Bleak House
00:02:
(JVL)
Hello, everyone.
00:03:
(JVL)
This is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark.
00:08:
(JVL)
Sarah.
00:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
My guy.
00:11:
(JVL)
John Bolton was indicted yesterday.
00:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
Sure was.
00:14:
(JVL)
That's pretty cool, I guess.
00:16:
(JVL)
We now have Jim Comey and John Bolton indicted on what seemed to be bullshit charges.
00:22:
(JVL)
An actual weaponization of the Justice Department.
00:26:
(JVL)
I mean, it's not great, Bob.
00:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's real bad.
00:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
Here's my question.
00:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
And maybe you can help me out with it that I've been wondering and haven't had a full chance to run down.
00:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is a secret show.
00:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
And it is this.
00:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
I've seen a lot of people arguing that the Bolton case is sort of substantively different than the Comey-Tish James case.
00:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
It appears that for Comey and Tish James, and by appears, I mean these ones I have looked at pretty closely, and they are trumped-up nothings.
01:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
Those are 100% meant to just screw with these people, mess with their lives, and the likelihood, like, they barely got indictments, and they are very unlikely to almost no chance of getting convictions.
01:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
Anything can happen, but whatever.
01:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
The Bolton one, where he has kept documents that he shouldn't have, which is an interesting one from a, hey, there was a whole timeline in which Trump was keeping documents he shouldn't have in Mar-a-Lago.
01:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
Not only was he keeping them, he wouldn't give them back.
01:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
And if that case had gone to actual trial, if we'd been able to really move that one forward, everybody seemed to agree that was a pretty open and shut case.
01:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
Whereas, and then you got Mike Pence, right?
01:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
And Joe Biden.
01:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
Everybody's like, suddenly there was a documents bonanza.
02:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
Nobody was doing the correct thing with their documents.
02:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
Although, when they were asked for their documents back, they, of course, just apologized, gave them back.
02:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
It was sort of unclear why they had them other than their being president and vice president allowed them much more latitude with these kinds of documents.
02:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so, unlike...
02:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
other people where people get prosecuted for this stuff all the time because you are definitely not allowed to have them.
02:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so now we've got John Bolton doing it.
02:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
Now,
02:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this was also a case that started under the Biden administration about Bolton having these classified documents.
02:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
So I can't, I think both things can be true.
02:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think this can both be vindictive prosecution, which it clearly, clearly is against Bolton.
02:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
But what I don't know is just like with Trump, where you could say like,
02:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, some of the cases brought against him, like the Stormy Daniels case or the one against, you know, Trump Inc., they weren't, like, great cases to bring, but, like, there was underlying criminal activity.
03:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
Now, it might not have been prosecuted in a different world, and I think that might be the case here, right, where it is both that maybe he did something wrong and it's vindictive prosecution.
03:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
03:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
Which is just different than Tish James and James Comey, which are just purely made up for the reasons of vindictive.
03:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
Or like, made up like, they're trying to get them on these real technicalities of something.
03:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
That it's not even clear they did.
03:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
So anyway, those are how I see them as being different, but what do you think?
03:49:
(JVL)
So we don't know.
03:49:
(JVL)
And, you know, I don't want to prejudge it.
03:53:
(JVL)
We will find out.
03:54:
(JVL)
Um, I mean, I, my general view of classified documents mishandling is that, uh,
04:07:
(JVL)
I mean, a lot of it is really circumstantial.
04:09:
(JVL)
And like one of the reasons normies, right?
04:13:
(JVL)
If you are just a line agent in the FBI or NSA or something, and you don't have access to all that many classified documents, which is why it's a big deal if you mishandle them.
04:25:
(JVL)
Whereas at the upper echelons of government, where you're like deeply involved in record keeping about what you do,
04:34:
(JVL)
There's, there's a, just a, a sea of documents.
04:39:
(JVL)
Documents do tend to be overclassified.
04:41:
(JVL)
Like we do classify too much stuff.
04:43:
(JVL)
And, uh,
04:45:
(JVL)
like innocent mistakes are the norm, not the, not the exception.
04:51:
(JVL)
And like the, the law of this as practice is typically like it's self policing or, you know, uh, in cases where you don't like you find yourself, you yourself find classified documents are like, Oh crap.
05:06:
(JVL)
Have your lawyer called a,
05:08:
(JVL)
archives or the justice department to try to arrange a turn of them.
05:12:
(JVL)
These just happens.
05:14:
(JVL)
And what made the Trump prosecution notable wasn't that he had classified documents.
05:23:
(JVL)
Like that is a totally, that's a non-story.
05:27:
(JVL)
What made it notable was that he engaged in a prolonged period of lying and
05:36:
(JVL)
to the department of justice about whether or not he had them.
05:41:
(JVL)
And he refused to give them back and engaged in all sorts of criminal activity in order to avoid giving them back.
05:49:
(JVL)
Like that is, that is different.
05:51:
(JVL)
It's just a wholly different.
05:52:
(JVL)
Now, maybe John.
05:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
I was clear that I also thought it was different, right?
05:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
I made that clear.
05:56:
(JVL)
No, no, I completely different.
05:59:
(JVL)
Maybe, maybe Bolton did the same thing and we'll find out, but I will say this is one of the, cause we're going to get real dark.
06:06:
(JVL)
One of the few things that I feel relatively good about over the next three years is the criminal justice system.
06:18:
(JVL)
Because I think we have already seen that the Department of Justice is totally politicized and is going to prosecute people almost entirely based on politics.
06:33:
(JVL)
But they still have to convince juries.
06:36:
(JVL)
And that's one thing that MAGA can't fix, right?
06:40:
(JVL)
Like they can't get into the jury room.
06:43:
(JVL)
And, uh, what we've seen with grand juries already has been very encouraging.
06:49:
(JVL)
And I, uh,
06:51:
(JVL)
You know, I mean, you could see where they will try to bring these cases in friendlier venues.
06:58:
(JVL)
Right.
