Raging Moderates: What’s Trump’s Endgame in Ukraine?

27:05As far as like the more interesting part of this, and obviously there's the First Amendment threat here, but to me is how all in these guys are going on like, you know, patriot, what I call patriotic correctness. Like, you know, it's not just enough to stop doing, you know, pro DEI activities. They, they need to snuff out anybody that is using words or language that they don't like. Right. And, and to a, to a preposterous extent, right. Like the idea that like everybody has to use the new name of the gulf that they just changed one minute ago like it you know or else they're going to be banned is ridiculous right like and in some ways it's ridiculous as some of the most extreme things that you see like on the far left on pc like demanding that people you know use um you know use latinx or whatever right and so i do wonder if it's going to backfire on them eventually um i i don't are people really for this like it feels it feels very mockable so obviously it's serious but i i do think they are like very much being responsive to something that only like a tiny group of far-right trolls who are super online actually care about um and i don't know if that's like a path to long-term success for the right no i they definitely just want to get in as many kind of gloating laps early on.

28:36I think that they know that it just gets more and more complicated. And certainly as we head into special elections and the midterms and things like that, which hopefully Democrats will perform better than we did. So you do think that's conscious, like they're like, hey, you know, this isn't going to last forever, this like gloating honeymoon. And so we want to like rub their face and shit for as long as possible. Like, and there's a little bit of that. I think they can look to past administrations and say, OK, you know, your first two years are when you can actually get things done, right? They have control of everything.

29:07They're definitely trying it on, right, to the largest extent possible. You know, let's ram through four and a half trillion in tax cuts. Like, let's try to cut all of these entitlement programs. Now, they realize that they're not going to get their wish list of all of it, but they are at a moment where they're owning the culture. And so I feel like they're just taking advantage and saying, okay, well, if we have ingratiated ourselves to a segment of the American population that wouldn't have given us their time at all four or eight years ago, let's really go for it. And you can tell that also in the attitude that Caroline Levitt, the press secretary, has about everything.

29:43I mean, she's so haughty and arrogant in the way that she delivers everything, which, listen, I wish that I had more of that in me. I wish I didn't have such a terrible case of imposter syndromes. But to be 27 years old and to walk up there with that, you know, it's a fact. This is a fact. Right. Or like every man in Gaza is wearing a condom that we paid for. Well, actually, no, no, that's not true. In Mozambique, there are some condoms that got sent, you know, and it's it's the Trump bravado that if you say it a certain way, there's at least a good amount of people that are going to believe you.

30:25And I think that they're living for the moment, right? It's like a YOLO administration at this point. And until there are real consequences, I think they're going to go for it with everything. I mean, the AP is calling Mount Denali Mount McKinley right now. I mean, they're doing half of the crazy thing. I wonder, is that true, like your comment about how they're owning the culture now? I can't figure this out. Like, is that actually true? Or does it just kind of feel like it's true? And maybe that's a distinction without a— Would I be able to know the difference? That's a distinction without a difference, right?

30:59But I'm kind of like, is it just political obsessives who feel this way? I mean, did people's lives really just change? Like, did they change their mindset on this sort of stuff overnight? I don't know. Well, they're owning infrequent voters that are 18 to 40, right? And those are real culture vultures. Those are people that are listening to podcasts. Those are people who are concerned about all of the dyes in our food. Those are people who are picking schools for their kids to go to and are disenchanted with the public school system and wanting to get away from feeling like they have to use gender pronouns on their email signatures.

31:43I mean, these are real things that folks are thinking about. And so I don't know if owning the culture is the right way to put it, because I still don't think that Kid Rock is cooler than Jay-Z. That will just never happen. You can tell we're millennials with those references. That's good. I know. I can't. I can't fight the 40, and I'm 41 in a couple of weeks. No, but Kid Rock was on Bill Maher on Friday night, and I found the interview really interesting. I mean, it was first of all, I had forgotten, I guess, that he played Obama's inauguration in 08. And he was like, it's not as if I liked Obama then.

