Trump Details His Dictatorial Plans

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You know, from being a little drunk, alive with Love It. That's right. It's Tim Miller. Thanks for being here, Tim. I'm so excited.

I think this is it. This is official.

At this moment. And.

You don't know that this is coming. 20-year-olds out there, this is happening for you in your 40s. There's somebody in your life right now and you're like, that guy? Never. But then, in your 40, you're like, wow, we like each other a lot.

I never said never,

And it's it's worrying. The Biden administration is reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, while student protests envelop campus buildings and our national attention. Marjorie Taylor Greene makes her move. Plus, the vice president sits down with Drew Barrymore and makes everyone a little uncomfortable. OK, first up, Trump, he did something that feels like it's from another era.

He sat down for an interview with Time magazine in Palm Beach, lasted over an hour. All the, all the pomp and circumstance, the description of the room, the, the transcript, has the aide coming in and saying, Mr. Trump has to get to dinner. We get some color about the playlist. It's the same playlist.

Sinead O'Connor, January 6th choir, the two genders. And and then they did a follow up 20 minute conversation. So we'll get to all the details. But just were you surprised, Tim, to see Donald Trump?

I personally did not know that. I thought Time had gone fully digital. And I was like, Mr. Trump might be an idiot, you know, and he might have the wool pulled over his eyes a couple of times, but he certainly would not do an interview because he wanted a fake digital cover. And this man would require a real physical cover.

And then he would do an interview where he shames himself and really freaks everybody out about what a Trump term would look like, and provides a political gift to Joe Biden. So I do think it makes sense. for then, once I knew that, that Trump could have the time cover that he could frame, because that's what he really values. And then, once I, I interviewed the reporter this morning, Eric Cordelessa, and great reporter, tough interview. So please don't take this the wrong way, Eric, but he does give off like, I got drunk with Madison Cawthorne at a Duke lacrosse party vibes.

And so like, once I spent more time talking to him, I was like, Oh, yeah. Okay. This makes sense. The Trump people felt like this guy was one of them, you know, he's going to get his cover. and, uh, you know, consequences be damned.

I also associate Time Magazine now with the kind of downfall of Newsweek, uh, and US News, but it's different. But there was the other piece of this too, which is like, let's say, you, you were thinking about this in a more traditional way, the idea behind sitting down for a long print interview, like there's no video, there's no audio. That's just a transcript. Um, was that there? w?

it was some, there was some value to getting out to elite news followers, to journalists, to close, uh, watchers of politics, the, the vision, the kind of detailed vision that you wouldn't get on a stump speech, that you wouldn't won't get in shorter television hits. to give people the context of what Trump's trying to do. I don't believe they were doing anything as sophisticated as that, but if they were, what on earth were they hoping to accomplish by having the president, the former president, walk through all this stuff?

Okay. Granted that. now, moving on, what was their strategy beyond that? I really, I do not know. I, I, I do not know.

I don't, it doesn't seem like he went into the interview, like going back to my days, you know, we certainly had some fails with my candidates, but if Jeb was going to do a long sit down interview, certainly sometimes he would get stumped or he'd say something wrong, or, but, but we would at least have like a, a proactive message. we were trying to get across, right? That you would, that if you looked at the transcript, you could see that he was coming back to this, whether it was an issue or whether it was a argument that he was trying to put forth. That was not what this was. I, it is total stream of consciousness, Donald Trump, uh, it is indistinguishable from his rallies, uh, except for the fact that, uh, the reporter, Eric, got to kind of direct him, uh, into some, you know, into, into like a briar pit, um, a little bit on, on abortion in particular, but also on some other issues.

And there was no sign that they had like a proactive message.

He also refuses to say a lot. For example, he, he wouldn't say he'd veto a national abortion ban. He wouldn't say defend Taiwan. He wouldn't say he supports a two state solution between Israel and Palestine. He wouldn't commit to supporting Ukraine's defense.

Almost immediately. The Biden campaign went on offense with the interview, in particular on Trump's abortion comments, not just refusing to say he'd veto a ban, but when asked whether states should monitor women's pregnancies to see if they violated an abortion ban, Trump said, I think they might do that on abortion. Uh, what jumped out at you? and then, and we can go beyond that.

