I will agree with him again. I don't know that I think Kansas. He's, he's definitely not as good as a vessel as Donald Trump for Steven Miller's bullshit. But he is, he can code switch a different way than than Donald Trump, which is he has been part of the elite circles in media and the never Trump or worlds that we all have been swimming in for the last decade. And so he like, think about him with against him walls in that debate. Like that, that was a nicer, more respectful J.D. Vance. And the way he makes the argument for nativism is not as, let's say, exciting as Donald Trump. But it is more cohesive and intellectualized in a way that is targeted to people who like when, you know, when he talks about there was this quote, he was trying to explain himself the other day where he's like, you know, should you really, what's wrong with not wanting your neighbors to speak English? So you can, if you go over for a cup of sugar, you know, you can ask them in English. And when they don't speak English, like, that's okay that they don't speak English. But really, do you want a whole town like that if people who don't speak your language, right? You know? And it's like, he's, like, I don't, I think it's bullshit. I laugh at it. But like, I think he is more adept at speaking to sort of the nativist strains in Americans than we might think. And I worry about that because that that coalition after Trump is going to be more ideological. That's what I mean. This is more personalistic right now because it's all about Trump. This, the post-Trump coalition will be more ideological, more dangerous, I think in many ways. And so, but maybe more, maybe politically weaker. But Tucker would embody that much more cleanly than the JD Vance. He would be much more like that. And he's more entertaining. He's like more, he's more genuinely, I can't believe I'm saying this, but funnier than JD Vance. Like, JD Vance does have a stiffness to him that, that, yeah, I don't think Tucker has. Tucker might be believing his own bullshit now, though. I was a little more scared of Tucker a year or two ago, but I think Tucker might have seriously had a psychotic break. And it's a little Donald Trump knows it's an act, right? Like, remember, he made fun of, of, of Mike Pence for being too religious and he makes fun of Steven Miller being like, I don't know if we want, what this guy would be. I don't know what it's in his head. And Tucker might, I think, have had an actual psychotic break. It may, he may now be along. I tell you, the moment for me, and you know, I've been a fan of it a long time, yeah, for a long time. For me, you know, my, my break, obviously, with subscribing to Carlson.com or whatever it is that they do there was when he said he was attacked by a demon and scratched. And I was like, that's weird. And then he told the story. He's like, so I'm asleep with my four hunting dog. And I wake up with four scratches, you know, because I was fighting a demon. And I'm like, look, I'm not, obviously, I don't want to be like Occam's razor here, but you know, there is a possibility. I have dogs. I sleep with them. And I do wake up occasionally with with markings. My first thought is in demon. It's Toby. Toby, what did you do? Toby, why would you scratch me? Maybe, maybe that shows you're out of touch. Maybe the demon. You should be thinking of demon. It's John. No, I think the problem that he'll have is again, there's a shape, there's too much of a shapeshifter element. The whole thing about Trump was authenticity. You know, if your career was I'm the bowtie wearing Buckley. And now you're I'm the Marboro man who fights off demons. Like, that's a hard pill for Americans, I think to swallow. Yeah, but we don't have long memories. That's what I'm going to throw on out there for you. There's only one person within that coalition who has that sort of magic that Trump has and the kind of like, I don't give a fuck to devotion. And that's RFK. He's the only one that possesses that. And I would think can do the most pull-up set of any of those motherfuckers to weird the voice voice. I'll give you. I think that might I don't think too weird. I think that's part of the mythology that gives him his. It's like saying like Donald Trump never would have been. I mean, look at his house. He shits in a gold toilet. Nobody's going to buy that. But the problem with Trump that we missed is it was like, oh, he's too offensive. He's too offensive. No one is going to do that. It's RFK's problem is not that he's too offensive. It's like the whale carcass and the and the all that shit. I think I think you're falling for sort of and you're falling for monology rather than like, that's become the butt of a joke. Like, oh, he's got a worm in his brain and a bear carcass. And I don't think that is in any way. He's going to be 75. I think we ever can have a candidate again. It's not a thousand years old. And the other thing is he can't be he can't be outsider shaken up the system anymore. And like, if you're a weirdo, but like, eh, you're going to go in there and you're going to you're going to shake some things up. Like, he's going to have run HHS for four years and he'll have a he'll have a record. But his people don't view him as weirdo. What I'm trying to say is his people view him as a like heroic hercules standing against the tides of institutions that are designed to kill Americans. Like, there's a mythology around that guy that none of the other ones have. Yeah. But like, but