[SPEAKER_02]: It's political.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you, radical.
[SPEAKER_10]: The shotsmith, Pearson, Jody Hamilton.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hey, Sheridan.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm his Jody.
[SPEAKER_07]: I miss Jodie too, but you know what, she's doing fine.
[SPEAKER_07]: We will talk about her mom.
[SPEAKER_07]: Her mom has a whole new entertainment thing going.
[SPEAKER_07]: We've got, well, I mean, we've mentioned before, but it's in the entertainment section, the news on tap.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have a lot of news to get to today as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, yes, we're cleaning up after Donnie's diplomatic, whatever you want to call it yesterday.
[SPEAKER_07]: There is more of the authoritarian cosplay going on in DC and elsewhere around the country, including Texas, which
[SPEAKER_07]: But to hell, making somebody sleep in the state capital because they won't allow a policeman minder to be with them.
[SPEAKER_07]: But anyway, we'll we'll talk about all that weird stuff.
[SPEAKER_07]: We've got some good news.
[SPEAKER_07]: We've got some weird news.
[SPEAKER_07]: And we have Meredith Schiner who's coming in.
[SPEAKER_07]: Meredith Schiner is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_07]: She is a former capital journalist.
[SPEAKER_07]: Somebody that Jared knows really well.
[SPEAKER_07]: Somebody that I know or at least I know her digitally.
[SPEAKER_07]: I've known Meredith for a long time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like we have, you know,
[SPEAKER_07]: The throne stuff back and forth at each other on Twitter and blue sky and she's great.
[SPEAKER_07]: We don't always agree, but I literally don't think that we have ever by voice or face talked to each other.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, you're really missing out because she's in addition to being a fantastic reporter.
[SPEAKER_08]: She's also, when you know these are two very different skills.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sean, uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_08]: She's also a good broadcaster.
[SPEAKER_08]: A great broadcaster.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, I know this I know that she's she's a great journalist and a great bro, but it's it's just it's funny to me because there are people who I have known for God I don't know ten fifteen years in this business and who I've communicated with with email and a messaging and texting and short messaging over Twitter or blue sky or threads or whatever and we've literally never been the same room Well until we're all waiting until the intervention.
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, that's really what's gonna happen
[SPEAKER_08]: We ought to mention that in the bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: We don't talk about interventions.
[SPEAKER_07]: We don't do interventions here.
[SPEAKER_07]: We leave out for the parking lot sometimes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you by the way for joining us and for intervening in your day.
[SPEAKER_07]: We thank you to, uh, for putting us into your day.
[SPEAKER_07]: Your big thanks to everybody listening on America.
[SPEAKER_07]: One radio in Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_07]: W. C. P. T. A. M. A. twenty in Chicago.
[SPEAKER_07]: A. M. nine fifty Minneapolis Saint Paul.
[SPEAKER_07]: The detour talk in the tricities area of Tennessee or progressive voices worldwide, wherever you happen to be or
[SPEAKER_07]: If you're one of those future people listening at some undetermined time where we have absolutely no idea what time it is.
[SPEAKER_07]: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening.
[SPEAKER_07]: And thank you future people for subscribing to the politics bar on your favorite podcast player.
[SPEAKER_08]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_08]: So many different people, future people, present people one day, we're gonna get some past people.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's the real expansion opportunity.
[SPEAKER_07]: Expanding into the area of the dead, I thought that was Fox News this area.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, oh, I'm sorry, did I say did I say that?
[SPEAKER_07]: And by that, I mean putting the word news with Fox because that's devastating something we just don't generally do.
[SPEAKER_07]: So we do have some news on tap today.
[SPEAKER_07]: Um, so in case you heard or you missed it, maybe, uh, Europe's leaders headed off Trump's giveaway to Putin Trump is claiming there's going to be a trilateral summit with him and Zelensky and Putin and Putin is once again going
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, probably not.
[SPEAKER_08]: So he's already gotten everything he wanted out of Trump.
[SPEAKER_08]: So he gets to now go back to being coi, which is essentially their relationship.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't understand.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's bad sound, but you heard how desperate Trump was, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: To be honest, he likes me.
[SPEAKER_05]: He really likes me.
[SPEAKER_08]: I want to paint a picture for people before you play this clip because this is this is the president of the United States in the eastern of the White House talking to other people and this aside that's caught on the hot mic.
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, this is just this is a man who's wears microphone and camera placement.
[SPEAKER_08]: and despite the fact that it's a little bit rough to hear and we will kind of explain what he said in case people hear it and they're like what it's it's so telling to me you can sense even if you can hear all the exact words you will hear and feel the
[SPEAKER_08]: Teenage lover desperation that comes out of his mouth.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, so this is Trump on a hot mic talking to French President Macron and what he's saying is I think he meaning Putin he says I think he wants to make a deal for me Do you understand as crazy as it sounds?
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, listen here it is
[SPEAKER_05]: I just, I think he wants to make a deal for me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you understand?
[SPEAKER_05]: It's crazy, isn't that sounds?
[SPEAKER_08]: I have read YA novels with less yearning adult novels like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, it's less yearning.
[SPEAKER_07]: I have one.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like, you and I were talking over email all the different people that I know from, you know, that I came up with a crazy group of people in high school who have made it famously.
[SPEAKER_07]: One of them is a young adult author by the name of Christine Conrad.
[SPEAKER_07]: And she has written young adult fiction.
[SPEAKER_07]: that were characters are supposed to be desperately in love, and they don't have the desperation that Trump does right here about.
[SPEAKER_05]: Flatty Putin, he said he wants to make a deal for me.
[SPEAKER_05]: The understand is crazy as that sounds.
[SPEAKER_08]: It also, I mean, as much as much fun as we're having with this, you know, septagenarian who's gushing over over the love that he might have.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's another part of this, which is this drastically personal version of the presidency where look,
[SPEAKER_08]: I surprise, surprise, tens of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians dying isn't about you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_08]: Hundreds of billions of dollars of United States military aid isn't about you and whatever this is that's happening and the idea that we all constantly have to make it about that is both, I mean obviously if you're listening to this conversation
[SPEAKER_08]: offensive, right, but also incredibly stupid.
[SPEAKER_08]: And what's awful is that the European leaders, including Putin, but especially the seven who were there yesterday, seven plus the Lensky, so eight, right, they've all cottoned on to this.
[SPEAKER_08]: And they know that they've got to kiss this butt to get something
[SPEAKER_07]: And that is also really offensive to think if you look at the notes though, I don't think cotton is the right word for it because that that's in tones kind of a a supplicant, a kind of a kiss up.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was they have all learned to tell Donald Trump to go to hell in such a way that he looks forward to the trip.
[SPEAKER_07]: or Donald Trump says, I'm going on a trip as opposed to them telling him to go that because they've all learned to judge.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, howch, whatever they're saying in such
[SPEAKER_07]: a florid ass kissing language but they're not actually kissing his ass it sounds like it if you don't pay attention kind of like if you're a maggot and you watch fox and you think that Trump is strong but then if you actually listen to his words and his actions here's a perfect example one of the reasons that I call him grumpy so literally they were sitting there at the table with all of these leaders the the eight leaders including Zelensky
[SPEAKER_07]: You've said it a big dinner table.
[SPEAKER_07]: Obviously, I know you have.
[SPEAKER_07]: You said didn't say your family's have a great big restaurant, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: Had a restaurant and for years to keep myself sane during the first Trump presidency, we had a lot of meatball dinners at my house, which, you know, I mean, you know, we love hosting the table.
[SPEAKER_07]: I understand that.
[SPEAKER_07]: This was a big ass table that they all had.
[SPEAKER_07]: And you guys understand here in the bar, this kind of thing, too.
[SPEAKER_07]: The leader of Finland, the president of Finland president, stop.
[SPEAKER_07]: Cross the table, literally in front of Trump by about three feet.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, three, three, four feet and one foot to his left.
[SPEAKER_07]: So that way the camera had a nice angle of Trump.
[SPEAKER_07]: And this is what Trump says.
[SPEAKER_07]: No joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: President, stupid of Finland and he's
[SPEAKER_01]: He's somebody that we're all we hear.
[SPEAKER_07]: Looks a left.
[SPEAKER_07]: Looks to the right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, looks in front of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: You better than I've ever seen you look.
[SPEAKER_08]: London's Frederick Douglass has the president from been so recently made aware of someone's existence on.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, I, that's one of the reasons that I keep calling him grappy.
[SPEAKER_07]: The dude is literally right there.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you stretched across the table, you could hand him a roll.
[SPEAKER_07]: What the hell, man?
[SPEAKER_07]: But, you know, that would imply doing something physical.
[SPEAKER_07]: And we all know Trump, you know, the only thing he does for that is good for about thirty seconds according to Stormy.
[SPEAKER_07]: So what the hell?
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, I don't why would you why at the beginning of the show?
[SPEAKER_07]: I now have to think about that thing.
[SPEAKER_08]: You don't have to think about it.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's what that's just it.
[SPEAKER_07]: The media is so bad about stating some of these things that are so they're bad about the nuance.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're bad about the reality of some of this stuff.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're bad.
[SPEAKER_07]: They simultaneously make it sound like Trump is Trump and his regime are some of the most incompetent people in power ever.
[SPEAKER_07]: which they are.
[SPEAKER_07]: And also at the same time, they try to make it sound like Donald Trump is Emperor Palipotene of Star Wars, and he is a diabolical evil man who will kill you.
[SPEAKER_07]: And maybe some of the people around Trump are, but great people can't even see across the damn table, man.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, you know, it's important to have the nuance to understand that there are people who are around him who are maneuvering some of these things.
[SPEAKER_07]: And even they, while they're evil, and while things can be really bad, it also doesn't negate that at the same time these people can be completely incompetent and buffoons.
[SPEAKER_07]: You can't be evil and buffoonish at the same time.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I mean, most fascism is because if you were having a government that was based on actual merit or public good, you wouldn't be fascists.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, I'll say this, you know, one, we were talking about how diplomatic leaders have learned to pull one over on Trump.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think for people who have even the slightest bit of memory on something that's just a few months old at this point, the, the Qataris are the ones who actually got it the best.
