So I would call it Banana Republic-flavored Soviet propaganda. Because you know this — you’ve been waiting hours to pull that one out. Waiting and waiting. You’ve been workshopping that. Oh, it did well in the focus groups. This is our last round table of the year. How are we feeling about saying bye bye to 2025? Glad to see it gone. See you later, you son of a [expletive]. O.K, O.K, it got spicy. David, are you going to miss it soon. I don’t Jamelle. As the elderly grandfather in this group, I have found that wishing away time is not my thing anymore. So I’ll be sad to see 2025 slide in the rear view mirror. Though it will not be sad that a lot of the events of 2025 are over. No question about it. And then we’re rolling into an election year. So can it be calm. It’s going to be peaceful, it’s going to be chill. Chill is the word that I’m looking for. Absolutely. Well, speaking of magical political events, did we all watch Trump’s speech last night. Because that’s what I want to talk about. The economic state of the country as described by our president. From my perspective, that really looked more like a primal scream than a presidential address. But I kind of want you guys to get in there first with give me some give me some initial thoughts. Did anything surprise you. What struck you about this whole thing. I mean, nothing surprising. I will say, as per your first comment, Michelle, that it was less than address than a harangue. And I did find myself. I mean, I think I’m coming down with the cold, first of all. So a combination of my sinuses are a little stuffy and then the president’s for 20 minutes, reach for the cold medicine. Did you. It was. It was jarring. It was striking. I mean, the thing about that address is that it’s hard to identify anything that was like, true. He’s throwing out all of these statistics, all of these numbers. And, none of them are true. There were charged. Jamelle he had charged. Come on. Yeah statistics and damn statistics. He was throwing out charts, but — He’s making these claims about inflation that aren’t true. Making these claims about wage growth that aren’t true. Making these claims about costs that aren’t true. Just a torrent of falsehoods. All clearly coming from a place of deep frustration that he isn’t as popular and well, beloved as he believes he should be, which on the one hand, is a sign that something of reality is penetrating this White House. On the other hand, it’s clear that they have no sense of how to respond to that. David? So I would call it Banana Republic-flavored Soviet propaganda because this waiting hours to pull that one. Waiting and waiting. You’ve been workshopping that. It did well in the focus groups. Michelle, I just have to say. But if you go back and you remember Soviet propaganda in the 70s and the 80s, the five year plan, it is working. The five year plan always was working. Everything is always going so well. They’re going on to greater and higher achievements. And so you always had this presentation of relentless forward momentum. And then the reason why I say Banana Republic-flavored, it was also it was filtered through this demagogic figure who essentially, and not without some justification, believes that he can basically talk his way out of anything that if you just get me in front of the American people, I’ll fix this affordability thing. Get me in front of the American people. I’ll fix this political decline. And so here he is coming in with that Trump personality, with that Soviet level economic propaganda. And that’s why we looked at it like, what did we just see. It was about an 18 minute version of the one to 1.5 hour riff that Trump does when he’s at a rally. Well, that’s one of the things that struck me is like the morning after coverage of this, somebody who was in the room, some media person who’s in the room, was saying that Trump looked to Susie Wiles and asked how he did his chief of staff and she’s like, well, I told you 20 minutes and you were spot on. So well done. So I got the sense that they had handed him this thing and told him to keep it short. But he just kept finding things to complain about. I mean, the title of this, as best I could tell, was screw you all you whiners. The economy is great. And if it’s not, blame Biden. I mean, that was it just again and again and hate the immigrants. So I am just not sure what they’re hoping to accomplish with that, other than maybe to increase the calls for him to get another cognitive assessment or to adjust his blood pressure meds. But I thought it was pretty magical. I think that the aim is just to give him something to do. Put him out there to give this 20 minute harangue, and then you tell him it was great and everyone loved it, and this will turn things around. And then he just goes back to going to his clubs and hanging out in the Oval Office. But it’s not clear to me that this is meant to serve a particular objective. It doesn’t really. It’s not going to reverse any fortunes for the president. I mean, are you just suggesting they’re trying to keep grandpa busy. I think they’re trying to keep grandpa busy. And this is one way to do it. I want to say real quick, just you mentioned that he kind of went off on immigrants. I do feel the need to mention that part of this was a brief, but really disturbing attack on the Somali-American community of Minnesota, which has been a particular obsession of his over the past couple of weeks. And I think it’s really worth emphasizing the kind of just crude and base racism of these attacks. This is the