Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey, everybody, a couple of housekeeping notes as well as a news note. As I was taping with John Heilman, the Supreme Court came back with a decision on the Voting Rights Act that was bad, but also a little narrower than we expected. It's weakening a key provision that is going to eliminate at least a seat here in Louisiana that was bad.
for a majority minority district and which would obviously end up yielding a republican white man instead almost certainly so we'll have much more on the implications of the voting rights act ruling a on the bork youtube page today if you're antsy so check that out or else later this week on the pod I am back to streaming tonight.
So come hang out about 8 o'clock in the East, YouTube Substack, wherever you find our streaming. I'll take your Q&As. Want to do more Q&A today? So holler at me. Come at me with some fun stuff. Just one more reminder about our live shows in San Diego and L.A. It's downtown San Diego, May 20th. Downtown L.A., May 21st. Working on some fun guests. We'll love to see you out there.
Make a little trip out of it. Jet fuel prices are going to be going up this summer. So May is a good time to go on vacation. All right. Stick around for kind of a good show, long show with one of my faves, John Heilman. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show, Chief Political Columnist at Puck, host of its InPolitik podcast.
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Chapter 2: How does Trump's approach to Iran differ from his previous promises?
Christopher lived at the Wyoming, which is right across the street from the Washington Hilton. The origin story of the Vanity Fair after party, before there were after parties, was that Christopher threw the Vanity Fair after party in his apartment at the Wyoming. And it was an outgrowth of what was his alternative White House correspondent's dinner dinner.
So like the cool kids would have dinner at Christopher's house, not go to the dinner. There you go. And then that evolved into the Vanity Fair Party, which then became a big celebrated thing. I remember a lot of cocaine being done in the bathrooms of the Washington Hill in the 90s at that peak. There was a lot of journalists and politicians passing bullets from one stall to the next.
That occurred a lot in the 1990s. And yet, even then, I still hated the dinner, despite all of its other charms. It's annoying. And so I stopped going. And then Bloomberg made us go one year in like 2014. And after having been gone for 10 years, I went for one year. We did color commentary on the red carpet with Walt Clyde Frazier in an alligator skin tuxedo.
And then I said, I'm never going back. And I have not been since. So it's been at least 12 years since I've been.
All right.
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Chapter 3: What implications does the recent Voting Rights Act ruling have?
Well, I'm going to find that archival footage of you and Clyde Frazier. I've got a great Clyde Frazier shirt that I like to wear. Let's talk about the news. I want to find that archival footage, though.
I'm sure it exists. I could buy it for you.
The big news, I guess we should start with the bulwark news, right? We should shout out colleague Ben Parker, who had the exclusive on this. Donald Trump has decided to put his face on the passports. And this feels like a troll of the, you know, globalist libs who get passports.
He's also in line with his Caudillo-esque desire to live in a country where when you land at the airport, you immediately see dear leader's face. And then you have to see his face on the side of buildings and you see his face on the money. And then, you know, you see his face everywhere on the plates. Right. And I guess that is Donald Trump has not had much success in making anyone's life better.
I think that that is really what he's going to be focused on going forward.
I would have thought it was a troll of the globalist, planet-trotting, cosmopolitan liberals like you and me, Tim, except for the fact that he's doing all the other things. If it was singular, I'm just putting my face on the passport, I'd be like, he's trolling us. But the truth is, he wants to have his face on everything. He wants to have his face on the money.
He wants to have his face on the buildings. He wants to have his face on the new monuments he's building for himself. It's all very consistent. So I assume Trump's kind of like, you know, he'll be asking for...
to take away state driver's licenses soon and have a national driver's license ID system in which your face will be on the ID, but the only other thing on the ID will be a larger image of him. A year ago, almost, We were over in London and Berlin for about 10 days for a couple of things, including a wedding, including the wedding of Paul Banks from Interpol in Berlin.
And I mentioned that because I saw you were at the Interpol set at Coachella with Hamby. So I got there and my passport, it turned out, was not expired, but was going to expire in six months. And there's a rule that That some of the European countries like, so I couldn't go, I could fly to London.
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Chapter 4: How is Disney's new CEO responding to political pressures?