[SPEAKER_08]: They literally got him
[SPEAKER_08]: So excited for a used plane that needed millions of dollars possibly over a billion dollars in repair to make it usable.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_08]: And he's still talking about it.
[SPEAKER_08]: In fact, the model of the plane was in front of Zelensky yesterday.
[SPEAKER_08]: And so the idea that all of this, I mean, everyone knows how to disguise number.
[SPEAKER_08]: And yet, he's still kind, it's so frustrating to me to see what you've just described, which is that we all understand exactly what he is and yet people still have trouble kind of
[SPEAKER_07]: getting over that and and it's only because there's there's there's there's another example and guess and had a great great piece they have they had a fantastic piece in the New York Times also in the news on yes exactly it is in the news on tap gave you a gift link so if you don't have a subscription don't worry about it's there everybody's been wondering what are these six wars that trump
[SPEAKER_07]: So, so guess and lays this out.
[SPEAKER_07]: They say the conflicts that Trump is taking credit for resolving seem to be these six.
[SPEAKER_07]: The one between the Democratic Republic of Congo, not Congo and Rwanda, that one's not over.
[SPEAKER_07]: Egypt and Ethiopia, not over.
[SPEAKER_07]: Indian Pakistan, clearly not over.
[SPEAKER_07]: Kosovo and Serbia, not over.
[SPEAKER_07]: Armenia and Azerbaijan, who, yes, they sign an agreement at the White House,
[SPEAKER_07]: But if you actually look at world news, no, that one's not done.
[SPEAKER_07]: And Cambodian Thailand, where they have a ceasefire that the US supported, but did not lead and no, that one's not done either.
[SPEAKER_08]: So so I think it's really unfair.
[SPEAKER_08]: What?
[SPEAKER_08]: This man has collected all the different pieces in trivial pursuit.
[SPEAKER_07]: And he has put the little wedges in the circle.
[SPEAKER_08]: And now he is moving the piece back to the center.
[SPEAKER_08]: And he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
[SPEAKER_07]: Or he doesn't get it.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's going to bang on the table and make all the pieces fly out because he's going to have a poop in his pants and he's going to scream until people give him what he wants.
[SPEAKER_08]: Or or it could be maybe he's got like, you know, you have six stamps on your sub sandwich and then the seventh one's free.
[SPEAKER_08]: He's really looking forward to that next one.
[SPEAKER_08]: We keep giving the people in DC sandwiches for free, and they just don't see them as weapons.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's all they do with them.
[SPEAKER_09]: They just use them to beat up.
[SPEAKER_07]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a club, damn it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Anyway.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, we are going to talk about more of the news on Tap and about how the media is miss handling things.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have an absolutely fantastic expert coming into the bar with us today, Maryshiner.
[SPEAKER_07]: She literally teaches this stuff.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not kidding you.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, look, we are, uh... Is there a quiz today?
[SPEAKER_07]: No, no, no, I mean, we could do a quiz, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, she could make one of the spot, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_07]: But look, we'll have Meredith in.
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll do more of the news on tap.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have the drink of the day.
[SPEAKER_07]: It is a Tuesday night here at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: Freshing up your drink and come on back.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll be right back after we'd pay some bills at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a Tuesday night.
[SPEAKER_07]: Here's the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have Sharon Rizsey in filling in for Jody.
[SPEAKER_07]: I miss Jody.
[SPEAKER_07]: I miss Jody too.
[SPEAKER_07]: But look, your hair looks fine even if it's not as bright red as Jody's just saying.
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, you're pretty.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, that's just how we do it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_08]: I didn't even put it down for you, Sean, because I'm scared.
[SPEAKER_08]: You haven't seen me since before COVID where it's actually well-known.
[SPEAKER_08]: I know.
[SPEAKER_07]: I know.
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll look.
[SPEAKER_07]: Enough about us.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have somebody actually important who is in the bar with us tonight.
[SPEAKER_07]: The one the only Meredith Schiner is here at the politics bar for the first time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hello Meredith.
[SPEAKER_07]: Nice to actually see you and talk with you as opposed to, you know, texting or tweeting or whatever we're doing messaging-wise.
[SPEAKER_07]: When was it like, ten, fifteen years that you and I've been doing that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think so.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we have transferred because I'm Twitter sober now and have been since about October, twenty, twenty, three.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're fully on Blue Sky now.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's really the same.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's an honor to be in the bar as a Chicago resident.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we do everything in a bar.
[SPEAKER_03]: We do our political talking.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've purchased a Christmas tree in a bar.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you're perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, no, in Chicago, anything in a bar.
[SPEAKER_03]: And our annual neighborhood garden walk.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's one neighborhood bar that's been around for a hundred years and they literally do a petting zoo.
[SPEAKER_03]: So.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great old bars.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is one of one part of the concept of this this show is the fact that in Great old bars, you used to be able to pick up a good newspaper.
[SPEAKER_07]: You pick up the national papers, you'd have a local paper, you'd have like an entertainment paper, and you would have all this good information that was sitting there.
[SPEAKER_07]: So of course, one was that one loudmouth at the end of the bar who was long before cell phones, you could whip out the papers or whip out of stack of magazines and be like, look, dude, here's the deal.
[SPEAKER_07]: Here's the facts.
[SPEAKER_07]: And, you know, as somebody who is not just a communication strategist, you've been a great journalist, you've been a capital hill journalist.
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, honestly, I wish you would have been here for the softball with a journalist versus, you know, some of the White House folks, because I would have loved to have seen you just totally beanball BS Barbie, but back to the media.
[SPEAKER_07]: The whole thing is is that you even, you teach public policy, the University of Chicago.
[SPEAKER_07]: You understand media because you've been in it.
[SPEAKER_07]: I gotta ask, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, there's so much of the media that is collapsing right now.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's collapsing with politics.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's collapsing with the arts.
[SPEAKER_07]: Do you know any more than I do about this?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I'm, well, I love that you mentioned softball.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like you've really like, hung a sixteen inch softball right over the plate for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, another Chicago reference.
[SPEAKER_03]: Jared knows this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, Jared, thank you for also helping to invite me into the bar.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm glad to be here.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm just wondering whether I'm the loudmouth or the pettings you animal in this scenario.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's like what I mean.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that we were trying to create some sort of allegory, and it's not just that we're all a bunch of degenerates with nothing better to do, but to sit around and pull.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you told me I wasn't supposed to swear.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, I've got to believe you're fine.
[SPEAKER_07]: Don't worry about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't worry about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's done.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, so as Jared knows, I think about these questions with the media all the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And for your listeners, you know, I write a lot about the media and the intersection of our media and our politics at the new republic where I'm a contributing editor.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think
[SPEAKER_03]: First and foremost, one of the reasons I think about it all the time is that I still care about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think as our discourse has evolved as a website like Twitter where a lot of national reporters still are, even though all of the users are eighty percent bots and a hundred percent Nazis, there is this instinctive defensiveness
[SPEAKER_03]: that criticism is somehow hate or criticism devalues the role that these reporters and these journalists play in the media.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I actually, I don't mean to sound polyanish, but I come from it from the opposite perspective, which is when when I moved to Washington in
[SPEAKER_03]: I did it because I thought trying to become a political journalist and a congressional correspondent was a way that I could leverage my skills and my interests to be a public servant.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought that journalism was a public service job.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that there are still people who view it that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we have to talk about the overt attacks and sort of the silent attacks that we're seeing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And recently, you know, one of my
[SPEAKER_03]: Alma Mater is his role call, which is one of the oldest capital hill newspapers in Washington.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was asked to write a reflection on the seventy at the anniversary of the paper.
[SPEAKER_07]: I saw that it was great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, one of the things that I wanted to be was honest about what the experience of being at role call was because it was the best job I'll ever have.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yet it was so eye-opening in terms of the financials of journalism.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the thing that has been so
[SPEAKER_03]: Devastating is that many people, whether at the time roll call was owned by the Economist group, or it's private equity, or it's these billionaires who wanted to present as philanthropists, but in the end really had no values.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they purchased these institutions and they purchased these operations without a clear understanding of what the role and what their public value was.
[SPEAKER_03]: And by virtue of starving all of these outlets, they consolidated the power and media.
[SPEAKER_03]: So as smaller operations close or as we see newsrooms across the country that little by little erode their capabilities, first and foremost, they would close Washington bureau.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you wouldn't have reporters dedicated to covering delegations.
[SPEAKER_03]: What that did was concentrate the power to a place like the New York Times or the Washington Post.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so so much of our media coverage, so much of this like basic function of democracy, then fell to the judgment of an even more select few number of people.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that is the overall landscape.
[SPEAKER_03]: within which we entered the second Trump era where I think you're seeing so many other institutions really power and fear or try to understand how to accommodate the rise of authoritarianism and what it's left general people with is just a total mess and a total lack of prioritization.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll tell you the last thing that I love to tell my students is
[SPEAKER_03]: The thing about a physical newspaper, and I'm not trying to be like, you know, no, I'm not someone's portrait or an old lady or like, you know, back in my day.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the thing about a physical newspaper is that every day, the front page was really a reflection of judgment about what the most important things of that day were, and it's holograph to the people who are picking it up.
[SPEAKER_03]: What are the important stories and what do I need to know?
[SPEAKER_03]: And as someone who has a deep understanding of what happens in DC, who cares about what's happening in DC, who loves people still, who live in DC, Jared included.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that there is not enough understanding about the seriousness of what's happening there by average people.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't blame the average people who don't know because the information is not being synthesized to them in a way that they understand.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I think at the beginning of the Trump administration,
[SPEAKER_03]: They knew the drama around renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and they knew about tariffs, the things that sort of rose to the level, but the wholesale gutting of the government, what that meant when we were basically firing and eliminating lifelong public servants when we were gutting our public health infrastructure, when you're getting rid of the apartment of public education, people didn't really know in practical matter what that meant, and they couldn't understand the scale of it because they weren't immersed in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: like the people living in DC are and so I think that there's a certain like
[SPEAKER_03]: No's blindness.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, if we're in DC, this is real.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's happening all the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so serious.
