No One Has Seen McConnell in Weeks—and His Office Just Recycled an Old Statement

The end of the day is a good trip. We are all in the way to the end. We are going to go to Paris. We are going to go to Paris.

We are going to go to Paris. We are going to go to Paris. We are going to go to Paris. We are going to go to Paris.

We are going to go to Paris. Why do we need to go to Paris? Why do we need to go to Paris? We are going to go to Paris.

. This is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark. Sarah, happy Friday. Also, happy Friday to people who are hearing this show for the first time.

If you are tuning in to get The Bulwark Pod, you're getting this little secret thing while Tim is on vacation. It's a real treat for you. What a treat it is. Because Sarah and I tape at 7 o'clock in the morning.

and so you get this weird bedhead show. So this is a show that you may not be familiar with. Sarah and I do it every Friday. We do it in secret.

It's just for members of Bulwark Plus and this is a little preview of it. Maybe you'll love it. Maybe you'll decide that just taking Tim for free

isn't enough and you want to become a Bulwark Plus member and get all of the stuff. Sarah, they should do that, right? They should.

Look, we don't pay well very much and listen to how my voice sounds. This is an authentic morning. The first person I've spoken to is JVL on this podcast and all of you.

We do a punchy show, but I got to tell you, The Secret Pod is one of the earliest podcasts that the Bulwark has. It's one of the very few things we put behind a paywall. JVL and I talk about some news of the day, our first drafts. We have Secret Pod rules, guys.

Part of Secret Pod rules is that we're allowed to be wrong on this show because we're going to tell you we're not sure if we think a thing. it's a great show people love it it is it is the member staple for this show and so if you are not yet a member and you want to know what happens on the other side with the commenters and I'll just say this too we only read comments from our community the people who are rocking with us

you guys want to comment for free on YouTube and yell at us we're not gonna read that maybe Tim does but I'll just be very honest I don't like in terms of my time each day to engage with community like I you know I try to give like at least an hour an hour and a half every single day to community engagement and so I do have to prioritize it and so I tend to prioritize it with

the Bulwer Plus members and again this isn't this isn't a value judgment it's not saying I don't like you guys yeah I spent a lot of time in the chat this past couple weeks because I've written some triads and uh how's that going did you read those nope literally i didn't just so i control you my favorite comment is somebody was like

sarah finally figured out how to read the triad she started to write the triad uh hey i okay yeah so people go do we're gonna jump into the show because jv i got something i want to say to you i've been yes we've not you've been out uh and i missed you um two two best tim is out i gotta i've been carrying this whole thing do you guys all have it nobody's put the

bulwark on your back and just carried the whole thing uh i'm in the comments uh but but i got into this thing with bill and you know how sometimes your best content ends up being like a throwaway thing that you ended up going down this rabbit hole on but i got into it with bill about something that's just been on my mind.

You and I have talked about sort of my broken man theory before. But I started to talk to Bill about the inverse, which is one of the reasons I get sort of obsessed with how terrible the men leading us are right now is that I've always really loved a good man.

And I went on a bit of a rant about this on the Monday show with Bill. But I've been thinking about it ever since because I got a big reaction. A lot of people emailed me about it and I was reflecting on what it is about – like why I feel this. And the thing is is I've been very lucky.

I've been surrounded by good men and sometimes people think lesbians – I don't know if people watched Chasing Amy but there's this – some of the stereotypes of lesbians, they don't like men. The feminist stuff makes them hostile to men. I don't think that's true. I do think that straight men and lesbians are natural allies. But also I have always like from my dad to my brothers to the like totally idiot dudes that were my best friends from middle school on.

They've all turned into these really great men. and I love a good man and I think that it doesn't like

and you know now I'm raising a couple of boys and I say to them a lot I'm like hey you're going to get big someday I think about this

I'm a small person when people meet me at the shows they're always like you are shorter than I thought you'd be

like a 5'2". Tiny. Yeah and so men are these like big things to me and always height mogging me

but I say to my boys When you get big, your job is to help people. Your job is to use the fact that you're big. You've got to get stuff off shelves for me, obviously. But in life, you should look to be someone who helps because you will have this sort of physical advantage over a lot of people. And I try to really put that in there because I just – I've been surrounded by men like that. And to watch us be governed by men who are the opposite of that has genuinely been jarring.

But I did want to say you are such an example of a good man when I think of good men. Like – and it's funny. People who don't know you, sometimes people get the cranky version of you. And you're cranky about this stuff too.

The only version I got. No, no, no. I mean you are cranky about this. But, you know, sometimes when we're off camera, the thing you will get – I've heard you just go on these benders about like men who leave their families or the – like you –

Oh. But you're like a great dad, a great husband, and you think about how you care for people. Yeah. That's the job.

That's the job? That's the job. We can talk a little more about, you know, let's do some man talk at the end of the show. Okay.