But he personally, like, does, obviously doesn't care. And so he doesn't know how to speak the language of pro-lifers. Like a, an act, somebody who has a genuine pro-lifer, I think, would at least be like, astute enough to be able to, uh, move around. the question of are, are you, are you comfortable with states monitoring women's pregnancies? Yeah.

And he feels like just by saying, oh, well, states get to decide, like that's some amulet that, like, protects him from all criticism on this, right. That he's like, oh, I don't know. I guess I'm comfortable if the states decide to do it, the states decide to do it. And that is a crazy view, right? That, that is going to be very useful to Biden and ads, where he says, essentially, if, during a Trump presidency, states want to monitor women's pregnancies so they can determine how far along they are in the gestational period in order to determine whether or not they would have access to an abortion.

I, I, you know, that is deep state 1984 type shit targeting women. And he just walked right into it. I think in large part, because he hasn't thought about this stuff deeply at all, never even occurred to him that there might be a question about whether a woman is at six weeks or nine, right? Like none of this stuff, he hasn't thought through any of this. And so he's just like, yeah, I guess if the states want to monitor women, they're going to monitor.

You know, he was asked about what his, what his policy position is going to be on Miffa-Pristone. his only response, by the way, he didn't say what it would be, but he says it won't be very surprising, which I took to mean, whatever he says, he really hopes people don't pay too much attention to it. Um, what else jumped out at you? Yeah. The Miffa-Pristone thing was funny because.

Like, uh, it's just like the Obamacare, the healthcare plan. Uh, so he still doesn't have that. Um, but again, I think part of that, I did wonder if during the first interview, he didn't, if he knew what Miffa-Pristone was, you know, and he was buying himself two weeks, but you think by the second interview, he would, maybe he's just trying to dodge and buy time. Cause it was similar to the IVF. And this takes you out of, into even pro-life.

people, right? Like, are horrified by the idea that women might not have access to Miffa-Pristone in like the first days after, um, you know, having sex, right? Like. there are people that are, that would support a 15 week ban. that think.

it's crazy that states want to ban, um, you know, access to Miffa-Pristone, for example. And so, you know, that gets him to a really dicey position, you know, if he, if he isn't, doesn't have a clear answer on that. And, and he did it over the course of two, two interviews, because again, I think that he thinks that he's got to get out of jail free card here. with this, the states can decide thing. But, but obviously, once you get, if you're going to sit down with time for an hour and a half, there are a lot of holes in the states can decide.

Yes. And his ignorance on this is a.

Of course he won't, he won't, he won't have the discipline or attention.

And Trump says essentially, yes. It's kind of garbled Trump words. So like, yes, I would only want, I would feel very, you know, he said something like I'd feel very strongly against, you know, somebody is too stupid to realize that the election was stolen from me. Now, to me, that just puts all of this in a very important perspective, which is like, they're going to be much more judicious, as maybe the wrong word, careful about hiring the kookiest people possible. Right.

And like the types. Yeah. And so I thought that to me was, was as revealing as any of the policy stuff in the interview. And as I want to.

The extending the Bush tax cuts is inflationary, fewer immigrants into the country, uh, is inflationary. Cause that affects, um, you know, the number of people that we have in the workforce, uh, tariffs are obviously inflationary. Um, so, you know, is there a way to make, to make that message for Biden? I think it's kind of a tough message for Biden to, to actually implement in a campaign setting, but to me, uh, maybe that's something for Nikki Haley voters, uh, that we can, that we can use. And then, and then, as someone, you know, who has feelings and compassion, uh, the deportation plans are absolutely insane, insane.

And, and he keeps, can, he goes along every step? The reporter asked him, you know, he's like, well, would you call in the national guard? Yes. Would you call in the military? Yes.

How are you actually going to implement this? local police forces? We're going to have local cops being our, you know, uh, uh, deportation, uh, troopers. And, and if, and if a local police force, it doesn't want to be part of the Donald Trump, uh, deportation efforts, uh, you know, where he specifically cites operation wetback, then he's like, well, then we'll stop funding them. Like, we're going to not give funds to police, you know, uh, uh, to local police, you know, so we're going to defund the police that will not do illegal deportations.

