Sarah Longwell and Bill Kristol: We're Governed by Broken Men

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The last three of the heroes of the NorthGrochin. The last three of the heroes of the NorthGrochin. The last three of the heroes of the NorthGrochin. The last three of the heroes of the NorthGrochin. Is that a crazy thing or does that sound right? Yeah, I don't know.

I thought of it that way. I was just struck and I wrote about this in one of the shots. By the intersection of four politics that are on. That Trump played golf Saturday. And then I think was it was club in NorthGrochin jersey.

And then went to the game and sat in his air condition box. And then came down. It was amazing. The photo that Sarah Rogers pulled for. From one of the shots is fantastic.

Trump butts into the ceremony where the head of FIFA. It was kind of a showboat himself incidentally. But anyway, Trump outshow votes in by budding in. And being part of the metal presenting ceremony, which I don't recall, is the normal practice of these kinds of events.

The president of the host country just invites themselves down there. But he's in there putting medals on people. And then he's trying to be in the photos.

And then finally, the FIFA president of the FIFA head says,

OK, basically, time to go. Let them have their celebration.

“And that's what people want to see is them being rampocious.”

And so he heads off stage, right? And Trump sort of follows him for a bit. But then stops. And sort of lurks there awkwardly trying to stay in the photo. And actually, the FIFA guy tries to come back and tries to kind of,

we should probably get off. And he stays there. And there is that fantastic photo of him kind of awkwardly standing on the side. As the Spanish players ignore him and have a well deserved celebration. So very Trump like, right?

And then, you know, that he anyway just, I mean, nothing shouldn't go to the World Cup just because we're war. Other presidents, I would say, might have made that calculation of that decision. Especially in a weekend where American service members are killed. But then just the kind of unbelievable pathetic.

Really pathetic. You had an excellent tweet this weekend about how pathetic the strong men are, you know, that they're so weak. And you really saw that with Trump, right? He's literally the most famous man in the world.

His president of the states is whatever he's doing. He's doing almost president. He can get any attention. He wants any time he can't resist but again to the World Cup,

It's not like the U.S. team water. It's not like it was the U.S. team or anything. It's another right. Well, right. This is Spain state.

This was, it was crazy watching him try to corn in. It's not like cash-patel, chugging beers with at least what is the American, the USA team, you know, at the Olympics. Trump is just like, no, I'm going to try to do stolen valor. Literally anywhere I can find it, including spines,

just because I happen to be here.

And actually, I'm going to spend just one second on this tweet about the fact

that we are currently governed by broken men. You can see it everywhere, right? You can see it in Stephen Miller. You can see it in Elon Musk. You can even see it in sort of, you know,

Mark Zuckerberg or like any of these guys. They're billionaires. But Elon Musk has to both be, like, infinitely racist going after immigrants, of which he is won by the way.

Just every time he can't stop with his anti-immigrant tirades. I'm just like, you two, my friend, came here. By the way, like, do beously legally for a period of time. He has children by how many different women. I mean, I think it's like,

I don't know, four or five. It's like a very high number of women. What is that about, right? What is that need by all of these guys or like, Bezos now, you know, with the young wife and the huge muscles.

And like, everybody seems to be going through. It's like our country has to live with the midlife crises of men whose fathers didn't love them enough or who, you know, are so deeply insecure that they have to take it out in these bullying, cruel ways.

And it really does feel like a moment of watching a failure of leadership from men who have no center, no core. What did the hollow chested men? And I just feel like I see it everywhere,

but maybe I'm overreacting to something. No, not at all.

“The only thing I'd add is I do think it's actually”

that it spills over from the elites who are that way. And really it can do a huge damage because of their, you know, psychological disorders, down to sort of, to regular people. There's one clip I saw over the weekend

of some guy bullying a Hispanic neighbor who seems to have done nothing to him, except be Hispanic. I think he's in America. It isn't for all. We'll get to tell him, living in a kind of suburban area, you know.

With his family. And this guy is, you know, kind of turning his sprinkler on the lawn over into them and sort of harassing them a little out of you saw this one. I didn't. And the other gentleman is using his phone to record this.

So I'm a Trump person and Trump, let's we do this kind of thing. Yeah, I've got something like that. But he literally mentions Trump and literally sort of evokes, invokes Trump as a kind of justification.

You'll be out of here soon. You're going to be back in Mexico. As I say, this guy seems to be here permanently and legally. So I just won't get to help. But anyway, obviously, these things are out there.