32:16You just show up and you do this. But he was essentially mocking us for like liberal leaning people and you new to the side of the fence, but for freaking out about everything all the time. And I do think that they are owning the culture by making it clear that majority of people feel like it's just not that serious. And part of that is a mistake on Democrats' part by not making it feel like it's that serious in practical ways, not like the sky is actually going to fall, but like this is the way that your checkbook is going to be affected. This is the way your kid is going to be affected. But like people are walking around just saying, I don't think politics is that serious.

32:58And the Republican side seems like that right now. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, that goes against, you know, my entire like, like everything in my body wants to reject that. Like, you know, I'm like, things are serious, things matter, actually. But I do. It makes me curious about the Fetterman kind of model, because he like, that's kind of what he's doing, basically, which is like mocking, like, progressives who are like hyperventilating, while like just basically voting with the Democrats all the time. And I don't think that every Democrat should act like that. But I do wonder if there is some potential efficacy to having a couple of Democrats out there who have more of a slacker energy to try to break through.

33:46All right, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and Heavyweight is back. The new season is bigger than ever. Bigger hopes? I keep waiting for this moment when he says, Mom, I get it.

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36:11Welcome back. Mayor Eric Adams just got a legal lifeline, but it came from the most controversial figure in New York politics, Donald Trump. The Trump administration's Justice Department dropped Adams' corruption case, but in a city where Trump remains deeply unpopular, that reprieve could be more of a political liability than a win. Now Adams is facing accusations of being in Trump's pocket, especially after appearing alongside Trump's border czar Tom Homan and making moves that align with the president's immigration policies. Meanwhile, the case's dismissal has sparked a crisis inside Trump's DOJ, a mass resignation of prosecutors, including one who accused DOJ leaders of looking for a, quote, fool to take the fall.

36:50Have you been following that? Probably not as closely as me. Maybe not as closely as you, but I have been following it. You're into it. Here's why I'm into it. Hagan Scott, who is the guy you mentioned, who said that I expect you'll eventually find someone who's enough of a fool or a coward to file your motion. this guy is like special forces dude who three bronze stars i think two maybe two whatever i'll give him a third for this if he only has two um but who clerked for so i believe he was kavanaugh and roberts and then um uh danielle sassoon uh who's the original person who wrote the letter to emile bov she was scalia a scalia clerk uh both i mean uh both like scott and his letter kind of subtly implies that he likes Trump.

37:34I forget exactly how he put it, but he was like, I could kind of see the perspective. He's like, some people might be quitting because they're really upset with this administration. Like, that's not me. And I kind of see how a businessman could think this was a good deal. It's just not legal. Like that's TLDR summary of his letter. And so the fact that it's these two people who are FedSoc folks who are stepping out. That's Federalist Society for maybe reaching moderates audiences are not as in it as the bulwark, who are like fed sock, yeah. Fed sock, yeah. You know, so they're like conservative legal folks who are just saying no, who are like standing up and saying, I'm not going to go along with this.

38:14And I think that's pretty powerful. And it comes at a time when, I don't know, at least maybe just me or maybe just the bulwark people are like thirsting for people to be showing a little bit more backbone right now. And so that's kind of why I've been following it, less on like the legal nerd side, but just more on this is kind of how you do it as far as standing up to illiberal actions. Yeah, I was into it. I had been feeling starved, I guess, for some old school intellectual resistance, I guess, not people out there with a sign, you know, like, hands off my whatever. I'm okay with those signs too.

38:50Yeah, sure. Yeah, I like them, but they're not getting us really anywhere at this point. But it feels like what they're doing is because it's a harbinger of bad things to come. So the Adams case itself, or at least what we know about it, you would expect more, I guess, in the indictment. He definitely broke the law. And I thought that Sassoon's letter was, you know, very specific about that. And that does matter to people that are career prosecutors who take the law very seriously. But to me, I felt a little bit of a If you think that we're just going to roll over for all of this from like the lighter fare of this, which obviously has very real implications for New York City politics and national politics even, but that they're scared of what this administration is going to be asking them to do.

