"America's Biggest Failure": Share & Election & Tell with Wyatt Cenac and Tim Miller

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

I'm going to change my name to Gronald Grump and run

right after this ad.

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I'm in hell.

I think I'm in a personal hell, and I have no exit from Donald Trump.

And I think, and at this point, I think Donald Trump will outlive me.

And I think that I'm cursed to never be able to think about anything else again in my entire life.

He just lives in my brain.

It does feel like, obviously, while Donald Trump is the clear main character in America,

it also kind of does feel like maybe to each of us, maybe to every American, we are also the main character.

Like,

what did we do to bring this upon ourselves?

I don't know if that's true about every listener, but that is true about me.

And I'm convinced I'm the main character and that the rest of you are living in my personal hell.

What did you do?

I apologize.

What did you do?

Yeah, this is your fault.

Was it working for John McCain, Jeb Bush?

When I was working with the RNC, I did more work.

Yeah.

A couple of the candidates that that I worked for that you haven't name-checked were much worse than Jeb Bush and John McCain.

So maybe it's that.

Maybe it's something from childhood.

You know, I don't know.

I was not very nice to my teachers in middle school.

Maybe this is like maybe one of them cast a spell upon me.

You got a Nuggets championship.

You're writing your dental.

I did get a Nuggets championship.

At the Faustian Bargain.

At what cost?

What cost did you get that championship?

It could be that.

Nug life.

I guess the only problem with that theory is that I got it after for the first trump so i feel like whatever happened that brought this curse monkey's paw doesn't the monkey's paw doesn't there's no there's no linear time on it yeah

the monkey's paw doesn't see time the way that we do

yeah it could be a thing where it just you get it later and it's like hey why are you so upset you got the thing you wanted yeah the world around you is on fire but you got your thing i got to say i would have traded it i would have gladly given the heat to that championship in exchange for my current hell.

The city of Miami, it turns out, demographically and electorally, did win a tremendous championship

in the incredibly red Miami-Dale County.

So I need to be very clear that this episode is not going to be a comprehensive post-mortem about why Donald Trump just got elected president again.

This is not going to be an episode about inflation and the economy, for instance, even though that might be the biggest suspect, actually, in the ongoing murder mystery now enveloping the Democratic Party.

It is likewise not going to be an episode about anti-incumbent bias or COVID or abortion or women or war and the Middle East, or even race.

It is an episode, instead, about this idea of influence and what it really means to be mainstream in the year 2024.

And so, what I wanted to do was invite our old friend Wyatt Sinek, formerly of the Daily Show and HBO, and also a new guest, Tim Miller, host of the Bulwark podcast, and a former leader in the Never Trump Republican movement, which he subsequently left, and also which politically may not functionally exist anymore, at least as of Tuesday night.

The Jeb Bush John McCain party is officially dead for sure.

The RNC is sadly thriving today.

So I wish we could say it was dead.

But I think that many of us had hoped that Donald Trump was killing the Republican Party, but he might have killed the Democratic Party instead.

So anyway, sorry.

My brain has felt a little bit like a lint roller, just sort of like collecting bits of garbage and insight, mostly garbage, pieces of content, as I've quietly gotten drunk on the internet's reaction to,

what are we calling it?

What are we calling this election?

This point in time.

Oh, sure.

What we're doing here today.

Yeah, I think that we're, I mean, we're probably at the end of the American Republic.

Is that maybe too serious?

That's

certainly of the American Republic as America as a global world leader.

So I think that's an interesting time to be with you here in New York City, the world's capital.

Right, right, right.

And why it's an act,

you recorded a comedy special the Monday after the 2016 election.

It did reference.

Yeah.

And so how are you, what creativity is coursing through you right now?

None.

Great.

Yeah.

I don't know if it was intentional, but the t-shirt I'm wearing is

a peanuts t-shirt from the Halloween special where Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating and everywhere he goes all the other kids get candy and he got a rock.

I got five pieces of candy.

I got a chocolate bar.

I got a quarter.

I got a rock.

Maybe I chose this because this is how I'm feeling.

I feel like, yeah, Halloween came and I got a rock.

And

that's really the that's really all I got at this point is just a bag of rocks.

How does that special hold up now?

You know, in Donald Trump 2.0?

Do you think back on it?

Are there any jokes that are?

I mean, if anything, it is weird because

that they play this sort of same Charlie Brown joke that they do in the strip a lot, where Lucy holds the football and pulls the football away.

And there is something about that hope that Charlie Brown has that feels like a hope that I think a lot of us had.

Yeah.

That, oh, okay,

this is it.

We're going to kick the football this time.