And that sort of allows someone like Trump to exploit the insecurities and the anxieties and the satisfaction of people get from polling. But the degree to which it then encourages other people to do things that they once would have pressed. I guess I come back to that, right?

It's like the, I think this was a pretty common trope of fears to go. But it's worth recalling that, you know,

people always set certain things at 11.30 a night in a bar to their

buddies, you know, that they wouldn't say publicly. They're racial things sort of things about women. Yeah. Things about women very much. So, right?

But it was important that they thought they, okay, they can say to them.

“It was important that they thought they couldn't say them publicly, right?”

That's part of what it being a civil society means. People are going to have certain things that they have to get at their chest somewhere or other. But, you know, what in the corner of a bar to three buddies is one thing. And now they, it's all out there, right?

And they feel legitimized to act on it. This is where the, the ice, the people who work for ice, you know, they're being encouraged. Literally encouraged. They're a case that we buy actual superiors.

And by Secretary of the H.S. and by the head of ice and by Trump himself to behave in this really terrible way. But it does show how, you know, the such a cliche, you know, we consider it as you should say this 25 years ago. The, the video of civilization can be thin and it's more vulnerable

than you think, but you really see it, don't you? You do. And before we jump off this, just because I, this is like a thing I don't talk about that much, but I feel it all the time, which is,

as a, as a lesbian, I just want to say that I think men are extremely important. I, I like,

and I've always loved a good man.

And by good, I actually don't mean perfect in some way. I mean somebody who shows up to take care of somebody else, somebody who demonstrates,

“I think a positive vision of masculinity.”

I've got two boys now, you know, who are ten and eight. And so I think about it a lot in terms of who are the men sort of setting the tone for society. And, you know, obviously, you know, I, I feel very warmly toward you and think you are a wonderful person,

but I, I met heart-curtling in person the other day.

By the way, if you've not watched it, they did a great live this weekend on what's happening in Iran, which is the actual conversation we're supposed to be having. But anyway, he comes in all tall and tan. And, you know, this former military, like, you know,

stance or whatever, and he's this lovely person who thinks deeply about the harm of war to American young people, but also thinks a lot about leadership, about inspiration, about how you take care of soldiers, about how what it means to have to sacrifice.

And I've, I've always really gravitated to this idea of,

of men and leadership who tried to both be, on one hand, like, very strong and, and tough and don't, you know, get your pants up and, you know, tidy up your room and make your bed and that, but also kind.

“And I think it's, this is another one sort of, like, you know,”

when you see it, but like, if they're used to be, and I would maybe put John McCain in this category, if they're used to be like a category of men and leadership that were much closer to that. They were aspirational, right?

They were trying to do the right thing. They were trying to reflect the best of both America themselves, men and general. And it just feels like that's gone. Like Donald Trump has just decided, no, we're all going to be,

like, degenerate sex paths who make fun of women

who, you know, beat up on people who are weaker than we are, who use whatever power we can, who steal other people's sacrifice, other people's service, other people's hard work and winning, because that's it, right? Spain trains all that time and they're at the,

the pinnacle of what they have worked for for years and years to achieve and Donald Trump's stand and they're being like, not gonna take some of this. It's not his and he only does it because he feels so broken inside that he needs it.

“I think this is a big part of what's going on”

and I'm eager to see, this is why I don't like it when I see people mimic Donald Trump. I understand why people like what news seems doing and that kind of performance are holding up a mirror to Trump.

But I'm looking for, I'm looking for somebody to show up that

understands like that sense of restraint a little bit, that sense of judgment. Maybe I'm just, maybe I'm just off on one, but this is how I feel. No, no, this is, this is interesting and really important

and I thought your, your tweet put it so well and I think this has been a good discussion. Mark Hartling about no, I had known for a while. He's an admirable man and he's what the US military, I think strives to produce.

If I can put it that way or shape or reward, some of those character virtues, obviously traits, not everyone shows them or not as well. See just, that's one reason I, I so low with Pete Hexeth.

“He is taking this thing that has been kind of built off in America”

and produced an awful lot of admirable people. Jim Madison, I mean, there's just so many of them in the generation with that Marcus is part of. And instead, Hexeth is this, you know, ridiculous, but also disgusting, really kind of, you know,

wishes to be a bully at a tough guy and the whole macho thing and a very stupid and fake way in a way, but I need to be more importantly just offensive way, bullying way, compared to Echo, I say this piece all the time is or fascism essay from 1995.