39:38Like, Pam Bondi will see us all as folks that are ready to just line up and rubber stamp whatever is to come. And they can't help the fact, even though Bondi was one of the lesser controversial nominees, which just speaks to how crazy the set of nominees were. But, you know, Pam Bondi was all in on the 2020 election, was rigged out there front and center on that. And to me, it felt like a little bit of a cry for help or at least a signal of we can't be there for whatever they are going to try because they've spent so much time bemoaning, quote unquote, lawfare. And it is very clear that they are looking to weaponize everything back for their own benefit.

40:22Yeah. And we also had a U.S. attorney down here in Louisiana who quit. I think that there are a lot of those warning signs happening. I mean, this guy, the character that I've been watching closely in this thing is this, I kind of hate saying his name, Emile Bove. I kind of want to call him like Emil Bove. I don't know. It's kind of a pretentious for one for a MAGA. uh but anyway bove was the person who in the susun letter i think the most powerful thing was like in the first footnote where she was like someone was taking notes in the meeting where they told us that they were gonna you know about the deal on the prosecution and he collected the notes at the end of the meeting which is like no note taking um which uh you know feels very fascistic um though also kind of dumb sort of and i guess a lot of times fascism is dumb like dumb It's like, OK, well, the notes are gone, but people can still talk.

41:11I prefer it when it's dumb, because at least we can talk about it, that he took away the notes. Yeah. And so, but he's the same guy who is at the center of the FBI firings, right? And there was that whistleblower, and if you saw that over the weekend, where, you know, they were saying that Kash Patel lied during his confirmation hearing because, you know, the note-taking in that meeting, the FBI meeting, said that Bovet had said that Kash Patel had, and Stephen Miller, were the ones who were asking for that. this. So they have this like kind of henchman in at the DOJ. And so I think that it is pretty, it is good that, you know, cause there's always this debate, right?

41:49Like, should people like this stay? Would we rather have Hagen-Scotten in there than whoever replaces them? And, and I think that in my view, it's actually better for these folks to, you know, uh, kick up a cloud of dust here and like draw attention to this person so people can watch it. So it's not like happening, you know, behind the scenes and cloak and dagger. Yeah, though you do need good people to stay. I said a couple of weeks ago that we're, it's going to require thousands of Mike Pence's to make it through whatever is to come over the course of the next four years. So I agree with you.

42:24And I think it's also matters that this is happening so early on. I can't believe we're only in the beginning of the fourth week of this. But we are going to need people who are interested in the rule of law in a traditional sense, not in the rule of law just because I said so in Napoleonic slash Trump terms to reference his weekend tweeting, which did not feel like him at all. I don't know. That felt more musk. Here's the thing that made me think it might be him. I was reading an article, and that quote is actually from a movie called Waterloo. It's not from Napoleon. And it's like... It's accredited.

43:02I guess. It's like maybe apocryphal, but like the act the direct quote is from waterloo the movie and the movie was in 1970 and that to me like feels like it could be a trump cultural reference like he might have watched a 1970s movie about napoleon like that feels like the thing he might have watched but maybe not i don't know that was the only because i agreed with you initially it did feel musky but um or somebody or steven miller like someone got control of the uh of the phone for a second. I don't want to belabor that Adam stuffed that much, but part of the deal that I guess he's made, which he claims he hasn't made a deal with the administration, but it's quite obvious since he had to sit on the Fox and Friends couch and be humiliated by Tom Homan a couple days ago, but is that they'll be easing or he's going to try to ease sanctuary city laws as it applies to Rikers.

43:58And the way that Sanctuary City policy works in New York is that ICE can't be near the prisons. And the reason that that's the case is not necessarily that we don't want criminals to be deported, but it's because they could pick up people who haven't actually been convicted yet, people who have just been charged and not gone through their due process, which they're entitled to. Do you have any views kind of thinking about the macro issue that I think liberals are finding themselves in as having been way too lax about illegal migration and even too lax on people who are here illegally and then committing violent crimes on how we should be approaching sanctuary policy?