worst kind of demagogic language, the worst kind of assaults on people’s dignity. And it’s really unbecoming. I mean, this feels like an understatement, but it’s truly unbecoming of the office of the presidency. And it’s a dangerous thing to come from the Office of the presidency. Even notorious presidential racists like Woodrow Wilson were more a little more careful about their language in public. I will say this about Trump that is particularly insidious about the Somali issue is. O.K, look, you had an actual a lot of really good reporting recently about fraud in the Somali community. That is a problem. It’s a real thing that really occurred that is actually a problem. But this is what Trump does, is he takes a real thing that actually occurred that is a problem, and then turns it into something else entirely. And then he uses that as a pretext to engineer a wave of hatred against an entire group of people that then gets picked up and amplified and amplified to the point where it is now a common sight to just see across this right wing internet, the hatred and mockery of Somalis writ large. And this is just what he does. On issue after issue after issue, he latches on to an actual problem that people are worried about, but then injecting this incredibly toxic hatred into the body politic. Well, for all of his self-pitying whining and complaining, he hasn’t actually made a great case to anybody who hasn’t already been drinking the Kool-Aid that he has rescued the economy. I mean, also, we got jobs reports and inflation numbers. There was not good news for the November jobs report. Unemployment rate was the highest we’ve had in four years. Wage growth has slowed. Now inflation has unexpectedly fallen. But even Susie Wiles, in her very juicy Vanity Fair piece this month, has been saying that it was even the tariffs were even more painful than she expected. So all of this is not like a glowing testimony to Trump’s what was it, a self graded economy. So what does he need to do. I mean, we can’t just keep grandpa busy. Grandpa needs to do something. I mean, part of it. So I wrote this week about how we have this strange confluence of a largely checked out President. I think he can fairly described Trump as checked out from the business of governance and a court that larding the presidency up with a ton of authority and power that didn’t have before. But in practice, what these two things mean is that we don’t have so much like a unitary executive as we do have a unitary deputy White House chief of staff that all of the authority that the presidency has is being exercised by people who are not the president and who are largely unaccountable to anything that the political winds and you can just pursue their own narrow ideological political goals. It’s the deep state. The president’s authority. It’s the deep state is running the government, the deep state. And so that’s to get to your answer, your question, what does the president need to be doing. Well, a president who we’re actually running his administration might say, and knows that to turn around my approval, I have to turn around the economy might first of all, back off on the tariffs. That’s probably item number one. But then it might also go to say, Stephen Miller and say, we got to cut out this deportation stuff because that removing a ton of labor from the economy is going to cause inflation, right. Might go over to Russ Vought and say, we got to calm down this trying to destroy the bureaucratic state because firing a bunch of people is taking money out of the economy and doing and creating all this regulatory uncertainty. It’s bad for the economy. He tried to get a corral his. I’ve been calling them viziers, so I’ll use that here, corral his viziers into doing things a little less, a little less, tailored to their own particular interests. But because he isn’t really governing. And because these people are largely autonomous of the president in terms of how their actions go, none of that can happen. There’s not going to be any pull back on the deportations. Even if this ends up providing a significant blow to the National Labor market. David, you got anything before I regrettably let this go. I think the basic reality is we have a really mixed economy right now. There is an enormous amount of I spending that is fueling a G.D.P. increase. We’ve had some pretty high, pretty good G.D.P. numbers. At the same time, we have highest unemployment we’ve had in around four years. We had an unexpected dip in inflation. But we’ve had some real problems with inflation in the very recent past. He has implemented tariffs to try to reshore manufacturing. But manufacturing jobs are diminishing. So it’s this very mixed picture. And I think the reality is and it’s one thing that folks learn every few years is it’s very, very difficult to spin the economy to people because they live in it. You can spin a lot of things, but it’s really hard over time to convince people that things are great when maybe they’re fine or not fine. And this is something that the Biden campaign and the Harris campaign has learned is that yeah, it was bad. You can’t fact check people out of their experience. So I think Trump’s going to run into the same thing the Biden folks ran into, which is it’s very hard over time to spin the economy. Oh, well, moving on from this, I do want us to get big picture and look back at the year overall. First, I’m going to give you an easy one on scale of one to 10, one being a dumpster fire, 10 being a joy ride at Disney. Where does this year fall for you. I mean, I’d say this year is pretty solidly. I mean, in terms of politics, this year is pretty solidly obviously not the worst possible, but can always be worse. But pretty bad, pretty suboptimal. David? I’m going to go maybe slightly higher just because I think maybe my ceiling or my basement of what a 1 means might be very, very, very low. So I might go for a three. But what would a one be for you. Like we were actually in a shooting war. Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is the one. O.K yeah. One’s good, that’s fine. So if Fort Sumter is your one and VD in Europe is your 10. Then we’re heading more towards, say, a three. But I think the thing that we’re going to look back on 2025 isn’t for any one specific scandal. It’s going to be the totality of the Trump onslaught on the rule of law. But also, I think you’re going to have a lot of tail end consequences for his assault on the Civil service, his assault on USAID. We’re going to pay some real prices, and people are already paying the price with their lives for the cuts to USAID, for example. And I think the tail end effect of a lot of that is we’re not even close to experiencing it yet. O.K I very much I very much agree with that. We’ve arguably gotten somewhat lucky this year that there haven’t been any particular big external crises facing the United States, but the kind of damage done to the Civil Service, kind of damage done to the federal bureaucracy, to agencies whose job it is basically to help the United States handle acute crises. I think it suggests that should we have something like that in the next year or two years, we’re going to experience it in a much worse way than we would have without Trump. And then the destruction of USAID is, I mean, I think one of the great tragedies of recent memory. Researchers are already expecting or estimating death tolls in the hundreds of thousands of people, because Donald Trump and Elon Musk destroyed this agency for no particular reason, just did it to do it. Well, you guys actually have already preempted what was going to be my next question, which is what. What do you think is one of the moves that will have the biggest impact going forward. And I was in fact, going to bring up PEPFAR and USAID. Global perspective. So, you beat me to the punch. I am thinking that the assault on health, which they’re going to continue the fight, Congress is going to continue its fight on into the New Year. It’s going to have some immediate effects. It’s not just the slashing of Medicaid. It’s letting the Obamacare subsidies expire. I mean, people already have a hard time affording their health care. I think that this was just a devastating. Just misreading of the American public and what it needs. Oh, and I have to go with a three. If we’re going to go ranking just because I thought the year was going to be much, much, much worse. So I actually thought there would be more external problems, or I thought that there would be more violence that broke out in the country because I saw, the unleashing of the National Guard on American cities and just all of these kind of abuses as having worse repercussions than they did. Now, this suggests that I’m a very dark and negative person in my expectations, but I’m just saying. So I want to switch now just slightly and say were there any under the radar stories that you wish had gotten more attention. And I realize we’re talking about a president who manages to get saturation coverage and widespread attention every time he burps or naps. But was there anything that you want to throw out there that bothered you and you just don’t think it got quite enough play. I’m going to say that we just don’t focus enough. And this again, might sound weird to people because we’ve heard a lot of conversation about it, kind of off and on of the atmosphere of threat that pervades now the judiciary as well as Congress, as well as essentially at state and local governments. When you defy Trump. We’ve seen stories about the experience of Indiana Senate Republicans who defied Trump on redistricting and way to step up, guys. Oh, I know. And then subjected to this wave of harassment and intimidation. And I honestly think that we’re going to look back on this moment and recognize the extent to which all of American politics was distorted by Fear in this moment. And the extent to which MAGA, at a very grassroots level, was constructed in large part through the use of fear. It is still underappreciated as a central factor in American politics. And we don’t like to think about it and talk about it, because we don’t like to think that that’s what American politics is like. We think of American politics is about debate and dialogue and discussion and compromise, not fear, threat, intimidation. But I honestly think that pervasive sense of intimidation and threat is still and not sufficiently understood part of our politics. Jamelle I mean, I think that’s right. I don’t know if I have – I don’t know if I have a under covered story or anything from the year. I think I might actually just second David’s here that the extent to which one of the enforcement mechanisms for Trumpism is just death threats. People like levying credible death threats against if you decide to speak up for your own interests, Buck the party line, what have you. And the thing is that you Republicans have spoken about this before Mitt Romney spoke about it. Lisa Murkowski recently this year, I think spoke to it. I mean, it’s not as if this isn’t in the air, but it seems to just get