There are two competing things going on here, if you step away from Trump for a second. One is, I think it's true that cults of personality in general and the sanctification of individuals of various kinds, whether they be tech trillionaires or sports stars or pop stars, whatever, is more prominent and prevalent now than it was before. Personal branding, having your
face your name, whatever, if you get to a certain point on shit. So I think people's tolerance for that as a general thing is higher, right? I'm with you. And I would go even further than that.
When you would go to those countries, countries where that kind of thing was prevalent, you'd say, I'm kind of proud I'm from a place where we, where if you think about it, you don't usually think about it quite this way, but you think, oh, what we venerate is the institution, right? It's the presidency, not the president. It's like why people swear oaths to the constitution and not to the
to the occupant of the office because they are all regarded as transient and eventually going to just fade back into the background. And this is the office is what's powerful. And you feel like, I'm glad I live.
We're going to start playing some soft patriotic music behind you as you, as you, as you act nostalgic about that, Jason, make sure to add that.
You just told me you were a pocket constitution dork. So like I could have said the same thing. I just think you would think about it. Like, I'm glad I'm in a place like that. Right. And it's, it's distressing obviously to think that we're being,
becoming you know much more akin in both in in not almost every level but certainly at the symbolic level to to the places where despotism you know and especially petty despotism is not just present but is embodied and as you see it everywhere the signs of it are everywhere that's the thing about despots right if you've traveled a lot you know when you're in a despotic country you
Because the despots are constantly reminding you that you're in a despotic country, right? And that's what it feels like here. What's so depressing about it is because you sort of go, it's not just that we're like those other countries, but that, you know, that you see it happening in front of you. This is how it happens, right?
Which is the president just starts going, I'm putting my name on more and more shit. I'm putting my face on more and more shit. And you're just going to get so used to it that you're going to eventually go, okay, whatever. And I'm not ready for that yet.
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Chapter 5: What are the latest polling trends for Trump and the Democrats?
We want to have all the power. And it's easier for us if we're not accountable so that no one in our population can look at us and go, oh, that guy's the one who's oppressing us, right? So they kind of keep it on the down low. They have all this dough. And if you live in the region, you know who these people are.
But they're not like – they don't want to be on the cover of – if we lived in a world where there was still Fortune and Forbes as real business magazines. But they wouldn't want to be – I don't want to be on the fucking cover of Fortune. I just want to have all the fucking shit. And Trump is both. He's like – he behaves like a Middle Eastern –
oil autocrat, despot, whatever, uh, uh, oligarch, but also wants to be like, you know, like Taylor. So he also wants to be, you know, Taylor Swifty and also wants to be on everything and be fully acknowledged that he is who he is. That's the big difference there, I think.
It's funny to think back to the McCain ad making fun of Obama, the most famous person in the world. And that's just like literally couldn't be more on the nose for Trump.
The McCain ad was obviously, you know, didn't work, but also was premised on the notion that there was a substantial number of people. The ad was called Celebrity. He's the most famous person in the world was opening that ad, right? They showed him at the Brandenburg Gate. And you saw him with other pop stars and stuff.
And that was supposed to be, by someone's theory, all of McCain's team, Fred Davis, who made that ad, they all were like, the American electorate will be like, we don't want a celebrity as president. That was the premise of that, right? So first of all, not only were they wrong, but second of all, now you look at it and it's like, how could you have ever thought that?
That would be considered like a devastating ad that would end Barack Obama's political career. Hilarious.
One additional way in which he's like the Middle Eastern autocrats is he's very interested in throwing his political foes into prison over kind of non-existent, fabricated, crazy topics. Something that's very popular. MBS did this very efficiently when he took over in Saudi.
So far, Trump hasn't gotten the bone saw out, but maybe that's next. It's been far less efficient with Trump.
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Chapter 6: How does the conversation shift to the impact of celebrity culture in politics?
And his daughter is now suing the administration. It benefits him greatly. that he's going against it's an insult to the Keystone Cops called these guys the Keystone Cops I would like to play Kash Patel's press conference announcing this very serious seashell indictment
Former FBI Director James Comey has now been indicted for two felony counts. While many of you may read this indictment and view this matter as a simple investigation, it is the farthest thing from that.