06:58:
(JVL)
Like, you know, oh, we'll see if we can find a way to try them in Texas.
07:01:
(JVL)
Right.
07:01:
(JVL)
But yeah, in general, I feel like a jury of 12 of your peers is like the closest to an uncorruptible place as there is.
07:13:
(JVL)
So I feel pretty good about that.
07:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
Even with your low opinion of humans.
07:17:
(JVL)
Yeah, because one person in the jury room who is, like, not a mouth breather can just say no.
07:24:
(JVL)
Right?
07:25:
(JVL)
This is why.
07:25:
(JVL)
You know, it only takes one of 12.
07:28:
(JVL)
You know, what are the chances if you put 12 people together that one of them will have an IQ over 80?
07:33:
(JVL)
I mean, it's not bad.
07:35:
(JVL)
That's pretty good odds.
07:36:
(JVL)
So that's bad.
07:38:
(JVL)
But...
07:40:
(JVL)
I want to move us into item two here because what I'm trying to do is layer.
07:44:
(JVL)
This feels like it was a slow news week.
07:48:
(JVL)
And yet I think there's so much that happened that just feels like authoritarianism run amok.
07:57:
(JVL)
Andrew Cuomo said this week that if Momdani wins, quote, Trump will take over the city and it will be Mayor Trump who runs the city.
08:06:
(JVL)
This is probably not true.
08:11:
(JVL)
But on the other hand, it's not a ridiculous political attack, right?
08:20:
(JVL)
The idea that if Mamdani wins and Donald Trump has made it clear he does not like Mamdani, then Donald Trump will attempt to punish the city of New York for electing a politician he does not like.
08:36:
(JVL)
And that we're now at a place where that is just a totally acceptable.
08:41:
(JVL)
Sure, of course.
08:42:
(JVL)
Of course, he would do that.
08:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
Can I just quickly flag, though, how insane of an argument that is from Cuomo?
08:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
Elect me because the authoritarian likes me better than the other guy.
08:53:
(JVL)
I mean, it's it's not.
08:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
Shut up, Cuomo.
08:57:
(JVL)
It may be the best argument he has.
09:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
Uh, I don't know.
09:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
I, I just, I think it, I think it demonstrates just how cynical and nihilistic Cuomo is, uh, to try to, he's basically like threatening New Yorkers with Trump to get himself elected, even though he's Trump's preferred candidate.
09:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
Gross, gross, gross.
09:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Okay.
09:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like we've been saying, I'm anti, anti-Mimdani.
09:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
and i'm i'm hard anti-cuomo uh that said i i do when we were in new york recently i was talking to someone in new york and i was asking them like i you know i'm surprised you guys have avoided the national guard so far like everywhere else they've been going in to every major uh liberal city or at least saber rattling about it so why not new york uh
09:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
Why do you think?
09:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
I suspect that would be in a way where you could sort of get away with Chicago because A...
10:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
whether it's true or not, the perception of Chicago as like very, very like a place of deep crime, I think is enough of a national story that they can sort of use the pretext of that.
10:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's also like the, and then DC is,
10:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
I was going to say, like, the media is here, but we also have home rule complications that make D.C. a little bit different.
10:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
You go to New York, you are full-on in the national media.
10:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
You are in the place where the finance and media live, and...
10:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
I wonder if there's something about New York that is causing him to not do that yet.
10:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
But maybe it's true that as soon as Momdani is in there, they will do the National Guard.
10:56:
(JVL)
I mean, I think it's as simple as Eric Adams is mayor and Eric Adams is a Trump ally.
11:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
11:02:
(JVL)
Right?
11:03:
(JVL)
I think that's right, yeah.
11:05:
(JVL)
The pretext, Trump wants pretexts, and so the pretext to move on New York would be, well, they elected a socialist.
11:13:
(JVL)
and we got to stop socialism.
11:15:
(JVL)
Look what this horrible socialist has done.
11:17:
(JVL)
Right.
11:18:
(JVL)
And then it'd be looked, everything was fine in New York when Eric Adams was, uh, Eric Adams, who I've just partnered or whatever, you know, uh, when he was, when he was in office, everything was fine, but it's all gone to hell since you elected this socialist.
11:31:
(JVL)
And, uh, and then they'll go, I mean, that's just what I assume.
11:36:
(JVL)
Um, also it could be, they can't eat two major cities at the same time.
11:42:
(JVL)
I mean, Chicago is sucking up all of federal resources.
11:47:
(JVL)
I don't think they can do Chicago and New York simultaneously.
11:50:
(JVL)
I think they have to do these things in serial.
11:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
happens when there's like a real emergency.
11:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like the kind of thing the National Guard would do before it was planting trees in major cities.
12:01:
(JVL)
You mean like a no kings protest that they have to go break up?
12:04:
(JVL)
Or do you mean something different?
12:06:
(JVL)
A different kind of emergency?
12:06:
(JVL)
What kind of emergency are you talking about?
12:08:
(JVL)
A political emergency?
12:09:
(JVL)
Or like an actual natural disaster?
12:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
I meant like a natural disaster.
12:12:
(JVL)
I can tell you exactly what will happen.
12:15:
(JVL)
If the natural disaster is in a blue area, they won't show up.
12:20:
(JVL)
And if it is in a red area,
12:22:
(JVL)
They will show up belatedly and none of the voters there will blame them.
12:26:
(JVL)
They will blame the Democrats somehow.
12:29:
(JVL)
It'll be somehow it was AOC's fault that the National Guard didn't get to Asheville, North Carolina or something.
12:37:
(JVL)
Because that's how those people are.
12:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
All right, keep going.
12:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
What are we getting?
12:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
We're getting progressively darker, you say?
12:43:
(JVL)
Yeah, we're going to get progressively darker.
12:47:
(JVL)
Pentagon has purged the press corps.
12:50:
(JVL)
There are only three American news outlets which are now credentialed at the Pentagon.
12:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
One of them's OAN.
12:58:
(JVL)
One of which I have written for.
12:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
Oh, The Federalist?
13:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
Did you write for The Federalist?