it seems to not be taken as seriously as what it is that Republican lawmakers are just being like, threatened with violence to themselves and to their families if they don’t fall in line and I think David’s right to say that this is we’re going to look back and identify this as one of the key mechanisms behind Trump’s control over the entire Republican Party. So now I’m torn. Do I go, do I go really small bore, or do I just talk about my vague concerns about how much Trump has been meddling in the private sector and bullying media organizations and grabbing shares of companies for the government and playing favorites and just generally trying to exert his will on private actors. I just I’ve been struck by how much we just kind of nod and are like, oh yeah, O.K. That’s totally normal. I’m sure it’s fine. So like, I could go very generic like that, or I could bring up my kind of personal terror of AI and say that his executive order stomping on states efforts to step back and think about regulation for this strikes me as just shortsighted. But I mean, when isn’t he shortsighted, I guess. O.K, so I got both of those in there. So there you have it. Is there anything like a silver lining that you see as we exit this crazy year. What What has made you hopeful. The clear political silver lining, to me at least, is that yeah, politics is still occurring. Like, political gravity still exists and voters are reacting the way you would expect them to react to an unpopular administration doing unpopular actions there isn’t like the Teflon Trump thing seems to maybe apply during election years or when he specifically when he is on the ballot running for president. But outside of that, people don’t like this stuff. And that. That to me is the silver lining that we’re probably going to see next year. A very standard thermostatic reaction to the president and the depth of the president’s unpopularity will determine just how large that is, I mean, the silver lining, I think is pretty transparently the majority revulsion at what we’re seeing. And we really are looking at a situation where with the out, the kind of weird, unique appeal of Trump, but with all of the things that make that repel people from Trump in operation, it does seem like there is at least some thought that we’re turning the page. And that there is some evidence. Let’s go back to Indiana Senate Republicans. I don’t know that happens. Even four months ago, even three months ago that there’s that kind of defiance. But I think people have seen that this era will in fact, end. And the knowledge that this era will in fact, end means that you’re going to start to see some alternatives peeking out. Some green shoots of some alternatives. I think you’re right that it has that what we needed was for the public to feel like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, or even if you’re talking about people in Trump’s own circles, the Republicans on the Hill or whatever, they were buying into the idea that there’s just nothing you can do. And this is going to last forever, even though they know that’s not true. So what has happened is quack, quack, quack. The guy’s a lame duck. He’s not going to be at the top of the ticket anymore. Gravity, political gravity is beginning to reassert itself in terms of you’ve got to start planning for the next step. So you have this confluence of events. And every time Trump opens his mouth, out comes all this crazy stuff. But also behind it, I can hear the quack, quack, quack. I mean, this speech that he gave yesterday was a lame duck’s speech. I mean, so it’s the kind of almost impotent thing that presidents on their last legs do. Well, let me see if I can’t convince them to get behind me with one last go of it on the stump. And they can’t. They never can. And so the thing I mean, the thing that’s interesting to think about, interesting ominous, I don’t is that there’s still three more years of this. So what is it feels like to me, it feels like they kind of burned themselves out this first year, kind of a maximal attempt to do everything. And as the pushback has gotten stronger as the electoral defeats begin to mount. They have one of two choices, which is either to pull back and try to consolidate what they’ve achieved or continue with this full spectrum attack. And I think they’re going to try to do the latter. And I just don’t think that that’s sustainable for another year, politically or otherwise. The smarter people in MAGA are already recognizing that by coming out of the gate with an executive order agenda as opposed to a legislative agenda, they have turned a lot of the actual legal elements of Trumpism into vaporware, because executive orders on the hierarchy of American law, executive orders rank near the bottom. There’s a reason why we don’t talk about FDR’s Social Security executive order. I mean, that’s or the Medicare executive order. Trump doesn’t really want to be president, David. He wants to be king. He wants to make decrees. So yeah, I think and I think that was very much the appeal of the executive order, as David points out, that there’s a real chance that come 2029, not that far away – come 2029, there’s a Democratic president who wipes away all these executive orders. There’s Democratic congresses that pass laws that try to push back on what Trump did. And then Trump himself, depending on how things go, may end up presiding over a lot of failure. And so far from being this triumph, Trump ends up being this albatross for the Republican Party. I’m saying that both as oh, this