he'll have to answer for, did you, did you do anything to those institutions over the last four years? Did you save us? Will he? Does anyone have to answer for anything anymore? Isn't that the lesson of the Trump administration? No, no, the lesson is that once you're when you're out of power, it's easy to just throw rocks at the institutions. But once you're in power, then people get pissed to you and then they throw you out and they put someone else in the tree. That's the only that's the only thing I would say. No, no, no, no, no, I think I think I already think I already think under his breath. Let me hear it. Let me hear more. I'm intrigued. I think Bobby versus Stuart. He thought he wants to do it. Obviously, I think if you'd read the only in Nitsy book, like she said, I mean, she's very honest about that. You guys see yesterday. Cheryl says no. Cheryl says he's not running in 2028, no matter what. Oh, and she's been very predictive. Yeah, she's never gonna, I mean, endorsing Trump. That's a bridge too far than he never stray from our marriage. No, that's the voice, though. I was really, I think, the saving grace. That made, that made a lot of a lot of a reality for Americans that make it, that make it harder. In your, let's sort of try and wrap up, is the way to change the results we're getting from our government, do we have to change the incentive structure around what wins? Because the thing I noticed in Washington is it runs on a different currency than what it's reported kind of ideal is. It's sort of like the Washington Post, mirror the Washington Post put up on their mask that democracy dies in darkness. You know, but meanwhile, in the Washington Post boardroom, they had a list of articles and how many clicks it got, you know, and they were running on a different currency. It feels like the political system and the media, which I sort of like into America's immune system. Right. If those two things are corrupted and I think they are, we don't get the results that build a healthier environment. Do we need to change the incentive structures on media, on social media, on governance? They're not rewarded down there in the same way that you think they are. Does that sound fair to you guys? I think that yes, I think you do need to change the incentive structures for sure. But then the question is, how do you change the incentive structures? And I think the way to change or the best chance of changing the incentive structures is to have someone who wins, who doesn't follow those incentive structures and proves to everyone else that you can run a different way. And this is the, you're going back to Obama wins, Donald Trump wins, and they won based on campaigns that people would have guessed before they ran would not have been successful. And so I do think it still comes back to, in my opinion, you need a person willing to, like a leader willing to sort of go outside the box and sort of swim against those tides and show people see all this stuff that you think you need to win is actually bullshit and you can win by doing, you know, something different. Yeah, look, Trump has revealed that like this structural, architecture of our government and society is a lot weaker than we thought it was, right? And so I'm totally with you. I am pointing in thumbs-uping Tim right now for those you think. And so I think that like a successful candidate potentially in the future would run on like a just total reform of how to do things, right? And really, like not, not just kind of a marginal change, like really, in the ways that would make people uncomfortable, it's probably like me uncomfortable. I think that's probably right. The thing that I struggle with on this though, John, is like, I go a little bit back and forth like, I think that's obviously true if you look at Trump. The other thing though, I think that's obviously true that's in conflict with that is that like, our society has went through so many worse times than the 2016 to 2024. Just like putting Trump aside like, people's experience living through like, you know, except for the pandemic, I think that's probably true. The pandemic had had historical echoes to it in a way that most things don't. It did for sure, but you know, I mean, look, we went through like, look at how black folks were treated throughout the entire history of the country out through the Civil Rights Act. They didn't like turn to, you know, they're stupidest, you know, I got stupid authoritarian black nationalist to try to overthrow the government. I just like two weeks of wearing a mask and Massachusetts and guys stormed it with a solver. Exactly. That's what black people are like. And so to me, you think about that. It's like something else is happening too, right? It's like, yeah, people are struggling. I don't want to, I don't try to minimize any of these struggles. I just been like, looking at a historical lens, like what we're going through now does not seem to match like the level of rage and the political reaction to what people are going through. And why is that? And like, the phone is really the answer to that, I think. And so then like, how do you deal with that? Is that fixable? Is that not fixable? Is that a generational thing where it's our kids will be able to manage that better than we are? I don't know the answer to that. Like that to me is the other element of us. No, I've said that. I think for a while, which is the catastrophizing that occurs when you live online because that, the