Sarah Longwell and Pedro Gonzalez: Meet the Young MAGA Edgelords—and the One Who Got Away

Tim Miller (0:13)

Hello, and welcome to The Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have a massive show for you today about redemption and rebirth, figuring out how to beat MAGA. We're going to do nostalgia, we're going to have feelings. You guys don't know what you're in for today. In Segment 2, an ex-MAGA stalwart who once attacked my jawline on Twitter gives just a second interview since flipping. So there's going to be some interesting stuff there. But more importantly, in first, she's the publisher of The Bulwark, and she has a new book you may have heard of. It's called How to Eat an Elephant, One Voter at a Time, Nom Nom Nom. It's out right now, Sarah Longwell, right here. Let's eat.

Sarah Longwell (0:48)

Let's eat, brother.

Tim Miller (0:49)

Ah, let's eat.

Some announcements. You're the publisher, so we got to do business really quick. We added a show in Dayton, a benefit show fundraiser for the Haitian community there. That is in two weeks, September 25th. So get your tickets. Come spend the weekend in Ohio. Everyone loves to spend. You went to college in Ohio. You can find things to do there for a weekend, right?

Sarah Longwell (1:10)

I'm going to be at Kenyon next week for the book tour. And I got to say, Dayton is lovely this time of year. There's a lot if you live in Columbus, if you live in Cleveland, drive to Dayton. It's not that far.

Tim Miller (1:20)

It's not that bad. There's some nice little hotels, little boutiques. thebulwark.com/events. I'm going to go to Springfield on Saturday too. So come make a little weekend out of it. I'm also live tonight on YouTube watching JD Vance. And this is Sarah is paying me extra for it. It's as repay. I've got to watch JD Vance tonight. So come hang out with us and Substack on YouTube and Substack tonight. We're live. I didn't watch last night because I was at the Chance the Rapper concert. I was kind of getting blessed up. So Sarah, I got the gist, I guess.

It seems long and rambly and Trump is bribing people. But do you have any big takeaways from last night before we get to the book?

Sarah Longwell (1:56)

I mean, I'm in a bit of a book tour news vacuum. But I'll say, obviously, I'm still addicted to Twitter. So I've seen the clips. My main thing, I got to get Andrew Weissman on the phone. Is it legal, Tim? Both of us very much not lawyers. We didn't even ace the LSATs like JVL. But I can't imagine that offering $5,000 to everybody, if Republicans win, that feels illegal. And now, remember when Elon offered a million dollars, like he basically did a raffle, but that was for voter registration? Like it wasn't if Republicans win. Like if my team wins, everybody gets to go to the casino.

So I just would be shocked if that is not a legal violation.

Tim Miller (2:38)

Yeah, people have missed it. Not that the law matters that much. No, it doesn't. We're not going to play his voice. But $5,000, he said, if the Republicans win the House and the Senate. It's a little strange because Republicans have the House and the Senate now.

But if they win it again, it's a bribe to vote for him. $5,000. Also out this morning, offering a new $500 rebate check for people. I don't have the details on this yet, but something related to Obamacare being bad and you get 500 bucks. It's the subsidy replacement, I guess.

Sarah Longwell (3:07)

And on top of those Doge checks that are still in the mail, I think, the American people...

Tim Miller (3:12)

Yeah, Katherine pointed this out. Katherine Rappell, he had promised a 5,000 stimulus check via the Doge dividend, $2,000 via a tariff dividend, $1,000 via savings from the expiring healthcare subsidies. So people lose their healthcare, but we save some money so people could get a check for that. Another 5,000 dividend if the Republicans are in the midterms and a new $500 rebate check. All of those have been promised. None have hit any mailboxes. I love that they call it a dividend. It's like, oh, if we call it a dividend, it's not socialism. It's not all the things we attacked Obama for, for the stimulus 10 years ago, because it's a dividend now.

Sarah Longwell (3:53)

Yeah, like Trump said, he said it's just like in a business, you get a great windfall in your country and you give people bonuses. Like he gave Natalie, the human printer, $45,000 just as a weird bonus. Hey, you said something on TV, you and I were both on Nicole the other day. You said something on TV that I actually wanted to disagree with you about a little bit.