And

things may not be perfect for everybody, but we're going to get back to, we're going to try to get to some level of civility, that maybe our discourse can be a little more civil.

Maybe we can try to be a little more rational with this.

And

no.

Yes.

Snoopy now had 5 million people watching his live stream of the election.

He's a conservative influence.

And it was Candace Owens was on it.

I want to start with an element that has stuck to my brain as I've been lint rolling across the internet.

As I've been contemplating why it is that the Republican Party has won the largest majority since 1988, Tim?

Is that right?

Still?

That's correct.

And I keep on returning to this idea of like Kamala Harris

had this feel of being a system quarterback at a time when the system

was.

I deeply loved the Shanahan offense that was democracy, that was the institution as a premise,

mainstream, anything actually, like a system at all.

I was deeply a fan of.

And I sort of presumed that others, many more others would be too.

Turned out that that system

faced coverage, to torture the metaphor here, that made it very easy to defeat.

And one of those coverages was explained by Dana White.

I want to thank some people real quick.

I want to thank the Nelt Boys, Aiden Ross,

Theo Vaughn, Bustin' with the Boys, and last but not least,

the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.

And thank you, America.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

They got that shout out from Dana White at the Trump Victory Party.

And I returned to that because, of course,

it summoned in me lots of bigger picture thoughts about like, oh, of course we're here.

Of course, it was going to go like this in retrospect.

Of course, people didn't give a f ⁇ about January 6th.

Of course, the system of democracy was a system to be run against.

And of course, this is far more structural, maybe, than people might appreciate.

at this moment.

Like I was, I was looking at, to bring up another insane meme, right?

I was looking at Antonio antonio brown's twitter account oh yeah because of course

an unemployable former nfl player he'll find uh he'll find a job in the new cabinet that's right who was kicked out of the league for multiple cases of sexual misconduct and also domestic violence whose twitter account might be run actually at least is allegedly run by a uh white dude somewhere who just posts racial slurs.

Oh, sure.

So that guy posted this meme where it was like Elon and Trump and RIP mainstream media and Antonio Brown has like the bolt cutters, the wire cutters, or whatever, and they have the shovels.

And I'm like, as much as I am going to land upon the death of mainstream media as a thing I actually do increasingly believe in, I don't even think they get the credit for it.

It seems structural.

Like, we know this.

The reason it summoned all those feelings is because we know this as people making stuff online.

Right.

That there is no mainstream.

We're all in silos.

Of course, you can eat away at a system in a world in which there is no larger consensus or guardrail or monoculture or anything like that.

Yes, I have two thoughts on this.

One,

the total collapse of

the monoculture, of the structures that we've seen across a lot of other verticals, like coming to politics, right?

Yeah, that should not be surprising.

Like the democratization of that's why we're all here, right?

Like the democratization of media, democratization of came to our political system.

It does recall Kent Brockman talking about how democracy simply doesn't work.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Democracy simply doesn't work.

Maybe what we should have been more protective of was the Borg, the system of liberal democracy, because I don't know that people are going to like what happens in post-liberal America.

That said,

the Democrats could have played this game too, you know?

And so I hate to, like, you know, I hate to Monday morning quarterback and all this because it's like,

Trump won across the, like, America wanted Trump.

So at some level, it's like, there's, there's a hollowness to be like, if you just would have done this one podcast, like

it would have been different, right?

That said, there are Democrats that could have gone, that could have gone into those spaces and I think taken down the temperature a little bit and like made them feel less like they were in this battle of civilizations.

Because like Theo, like these guys are not ideologues, right?

Like they have some ideological views on things that some progressives find, would find offensive, particularly about trans folks or things like that.

It's not William F.

Buckley.

They don't have these constructed conservative worldviews.

Like you go in there and start talking to them about shit that Trump did that they don't even know about.

You know what I mean?

Couldn't they have engaged and like kind of

cut into that?

But does that only just legitimize that platform?

Isn't it over?

I mean, they were mentioned at the victory speech of the president of the United States.

Sure, no.

It's over.

Like they've legitimized.

Well, now they are legitimate.

Yeah, but I'm saying the idea that Bernie Sanders would go on Rogan, the idea that Harris was considering going on Rogan, is that only

sort of saying like how much of it is, okay,

we're going to meet this particular sect of disaffected voter where they're at versus asking them to

be better and be better informed.

Because the reality is

they're not getting better.

They're not.

But also the reality is like

white people have overwhelmingly voted Republican for over 50 years.

Like that's like

they've always voted in that block.

And I'm lumping in a lot of that Rogan audience, a lot of that Nelkboy audience as

some of that demographic.