44:43So my viewpoint, which is I think different from some of from like kind of the conventional wisdom among democratic strategists is that like maybe in february of 2025 like the right thing to do is to fight these guys tooth and nail and to figure out what happened and figure out with how things shake out and in 2026 summer you can decide to be strategic and like figure out which issues are the right ones for the for the electorate like we don't fucking know what's going to happen over the next year so just fight him and try to make him fail my exception to that is like on some of these like there are a couple of policies where the democrats like obviously got out way too far to the left away from public opinion and i and i just i do think sanctuary cities is one of them i'm i so like i was like the compassionate conservative bush republican i was i'm like about as liberal on immigration as you can get like i was part of the group of republicans that the republican voters wanted to overthrow and like like the kind of McCain view of the world of immigration.

45:48So I am extremely sympathetic to immigrants and the plight of immigrants who are fleeing oppression or fleeing whatever and want to come to America. That's what America is about. That said, some of the sanctuary city stuff, it just got overboard. It was just kind of crazy. And I understand there might be a specific reason and why it makes sense to not have ice in the prisons. But I just think that like fighting over whether prisoner illegal migrants who committed crimes in this country should be deported is like maybe one of the fights I would say. I think you can take a pass on this one if you're with Democrats.

46:33So that would be, that's my view on that. Yeah, it's definitely the way that a lot of Democrats feel you already referenced John Fetterman, or you'd be like, why are you wasting my time with this? Right? This is, you're in a privileged position that you got to be here illegally in the first place. And you can just see the next iteration of the Charlemagne ad about giving transgender surgeries for undocumented people in prison being written about something like this. It doesn't change the fact that the city council has to be the ones to revise sanctuary city laws. But I tend And to agree with you that kicking up a massive fuss about it probably just allows Trump and co.

47:17to continue to say that we're so out of step with where culture is. Here's the other thing. They are going to overstep on immigration. So here's the area where I would say Democrats do not, like, don't need to be overcautious. Right. Like, people do not want dreamers to be deported. Right. Like, people don't want that. People don't want like people who are in this country, you know, whose parents brought them to this country when they're kids, you know, to be deported or to be separated from their families. And there are already a couple of examples of like very sympathetic individuals who are being either detained by ICE, like there's like a guy in Newark who is a veteran who is like detained by ICE.

47:56And so I think that there are going to be ways to fight immigration from a humanitarian standpoint that are beneficial for Democrats. And they should choose those fights rather than fighting over whether prison deportations happen or not under the administration. Yeah, that leads me to something I've been thinking about in general, about where Democrats show up and stand up and amplifying stories like that on a local level versus in D.C. I mean, D.C., unless, you know, unless you represent Virginia or Maryland, like, I don't think any of this should be going on in D.C. I think you need to be back with your people and talking about stories like that.

48:39There was another one in Milwaukee, which I talked about on The Five, and rarely do my colleagues just shut up. But they were like, oh, my God, that happened, where they took in a toddler, a mom, and a grandmother for speaking Spanish. and someone had to come with birth certificates. They were Puerto Rican to get them out of the detention center. And the idea of a two-year-old in a detention center for allegedly, you know, where we're going to be holding people that have committed violent crimes and were here illegally when they're Americans and did nothing but speak another language seemed to hit the audience hard.

49:18Yeah. And this is, to me, and this is what I would say, local is fine but what you're doing is i think probably the most useful like on fox and on conservative media platforms and on culturally conservative platforms again like people have this totally wrong view of what like the manosphere podcasters think about all this stuff yeah like you give specific examples like the ones you're giving like they're 80 percent issues like people do not want most people besides racists and like extreme you know far-right freaks do not want people detained for speaking spanish in this country like that is not something that is popular actually and so if you can focus on a couple of those examples and bring them in to the lion's den i think that is like a use a much more useful um way to spend time than having a press conference on the Hill.