Um, so, I mean, obviously, I think that is the most alarming and the thing that I would be also the most scared about being actually implemented if he were to win, because he are, that's the one area where he already has a team of competent sociopaths around him, led by Steven Miller, who would be able to, to execute on it. Yeah. And they already, by the.

And they've, and they, instead of just having two or three people who are like really get off on child separation, you have like three or four times more that, you know, they get, they get brought in because they've done a more thorough vetting job of staff to ensure that they're fully on board with these deportation plans. I mean, I think that it's really, it's really scary and it's really kind of hard to calculate how, how much more damage they could do to immigrants and migrants.

Because if some, you know, rogue liberal judge that Joe Biden appointed or some prosecutor goes after them, Trump will just pardon them. So I think you could, the combining of the pardon with the schedule F, I think like, really creates a very different.

mercenary about it. One of the challenges, right, is, you want to tell people on imports, right? Hey, if, if, if, if Trump puts a 10% tariff on all these imports, it's actually going to cause the kind of inflation that's been bothering you for years. But I do think the problem is that a lot of people sort this into a made in America, American manufacturing bucket, rightfully so. But it, but, but, but I worry a little bit that when we fight back against that kind of a policy, it's tough to do, because you end up sound, you don't want to sound like a 2000s era Democrat talking about how good NAFTA is going to be.

And then you got Ross Perot talking about the sucking sound of American jobs. Like, how do you talk about a policy? that I have a feeling at the very least, is one that, like maybe people will have mixed feelings about because they do worry about, about manufacturing and they do want jobs to be in the US. Yeah. I mean, and Joe.

I don't want to get into that stuff later, but Trump was pretty harsh on Israel. I don't think can be seen as a reliable partner for Israel, um, based on his comments in this interview, the tariffs, if you combine the threats to take out of NATO, you know, this is not a huge segment of the population, but I think that you can micro target some people in the Atlanta Philly burbs, you know, that have been traditional Republican voters that also are responsive to the democracy message. You can layer on top of that, this guy's going to do a 10%. they do like that for that crew, like the, the 10% tax on tariffs, they respond to it. Like I would like, this is going to be horrible.

This is, you know, anti-market, is going to increase costs. So I think it's more useful for that group to use it, to say to, like working class people that are worried about prices, the grocery store, I don't know. It feels like a bank shot and that the campaign probably have.

The, the, and that, by the way, it's not a judgment of the, of the journalist or the piece, because the piece is very clear. Like he is contradictory. And I do think, like the, the reporter really does follow up and push back and come back to things. Trump is just, you know, he's just, it's, it's sand through your fingers, but he's, but just, here's what he said about whether or not there should be a two-state solution. Most people thought it was going to be a two-state solution.

I'm not sure a two-state solution anymore is going to work. Everybody was talking about two States. Even when I was there, I was saying, what do you like here? Do you like two States? Now people are going back to, it depends where you are.

every day. It changes. Now, if Israel is making progress, they don't want two States. They want everything. And if Israel is not making progress, sometimes they talk about two-state solution.

Two-state solution seemed to be the idea that people like most the policy or the idea that people liked above. Do you like it? Says the reporter. It depends when there was a time when I thought two States could work. Now, I think two States is going to be very, very tough.

I think it's going to be much tougher to get. I also think you have fewer people that liked the idea. You had a lot of people that liked the idea four years ago. Today, you have far fewer people that.

how differently he'd go about a second term? He talks about how he wouldn't wait for people to quit. now. He'd fire them. You mentioned schedule F.

What jumped out at you?

We say this. It's almost cliched to be like, oh, it's a cult. It is kind of a cult. You have to in order to join this administration, you have to at least pay lip service to denying reality.

That sets a tone. It sets a tone with the pardons. It sets a tone for the existing people that they know that they could be fired, where it's like, now, you have to watch yourself. I might have told this on this podcast before. I forget, but I had a friend that was working at the RNC.

There was one of the quote unquote good ones who stuck around. He was a lifer at the RNC. On a couple of conference calls, he's like, I don't know about this thing. Mr. Trump is saying.

It's a little crazy. I don't know if the RNC needs to echo this. He did two or three times. Jared Kushter was out on any of these calls. He gets a call from Jared Kushter out of the blue one day.

