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Michael Tracey wasn’t around today, so I went solo. I start by discussing this video of Pam Bondi claiming that Trump has saved 258 million lives, a day after she put the number at 119 million. We can chalk this up to stupidity, but there’s actually something more complex going on. The nation is now living under a regime that operates in a space where it knows that it’s completely unrestrained regarding what it can say and still hold on to its base of support. I discuss how there is no incentive for anyone in the administration like Vance to push back on the craziness. If I were advising him in terms of his political future, I’d say he should just glue his lips to Trump’s ass for the next four years.

This serves as a launching pad to discuss the future of the conservative movement. I explain why Vance will likely be the 2028 nominee, why Trump won’t go away, and why we’re in a terrible equilibrium where there isn’t anyone with the tools or motivation to fix things. The problem at its core is the Republican base, by which I partly mean the voters, but much more so the influencer class – the Loomers and Posobiecs of the world with massive followings and their audiences, which are simply insane people who will demand Trump-like qualities from any politician they might support. In the second half of the podcast, I take some questions from the audience, including on whether I’m worried about a left-wing populist faction hijacking the Democratic Party in the same way that MAGA took over the right.

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This morning I noticed that Christina Buttons of the Manhattan Institute posted about the troubled teen industry, and so I happened to mention I had been sent to a rehabilitation center when I was 15. I always considered it a beneficial experience, but had noticed that Paris Hilton was leading a crusade against such facilities. After asking my X followers for help, I got on the Notable Alumni section of the Wikipedia page of the now shuttered Casa by the Sea in Baja California. So far, it’s just me and a guy who was executed for a triple murder in Texas. It looks like we might have been there around the same time.

As it turns out, Christina is also a veteran of these programs, and has done some reporting on the topic. She asked if I wanted to do a livestream today, so here it is.

One thing I have to note is that in earlier tweets today I said that Casa by the Sea was in Tijuana, but I misremembered and it was actually in Ensenada.

Anyway, all of this made me realize that I’ve had an interesting life, and I should write more about experiences like this. I’ll publish an article on my stay at Casa by the Sea at some point. For now, enjoy this conversation with Christina.

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Michael Tracey and I discuss the reported peace plan the Trump administration has been selling to Russia and Ukraine. If you take what Putin and Zelensky say publicly at face value, there really isn’t much hope of settling this conflict any time soon. If, on the other hand, they are just putting forward maximalist demands as negotiating ploys or for political reasons, there may be some hope.

The Trump plan is basically trying to recreate the process that ended the Korean War. The idea is for everyone to go, look, the line is stuck, let’s just all stay where we are and call it a day, as both sides get to claim that they gained something. We discuss the indicators regarding whether either Zelensky or Putin is willing to bend for the sake of achieving peace, along with ambiguities in the agreement and what happens to US support to Ukraine if negotiations don’t go anywhere. I come up with an optimistic best case scenario of how the current proposal could lead to an outcome that is acceptable for both sides.

We then go on to talk about the chaos at the Pentagon. This Politico article and this Tucker interview both come up. I find Hegseth to be an extremely disturbing figure. See here and here for some previous takes. Michael and I agree that this seems to be a clash of personalities within the Pentagon that Tucker and others are trying to spin as being about ideology.

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I just did a livestream with Nicholas Decker (X, Substack), a PhD student at George Mason University. I met Nick last year at Manifest, and encouraged him to write more, as I thought he had a lot of interesting ideas. I believe I might’ve also told him to not be afraid of being provocative. He apparently took that advice to heart!

For the last few days, he’s become a major villain among MAGAs for his article “When Must We Kill Them?” His tweet promoting the essay has as of this writing gotten over 10 million views. Nick has been receiving nonstop threats through email and twitter, and even had a visit from the Secret Service. I ask him what that’s been like, and also how he thinks the recent controversy will affect his future job prospects. Surprisingly, he thinks it will actually help.

I disagree with Nick that this is something we should even be discussing at this point. See my article on why political assassinations are bad. But I do have to admit that there’s nothing wrong with saying that there can be a time when government crosses a line, at which point violence is acceptable. And he’s been extremely brave throughout this whole thing, even posting the address he was living at before his landlord kicked him out.

Prior to this incident, his biggest brush with attention was over his argument that he wants to have children that are not genetically his own. I ask Nick whether he’s found the people whose offspring he would like to raise, how he selected them, and what his timeline is for becoming a parent.

You’ll find that Nick isn’t exactly what you might expect. He is a kind of über nerd whose eyes light up when discussing dense economics papers. We talk about one of my favorite articles he has written, on how consulting can make firms more efficient.

Nick is someone I have been reading and would’ve been happy to stream with at some point anyway, so this controversy mostly just provided an excuse to chat. I don’t think we should be talking about political violence at this point, but I am an admirer of intellect and courage, and Nick has unquestionably shown a high degree of both. Admittedly, I also love a good anti-MAGA troll, probably to a fault. It seems likely that Nick has the same weakness.