incentive structure of social media and all those things is to you know, the weaponization. Like again, I had to go back to the Bungino thing, but like he basically said it. Like my job was to make you feel like shit is completely falling apart. And we are in an existential crisis. Now my job is to try and hold things together. So I can tell you what's actually going on. And it's actually not that bad. And you almost, you know, it's that part of it. Right. It's like so oopsie, oopsie, oopsie. But AI is going to make that worse. And what have we done to that rather than again show the government as maybe the only powerful enough check against that power? We've invited them into the handhouse. Yeah. And I don't think anyone is speaking thoughtfully about AI and how we're going to handle it on the Democratic side at all. Like even the social media stuff, it's to some extent we're now fighting the last war on that because people are moving, you know, even off social media towards their chatbots who they're going to be friends with. And but like the way we, I mean, we talk about this is like, is it really the phones? But it's the way humans interact with one another, right? And the way that we interact with each other, get information from each other, debate with each other, has fundamentally shifted. Then of course our politics is going to change dramatically. And I think that if AI continues to push us further, you know, it could divide us further, it could make us lonelier, it could make us You know, we have these chatbots that are obsequious and they're going to just flatter us the whole time and tell us everything we want to hear. - Or drive vulnerable kids to suicide. I mean, literally drive them to suicide. - Yep, and what are we going to do? We're just going to, we're charging ahead so that like the 10 people that run these companies can become like trillionaires and not just believe us. - Maybe we'll have an A.I. president. That's what Sam Altman said. The A.I. is going to pull everyone, see what everybody wants and then do it everybody wants. - Problem solved, what the hell are we needed for? - And none of that will ever get weaponized by the mercers to try and figure out exactly. That's the problem. All these technologies are being weaponized. I think it used to be, I used to think like, oh, it's going to be, it used to be like communism versus capitalism or democracy or you know, those various things. Then I thought it was woke versus unwoke. That was going to be the new schism. I actually think Trump's onto something different, which is the sort of stable world order that we had that was based on kind of shared liberal democratic values. He does not in any way value. He thinks that's for Pussies. His mindset seems to be the five families. Russia is the Gambino's. We got China over there is, you know, whoever that family is and you know, and we're going to divide up turf. - Yeah, it's very, it's very great powers. We're North Jersey. It's, you know what it is? It's, you know, if you ever watched Thomas Shelby and, you know, do you remember that show, Peaky Blinders at a theory of power called Big Fuck Small. And that's what strikes me as, so I think this next election, what we're really going to be fighting over is, is the world order going to be the five families dividing up the spoils? Or are we going to try and go back to a more stable liberal thing, but I don't think that can be the explicit battle. - Right. - The Democrats can't make this about, we don't want to go to a spoil system. We want to go back. They've got to address real people's concerns. Is that sound fair to you guys again? - Yeah, I mean, what they are selling, what's behind that sort of five families, since the title of leadership is, it's zero sum politics, right? And it's domestic as well, this is Trump's view, which is, if you win someone else loses, and so it's might makes right, and it's survival of the fittest, and that's why I like the people with power, and I like the people with wealth, and everyone else is a sucker. And so-- - We're not losers. We're the hottest country in the world. - We're not losers. If you're the right person, and you have enough strength, and you have enough power, then you can get whatever you want and take whatever you want, and everyone else, fend for themselves, and that's why I respect Putin, that's why I respect Xi, and I respect all these people who are tough. - He only respects people that don't have to face elections, or real elections. - And I think that the argument we have to make is that this is not like politics isn't zero sum, that there can be winners and winners, and that we can grow the economy in a way that benefits everyone, we can have a government that benefits everyone, that we actually do believe-- - But that can't be the argument. The argument has to be explicitly like, childcare doesn't work, healthcare doesn't work, education doesn't work, and here are the ways that we have to do it. - And we have to actually deliver. - Well yeah, and I would just say look, like the spoiled system, my argument to them against it is more as less that he pitched you that the spoils were going to come to you. That was the point of the spoiled system. And like that these liberal democratic pussies, as John put it, carried more about what was happening in the Netherlands, and you know, and Rwanda, and I don't, I want the spoiled system to help you. But we saw what happens with the spoiled system, actually