[SPEAKER_03]: Every month must share in this reality.
[SPEAKER_03]: And right now they're not, and that's deeply problematic.
[SPEAKER_07]: There's multiple ways that this, that this, that this folds out.
[SPEAKER_07]: First first thing as you were mentioning about the media consolidation.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know if you heard.
[SPEAKER_07]: Next star is buying Tegna two of the greatest, a local TV companies.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I don't mean great in, you know, sense of great, been sense of biggest.
[SPEAKER_07]: So now you're going to have even fewer local television owners, which is where a lot of people get their news.
[SPEAKER_07]: And when you don't have the the number of perspectives out there, whatever it is, whether it's local news, whether it's entertainment news, whether it's sports, whether it's whatever it is, when you don't have the perspectives, you're right.
[SPEAKER_07]: It comes from a smaller group of people.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if somebody wants to have authoritarian tendencies, it's a lot easier to control the smaller group of people than it is a much broader sense.
[SPEAKER_07]: So there's obviously that is a huge part of the problem is the ownership
[SPEAKER_07]: And they're doing it right now and part they actually came out and said that they're doing it because Brendan Carr, who is Trump's FCC person, is like, eh, what the heck?
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's open up the ownership things and allow even fewer companies to own even more of this, which is insane.
[SPEAKER_07]: But then you've got the differing perspectives, both of which are real.
[SPEAKER_07]: We talked about this yesterday, Jared, the perspective of you who lives in DC.
[SPEAKER_07]: And people who live in DC who are very afraid.
[SPEAKER_07]: And yes, they should be.
[SPEAKER_07]: But there's also the perspective of so much of what is being done in DC and in places like Texas.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's perceived.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not actual.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's the threat of true authoritarianism versus the actuality.
[SPEAKER_07]: People aren't
[SPEAKER_07]: There are some that are getting beaten up and taken away.
[SPEAKER_07]: The majority are not.
[SPEAKER_07]: The majority go to hell.
[SPEAKER_07]: These national guard people, most of the national guard people are just standing me around going whatever.
[SPEAKER_07]: Both of these things are true at the same time.
[SPEAKER_07]: It takes nuanced to be able to communicate that and so much of our media.
[SPEAKER_07]: They don't have the ability of it, and they don't care to have the ability of it, which is insane.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, you know, you know this, Jared, we get your report every single day.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, and I want to go back to something Meredith said about the way in which we use and consume journalism, because I think there's an analog, and I want to know if you go along with this Meredith, where both journalism and politics
[SPEAKER_08]: are things that people don't really understand how they pay for them.
[SPEAKER_08]: They pay for them whether it's in time or taxes or whatever, but they pay for them and there's a wall between the consumer and the product essentially for lack of a better word.
[SPEAKER_08]: And that opacity creates a disconnect for people where, because they don't pay for it directly, they don't understand the value of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: And they really don't understand how much they're paying for it when it's bad.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think journalism
[SPEAKER_08]: Canary in the coal mine, bad journalism and the business model has been bad for a long time.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: We've seen what that does.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think this administration and really the Republican project for the last fifty or seventy years has been dedicated to the idea that we could make government even worse.
[SPEAKER_08]: And just stretching that barrier because people don't understand how much more they're paying for a government that's racist and inefficient and a bunch of other things.
[SPEAKER_08]: And so when something like Doge happens and people are promised efficiency, they know that the problem is real, they don't understand why this is such an obvious wrong solution to it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Right.
[SPEAKER_07]: it makes it easy for, you know, somebody to come in like Trump and go, I know how to fix it.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is real easy.
[SPEAKER_03]: When it's not, that's, is that what Trump sounds like?
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, no, it's like he's in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The more the more the more the more the more sounds like that.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that's what it sounds like is like every more.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, this is getting a little too Chuck Schumer like the Bailey's situation.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I want to stop this before we fall down a wormhole that we don't remember for a full sentence.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so I Jared, as you were talking, I created a little rundown for myself to respond to all of the points that you're making because I want to break them apart and address different components separately because I think what you said was so big.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so first of all, in terms of value for what people are paying.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that that is impart true, but also we saw a prime example recently of how that's not true.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there was mass resistance to the idea that we should shutter the corporation for public broadcasting.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think people understood that for one dollar a year people across the country got access to quality programming.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do feel and you know that I don't want to go down this particular sort of
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because I will lose my mind over how Democrats handled the corporation for public broadcasting issue that has been, you know, percolating for fifteen years now.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think there are ways in which people see the value and understand it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And also, it exists within this broader context where they don't fully understand certain things about our journalism and our politics.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was your opening statement here that people don't really understand how either of them work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I wanted to bring up one of my pet issues, which is the idea of a public editor.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, people like Dean Bikke made one of the most strategic mistake.
[SPEAKER_03]: The biggest strategic mistake in the history of the New York Times when he said people complaining on Twitter could replace the role of public editor.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is not to say that there aren't certain people who have been better at the job or worse at the job.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the point of a public editor was to be a reporter on behalf of the public within a newsroom.
[SPEAKER_03]: to help demystify how a newsroom works.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think one of the things that I get to charge people money for in my job as a communications consultant is media training and a huge part of that is demystifying the media to them to make them understand that a reporter isn't
[SPEAKER_03]: a person that they necessarily see in a briefing room or dramatized on house of cards.
[SPEAKER_03]: But they're real people who have different deadlines and interests and pressures and they have editors and the news is actually a product of
[SPEAKER_03]: many, many decisions every day made by a large number of people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Unfortunately, that number of people is shrinking and that also impacts what we're seeing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we have actively taken steps as the media to actually make it more opaque for people and to take away their understanding of what they're getting.
[SPEAKER_08]: If I know Meredith, she's only halfway through her list.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, no, she is.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, I guarantee she is, and we have a whole other round.
[SPEAKER_07]: We can have another round with you, right Meredith?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, of course.
[SPEAKER_07]: Good.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have another round with Meredith Shiner.
[SPEAKER_07]: Heck, we could probably take two or three or four rounds with Meredith Shiner just because, like I said, she's one of the best.
[SPEAKER_07]: We are very glad to have you here.
[SPEAKER_07]: We will have more from her.
[SPEAKER_07]: We will have the drink of the day coming up a little bit later and more news on tap.
[SPEAKER_07]: Take a deep breath.
[SPEAKER_07]: You got this.
[SPEAKER_07]: We're gonna get another round of drinks and a little bit more with Meredith Schiner here on a Tuesday night at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll be right back after we pay some bills at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: To always dance!
[SPEAKER_07]: Here at the politics bar, thank you very much for joining us from wherever you are.
[SPEAKER_07]: Remember you can always recat to us at any point in time through any of our social media on blue sky, on threads, on Instagram, Facebook, Substack.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, we're on Twitter for those few good people who still remain there.
[SPEAKER_07]: You can even call us on the bar phone to one three six seven seven seven seventy two fifty eight.
[SPEAKER_07]: There's two one three six seven seven seventy seven seventy two fifty eight two one three six seven seven salt like in yo mugger Rita outright.
[SPEAKER_07]: We won't get to the drink of the day a little bit later, but right now we've got the one, the only Meredith Schiner here in the bar with Jared and me and Meredith by the way, actually we had a voicemail left last night, not the best quality, but Wendy asked us.
[SPEAKER_07]: She said recently we've been talking about the CPB being defunded and she was like, why don't we have some fact-based media going to buy up these local NPR stations and some of the native stations that are going to be closing because of this instead of having the right wing propaganda to do it?
[SPEAKER_07]: And I think that's kind of what part of what we've been talking about with this is where the money is or isn't in media.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think specifically to that question, you know, I have a very vivid memory, particularly when my almost five-year-old son was exclusively a Sesame Street guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we were just, we were flipping through and there was, I must have been the
[SPEAKER_03]: Fifty at the anniversary special.
[SPEAKER_10]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they had Joseph Gordon Levitt do the like monologue to like welcome people.
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the things I remember was him saying Sesame Street belongs to all of us.
[SPEAKER_07]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And being really hit by that is at the time, like, it had already been sold to HBO and David's as I'm going to own it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so there is this idea of, like, what should a public good be?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we should be honest about what the corporation for public broadcasting did.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that Democrats had an obligation to educate on what that was.
[SPEAKER_03]: When this attack first surface again, fifteen years ago, when it became a major point of dialogue in the Obama real elect versus Mitt Romney, like at the end of the day in this country, there is not
[SPEAKER_03]: Private enterprise doesn't have the interest in investing capital in places where they don't think there will be a return.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is the reason why we have a US Postal Service that always does the last mile where FX and UPS won.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it is the same reason why we had the corporation for public broadcasting because yes, some of that money did go to programming, although also a lot of the money for children's programming came from the Department of Education and ready to learn grants.
[SPEAKER_09]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: In many places, the money that was stewarded by the corporation for public broadcasting invested in the infrastructure that put the signals into the sky.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's not whether or not we want Sesame Street because Sesame Street will find a way to continue and you're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: There will be someone who will spend money to buy it or invest in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The question is,
[SPEAKER_03]: who gets access to it, and who doesn't, and whether people in Wyoming, or you write people on native reservations, or people in Alaska, whether they deserve to have access to TV and radio, and what happens when the infrastructure, again, that beam those signals into the sky goes away.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because what we know is, is that, you know, the federal government has continued to try to push for an investment in broadband internet across this country.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it hasn't happened.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so how we backstop that is we have public libraries.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we have invested in public radio.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the things that, you know, in the sixties, we decided were important to invest in when we were at a moment of transformation.
[SPEAKER_03]: There isn't the same political will to invest in that infrastructure and when we tear it down, I don't know how exactly we build the will to build it back up unless the people who get put in positions of leadership have extreme will to understand and to articulate and to fight to actually build some of these basic resources back.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yes, like sure like there are good guys with money, but I'm also sort of of this belief that there's like no such thing really as good guys with money.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like it's like it's like the old idiom now with like the only thing that beats a bad guy with the gun is a good guy with the gun.