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Michael joins me for a spirited conversation about recent events. We start with the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which I think is the most important thing going on in government right now for its civil liberties and rule of law implications. We discuss the Orwellian nature of the way the administration lies about everything, including things like JD Vance posting a long tweet about the case and not even mentioning the main issue, which is that Abrego Garcia was sent to a labor camp, as have been others who appear to have no criminal record or known gang ties. There is at least good news in the case involving the Venezuelans shipped to El Salvador, which is that Judge Boasberg has found probable cause to declare the administration in contempt. Note that in the podcast we say that it has already been held in contempt, which is wrong, as we found out after we were done.

While we’re discussing all this, I read a tweet from a DHS spokeswoman claiming that Abrego Garcia was arrested “wearing what is effectively MS-13’s uniform.” You can judge for yourself I guess. See here and here for the kind of slop Fox News is going with to justify what is happening.

We also talked about how the Based Ritual that I recently wrote about explains Trump administration policy. I do think that it is possible that some officials are considering the deterrent effects of shipping migrants off to a labor camp, but honestly that probably gives the administration too much credit for forward thinking. Michael wonders whether Trump is trying to ally with Bukele to form a “based empire” and if this fits into his obsession with expansion and President McKinley.

I joke to Michael that I’m becoming a civil libertarian crank like he is, having been radicalized by the claims that the Trump administration is making and its nonstop lies.

Michael brings up the recent NYT article that features me and others as regretful Trump supporters, and we discuss whether it is documenting a real trend or trying to create one.

We also talk about the Trump administration cutting off funds to Harvard. See these NYT pieces for reference. I explain my views on the Harvard situation here. I’ve always advocated pushing back on civil rights law as traditionally practiced and using it to go after DEI, but instead of doing that we’ve got an administration that is demanding affirmative action for MAGAs and the establishment of a regime for monitoring the thoughts of international students. Serves me right for making smart arguments to a Low Human Capital movement. Best case scenario, the attack on DEI does lasting damage to race and sex preferences while the other crazy stuff Trump is trying to do gets rolled back by the courts and a future Democratic administration.

We answer some questions from the audience at the end, including on whether Republicans moving in this direction was inevitable. I take the opportunity to plug my recent review of a biography of the life of Roger Ailes for some thoughts on the long-standing culture of the American right and how it opened the door to the Trump cult.

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This is a podcast review of the book The Loudest Voice in the Room by Gabriel Sherman (2014), a biography of Roger Ailes, and the miniseries based on the book, The Loudest Voice (2019). Ailes’ life story brings together many of my main interests. He created Fox News in 1996, and ran the network until 2016, the year before his death. Fox can be considered the beginning of modern conservative media. There had long been talk radio, magazines like National Review, and conservative newspapers, but nothing on the scale of a cable TV news network that would shoot to number one in the ratings just six years after its founding.

The story of Fox is also part of the story of the decline of American institutions. From the beginning, there was a tension between people who wanted to do straight news, and Ailes, who sought to create an entertaining product that played to the audience. The latter tendency would win out, and be rewarded by the market. By the time of the Obama administration, Fox was reacting to conservative grassroots energy rather than shaping it. Through looking at what were considered scandals in the first decade and a half of the network, we can understand how far standards have fallen. I discuss the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Fox started hemorrhaging viewers because it would not go along with Trump’s stolen election narrative. The market competition to Fox comes from outlets that are even more biased and sloppier with the facts. Conservative media had an audience problem, and although Fox could shape and harness that energy for a while, the culture the network created led to the rise of Trump and total victory for the angry ignorant masses over more refined sectors of the conservative movement.

Ailes’ predatory behavior towards women is also an important part of the story, and what eventually brought him down. I argue that what he was doing and the fact that he could get away with it for so long tell us something about rightist culture divorced from religious norms. Ailes had a cult of personality at Fox that was similar to the one that Trump would establish on a larger scale over the entirety of the conservative movement. I explain why I don’t think sexual harassment in the workforce is something government usually needs to get involved in, but in this case in particular because it occurred in a major journalistic institution it had negative societal consequences.

Sherman’s book was published in 2014, just before the rise of Trump, Ailes’ resignation from Fox News, and his death a year later. So the miniseries covered a lot of things that weren’t in the book, though the edition I read did have an afterword based on an article about how Ailes was brought down, which can be found online here. The miniseries, which was nine episodes and ran on Showtime, has a star-studded cast, including Russell Crowe as Ailes and Seth MacFarlane as Fox head of media relations Brian Lewis. Unlike the book, which is a full biography, the show only covers the founding of Fox News until Ailes leaves the network.

The miniseries does a good job of stringing the viewer along through the morbidly fascinating spectacle of the elderly and obese Ailes preying on his young dolled-up employees. I described the show as porn for smug libs, but I guess I’m a smug lib now so I enjoyed it. I talk about where the miniseries diverged from real life events as recounted in the book and where the producers took some creative license with the story.

