Tim Miller: Pay-to-Play? Why a President Having His Own Coin Is Next-Level Corruption | DSH #1566

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The idea that we sent people to a foreign country, to a gulag, without due process, it just has been unbelievably, it was just totally unconscionable.

It feels like it's something that you'd expect from a third world country.

His whole D-list, banana republic, authoritarian, like wannabe dictator thing.

I just don't like the whole show.

Really, dude, I gotta rub your belly to get good stuff from the leader.

Like, that's just not America.

Okay, guys, out here in New York City at the Spotify Studios, we got Tim host of the Bulwark podcast.

What's up, Sean?

How you doing, man?

I'm good, man.

Nice to finally meet you.

I know we've been chatting for a bit.

Yeah, I've been excited to do it, you know, hash it out a little bit.

After the election, I got to get out of my Never Trump bubble.

Yeah.

Like, you know, see what's going on.

Objectively, how do you feel about Trump so far, A through F?

I just think he's been a disaster.

I mean, I guess I'll give him a D minus.

And there have been a couple of things that have been a little bit better than I expected.

But for the most part, I just think the immigration regime has been awful.

Like the idea that we sent people to a foreign country, to a gulag without due process, it just has been unbelievably, was just totally unconscionable.

I don't think the bill they put through Congress was very good.

I don't know that we needed another huge tax cut for rich people.

The tariffs have been a nightmare.

I guess I'll give him a D-min because we were on track to an F with his initial tariff launch because he backed off that.

I think that's allowed the economy to kind of stabilize, but it's not good.

It's gotten worse for folks.

And, you know, I just, like his whole...

kind of like D-list, banana republic, authoritarian, like wannabe dictator thing.

I just don't like the whole show.

It feels like, you know, know it's something that you'd expect from a third world country give you this trophy I just I want you to feel like you have a bigger dick than you really do like I gotta rub your belly to get good stuff from the leader like that's just not America like it feels like you know it's something that you'd expect from a third world country and you know bullying the universities to pay them and stuff like on some of the policy stuff I'm not a huge DEI guy like I agree with him but like the notion that you know, you got to pay the president a ransom to avoid the government coming after you.

It's just, it's not in the American system, man.

So I'm

pretty, I think it's been not really great.

And I don't know that regular folks have felt like their lives have gotten any better unless, you know, if you're like an ICE agent or you're in the prison industry, it's doing pretty good.

I guess you're in AI.

Things are, you know,

there are a couple sectors, crypto, yeah, there are a couple sectors that are doing good.

But if you're just a regular person that's working somewhere in the country, you got on board with them because you thought he was going to care about you, the forgotten man, you know, unless you got a lot of money in ETH, I I don't think you've been doing that well.

Yeah, and that's where being objective comes in handy, right?

Because I can recognize that.

My life's way better.

I'm in crypto.

ETH is my biggest bag.

Okay, there you go.

You're cool.

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It's helped a little bit.

Like, he's done some of the deregulation stuff.

Like, look, I had a big

kind of VC guy on my show this week.

And, you know, he's like, look, he's helped some things with, you know, you had Lena Khan khan that was in there and you had gary gensler and you had some of these regulators that were going after crypto and going after some of these tech companies and this government has sort of backed off that so that's helped and like and narrowly in some of those industries but like also simultaneously you've got crypto scammers like the president himself and like justin son and like like these china you have foreign crypto guys like paying off the president again it's like banana republic it'd be one thing if it was okay i'm gonna deregulate it a little bit we're gonna go after the bad guys we're gonna make sure regular crypto investors

can make money.

Okay.

I'd be okay with that.

I think that the Biden administration at some times was a little too hostile to crypto.

I agree with that.

But

the president having his own coin,

not at all.

I wasn't a fan of that, and I'm pro-crypto.

Yeah, not at all going after people that

are screwing people over, that have fake coin.

There's a lot of stuff that he's doing in that world

that I don't dig.

I will say I was in D.C.

that week, inauguration Week, when he launched the coin, and I was hearing some crazy stories of people making stupid dough.

Oh, yeah.

Well, and we don't even know who's putting money in his pocket.

Again, it's like there were some legitimate criticisms of the Biden administration, people going around Biden crime family, like Hunter selling his paintings to people.

I was like, Hunter shouldn't be, Hunter's not an artist.

He shouldn't be selling paintings.

Like, there shouldn't be guys getting access off of the Bidens by paying off Hunter, by buying his ugly ass paintings.

Like, that's that's but what the Trump people are doing is on steroids.

Like, you can just you can just buy people are throwing 10 million in his coin yeah who knows what they are they could be from Qatar you know they could be from one of these foreign countries that's hostile to us um like we don't we actually don't even know the scale of the corruption and like what kind of deals people are getting on the back end and that just goes totally against what he was selling people on the on all the drain the swamp stuff and it is the most like the the scale of corruption right now in the Trump administration is bigger than anything we've seen from from past more traditional politicians.

And I think that I don't even think it's a close call, honestly.

Wow, what a statement.

Yeah, he did campaign on getting rid of the deep state and fixing a lot of issues.

And it's been one of those things where it's like, okay, yeah.

So he got rid of some of the corruption from the other side.

You know what I mean?

Like there's

access guy, you know, people that have access, revolving door type stuff in some of these industries, like treasure, you know.

So sure, that's happened.

But then you just replace it with

a whole different corrupt regime where people can pay off the family of the the president anonymously through a coin?

That's nuts, man.

Like, that's not...

I don't think any, even if you're pro-crypto, even if you're pro-Trump, I don't think anybody should be for that.

Yeah.

But corruption's on both sides, right?

We could agree with that.

Sure, sure.