50:14I know Jared Moskowitz I saw was on Fox over the weekend. I just think that like more is more on this stuff. I always agree with you. And it's always great when I see others showing up, not even necessarily to get the clickbait that worked in 2016, you know, how everything was just about owning the other side and there were those huge fights. Now it's like showing up and being reasonable makes even more of a difference because people's partisan lines have been completely scrambled. Right. You can't predict it anymore in the same way. And so if you show up like Jared Moskowitz did and you sound reasonable about immigration, you know, he was one of the first ones to say, let me in the Doge caucus, for instance.

50:54But then you hold the line about stuff that really matters and it gets amplified like that because he was on, you know, on primetime. They love it. They're going to get the clip out into their ether. We'll get their clip out into our ether. And suddenly, you know, Jared Moskowitz is president. Yeah. Well, you go up to God's ears. But yeah, the prime example of this that I saw recently was Zelensky did the Lex Friedman interview. And like, if you just look at the comments on Lex Friedman's YouTube, which is like, he is he's like Mag in the Musk way, right? Like he is like contrarian or whatever.

51:25He's not like a far right. He's not like a social conservative. You know what I mean? Like he's like a contrarian. So he's in that sort of ecosystem. And so it's like that is a mostly anti-Ukraine ecosystem. So Zelensky does the interview and like there were a lot of people in the comments. So we're just kind of like, huh, like, oh, I was expecting to hate him a lot more or he made a couple of, you know, like. So anyway, it's worth doing that. Or even people with that interview in particular who are big Lex Friedman people, but thought like he went too far in pushing him to say that Russia should get to keep territory that they obviously illegally took.

52:00I thought that was, even if it was just for that soundbite, that it was worth the three hours of Zelensky's time to do it. I want to get to kind of the future of the anti-Trump Republican faction. But quickly, are you pro-Cuomo, anti-Cuomo? Because he, did you see the ad he released? The Valentine's Day ad where he's with all of these older women, mostly women of color, talking about how tough it is right now for New Yorkers. that we can always find a way forward and that the opposite of hate, the four-letter word that matters most is love. I think it was the phraseology. I am anti-Cuomo. I think that he handled COVID atrociously in addition to just all of his personal misdeeds.

52:46I maybe have some personal bias. I've got some friends who are in conflict with Andrew Cuomo, let's just say. um and uh so i think he's kind of a creep i will say though like democrats need more people that like quote that who are like cuomo who talk normal and he talks italian but like you can tell he's being authentically himself he doesn't talk like a fucking valedictorian kid that's trying to appease the bosses in a powerpoint presentation and um i think that democrats could learn from that. And I don't, you know, I don't, I'm no fan of his in particular, but I think that that is, people want it.

53:32And I won't, I wouldn't be surprised if he's successful in the mayor's race. Yeah. It's pretty crazy to think about, but the amount of normie Democrats that I know who don't like Cuomo for a whole host of reasons, whether it's, you know, the sexual harassment charges or even the management of COVID and lost people in nursing homes and just really wanted an apology for him that he couldn't get out there, just couldn't muster the strength to say I would have done things a little bit differently, which I think would have gone a tremendously long way. They're like, I could use a competent gangster right now.

54:08Like the city is in shitty trouble at this point. I hate being on the subway. And he feels like when you look at Adam's on the other side of this and you think I'm not going to go for someone as progressive as like Scott Stringer, that he might be the answer. Woof. All right. One more break. It's just depressing. It is a little depressing. But one more quick break. Stay with us. In business, they say you can have better, cheaper or faster, but you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters, and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

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56:41Welcome back. Before we wrap, and we've already been touching on this a little bit, but I want to get into it more deeply with you. There aren't that many Republicans openly pushing back against Trump's agenda these days. Mitch McConnell, for instance, was the lone Republican to vote against confirming Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. And Tim, you pointed out on The Bulwark that even the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, usually pretty Trump-friendly, finally took a shot at his economic policies. What do you think is the future for the anti-Trump Republicans in a party that seems like they've given up a bit, besides an editorial or two?