[SPEAKER_03]: No
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, just get rid of the gods.
[SPEAKER_03]: And here it's like that rid of the idea that government doesn't work for people.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I against that and to actually understand that there are certain things that should belong to all of us because they help us and they undergird us as a society versus like leaving it up to chance that an individual, you know, might be good-hearted enough to buy it the right way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I'm sorry, we're not St.
[SPEAKER_03]: Louis Cardinals fans.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no right way.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is only having a government and having a civic infrastructure or not.
[SPEAKER_07]: I love that you hit that.
[SPEAKER_07]: By the way, Parker threw a little shade your way.
[SPEAKER_07]: She said, if it was before the trade deadline, I would have shade towards Meredith because it's a cubs fan.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's what she was saying.
[SPEAKER_07]: But she says, it's after the trade deadline and her cubs are stuck behind the brewers.
[SPEAKER_07]: She says she's not throwing much shade your way.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, I'm like a currently boycotting white socks fan.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like I grew up a white socks fan and pretty much since Jerry Ryan Storef decided that his fever dream was to rehire Tony LaRueza.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've boycott of the team.
[SPEAKER_03]: I haven't been to the stadium my husband has.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I've contractually obligated to raise in Atlanta Braves fan.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm like.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm an identity, like, I'm homeless in terms of identity.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, a tiny, tiny, tiny.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a drift.
[SPEAKER_03]: At least you're not an identity.
[SPEAKER_07]: At least you're not a rocky spot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, well, I love that account on Blue Sky, though.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, like, the, I forgot what they call it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to say, like, worst team Colorado, because in my mind, I think that's Team St.
[SPEAKER_03]: Louis.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm still, like, a lover of all of, like, the baseball culture and baseball nation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, my favorite thing I've ever done in my life is go to Cooper's Mount for Hall of Fame and Dr.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're also one of the fantastic people when it comes to understanding memes and communication.
[SPEAKER_07]: And this is one of the things we want to talk with you about, too, because Gavin Newsom, I have issues with him, especially, you know, with some of his wishy-washiness on trans issues.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I've been really, really enjoying the hell out of what he's been doing as far as his communication strategy lately.
[SPEAKER_07]: And mimicking almost identically what Trump is doing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Did you hear Dana Perino having a tantrum on Fox yesterday?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I try to sometimes protect my standards.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, hold on your sanity.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to play this because it's kind of fun.
[SPEAKER_07]: Give it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, I think we should cut to Jared because I saw him just like shaking his hands.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm not sure how I feel about Gavin News.
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, it's not.
[SPEAKER_07]: You have, you have, you have as mixed, you have as mixed a, an opinion about him as Parker does or as Stephanie Miller.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I think we're all a little mixed on it, but roll the tape shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here it is for the last.
[SPEAKER_00]: week, Gavin Newsom, and why am I giving him advice?
[SPEAKER_00]: You had to stop it with the Twitter thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where his wife is.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I were his wife, I would say, well, you are making a fool of yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stop it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not do not let your staff tweet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're doing it yourself, put the phone away and start over.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you really, he's got a big job as Governor of California, but if you want to even bigger job, he has to be a little bit more serious.
[SPEAKER_07]: given, given Trump and his communication style.
[SPEAKER_07]: Are you freaking kidding me?
[SPEAKER_07]: The Pareno comes with that?
[SPEAKER_07]: He has to be more serious.
[SPEAKER_07]: Say what?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I would say she should cry more, but I think that's very hard with Fox's specifications for her face.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the posts are very funny and I think that sometimes
[SPEAKER_03]: The people who are in charge of communication in Washington, D.C.
[SPEAKER_03]: take themselves too seriously, but also aren't with their jobs.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we should just focus on like bread and butter issues and jobs and whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that when it comes to communications and when it comes to this moment, it exists on several
[SPEAKER_03]: layers.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's like the direct to the public communication.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going to table that for a second and get to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there is the communication that shapes the perception of the people who get to craft the narrative, like the D.C.
[SPEAKER_03]: Pandit Brain folks.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I actually think like,
[SPEAKER_03]: These deeply funny and well executed posts that Gavin Newsom is definitely not writing himself, but some like incredible person who was finally like liberated on his staff gets to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I think they're so good and they're making people mad and the people who live online who are the narrative makers are seeing it and they're seeing how it's getting under people skin and it's showing one way in their line of vision.
[SPEAKER_03]: that like you can kind of bully a bully and have this result and have that Fox News result.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you know, the underlying issue and this is something that I've been talking about pretty much since my diet tribe on primary every Democrat went viral is that there are some communicators who have positioned this paradigm as that the only thing that matters for Democrats is fight or not fight.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I actually think that's not accurate because to divorce fighting from ideology.
[SPEAKER_10]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ultimately, does not actually like shape understanding or end up with some sort of like impact on our policy.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so it must be the good fight, not just fighting, but what you're fighting for.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, what are you fighting for?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like this is the thing about mom Donnie is he is fighting, but he is also articulating a vision and people are loving that because people actually like are more in tune than like the high paid consultants to Chuck Schumer think that they are.
[SPEAKER_03]: But like that is not to say that what Gavin Newsom isn't doing right now has value.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I think what he had he's doing now has value.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is shaping the pundits class understanding of like
[SPEAKER_03]: How ridiculous this is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I think the thing about living in this authoritarian moment is that it is so much dumber that I thought it would be.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like if you're like, Meredith, I'm gonna teleport you to pre-World War II Europe, like how will it feel?
[SPEAKER_03]: It would definitely not feel this dumb.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it wouldn't be like no doctor fill on the streets with the Gustavo and I thought.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, like, there is a value in this social media campaign from Gavin Newsome in a way that highlights how deranged this is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I think we've lost sight of how unhinged all of this behavior is and what our standards and our expectations.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's the behavior, the repelable behavior.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like, like, like, because you're so.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I guess that to end this, I think there's value to what their staff is doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that there is value into highlighting the absurdity.
[SPEAKER_03]: But he can't be the only actor doing this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there needs to be some sort of coordinated strategy.
[SPEAKER_03]: People used to ask me after my primary every Democrat story, but don't you think there's one good senator?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who's a good one?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, it doesn't matter whether or not Chris van Holland is doing the right thing if he's doing it in isolation.
[SPEAKER_03]: if they're not using coordination and strategy as a block to actually get things done.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think people like have to think about how all of these things exist on different levels.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you know, looking at Jared's face and looking at your face as we're thinking about how to sort of contextualize what Gavin Newsom is doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's totally legitimate to be like, this is good and it's having a particular impact.
[SPEAKER_03]: And
[SPEAKER_03]: It is only working in a particular way towards a particular end.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when it comes to saving our country, trolling isn't enough.
[SPEAKER_09]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: It has to be trolling ant.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: We should demand more from our public servants.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just like we should demand more from our reporters, from our newspapers, from our public goods.
[SPEAKER_08]: And not doing that is an abdication of our role, not just as people who are thinking about this, but as citizens.
[SPEAKER_08]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I want, I want, I want to say that that's also okay to laugh at it.
[SPEAKER_03]: That we need to laugh, otherwise we're crying.
[SPEAKER_03]: And excitedly some of those posts were legitimately funny.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh my god, they're absolutely so hilarious.
[SPEAKER_07]: Some of this stuff.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it is bringing this, you know, it's bringing the craziness of Trump and the craziness of what Republicans are doing to mind.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it's bringing to a lot of people the realization, I think.
[SPEAKER_07]: I wish we could talk more about this.
[SPEAKER_07]: Can you stick around for one more roundie?
[SPEAKER_07]: Have time or do you have to run off to grab the kids from school?
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's see one more.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right.
[SPEAKER_07]: One more round with Meredith Schiner.
[SPEAKER_07]: It is a Tuesday night.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a Schiner night.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's what we've ordered here at the bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: So thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just saying.
[SPEAKER_07]: Schiner buck is the drink of the night.
[SPEAKER_05]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_07]: Shinerbock, of course, we love that because we like Meredith Shiner.
[SPEAKER_07]: She's got one more round.
[SPEAKER_07]: You should stick around too.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, go freshen up your drink.
[SPEAKER_07]: Do what you got to do.
[SPEAKER_07]: Jared and I and Meredith will be here when you get back.
[SPEAKER_07]: We got more discussion about media and politics because it is after all the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll be right back after we make some bills at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then a call.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_10]: Ready?
[SPEAKER_09]: Hey, Jared!
[SPEAKER_09]: We're having a great, great night, aren't we?
[SPEAKER_07]: I still miss Jody.
[SPEAKER_07]: I still miss Jody, but you know what, I'm having a fantastic evening because Meredith Schiner is in the bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: She is providing all the brilliance that we both need because as I have said to Jody many times before, I might be smart, but she's a woman and woman.
[SPEAKER_07]: Women in general are just smarter and better than men.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's my perspective.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's just how I am.
[SPEAKER_07]: So if you're not that way, I apologize, but I just think women aren't that way crazy.
[SPEAKER_07]: Alright, look, we do want to give a big thanks to all of our affiliates.
[SPEAKER_07]: Wherever you're listening to us from, whether that is America One Radio in Atlanta, or AM-Nine-Fifty, Minneapolis-St.
[SPEAKER_07]: Paul, D.T.
[SPEAKER_07]: or talk in Tennessee, W.C.P.T.
[SPEAKER_07]: AM-A-Twenty in Chicago, or aggressive voices radio worldwide, wherever you happen to be.
[SPEAKER_07]: And of course, if you're listening on the podcast, remember, thank you a for subscribing to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if you subscribe to the politics bar dot com, you can get that podcast ad free six dollars a month.