Like I said, I think what Hunter was doing in Bariza, I watched that interview he did with Andrew Callendar.

Yeah, that was what it was.

That was a weird interview.

Really weird interview.

And a lot of folks, like a lot of even my listeners who are more sympathetic to Biden, like, or liked it and were like, yeah, that was based.

I saw that interview and I was like, dude, dude, this dude seems insane.

He's talking about how he earned his role on the board of the Ukrainian oil company.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

Like, you're an unemployed crackhead?

Like, the only reason you had that job was because your dad is a vice president.

So, nothing wrong with doing,

I'm pro drugs.

People want to go do drugs, have a good time.

That's fine.

But don't tell me that you, who have no credentials, no skills, no background in oil, should have been on a Ukrainian natural gas company's board.

So, yeah, man, there was corruption.

Okay.

Like, but again, the Biden himself was separate from that, like at some level, and he met with his son and stuff.

So I'm sure that there were certain things going on.

But like to compare that, like Hunter's little, you know, whatever ragtag bullshit that he was doing to literally the president's kids.

like are running an investment vehicle where people can pay the family off like the kids are going to hostile foreign countries and building hotels and shit in countries that have values that are very conflicting to us, where we might get caught on the wrong side of

a conflict in the Middle East.

I just, I think the scale of what they're doing is going is

far beyond what we've seen in the past for corruption.

And I think that as we learn more and more, as things go on, because a lot of this is happening in a black box, I think people are going to be like astounded.

Yeah.

When you were part of the right, did you see anything to this magnitude at all?

Any corruption like this?

You know, so I was always a campaign guy.

I was never an insider.

So like folks who don't know, so I worked for like the establishment Republicans, I worked for McCain, worked for Romney, kind of on the edges, worked for Jeb.

But I always like did political campaigns.

So I wasn't ever like in the White House.

I didn't work in the Bush White House, you know.

So I just think the corruption inside the White House is different because...

you know, it's like you have power and you have control.

And obviously there was stuff during the Bush administration,

you know, and we could talk about that, that I disagreed with.

The campaign type of corruption is like a little bit different, man.

It's a little bit more of this whole like, the candidate goes to this big conference room, big ballroom, bunch of rich guys come in, they throw $20,000.

So now they got your phone number and they can call you if you like put out a statement about something in their industry and they're like, hey, will you chill out on whatever, natural, you know, whatever it is.

So there's like this soft corruption that's just like typical of all politics, right?

Just kind of this insider wheeling and dealing, favor trading type stuff.

And,

you know, that's not great.

I don't want to defend it in any way.

But

it also was pretty like small potatoes.

You know, you go back, you're too young to remember this.

Like, the big scandal of the Bush administration was Jack, this guy named Jack Abramoff, who was a lobbyist.

And like the in, I'm trying to remember this off the top of my head, but essentially it was like the Native Americans paid him to help get them good deals for like casinos and land rights and stuff like this.

But like the amount of money that we're talking about is so small compared to the kinds of shit that we're talking about now.

And there were limits on campaign contributions.

You know, you can only give so much.

Now we're in like this whole new era with like super PACs and we're with, you know, Elon, like Trump's biggest donor was campaigning with him.

Like, and then came into the White House and was able to, if he wanted to, do stuff that would screw with his competitors.

I think Elon ended up kind of.

Getting so red-tilt, he like just was focused on his own doge thing.

But that is crazy.

Like there, again, there's no precedent to that.

Like, imagine if George Soros was like the deputy president for Obama, or like the biggest lefty donor, you know, went in and was Biden's chief of staff, right?

Like, Trump's biggest donor, a guy that put 50 million, what did he put in?

It was a lot.

I don't know.

I think it was way more than that.

It was like eight, nine figures that he put in.

Then gets to come in and have influence over policies that when his company is now getting money on the back end from the administration.

I mean, they were, they were like Tesla and Facebook, they all take huge, they have huge government contracts, huge conflicts of interest.

So like I said, I just think that what we're seeing now is just on a totally different scale than past.

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The money in this space now is so insane.

I don't even know if people's incentives are in the right spot anymore.

Does that make sense?

What do you mean?

Like when people are running for Congress and they get these donations from these packs, like it's, it's a lot of money these days.

Yeah.

Well, if you go that way, like you can do, you can get these super packs to throw in huge, huge amounts of money on your behalf.

And then the candidate, the system is so stupid now.

And then the candidates are limited.

Like you,

it's been a while since I've been out of the game, so they up it a little bit every time.

But I think that as an individual, you can only give the candidates campaign committee now like three grand or something.

Maybe it's four grand or whatever.

And today it's like, it's small potatoes compared to.

Then you have a super PAC, which is like having an outside group run ads on your behalf and do all this sort of stuff.

Like the crypto community did

put in a ton of money.

So and the system is just totally broken.

And again, this is like the frustrating thing for me, which is I'm sympathetic to some of the stuff that MAGA World says where they talk about how like the system is broken.

We need an outsider to go in and fix it.

We need somebody to shake it up.

But like that's not happening.

They're not trying to create any rules to put limits on the money.

You know, that's what John McCain was about.

Like there's this McCain Feingold.

He did this big thing that was trying to put limits on

how much people contribute to campaigns.

There are ways we could do things, copy from other countries to prevent how much people can advertise.

But since the Supreme Court basically said money is speech and the Trump administration is kind of happy to have the argument, but without it fixing it, like, it's fucking Vegas now, man.

It's your city.

It's a casino.

It's wild.

People can do whatever they want.

It makes you wonder if the most qualified person is winning these days.

I would argue not.

Certainly not the most qualified.

I mean, we're looking at, I mean, look at this administration.