could happen. And also, inshallah, this shall happen. So nice. All right. So as we’re wheeling into 2026, do you have any resolutions or goals do you want to share. We used to as a family, have a very formalized New Year’s resolution process, and we still often do it. We’ll gather at a Waffle House on New Year’s day. Oh hell yes. Yep, yep. So, gathered a Waffle House on New Year’s day and walked through. Sometimes in Chicago. Well, that’s a problem. No, I have not found one. Or sometimes late on New Year’s Eve, we’ll be at the Waffle House, and I have pared down my resolutions. Year by year by year, to the point where I now have one every year for the last five years. It’s the same resolution I’ve been able to keep and it is move more than the year before. In other words, that’s more exercise. Very good steps, more whatever. Move more than the year before. And so because I’ve just seen I’m going to steal that. I like it. Yeah, it’s attainable. And it’s healthy. And yeah. So that’s my annual resolution. I do not do resolutions. It’s never been a thing that I’ve really been into. I’m always much more of the type that there are things I want to accomplish and I’m going to accomplish them this year. And that’s how it’s going to be. Well, O.K. I mean there, there. I’m always up for trying to maintain and improve good habits. Like one thing I’ll say, one resolution is just like I have a pretty healthy diet, but there are things that could improve about it. I could probably stand to eat a little less sugar or that kind of thing. So I’m going to aim for that, but that just makes me feel guilty. I have a very I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. I both my parents were in the military, and I just have a very I was raised with and continue to have a very, oh, I have a task. I got to do it. It’s going to get done kind of approach to life. I do resolutions. I am just that kind of fond of a good gimmick. I have been trying to find a local organization, and charity nonprofit whatever to get involved with this year, not just donate to financially, but to get in there and spend some time with the community. So that is my goal. I have looked into a few butts still on this. If people out there have a good recommendation in the D.C. area, hit me with it before we go. O.K, give me one more rec for the year. This is it. Last chance. Top rec of top rec for the year. Top recommendation for the year. I don’t have a top recommendation for the year. I’ll say, Michelle and I did a little round table on the career of Rob Reiner, who died this week. And so let me recommend a film from that remarkable run he had from basically the early to mid 1980s to the early 1990s. I watched and this isn’t going to be like a surprise pick, but I watched “A Few Good Men” two nights ago, and I hadn’t seen it in about 10 years. And that is a picture. That is a movie, right. And it hits all the pleasure centers of a good Hollywood movie. But I have to say, Jack Nicholson’s performance and obviously his climactic courtroom scene is endlessly parodied, endlessly referenced. But like, I recommend just watching it, trying to watch it with fresh eyes. It is first a remarkable performance, but then also it feels so relevant, this notion that defending our freedoms requires brutality requires people with no regard for the law or for decency or for humanity, and the movie being a rejection of that is so relevant. And I think it’s a movie that’s actually well worth watching. In this moment, in addition to just being a tribute and a testament to Reiner’s ability as a director. So, Jamelle, I’m so glad you went in the Reiner direction. That’s a great I feel like that’s a great way to end. And I was going to point to “Princess Bride,” which is the irony here is “Princess Bride.” Reiner was a pretty left leaning guy, not known for being particularly religious, but “Princess Bride” turned into the most quoted movie in evangelical youth group history. Because what it is like, it’s just a super wholesome movie. It’s a super it’s the kind of movie it’s that really rare movie that is incredibly wholesome and also extremely popular at the same time. But I will also say for me, when I think of Rob Reiner, I think of “This Is Spinal Tap” I probably have watched that 10 times minimum. I have been to a live “Spinal Tap” concert of the actual band. That’s a thing. Yes yeah. They did a tour back in the early 90s, in fact, I was there in the early 90s at Starwood, at the now defunct Starwood Amphitheater outside of Nashville watching. I’ve been to Starwood. Oh, absolutely. What a brilliant. What a brilliant man. Who left a marvelous legacy of art and just what a crushing loss. Well, plus, I mean, spinal tap gives us the quote for this podcast that is the most useful during the Trump era. This goes to 11. These go to 11. Everything is going to 11. Like everything goes to 11. All right. So far be it from me to break the trend with Rob Reiner, as poor Jamelle, had to hear ad nauseam. I am an enormous “When Harry Met Sally” fan, this was the defining romantic comedy of my youth. I can quote the whole damn thing if you get me started with just no provocation. It’s just I’m all about that. So I think since we’re just going full Rob Reiner, that’ll be my recommendation. All right. And with that, we’re going to land this plane for the last time in 2025. Jamelle, David, thank you so much. As usual. Yes see you guys next year. Happy holidays. Happy New year and see you again soon. That’s it for the year for us guys. Everybody enjoy their holidays.