For all the talk of TV being dead, Fox News just posted record ratings for the first quarter of 2025. Based on the clips I’ve seen, the network seems to be getting even dumber and more sycophantic towards Trump, so this is a depressing development. As with social media and the podcast circuit, low-quality content is winning in the marketplace of ideas.

If you’re interested in the history of conservative media, or simply want to learn about a dark character who revolutionized American politics, I strongly recommend both Sherman’s book and its TV adaptation.

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Michael Tracey is at a Senate hearing today like a real journalist, so I’m flying solo.

My mood is becoming pretty dark, as reflected in my article on how Trump’s plan is to maintain a North Korea of the right. I discuss why things have gotten this bad, and the necessity of acknowledging where people who supported Trump went wrong.

Someone asks about the difference between me today and me on November 5. The big mistake is that I didn’t take my own ideas seriously enough! My opinion of Trump sycophants and assorted rightoids was already extremely low. But it’s sunk even lower, which I didn’t think was possible. There just weren’t any more guardrails. They lasted throughout the first term, but a lot has changed since then. I wrote about this extensively, but thought we’d somehow get lucky.

As I was streaming, we learned that Trump is putting a 90-day pause on tariffs, for now placing 125% on Chinese goods and 10% on other countries. This is still an insane policy, but much better than the previous plan. Maybe focusing all of his hatred on China can help spare the rest of the world. I discuss how I’m annoyed by China-bashing. I’m not a fan of the CCP, but I take issue with the belief that the problem with them is the fact that we trade with one another. This idea has taken hold as a form of bipartisan demagoguery, and I expect a lot of the anti-China policies Trump has implemented to stick, even if other tariffs get rolled back.

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Michael joins me again to talk about last night’s election results and Trump’s coming tariff announcement. Democrats won the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, and over performed in other races. Florida’s First District went from R+32 to R+15 according to the current count, while the Sixth District shifted from R+33 to R+14. We debate whether Elon was rational to put so much money and effort into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. My argument is that Republicans need to do something about the fact that the other side is more energized, along with the fact that Democratic voters are more educated, which makes current trends worse. Elon did not help them win in Wisconsin, but giving away giant checks is at least a strategy. The alternative right now seems to be to just accept that Republicans are going to get crushed in every election from now until 2028.

Michael and I do our best to speculate on what might happen with tariffs based on current reporting. We recorded this beginning at 1ET, while Trump’s big announcement is at 4ET, so by the time you listen to this there may be more information.

We go on to talk about a blockbuster report in The New York Times from over the weekend: “The Secret History of the War in Ukraine.” Michael and I go over what we learned that is new here, and how the story changed our perspective on the conflict. As for the future of the war in Ukraine, I wonder whether Trump seems to be just getting bored with the conflict. The most likely scenario now looks to me to be a petering out of American support as the Europeans assume more responsibility and the fight continues. Michael, in contrast, seems to find it easier to imagine Trump escalating support to Ukraine.

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Michael Tracey joins me to talk about the crazy groupchat story. We discuss why this has caught on, and whether it tells us anything new about the administration and how it operates. See here for the full release. I argue that the reason that this is such a big story is that it’s the kind of awkward situation people can relate to in their personal lives, except in this case it happened to top administration officials while planning a military strike.

Michael and I then debate the logic that was used to justify the attack on Yemen. We go back and forth on the question of whether “deterrence” or “credibility” can be a good reason to do something. Michael says no, but I disagree.

I play this hilarious video of Steve Witkoff talking about the special relationship between Trump and Putin. See these articles on Putin’s religious beliefs.

Finally, we close with what has been going on with immigration enforcement. Of all the things that the Trump administration is doing, this might be the most disturbing. ICE has apparently been hunting down a Columbia student who is a legal permanent resident and has been in the US since she was 7. Venezuelans are getting sent to a Salvadoran prison camp based on allegations that they have gang ties. We’re not talking about people convicted of crimes, or even arrested for crimes. Simple speculation about who they are means that they get locked up indefinitely! Michael notes that this goes well beyond anything that Bush and Cheney did back when they were criticized for violating civil rights. See here for the latest legal news on this that broke as I was typing these show notes.

For the thumbnail, see here.

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Michael Tracey joins me on the livestream to discuss the latest foreign policy news, including on the Ukraine war and Gaza.

Late in the conversation we talk about how the Trump administration has gone beyond being pro-Israel, and is more implementing a policy of fighting anti-Semitism across the board, which has reached into education and immigration policy. I note the parallels I see between woke hysteria on college campuses and the narrative that universities are hotbeds of Jewish hatred, namely exaggerated and subjective claims of persecution, along with alleged anecdotes only weakly supported by evidence.

Some links that come up in the conversation or are related to its themes:

Mikhail Zygar, “Putin Won’t End the War. He Can’t Afford to.” (NYT)

Michael with a clip of Laura Ingraham asking Trump about the Putin call, and the seeming contradiction between his account and that of Putin

Me, “Too Gay to Rebel.”

Wall Street Journal on Israel sending troops back into Gaza

Wall Street Journal, “Columbia Is Nearing Agreement to Give Trump What He Wants.”