13:04:
(JVL)
I did.
13:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
What'd you write?
13:06:
(JVL)
I wrote a piece, a long piece, about how Prince Hans was not actually the bad guy in Frozen.
13:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
Are you serious?
13:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Are you telling me the truth right now?
13:21:
(JVL)
Yeah.
13:26:
(JVL)
Okay.
13:26:
(JVL)
This is the piece I wrote for The Federalist.
13:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
Man, I got to tell you, we were living in a different world when you just had the time to sit there and opine on the frozen characters.
13:37:
(JVL)
My case for people listening is not that...
13:41:
(JVL)
Of course, Prince Hans is the villain in the movie as we saw it.
13:45:
(JVL)
But if you go deep in the early versions of the Frozen script, the reason Elsa has these powers is because she is cursed.
13:57:
(JVL)
Like there's a prophecy.
14:00:
(JVL)
And they did away with the idea of a prophecy.
14:03:
(JVL)
And once there's no prophecy, which is powering her arc and all of the tragedy, they had to create a villain, right?
14:12:
(JVL)
Because the prophecy was the villain.
14:15:
(JVL)
And so that's why they took...
14:18:
(JVL)
So Prince Hans, his character, he takes a turn that is basically totally unearned.
14:23:
(JVL)
Like he is a genuinely like, Hey, Prince Hans is great.
14:25:
(JVL)
And when he turns and goes bad, you're like, wait a minute, that feels out of left field.
14:30:
(JVL)
The answer is it was out of left field.
14:32:
(JVL)
It's because as he was originally written, he wasn't the villain.
14:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
Anyway, it does feel out of left field.
14:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
Now that you mention it.
14:38:
(JVL)
It's the only thing wrong with that movie.
14:40:
(JVL)
It's a great movie.
14:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
Great, great music.
14:43:
(JVL)
Yeah.
14:43:
(JVL)
Fantastic.
14:44:
(JVL)
Um, anyway, that was the piece I wrote for the Federalist.
14:47:
(JVL)
Again, it was a different time.
14:49:
(JVL)
Uh,
14:51:
(JVL)
So our American Pentagon press corps is the Federalist, the Epoch Times and OAN and six Turkish outlets, which are of various connections to a surprising number of Turkish outlets.
15:02:
(JVL)
Is there twice as many Turkish members of the Pentagon press corps as American?
15:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, we're all going to have to start reading the Turkish papers to find out what's going on at our Pentagon.
15:14:
(JVL)
So I don't know if you listened to Tim's Ann Applebaum show yesterday.
15:17:
(JVL)
I assume you did.
15:19:
(JVL)
She don't answer that.
15:21:
(JVL)
Don't answer that.
15:23:
(JVL)
She made a point, which I had not considered, which is that the Pentagon and the Trump administration knew full well that no American news outlets would agree to this.
15:38:
(JVL)
And the whole point of it was to get them out of the building.
15:42:
(JVL)
So that we now have official state-sanctioned media outlets.
15:48:
(JVL)
Because that's what the Federalist and the Epoch Times and OAN are now.
15:52:
(JVL)
They are people who, they will report only the administration-approved news.
16:01:
(JVL)
No different than, you know, Jing Zhao or Pravda or anything like that.
16:05:
(JVL)
So they've gone from being like, you know, obviously totally alive.
16:08:
(JVL)
And maybe this is a distinction without a difference.
16:11:
(JVL)
But from just ideological allies and political allies to wholly owned subsidiaries in terms of what they are allowed to report because they've signed a pledge.
16:24:
(JVL)
I thought that was pretty sinister.
16:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, it is sinister.
16:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's interesting, this idea that they wanted them out of the building on purpose.
16:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
Because I will tell you, I am surprised at how many people didn't sign it, including people like the Washington Examiner.
16:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
Um, and because we've, we've had a real problem.
16:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, Trump has been doing the thing where they kick out reporters who have been reporting stuff, right?
16:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
They're going after the wall street journal and the media has been
16:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
Has done nothing to defend themselves, their professional allies, right?
17:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
Their colleagues.
17:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I actually was genuinely viewed it as a positive, like a net positive.
17:12:
(JVL)
Oh, don't do that.
17:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
That they were unwilling to sign it.
17:17:
(JVL)
No, this wasn't principled.
17:19:
(JVL)
I mean, what distinguishes Newsmax from OAN or The Federalist or The Epoch Times is that those three outlets which are on site are judgment-proof because they have no assets.
17:35:
(JVL)
Like, those...
17:37:
(JVL)
those are fly-by-night operations with nothing for anybody to ever come after.
17:41:
(JVL)
Whereas if you are Fox or the Wall Street Journal or even Newsmax, Newsmax is a publicly traded company, um,
17:49:
(JVL)
you can get yourself into legal trouble, right?
17:52:
(JVL)
You sign on that pledge and you wind up breaking it somehow accidentally.
17:57:
(JVL)
And now you are opening yourself up to legal action and you have assets.
18:02:
(JVL)
That's what this is about for them.
18:04:
(JVL)
They're like, no, no, we can't do that.
18:06:
(JVL)
We'll still be friendly to the administration.
18:07:
(JVL)
This isn't about principle, but like we do have to protect our assets.
18:12:
(JVL)
And so they're, they're, they are not judgment proof and you know, OAN and the Epoch Times and the Federalist are.
18:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Okay.
18:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, all right, you've convinced me that that is deeply sinister.
18:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
And actually, the only thing I'm going to yes and on this is it does layer into what is to me, sometimes people ask the question, you know, what keeps you up at night?
18:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
What are you most worried about?
18:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
And for me, it is, and it's happening slowly, but it's happening really, really clearly.
18:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
The media legacy and independent and new is increasingly owned by Trump sympathetic allies, people who are trying to curry favor with Trump.
19:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
And that goes for Paramount and the Ellisons who are.
19:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
who have purchased Paramount, which owns CBS.
19:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
They are trying to buy Warner Brothers.
19:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
It goes for Elon Musk, who owns X, and Mark Zuckerberg, who owns Instagram and Threads and Facebook.
19:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
It goes for many of the people who are working on the AI slop that is coming our way.
19:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
TikTok was just sold to Trump's allies.
19:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like,
19:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
The extent to which the media ecosystem is becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump and his allies cannot be overstated.
19:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
And that has the very long term ramifications.
19:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so this is another way in which the more they own the media or it is seeking Trump's approval, the more they feel emboldened to do things like this.
19:57:
(JVL)
Yeah.
19:59:
(JVL)
All right.
19:59:
(JVL)
I want to take you further down the hole, but we should do that behind the paywall.
20:05:
(JVL)
So, I mean, what a great sell that is to people listening to the show.
20:10:
(JVL)
If you would like to be even more depressed and hear even darker stuff, you should become a member of Bulwark Plus.
20:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
I will say, depending on what he's about to say, I may have an optimistic take, but I may not.
20:22:
(JVL)
Spoiler.
20:23:
(JVL)
She's not going to be able to.
20:25:
(JVL)
Okay.
20:27:
(JVL)
Uh, last night news broke that Admiral Alvin Holsey, uh, the head of SOCOM was resigning his post one year into a three year term.
20:37:
(JVL)
This is the guy who was, uh, overseeing the Venezuelan boat attacks, which there now have been six, which still nobody in the government has provided any legal justification for, uh,
20:53:
(JVL)
On the one, the reporting so far, and it's very elliptical, is he raised questions about the legality of these operations.
21:03:
(JVL)
And now he's not there anymore.
21:06:
(JVL)
And I don't know.
21:09:
(JVL)
Like, on the one hand, if he resigned out of principle because he thought that he was being asked to do things that were illegal,
21:21:
(JVL)
That's good, I guess.
21:25:
(JVL)
But what good is it if he doesn't say the reason I've resigned is because they were asking me to do illegal things?
21:34:
(JVL)
Right.
21:35:
(JVL)
I mean, to resign your office because you believe you are being asked to carry out illegal orders so that they can simply find somebody else who will do the illegal things?
21:47:
(JVL)
What's the point of that?
21:51:
(JVL)
No, I mean, like, I guess it's better than doing it because at least you make them try to find somebody else who will do it.
21:59:
(JVL)
Maybe they aren't able to, but as we've seen, like, I remember, remember the, the,
22:07:
(JVL)
the Republican MAGA lawyer who resigned, I think it was in, in New York, um, because she was being told to drop the Eric Adams case and email both came and they wound up firing like five people before he finally found somebody who would do it.
22:24:
(JVL)
Like I did wonder like, well, the guy who eventually agreed to do it, who was a career, like why the fuck did he do that?
22:32:
(JVL)
They should have made both fire everyone.
22:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
22:36:
(JVL)
and the idea that like people like there is a breaking point, like there really is a breaking point, you know, where people, you could have six people willing to stand up and get fired, but you will eventually find somebody weak enough that they come up with a rationalization for, well, you know, he's going to fire all 25 of us career attorneys.
22:56:
(JVL)
And, uh, Jimmy just had a baby and Susie is, you know, would need it, has student loans and stuff.
23:04:
(JVL)
Uh,
23:07:
(JVL)
And the answer is she'll always, like, make them go all the way.
23:12:
(JVL)
And in this case, like, I don't know, I feel reasonably confident they're going to find...
23:17:
(JVL)
Another admiral who is not going to question legality of these things.
23:21:
(JVL)
Maybe I'm wrong.
23:22:
(JVL)
But there are a bunch of admirals.
23:25:
(JVL)
Just like in any 12-member jury, you're going to find one person who's smart.
23:29:
(JVL)
I'm sure there are at that 800-person meeting at Quantico with all the flag officers.
23:34:
(JVL)
I'm sure you could have found 20 people there who would be happy to do anything Trump asked them to.
23:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, I do think making them fire you.
23:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
This ends up being just sort of a...
23:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
Neither of them are great options, right?
23:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
Or you're going either way, right?
23:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
You know they're going to get rid of you if you don't do what they say.
23:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
The question you're asking is whether it's better to quit or resign in protest or make them fire you.
24:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I felt really strongly about this with, say, like Chris Wray.
24:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think Chris Wray should have made them fire him, not just get out of the way.
24:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
How it works in these military situations could be different.
24:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, sometimes people understand what signals they are sending to the community that really understands this, right?
24:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like the military community.
24:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is his stepping down?
24:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is that actually sending shockwaves through people because he is saying, I will resign rather than following this order?
24:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
Which, again, for the military maybe feels...
24:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, it might be a more correct thing than just disobeying an order.
24:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
And that people who understand the dynamic there better than we do see that and say, oh, wow.
24:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
Because this was big news that this guy was resigning.
24:59:
(JVL)
Yeah, and I think you're right.
25:00:
(JVL)
I think it'll play very differently within the military.
25:03:
(JVL)
To be clear.
25:05:
(JVL)
I think it's absolutely proper for the head of SOCOM to, if he believes he's being given an illegal order that he cannot carry out to resign his post.
25:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, like I sort of want to say good on this guy before we criticize or before we do the tactical analysis of whether or not it's the right thing to do.
25:23:
(JVL)
But you very shortly then have to explain why you did it.
25:27:
(JVL)
Because otherwise, if you do it in such a manner as to give them cover, which is what he's done,
25:33:
(JVL)
Like, you know, he gave a very noncommittal thing.
25:37:
(JVL)
Like, if he is not leaking to the press to explain why he did this, I mean, then just resigning and playing nice about it.
25:49:
(JVL)
I'm not sure that there's any that really creates any difference in the world than just doing the illegal things.
25:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
So, well, I don't know about that.
25:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, that makes a difference to his conscience, which I think is fair.
26:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
And that means that he now has credibility if he chooses to criticize.
26:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
Although I got to say, this is a bigger problem.
26:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I do think it goes to how scared people are of Trump.
26:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
We've seen a ton of resignations at DOJ.
26:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
We've seen, you know, like when Comey's daughter resigned, like there's all these people who've resigned instead of, but we don't hear from them.
26:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
We heard from some of the lawyers early on who left some of the law firms, the big law firms that capitulated to Trump.
26:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
But there has been no real effort by people to sort of go public in a way.
26:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think this is where people sometimes because, and this was the problem with the generals.
26:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
Norms.
26:46:
(JVL)
Their norms, they're clinging to our norms that we love so much.
26:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
They have their professional standards that dictate things.
26:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so they're trying to not violate their professional standards.
26:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is where you just kind of get to the, don't you know what time it is?
27:01:
(JVL)
The authoritarians are counting on people adhering to their professional standards while they don't do theirs, right?
27:08:
(JVL)
And it is not a case of like, oh, you have to sink to their level or anything like that.
27:17:
(JVL)
But it is more of like somebody is trying to use norms against the system in order to reorder the systems that there will be no norms.
27:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yes.
27:30:
(JVL)
And you have to recognize that and be willing to attempt to counteract it.
27:36:
(JVL)
Like, I just don't know.
27:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm with you, bro.
27:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
We are we are on the same page so far.
27:42:
(JVL)
All right.
27:42:
(JVL)
And then we have the IRS where Trump made clear that they're reordering the IRS.
27:48:
(JVL)
They have drawn up an enemies list to target.
27:52:
(JVL)
And it's all being done in public.
27:54:
(JVL)
Like, that's the funny part is that it's not like they are that this is some super secret operation that then it was going to take ProPublica doing 12 months of investigation to tie all the pieces together and go, wait a minute.
28:07:
(JVL)
It looks like they've actually been targeting all the drama.
28:11:
(JVL)
It's like, yeah, and then we're going to go after all the people we don't like.
28:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
Okay, so this one I've got a lot of opinions on.
28:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is a real, real step in a terrifying direction.
28:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Let me tell you why.
28:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
Our country has always been very careful about weaponizing or utilizing the IRS.
28:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
Because the second that you start selectively going into your enemy's finances and businesses...
28:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
or shutting down nonprofits, taking away their 501c3 status, their 501c4 status.
28:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
In recent history, there was only one thing that I've seen where the IRS, the neutrality of the IRS is like,
28:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
as important as it gets to having a functional rule of law and democracy.
29:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like people think about the IRS.
29:07:
(JVL)
It is, it is like the state sanction for the use of violence, right?
29:12:
(JVL)
And the way that I don't want to sound like a libertarian to say that taxation is theft, but,
29:18:
(JVL)
Because it's not, but it is an exercise of force.
29:22:
(JVL)
Taxation is an exercise of force by which the government is the only entity which is authorized to go and take things from people.
29:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's right.
29:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's right.
29:34:
(JVL)
Right.
29:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's exactly right.
29:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is where, right, one of the reasons that, just if you want to go back, why conservatives, libertarians, the low taxation arguments is in part about the state being able to just decide what it takes from you.
29:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's why we oppose things like eminent domain, where the government can just be like, I'm taking your house because it's in this thing that we want to do something else with.
29:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
And
29:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
For me, part of why, when people are like, how, why were you a conservative?
30:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
It always mattered to me to limit the power of the state, right?
30:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
Even with things like criminal justice reform, which I was a supporter of in part, right?
30:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
One of the reasons that if you get me to really tell you, like if one of the things about the death penalty, the one thing, or the thing that I would say is my, if I had to argue against it, it would be that if the state has the power to take life,
30:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
It can only do it if it perfectly never, ever makes a mistake.
30:34:
(JVL)
And if it does perfectly ever- Anybody who's been to the DMV who also supports the death penalty, it's just like, I don't understand it.
30:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, the DMV's getting better.
30:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
But point taken, point taken, the enormous power of the state is being used to take your money, okay, that you earn.
30:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is the price we pay to live in a civilized society.
30:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
It is the kind of compact-
31:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
It is at the center of the compact between the government and the citizen.
31:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so you start messing with that compact, you are undermining just something at its core.
31:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
And for people who don't know this world of 501c3s and 501c4s and all this stuff,
31:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
There is a lot.
31:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
And you can have fights about it.
31:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
You can have fights about whether or not certain things should be anonymous, what should be public, whatever.
31:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
And we do.
31:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
There's lots of laws around what is public, what is private.
31:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
And people make decisions based on what the rules are, right?
31:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
And if...
31:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
Donald Trump starts to weaponize that.
31:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
And like what they are doing is they are bulking up, not the people who figure out how to like make sure taxes are paid and their refunds are given.
31:54:
(JVL)
They've cut that, right?
31:56:
(JVL)
That stuff got doged.
31:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's the investigative part so that they can stick them on donors and organizations that oppose Trump.
32:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
They are trying to shut down the mechanism by which people, and let's say a 501c3, those are not political, right?
32:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
Those are public education.
32:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
But let's say there's lots of groups who do public education around, I don't know, the central tenets of democracy.
32:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so Trump is like, we don't want people explaining to the public why the rule of law matters, why pluralism matters, why freedom of speech matters, all while we're trying to shut those things down.
32:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so the level of chilling effect, right?
32:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
What they want is they want to send a signal to Democratic donors.
32:43:
(Crosstalk)
Right.
32:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
We'll know who you are.
32:44:
(Crosstalk)
That's what it's ultimately about.
32:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
We'll know who you are.
32:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so they don't give to the organism.
32:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
They are trying to shut down the mechanism by which people...
32:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
organize and develop a strategy to defeat Trump.
32:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so this is a story that should not fly under the radar.
33:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is as important as anything could be.
33:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I got to tell you, my team had it right away.
33:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
So back in the Obama years, when I was still a conservative, there was a story about Lois Lerner
33:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
I remember her.
33:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
She was the head of the IRS at the time.
33:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
There was allegations at the time that they were, and this was the allegation, that they were basically putting Tea Party groups or conservative groups through extra scrutiny to get what is called your 501c3 status, what is your charitable nonprofit status.
33:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
And at the end of the day, there was an investigation.
33:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
She had to go in front of Congress.
33:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
She had to do it.
33:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
And we were all mad at the idea that if you were a conservative group, you were getting this sort of extra scrutiny or they were slowing down how fast you could get your 501c3 status.
33:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
At the end of the day, they were found to have behaved sort of like the takeaway was they didn't break any laws.
34:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
It wasn't, you know, but it was a little, but it was kind of unprofessional.
34:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
And they had to do a public apology.
34:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, that's right.
34:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
So they had to apologize for doing it.
34:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
Republicans lost their minds during that particular controversy.
34:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
And there are quotations.
34:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
out there from so many of the people who are still in office today, like Ted Cruz.
34:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
Ted Cruz is like, if somebody, a Republican, were to go after left-wing groups like this, I would be the loudest.
34:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
I would be the first to demand that that not happen.
34:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
Donald Trump himself, I would never weaponize the IRS.
34:44:
(JVL)
Kind of like you can't hold a vote on a Supreme Court nominee the year before presidential election.
34:50:
(JVL)
Kind of like that?
34:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
Actually, I think this is much clearer.
34:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
J.D.
34:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
Vance.
34:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
J.D.
34:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
Vance is like, you do not have a country if you have a weaponized IRS.
34:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
They are all out there on this issue.
35:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
And now, I want to make it clear, because I'm going to get people are going to be like, Sarah Lois Lerner did nothing wrong or whatever.
35:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think that they, those were like,
35:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
some poor judgment calls.
35:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
There were poor judgment calls.
35:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
There were some like some unprofessional stuff where people are like, nah, they're pulling aside these groups and they're looking at them a little harder.
35:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
That is so different though, than what we're talking about here.
35:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like if you lost your mind about that as a conservative, just about,
35:29:
(JVL)
So prospectively, whether you'd be grant tax-exempt status, this is we're going to go after and try to destroy people and take their money from them.
35:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
Take their money.
35:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
But this is what they want to do.
35:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
They want to take Harvard's nonprofit status so that people cannot donate to Harvard for its educational whatever.
35:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
The extent to which this – and look, if you want to change the rules –
35:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
So that you can't talk about certain things using 501c3 because they are tax-exempt.
36:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's fine.
36:03:
(JVL)
Change the rules.
36:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
Change the rules.
36:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
Pass a law.
36:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
You do not just suddenly send in a weaponized tax force to go after Americans.
36:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is where they're just going to start looking for anything they can find.
36:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's like what they're doing to Tish James.
36:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
where it's like they take a sort of common practice that, again, many people in Trump's cabinet have done, and they try to turn that into, and maybe that practice is not great.
36:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
Okay, well then, enforce that.
36:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's sort of like it's one of those things where nobody enforces that thing.
36:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so this is completely different.
36:46:
(JVL)
I want to underline the compact part because I've had people say to me like, oh, resistance people should just refuse to pay their taxes.
36:56:
(JVL)
And I'm like, yeah, good luck with that.
37:00:
(JVL)
But the compact is that you pay your taxes no matter who is in office or what that administration plans to do with those monies.
37:11:
(JVL)
Because we recognize that, again, the taxation power is being applied fairly and is not being used as a form of punishment.
37:23:
(JVL)
And that is the reason why we all pay taxes even when we don't like where the money is going to and we don't like the administration doing it, right?
37:30:
(JVL)
That's the compact.
37:32:
(JVL)
Once you blow that up and you blow it up, again, not even subtly, but openly,
37:40:
(JVL)
Like, I don't know.
37:41:
(JVL)
Well, how do you tell?
37:43:
(JVL)
I mean, the only reason then that people should be willing to pay taxes is to avoid going to jail like that.
37:49:
(JVL)
And I don't know how you walk back from that.
37:51:
(JVL)
I mean, if this goes through and they're able to actually start doing what they say they would like to do.
38:00:
(JVL)
Well, what is the answer?
38:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
I do not care for this particular thing that you do where you're like, how do you walk back from that?
38:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, cause you end all of these like insane things with this idea of like that we can't, but of course you can, you, you, you explain to people what is happening and you say you like, this is where my, my great hope,
38:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
For Democrats who win in 2028 is that they roll back executive power.
38:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
They explain the abuses of power of the Trump administration and they restore.
38:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
And in some cases, you're going to have to codify norms into laws.
38:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like this is what they should have done during the Biden years.
38:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
Huge missed opportunity.
38:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like there are ways to walk it back and get back to the place where we just know now.
38:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
that you can't rely on the norms and you have to have laws that say the government can't do this.
38:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
But can I, just going back to this idea of the compact and how fundamental it is and why this one is something that people should take really seriously.
38:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do you remember how America started?
38:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do you know why we're here as a country today?
39:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
It is because people felt like we were being taxed without being properly represented because we were being taxed by the British while we were over here.
39:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so it was a taxation without representation, which is still what happens in DC, by the way, which is why we should be, which is why we should have our statehood.
39:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
But it's funny, but we make sort of an outlier joke about it.
39:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's on the license plates.
39:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Taxation without representation is like on the DC license plate.
39:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
But the idea...
39:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
that you can start to mess with the taxation part.
39:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like this is for Americans.
39:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
We said no to this.
39:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
We fought a revolutionary war and built a country around the idea that if we were going to be taxed, it was going to be to the good of this place right here on rules we all agreed on, which is why weaponizing the IRS has been something that no matter how crappy most administrations have been, that like the biggest scandal you could get to
39:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
was, I don't know, we're going to look a little harder at some of these groups and make sure they are, because this is why they were looking at them.
40:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think that Republicans actually did overblow the Lois Lerner stuff, but it also was wrong.
40:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
I sort of want to say both those things.
40:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
They shouldn't have done it, but the reason they were looking harder at them is because the Tea Party was becoming a pretty explicit
40:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
uh, political group, right?
40:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
It was very political.
40:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so to say that they were just doing public education around, uh, why low taxes are good.
40:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
I do think like it is fair for the IRS to be like, well, is this a charitable organization that's just going to do education or, uh, are they an astroturf political organization?
40:43:
(JVL)
Yeah.
40:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, although, to be fair, I still think that's, I want to say, I think that's garbage still.
40:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, a lot of places, like, you get to do education around all kinds of issues.
40:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
I had somebody respond to me yesterday that's like, well, you can't, you shouldn't get tax-exempt status if your organization is fundamentally anti-taxes.
41:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I was like, well, that's a garbage position.
41:05:
(JVL)
Yeah, I don't think that agrees.
41:06:
(JVL)
I don't agree with that.
41:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
course not that is it's like it's a perfectly legitimate um okay we our position is that uh that taxes are bad and we're gonna make a case for why taxes are bad and you know or or that we think the national debt is too high and so we are gonna make the educate the public about how high the debt is like all and all of those things can be tax exempt and educational they completely fall within squarely within the rules i just i want to make clear that like it was it was like
41:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
wrong-ish but also and overblown by republicans at the time but also shouldn't happen like it should be a sacred thing that you are very much like stay out of the tax the taxes part and that you would never let it get partisan the second that you don't have neutrality in the irs you really do the things really do start to crumble
41:59:
(JVL)
All right, two more things.
42:01:
(JVL)
Two more things?
42:02:
(JVL)
One the darkest and one something nice.
42:04:
(JVL)
So a little cherry on top for the end.
42:06:
(JVL)
I want to just take back to the Venezuelan boat attacks.
42:09:
(JVL)
And so the administration's explanation for why they have done what they are doing is that the boats they are attacking and the people they are killing are narco-terrorists.
42:27:
(JVL)
Therefore, they are allowed to target them with military force and kill them.
42:35:
(JVL)
And they are not required to adhere to any laws surrounding the exercise of war or the arrest of people committing crimes.
42:48:
(JVL)
They can simply summarily execute them.
42:51:
(JVL)
The administration is also saying that the people who are going to show up to the No Kings protests this weekend are terrorists.
42:58:
(JVL)
Because they call them Antifa and that they are pro-Hamas and Antifa is now a designated domestic terrorist organization.
43:08:
(JVL)
Is it all concerning to you that the administration's position is we can kill terrorists anywhere we want?
43:17:
(JVL)
And also you people over there with the nice gardening hats, you're terrorists.
43:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
43:22:
(JVL)
I mean, I assume they won't kill anybody this weekend, but.
43:28:
(JVL)
Like, I don't know.
43:28:
(JVL)
Am I being crazy alarmist JVL or.
43:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
No, I actually I don't have a lot to I'm not going to push back on this one.
43:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is the they're the them going from the Charlie Kirk murder talking about rhetoric.
43:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
And how we have to tone down the rhetoric and that the left did this by talking about fascism only for them to turn around and designate the No Kings protest as a hate rally filled with Hamas and other terrorists while they are using terrorism as the reason that they can illegally bomb things.
44:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, no, you're 100% right on this one.
44:09:
(JVL)
Wow.
44:09:
(JVL)
All right.
44:10:
(JVL)
Well, then let's get to the good stuff.
44:12:
(JVL)
I found your 2028 presidential candidate.
44:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
Okay, great.
44:16:
(JVL)
His name is JB Pritzker, and you are going to be all in on him all the way.
44:21:
(JVL)
It does not matter what he says or does because he's reported $1.4 million in gambling winnings.
44:28:
(JVL)
And if that doesn't get the Sarah Longwell seal of approval, I don't know what does.
44:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm obsessed with this story.
44:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
I should be paying attention to other things, but the fact that JB Pritzker...
44:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
went to vegas and won 1.4 million dollars so i am just desperate for something what did he tell me what did he bet well that's my question but like what was he putting was he playing blackjack yeah he said he was playing blackjack he said he was playing blackjack and oh and there was an and something else baccarat no no um however
45:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do you know what you would have to...
45:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
Okay, so when you do... Is he betting... What's 1.4?
45:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is $700,000?
45:13:
(JVL)
Do you think he bets seven large on a single hand?
45:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Because the balls of that would require... Do you know how hard it is to go up to that?
45:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
You can get hot cards, but was he betting... Just think about what you would have to bet to sort of double over the course of an evening.
45:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is it 20 grand a hand?
45:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
like 10 grand a hand.
45:37:
(JVL)
I play $10 a hand.
45:39:
(JVL)
Have you ever been into the high roller lounge?
45:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, I've walked through it and been like, and I immediately get, um, like that.
45:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
I, I, if you let me, I think I'd have a gambling addiction.
45:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
Um, but I get, I get scared, right?
45:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is why it's good is that if you go in the high roller lounge and you see the stakes, the minimums, the table, what are the minimums like in a blackjack game?
46:05:
(JVL)
At a table in the high.
46:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
It might be like a thousand dollars.
46:11:
(JVL)
Right.
46:12:
(JVL)
It seems like a lot.
46:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
It seems like a lot.
46:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
So like, let's say you sit down and you just do like $5,000 hands.
46:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Let's say you are a billionaire.
46:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so what is $5 to you and I is 5,000 to them.
46:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't think he could have even been betting that low because to win, to get to 1.4 million is,
46:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
you'd have to bet a lot.
46:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
And the thing about blackjack is like, you go up and down.
46:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
So like, I believe he could have gotten hot, but like usually that they, they take it facts.
46:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like what was he doing?
46:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
I want to know.
46:46:
(JVL)
All right.
46:47:
(JVL)
So here's my question for you.
46:50:
(JVL)
What is the answer to what was he gambling on that would make you like him the most?
46:57:
(JVL)
So let's pretend we don't know it was blackjack, but what is the answer that you, that when, if you found out you would just go, that guy's awesome.
47:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
Uh, I think it is that he, so some people I think like, like the big stakes, like he took a 50-50 chance, right?
47:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
And he just like went big.
47:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
But for me, as somebody who likes to play blackjack in like 14 hour streaks, right?
47:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
it would be the idea.
47:28:
(JVL)
Like somebody's got Michael Jordan.
47:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's like my sister's behind me.
47:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
Uh, and suddenly I look up and she's like, where have you been?
47:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I'm like, what?
47:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
And she's like, it's four 30 in the morning.
47:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
What are you doing?
47:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I'm like, well, I'm here with my friend, John and me and John have been playing together for hours.
47:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
And you know, so it's like,
47:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
Where it really is, is like, did he sit there for such a long time?
47:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
Has he been drinking, right?
47:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's not drunk, but he's been drinking for 10 hours straight.
47:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's smoking several cigars.
47:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
The dealer's got to turn the fan into his face because he's sitting there in a cloud of smoke.
48:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's hunched over and he's like, we're going, we're going.
48:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
And does he, here's the thing.
48:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is he a table player, right?
48:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
Does he just sit there by himself playing with the dealer?
48:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
That is okay, but it doesn't make me like you better.
48:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
What makes me like you better is when you're a table player, you've got your people around you, you've all built a camaraderie, you're all playing against the dealer.
48:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, that's right.
48:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's the best part about blackjack.
48:25:
(JVL)
So for me, the answer is that he would have done it on a crazy bet.
48:33:
(JVL)
So he was playing craps and he put 50 grand on a heartache.
48:38:
(JVL)
Or something like that.
48:40:
(JVL)
That is the level of like, oh, I like that.
48:43:
(JVL)
Oh, I like that a lot.
48:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
So I never play this.
48:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
So like mine, like when my blood really gets pumping, it would be he split his eights.
48:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
And then he got a couple more eights and like, he's having to double his bets and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
48:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
48:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
And like everybody's people from other tables are coming over.
49:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
Cause he's been splitting.
49:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's now been splitting his hands multiple times.
49:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's not, so he's got doubling down, splitting, doubling down, splitting, doubling down.
49:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's right.
49:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
Uh, and then he's asking for the cards down and then the dealer buss and the whole place goes bananas.
49:20:
(JVL)
Or the other thing is, if he was counting.
49:25:
(JVL)
If he was counting cards, because he's secretly like an MIT-level genius who is running the math in his head so that he knows to alter his bets when the count is in his favor, so that he's betting small when the count is not great for him and then very large when the count gets good for him, that would also make me like him even more.
49:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
Interesting.
49:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
49:48:
(JVL)
I like that.
49:50:
(JVL)
I like the people who are either completely cerebral mathematicians or just balls to the wall.
49:55:
(JVL)
Yeah, let's put $50,000 on the number 17 on the roulette wheel.
50:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
Oh, 35 to one payout.
50:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
Here's the thing.
50:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
I will say as much as I like that, he's just he's a guy that plays cards.
50:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
There is something about being a billionaire that just makes it less fun.
50:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
For me, like there's, you gotta, that's why, that's why I get that feeling.
50:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
It might tell me when I go into the high stakes is because I'm like, do people lose this much money?
50:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's so frightening.
50:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do people bet this much money?
50:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's crazy.
50:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's fun when it's like, I won $400.
50:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
Can you believe it?
50:30:
(JVL)
So this is a very funny thing.
50:33:
(JVL)
The most I ever won at a single time in a casino was actually I was playing craps and I went on a real heater of a run.
50:45:
(JVL)
I was betting the $5 minimums, but there was a dude across the table from me who was throwing down like $100 a bet and was putting bets all over the place.
50:57:
(JVL)
And I made him like $5,000 over the course of five minutes.
51:01:
(JVL)
He'd take you to dinner?
51:03:
(JVL)
He threw me $100 chip at the end.
51:06:
(JVL)
And that was the most I've ever won.
51:08:
(JVL)
I was like, oh, I'm done for the night.
51:11:
(JVL)
Great.
51:11:
(JVL)
I didn't even do it by winning.
51:12:
(JVL)
I did it by helping somebody else make money.
51:15:
(JVL)
That was great.
51:16:
(JVL)
It was just a tip.
51:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'll tell you the best one that I did is I went to Vegas with my sister to go wedding dress shopping.
51:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I won like $1,100.
51:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
It was the most I ever won and went and bought a wedding dress with it.
51:33:
(JVL)
That's awesome.
51:35:
(JVL)
Fantastic.
51:37:
(JVL)
Well, I'm going to use that to keep me warm.
51:40:
(JVL)
You know, the tanks roll in.
51:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, where everybody's gambling on our democracy right now.
51:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
That is not fun.
51:47:
(JVL)
Rebecca, take us home.
51:49:
(Rebecca Black)
7 a.m. Waking up in the morning.
51:51:
(Rebecca Black)
Gotta be fresh.
51:52:
(Rebecca Black)
Gotta go downstairs.
51:54:
(Rebecca Black)
Gotta have my bowl.
51:55:
(Rebecca Black)
Gotta have cereal.
51:56:
(Rebecca Black)
Seeing everything.
51:57:
(Rebecca Black)
The time is going.
51:58:
(Rebecca Black)
Ticking on and on.
51:59:
(Rebecca Black)
Everybody's rushing.
52:00:
(Rebecca Black)
Gotta get down to the bus stop.
53:36:
(Rebecca Black)
Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday.
53:41:
(Rebecca Black)
Today is Friday, Friday.
53:45:
(Rebecca Black)
We, we, we so excited.
53:48:
(Rebecca Black)
We so excited.
53:51:
(Rebecca Black)
We gonna have a ball today.
53:54:
(Rebecca Black)
Tomorrow is Saturday and Sunday comes afterwards.
54:00:
(Rebecca Black)
I don't want the sleeping today.
54:04:
(Soundbite)
GRB, Rebecca Black.
54:05:
(Soundbite)
So chilling in the front seat.
54:07:
(Soundbite)
I'm driving, cruising, past the lanes, switching lanes with a car by my side.
54:13:
(Soundbite)
Passing by, it's a scooper in front of me.
55:12:
(Rebecca Black)
to the weekend.