[SPEAKER_07]: That is your cover charge covers everything the drink of the day, the news on tap and the podcast ad free subscribe now at the politics bar dot com.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, so bear the shineers in the bar and we've been talking about media and politics and how people are somewhat confused and somewhat, look, I think the media today does a lot of the folks that we have known either personally or impersonally in the what I generally call the village
[SPEAKER_07]: their villagers, many of them in that DC New York City media complex.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I say, I call them villagers because they're like the people who they live in their own little perfect bubble, their own village.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if the choice was sacrifice your village to save the world or save your village and let the rest of the world burn, these people would let the rest of the world burn because they care about their village more than anything else.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that absolutely drives me up a wall because these things are all connected.
[SPEAKER_07]: The authoritarian cosplay that's going on in DC, the cosplay of sorts that's going on in Texas.
[SPEAKER_07]: For those of you who didn't check it out, it's in the news on tap to politicsbar.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: The story about, look, there is a literally a member of the Texas State House, Texas Legislature.
[SPEAKER_07]: She has to stay there because she has not agreed to have a cop be a twenty four seven minor so that she doesn't escape the state again so that they can ram through this ridiculousness of trying to steal votes there.
[SPEAKER_07]: That type of stuff it's all connected that the money going away from education department the ridiculousness of Trump taking over the Kennedy Center.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, it all seems weird, but it is all connected.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if you're in the national media, it's your job to connect it for people.
[SPEAKER_07]: And some of the people we know, it's just a really crap job at it.
[SPEAKER_07]: They just do it really.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're like, no, aunts.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, aunts is for other people.
[SPEAKER_07]: I want to do the fun thing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Prize me up a wall.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I don't.
[SPEAKER_07]: You guys know these people.
[SPEAKER_07]: You used to work with the mud capital hill, Jared.
[SPEAKER_07]: You used to, you used to work with the mud capital too.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, just to be clear, since we do have a capital hill reporter, it's really important as a distinction.
[SPEAKER_08]: You worked with the smart people on the hill.
[SPEAKER_08]: And you put, and this is where I barely qualified.
[SPEAKER_08]: You put the prettier people at the, at the White House.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's nothing about America who's, who's lovely in every possible way, but it is the self-deprecating version of me just saying, you put the smarter people on the hill.
[SPEAKER_08]: I was never really eligible.
[SPEAKER_08]: I would go over there.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, I'd be like, where do I put my umbrella there?
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, there's just, I never spent that much time there.
[SPEAKER_08]: In fact, I will give him credit for one funny thing.
[SPEAKER_08]: I had a very long Mitch McConnell interview once and he led with, well, you know, since you're on the hill all the time.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I was like, damn it, that's funny.
[SPEAKER_08]: Because he knew that I was almost never there.
[SPEAKER_08]: So I do have to say, you know, you just want to, I want to give Meredith her dues, but I also want to put myself
[SPEAKER_03]: in the class of pretty people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I mean, I actually want to say that I was the ugly duckling.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think it's what I was trying to say.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was absorbing everything that you were saying, Sean, and I appreciate your self-deprecation, Jared, but I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit.
[SPEAKER_07]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things that I really want to say, and one of the things that I think is so important to know,
[SPEAKER_03]: is that wallet is easy to derive the villagers or this town or whatever we want to talk about the people who we see at the tip of the iceberg that is Washington DC that is the political government media industrial complex.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is just that the tip of the iceberg.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think for many, many years, Republicans have invested
[SPEAKER_03]: in vilifying every piece of this behemoth whether is the bureaucrats or even the congressional hillstaffers or everyday hardworking journalists even though that is a shrinking group and I think one of the things that makes me lose sleep at night at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: is that people do not realize that Washington DC is a city of seven hundred thousand people plus.
[SPEAKER_03]: They are real humans.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are people with jobs and mortgages or grant payments and children and what we have done to normalize.
[SPEAKER_03]: The taking away of their humanity because our political system didn't give them a full citizenship in this country.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are seeing the outcome of that and it is terrifying.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like yes, you know, it was on the license plate and sort of a joke or point of the pride like
[SPEAKER_03]: no taxation without representation, but at the end of the day, like going back to the Obama administration, like people forget that in twenty eleven, when there was almost a shutdown before there was almost a debt limit to fall.
[SPEAKER_03]: When John Banner was still speaker, Barack Obama was willing to trade abortion access in the district of Columbia.
[SPEAKER_03]: to protect play and parenthood, spending nationwide.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so DC was always a chip.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was always a P tree dish, speaking of John Bainer.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wanted to test out, like he wanted to test out his school voucher program.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that impacted children in the district of Columbia who are real people.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so when I think about one of the most catastrophic decisions
[SPEAKER_03]: of this administration so far.
[SPEAKER_03]: Chuck Schumer, caving on the CR taking a billion dollars away from District of Columbia, including high school.
[SPEAKER_03]: We hundred million dollars from DC public schools.
[SPEAKER_03]: What the signal that he was sending to every person who stepped into that building, who worked for him and lived in the district, the signal that they were sending to this country.
[SPEAKER_03]: is that the people of DC were a bargaining chip.
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't matter.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're people to be experimented on.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when I think of the people who I know there who are still left, who just wanted to build a life there and live a life there, it is devastating to me because it is
[SPEAKER_03]: It is increasingly unlivable and I just worry because of this unique relationship between the federal government.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's sort of like, you know, people finally woke up to the Britney Spears Conservator ship and they got mad.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like in this case, like the federal government is the conservator ship and DC is Britney Spears.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think by the time we wake up and we realize that how profoundly broken and messed up this was the things that we have lost, the talented people we will have lost, the families who will have to leave, you don't bring them back.
[SPEAKER_08]: No.
[SPEAKER_08]: And so you're new ones.
[SPEAKER_08]: We got six weeks until this CR comes up again.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: And there's absolutely no sign of fight.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's absolutely no sign that there's going to be a change in tech from Senate Democrats.
[SPEAKER_08]: As you mentioned in the last hour, Chuck Schumer's more interested in what the Bailey's might think than in any real human being either in the state of New York or in Washington DC, including his own staff.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, and it's pretty disgusting that this is the level and you know you were talking Sean about the fight or not fight and I think in the context of the news some and Meredith you added a lot of context to that in the last hour But I do think that there is if there's any place where not fight is taking hold It's over this this district where seven hundred thousand people are being you
[SPEAKER_08]: abuse, the monument to administration.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're a hundred percent of the complicity of the Democratic minority.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, you're right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, the monument that you both of you are a hundred percent right and the monument to the nuance that both of you just gave to the conversation is it's literally a physical monument.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's the Metro system here because we've all we've all lived here and people keep asking.
[SPEAKER_07]: City is big.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is this is the capital of the world.
[SPEAKER_07]: Why is the Metro system so janky?
[SPEAKER_07]: Sometimes it's nice.
[SPEAKER_07]: Sometimes it's new and sometimes it doesn't work and it
[SPEAKER_07]: And the Metro systems are perfect example.
[SPEAKER_07]: Because for those of you who don't know, it's basically the DC Metro system is, it's the budget is divided in three parts, Maryland, Virginia, and DC.
[SPEAKER_07]: And every time they say, well, this is how much money they're going to have.
[SPEAKER_07]: and Virginia comes up with a budget because they're a state and they have to put us a a number on it and Maryland does the same thing but because DC is not a state they are the chip as the both of you have noted that is the bargaining chip they are the ball that everybody kicks around
[SPEAKER_07]: They so many times, people in Congress, people in the White House, different White House, different Congresses, both sides, they have kicked DC.
[SPEAKER_07]: And by kicking DC, they end up cutting the budget.
[SPEAKER_07]: So then DC has to go back to Maryland and Virginia and say, yeah, remember that budget we made for Metro?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, my third, I have to be like, oh, half of that or a quarter of that because they kicked me in the head again.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so Marilyn Virginia, have to try to get it.
[SPEAKER_07]: So if you're wondering why the Metro system in DC, if you're from anywhere in this country and you've been to DC and you're wondering why it's so janky, that is the monument to the nuance that Meredith and Jared just put out there is because look, this is these are real people who live there.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is the system of transportation for hundreds of thousands of people in the capital city of the world.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it can't always be relied on because everybody uses DC as a chip and they use DC as a chip because DC is not a state.
[SPEAKER_07]: It doesn't have the right to stand up for itself.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that kind of nuance, that's the kind of thing that I've been, that's one of the reasons why I like both of you is because you guys are great about getting nuance in there.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's the kind of thing that I wish more of our colleagues in media were not afraid to do.
[SPEAKER_07]: New wants isn't something that's scary.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's something that
[SPEAKER_07]: I know a lot of the media people think that the audience is stupid.
[SPEAKER_07]: And on something, some people are stupid.
[SPEAKER_07]: There are things I'm dumb about.
[SPEAKER_07]: But our audiences are not as dumb, especially as the executives make them out to be.
[SPEAKER_07]: They can understand nuance if we communicate it correctly.
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, call me crazy, but I think that's kind of our job.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and I think here's the thing that I want to say that's not nuanced at all, but I think it's pretty direct is at the end of the day because DC doesn't really have full freedom because there's this unique relationship with the federal government.
[SPEAKER_03]: The residents of DC are uniquely vulnerable to the reach and impact of authoritarianism.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we also have to be
[SPEAKER_03]: honest about how small DC is geographically.
[SPEAKER_03]: So one of the things that I pointed out on Blue Sky the other day, Washington DC proper is a hundred and ten square miles.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is not that large of the city.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you look at it on the map of something like LA County, where Trump had tried to deploy the military earlier this year,
[SPEAKER_03]: that's six thousand five hundred and seventy four square miles.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so what we're talking about in terms of possibilities for control in terms of being able to pull the national guard and deploy them there from other states that is a unique position that DC is in.
[SPEAKER_03]: And like we are, he is experimenting with authoritarianism in a place where he has an extreme upper hand.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just want us to be clear that the people who live there shouldn't be subjected to that and that there are real people with real families and that we should be absolutely alarmed and distressed by what's happening and not have this be washed away in like an ocean of headlines that to me matter less.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I'll just add that you don't need to swipe your Metro card before you realize how much of a bargaining chip this is.