I don't know that we fully understand why

every presidential election, when you look at the white voter, the majority of white voters have voted Republican.

I think it's more more about understanding that.

Tim mentioned something why that connects to what you were just articulating, which is that there are lots of people who are low information.

That's the term of art in politics.

AKA, they aren't paying attention to politics really and are getting their news, insofar as it's news, from such places.

Right.

Right.

And what that says is, even if you know the information, you're like, not a deal breaker for me.

Right.

Felonies,

rape in a civil suit um insurrections go down the list right it's endless yeah the other thing about it is there are some people for whom they just don't even know

or maybe even as troubling they

aren't getting their news in a way that is persuasive to the cause of defending said american project and i think the whole question of like is it are we just on this?

Maybe.

Probably.

I'm voting for yes.

Probably.

I'm upgrading to probability.

So, so it reminds, I'm going to force feed sports into this, not because I feel like I have an obligation to, but just because I think about my time as a sports reporter at Sports Illustrated, the website was looked down upon forever.

No one wanted to write for the website because it was the internet.

And you know who went and wrote for it?

Peter King.

And Peter King became the literal Monday morning quarterback to Miller.

And he built an empire and had so much more success than the vast majority of sports illustrated writers because he recognized: okay, I'm not respected as much at the magazine.

I'm going to go online.

And so, the lead that the Democratic Party, the American project broadly, the liberal project broadly has surrendered is

the internet has been ceded to people who were not as welcomed in those mainstream prestige outlets.

And now we're trying to play catch-up with the Nelk boys.

Yeah.

Big time catch-up.

It reminds me of, so I'll make the political reference of like 2012 with Romney, where we were like, oh, f, like, the Obama team organized on the internet.

Like, we should probably do that now next time, you know?

And so, like, it flips.

So it can flip back.

You know what I mean?

Like, like, the, the, you know, it's not, it's not as if it is, um, you know, uh, like, we're only going one direction.

And like, and if one side takes the lead on one platform, then it can't flip.

You know what I mean?

But we're so fragmented now where I just don't, again, literally the mainstream, I think is Antonio Brown is right about this.

There is no mainstream.

If there's mainstream, anything.

I guess that's why I just think that it's like,

I just think the only choice is to engage with in that world or else you're.

I mean, sure, there's other choices like building your own platforms.

Like, I forget who some, I forgot.

I saw somebody on the internet.

It fell off my lint roller, I guess, but somebody on the internet was like, the libs need their own Rogan.

And I'm like, I don't know if the Libs can build a Rogan.

Like,

you know, because part of the

Do you want to be

Rogan?

Maybe you can try it.

But

part of the reason to be Rogan is you have to be able to just say random shit you're thinking about that might be a little offensive or might be totally wrong.

And like, that's what's appealing.

And that is like unethical to the dominant like democratic lib culture.

Right.

And so it's like, you can't build a responsible Rogan.

Like, that's not like a thing to do.

But I think there was, like, when I look at Rogan and I look at a lot of comedians who've moved into the podcast space, to me, what I see is

what they're doing is

they're just emulating

late-night talk show hosts.

Rogan is emulating Jon Stewart and the idea of like John loved to engage in

long, deep conversations with politicians, with authors, with actors as well.

There's no network that wanted to give that person a late night talk show.

And so then they found this space in the podcast world where they could be their own version of the daily show or the tonight show or whatever they wanted to do.

And so I think to some degree that Rogan existed.

It's just that

the appetite for it in the same way that the appetite for right-wing radio always surpassed the appetite for

comparison.

Yeah, for left-leaning or progressive radio.

So the question is like, how can you reach those people?

And I don't know.

I'm open to other ideas besides going on those programs and like demonstrating that we care about people having health care you know i also i like entrepreneurship actually i think you know building businesses is great and like i'm i'm chill i can talk about sports like it like i just i don't know what the other solution is besides doing that because i think that right now they the those folks on those platforms are getting the impression that everybody's like you're bad you're bad we're ragging our fingers at you you have a bad opinion and you're bad and so then obviously that they're gonna vote trump because they want a big middle finger into all the people that are pointing their finger and saying you're bad right but how much much of that is

we're trying to meet this base where they're at, hoping that we can appeal to an empathy that historically we just haven't seen versus, I don't know, if we put our energy into

saying like, okay, well, what if, what if that energy is just put into making our target electorate their lives better.

Like, what if we say like, okay, let's just put our energy into like let's build the up out of those public schools out of like and is there something of like oh when you're looking across the fence and you can actually tangibly see okay we've made life better for women we've made life better for people of color for LGBTQ people so here's my pushback on that didn't isn't wasn't that the theory of Bidenism like didn't Biden do that like kind of like people's lives are getting better I mean things aren't well I want to I should mention the word inflation here, right?

