Raging Moderates: Are Protestors Playing Into Trump’s Hands?

27:48Like, that's, I think, how people had understood what's going on. But we are in a moment where people want to burn it all down. And I don't know if you read David Brooks's column from the end of last week in The Times, but he was talking about how one of the ways, at least, that he sees that the Democrats don't get it or are not prepared for this moment is that we're thinking way too small in terms of what can be achieved and that the problems that we face as a country and as a political party are not going to be solved by having a good midterms, right? Or even having Governor Shapiro turn into President Shapiro in 2028.

28:29But that the Republicans have much better understood the moment and how much people hate the system, you know, system TM, right? But see that this deck is stacked so enormously against the average person that unless you are willing to actually burn it down, that you can't capture real support from the American body politic. And I think that there is a lot of merit to that. You know, how do we make it clear to people that we understand how important this moment is, how scared everyone is, and that also business as usual is not something that they are interested in returning to? So we have to at once be the adults in the room that can quell everything and bring us back to a status quo, but we also have to destroy the status quo at the same time.

29:26And the Republicans never had to do that. They just went, I'll burn it down, and they were able to get reelected. But Democrats have to be both parent and child. And that's a very complex role to have to fill. OK, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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31:34Welcome back. So I'm renovating a house and building a house. And what I found, much to my surprise, is that it actually takes less time to build a house than to renovate one. Because there's, you know, historic society, you run into a pipe. Once you have your architectural plans on a piece of land and you have zoning, you can just go wham, you just go. And I do think the advantage that the Democrats should lean into right now is basically, I think our party is almost at zero right now. We had Leader Jeffries. We interviewed him. I think he's a wonderful congressman, a wonderful representative.

32:07I don't think he is up to the job of leading the Democratic Party through this. And I think Senator Schumer is case study number one for why we need age limits and how weak we've become. I think there's a very strong bench, but I don't know if it's party orthodoxy or format or systemic rules that keep these voices more quiet, whatever it is. But we are literally starting from zero. And I think that's an opportunity. It's like what Yoda said to Luke Skywalker, you must forget what you know. So forget everything about identity politics. Forget everything about Democrats trying to show their affection for special interest groups by just cutting them a check.

32:49if you had a blank slate, which I think the Democratic Party kind of does right now, if you were to propose a tax bill, what would be your core themes? Would it be around encouraging housing? Would it be around capital formation? Would it be around lowering tax rates and moving to a flat tax? But it's non-negotiable. These tax rates are non-negotiable for everybody. If everybody paid about 24 % in tax, corporations and individuals, you're kind of done. No deficits. That's it. 24%. I think most people would sign up for that. They'd go, okay, I'm down with that. If that's going to give my kids a better life and it's simple and I don't have to deal with accountants and taxation and just a postcard, as Ross Perot said, 0.24 times my top line income, boom, we're done.

33:37And maybe it's zero. Anyone makes less than $80 ,000 at zero. Two taxes. You make less than$80 ,000 at zero. Above 80, it's 24. Above 10 million, it's 64. I'm already making it more complex than it needs to be. But we'd have to have someone from the Democratic side or a group of Democratic representatives say, this is our contract with America. These are the three things we're focused on. And try and get away from the identity politics and the hand-wringing over the trans community or, you know, pronouns or just, okay, we are totally focused on the material and psychological well-being of Americans.

34:16They're very focused on their economics. I mean, flat tax, more housing, and socialization of medicine. Within 10 years, everyone's going to have coverage and no one's ever going to have to come out of pocket more than$1 ,000 a year. You're never going to find out that your wife has cancer and that means you're going bankrupt. Like, whatever it is, I'm not saying those are even the right things. Foreign policy. Our foreign policy is we're going to bring in really fucking smart people to figure out these complex problems, but we're not going to dictate foreign policy right now around what it means to be an American abroad.