[SPEAKER_08]: People who are being grounded into the street, those faces are two blocks from my house.
[SPEAKER_08]: And it's real and it's scary.
[SPEAKER_08]: And we shouldn't be, you know, we don't need, we don't need to go far for that example.
[SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is true.
[SPEAKER_08]: Can talk about some of the Democrats like Eleanor Holden and Muriel Bowser.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, where are you?
[SPEAKER_07]: Do you have more time, Meredith?
[SPEAKER_07]: Do you want us to grab more?
[SPEAKER_07]: No, I think this is my last round.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm fine, Meredith Schiner on Blue Sky and of course you can find her at Meredith Schiner.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: I believe it is.
[SPEAKER_07]: Am I correct on that?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Both of us guy in my website.
[SPEAKER_07]: And of course you can find her at the new republic as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: Meredith, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_07]: Come back to the bar sometime again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for hosting me.
[SPEAKER_07]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_07]: We got more news on tap and the drink of the day coming up.
[SPEAKER_07]: Get yourself another round.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hang with me right back after we'd pay some bills at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: Tuesday night, here at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have a few rounds of shiner.
[SPEAKER_07]: I know.
[SPEAKER_07]: The narrative shiner, but shiner box is good too.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you missed any of the show, easy thing you can do, just download the podcast.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, your favorite podcast player is in your phone already.
[SPEAKER_07]: You go there, type in the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: Bam, you get it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Or remember, you can always go to the politicsbar.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you subscribe there, six bucks a month gets you a whole lot of things.
[SPEAKER_07]: It gets you the podcast ad free.
[SPEAKER_07]: It gets you the news on tap, which is free for everybody.
[SPEAKER_07]: And of course, it gets you the drink of the day as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: Check it all out.
[SPEAKER_07]: It is at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, Jared.
[SPEAKER_07]: So after three rounds of shiner, I think we need a little bit more alcohol.
[SPEAKER_08]: After three shiners, we're going to have, well, that's the drink of the day.
[SPEAKER_07]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a very nice one actually, too.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Do you want to introduce to the drink of the day?
[SPEAKER_07]: It's up to you.
[SPEAKER_08]: You can.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_08]: So we're talking about a paper plane, which is a wonderful cocktail.
[SPEAKER_08]: Can I tell a journalism story about a bourbon?
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, it's a bourbon based cocktail.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it's a bourbon.
[SPEAKER_07]: The paper playing cocktail is a bourbon based cocktail.
[SPEAKER_07]: Go ahead.
[SPEAKER_08]: So what's the story?
[SPEAKER_08]: This is not the recipe for the for the paper playing, but it is.
[SPEAKER_08]: a wonderful story about being in Kentucky for the I think it was the the vice presidential debate years and years ago and they had wonderful event for all journalists who are there okay and they if you've ever been to Kentucky and you visited a distillery they will give you a bourbon passport
[SPEAKER_08]: And the brewery passport you can get just like a real passport where you get a stamp for whichever country you might visit or the national parks passport, which I have a lovely one where you can get the little cancellations from every national park that you visit and there's lots of them in DC right if you can wait past some of the national guardsmen
[SPEAKER_08]: That you can get stamps for each distillery.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, they had created this event where the governor, who was, at that point, the elder Bashir, got it, who was essentially every distillery in the state was there.
[SPEAKER_08]: So they handed you upon arrival as a journalist, a complete Kentucky bourbon passport.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then
[SPEAKER_08]: They invited you to sample the wares of every single distillery in the street.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, I would like to tell you that I was diligent about my work that evening, but that would be a lie.
[SPEAKER_08]: But I will tell you is when I was leaving, I will cut to very movie style, cut to when I was leaving several days later on the plane.
[SPEAKER_08]: When I went to the airport, the bag clanked and the TSA agents, like, what's all this then, sir?
[SPEAKER_08]: And, you know, I had the little Ziploc bag, which was kind of bursting at the scenes with all these little mini bottles from every single of the story in this day.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I want to give credit to whoever that person was who who went who waived me through all those years ago because I said I'll be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's all bourbon and he said well, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_08]: This country is already great.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, there are some good TSA people.
[SPEAKER_07]: There are some good people in all kinds of different environments and fields.
[SPEAKER_07]: One of which, by the way, is Orville, right?
[SPEAKER_07]: That's why we're celebrating this today.
[SPEAKER_07]: There we go.
[SPEAKER_07]: Cause nine, nineteen, thirty nine, nineteen, thirty nine, FDR declared this day.
[SPEAKER_07]: National Aviation Day, which is, of course, why August, nineteen has a paper playing cocktail for the day.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, all right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Here's what you guys need.
[SPEAKER_07]: First, you got to get a chilled Nick and Nora glass.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, the shorter one we got that.
[SPEAKER_07]: You need one shaker in a little bit of ice.
[SPEAKER_07]: You need three quarters ounces of high quality bourbon.
[SPEAKER_07]: You need three quarters ounces of aparol.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's some good stuff right there.
[SPEAKER_07]: You need three quarters ounces of
[SPEAKER_07]: Amaron and Eno, now it's a bittersweet type of April.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a little bit different than your standard April.
[SPEAKER_07]: You could substitute another Amaron if you want to just get one on the lighter side.
[SPEAKER_07]: We've got some links where you can check out different things like that.
[SPEAKER_07]: You need a quarter ounce of fresh lemon juice and a lemon twist for the garnish.
[SPEAKER_07]: And here's how you make the paper plane cocktail.
[SPEAKER_07]: You add all of the ingredients, the bourbon, the aparol, the emerald, and then nonino, and the fresh lemon juice.
[SPEAKER_07]: You add all of that into your trusty cocktail shaker, then you add ice, and you shake until it's frosty cold.
[SPEAKER_07]: Then you strain that into a pre-chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the lemon twist.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if you're feeling adventurous, you can even cut little sweat in the mid portion of the lemon twist, fold it.
[SPEAKER_07]: So it's like a little tiny paper plane and purge that right on the edge.
[SPEAKER_07]: of the glass or, you know, maybe just grab a piece of paper off the bar top there and fold up an airplane.
[SPEAKER_08]: I've been to a bar that did that and I I will tell you that I love nothing more than a garnish that I can play with.
[SPEAKER_08]: I am such a little kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sat there.
[SPEAKER_08]: And, and if, oh, I'm remembering this now, they actually had, they had made it out of litmus paper, which if you know, will change colors if you dip it.
[SPEAKER_08]: And so then, of course, I'm the guy who's like dipping it into, like one corner at a time into every liquid, is this an acid or a base?
[SPEAKER_08]: And as if I didn't just squeeze lemon into it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Like, I'm just, I'm like, I'm doing science.
[SPEAKER_07]: We all enjoy fun drinks, and this is definitely one.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you missed the drink of the day, you can't even do it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Happy New Year!
[SPEAKER_07]: That's the happy meal of the bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: Happy to be able to cocktail bar tonight.
[SPEAKER_07]: Check it out.
[SPEAKER_07]: Drink it a day.
[SPEAKER_07]: Subscribe at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: Back to the news on tap for the day.
[SPEAKER_07]: There is some interesting entertainment news.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mentioned Carol at the top of the show.
[SPEAKER_07]: Jody's mom, Paul Royale, season two return date has been set and they have brand new photos out.
[SPEAKER_07]: Christian Wigg, Laura Dern, and yes, Carol Burnett.
[SPEAKER_07]: The photos are all there.
[SPEAKER_07]: You can check them.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's in the entertainment section at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: I comment the news on tapped for today.
[SPEAKER_07]: The FTC.
[SPEAKER_07]: There are still some good people we said in different things and there are still some good people the FTC going after this Maryland ticket broker who is one of those people who sold thousands of tickets to Taylor Swift concerts and other events illegally didn't have the tickets sold them took the money and then people would go to the show and not get anything.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, oops.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, if you've been to anything from Sesame Street live
[SPEAKER_07]: to a Taylor Swift concert, or at least you wanted to go, you bought the ticket and you couldn't get in because it was a fake.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: The FTC still has some people who are still going after some of the baddies like that.
[SPEAKER_08]: So Sean, I will say when I was looking at the news on tap and I saw this and I saw Maryland ticket broker in the headline, I thought that perhaps as a DC resident, maybe this would mean that the National Guard was like ticketing Maryland drivers more.
[SPEAKER_08]: It had nothing, I was just appointed Sean.
[SPEAKER_08]: Look, that does not join anything I want.
[SPEAKER_07]: That is one thing.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you live in the DC Maryland Virginia area, you know that some of the worst drivers in the country are Maryland drivers.
[SPEAKER_07]: Love you Maryland, but some of your drivers just suck.
[SPEAKER_08]: So a number of times when I have sat at a red because the DC now like New York is a no right on red place.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I have seen like the people who will drive all the way around me into oncoming traffic to make that illegal right.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, it's just it's sadly that's not what this is about.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is about other people doing good.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you're behind somebody from New Jersey, they cannot turn left.
[SPEAKER_07]: It is one of those things.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's just everybody comes to DC.
[SPEAKER_07]: A lot of people forget that the people who here in DC, a whole lot of people, yes, there are some natives, but there are a lot of people who are here from other places and they bring their tricks like not being able to turn left or forgetting that you can't always turn right.
[SPEAKER_08]: And by the way, another benefit of DC becoming a state is that places like Virginia and Maryland would no longer be allowed to ignore the reciprocity of tickets because if you ever look up the license plate in DC of the person in front of you invariably, Maryland plate, and if you ever look them up, it'll tell you.
[SPEAKER_08]: There are some people who have got like tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of tickets in the last like several years.
[SPEAKER_08]: And they can't do anything.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_08]: So that's, yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's got to be the sandwich people.
[SPEAKER_07]: We've got to get the sandwich.