It really has a brilliant, just a paragraph or two about the machismo side of fascism or of quasi-fascism. And the idea that our institutions are degenerating and they could be corrupted so that that becomes the model, the way to get ahead, as opposed to being like marker, laying or stand,

a crystal holder, Jim Madison, that is depressing. I hope it's not the case, and there are plenty of other people who are going fighting back, I'd say, going in the other direction. So that's true culture war. I can take a stupid phrase, right?

That's a real war about character, about a war, to real competition about what kind of character do we want to produce in this country and do we want to admire? This bull work podcast is sponsored by Soul. So I just mentioned to Bill that I've been on a fitness journey,

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“So let's go back to a run now that we've delved into that.”

Not on earth. Sorry Tim. I just, I'm here to take us wherever on all kinds of places. So there were even more attacks this morning. The New York Times says that mediators are looking to prevent a full blown

war in the Middle East. You know, it was only a week ago that Trump declared that the US was charging tolls in the straight of firm moves that we were in charge, but of course, he later backed off the tolls. But like things are getting blown up right now.

Like there was news this morning of some people came across some of the Iranian minds that were planted. Tell me just what has been going through your head this weekend. Cause you wrote this morning in in morning shots. Nothing about the last nine days of war has anything to do with the

ronsibility or inability to get a nuclear weapon. Sent calm on the other hand said last night that the latest wave of US strikes have been intended to further diminish a ronsibility to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners, transiting the straightforward moves. But there is no reason to think even more bombing will prevent a ron from making the

straight impossible. So Trump's war is now a pointless war. That is Bill Crystal and today's morning shots. Are we going into a full-scale war? What is happening right now?

We're at least in a pointless escalation and dangerous escalation. Obviously with real lives being lost and and who knows what's on the immediate rise in here. Iran is partly responsible for this, but you know there's no reason to assume that Iran would behave well and they haven't behaved particularly well.

And then Trump signed an agreement that sort of seemed to legitimate Iran's control of the straight at least for 60 days and their ability to seek to insist on certain conditions for going through. And once he signed it, Iran is saying, okay, we're holding you to it and Trump's trying to back off.

I mean, they agreed to which every boast that Trump and HECSF made was just false. And to agree to which they've all lied to us and I hope the uniform military has since

“I think even they though have been a little bit under ton of pressure, obviously, to do so.”

So they they lies in war lies with a mission.

Second comes to see what they've done.

Leave a vague impression that it's all going well. But then it turns out, you know, what their missiles program wasn't decimated, their ability to shoot all kinds of orders, weapons, drones at US bases in the region hadn't gone away. And they're actually being more ambitious, you know, drones a little further

than some of the places they were hitting right next door in the UAE and stuff. So again, they were lying about their early success. And now Trump can't accept the fact that Iran has the better of us and that the thing to do is cut our losses and basically get out. It's going to be on for a bad that the straight isn't really open the way it

should be, isn't it an actual waterway? But that's something that could be at least, you know, we could barge it and try to work it out. And other countries could try to work it out. And we maybe wouldn't be too disastrous.

That is getting us in deeper. The reason I quoted both Trump and Senkham is they're giving totally different reasons for why we're doing what we're doing. But neither is has anything to do with what we're doing. I mean, you know, we're just bobbing up various parts, various parts of Iran's infrastructure,

some of the vaguely militarily related, some of the Marit. We were doing it for a week and look what happened this weekend with the bases and Jordan and stuff. So, and now in Trump himself said that it's resubusion to pay them back for what they did to our soldiers.

And that's really a reason to run this kind of risk, this kind of dangerous escalation. So, it further weakens us.

Ultimately, it's going to further weaken us.

The rest of the world looks at this and thinks really, I mean, A is not going to work. So, it does not like it shows our strength. And B, it just looks like it's driven by to get back to our earlier conversation. In security and the wish that people not say that Iran outsmarted him really. And at a final point, it's his war.

I say in the piece of few times, I just try to use the phrase, Trump's war and I capitalize W, I go with our friend Ben Parker about this because he said, you know, you shouldn't capitalize wars. But I've tried to sort of get the idea out there. It really is his war.

Congress, of course, never authorized or voted on it.

There's no appropriation for it. He did that as well. And now he's going to do Iran. And this would go for five months. It's a big problem.

The Congress has not stopped it, but they should stop it now. Yeah. And I'll just note, just as a political matter, something I've talked about with JBL is the fact that, you know, in the first sort of six weeks of summer here, Trump's approval rating.

It didn't. It's not really going up, but it is like drifted back slightly from 39. Like he had been on a trajectory of dropping. And then it kind of now, it's just got from like 39%. To 40%, which is obviously still not a good approval rating.