34:47Or maybe it's the restoration of alliances. Our job is to take advantage of the unbelievable prosperity that we've recognized through global trade. We're going on a gigantic apology tour. We're going to take down, not only, we're going to go anti-tariff. We're going to have bigger, bolder free trading zones around the world. Biggest tax cut in history will be if we kiss and make up with China. There has to be some IP protection. But just as the cost of clothes have been cut in half because 97 percent are imported into the U.S., right? Let's get rid of this old, stupid 1890s thinking. We're going to have more global trade.

35:23Shit's going to get much cheaper for Americans. And we're going to try and restore the alliance, the greatest alliance in history, and that is between men and women. Men have to stop this bullshit of thinking that their struggles have come because of the ascent of women. This is not a zero-sum game. And women, we need you to stop saying that men don't have problems. They are the problem. We need men and women to get on each other's side again. I don't know what it is. Alliances, housing, an embrace of global trade. I don't know. Three things. But the Democrats need to say, okay, this is an etch-a-sketch and it's been shaken and it's blank right now.

35:57What new lines do you want to draw? And for God's sakes, get it out there. Propose something and get it out there such that we're just not all running around, you know, accusing Trump of being a fascist over and over. Like, we have to move to the positive part of this. What are our proposals? What are our counter proposals? And the exciting thing is, I don't think we're renovating a house here. I think the house is burnt down. I think the Democratic Party, given this move towards authoritarianism, despite that, Trump would be reelected today. I think that if he was running against Vice President Harris and the Democratic establishment, I think he'd probably win today.

36:35So the Democratic Party is done as we know it. And the ideals and principles and bench are really strong. We have some outstanding assets. So what would we do new? Don't even mention Trump's name. Don't even mention his name. Well, hopefully he is an afterthought in whatever goes on for 2028 anyway. But it is it seems to me that mentioning Donald Trump is perhaps the quickest way to get people to turn off, but is at least in the top five in terms of who they're looking to support as a politician or as a political party. His people have already made up their minds about him years and years and years ago, frankly.

37:15And, you know, to self-flagellate a bit, we forced people back into his arms or we made it a lot easier to go and do that in 2024. for. And I think that if voters could see Democrats at least spitballing the way that you were. So some of the things that you said, I like some of the things, you know, I want to double tap on and push back. I'm not a big flat tax person, but at least you're having a discussion about this. And no one would penalize a politician for showing up with a postcard that said an economy that works for everyone, decent health care that isn't going to bankrupt you, an education system that works.

37:52Right. And then you build out the rest of it. I think focusing on domestic policy is the way to win a domestic election. I think that our alliances and partnerships abroad are certainly important, but people are most concerned with what's going on in their house right now. That's why they call them the kitchen table issues. Like they're going to get up. They're going to go to work. They're going to think about how much they're being paid to do that work. Their kids are going to get up and go to school. They're going to come home and they're going to sit around the dinner table and they're going to think about what it is that they're having for dinner and if it was too expensive or cost the right amount.

38:26That's basically what life looks like for the average person. And you are also describing a governor. You are describing someone who has worked in management. And you can see the kind of clarity that's delivered in a speech by a J.B. Pritzker, a Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Governor Whitmer, Jared Polis, etc. It doesn't even actually matter the topic that they're discussing. You know, Jared Polis talking about anti-Semitism, which is not going to be the lead issue or the lead platform plank for someone running for president. But there is a clarity that comes with having to manage a state that you just don't get from people that give, you know, soaring speeches on the floor of Congress.

39:09Because these people have to get shit done. They have to rebuild I-95. They have to repair a bridge. They have to bring a community back together after some lunatic anti-Semite is throwing flames on Jews peacefully protesting. So I'm very much in on the governor train right now and somebody declaring. I have a higher opinion, I think, to some degree of what Hakeem Jeffries is doing than you do, because keeping the caucus together is difficult work. I bet. Yeah, that's fair. Especially when you have, you know, super conservative members of the caucus over to the AOCs of the world and Democrats have at least been able to have a unified front.