It's a fucking shit show.

Yeah, but Kamala raised a bit over a billion, too.

Kamala's huge run of money.

And they didn't have an open process, which they should have,

in that primary,

to get the most qualified person.

Also, why would you want to run right now if you were a really qualified person?

I think that's another thing that like people like to laugh about the Trump, you know, kind of bullying and memeing stuff and all that.

But like, if you want to run as a Republican and you're just, you're an earnest person that's like, I want less government, you know, I want strong military, or if you're a more mega Republican, I want smaller government, but I also want, you know, strong borders, whatever your issues are.

Like you got into it because you care about that, because you've contributed to your community, and you want to run as a Republican now.

But you think that something Trump did was bad.

You didn't like the one big, beautiful bill.

You thought that it was too much, you know, why are we giving so much tax cuts to rich people?

You think we should have done more tax cuts for working class people?

Or you thought we should have balanced the budget.

You care more about.

fiscal responsibility.

And you're like, you know, I like Trump, but I'm just not with him on this.

He's busting the debt up.

Or I like Trump.

And I think we should have a strong border, but I don't think that mass thugs should be grabbing people off the streets, you know, if they're here and they're working and they're trying to do their best in this country and they haven't committed any crimes.

I'm not for that.

I like Trump, but this.

If you say that you're out, if you say that you're out, like Trump just runs, it's just a total, like the inside of the Republican Party right now is just a total cult.

Like you will lose your primary.

There's no, you can put on one hand who is like who is an exception to this.

You got Tom Massey out of Kentucky, who's doing this, who's doing principled stuff on Epstein and on spending.

Like, that's basically it.

Like, who else?

Can you think of anybody else?

Like, who else in the Republican Party is saying, I like Trump, but I'm going to oppose him on this thing?

That happens in the Democrats.

It happens all the time throughout history.

Nobody's really doing that right now because you're out because the way that the system is now

is that Trump's running a MAGA protection racket where you got to be with him or you're against him.

If you're against him, you have TDS, you're the enemy, you're never Trumper.

Dude, I just don't think that's healthy.

Like, that's not a healthy way to do politics.

And I think that it's not bringing in good people.

Because if you're like a guy that wants to run, but doesn't want to just say, yes, sir, Mr.

Trump, sir, then why do it?

Like, then you're just choosing not to do it.

I've got friends like this.

I've got conservative friends who are like military veterans, business owners, smart guys who call me and are like, I'm thinking of getting in this primary.

And I'm like, well, are you ready to say?

yes, sir, Mr.

Trump on everything.

And they're like, no, no, I disagree with them on this, that, or that.

And I was like, you can try, but you're going to lose because the MAGA world is just going to come down on you.

That sucks, man.

That's not how this should work.

It's hard to have growth in that sort of environment.

Yeah, it's hard to have good thinking.

It's like anything else, right, man?

Like, you know, if nobody's telling you you're making a mistake, then how are you going to get better?

Like, it's like, this is true in any business or any

organization.

You don't want to have a bunch of yes men all around.

And just look at the Trump administration.

What is the one issue, which I mentioned already, that people have really pushed back on him on internally in various ways?

It was the tariffs.

And a lot of times they weren't willing to do it publicly.

It was like privately.

privately.

They were going to Bessint and they're like, dude, we're getting crushed on these.

Like you got to tell them to dial it back.

And he dialed it back.

And it's still too high for me.

And I still think it's hurting the economy somewhat.

But it went from like that month where it was a crisis or a week or two, whatever long it was after Liberation Day where the stock market tanked and then Trump backed off a little bit.

But so that's good.

That's how it should work, right?

But like you're not seeing that in a lot of these other spaces.

The only space I could probably say I'm seeing it in is Epstein.

Epstein.

That's a big one, right?

I feel like the right's pretty divided on that one right now.

Yeah, Epstein.

But is he changing on that?

Doesn't seem like it.

And the politicians aren't really

talking about it.

Massey, who I can't think of anybody else that's been talking on the Republican side has been speaking out about Epstein.

The like people in our world.

The commentators in our world.

I would say like Fuentes is calling him out.

Myron Gaines, people like that.

But look at the Megan Cully's a good example, man.

Like Megan started to call him out at first and she's now

and I'll do it right.

You want access.

You want people to come on your show.

You want to get the vice president on the show.

It's good for it.

That's just kind of the way it works.

For me, I'm not worried about losing gas.

You can't think that way as a host.

No.

I think so, at least.

Yeah, I don't worry about it.

I mean,

I never had Biden on my show, even though I was supportive of Biden,

and I don't know if it was because or I don't know why they never told me.

Did you get the White House invite?

I would.

I got invited to the Christmas party a couple times.

I got invited to a couple things at the White House, even though I said negative things about him.

So they weren't that sensitive.

He wasn't on the show.

He didn't come on,

which again is fine.

But yeah, I just don't look, man, if I wanted to be a propagandist, I could just go back to being PR.

I could have just switched teams.

I used to be a Republican PR flag.

I could have switched and just became a Democrat PR flag if I wanted to be a propagandist.

I like having a show where I just could just say what I really think.

And, you know, I thought Biden was too old.

I thought he fucked up Afghanistan.

And I think that that gave me credibility with people who listened to the show.

Right.

And, you know, at the same time, I was like, I also think

him and certainly Kamala, then where you didn't have the age question, certainly Kamala would have done a way better job than Trump.

I still believe that.

But I can say that and also

talk honestly about what, you know, what their flaws are, weaknesses are.

And you have on both sides, which I respect too.

Yeah.

I mean, I wish more Republicans would come on.

I've asked every Republican senator and House member to come on.

They won't do it.

