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The Next Level

Our Kevin (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

The Next Level

The Bulwark

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.92.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2023

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sarah and JVL go to a perplexing place trying to figure out if the (very valuable) short-term good Kevin McCarthy has done regarding governing outweighs the long-term danger of normalizing white nationalists, insurrectionists, and other assorted crazies.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey there, it's JVL. On the secret show with Sarah Longwell today, we talked about Joe Biden's fall and the following unemployment numbers. We talked about Kevin McCarthy and his deal with the devil with Marjorie Taylor Green.

0:14.3

We talked about Ron DeSantis.

0:16.0

We talked about all the things.

0:17.3

Here's the show.

0:18.3

But I think that we should grapple with like the Kevin McCarthy of it all and the way that he has on one hand brought in people like Marjorie

0:36.4

Taylor Green and Jim Jordan in such a way that he can govern the country. He can

0:42.2

be an active participant in negotiating with Joe Biden and we don't have a

0:48.0

calamitous debt default.

0:50.3

In the other hand, he is normalizing he is normalizing Marjorie Taylor Green. He is using her celebrity right like they've they've struck a deal and she gets to be a lunatic still as long as she gives him his votes

1:06.8

and support when he needs it. And I think it is like in the short term. It is positive in a pragmatic way for our politics, but in the long term it creates a greater permission structure for us to accept Marjorie Taylor Green as a normal political force.

1:28.0

And I have been like, I've been trying to turn that over in my head about what that like I pushed back on the idea

1:35.5

that that was like a canny move on his part. It is him dealing with the world as it is.

1:41.2

Yeah. And so there's that I just what do you think about that? I can't believe I'm going to do this. All right, so I'm going to say a thing and this is one of those moments where we're just talking out loud. I am not

1:54.3

committed to this view. I am I am simply positing it for us to discuss. What if

2:01.0

normalizing Margarorie Taylor Green is part of it and the other part is basically bending

2:09.2

Marjorie Taylor Green into the realities of governing and making her a more more

2:17.2

responsible-ish legislator which is you know it sounds like growing in her.

2:23.0

Which is, you know, it sounds like growing in office.

2:25.0

It doesn't really mean that because she's still a lunatic, but also like, I don't know, she's a lunatic who is being taught that it actually isn't enough to just go on to Fox and throw bombs.

2:37.0

You do need to deal with the act of governing and maybe that is part of again I'm not

2:46.1

committing to this I can't believe I'm defending Kevin McCarthy in this way

2:50.1

but I don't know like maybe that's also happening as a byproduct. I'm not saying it's intentional, but maybe that's part of a thing that is happening.

...

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