39:52And I think that that matters, and especially in opposing legislation, et cetera. But point taken on all of those fronts. What are your thoughts on Kilmar Obrega Garcia, Jess? So I was pleased to see that he was returned to face his day and quarter to get his due process, but was pretty disturbed by the indictment that they had. I don't know if you saw Pam Bondi's press conference about it. So this all came together, and I think the grand jury met a couple of weeks ago. But this indictment, which was filed in Tennessee, is absolutely scathing and alleges that he was engaged in smuggling men, women, and children.

40:32She also went off script and talked about all these things that he allegedly did that aren't even in the indictment, like talking about murder and child pornography. And you would think if that was true that it would probably be in the indictment itself. But now we have kind of like a mini fight within the larger fight because Kilmer Arbrego Garcia's lawyers have filed a contempt lawsuit against the administration. They're sticking with it because it's quite clear that they could have brought him home months ago. So it was three months ago that he was mistakenly deported. And I'm using the terms that they even used.

41:04It was a mistake that he was sent. Then two months since the Supreme Court said you need to facilitate his return. And then they finally got around to it, I think, because public opinion was so clear about this. He may be an MS-13 member. He may be the gangbanger that they said and not the Maryland dad, but that people deserve their due process rights. And it's a lot different to deport someone versus to put them in Seacott, right, to put them in a foreign gulag where they may never see the light of day again. And I just wanted to bring up, you know, also about the indictment itself, and that's where the next phase of this battle will be fought, that a high-ranking prosecutor in Tennessee, this guy Ben Schrader, resigned over this indictment, fearing that Albrego Garcia was being targeted for political reasons.

41:53So this isn't just someone claiming that he's turned into a political pawn or a target. It's somebody who has worked within the federal government for a long time saying that that is the case. And not to get too nitty gritty, but this is going back to a 2022 incident where he was pulled over. He had many passengers in the car. He was driving them to a construction site in Maryland. He told authorities at the time that they had originated in Texas. The current government, Pam Bondi's DOJ, is denying that that was ever stated at the time. So there's a lot of fuzziness around this. But the big flashing red light to me is this prosecutor resigning over it.

42:31And I don't know if that means that Obrega Garcia ends up going free and it's all totally fine. But it seems like the Trump administration needed to find a solution or save face after they've been humiliated on so many fronts when it comes to immigration and that they may have and let this play out, but they may have created a scenario that isn't particularly accurate. Yeah, I'm trying to think of someone who's been more politicized than this young man. He's now got essentially the Department of Justice, which has been weaponized against him. An entire administration who does not shy away from lying or, I would imagine, recasting evidence.

43:18they feel as if their whole reputation around this issue is showing that he's evil and finding a way to put him in prison for longer. So, yeah, politicization is an understatement here. Do you think it was a mistake to make this case as big of a deal as the Democrats did? Because that is a discussion that's still going on internally. Like, if it does end up that this quote-unquote Marilyn dad, you know, is a human smuggler or whatever, and God forbid the child porn stuff is true, any of it, do you think it was a waste of capital? Because I don't. And I think that going for due process is what matters the most, no matter who he turns out to be, and that we have a higher chance of getting people like Andre Hernandez, the gay makeup artist who's also in El Salvador, the Venezuelan back, if there's a precedent that they can get people out of CICOT.

44:10But I do understand the flip side argument as well, that if we're talking about him, we're not talking about tariffs. Yeah, I think it's an interesting point because the way you grab people's emotions is you humanize it with individual stories, but that's a risk. I would have stuck to just probably habeas corpus and I'm not sure I would have gone down there. But I think they should have just stuck with, look, there's just the definition of a concentration camp is lifting people out of their one region, sending them to another one such that they don't have the protections and rights that they had domestically.