the spoiled system helped Trump. The spoils were for Trump and his family and their crypto money, and we need an alternative vision to that. Like what is the counter-vision to that that is not like the League of Nations? People don't care about that stuff I do. - Which is why the corruption message comes in, in addition to what you're saying, John, which is like, yes, childcare, healthcare, all the things people want, but you have to talk to people about why they're not getting it, haven't been getting it, and Trump is giving a perfect example of that right now. The difficulty with the corruption message is in the nuance of it. - Yes. - Because I think Tim said it earlier, which I thought was a really great point, which is Trump has found the ways to do this. He's made the corruption that we all suspected were in our society explicit. But it's a hard argument to make, you know, you look at 1789 capital, or you look at, you know, Jared Kushner is now going to finance the buying of CNN and hand it to the president so that he can kill it in front of us. Or go to the cutteries and the Saudis. - Or give it to the Saudis. You know, Donald Trump Jr. is suddenly now the head of a drone company, or on the board, that has like a half a billion dollar contract. The problem is Hunter Biden was on the board of barisma, and you may say, oh, but the order of magnitude is different, and you're right, but it speaks to the same thing. That proximity to privilege is what matters. It's how kleptocracies and those things work. And so I think if the Democrats try and make it again, a moral corruption argument, there's enough whiffs and notes and heady hints of T-Pot Dome and Tammany Hall in their backgrounds that it's a hard argument to make. But that's why you don't, the message can't be they're corrupt and we're not so elect us, because we're better and trust us. - But that is always what they do. - I know, I know, I know. - Weird, moral, black and white. - But back to what we were saying earlier, that's why you need an actual reform agenda. Like I am willing to change the institutions, I'm willing to change the incentive structure, I'm willing to get money out of politics. - A new deal for against corruption. A new deal to tap into inequality occurs because we value capital and not labor. There's got to be a way to tap. Tim is a socialist now. I see it on his face. He is so excited about this new plan. - Yeah, you can definitely sell me on just painful levels of taxation for the AICS. You could get, I will flank Elizabeth Warren on the left. - But you can't, here's when you can't sell taxation, Tim, because the Democrats haven't proven that people will get value for that extra money. The message of we need to get rid of the filibuster or we need to tax billionaires means nothing. If nobody ties it to fair value, they have to be more remedial than that. They have to step back for it. Now, you can frame it two different ways. The first thing is the first commercial Democrats should run is Trump said he was for you. He said Democrats are for they them and he's for you. And that works if you're Galein Maxwell. If you're the cutteries, like that should be every ad is showing who you is. - Yep. - On the Democratic side, if they can't prove the taxpayers get value for their dollar, they are fucked no matter what they think of. - See, this is where we're becoming more centrist, John. We're moving towards Tim, Tim. - Yeah. - Wait, what exactly? - What just happened? - Yeah, no more wealth, because they are under reform. Okay, we're going to have some-- - We're going to have some kind of high taxation. - No, but socialism and welfare reform. And cutting red tape so we can build things for once. - It can do that, but value doesn't mean not, because, first of all, it's not welfare. It's not an entitlement, it's an investment. If we invest in oil companies to go drilling somewhere, how the fuck can you not invest in human beings getting enough food and getting enough shelter to be their best selves? These are investments. That's value. - Yeah, you got me. - All right, I think we're done here. Almost. (laughing) - Gentlemen. - I need to see the white paper still. (laughing) - You're probably right. Any moment from this year that you would like to highlight on your way out to go to your respective media empires, anything that strikes you? - The one that for me that was both, 'cause I think it represents the year, which is simultaneously, it's like the dark comedy. Like it's really like heartbreakingly horrible, but also just clownish, was when Terry Moran was interviewing Trump in the Oval Office. And they're asked about Kilmar Brego Garcia. And Trump's team to prove that Kilmar Brego Garcia was MS-13 had done the MS paint. Like the font, it was like Ariel 12 font that they put on top of his hands. And it says MS-13. - Yes. - And Trump says to Terry Moran, he's like, "What, you're crazy. "Obviously, he's MS-13 that set it on his fingers." And Terry's like, "That was Photoshop." And he's like, "No, it wasn't." And then Terry's like, "I guess we'd have to agree "to disagree." And Trump won't let it go. Like Terry's trying to let him off the hook. And Trump's like, "Get me the picture." (laughing) That was it for me. - That's a beautiful one, John. - It's funny, I was gonna do, I was gonna do, well, Kilmar Brego Garcia, this is a little darker, but I mean, the fact that the, when I knew that like this was much darker than even I had expected, the fact