Every single investigation this FBI and our partners at the Department of Justice undertake, especially those that involve the threats to harm or hurt or even kill individuals, whether they behold public office or civilians in our country, are met with the same measure of investigative prowess and tools and personnel and partnership with the Department of Justice as anyone else.
This has been a case that's been investigated over the past 9, 10, 11 months. These cases take time. Our investigators work methodically.
9, 10, 11 months, John. They've been eyeing that picture. They've looked at the metadata. They've looked at the different styles of seashell art. They've looked at, you know, inspiration from past seashell artists to see the level of menace.
This actually was a tell for me yesterday because... You know, you also be at that same press conference where you saw Todd, I want to be, I want to be your AG Blanche saying, you know, there is one thing that's really clear. You cannot threaten the life of the president of the United States. And we will not, that's, that's the law. We will not let me.
So we are going to bring these people to justice. Right. I haven't done this. I actually, if I had had a few more minutes, I would have done it before the show to try to break some news on this. But like, I would like to go back and have ChatGPT or Claude or something go back and look at how many people have been charged with this crime.
And then tell me what in the totality of those cases, what the... and what the average amount of time is that has elapsed between the incident for which they were charged and the charge. Threatening to kill the President of the United States is a serious crime. And I am telling you, my gut tells me that...
what you would find in all of the cases however many of them there have ever been under this under this charge under this law is that the time is almost always like trivially short somebody threatens to kill the president united states man the charges are brought instantly you get on it and you get you get on it right the guy's trying to kill the president united states you know wait nine months if the guy is seriously intending to kill the president
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Chapter 7: What are the concerns regarding the current state of American democracy?
Fancy French words on this show.
His eyes need to change. He maybe needs glasses. I should go to Williamson Eye Center in Baton Rouge. Maybe we can help him out. Here we go. Especially though we take all threats seriously. And then he says this, especially those involving threats to harm, hurt, or even kill individuals. Like, throwing even in there is, for me, the tell.
It's like, even Cash doesn't really believe this, and he's kind of caveating it. He feels too ridiculous to just say bluntly that James Comey was going to kill the president. Like, he can't say that sentence without laughing. And so even he gives a little tell there.
Attempted assault with a deadly seashell. That's the one missing charge. They're like, ah, you know, there's only a photo of this at the seashell. Ooh. I think that's a puka shell, not a seashell. Puka shell is a seashell, right? Yeah, I guess.
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Chapter 8: What predictions are made about the upcoming elections and candidates?
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One more retribution thing I want to get your take on, which is the FCC now going after Disney. This kind of relates to our correspondence dinner. In addition to just the dinner being unbearable at any time, I felt like the idea that journalists would go to when Trump is having a direct assault on many of their outlets in particular—
And when he was telling everybody he was going to take a shit all over them in public. Is this a campaign? In any circumstance, you're like, hey, Trump is telling us he's going to shit on us in public. Let's go and honor him.
What a good idea. So anyway, the day after the FCC is going after Disney and the licenses of some ABC stations based on, you know, I don't know, violations of DEI or woke or something. Yeah.
who knows it's uh yep vice being kissed from buzz lightyear or something that has been their outrage you know we talked about this probably i think both the last times you were on which is the mood in the media as you know trump continues to go after them like obviously at the very beginning of the administration everybody was buckling i think after the kimmel situation we got a little bit of backbone starting to pop up but i'm just going
Kind of wondering what you think the environment's like right now at media companies and whether there's some more... gumption building up or whether everybody's still pretty scared of the administration's retribution campaign.
I always like my formulation about no false binaries and now people are saying two things can be true at the same time. We have a new CEO who's Bob Iger's successor coming into Disney who at first we're very early in the story because of just really only yesterday that Carr decided to go after those guys over these Jimmy Kimmel jokes that are like
You know, as Kimmel himself said, if what he said about Melania Trump and Donald Trump is somehow an indictable offense that would get you fired, just about Don Rickles, Henny Youngman, you know, these people would never have been able to work. Everybody who did the Tom Brady roast would have to go to jail under that theory of the case.
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