44:43We should not have concentration camps and everyone needs to be brought back and for due process. I just would have stuck with that argument and list people and maybe reference them and individuals and the most obvious ones are the most blatant ones. But to pin your hopes on one person, I mean, if this guy has done half of what they say he's done, it could backfire. And I wouldn't even engage in the argument. Yeah, maybe he is guilty of all these things. We'll find out. The Constitution is clear. It says persons, not citizens. And an underpinning of our judicial system is the following. We purposely decide to err on the side of occasionally letting someone guilty go free as opposed to incarcerating innocent people.

45:29So that means we go through incredible expense and provide some people who are awful with rights at a time that feel like unfair to the victims or to safety. But that is the approach we've taken to national security. And if we want to have a different approach where, OK, innocent people end up in prison, innocent people end up incarcerated without due process, with no access to their family, perhaps even shipped to different black sites or concentration camps. all right, vote for those people. But the current constitution does not allow for that. I'm not sure. I worry that we've doubled down too much on an individual's background that we don't know that much about, or that the government, using their synchronicity with Fox News and different conservative media outlets and doctoring of photos or tattoos, is going to be able to just say, hey, we should have left them down there.

46:27Look, you guys are wrong. This is a bad hombre. That's not the argument. The argument is we take the worst people and we give them due process and habeas corpus because we want everyone to have access to that. So we'll see how it plays out. But this is, you've always said correctly, I was watching on The Five, that this is still his most popular issue or the issue he has the most support on. All right, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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48:18We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe, expose corruption wherever we find it, and give fresh perspective on everything from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more. Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com. Welcome back. One of the most powerful alliances in American politics just blew up spectacularly. Donald Trump and Elon Musk, once political partners and mutual hype men, are now trading insults, threats, and even conspiracy theories in a very public, very messy breakup. It started with Musk blasting Trump's GOP-backed mega bill as a disgusting abomination.

48:58I think he said pork-filled disgusting abomination, which, by the way, Jess, is the new au d 'oeuvre at TGI Fridays. Trump hit back saying he was very disappointed and floated cutting Musk's massive federal contracts. Musk escalated, claiming Trump is in the Epstein files. Oh, there we go. That was the best. It escalated to pedophile in like four minutes. That's right. Yeah. And even reposted calls for impeachment before deleting them days later. Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance tried to play peacemaker, saying Musk's criticisms were understandable, but that his loyalty still lies with Trump.

49:34She's like, did you sound more mealing mouth? The online war briefly paused after intermediaries from both camps reportedly got on the phone, but the damage appears to be done. This just isn't about ecos, though, Jess. The fallout threatens major legislation, billions in government contracts, and the balance of power in the GOP just as Trump pushes for his biggest domestic win yet. Jess, is this feud really about the megabill in government contracts or is it about something else? What are your thoughts? I think it's about both. And everything is tied together when you're dealing with the president and his co-president for a time.

50:08You know, there's the money of this, which matters a huge amount. You know, Tesla is not Tesla without those EV credits. And I think Musk did a lot of the Democrats' messaging work to say things like, well, you didn't touch oil and gas, so why are you coming after clean energy? You know, in some ways, this happens regularly, but your opponent gives you some good tips on how to message about these things when they have a break and are morally clear out loud every once in a while. And I think, like, write that down. There's that great SNL skit. It was a Melissa McCarthy one from years ago. It's about Hidden Valley Ranch.

50:48Everyone should go watch it. It's very funny. But she keeps saying, like, write that down, write that down. And as Musk is talking, I'm saying, like, write that down, write that down, you know, because somebody that's on the inside is exposed to things that we haven't been necessarily as the formal opposition. And if it's something that's affecting Elon Musk, it's affecting other Republicans as well, that there are other people within the party or in the GOP infrastructure who are thinking similarly. So I'm team Ro Khanna on the engaging Elon Musk. I don't think that we are in a position to write off anybody that might help us defeat this bill or win future elections.