So when we're talking about what people can feel, like what is attention if not a mechanism through which you actually feel something and have to think about something.

And it turned out that it's really hard to break through about pretty much everything, except for a couple of monocultural concepts, one of which might be, hey, it's the American character, Donald Trump.

We all have a view of him, even if it's radically different.

The other one is prices have been going up.

And when you talk about how the DNC and the Democratic Party feels, I think it feels like the embodiment of the institution, of the system, of incumbency.

And so I want to connect it to inflation just in the sense of, of course, there's also this larger, broader global trend of post-pandemic, inflation has been a thing across all of these governments, all these societies, and all of these incumbent parties have been suffering huge and seemingly irrefutable losses because they happen to be the party in charge of the thing people can feel when they're not paying attention to the persuasive arguments we're trying to make on podcasts.

I don't think about you, but I think that's probably true.

And maybe that's just a nothing matters situation.

And like we're all just sitting around here, like microanalyzing something that like was global forces and it was bad luck and we're in hell.

And it's just the bad luck happened to work out for Donald Trump again.

So it's possible that it's that.

But like, just really quick to your point about like improving people's lives.

So like the Biden, so just like, for example, they built manufacturing plants in a lot of like red America, right?

Like they didn't do the thing of, oh, we're just going to, you know, give out federal money to California and to blue areas.

Right.

It's like, no, like we're going to build plants and build communities back up in places like Springfield.

Right.

Like we're going to invest in these communities.

And the people in the communities, like the feedback was like, No, man, like, no thanks.

Like, I'm kind of, I'm mad that the new jobs that came into town actually brought Haitians with them, and they might be eating the dogs and like

the goats and the ducks from the pond.

And so, like, I'm not, I'm out, I'm going for Trump, right?

Like, so, I guess that's my question: is like, is there actually evidence that tangibly helping people's lives would have made a difference?

Yeah, I don't, this is the thing I don't know.

And, and to and sort of

remark upon that sentence because we all agree we don't know whether tangibly helping people's lives makes a difference.

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Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

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Please drink responsibly.

Here's another theory I've just been noodling on the last 48 hours.

It's like,

can people be happy in the phone era, in the social media era?

Like, or not happy, but satisfied, right?

You know, because there's a way to look at the last four years, which is like inflation was deeply annoying.

And I get it.

And particularly for people whose incomes were flat,

it was really hard.

Right.

But like, also, there are other parts of society.

There are plenty of Trump people voting for plenty of the 70, some odd million people that when the final account comes in voted for Trump, plenty of them are doing pretty well.

You know, they have votes.

They do parades.

They got the flagpole.

So some of them were hurt by inflation.

Yeah, they have vote parades, actually.

And so, but the question is, then, besides that, like, things are like basically good.

I mean, at least in a historical perspective, I mean, like, is everybody pissed because inflation, or is everybody pissed because, like, in the little device, in the little box of screams, you know, like you're constantly seeing bad news constantly put in front of your face rather than just seeing it once at night during the nightly news.

And so, like, maybe the establishment or whatever, whoever's in charge, like, people can never be happy with it.

Well, and how much of that, as well, though, is

a battle between

nostalgia versus what could be.

It's so much harder to get people to imagine what could be and what the and potential, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get them to kind of remember and look fondly at the past and this idea of nostalgia.

And I think you see it not just in the Republican Party.

I think you see it across the board where people say,

you know, things seemed so much easier back then.

And it's very easy to cherry pick what those things were.

And I think

the Trump campaign has done a really good job on preying on that sort of nostalgia, that nostalgia muscle that we have.

And that's so, I feel like that is so much easier than the idea of, hey, can I get you to imagine what could be?

And unburdened by what has been.

Yes.

Yeah.

Let me write that down.

That's, we just, I think we just made a pillow.

We should cross-stitch that into a pillow.

So this is what'll work.

Yeah.

And sell that at

Target.

And I think, I think we're onto something here.

But yeah, I don't know.

I think that aspect, because even when I think about somebody like Trump and where Trump is successful is also the fact that he has been around for so long and that he can speak to some of that nostalgia in a way where it's that thing of

he's been referenced in in songs and he's in movies and he's been around know him we all do literally uh have experience with him at this point yeah in a weird way i think about i i even think about this with mitt romney where uh when i was making problem areas I got really fascinated going through old life magazines.

And I remember going through a life magazine because

we were focusing on education and we were going, I was going through and there was an article about George Romney.

And in it, there is like a whole paragraph about 12-year-old Mitt Romney.