“But I think that the Iran more kind of being off again on again.”

Americans not really being sure, and then Trump doing a big 250. I'm going to announce that the war is over. I actually do think it takes Americans a while to realize. Oh, no, it's not over. Oh, we're still in it.

But I do think the gas prices jumping back up to four bucks. Here for the last, you know, stretch of summer going into it. People are going to notice that again. I was going to ask you about that since you've been following this so closely. And the focus groups and and otherwise, too.

I mean, yeah, they're up already like 13 points this past week. And I think going to go up another 15 points this coming week. Just because that's already baked into the wholesale prices. And that comes as you say after the turn 15th anniversary stuff ends after the World Cup ends. It's clearly an escalation.

So the war is more front burner. The gas prices are rising. That's bad for Trump, right? That's right.

And obviously summers are sort of like this where people aren't always processing in real time.

What's happening is people are checked out, right? Lots of people are off doing other things. They're not focused on the headlines. But people notice gas prices when they're traveling. And when the price of everything jumps up, that is when you see people bail.

I know people don't like this. That it's sort of like you can't get people to be really mad about the slush fund or

“blanch or whatever, but like the only thing that matters to them is the cost of gas.”

But it is true. And Trump is doing a wild thing here going into the midterms. Choosing to continue this war. But it's also part of it is that it's just getting away from it, right? We've got places like Kuwait and other it's getting destabilized.

Yeah, no absolutely. And I would say just if you look at past midterm elections. Usually Labor Day is kind of key. And since things start to, you know where it's going at the time of Labor Day. Things very rarely reverse in the last two months.

Often the momentum picks up a little bit in the direction. So where do you go? Especially in this. That's why people call wave elections wave elections. It's kind of moves gradually in that direction.

It becomes a bit of a wave.

It's amazing how much of the summer is over.

I could just say personally, it's already July 20. So what do we six weeks, seven weeks to Labor Day? I mean, if he goes into Labor Day drifting down back 39, 38, 37 are supposed to go back up to 42ish. That's a huge difference.

You and I then we've talked a lot of talk ourselves about this. We've talked other people who study this a lot around Brown City and others. Trump at 42, 43, it's not great for the Republicans, but it may be salvaged. What does that mean? There's a lot of red states.

It'll be 49, 50, 50 won. Right. Those red states are going to be the eight points better. Or so that points better than the national average. If Trump's at 37, 38, then the red states are underwater.

I mean, then you're asking the Republican Senate candidate in those states to run ahead of Trump's approval. And the history does show that Trump's approval correlates pretty close to the,

“with, with the House and Senate candidate. So I think it's important politically,”

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Visit even.com for details. You and I are going to talk a little bit more about some of the political implications. You and I are going to talk a little bit more about some of the political implications. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those decisions. If the DHS, one of these ICE agents does something terrible.

We're not going to investigate it. Which doesn't seem possible. Doesn't seem possible. They would just stop investigating these ICE agents. Well, they're going to say they're going to be internal investigation. That's what they've been saying.

The Inspector General of THS has a little team that investigates the Inspector General.

“I remember this when I was in government.”

These general looks things like whether someone is taking claims to expense accounts. They shouldn't claim. Where are the things are the kind of ethical violations. If they're not set up to actually investigate actions on the streets of major cities and plus it's part of DHS and ICE.

You can imagine what the incentives are there. The notion that the federal government is not going to enforce but at least minimal standards of decent and lawful behavior on federal agents. Who have now killed people? I mean, it's not like a theoretical.

We've very alarmed if the FBI isn't doing a lot of investigating. I don't know EPA inspectors. I should. If they were one of them is corrupt, but you know, then I can't go around killing too many people. So in a normal world, if a particular agency, ICE,

a particular division of DHS has killed what? Four people who manifestally were just innocent on the streets of major cities. Is obviously too many outposts. And then musically induced in an in-main. I guess three major cities and one small town.

You know, any normal administration said, we have to look into this. We're going to have to review the practices of ICE. We're going to have to have maybe some external of commission in blue ribbon commission even take a look for being in some former people who work there to see what's going on.

I mean, this isn't acceptable. The Trump administration's attitude is very revealing as the opposite. Well, killings, brutality, violence, stop investigating. It's really terrible. And so the same investigation by the New York Times found that the Trump administration

had filed charges against more than 550 people for assaulting federal officers. Of the more than 400 cases that had been resolved. Nearly half had unraveled with charges being thrown out or withdrawn or the defendants being acquitted, which means that ICE is saying people did things

that don't hold up in court, right? They're saying like, oh, they looked at me weird. And so I had to do something about it or they were protesting. And so that's a terrible record for ICE behavior. The things that they're claiming aren't staying up in court.