51:30And it does seem like the protests in Los Angeles has kind of brought Trump and Musk together a little bit. You see Musk posting on Twitter, you know, that it's a good thing that the troops are there. And oh, my God, I can't believe that, you know, cars are on fire. They're waving Mexican flags, etc. So I think it's doing some of the repair work that Musk decided that he wanted, but Trump wasn't necessarily ready to talk, which I think is so funny just in terms of the breakup vibes of it all. But what really stuck out to me, I guess, is twofold. So one, that they both think the other is completely depraved.

52:09Right. Elon Musk at core thinks that Trump is a pedophile. Right. Someone who's on the Epstein list was happy to be engaging in that kind of behavior. And Trump, when pushed, thinks that Elon Musk is a drug addict who isn't making good decisions. But they'll come together for the purposes of accumulating power no matter the circumstance. And that is the lesson in all of this. I know politics makes strange bedfellows. But I like to think that if you believed somebody was doing it with 14-year-old girls that you probably wouldn't want to be in political bed with them. And that if you thought that someone else was really losing it and couldn't get through the day without being on ketamine, you wouldn't want to put them essentially in charge of government or giving them such a big job.

52:58So that was one lesson from it. And the other lesson of this for me is that Donald Trump is really scared of Elon Musk. So his response was so much more muted than we have seen in the past when someone pisses him off, let alone someone turning against him that has that much access to power and that he felt was that close to him. You know, having him in the Oval, having him at Mar-a-Lago, bringing his kids around, et cetera, or kid, I should say, only one of them gets to come out in public. And so you could see that that anxiety about what Musk could do from, you know, funding challengers to the Republican Party to, you know, what he could do in space that he could turn off the grid.

53:42Right. Like this guy has immense power and he needs the government contracts, which is Trump's card to play. But he seemed genuinely petrified of what a life with Elon Musk against you looks like. Um, if this thing were any gayer, it'd be a show on Bravo sponsored by Grindr. I just can't get over what total bitches these two are. And I say bitch androgynously as people acting like total children and not like grownups. I think this is so embarrassing that these are the two individuals that the majority of young people are supposed to look up to, the president and the world's wealthiest man. It has nothing to do with the bill.

54:29Musk knew about this bill. If Musk gave a good goddamn about the deficit and this pork, he wouldn't be recommending that we cut 40 to 50 percent of the IRS. I mean, there's estimates that there's a$600 billion a year tax gap, and that is our inability because of the neutering of the IRS, our inability to actually collect the taxes that are owed. So the notion somehow that he just can't handle the deficit and what's happening to our country, that is so fucking ridiculous. He kind of got what he wanted. They have neutered and basically fired every inspector general that's going to get in the way of his autonomous driving regulations or any case against him has kind of magically gone away.

55:14So the notion that somehow he's just outraged about the bill. Oh, and that he just figured out that Epstein was guilty of sex crimes on an island. A jury of Trump's peers found that he was guilty of sex crimes on an island called Manhattan. What, he didn't know that? Like, he just figured that out, that this guy has a past that is really unsavory. But he decided to work with him when he'd been convicted of sexual assault. But now he's just, he's outraged by the pork in this bill. And he's upset at Trump's past. And then Trump goes immediately to, let's deport him. Let's cut his subsidies. And it's just, you know, when I think of what it means to aggregate power, one of the real opportunities and signals that you've attained power in a thoughtful, high integrity way is that you get to be a peacemaker.

56:09Your job is to de-escalate. If you have real skills on a board of directors, you're asked to mediate between the rest of the board and the CEO. And the president of the United States, more than any individual in the world, is asked to step in and deescalate conflicts that could ratchet up to nuclear war. Naturally, when Pakistan and India get into border skirmishes, it could go a very ugly place. Usually you think of bringing in the Secretary of State of the United States under the auspices of the president to try and de-escalate. That this person has the most skills and the most resources and the most respect globally to de-escalate, to turn the heat down.