There's certain guys, yeah, like MAGA World folks will fight with me, which is fun.

And I got, you know, I've gone back and forth with a lot of those guys.

I go to the TP, I go to the America Fest every year.

Do you film there or do you just go there?

The first year I filmed.

And then after that, I thought it kind of gave me more credibility to just kind of go and build relationships and talk.

And then sometimes, you know, it'll turn into something.

And then

we'll interview and schedule them later.

Like, I don't know.

We have a spin-off podcast with just Gen Z guests.

I do with Cam Caskey, who's on your show.

Yeah.

And so we've had on, you know,

Bannon's Young Minions.

We've had one, I had one of Bannon's minions.

You know, we had

somebody else on recently.

He's like a MAGA influencer.

So I just think it's better.

I kind of want to hear what they really think.

And I feel like if your camera's on, they're not.

Sometimes they will, but like they won't always be telling me.

And I just, you know, I think it's better just to have some beers and try to understand.

Yeah.

Especially for me, because I just, you know, it's a no for me.

It's a no for me.

I don't know, man.

I don't know.

The whole thing I find a little creepy, honestly.

I mean, you can't deny he's done well at building that cult following.

Dude.

Same with Charlie Kirk.

Unbelievable.

And I say this to Charlie, and I said this after the last America Fest.

I forget what.

God, I kind of forget.

There was something, I wrote an article for the Bulwark about something that happened there that was kind of creepy or weird.

Oh, no, it was about Carrie Lake.

Carrie Lake confronted me at a party.

Carrie Lake really hated me.

Was this last year?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I did a couple interviews with her that I thought were pretty fair, honestly.

And she gave as good as she got.

She went at, she like,

she had a, I'll give her credit, she had a funny line one time where she like asked me why I dressed like a teenager, you know, if I'm a grown man.

Like, you know, she, we went back and forth.

And, and, um, I went at her hard too on a few things, particularly immigration, particularly things that we disagree on.

Um, and anyway, so I thought it was, I thought it was fine.

I, you know, whatever.

It was journalist and reporter or journalist and politician kind of relationship.

Anyway, cameras are off.

I'm at a bar at the America Fest thing, and Carrie Lake comes out of nowhere.

And I don't know whether or not she's been drinking or not.

Her eyes were a little glassy, but

maybe that just happens.

I don't know when you get older.

But she she comes at me like you're a piece of shit.

You're fake news.

Like you're you're you're fucking awful.

And so anyway, weirdly, Laura Loomer de-escalated it.

Really?

Out of all people?

Yeah, of all people.

She came over and she told Carrie to chill.

So anyway, I wrote an article kind of about how weird the like kind of the vibes at the conference were and how like I thought it was strange that like they were coming at me after they just won.

Like it should have, like you would expect them to be gracious.

That's right.

It's like, man, we just dominated you last time um but anyway why are they still so mad at me so i wrote this article but as a preface to the article i said about charlie i was like me and charlie disagree on a lot of this i think so i think he's even bsing his audience on a lot of things that he doesn't really believe when it comes to defending trump to gun tariffs and some of the traditional conservative stuff yep um but uh i gotta give him credit man there's nothing like it on the left not even close nothing like it's even close the turnout is unbelievable the organizational skills the strategy behind it um there's just no choice but to give him props about it That's what the left is missing.

I think if you guys had something like that, it would have a major impact on it.

I know it's kind of sad.

So I live in New Orleans.

So Netroots Nation is this kind of

elder millennial like TPU.

It was like kind of hot back in the early 2000s, but it's still kind of puttering along.

They had their big conference this year in New Orleans.

And it was just,

you know, good people.

And I've got nothing against any of them, but it's just kind of sad.

You know, there's just too much.

It's not modern.

It's not 2025.

Like, Charlie's done a good job of doing the types of things that get get young people excited, do want to go there.

You know,

they advance their policy vision, but also fun.

People are having a good time.

And nobody's,

someone needs to take it on.

And that's the thing.

Like, these things don't just happen.

Like, you need somebody to be, like, have the initiative to say, we're going to do this.

And I, anyway, I've

been like, this is, yeah, well, this is in my mind now.

Like, just because I just, the network news thing was so sad.

I've been starting to message people.

I have a daily fucking podcast.

I got a full-time job.

And I kind of want to help somebody else turn it and do it.

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You guys have some young people coming up right now.

Yeah, who do you like?

I like Adam Mockler.

I like Keith Edwards.

David Pachman's older, I guess, but he's cool.

Yeah, you guys are starting to infiltrate the podcast space, which I think is smart.

Finally.

Finally.

You needed that last election, but maybe in 2018.

It's unbelievable.

And look, I like all the guys you mentioned.

The thing that I think we're missing

is

folks that are like pretty generally disposed to left stuff.

Maybe they disagree on certain things, but have just more general interest podcasts.

You know?

And like, you kind of do this.

Like, you know, you've people on

all politics.

You talk about other shit.

I watch your clips.

And

that's the thing that I'm like, what, you know, the left has this for boomers, right?

Like, it's Stephen Colbert's show, or, you know,

canceled now, but, like, whatever.

It's, it's those kind of shows.

But what, where is, like, the Rogan, Theo,

Flagrant, like, all that kind of stuff, those guys aren't politics first.

And they're talking about politics a little more and more.

I kind of like their shows better when they don't talk about politics, to be honest.

Theo is spelled Louisiana boy.

I was like, I was like, dial it back a little bit.

I was like, you're better on the other shit.

I was like, I want to laugh again watching your show.

But he had on the Rizzler this past week, and I was like, that's your wheelhouse.

Stick with the Rizzler thing, right after Vance, too.