And they're shocking examples of just lying, lying to judges by ICE agents and by lawyers on behalf of ICE agents and court of patrol agents. No, it's a rogue agency that feels entirely that's been encouraged to be violent.

And now feels there never really felt there'd be much penalty for it.

Didn't pay a penalty for it. There are people dead. Is anyone paying a penalty? Or Alex, Freddie, or now people in Houston or Maine? I don't believe so.

No, I think it's like in the Catholic Church at the height of their, you know, bad stuff. They're just like shuffling people around, putting them in different precincts and just moving them. Yeah, no, it's terrible.

It really does bring home how major chunks of DHS, especially ICE and Border Patrol. How rotten they've become.

“That's why I keep saying abolish ICE not because everything's nice.”

Oh, man. This is so wrong. I think it's everything ICE does. Doesn't have some of it has to be done by someone. Obviously in government, it will be done in this.

Administrative things and other things. Coordinated with local police departments to deport people who serve jail terms and should be deported and so forth. But I do think it's an actual like organizational matter, putting on my sort of old, you know,

I studied decades ago with James Kutwell said about organizational behavior. If I became president of January 29,

I think you can't fix it.

Start over.

“Obviously, there's certain things you can put in DOJ.”

Certain things you can put in other agencies. To do, you know, to do those functions that need to be done. But it sounds like the whole organization. But it's either enough of the organization is rotten to its core. You couldn't sort of take it over and just fix it with a couple of Band-Aids.

And sort of the obvious reason why it's different is that they're putting so much money into it. They've hired so many new people that have been. Let's train with air quotes. By this administration, with the values of this administration. And I use values as a negative term in this case.

And so I am always resistant to sort of maximalist things like abolish ice.

But your point about this is going to end up having to be a root and branch operation. Because of how much they have delegitimized it. I mean, every time I see an ice agent and they're still rolling around with their faces covered. Like we cannot have a secret police. And this is I can't believe people are tolerating it.

I mean, I guess we are not technically, but so strange Mark Wayne Mullin hasn't made things better over there at DHS. Going back to the political implications. I don't know if it was the World Cup. If it was 250, if it was a sense of all of us checking out for a bit in the summer. Because you're like, who can take all this?

I do think people are going to roll back into September with the ice agents back with their masks shooting people.

And a war that is spinning out of control gas prices that are high.

I do think when the American people look up from their summer vacation, they're going to find a world that has not improved over the summer. No, very much. So just on the ice thing, I mean, they did a pretty good job. And they're pretty good. They fired Kristino, the government of that Bavino creep. Mullin came in. Homein was more prominent. They talked about where lower profile were stopping some of this.

They didn't really say they were changing anything really, but they gave the impression that they were changing. And they did pull back and turn to the most visible stuff. So people could tell themselves, if you wanted to be sort of okay with Trump, that, you know,

“Well, I think he's fixed it. It's unfortunate of what as far as it did.”

But now you can't say that. It does fit, as you say, with the other issues in a funny way. It's like a run. They had a bit of a reprieve there and April May, June, may be of seeming to be not doing the really grotesque things they were doing. I think you could still see they were doing a fair amount of bad, bad stuff. But yet to be like looking on Twitter and stuff for that, I suppose, or maybe in the city where it was happening.

But after these recent killings, you can't tell yourself that anywhere. And after their reaction to it, which is nothing. And the press did hold up the funding. It was kind of a big issue there for a while. What would that be January, February, March? Then Republicans jammed through the money on reconciliation. And it kind of just faded from the headlines.

So I think for all these reasons, it's this sort of like the war and like the gas prices, too. Kind of a lull, but the storm has reemerged, hasn't it? Yeah. This show is sponsored by Ridge Wallet. Losing your wallet is the worst. I'm the kind of person who puts my cards in like the sleeve of my phone to try to keep from losing them.

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“Well, tell me first, Bill. Do you know who the tape brothers are?”

I know who there's to generous are. I don't know much about them. I've got to say, I may seem to be sex criminals and Trump and back, I like them for some reason. Yes, this is, this is one of you. I know you're the floor. I know you're the floor to you. It's your generation, really, you know?