56:46And we no longer occupy that position when these two get into this ridiculous love quarrel. That's how I can see it. Musk wants Trump's relevance and Trump wants Musk's cult or vice versa. And the fact that they would immediately digress to these types of personal statements and indictments against each other is just evidence that neither commands the position they occupy. And it's just such a bad look. The war between Musk and Trump reminds me of the war between Iran and Iraq, and that is I'm rooting for the bullets. I got to be honest, I'm enjoying it. And unfortunately, it's a distraction from this tax bill, which is a transfer of wealth from poor to rich, young to old, future to past.

57:34But Trump is scared of the guy because Musk was correct. He probably got Trump elected. He probably swung the Congress to the Republicans. So Musk can rightfully claim credit or is responsible and accountable for what's going on right now because he did weaponize his platform, quarter of a billion dollars. He probably did have a big impact on the election, which speaks to, God, we need some sort of reform around Citizens United. I mean, we really can't have one person electing the president. And then that person wanted to be president. I think what really happened here is he wanted more input on his NASA pick.

58:17He wanted to be involved in the pick for the CIA. Bessent said, no, you don't get to pick the new head of the IRS. He wanted to be in on China briefings. He basically wants to be an unelected president. And a lot of his cabinet members threw up on that. Supposedly, there was actually a physical altercation between him and Bessent. And also, the thing that kind of explains a lot of this is that, according to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk is a rabid drug addict. and I don't know if you've ever had a drug addict in your life. I have. It is striking. I mean, it is sort of unbelievable what inconsistencies, irrationality, weirdness, ability to lie through the teeth through the people they love most in the world can happen when drugs take over.

59:08I mean, you lose your shit. And if you look at what this guy is tweeting out and then in a moment of sobriety deleting. Yeah. That's what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with children. This is bad for both of them. They both lose. I think Musk, to a certain extent, is doing what a lot of CEOs would like to do, and that is just hit back. But Elon Musk doesn't need the money. He's got control of his board. It doesn't matter that he lost$150 billion in Tesla market cap in one day because he controls the board. He doesn't need more money. He's not scared of his board. Every other CEO would probably get fired if they did this.

59:45They'd be like, look, good for you. I hope that was fun. But our stock's off 14 % today because you can't hold your tongue. So this is it's it's theater. But you come out of the theater just thinking, oh, wow, God, do I feel nauseous? What a waste of two and a half hours. Yeah. What a waste. What a waste of drama here. I do think that part of what we are seeing on Musk, not to give him too much emotional credibility is his disappointment for the way government works and the realities of what's happening within the government itself. So he was angry, rightfully so, that they were only going to codify$9 billion in the quote-unquote savings that he found.

1:00:26And I think it is important that a Doge employee who has been Doged himself said, quote, I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was. Fraud was minimal and abuse was, quote, relatively non-existent. So I think that, you know, Musk came in with this vision of what it was going to be like and that he and Trump were partners and that everyone really believed in Doge and they were going to do their best to make sure that these cuts were codified. And he faced resistance internally, in some cases, from the other cabinet secretaries, the courts, certainly, but then also the fact that the government is much more efficient than anyone expected.

1:01:10And that is a very difficult needle to thread for the Democrats because nobody wants to hear actually that this enormous behemoth of a federal government is doing as good as possible or as well as possible, I should say. My English should be better. But I think that that is an important component to the breakdown that he had, frankly. That he, you know, walked into a pretty well-humming machine and then was minimized by the man that promised him the world and that he paid$294 million or whatever it was to get elected. You know, I love that. I think it's a Buddhist saying that the man with good health has thousands of problems and the man with bad health has one problem.