that the United States government in court admitted that they mistakenly sent someone to a torture chamber. And then their response to that was not bring him back. It wasn't even, okay, we'll get him out of there and send him somewhere else. It's, we're now gonna ruin this guy's life and make this a big cause on our side that we are going to punish this guy no matter what, just because, and that is how they dealt with the whole deportation regime since then. And it is, they are delighting in violence and wanting us to know. know that they delight in the violence and the abuse. And I think it's that that's sadism. - The memes, yeah. - The memes and how they try to make it like a joke, but funny like the desensitizing people to violence and abuse and sort of dehumanizing people is I think the sort of the underlying, like the real poison of the last year and something that's gonna take a lot more to get out of the system than just a few better policies. - That's so interesting and it is, it's the dehumanization as a virtue. - Yes. - The idea that that is the virtuous way and it really is, it's they make a virtue of the ignorance of a lack of discernment. And the thing that I think always comes to you is we're not actually safer when our government can't tell the difference between MS-13 and an 18 year old valedictorian who's lived here from Honduras since she was seven, but got the same treatment and sent to some facility in Louisiana. That's the thing that I think maybe also has to be brought to bear to the American people is our ignorance doesn't make us safer. It doesn't make us America first. That discernment is the first quality you need in building a better state of understanding individuals and not groups. Gentlemen, I so appreciate you taking the time. I know you guys are awful busy. Tim Miller from the Bullwark and John Favreau from Pod Save America and obviously you will be consolidated when the elephants buy you. I think that's, by the way, I think it's a great move on their part. - We're not selling. - That was, the moment for me and this is probably selfish, is when Donald Trump is like, I'll choose who gets Warner Brothers and you're like, is that where we are? Like you literally, the president makes it. - Make me another rush hour. I want rush hour four, five and six. - I want rush hours and you can have it. Guys, thank you so much. Have a wonderful Christmas, holiday, Hanukkah, new years and I look forward to seeing all the good stuff you're doing the next year. - You too, John. Thank you. - Thanks, guys. Mint mobile. I don't know what you want out of a phone company. What I want out of a phone company is deliver me a good product for less and don't bother me. Don't bother me with the like. Oh, have you heard about our new program? You can upgrade to it. It'll just cost you a lot more. And then they'll call you a bunch on their own phone. Think about that. Think about the diabolical mind games that phone companies are playing by like locking you into an expensive phone program and then using the very item that they sold you to contact you about paying more for some ridiculous upgrade. It's not even really an upgrade. Oh, they're diabolical, but not mint mobile. Mint mobile plan, 15 bucks a month, 15 bucks a month. What is it? 1992, 15 bucks a month. High speed data on limited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to minmoble.com/tws. That's minmoble.com/tws. Got your wireless build of 15 bucks a month. And minmoble.com/tws. That's it. There's no catch up front payments of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months plan required, $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow a network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot. Capable device required availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. I really hope they speed that up. (upbeat music) I'll be honest with you, they seemed like worn down. At first, I think they started to gather that vigor again to go back into battle, but they definitely, I had a feeling of like, it's fucking December. Yes. And I want to buy presents for my family and my friends, but like this is an incessant grinding. This year has felt a million years long as you said at the top, but you also weren't introducing such fun ideas, like RFK is going to inherit the earth, you know? (laughing) You're saying that it's actually I was not, in any way, bringing optimism and. Maybe you tried. Prevality. You are the problem. (laughing) I definitely didn't leave the conversation feeling optimistic, but I wouldn't expect that for a conversation recapping 2025. Yeah, look at our outfits. We all spontaneously wore black. Oh God, I didn't recognize that. Can I say, maybe I'm insane, but I remain optimistic. I honestly think the despicable nature of this administration is the effect that it's having on those two. That is not the effect that it has on political operatives. That is the effect that it has on human beings that don't want to live in this acid-based. This is not like, it's Mars. We don't want to have to wear spacesuits to breathe freely amongst our people. Yeah, people are sick of the shit, I think. Sick of this shit. And they're starting to realize he's the band leader. Trump is the band leader of this shit. Optimism. There you go, we did it. Gillian's so not buying this. No, I really, I think that you're right. And I want it to be true as much as I think it's true. All right. Well, for real optimism, we'll have a new mayor