57:17Yeah, there's no future. Yeah, there's no future. There's no present. I felt, look, I felt this way for a while. I'll give you a little scoop. I don't know if this is a scoop. If anybody cares about me, would, would, uh, would care about this. Nobody else would. But like, I was planning on writing a book that was about, you know, that was the shorthand pitch for it was Trump is forever that I just like, I felt like that, that the MAGA, that the Republican voters want Trump or something like it, right? Like whatever comes after Trump, if he ever goes away, you know, will obviously not be a, uh, a carbon copy of him because he has like a lot of unique traits and eccentricities And like, it's, you know, you've seen how hard it is to copy them at the local level and how that has failed in a lot of ways with, you know, Carrie Lake and others.

58:03um but uh but directionally like the idea that of america first of fighting these culture war battles of not caring about norms and institutions and you know not caring about like the traditional you know free markets and free people ethos of the 80s and 90s 2000s republicans like all of that is gone right um and it was already going to be gone even if kamala harris had won because that's just what that parties are just parties are not actually permanent coherent ideological groups they are a reflection of a group of people and that group of people can change over time and it might change them up might change the nature of the party and trump has massively changed the makeup of the republican party and as a result that will be in his image for at least, you know, until the next realignment for probably a quarter century or something.

59:00So I just think that is what's happening. I think that there'll be individual fights on the outskirts, right? Like you mentioned this Wall Street Journal article, which was an attack on him over tariffs and pushing for lower interest rates given threats for inflation. You know, if we get into a more normal future in 2028 where Trump doesn't try to run again and like, you know, there's a primary, there will be some people who are like Trumpy or pro-tariff And there'll be some people who are more traditional, free market, conservative on trade. And on some of those issues, you know, it won't always fall on the Trump side of the line.

59:33I think that there will still be little skirmishes in the ideological coalition. But directionally, things are to Trump. And people, nobody is going to stand up to them except for people like Mitch McConnell, who are already one foot out the door. And that's basically what we've seen for like a decade now. Do you have any idea about what happened during these confirmations to people like Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Todd Young in Indiana, or I should say from Indiana, who was really anti-Tulsi, for instance? I mean, is it straight like doxing, threatening you with a primary? Like Bill Cassidy already voted to convict him.

1:00:14So I don't this idea that he promised Cassidy to essentially RFK Jr. to not be who he is. Right. And to say, you can be my dad and you can check in on me every day and make sure that I'm not going to do these things when even the CDC site already has information about the flu down. So obviously that's not going to hold up. Like what level of threatening or trolling was going on to make people like this lay down and vote for every single one of these nominees? Yeah. And the Joni Ernst thing with Hague Seth was the, was really, you know, I think the test case, yeah, I wanted the test for this. I mean, I was in Iowa, so I worked in Iowa on a couple of campaigns.

1:00:57I was in Iowa, um, uh, like during when all this was happening, it was like about, and I was like at a event with a lot of Republicans. Um, and, uh, and, you know, it was like in between when she had spoken out and when she had kind of folded. Right. Right. And to a person, I could not find a person at this event that thought she was going to hold the line eventually. And there were some very pro-Joan-y people there. Right. And to people who like her and wish she would have held the line. Across the board, MAGA to people who are like me, who are lapsed. Everybody thought no, because the voters wanted, you know, want Trump to get what he wants.

1:01:35Like, that's what they want. And so she was just getting totally bullied online, phone calls. And I think the other senators really saw that. I think in addition to that, I do think in these private meetings, Trump and them basically said to the nominees, just tell these people whatever they want to hear. Who cares? We'll figure it out on the back end. Right. Again, because these are not rigid ideologues. Like it's it's that is not what Trump is. So I think that helped, you know, give a rationale to some of these senators to do the easy thing. and I also just I Jesse I just fundamentally don't think anybody is going to actually stand up besides McConnell who's one step out the door and Murkowski and Collins will choose their spots because they have kind of a different sort of brand everybody else I was with Gates at a TP I go to the TPUSA annual gathering every year to just kind of well you live in Fox World I don't I want to make sure I'm not in my little bubble my little resistance you know feels like a very unsafe place to test it out it's fine no no no it's fine And the types of people that go to those sorts of things are the people you got to worry about are the people who are alone in their basement getting radicalized, honestly.