1:01:56Actually, is that appropriate here? Basically, I'm trying to get to there are so many injustices just flying under the radar right now because of the weirdness and economic threat and usurp of congressional power that we're missing a lot of stuff that is, in my opinion, just so outrageous. And I was especially incensed by something that happened last week, the first week of Pride Month. I don't know if you're familiar with Harvey Milk. Yeah. Harvey Milk served in the Korean War. He went on to be an elected U.S. supervisor, one of the first openly gay elected officials in America. He served his country in his reviews and his military record.

1:02:37He actually worked on a submarine. He was promoted. His reviews say he was outstanding. He was promoted to officer. And then in 1954, he was outed as gay and was given a decision by his superiors to either resign from the military with less than honorable discharge or some weird thing that basically is not an honorable discharge, or face court martial. And so he decided to resign from the military, forego all of his military benefits, and then went on to be an activist and was the first openly gay elected official, or one of the first, in San Francisco to the Board of Supervisors, which provides huge comfort to, I think, a lot of gay people who thought that they were never going to have real robust representations.

1:03:21He was, as I like to say, he was gay before it was cool. He was out when it was a real risk to your reputation and your personal safety. And he was murdered along with Mayor Bill Moscone by actually a fellow supervisor. and the U.S. Navy, they put in a request. There's a process for putting in a request to name a ship. So they put in a request in 2017 that Harvey Milk, in some small nod to his service and his memory, that they name a ship after him. So they named the USNS Harvey Milk. It was christened in 2021. And just a nod to the inclusivity that the armed services are known for. And Secretary Hegseth decides the first week of Pride Month to rename that ship, which is just such a giant, unnecessary fuck you to the gay community.

1:04:18it's not only cruel and unnecessary, it's really fucking stupid because we are in an environment right now where 70 % of the men who show up to a services recruiting office do not qualify to be a private in the army because they are either obese or can't pass a basic mental wellness test. And we want to say to America, of which most surveys show somewhere between five and eight percent of America identifies as gay, that you can come here, serve proudly. And if by chance you get something named after you, by chance you get a medal, the moment we let far right weirdos whose heart is full of hate, they might embarrass your descendants and pull your name off as shit.

1:05:09it's not only stupid, it makes us less safe. And as somebody who interacts with our service personnel all the time, and, you know, I don't know how to say this without sounding stupid. Some of my best friends are gay. I'm pretty sure gay people are just as good at defending our borders and killing people as straight people. I have seen no difference in their ability or their skills to serve on the ground, to be paratroopers, or to be fixing planes. I have never seen. I don't, by the way, I don't think they're any better at it, but I'm pretty sure they're not any worse at it. And so when you say to a population, a huge population in America, you really aren't welcome to serve.

1:05:50It degrades our ability to defend our shores and kill bad guys. It's just so stupid. And I don't want to, I want to move away from the democratic playbook of moral indignation here, but unnecessarily unrequested pulling someone's name off an unimportant ship under the auspices of trying to restore, he says, this notion of a warrior mentality. What? What? Yeah, it flies in the face of the argument that they're making, which is we don't care who you are as long as you're good at your job. Well, guess what? Harvey Milk was good at his job and he happened to be gay. Yeah. So, I mean, and they did point out that the timing was intentional.

1:06:31You know, they're not embarrassed of doing these kinds of things. And I'm glad to see that recruitment is up. I think it's important, etc. And this was a trend that started before Trump came in to office, but it has accelerated. And the cruelty is the point. It's always the point. This is cruel and it's dumb. and it shines a very negative light on the way that our armed services are being run. Cruel and dumb. Let's leave it there. All right, that's all for this episode, Jess. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Jenikas. Our technical director is Drew Burrows.

1:07:08Starting this week, you'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday. That's every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds that you won't hear anywhere else. just to give you a sense for how heated it is and how early this race is. You will not believe the people that are calling Jess to get interviewed by her right now. This week, we're speaking with Representative Richie Torres, who both Jess and I are huge fans of. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Jess, have a great rest of the week.

1:07:39You too.

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