in the new year. And listen, which presents opportunity like we haven't had in a very long time. And each one of the things these moments presents opportunity to get some fresh water into this brackish cesspool that we've been swimming in. And we'll get out of it. And it's the end of the year. Obviously, we want to give our listeners a chance to pop in a couple of questions there. Britney, what do we got from? All right, they are versatile kids. So here we go. They are versatile. This is our last podcast of the year, by the way. That's why I'm talking like that. All right. John, in your opinion, what is the best and worst thing that Trump did this year? Oh God. Best and worst. Yes, sir. I mean, holy shit, really? I mean, obviously, like for me, the worst thing is it's creating clouds of humanity that are not individuals. They're just a patina generally shaded that he feels are inferior to his-- I think he truly believes in those kind of hierarchies. And he believes that his people are at the top of the hierarchy. And take this for however you think it, but that the lower casts are disposable. They're not individuals. They're not particularly on the same level of humanity that he is on. There is no individuality. Somali doctor has nothing against a Swedish petty larsonist, like a Somali doctor is worse, because he's in that cloud. And therefore, can be treated in the manner that his administration is treating him. And that's by far, I think, the worst thing. It's not an individual thing that he's doing. The best thing he did was accept a trophy from the World Cup that literally looks like zombies reaching out of the grave to tickle the underside of his balls. He doesn't ban-- didn't he ban paper straws? So I mean-- Oh, did he do that? OK. I'll take that for granted. I'll give him now. All right. What's next? Hopefully, this one will perk us up a little bit. I doubt it. Oh, boy. End of year, people are hurting, man. We'll get there. John Trump has stated that he believes it's delicious, perhaps even treasonous, for the press to report on his health. Care to comment on his health? First of all, I think he's doing great health-wise. He looks great. I have found-- and again, I'm obviously not like an orthopedist, but I've found that the thicker the ankle, the better the balance. That is that famous thing. And that's-- for old people, falling is really. But if you get those-- if your ankles are tree trunks, you can't get knocked over. You can't break the hip. And that's generally the beginning of the downward slide. So I would suggest that that, in and of itself, would give you confidence that this may be the healthiest, most robust president that we've ever had in the history of the United States of America. And-- Those circumference alone, yeah. But once again, guess to the point of, for Donald Trump, the level of fealty can never rise to a level that is satisfactory. There is no level of ask kissing that you can do. I mean, when you watch is-- everything is seditious that falls beneath the level of my god, sir. Thank you for not allowing too many hurricanes to hit the United States, as Christy Nome did in that stupid cabinet meeting that they had. He is angry at Fox News, which is literally like a 24-hour a day ball-washing machine for Trump and is designed specifically to keep him in power. So for him to say something as seditious and treasonous means nothing because the bar of entry to Donald Trump. is purely about how deeply you are proving your undying loyalty to the king. Anything below that, obviously, is seditious. And none of us measure up, unfortunately. Sad. It is sad. And I hate it because it's so hard to be a billionaire president. I know. I mean, I don't know, but you can imagine money corrupts and power corrupts and to have all the money and all the power. It's like if Lord of the Rings ended where you know, they're going to drop the ring into the fire. And then instead of hitting the fire, he catches it. Spoiler. Think, think how hard that is on someone. Yeah, we don't feel bad enough for him. That's why he's so sleepy. That's right. That's right. All right. What's next? All right. Next. Do you think it's possible for Trump and Jimmy Kimmel to end their feud, or is it too far gone at this point? First of all, Jimmy Kilno might be the most generous, kindhearted individual that I have met in my entire life. He is someone. He doesn't even sleep. Like he spent in the middle of the night, he will just sit and Google ideas for what the best thoughtful gift might be for you that he could send to you in a moment when you're feeling low. Like that dude is all heart like all of it. Like he is always, he is a naturally generous, gregarious, uh, warm individual that people are drawn to and he is drawn to people. He is, I wish I could be more like him. I, I am a kind of introvert, loner type personality that like, I love people over there. He brings them in into an embrace in a manner. So if anybody could do it, it would be him. He is the antithesis of everything that that guy stands for and he has been, and his family has been put to the ringer for no apparent reason. Donald Trump could say nobody, you know, everybody's mean to me and you're like, because you're the fucking president and you have an army and nuclear weapons. Yeah, it's kind of part of the job. Right. And he's also mean so. Yeah, but you've, you've drawn fire on him and his family because he said shit about you. You didn't like tough shit, you know, to