I was like, we need that, is like the challenge on the left is like finding somebody to fill that space.

So Machler, all those guys, keys, all the guys you mentioned are good, but

I don't know, man.

That's still a gap, I think.

Yeah, you still need someone that's like a Rogan, right?

That has on random scientists and politician the next day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so it's more general interest and gets people who are more casual.

And that's the thing about Rogan.

That's the thing about all those guys.

None of them are like down the line.

I agree with Mr.

Trump on everything.

Because that would be a boring show.

Like, eventually it's no different than a Charlie Kirk show.

That show already exists.

And so, like, that's kind of a missing ingredient, I think.

I don't know.

Some like Bill Burr could do it.

I think Shane Gillis is kind of secretly that, but he doesn't want to say.

That's the vibe, I guess.

He does make fun of Trump a lot now that we're doing.

Yeah.

And so I'm like, I kind of, I don't want to nudge Shane.

I was like, well, you take this on.

You're at Shane is the answer.

It's not going to be some political guy.

Well, right now is the time to strike on that because there's a lot of infighting on the right.

Have you been following the Fuentes versus Tucker versus Candace stuff?

I have.

Yeah, where do you side on that?

Yeah.

With glee.

Man, do I have to pick a side?

I guess it's time.

I kind of enjoy having, like, I like the popcorn part of it.

I'll tell you this.

I don't,

I do not like Nick Fuentes, and I think that his influence on young guys is really, is really pernicious.

Really?

I do, man.

Wow.

Man, I don't, when I mentioned earlier that I don't like the DEI stuff, that's true.

And here's why.

I like, look, I have a black daughter and I care a lot about representation.

I think it's cool.

You know, I want people to have an opportunity to talk.

I don't like it, though, when it becomes like race is everything because that gets you to a bad place, Victoria.

I'm talking about race all the time.

It gets you into a place, yeah, where

it's this us versus them thing.

It's teams.

Like, I don't want to pretend like it doesn't exist.

Like this idea, some people on the right will be like, we should be colorblind.

Like, that's bullshit.

Nobody's fucking colorblind like you should acknowledge it exists if people are getting screwed over you should help them out.

I think a little, you know,

having having a black mermaid movie because they've been all white before school

like I don't like all that's good.

But obsessing over it, I think is a problem.

The inverse of that is really dangerous.

I just think like white identity politics stuff that Nick does, you know,

influences people in a bad way.

And I think he does it where he's like, I'm trolling, I'm trolling.

It's kind of a joke.

But a lot of guys take that seriously, man.

And people start saying that, like, oh, I'm making joking racist jokes, making joking, racist jokes.

Then I start to believe it.

I've seen that pipeline happen with young guys.

Oh, yeah, where they're like making where they think they're just being tongue-in-cheek and contrarian by like, you know, whatever, making racist jokes.

And then, next thing you know, you start to listen to them, and you're like, you're really buying your own bullshit there.

Like, you really do think this.

And

so, I think Nick's had that effect on people, and I think it's really bad.

That said,

on the sole question of like who is who is being authentic and who is grifting.

I don't have any reason to believe that Nick is not being authentic.

Tucker is fake.

Tucker's fake.

I mean,

has Tucker just, has he ever explained what happened?

Like, did he...

With his father, you're talking about?

No, I meant about his ideological

transition.

Why did it happen?

Like, it's like the old Bible thing about Saul to Damascus.

Like, Saul falls off the horse and becomes Paul.

Like, did he fall off a fucking horse and hit his head?

And all of a sudden, he changed his mind?

You go back and and watch old Tucker clips, and it doesn't sound like him at all.

Like, he's totally indistinguishable.

He, there's this great old Tucker clip where he's ripping on Bill O'Reilly, talking about how Bill O'Reilly is a fake populist and he acts like he's a man of the people.

And eventually, people are going to come for him

because nobody likes a fake, and everyone's going to find out that Bill O'Reilly is really just a rich guy that likes fancy things and he's just playing a role on TV.

And I'm like, that's Tucker.

Tucker used to wear fucking bow ties and he's like the heir to a

a pot pocket fortune or some shit.

And like you said, his dad was a big insider where he was traveling

with the contrasts back when he's a kid.

And he's on MSNBC and he worked for my colleague Bill Crystal at the Weekly Standard.

And now it's just, and now

he all of a sudden has flipped.

And all of a sudden, it's like, oh, everybody in the deep state is bad.

And I'm the only honest one.

And I care about people.

I just don't buy it.

I don't know.

It's, I mean, who knows?

Maybe he had a psychotic break.

Maybe he has seen the light and he's like, you know, everything that I thought before was wrong.

But I've never really understood his transition.

And I think that he sees like that doing the kind of populist,

anti-Israel, white nationalist, kind of conspiracy, kooky conspiracy stuff.

You know, was Churchill the really, really the bad guy in World War II?

Like, I think he thinks, I think that does numbers, and I think that he's going along with it because it does numbers.

You can't tell me that Dr.

Carlson really thinks that Churchill might have been the bad guy in World War II.

Dr.

Carlson is a very smart, well-read person who was a traditional Republican up to like two minutes ago.

So what's the deal?

Yeah.

So in that sense, I was watching Nick's takedown of him, and I was like,

Dude's got us some points.

Respect that you can watch that objectively, even though you don't like him.

Yeah, I don't, I like, I want to know what everybody's saying, man.

I like to watch the right stuff.

It doesn't do you any good to block it out.

What do you get from not hearing what the other people are saying?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Look, the one I listen to the most is Bannon.

Really?

I listen to Candace kind of because I think it's funny.

I think Candace is

totally off the deep end cuckoo stuff.