I don't want to, I don't want to own this. Because this is one of these phenomena that I cannot fat them. But there is these two brothers for our listeners who might not know Andrew and Tristan Tate. You might know Andrew Tate because he's like a key figure in the manuscript. And they were arrested on Saturday and Miami on British charges of rape and sex trafficking.

Now, here's the thing. These guys, this is what I want to remind people of.

They had been in Romania.

“And they'd already been accused of sex trafficking of rape.”

This is one of those stories I tried to avoid. I don't want to know. It's like too dark for me. But at some point, I did go down the rabbit hole to really learn about Andrew Tate. And it's just videos of this guy talking about beating women, about trafficking women, about how you suppress and control women, like just the dirt baguess disgusting. And of course, because Trump has never met a sex past.

He doesn't like. He's never met somebody who assaults women that he won't defend. I, Tim and I did a whole video recently reminding people about how he jumped into the defense of Mike Tyson after his rape charges for which he went to prison. I mean, obviously, he has a lot of sexual assaults in his ranks, for people who've been accused of sexual assault, like Pete Higgs-Seth.

And they're just always all around Trump.

But this like goes back like decades, Bill Clinton. He defended Bill Clinton back in the day. There was a long thing about how much he liked his kids playing with Michael Jackson. Anyway, point is, Trump has never met a bad guy who's mistreated women. And Jeffrey Epstein that he doesn't want to hang out with.

And so it shouldn't surprise anybody that Andrew Tate's empire of abuse includes lots of relationships with the Trump family so much so that because they offer electoral support as influencers with young men, they were allowed to come leave their sort of exile in Romania where they were under house arrest, again, rape and human trafficking. But in 2025 in February, they suddenly left Romania for Florida where they were

welcomed because of the Trump administration.

They were basically allowed to come here.

In 2016, Andrew Tate visited Trump Jr. in Trump Tower and was posting sort of pro-Maga tweets. He also has gotten close to barren Trump and is like, you know, giving him advice about tailors and things like in God knows what else. So the thing that I'm interested in seeing here is whether or not Trump tries to stand

in the way of their extradition because he loves to intervene on behalf. It could be diddy. He supports diddy. Like anybody accused of these kinds of crimes, Trump will come to their aid. And they're appealing to Trump.

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that the Tate's lawyer said the president hates political persecution and communism. And this was an example of both. What do you think?

“Do you think the White House might fight their extradition?”

I mean, I don't know. But they were trying to subvert it maybe a little behind the scenes. But they're pretty much pretty willing to go out there on this stuff, right? And he's pardoning sex offenders among many other criminals and fraudsters and stuff. If they pay enough, it doesn't get back to the fact that the earlier conversation

to the degree to which the whole thing is full of people who are really terrible. I'm just terrible behavior, you know. I mean, I'm old enough to remember what really he was. This was kind of condemned and genuinely, you know, one judge administration is about how effective they prosecuted people like this.

Not whether they let them go or welcome them to the country. And didn't we intervene? In fact, didn't Trump send people to help get them out of Romania? I mean, there was actually, yeah, yeah, yeah.

“No, I think thematically, you know, I've been sitting here saying to myself, Sarah,”

just sitting in for Tim and you do this whole thing about men. And you go off on this whole thing. We're supposed to be talking about the around work. But no, I decided this is the correct thing for us to have been discussing because it is the core of so much of what we are seeing right now.

And I think that these guys make content about how you treat women terribly. And I think that this is part of the brokenness, right, is that it used to be that sort of the desperate brokenness of men like this could be confined to the world that they inhabited. But now in the creator economy, there are whole audiences of young men that listen to these guys talk about, like, this is how you treat women.

And they see it from the president of the United States, the richest man in the world to the guy who's leading our wars. You know, Pete Heggseth and the military, like, at some point it is everybody that people. And then you've got these influencers. And so I do think it speaks to something that is that is deeply broken.

All right, Bill, as we close, I want to talk about some election poporeeks. There's a bunch of things happening right now. So first I just want to do a little polling because the Washington Post,

So this is really the generic ballot where, you know, if you go back five months or four months,

the generic ballot gap was like getting between seven and nine. Like it was a big spread between people who were saying, I would like a generic democrat over a generic Republican by quite a wide margin. And, you know, while Trump's approval has only crept up ever so slightly as we were discussing before, the generic ballot gap has been shrinking. And I don't know if you have a theory on that.