He's like, are you good? Are we all good? Is everybody on the same page? That kind of mafioso attitude, which they had in the first term, but they didn't know how to implement. I think, if you just listen to him now, that's the one thing where it's like, they've got a hand on that.

now. They might have people around who aren't true believers, but they're going to be the types of people who are sociopathic enough to not ever reveal that they're not a true believer. I also think it does something else.

And so now you say to these people, if you want to be part of Trump world, you've got to sign on to this. He takes away people's escape ramp. And I do think that that makes people more beholden to him, which I also think is part of it. Totally agree. The other piece of this is there are a lot of people thinking very hard around Trump, not Trump, about how he can better use federal power.

I saw a blast from the past phrase, the unitary executive theory, back from the Bush administration. They also talk about trying to get the president more authority to not spend money. Congress has appropriated, right? This would be for everything from not sending money to the police to not funding social safety net.

And, you know, because they just whatever. they always saw me as an enemy, and the one of them as an enemy within, and now I'm an enemy without. in some ways, I'm less threatening. And so, when I talked to them, this is what they talk about all the time, right? Like that.

they've had to have learned from the first term, right? That, that, you know, consolidating power within the executive, that there was a lot of deferring, Trump didn't know any better. Trump was not really happy to kind of let Paul Ryan do the legislating and Mitch McConnell, he had Paul and Mitch, he got to do the fun stuff. They did the dirty work, right? And, and the mindset is.

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All right. While Trump was apparently dozing off in court, president Biden administration, we're having a big week. yesterday. The associated press reported that the DEA is taking steps towards reclassifying marijuana. Anonymous sources said that attorney general Merrick Garland will formally recommend moving marijuana from the schedule one drug to a schedule three drug.

that puts it alongside testosterone and Tylenol, and Garland's recommendation will trigger the start of a long process. But given that 70% of Americans support, legalization seems like a great step. Yeah. Is we tied Tim? Yeah.

Are we going to light?

I don't know if you noticed that. And so I think that he has been somewhat resistant to this, but I guess a political matter. It is fucking obvious, just based on what has been like, look, what happens on ballot initiatives anywhere. I mean, like in Missouri, they passed a, you know, kind of marijuana decriminalization or, uh, uh, you know, maybe it was medical, but I, like Missouri has moved, like, basically into Alabama territory. when it comes to like voting for Republicans, um, you know, and voting for far right Republicans and blowout elections, and like on the same ballot, they are voting for, um, liberalizing marijuana laws.

Uh, so it seems like a no brainer from that perspective, as a motivation tool. I do wonder, I guess maybe I'd throw that question back on you. Like, is it kind of too late? Like to you, like, like there was like a period, like in 2015,, it'd be like, let's get the youth excited by talking about legalizing marijuana. I don't know that the youth really care about that anymore.

Yes. Well, I think part of the problem.

Weed is legal in California, even though it is still a schedule, one drug. Um, and then there will be a lot of places where, even if it is, uh, reclassified, there won't be a recreational weed because it's a state state question. I remember that I was, I wanted to, um, I was reflecting on something, which is, I think we owe, uh, uh, certain old school conservative pundits from the nineties. and because I vividly remember Robert Novak. Uh, Robert Novak was a curmudgeonly, uh, conservative, uh, television pundit.

And I remember there was this debate about medical marijuana and one by one, everyone around the meet the press table was talking about how it was a good step and it helps people who have illnesses. And, um, yes, you know, weed isn't what it was in the 1960s and this is supported, blah, blah, blah. And then they get to Robert Novak and he goes, this is the hippies. This is what the hippies are doing. This is the hippies revenge.

They've been trying to get legal marijuana. This is a gateway and I don't support it. I don't support legal marijuana. I don't support legal drugs and I don't support the hippies. And I just want to say that was what was happening.

Medical marijuana was a gateway to getting to legal marijuana recreationally. And I think deep down, we all knew that at the time, and you were being gaslit. Yeah. You're dead now, Robert Novak. But.

I don't know. I guess it wasn't, I wasn't dressed gay enough that day. And so like, will you sign this petition for, to help support the gay agenda? And I was like, well, my old instincts came back out. I was like, wait a minute, there's no gay agenda.

The conservatives are always like. the gays have an agenda. Then we're always like, no, what are you talking about? No, we just want equal rights. There's no gay agenda.