[SPEAKER_07]: We can go back up to some of the some of the harder news because I do think some of that is important especially because some of the the nuance that you and Meredith were talking about looked out there are more national guard units that have been deployed to DC now the folks from Ohio South Carolina West Virginia are being joined by Tennessee Mississippi Louisiana correct those six
[SPEAKER_08]: They're going to get the entire Confederacy on board, Sean.
[SPEAKER_08]: They are trying to do what they couldn't do.
[SPEAKER_07]: A hundred and sixty years ago, putting it on social media.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, I have, look, my personal feeling is Westmore and Governor Hoekle.
[SPEAKER_07]: You need to get Pennsylvania's governor.
[SPEAKER_07]: They need to be sending some national guard members in too, just in case.
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, people say, wait a minute, that would, that would make things a little bit more edgy.
[SPEAKER_07]: Things are edgy here.
[SPEAKER_07]: Things are edgy down in Texas too.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, you do not lock up a state representative because she won't allow somebody to be trailing behind her.
[SPEAKER_07]: And yet that's exactly what their authoritarian cosplay is done.
[SPEAKER_07]: It made the state capital Texas a minimum security prison, basically.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if you look, we even got a clip today from of all people, Harry and who is, you know, he's talking about basically people.
[SPEAKER_07]: The free-side intro going on over.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's frustrating because you can you can look at a lot of people or a lot of polls and you can see that people are they're not happy.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're not happy with a way that our Trump is handling.
[SPEAKER_07]: They don't like the way that Donald Trump handled the he is handling the war in Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_07]: They don't like the way that Trump and Republicans are handling whether you look at Republicans Democrats or independence.
[SPEAKER_07]: Nobody there is a there is not a majority of and historically unpopular president.
[SPEAKER_07]: Historically, but also the Republicans are historically unpopular yet the media the media says well democratic party has the lowest popularity.
[SPEAKER_07]: It reminds me of one of the worst things in polling that absolutely drives me nuts the right track wrong track, which is the absolute stupidest poll ever because
[SPEAKER_07]: what so many Democrats who are unhappy with the party are saying is that the Democratic Party could do better.
[SPEAKER_07]: It has the power, it has the ability, the people who are in it could be doing better and I want them to do better.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're not saying that they're against the things that the Democratic Party in general is for.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're saying they want the Democratic Party to do more.
[SPEAKER_07]: They want the Democratic Party to fight harder.
[SPEAKER_07]: They want the Democratic Party to and for something.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that's just kind of the end of the segment with Meredith though.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I mentioned and I and I really do think this is important that both Mayor Bowser, Murrow Bowser and the the non voting delegate from DC, Eleanor Holmes, Norton have both been noticeably absent.
[SPEAKER_08]: We talked about this last week.
[SPEAKER_07]: uh... with bouser being on vacation she went to the future and actually i found out about that she got a vacation she was a family game she went up to get a kid from camp she was gone for twenty four hours it was planned so yeah but i get it but i'm still going to you know she still probably could have had something out of the district when the district is being invaded by you know actual national guards men i i i look i'm not letting it off the hook for this and i'll also say
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, you have a, we have an, a non voting delegate, but a member of Congress, who is in her advanced age, no problem there, but who has not been public about this.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I do think, you know, Meredith's thing she mentioned about primary, every Democrat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: Here's a person who, if we had somebody who had a little bit more fight in them and a little bit more ability to get out there in public, you know, her staff put out a picture of her at a rally,
[SPEAKER_08]: That was from two years ago.
[SPEAKER_08]: And this is not someone who is there standing putting her body in between the people who are attacking her citizens and the citizens who she represents.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's what we need right now.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think we're going to do the the impetus.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't I don't a hundred percent disagree with the idea of of.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't a hundred percent say that we should primary every democrat because the actuality of it, the costs.
[SPEAKER_07]: are extreme.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I think every, I think every elected person, democratic independent or Republican, wherever should always be afraid to some degree that they will lose their job because they're doing a poor job.
[SPEAKER_07]: They should be concerned enough about doing a good job, not for the people who are donors, but for the people they are responsible to.
[SPEAKER_07]: Remember when I said that I don't necessarily like being called a boss,
[SPEAKER_07]: that I prefer.
[SPEAKER_08]: I've never, I've never shown you any sign of respect.
[SPEAKER_07]: I prefer saying that I was, you know, what I've had positions like that, that I was responsible for it, because I'm not a king.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I don't, I don't believe even in small fiftoms where people and yet too many people do in politics, in media, in business, they have their own little fiftom.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't believe in that.
[SPEAKER_07]: I believe that especially if somebody is an elected person, that they need to be responsive to the people that they are there to serve.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a public good.
[SPEAKER_08]: I want them to be at least as concerned about their job as I am about my safety walking around my home.
[SPEAKER_07]: But that's part of their job.
[SPEAKER_07]: They should be.
[SPEAKER_07]: They should be concerned about your safety as much as they are their own because they are responsible for that.
[SPEAKER_07]: I understand the impetus of a lot of democratic voters, whether they are registered as Democrats independence or non-Trump Republicans.
[SPEAKER_07]: I understand saying Nancy Pelosi was probably the best vote counter ever.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not going to disagree with you on that.
[SPEAKER_07]: But Nancy Pelosi also was smart enough to step back and not be the leader until she's dead.
[SPEAKER_07]: She's been giving a lot of guidance to different people.
[SPEAKER_07]: We've talked about this before with Jodi here in the bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: AOC, some people are like, they, yeah, she's great.
[SPEAKER_07]: Some people think, you know, AOC is the exact opposite of Pelosi.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, she's not Pelosi and her people have been tutoring AOC so that AOC can become a better, Congress person.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's how this works if you are somebody who understands, but she couldn't be doing as much as she has been to teach some of these things if she was still leader.
[SPEAKER_07]: She understood to step back.
[SPEAKER_07]: You have God who is it?
[SPEAKER_07]: Governor of is it?
[SPEAKER_07]: Michigan was constant.
[SPEAKER_07]: I can't remember which one is stepping back and saying, you know, I'm not going to do a third term.
[SPEAKER_07]: There are other Democrats who are doing the same thing.
[SPEAKER_07]: It is time for a lot of these great Democrats.
[SPEAKER_07]: They've been great, but it's time for them to step back and to find somebody else new.
[SPEAKER_07]: New York is lucky.
[SPEAKER_07]: They've got Zorn Mam Danny.
[SPEAKER_07]: He is a great candidate and I think he will probably be a very good mayor.
[SPEAKER_07]: But regardless of where you're at, we got to find better candidates.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if you're not a good candidate, if you're not good at being elected, it's okay if you step back and let somebody else have a shot.
[SPEAKER_08]: And by the way, I hope what we're talking about people who do really great memes.
[SPEAKER_08]: I hope mom Donnie keeps doing the memes about Cuomo after he's elected.
[SPEAKER_08]: I just want them to keep happening.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's just for me.
[SPEAKER_07]: We can talk about that.
[SPEAKER_07]: We can talk about that and more.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, we got one more round here on a Tuesday night.
[SPEAKER_07]: Last call coming up with Jared and me here at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: Get yourself another round.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hang on.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll be right back after we pay some bills at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's go!
[SPEAKER_07]: For Alcomo!
[SPEAKER_07]: Al?
[SPEAKER_07]: You still here?
[SPEAKER_07]: Last call on a Tuesday night.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're so ashamed of yourself.
[SPEAKER_07]: Last call on a Tuesday night here at the politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: It is one of those funny sims and issues, but I occasionally love that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, if you missed any of the show, you can always subscribe on your favorite podcast player, or you can subscribe at the politics bar.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: And we hope you do, because quite frankly, we got bills to pay, and you know, your six dollars goes a long way.
[SPEAKER_07]: So just say, check it out, politics bar.
[SPEAKER_07]: We've been talking about the media and politics and how a lot of it is failing us today.
[SPEAKER_07]: And quite frankly, there are some perfect examples.
[SPEAKER_07]: One of which actually was happening up in New York yesterday.
[SPEAKER_07]: I believe that you showed me, you shot me this one, I think.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're, let me play this one with DVR, just just a few seconds of this.
[SPEAKER_07]: Our Congresswoman from New York, twenty one, at least to find it.
[SPEAKER_07]: This goes on and on and on and on and on and on.
[SPEAKER_07]: Did you cut it off before some swears?
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, there's that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, so, so at least ifonic, she used to be in Republican house leadership.
[SPEAKER_07]: She was thinking she was going to get the very cushy UNN Baster job and then Trump yanked it back because he really did that.
[SPEAKER_07]: He would screw himself in the house and might end up giving the house Democrats.
[SPEAKER_07]: Um, so at least a phonic.
[SPEAKER_07]: I cannot remember when she has had a town hall.
[SPEAKER_07]: So this is about two years.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think so.
[SPEAKER_07]: Two, three years.
[SPEAKER_07]: This was a public event in her district.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the turnout, it was tons of people protesting yelling, screaming, and you could tell they're not all Democrats.
[SPEAKER_07]: Some are independent, some are non-Trump Republicans.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is the same thing.
[SPEAKER_07]: People go, oh, well, that's New York.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: They did the same thing to Harriet Hagman, the one member, one member of the house that they have in Wyoming.
[SPEAKER_07]: She did a town hall in Casper.
[SPEAKER_07]: I believe it was last night, and she did made the same mistake that Mike Flood did in Lincoln, Nebraska, where all the big beautiful bill is great, and you'll love it once you get to know it.
[SPEAKER_07]: and they weren't having any of it and it was very clear even there Republicans independence and democrats nobody was have there were people there who were Republicans probably some of them had voted for Trump and who were really pissed to her all of this is to say look you can do better you can put up better candidates
[SPEAKER_07]: Every party can put up better candidates.
[SPEAKER_07]: The green party by God can put up better candidates.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a reminder that Democrats have to fight everywhere.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, God.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Every.
[SPEAKER_08]: Where?
[SPEAKER_08]: Because if people are booing.
[SPEAKER_08]: in these places.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: There is an appetite for something else.
[SPEAKER_08]: And you can't beat something with nothing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: You have to have a candidate.
[SPEAKER_08]: You have to have a decent candidate who is from this place understands it.