1:02:41Like people that show up to a gathering. At least I found them to be relatively sociable. I had a few people shit talk me, but I never felt unsafe. They're not bad to your face ever. I've always found everyone is like, I feel so terrible that I've been calling you the C word online for three years. And I'm like, well, stop doing that. And I'm so nice. Do you want a picture? Yeah, right? That's hilarious. So anyway, I was with Gates and I was like, why did you drop? Like, I was like, because I think that you were going to get through. And Gates was like, well, John Curtis, the guy from Utah who replaced Mitt, told me, and I wasn't taped, it wasn't an interview, so I wasn't taping it.

1:03:17I forget the exact line, but it was something like, I would sacrifice my children before I would confirm you. It was some, like, very ostentatious comment about, and so Gates was like, I didn't think, you know, it was clear I wasn't going to get through. And I said to him, I was like, eh, Curtis would have folded. And I, like, really think I'm right about that. Like, I do think that there is a lot of behind the scenes people, you know, trying to use the little influence they can without creating any backlash. Like, when push comes to shove, like, the voters are where their voters are. And so, like, that is why you're not seeing anybody like the Todd Youngs of the world actually stand up.

1:03:54Yeah. Unpopular opinion, but I don't think that you have to do everything that the voters want. Like, they picked a person who can also think for themselves, who broadly represents their interests, right, and understands their constituency, but can think for themselves. So if you pick, you know, one of 15 people that you don't think is unqualified for to kind of lay down your marker in the sand and say, your children will be vaccinated or we will not have someone who thinks Assad wasn't really that bad, that that might be good for you long term. But I'm also not running for public office. I say that to the Republicans I talk to all the time.

1:04:34Fewer and fewer of them actually want to talk to me. So, you know, maybe that's part of my life. My influence isn't working. But I'm like, you don't have to be me. Like, I'm not asking Republican senators or congressmen to troll Trump online, you know, to try to own him, you know, to like fight everything. Like, there's a huge space between me and like total submission. and it's just like they've kind of decided to abandon that whole space like there's just nobody that has decided to try to occupy that and succeed and i think that's wrong i think people could i mean collins i guess is the as the example is the example like i don't really love susan collins everything that she's done but she did manage to occupy that space in between total never trumper and total trump sycophant and it worked for her she was like the only senator uh well this cycle a couple happened.

1:05:24But before, you know, during the first Trump, she was the only senator that won and went the opposite way as the state, you know, in 2016 and 2020. Yeah. You're saying that I wasted my dollars on Sarah Gideon. No, I think that was a worthwhile use of dollars for Sarah Gideon. You might, I don't know if you gave any money to Jamie Harrison or that might have been a waste. No, I have a friend who is a doctor and loves politics, but isn't in the day to day insanity. She'll send me like a New York Times article the day after and she'll be like, can you believe this? And I'm like, I need to talk to you about how fast the news cycle goes.

1:06:00But she'll regularly send me a link to various Democrats and she goes, worth my money? I'm like, well, how much money? Like if you want to be spreading$10 all over the place, go ahead for it. But Amy McGrath is never going to be the senator that takes Mitch McConnell's seat. Okay, thank you so much for being here. That's it for this episode. Thank you for joining us, Tim, and the Raging Moderates crew. Our producers are David Toledo and Chinene Onike. Our technical director is Drew Burrows. You can now find Raging Moderates on its own feed every Tuesday. That's right, its own feed. There, you'll get exclusive interviews with smart voices in politics like our latest guest, Congressman Pat Ryan.

1:06:42Follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Also, follow Tim in all of Bulwark World. Thank you for being with us. Well, just me. Scott's not here, but he loves you from afar. I loved it. Good to be here. We'll be doing it again soon. Peace. Bye.