Turned out, there was a gay agenda. Actually, once we got the rights, we're fit, we're free to talk about it. So marijuana, it was a gateway, and the gays, we did have an agenda, and the nineties Republican.

Following a recommendation from the federal health and human services department. after the public comment period and a review by an administrative judge, the agency would eventually publish the rule. Hey Tim, maybe we do need a Trump's cleansing.

I maintain that view. I do have to say it. I'm discussing, I have, I'm talking to Josh Shapiro here in a few hours. And one thing I want to ask him, which I'm excited to hear, is like, you know, I 95 collapses. I'm like, it's fixed in two days.

It's fixed in two days. And I'm like over. in California, they've been trying to build a train for like 20 years now. I like, we spent a hundred, $800 million and we haven't even put down any tracks, you know, cause? we have CEQA.

And so I don't know. Yeah, we could, I think we could get legalized pot and trains and roads that work a little bit faster, just a little bit faster. We can have a couple of bureaucrats still. I don't want to fire too many people, but I don't know, maybe do less,

I, just, for the record, I want us, if there is any place where we can move faster, it was not to gut the government, 2010 era, Tim Miller style. All right. I can be on.

I do think, I do think Biden being out there on marijuana, ultimately, like I, I think that, put aside the, like, the, the policy taking time and the fact that, to your point, it does feel like weed has legalized itself. I do think that there is value to having, like, I think, for people, people who know that this policy is just completely indefensible, I would like to see President Biden saying, I'm out there trying to do this. And, and, by the way, I've taken steps on behalf of people that have been locked up for nonviolent marijuana offenses. I think that that's all really positive. Yeah.

We've been joking about this,

I think that's right. I just, I also just,

The, the, the, the Zionists, have taken back Hamilton hall while protesters had occupied it and barricaded it. Officers also cleared out an encampment at city college. Nearly 300 people were arrested, according to a very satisfied Eric Adams. A lot is happening everywhere. Tulane, Yale, university of Wisconsin.

here in LA. There was an ugly physical altercation between pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA, who had fortified their encampment with plywood barriers, and a group of what appeared to be pro-Israel counter-protesters trying to tear down those barriers and throwing things into the encampment. There's disturbing video out there of the two sides fighting. Eventually, the police arrived and separated the groups. Tim, you made a version of this point last night.

It is what I think is probably a very popular, but quieter sentiment, which is basically the fact that there is a lack of space in this debate for people who are opposed to the war, believe the Palestinians deserve freedom and self-determination, opposed to perpetuating a famine, murdering civilians, opposed to the antisemitism and Islamophobia around these protests and opposed, and this is a quote of yours, opposed to militarized police marching on the Portlandia quad, like they're invading Fallujah.

What? And, and it was, I was glad to see you had a back and forth with Mehdi Hassan, who we had on Love or Leave It last week. And the fact that I think that there was so much comedy between the two of you, I think, speaks to the fact that there really hasn't been that space during this moment, in part, because I think Republicans don't want it to be, they want to talk about the chaos. They want to, they want to exploit this, but I also think the media owns this. I think Democrats own this, and the students themselves, by the way, who have agency and are, ought to be held responsible for their words and their actions.

But, but how do we make space for that kind of a dialogue, which is, I think, clearly what's needed. Yeah, we're doing it right now. So.

And, and I feel like that there are a lot of people that have the views about this conflict and these protests. And, and there's, and, and, and, and I think that we need to make it okay for people to express their views without immediately going to ad hominem. and, you know, saying, oh, that means you're on Bibi's side. That means you're on the terrorist's side. Like when it comes to Bibi and when it comes to Hamas, I think about, are you ever on Reddit?

You know, the, from time to time, you know, the, am I the asshole? Reddit feed? Yes. Right. So, so on the, am I the asshole, somebody writes, you know, a story and tell about how they've been a jerk to their colleague or something.

And then, then the responders can say either you're an asshole or you're not an asshole, but there are some situations where the commenters respond, ESH, everybody sucks here. And like, that's how I feel about the Hamas Bibi situation. Like everybody sucks here. Okay. Like, obviously not the innocent people that have been killed or the, whether they were in a kibbutz or whether they're in Gaza, but when it comes to the leadership of Israel, uh, pretty much everybody sucks here.