take a fucking joke. Boom. I would love a president that could take a joke and stay awake through a meeting. Two things. Like, I don't ask for a lot. When, when was the last time this country had that? I think it might have been Eisenhower. I just, I just hate that he's honestly like one of the best human individuals underneath the scenes behind the scene, whatever that you will ever see in your entire fucking life. Go bare too, by the way. I'm very fortunate that those people in my life who understand my eccentricity, but also warmly embrace me at the same time. I'm very lucky to have folks like that in my life. Absolutely. Something to be grateful for in the holiday season. Yeah, this is a good optimistic. No, Brittany, you just put a bow on that. Well done. Thank you so much. Yeah. Last but not least, John, do you think Christmas should be more about Santa Claus or the baby Jesus? Oh, God, this is not in my jurisdiction. I don't know. Uh, well, I've got some explaining to do to the people at home. I don't know if you can tell by, let's say, my face, but I would be more comfortable answering any question about Fiddler on the roof. I can give you the ins and outs of the show Yantal, but as far as I'm assuming that Christmas has, I mean, other than the birth of Jesus being the tent post, the rest of it doesn't appear to be about that in any way, shape or form. You guys might know better than me. Uh, it's giving presence. Yeah. Yeah. Like I don't, I don't ever go like on November 19th. Oh my God, the Jesus commercials are starting so early this year. Like it doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with that, but I will tell you this as someone who never experienced it when I was younger, when my kids were younger, and they still believed in all that. It was the most fun holiday I have ever experienced when they still believed in magic. Yeah. Like Brittany, do you recall when you believed like did your family? Oh, very much so. Um, it's kind of magical. Yes. My mom actually made one of my favorite memories is my, I was 11 years old and my mom sat me down and she goes, you know, Santa and I said, yeah, she goes, well, it's me. She wanted the credit. And I was like, that's awesome. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. We didn't, it like it was one of those things that like we were always talking about like, when are they going to figure this out? Because we knew it wasn't going to come Vermont. It they would be like, so Katie told me. Yes. Okay. And it is your entree into the world of lies. Like it is your, and then your entire world view is like, wait a minute. There's no Santa. And I think the president might be corrupt. Like the jump from there and the way that you parent your kids up to that point. And then after that point, it's like before that it's all a certain like magical morality tale. You know, it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice sharing is caring like it's all that. And like as soon as that other thing hits, it's a lot of like, there's fentanyl and cocaine. Remember that. Everything fucking changes very quickly. All right. Well, uh, uh, uh, this is our last podcast of the year. As we said, we're back January 14th. So it's a nice long, beautiful and you guys have, have earned it. Uh, in the new year, obviously we're publishing podcasts on Wednesday instead of Thursday. That's just something that you can lie down at, uh, and this end of the year is a nice, uh, time to remind everybody that all the work that is done on this podcast, uh, that that hopefully you find yourself enjoying is done by the people that I'm talking to now or that you are not seeing, but they are behind the scenes. And they put in the, uh, diligent work that allows me to feel, uh, prepared and ready to talk to anybody. And I mean anybody, they're throwing me the creators of AI and political pundits and all these other things. And I just, uh, I love it. I love being able to just talk to people that I find interesting and fascinating and pick their brains and learn. There is nothing better in this entire fucking world than learning something you didn't know yesterday. And, uh, it's, it's just something I really appreciate. And I really appreciate you guys for, uh, obviously doing the hard work that allows me to do those sorts of things. Pretty, how do they get a hold of us? Uh, Twitter, we are weekly show pod, Instagram threads, TikTok, Blue Sky, we are with the show podcast. And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel, the weekly show with Joan Stewart. Our lead producers, Lauren Walker, producer, Brittany Mimetic, producer, Jillian Spear, video editor and engineer Rob Vitolo, who has to sit back there when I see a B and go, Oh, that's going to suck. Audio editor and engineer Nicole, a voice who also has to deal with that. Rob actually more has to deal with, uh, just how much of the Nick's picture I'm going to show and how pale I'm going to look. Nicole is the one actually who has to turn down. I guess it's the gain. I don't really know what it is when I shriek that scared, uh, girl. And our executive producers, Chris McShane and Katie Gray who keep the whole ship running. Thank you guys so much for all of it. And thank you guys for in any way listening or watching this. We really do appreciate your support. And we will see you guys next year. Bye. Bye. The weekly show with John Stewart is a comedy central podcast is produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.