But the post said, Republicans are not losing by a wide margin among the broadest electorate despite President Donald Trump's deep unpopularity and broad concerns about the economy, the war with Iran and immigration issues. You know, I did tweet this weekend. This is a phenomenon. I've been tracking for a long time where even as Trump is

“on popular and I think Trump's popularity is really important for elections.”

I think it's important for a ton of reasons I can go into all my bushland theories

and why we want Trump down to 32% or below. But I do think that Democrats are going to have to grapple with the fact that as unpopular as Trump is right now, and he's still too popular based on what we are dealing with. Like a high inflation, these should be just destroyers of an administration's popularity. He's gotten into a war which he's lied under his way into. They have been shooting Americans in the streets. The headlines have been

relentlessly negative, costs are still high for people. He's done nothing to lower prices. Gas prices are high. Like this should be ending him. And I think the reason that it's not is that if you look issue by issue by issue, Republicans still edge out Democrats on most of the issues that Americans care the most about. The economy, inflation, who do you trust to handle foreign policy, who do you trust to handle

immigration? Like broadly Republicans keep having an edge. That shows that people are just not running to Democrats in the face of Trump's just total unpopularity. What do you

“think is going on here? Do you have a theory? Yeah, couple. I mean, I think actually Trump's”

unpopularity will end up trumping the people's doubt about the Democrats for this election because it is so much about do you want a Congress that helps trump or Congress that checks Trump? And I think that's a photos will default to that,

which is the most important thing. No individual democratic senator.

House members are going to make policy in much of any area. The Democrats in the whole are going to make much policy for Trump's president. So I don't feel quite as worried to some about 2026. I think the generic closed a little, but it has correlators you say with Trump having a slight up tick assuming he goes back to a slight down tick. And even the natural momentum will be for the generic to open up a little bit here in the last few

months as often the way it goes. And in terms of Trump, I slightly disagree with your formulation that he should be really in worse shape. I mean, Trump got 50% of the vote. He's now getting let's just say 40 to be, you know, he's lost one and five of his voters. And now just prove of him. There is a proof of it was about a identical to his vote right after election day. So he's down from 50 to 40, which is

10% of the electorate, 20% of his voters. That's a pretty big move by the public and I will say to the public's credit should be bigger. I wish it were bigger. It's a bigger than it is among elites. So I think we're if two problems, one is a democratic problem, which should be addressed. They've had some primaries. They've had some people weren't so great. Get a lot of press. And I think that's probably

had a marginal effect. So all at all, it's a little bit of a negative summer for them exactly, but I'd say slightly unspiring, a lot of summer with some negative aspects for them. But I mean, the economy continues to be growing and inflation is high, but it's not as high as it was Biden. The war may be now really will come home, but he did get a loan from that. So I think among sort of regular voters, it's

understandable that he's, I think it would have been unreasonable to ask for that much more of a desertion rate than one in five, especially Miss the elites

“remain so horrible. That's what strikes me the most. You're a regular”

voter. You look up and you think I don't really like some of this stuff. Maybe it's a coulda get worse and stuff. Well, business leaders look fine with Trump. There's no rebellion among big shot law firms, the universities, kind of quiet Republican members of Congress, Republican governors know for whom most by definition, most of these swingish

Republicanish voters have voted. Right? That's why the ones who weren't playing, you know, and they do prefer the Republicans on some issues. They're all on board with Trump. I do think the failure of the elites. It's just been appalling. I wish the public were a little more upset. I wish Democrats, you know, would get their act together. I think it's getting

kind of late. I don't think it's 26. We got what did you think we was that 90% of the candidates were going to get? We could use a

we're going to get a better one in May, and then we look like we're going

“to get three weeks ago. I think at the Senate races, then”

have pretty good nominees, actually, on the whole, both sensible and a lot of younger ones. I'm not as worried about 26, but I very much think Democrats have to get their act together in 27, 28, wouldn't hurt to start a little bit now. A lot of opposing Trump,

fervently, and as you and Tim and I always try to point out, you can be

centrist or modern in various policies and still be fiercely anti-drunk. You know, that would help a lot. And then if some elites would ever behave like responsible leaders as opposed to pathetic, you know, Republicans to Trump, that would be nice. It would be nice. I do think that being able to focus on just like

the, the eye of soar on of the, of the press and everybody else focused on Graham Platner, focused on the DSA candidates that one in New York has not been good. First of sort of brand Democrats, because that stuff gets independent voters nervous. And I don't think that Democrats want to grapple always with the fact that