When it comes to Hamas, who is still holding hostages and still using their own people as human shields, everybody sucks here. And unfortunately I'm, I feel that way, a little bit about the Columbia situation, where I think there are many protesters who are very earnest in their protest against the war. And I think this was part of me and Maddie's exchange yesterday, where Maddie's like, well, Tim, the reason why they're not protesting Hamas is because we're not giving weapons to Hamas. And they're only protesting Israel, because that's, you know, where we have some control in our democratic government. I'm like, okay, I guess that's fine.

But it'd be nice to have, if the protest also included some people with signs. that said, by the way, Hamas sucks too. And unfortunately, what I see in those protests are a couple of people that have like Hezbollah flags, or a couple of people that are like, Jews should go back to Europe or America where they came from, which is just a historical or a glory to our martyrs. All that stuff makes me uncomfortable. And that is not to impugn everybody, that is, that has very real, earnest concerns about the humanitarian crisis.

But I would like to see a little bit more, you know, uh, if the goal of these protests is, hey, we need a ceasefire, then we should also at least be expressing that we're pretty upset about the main party that's preventing us from a ceasefire right now, which is Hamas. Um, and so anyway, that's why I'm kind of like everybody sucks here when it comes to those protests. also. And also the cops, which was wit, and Eric Adams, which is way overkill. And it's only in America and third world countries.

Like there's, this is not happening in Germany or in, you know, Sweden, if they're, if they're protests, you know, it's very nice officers with little, little batons, like asking people to move off the property. Like the idea that these fucking face masks, like. it's all, it's crazy. Yeah. There was a, there was somebody,

Like you're, you're, you are correct. Like it is both, I think, less effective. And I think less, uh, I think, uh, uh, morally defensible to not, uh, make denouncing Hamas is a holding of hostage, a part of what you're, uh, what you're trying to protest. But then sometimes I also think just, uh, okay, I don't agree with a lot of what these protesters are saying. I'm sure I would find them quite annoying, right?

However, they have successfully drawn attention to what is the urgent moral crisis, half a world away, where children and civilians are being killed, where there seems to be no end in sight to this conflict, even as a ceasefire is being negotiated. And then I think, well, you know what? It doesn't really matter that I disagree with what these protesters are saying on the larger issue or the fact that I find the ramifications of their views abhorrent, because what it would actually mean, uh, to, to, to achieve what they claim to be their goals. I find it abhorrent because what they are actually protesting right now is something that I completely agree with, which is the inhumane and despicable conduct of this war. And I don't want to be a person who makes the same mistake that a lot of people make when they look at a protest, which is get sucked into a debate over its tactics and methods, rather than putting aside the longer term problems with the BDS movement or the ways in which I disagree with it, but rather what are they drawing attention to and are they right to do it?

And the fact that there's some more, uh, um, you know, food trucks are getting in, you know, would that have happened without the, I don't know, uh, would that have without the protests? Uh, you know, it's hard to do that counterfactual. I will say this, though. There's just not another situation for a group besides Jews where it would be acceptable, uh, in polite liberal society to like hold a protest where people are just, uh, where there are members of the protest that are dehumanizing and personally attacking people from a specific religious or ethnic group. Like, it's hard to imagine that being acceptable and liberal society for targeting any group except for Jews.

And so I, just like, there, feels like there should be a way. There's not, it's a protest, right? There are going to be a lot of people out there. You can, you can not pick one sign. Like, sure.

Like, like. there's no way to totally control every protester sign or chant. And there've been some gross chants from the pro Jewish counter protesters, by the way. Uh, but like, at a broader enough level, there's a certain group that doesn't feel safe and they feel like they're being attacked. Like there would be more widespread condemnation about that.

If I think, if that's other groups. And I think that's been, that's been, that's upset a lot of Jewish people and a lot of, you know, people that are allies of Jewish folks and, or just observers.

Why, why does this happen? Right? How, why does this, why does there, even if, even if most of the protesters, while saying things that I think ultimately would resort into a cataclysm for millions of Jewish people in Israel, uh, they're not shouting antisemitic statements. They're not shouting slurs, but they're, but, but people that do do that are drawn to the outskirts or are inside of these protests. We saw one of the leaders in Columbia, which has also gotten an absurd amount of attention, but nevertheless saying horrible things, uh, wasn't, uh, wasn't, wasn't, uh, came to attention.