Like, how many times can you go, show me your dick, Brigitte Macrone?

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Why is that still doing numbers?

I don't know.

But I can just announce it.

It's like, show me your dick, Brigitte Macrone.

I'm like, I don't think this is really

like a real,

you know, serious news

outfit.

But anyway, she's obsessed with that.

She just announced her legal fund.

Did you see that?

People are going to give her money?

Yeah, she said it'll cost about $5 million to deal with it.

Don't give Candace money, Candace fans out there.

I know there's a couple of Candace fans out there.

She's doing fine.

She does not need money.

She made her bed with this weird obsession.

She needs 5 million, man.

Yeah, she can find it.

Anyway, where was I?

I know.

I like to listen to Bannon because Bannon is not full of shit.

Bannon is not full of shit.

Me and him disagree.

He believes in it.

He believes 85% of what he says.

That's higher than he does.

He doesn't really think Trump won the 2020 election.

Oh, really?

No.

Okay.

No.

You can tell.

Bannon does not have a good.

Do you ever watch Bannon's show?

I haven't seen a show.

I've seen clips.

Okay.

Bannon is not a good poker player.

Neither am I, by the way.

Which is why I wouldn't be good at doing what Tucker does with this, like totally pretending.

Bannon

will have, like, he'll laugh.

He'll smile.

Like, I've interviewed him several times.

We've gone back and forth and Whenever we get to the 2020 election stuff and I start being like you really think that you really think that like he he starts to Chuckle he falls yeah, yeah, he chuckles he get he holds the line in his answer, but his face changes like when he's talking about the popular stuff about immigration about going after the big banks about you know whatever the other like weird hobby horses he has

he gets mad you know yeah he gets mad and he and he's really intense an intense guy and then he started asking about some of the silly stuff and i'm like you really think that the vaccines were fake?

And it's like, you know, he starts to chuckle.

He's like, well, Dr.

Robert Malone.

And I was like, okay, okay, Steve.

So I think most of the stuff he says is true.

And I think that the critics of the establishment from the right had some points.

You know, they had some points.

I don't like, look, I don't, I was an establishment Republican before I switched sides.

I obviously agree that, you know, in retrospect, there were things that the establishment Republicans did that were bad.

But there's things not as bad as Trump's doing now.

But,

you know, I think you learn from people.

You look back at Iraq, for example, you were a baby when that was happening.

I was in college, I was just fucking a Charlie, I was a dumb college Republican.

I was like, whatever, I wanted to work in politics.

Yeah, we're doing Iraq, American flat, you know, hell yeah, America, back-to-back World War II champs, we're gonna go fuck them up.

Like, I was just

bought into all the jingoistic stuff.

I was on, I was on board with that.

The only people that were against that at the time were like a handful of weird libertarian rightists and like far left left folks.

Like, I was it.

Like, there was nobody that was against it.

And, like, they were right.

The weirdos were right.

You know, the weirdos were right.

And so, I don't know.

Are the weirdo?

Does that mean that they are also right about the vaccines being a mind control and like all the, you know, the moon made of cheese and all the other crazy shit that they think?

No, they're not, you know, they're wrong a lot, but I don't know.

I think it's important to listen to other folks because you don't want to get groupthink, right?

Get caught in in a bubble, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, a never-Trumper.

Yeah, I'm in a Never Trumper bubble.

I get it.

I get it.

I mean,

it's hard to get.

I mean, well, it's hard.

That's why I was saying I have to try.

I have to try to get out of my effort.

Yeah, but to be out of my Never Trumper bubble, because, man, Trump does a lot of stuff to make our life easy.

I could do a show every day about the stupid shit Trump says and does, and I do talk about it a lot.

When I had Pac-Man on, he basically told me if Trump wins, he's going to make two to three times the income as when Biden was president.

Oh, before the election yeah before the election yeah and I would trade I and I said I was like the

Trump winning has been great for the bulwark we're gonna make more money because of it it's gonna be good for me financially I would trade in a second I would rather the country be doing better and the bulwark be doing worse I wish our politics was more boring man I wish our I'm a politics nerd I think it's kind of weird how many people want to talk to me about what's happening with the HHS secretary.

We shouldn't know.

Nope.

Regular people shouldn't know who the HHS secretary is.

I never did before.

Right.

It's a bad sign.

It's a sign that they're doing things that are too extreme,

that are too out there on the edges.

And I think that politics, as it should work best, is like two sides, conservative and liberal, working together, making trades, being like, I'll give you a little bit here.

I'll give you a little bit there.

We'll meet in the middle, and we'll try to make things a little better for people.

If we fuck up, we'll change it.

It should be a job for technocrats and nerds and people that care about the public public and care about the government and care about whatever their little specialty issue is and instead we have this total clown show yeah i mean where it's just like it's like wrestling man it's wrestling or ufc or whatever everybody's got to pick a side everybody's got to pick a team they put on a jersey and that's just not healthy like it's not healthy so anyway that it's good for uh me it's i don't and you probably it's good because people

want to know what's happening.

It's like watching a car crash.

You know, people, like your people are rubbernecking, but

i hope it's not like this forever i hope not but i don't know we're in so deep now it's hard to see a way out of this at this point i feel like hollywood i mean entertainment and politics is just intermingled i don't see a way out of it and especially especially man you're how old you i'm 28 28 yeah so even young so i'm even younger than you so like cam my co-host on fy fought is 24.

and um

you know it's like you don't even remember before this you're right 2015 was 10 years ago yeah right so when trump starts running was 10 years ago.

So if you're in college right now, if you're 21, you're 11.

You don't even remember anything before Trump.

So like, you were born into this.

So it's what's the fucking Batman line?