[SPEAKER_08]: And it's willing to march to the drum.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's fighting and stands for what is against this administration.
[SPEAKER_08]: And four things will actually make people's lives better.
[SPEAKER_07]: Those are things right.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the fact that we don't, yeah, look, this is, this is one of the things, you know, when you and I were talking with BDD yesterday, Brooklyn Dad defined, one of the reasons that I, that I am so, that some people call me polyanish.
[SPEAKER_07]: So one of the reasons some people call merit a shine or polyanish.
[SPEAKER_08]: They've never said this about me.
[SPEAKER_08]: You're more realistic than in all of us.
[SPEAKER_08]: John Mirchheimer in a higher than me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Is the fact for every throat there are two hands.
[SPEAKER_07]: I focus on the fact of the possible because if we get to wrapped up in the oh my god things suck then yes if you are one hundred percent a one hundred percent certain that things are gonna suck then yes they're gonna suck
[SPEAKER_07]: But that's the whole point of Catabagasela.
[SPEAKER_07]: Cat is a friend of mine.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, and she's running out.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I like Ray of Sunshine in a Democratic field.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the thing is, is that she's working to help people out.
[SPEAKER_07]: There, there was a really bad poll for Democrats and good for Republicans that came out in Virginia here yesterday.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know if you saw this or not.
[SPEAKER_07]: Suffolk poll.
[SPEAKER_08]: Even in that stuff, Virginia is having their general election this year.
[SPEAKER_08]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_08]: But on year for them.
[SPEAKER_07]: And even in that poll, Abigail Spamberg goes leading by nine points, Democrats are leading by at least.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think four or five in like all the other down ballot stuff, which is great.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's what I want.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I look at it and say,
[SPEAKER_07]: Nine is not enough.
[SPEAKER_07]: When I worked, talking with somebody who I worked with on the Obama campaign last night, as Chattin back and forth a little bit, in Iowa.
[SPEAKER_07]: And when I worked on the campaign, every time that a poll came out in two thousand eight that said Obama and Biden were doing well, or that Democrats were doing well,
[SPEAKER_07]: We would look at each other and we go good.
[SPEAKER_07]: More.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, more.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, you never stressed on those laurels.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, but too many people, too many Democrats have.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I think is what Meredith is about.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's, that's what's run for something.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's what Amanda had run for something is about.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not that they hate all the Democrats.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that is absolutely what Cat Abigail is slogan that I wear on the t-shirts that I've got from her sometimes is.
[SPEAKER_07]: That says, what if we didn't suck?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, better things are possible.
[SPEAKER_07]: The Democratic Party by default is better than Republican Party because the Republican Party right now is fascist.
[SPEAKER_07]: The Republican Party supports fascism and authoritarianism.
[SPEAKER_07]: They support for lack of a better word for some of the people that you know here in the bar, that you guys know that Jared and I know in the bar, we all know some people who are a little bit more buffered, not exactly the most brilliant.
[SPEAKER_07]: And they don't understand the difference.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just tell them, look, the Republican Party right now supports dictatorship.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's what they support.
[SPEAKER_07]: The Democratic Party doesn't support that.
[SPEAKER_07]: So by default, the Democratic Party is better.
[SPEAKER_07]: But that doesn't mean that the Democratic Party doesn't have issues, doesn't especially on some issues suck right now.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the fact is some people
[SPEAKER_07]: are mad at the democratic party because they know we can do better.
[SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_07]: What if we didn't suck?
[SPEAKER_07]: What if we were really awesome?
[SPEAKER_07]: What if we were super awesome and we didn't suck?
[SPEAKER_07]: And then you put us up next to the party that wants dictators.
[SPEAKER_07]: You would have to be
[SPEAKER_08]: you would have to gerrymandered the hell at several states and then cancel mail and back and then you have to have a military in many said and when is that gonna happen should right yesterday that's that's that's just it that's that's that's that's what the story that's me being realistic no it is because that is what the republicans are aiming for if john fucos i said this last week and we will have him later later in the week here at the politics bar because if if
[SPEAKER_07]: And as he said, if Republicans
[SPEAKER_07]: really weren't concerned about the twenty twenty six elections.
[SPEAKER_07]: First of all the fact that that they talk about them so much means they actually think they're going to happen so they they know that that elections actually are done at the state level and that Trump can't just you know I'm going to you know I don't know you aren't because who cares you have zero power over the secretary of state of Colorado or if Michigan or any other state you have zero power over the ability of whoever it is in any state to do that so pound sand money.
[SPEAKER_07]: But besides that, if Republicans actually were confident that the public supported them with their policies, with their ideas, they wouldn't be trying to steal seats and lock Democrats out in bright red Texas a year and a half before the election.
[SPEAKER_07]: That tells you how afraid they are and that tells you they know the majority of Americans, Democrats, independents, and Republicans.
[SPEAKER_07]: don't like what they've been doing and are pissed at them and are pretty sick and tired of it sharpening up the pitch forks starting to get the flint ready for the torches people are pissed off and so they know this
[SPEAKER_07]: But what you're saying, Jared, is that all that aside, we still need to put up some action.
[SPEAKER_08]: People who actually have a plan, people who actually have a way to make people's lives better.
[SPEAKER_08]: Because here's the thing, as look, what we know about the normal thing that the way things work normally is that the president's party usually loses power in their first
[SPEAKER_08]: off your election or in their first midterm election.
[SPEAKER_08]: We know that we know that the razor thin majority that they have in the house and the slightly bigger but still very surmountable majority they have in the Senate.
[SPEAKER_08]: We know that that's get a bull even in normal times.
[SPEAKER_08]: But we are so many light years away from normal times that I do think that people are right to be concerned.
[SPEAKER_08]: And the fact that for the last two hundred plus days, Republicans have been acting as if they don't expect to ever be held accountable.
[SPEAKER_08]: And there has been normalizing and sane washing happening from elected Democrats.
[SPEAKER_08]: What really gets under my skin is the lack of urgency right from national Democrats.
[SPEAKER_08]: We talk about we talked a lot about Chuck Schumer with Meredith.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's not even that Democrats team Jeffrey some of them at state levels and at local levels to people are not talking and I understand your desire to not get people's hair on fire, but people are not
[SPEAKER_08]: accurately portraying the world as it is right now when they're and they're asking you so this is the thing coming up in six weeks i talked about this with merit in the last segment and i do think it's important democrats may capitulate again on the budget because they think that
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, shutting down the government is bad for them somehow.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: And they are correct in that shutting down the government is usually never good for the party that does it.
[SPEAKER_07]: However, but it's not Democrats who would be doing it.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not Democrats who would be doing it.
[SPEAKER_07]: But when they come back and this is something I think that that we need to go in on a little bit more because I think you're a hundred percent right on that in any normal world.
[SPEAKER_07]: it would suck when the government goes down.
[SPEAKER_07]: It sucks right now that they've already that Trump and the doge bags and the Republicans with all of their cuts have cut have shut down so much of the government.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's see how many national guardsmen want to rough up delivery guys in the sea when they're not getting paid right right when they when they have to leave their small business at home anyway and they're being dragged to DC at the end of a yeah the weather today is nice been unseasonably cool I want to be more sure come on and once it chaired wants it to be about a hundred and ten with a heat index so that these national guardsmen are like look
[SPEAKER_08]: I want the inside, I'm done with this.
[SPEAKER_08]: I want the inside of an M rap to be so hot that you can bake bread on the walls like it's like it's one of those, you know, you see those guys pulling the bread off the inside?
[SPEAKER_08]: That's the kind of heat that I want.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, and I understand this.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, the fact is you are correct.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not saying that people shouldn't be aware because I do think I don't think that we should scare people, but I think it's the nuance that Meredith was great at tonight that you've been great at.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think people need to understand a a a a grass fire or a forest fire is significantly easier to stop before it starts.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have already there.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's why we got to rake the leaves.
[SPEAKER_07]: There is already an authoritarian fire, but it's burning hotter in some areas of the country than others.
[SPEAKER_08]: You don't want people to panic.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm a big fan of the hitchhikers guy to the galaxy.
[SPEAKER_08]: Don't panic.
[SPEAKER_08]: But I also want people to understand that this urgency, that this moment requires something different.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: It requires something different from each of us.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think the coalescence, the idea that the three of us came to tonight, you and I, Meredith came to with, it's not just fighter fold, but it's what are you fighting for?
[SPEAKER_07]: You need to be fighting for something, but you need to be fighting for something.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not enough to just be fighting.
[SPEAKER_07]: You gotta fight for something and you gotta have a damn plan.
[SPEAKER_07]: I know, I know.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm a Warren supporter.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm always big about the plans, but the fact of the matter is, if you don't plan, if you don't plan to succeed, you succeed to fail.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's how that all works.
[SPEAKER_08]: So I think I thought for a second, it was so bad, Sean, that I thought you were doing a Bush impression.
[SPEAKER_08]: Like, that's how that's.
[SPEAKER_06]: George W. Bush does not believe that Nelson.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know why my impression on that is better than any others.
[SPEAKER_07]: Anyway, look, end of Tuesday nights, Jared and I have had a very good time.
[SPEAKER_07]: And a few rounds as well, some shiner and a good drink of the day.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have more drinks of the day.
[SPEAKER_07]: We also have some other good guests coming up.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have some of the regulars too, so don't worry about Karen and then he do.
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll be back this week.
[SPEAKER_07]: John Fucle sangly back this week.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, I know Bob is on vacation.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look, we've got some good stuff.
[SPEAKER_07]: How dare he?
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, you know, look, everybody works hard.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not a problem if people have vacation.
[SPEAKER_07]: Although, Jody, we miss you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Leave us a voice mail.
[SPEAKER_07]: I miss Jody.
[SPEAKER_07]: But look, she'll be back next week.
[SPEAKER_07]: You and I will both be back tomorrow and look you here in the bar, leaving.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you very much for coming tonight.
[SPEAKER_07]: We will see you tomorrow night right here at the politics bar.