Shocking that that person is still, uh, um, uh, was shot, was walking around until, uh, it drew national embarrassment for the school. Um, but I do think that that's a question, right? Why did, why does this draw this kind of antisemitism? And I think it is because this line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is a hard one to draw. And I see it myself where you see this word Zionist being thrown at people in a way that, uh, um, it does get my back up because it's so quick to be thrown as a slur.

Um, and, and so I just, in the end of just like,

That's a very gay city, by the way, a really diverse city and like, and have moved there and love being there. And they protested Bibi. They do not like the Likud government, but they believe Israel has a right to exist. And, and, and they dress visibly Jewish and, you know, they have the star David necklace or whatever. And they're, they're being treated like in the, by, uh, by their friends, like on social media and by some of these protesters, they're being treated terribly.

And so, yeah, sure. They're anti-Zionist Jews that are part of the, the protests, but, like that group, they didn't do anything wrong. Like, they're not bombing Hamas, their friends or relatives or acquaintances got killed by Hamas. Right. And all they're trying to say is we have a right to exist too.

And we want to have a right to exist peacefully. And we want the Palestinians to be able to get aid. I, those people aren't doing anything wrong and, and they're, they're being treated very poorly by the protesters. Is that the acute problem? Like, as compared as there, are there feelings as important as the dead Palestinian kids?

Of course not. That's why you always have to caveat. That's why you have this conversation. Every time you say that. Yeah.

Yeah. Everyone sucks here. Everyone, a lot of people are getting screwed here, but it's worth saying, though. I think it's worth saying for another reason,

I don't like how it makes people feel. How Americans currently feel is not the most important thing. I think it is because the larger struggle that, that, that peace in this larger struggle requires.

Like let's talk about, every time I'm on, you're trying to do it. You're doing it for your, it's intentional. I get it. That's fine. I'm happy to do it.

I'm happy to.

One last crass political question about this situation, which is Republicans like this. They like the chaos. Yeah. They like trying to drive a wedge between Democrats and their Jewish constituency. How worried are you about it?

And what would you?

just broadly people of color. I think there's a lot of folks that have genuine unhappiness and concerns situation. It's a wedge. And so, yeah, look, I think that the Republicans do see this as a political opportunity. They did not see any, with maybe the exception of, like the one or two random libertarians who are in there.

Our friend, Justin Amash is gone. So maybe there aren't any good ones left. You know, they don't mind seeing the cops with their batons, you know, going in there and knocking some heads. They think that's a winner for them. Donald Trump was, I think, bleeded.

and the protests now, like. there is no nuance here. You know, Jared Kushner is talking about, you know, building Mar-a-Lago, you know, on the strip in Gaza. So I think it's a winner across the board. They might be right.

And I think that it's concerning. You know, it's like it is concerning, if there are, you know, young voter like Joe Biden has a very fragile coalition, which includes people that are quite Israel sympathetic in the Democratic coalition, but also kind of the swing voters, you know, who left the Republican Party over Trump that are not happy with him. The young voters are in his coalition. Dearborn voters are in his coalition. I mean, so he has to navigate a very broad and wide coalition that has very different views on this.

Republicans are happy to take advantage of it. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's coalition is like mostly, either pro-Israel or totally anti-Semitic. So it's a little bit less, it's like less of a.

They're trying to say that Jews are unsafe, right? They're trying to go after that constituency.

But, anecdotally speaking, you know, this, is this 1%? Is this 2%? I don't want to overstate how big of the audience this is. It's a pretty small demographic. But it could be important in Atlanta, could be important in Philly, which is, you know, Wall Street Journal reading.

conservatives who are either Jewish or, you know, kind of have strong foreign policy hawks that were turned off by Trump because of his dabbling in anti-Semitism and because of his, you know, isolationism, that you hear them saying anecdotally, like that, I don't know, I don't like what's happening. Trump will defend us. You know, maybe I have to go back to Trump. You know, there's a whole Dan Senor, you know, who works for Paul Singer, who used to be a never-Trumper, who is a big donor, who went back to Trump. Paul Singer's already back at Trump.