Like, you know, I tried to adapt to this.

You were born into it.

Everybody's been born into it.

And so

I think it would like warp their brain to figure out how to go back to before.

It wouldn't feel, it would feel, it would feel wrong.

I don't even know what that looks like, honestly.

I know.

And so like, and so then on the left, you have to combat it.

And And I worry that, you know, the thing I, what I don't want is for the left to,

like, I do want the left to adapt to the MAGA tactics and figure out how to do what Charlie's doing at DPUSA and figure out Zoran's not like my cup of tea on the left, but figure out what he's doing on social media and figure out like what, you know, how to campaign in a fucking modern way that reaches young people, that talks normally, that doesn't talk in boring politics.

I'm for all those changes.

What I worry, though, is the changes that are coming is like,

you know, everybody going after each other right you know and it's just it's just this zero sum you know it's just this what is it race to the bottom you know where it's like I was joking with the VC guy that I had on the pod about like how can you be for an immigration regime where this administration is is is grabbing somebody off the street because they wrote an op-ed they don't like because they're foreign.

I was like, your podcast,

he was one of the all-in guys.

It's like Jamath, your guy, Chamoth.

Jamath isn't from here.

Jamath is an immigrant.

Like, doesn't it scare?

I feel like it should worry those guys.

That it's like, what happens if the left gets a Trump?

And they come in and they're like, you know, maybe some of these immigrants that have come in and started advancing these terrible MAGA white nationalist views, maybe I should take away their green card.

Maybe I should come after them.

Maybe I should have to use these tactics, right?

I'm not for that.

I'm just saying, like, I worry that that's where we're going, right?

Where it's like...

Where it's just this fucking blood sport.

Yeah.

And like, that's not good for anybody, man.

I mean, that's where we're at.

They just subpoenaed the Clintons, right, for the Epstein stuff two days ago.

You know, never.

And by the way, there's going to be some part of this that's that's unavoidable.

Like, there's, you know, can you imagine, let's just say a Democrat wins next time.

Can you imagine them going in and then saying, well, we're going to call it truce.

You know what I mean?

Like, we're going to call it a truce.

I'm not going to look into any of the immigration stuff that Christy Noam and Steve Miller did.

I'm not going to look into any of these crypto corruption crimes.

Like, I just want to move forward and unite the country in Kumbaya.

I feel like the left voters would riot over that.

And so

it would take just some really unbelievable, magnanimous, you know,

talented politician, I think, to take us out of this because I think for good reason, folks on the left will feel like, no, man, look at what they did.

Like, they got in there, they started going after people, they started subpoenaing

Democrats.

Now we're going to release all the mentions of Trump and the Epstein files.

We're going to go after the people that gave money to his shit coin.

We're going to go after Christy Noam.

I don't.

That seems like where we're headed.

If they ever get back in power.

They will.

It's just a matter of when.

It always flips, right?

But it's just never ending at that point.

It's just going to be like always coming.

Somebody's got to break that cycle.

Like, where's the incentive to do it?

Who's got the incentive to do it, right?

Elon's trying, but I don't think it's going to work with the new party.

Yeah.

And Elon's a terrible vessel for it.

Sorry, he's a foreigner, so he can't be a president.

And he's nasty.

You know, he goes after his, he loves going.

He's a fucking poster man.

He loves going after his enemies.

Right.

I don't know.

You know, I just, this is my like elder millennial nostalgia.

I was, I was against Obama

because I was a McCain guy.

You go back and look at that race, and it's just like, it's from another world.

Right.

You know, and like Obama's whole speech was about, there's no red states, there's no blue states, we're the United States.

Let's get back together.

And McCain had all these people that were trying to push him to call Obama a Muslim and all that.

And he kept correcting them, be like, no, he's a good man.

We just disagree on policy.

Who could do that?

You just look out at the field and it's like, who could do that?

And if someone tried that, would people even want it?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I hope so.

I would.

I don't think so either.

I don't think the average person.

I can hope.

I don't want to give up on it, I guess.

But I agree with you.

I just, as an analyst, I don't think so.

I think Trump changed the scene too much.

He made it all about entertainment.

He won 16 by being entertaining.

Yeah.

By winning those debates, quote unquote.

unquote it was maybe fixable if you would have lost this is one of my arguments for why we should have beaten him because i feel like it there's maybe a chance a path back had he not won but now that he's won twice it's like i just think this is our new reality yeah and we gotta admit the average voter isn't as educated as they should be no i mean not about the issues it's so weird voters but this goes back to the politics is blood sports stuff man like

People do care about their local stuff.

It's so interesting.

So we do these focus groups for the bulwark where you hear from people and you ask them about like their mayor's race or their governor's race or something that's happening in their town.

And, you know, some people aren't checked out, obviously.

But a lot of people you hear from like know and want to have a serious person as their mayor or governor.

And that's what you see kind of in red.

Some red states have Democrat governors, some blue states have Republican governors because, you know, people know what's happening in their community, and they don't want a fucking lunatic.

Like, they want somebody that's competent.

I want the roads to work.

I want the schools to be good, right?

Like, that people get it.

But then you start asking them about national politics, though, and they're like,

I want somebody that's going to kill him.

Like, I want somebody that's going to go after the fucking bat.

I want to drink the Libs tears.

I want to drink the Libs tears.

I want to drink.

I hate Trump so much.

And so, people just become emotional.

Yeah.

And so, I don't.

So, the education part is some of it, but

I think a bigger part of it is just

like our kind of animal tribal instincts.

And I don't know how to disentangle that.