I think we live in a center, center, right country, and a lot of the people that are like really have big races with the exception of Maine, actually. But places like Wisconsin places like Pennsylvania. They are nowhere near as left, isn't the average in New York city voter. And so these are just very different places. My good news

silver lining for Democrats is that they are 10 points more likely to show up to the polls than Republicans. Like there is an enthusiasm and this is what gets I think to that sometimes this polling can miss about voters where right now there's like this fractional fight on the left around centers and and being more

progressive. But like the voters just really want Democrats to be more aggressive. And sometimes the lower support for Dems that you see in polls are actually a lot of Democrats, mad at Democrats for not being aggressive enough. And so those voters are still going to turn out and vote for Democrats, they're the reason that John Ossoff and

James Taureko and a lot of the good candidates running the cycle on the Demsider drowning in money because those voters are still enthusiastic about those individual candidates if not the party as a whole. Okay. Last thing where I do want to just touch on Maine briefly, Troy Jackson became the presumptive democratic

“nominee for Senate over the weekend. And I guess the best way”

that I would describe Jackson is Graham Plattener's politics with a lot less baggage. He finished third in the primary for governor, but he wasn't doors by Bernie Sanders and campaign with both Sanders and Plattener. He's an electoral over performer. He got reelected by five points in a district that voted 5939 for

Trump in 2024. And while he is not a lobsterman, he is a lawyer from Aligash, which is pretty much like the most far-flung town in Maine and has a beer named after it. So what do you think? Do you think that this is the guy to beat Susan Collins? Yeah. I mean, I would have been fine with the others who were

thinking of running too. It might have been a slightly closer to them on policy stuff. But he just you say outperforms in a very Trumpy district and his state Senate race is now they knew him. They are ready. But that that that gets it on well statewide. He was president of the state Senate. It's not like he's some kind of,

you know, guy from nowhere who has no track record, and the main Democrats did okay when he was president of the state Senate. So I think, yeah, I feel pretty good about Maine. I mean, that's the

state where Trump is out 38 percent. And Collins can outperform

will outperform Trump. But if you're asking a lot for her to outperform it this much in an election, which is so much about Trump, you want to Senate that will check Trump. Collins helped make the increased additional ice funding possible. There are lots of issues to use against her. So I feel pretty good about Maine. And I

North Carolina, those two look like pretty quite likely pickups. Michigan's the one that one Senate seat that Democrats hold. It's a risk. So I think less so of Haley Stevens wins, which I think she will. And if a couple of weeks, and then they have to pick up two or three,

“if you want to, you know, to be the longest safe side of the Ohio”

Texas Alaska for, and then there were two others that are actually possible to Kansas, I'd say. Yeah, I think I actually think Democrats will win the house in the Senate. Okay. That's so optimism from Bill. I'm tempted to ask you about Haley Stevens because I know you love a like plucky young woman's

driver. Like that's your, that's your jam a little bit. I thought McMurray might be a better candidate at one point. I think Haley Stevens is kind of a establishment and sort of, I know or something. She's an impressive Paul in the sense that she's just, she's been through tough races. She knows her way around.

I've always thought she was a little underestimated in that way.

I mean, for all that we like everyone likes new and different and doesn't like old, you know, people have been around a bit, but

some races, you know, tough state like Michigan, and having

some sense of what the voters want. I don't know.

“We'll see if she wins the primary, but I think she”

should be a strong candidate certainly in the general. Yeah. I do think it's funny. Sometimes in nationalized races, in nationalized primaries, like this one, between Stevens and

Elsayed, people tend to like take this national lens on things.

And, you know, they see videos of Haley Stevens kind of being a goofball like with this deep accent and, you know, we're going to get them and people sort of think it's cringe politics without understanding that actually locally, that's playing just fine, that actually they find the,

oh, somebody who's going to work hard head down who, you know,

I don't want to call it Tracy flick energy because that that has a lot of negatives to it too, but, you know,

“I think the voters, there's plenty of voters who are there for”

that, but it's also, you know, it's also a time for change and real anti-establishment mood. So I'm not, I'm not a certain as you are, but I do think that now that make Moro's out of the race, who's, she was also my preference, you will see Haley just getting like a lot more

of a look and that that will probably help her because what

“comes out is a bunch of like, I did this and I did this and”

I did this. It's like real work, real action that Michiganers like, all right, Bill, this was fun. Thank you for doing this with me on Monday. Guys, Sam Stein will be sitting in Tim's chair tomorrow, so don't miss that. Go subscribe to the show at Apple podcast,

subscribe to the board on YouTube, become a board, plus member at theboolwork.com. See you tomorrow, flying. The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer

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