It seems like Dan is sympathetic to that. You see this, and I was actually just with someone today who said that their friend, who's Jewish, who said that their friends, they have friends that feel this way. So is that going to change by November? You know, will cooler heads prevail? Hopefully.

But I do think that there is a small demo of group voters that were traditionally Republican, that were gettable for Biden, that are, you know, that are starting to lean back towards Trump over this. I find that asinine, just to be bluntly clear, I find that asinine and insane, that, on the issue of anti-Semitism, you would go back to the person that had lunch with Nick Fuentes and Kanye. I find that ludicrous in the extreme, but that doesn't.

That requires something to actually shift on the ground, for sure. But what would you like to see Biden say, if there's anything he's not saying?

He was talented at this. Biden's like, that's not his strength, man. He's got strengths, but that's not it. And I think that right now, there are people that are like, where is he on this? And a lot of what they've been doing has been relegated to written statements, which are usually pretty good, by the way.

If you read the Biden White House's written statements, they usually are very empathetic, very nuanced, very thoughtful.

But they're not letting him loose on it. And maybe for good reason. I think that it's really, it's dicey. But I do think that he needs to speak out more. And you could speak out from first principles.

And the nice thing about having a speech on a press conference is you could speak more just about the thing like, you can be the inverse of my original statement, where we started this, everything's an asshole, you can be the positive version of that, which is, I'm worried about Gaza, we're trying to get food in. I'm worried about anti-Semitism on campuses in America, we should have that stopped. I'm worried about free speech rights. Kids shouldn't be getting knocked over by police officers when they're at, you know, I saw, he could do that. But it's not, there's gonna be people.

he doesn't please if he does it, but it's probably, we'll see. If it doesn't get any better, it's gonna be something he's gonna have to figure out how to do.

And but but but this moment, I don't think you've seen it. And I think we'd like to get your live.

It made Kamala very uncomfortable. I know. I like that. I like this. What is going on?

Is she about to touch me? It's everybody. We don't need any politician to be mom. We don't need to be mama. We don't be dad a lot.

We don't need a national dad. We don't need any of that shit. It's a. it's a. it's a city where they go to write laws and regulations and to implement policies that affect our lives.

They're not dad. They're not mom.

where you're getting at. Like this is John Adams. John Adams wanted to name the president, his excellency or some shit. And George Washington was like, fuck that. Mr.

President, Mr. President, we could have a Mrs. President, hopefully soon. That's it. They're one of us.

They're of the people. We do not need a mom. We do. They're not like the royal family. They don't need to be anything special.

That does bother that I'm with.

I drew is kind of the good angel version of it's, like the same energy, but like the light versus the darkness, kind of with Carrie or Drew. But they both did the double hand thing. Yeah, it's like you can touch me on my shoulder. We can hug. But there's something.

But he just he, just like kind of as he was passing, gave her a quick shiver. I've never seen a person shiver. The other piece of this, too, is like politics, is emotional, because it's serious and the stakes are very, very high. But we actually don't need these figures to assuage. It's actually the mirror of the people, people who say like they don't find Joe Biden inspiring.

OK, it's right. I get wanting Joe Biden to inspire other people because you want politics to have outcomes, but you don't need to be inspired, because if you say I want to be inspired, it's a little bit like I don't know, like Louis the 14th being like, bring me a show. I'd like to see something. Bring me, bring me a lovely cake and a show. It's like.

that's not what this is about. Like, if you're feeling worried and anxious about politics, it's not Kamala Harris's job to assuage. It might be valuable for others, but if it's for you, it should be an embarrassing thing to request. Yeah. Go, volunteer if you want.

You know, if you get a little tingle up your leg with the president, talks like that's not. that should be a bonus, you know, a little cherry on top. That's not just the median requirement.

people need hugs from their loved ones in their own private lives. The country needs effective governance and to defeat a despicable authoritarian movement. That's what.

go watch a movie about a young man overcoming challenges, you know, whatever. Go find something. That's fine. You don't need a mom from Kamala. This is.

we're very aligned on this job of it.

Tim Miller, you know, I'm from the bulwark. Send all your negative comments at him. As always, great to see you, Tim. And that's great. And if you're the one person out there.

And if Tim isn't your cup of tea, don't worry.

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