Part of me is wondering if it's programmed to in a certain way too

through what through the programmed into our

telegram by by the content they're consuming you know what I mean yeah oh you mean like the algorithms yeah like is it intentionally showing you certain things yeah for sure and I and I I think it the AI stuff's gonna make this so much worse this is why I'm really pessimistic now we're gonna get into my like dark tim view but I mean I don't Are people even going to know what's real and fake?

I think back to, so like I said, I live in New Orleans.

My buddies,

I got a couple couple of buddies are big LSU guys.

We go to LSU games.

And besides going to Charlie Kirk's thing, my other way that I keep in touch with what's happening in MAGA America is LSU season is coming up.

We go to the tailgate.

And, you know, eventually I start drinking and wanted to start talking about football.

But I get out there early and just start asking people about politics stuff, you know, because I'm just curious.

I'm like, it's mostly Republicans.

And man, I used to say this 10 years ago.

Maybe not 10 years ago.

Five years ago.

People would ask me stuff.

Like they'd see something on Facebook.

Yeah.

And they'd be like, is it true that Joe Biden, you know, didn't, you know, like put the flag at half mast because a Black Panther died?

Or I don't know, you know, like some crazy, like some terrorist, we put the flag at half mast because a terrorist died.

I'm like, what do you know?

Like, what are you even talking about?

And so, even then,

people were in their info bubbles.

Like, people have other things to do with their lives.

You know, they're seeing the things in their social media and they can't distinguish like what's real news from what's propaganda, from what's totally fake from what's a joke you'll get tricked by jokes chris cuomo did you see chris cuomo get fooled by that aoc shit fake the other day chris cuomo's a fucking news anchor and there's this fake video of aoc talking about how um

was it about something was about epsilon it was like some gag oh sidney sweeney

it was a gag a deep fake where aoc's talking about sydney sweeney's jugs or something and chris cuomo is like shame on you aoc and it's like dude you think aoc was on the fucking house floor talking about sydney sweeney's jugs how stupid are you you're a host of a TV show.

So, if a host of a TV show can't tell the difference, how is a regular person gonna tell the difference?

And that deep fake was shitty.

That was bad.

Like, the ones that are coming are gonna be awesome.

Some of them are decent already.

Yeah, man.

And so, like, I just think we're gonna get to a place where the algorithms are gonna feed people what they want to hear and they're gonna start feeding people things they want to hear that's fake.

I mean, that's already happening, but it's gonna happen even more.

And so, again, that creates this challenge of breaking that cycle

even harder, right?

And you can't break it with boring stuff, right?

Like people then become attuned to wanting really into.

So that's why Zonan stuff is pretty good because it's super engaging, right?

But this idea that you're going to break it by being like,

we need to get serious and work together, you know, and I've got this white paper for that's going to help

increase prosperity for people and reinvigorate our pluralism.

I'm for like,

all that stuff would appeal to me, but I just don't see how that breaks through anymore.

And, like, the

fight, the blood sport, you know, really extreme rhetoric is

just what is appealing.

And I agree that part of it is what, you know, is what the algorithms are feeding folks.

I don't think any of those guys are planning on trying to turn down the temperature.

They need views.

They need money.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're going to be biased towards it.

This is dark.

Do you have any uplifting stuff happening?

You've talked to a lot of people.

Anybody even talked to anybody?

I just had on someone yesterday that was was interesting.

His name's Ben Lamb.

Okay.

He's bringing back the woolly mammoth.

That's cool.

Have you heard of this guy?

Uh-uh.

Yeah.

It's like some straight Jurassic Park stuff.

But yeah, he's already brought back a dire wolf.

Okay.

And is that an affront to God?

Yeah, people are saying he's playing God.

So we'll see what happens.

He said by 2028, we will have a woolly mammoth walking around this planet.

That was at an AI conference.

It was a big AI conference in Vegas.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm into that.

You like that?

I'm into Woolly Mammoth.

I'm into bringing back Woolly Mammoths.

I don't know.

Some of the playing God stuff makes me a little uncomfortable.

Yeah, people are editing their kids now.

Did you know that?

Yeah, I don't love that.

I get it if it's like you have a certain disease and you don't want to pass that down.

But if you want to control their IQ, their height, and everything, that's kind of weird to me.

Like, I think your baby should turn out how it's supposed to.

Yeah, I'm with you on that.

I don't know.

You know, and there are a lot of kids that aren't going to have that chance.

Yeah,

we adopted, and I'm like, I love that.

Like, I liked doing that.

I thought that was very cool.

my daughter's awesome.

I love it.

Like, this idea that

instead we would have created a lab baby.

I don't know.

It doesn't feel really good.

Teacher dish baby.

Yeah, I don't know.

Again, some people can't have me, so I don't want to talk down to anybody that wants to do that.

But we're going to create a lamby with like jeans where I make them because I want her to be in the WNBA, so I make her extra tall.

Like the whole thing feels.

Yeah, I think they did that with Yao Ming.

China is way ahead of their time.

Yeah, dude, that Wemby is a freak.

Oh, Wemby might have been one, too.

Well, dude, it's been awesome.

Where can people find your pod and keep using it?

This is great, man.

Yeah, our stuff's on the bulwark.

It's on YouTube.

And,

you know, we're also popping around on all the other social media feeds because you got to do it.

It's the only choice.

We've got to play the game like everybody else.

And

I appreciate it, man.

Absolutely.

I'll be interested in

the feedback from the MAGUs and the audience.

Yeah, and

I'll try to line up some debates for you at AmericaFest this year.

Oh, man, I'd love that.

Yeah.

Let's do it, man.

Good to see you.

Appreciate you guys.

I hope you guys are enjoying the show.

Please don't forget to like and subscribe, it helps the show a lot with the algorithm.

Thank you.