And there are photos of Mitt Romney.

And if you were someone who was reading Life magazine, one, you're aware of George Romney.

But Mitt Romney is already getting, he's burrowing into your brain.

He is the, you know, he's one of Kanye's children.

You're already getting familiar with him.

And I think there's an element when I reading that and seeing that where I was like, oh, that was probably very helpful that you, you saw this person at 12.

Then when they started to run for public office, it's, all right, that kid.

Yeah.

He's not my neighbor's kid, but he is that kid that I saw and I've watched him grow up.

And I think Trump.

What nostalgic minor Democratic celebrity could we put up in 2028 to save the country?

Yeah, this is the good question.

Who's out there?

And can we invent magazines again?

Yes,

can we get magazines?

And yes, who will be our,

yeah, is it the kid from Mad Men?

I don't know.

I think it needs to be a boy.

Sorry, Connor.

I'm sorry.

I mean,

I'd be happy for it to be a woman, but I feel like we should roll with a boy next time.

Not a boy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is it Cannon Curry?

Do we put our eggs in the Canon Curry basket?

I don't know.

His name is Cannon.

That feels

you're going to get a lot of Warhawks that are like, I'll vote for Cannon.

Yeah.

Strong.

Yeah.

Oh, he's strong.

Yeah.

We're sort of circling this larger, truly, and I say this a lot.

So drink if you're playing along at home,

existential question of like who influences America anymore.

And the thing about Trump, the thing that I, Tim, am constantly struggling with, that I'm frustrated by, is that people I don't think are paying enough attention to the absolute suicide squad of people, of psychopaths around him.

At this point, that should be persuasive.

And I bring it to you because the thing you brought us is something that you happen to be a character in, actually.

You were teaching civics.

You know, you're out of prison.

I wonder if you're a reformed looking back on last January 6th and the fact that you incited a mob that ended up being a problem.

Hang on.

Hang on, hang on.

Hang on, hang on.

Hang on.

If you look at what we said, is that as the states requested, seven states requested or never got to, hang on.

A full review.

This has caused Vice President Pence didn't handle it correctly.

This is because Vice President Pence did not handle it correctly.

No, no, no.

No, absolutely no change.

For the simple reason is that we should have had a review as requested by the states for all seven states at that time.

Tim, thank you very much.

One question at a time.

Okay.

But, Tim, if you want to make, continue to make speeches, it's good television.

I don't want to talk about personal conversations, but we've had a challenge.

That was Bannon's post-jail press conference.

Great.

It was on the, I believe, 12th floor, 12 or 17 are both in my head.

A high floor at the Park Avenue, Lowe's.

So, you know, the type of place that a working man goes when they get out of prison.

In his barbed wire coat.

Yes.

And his mane of silver hair.

And so he held a press conference there.

I've interviewed Bannon several times.

As you can tell for people watching, this little smirk on his face.

He enjoys sparring with people.

He enjoys sparring with me.

Like the other questions after me was like, hey, Steve, I'm from like MAGAPAI.org.

And I was wondering, do you think Mr.

Trump's going to win New York?

You know what I mean?

Like, and Bannon, for all of his flaws,

you know, he likes to have his brain muscles moved.

He'd rather be challenged and spar than deal with the lunatics around him.

But to your point about

did you call it?

The suicide squad?

Yeah, the lunatics.

Like the people at this press conference who are now about to be running our government, well, who are about to be dismantling our government, actually?

They,

like, Bannon is, was the most normal and probably the smartest person in the room by like a mile.

So if you thought his like weird pirate, like, triple shirt vibe is like, and like, you know, basement, the bath salts he had, apparently, in his house, you think that's strange?

Like the dudes around him, I mean, it is like you're in a, I felt like I was in a movie with like a fake Eastern European country and like this Vengali for the autocrat gets out of jail and it's like, I've got the one-eyed man here and I've got like an actual monkey paw.

And I've got like two hot blonde chicks.

And I got like minions five.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was the people around him in the room, among others, were Jeff Clark.

You might remember him if you're really online as the guy that tried to help with Trump's coup, who is in the Justice Department.

And when the feds went to raid his house, he was pictured outside in his undies.

Mike Davis is there.

He tweets insanely about how people are going to go into the gulags and how he wants to be the viceroy of D.C.

You had the New York Young Republican Club, which has gone very MAGA.

A couple of

the bros from that were there.

A couple of

former mainstream media reporters who had sexual assault issues that have now recaptured themselves as MAGA reporters are there.

Like, who are the people that are opting in

at that point before Trump had won against?

So, I want to make sure that you're saying that.

It's like post-January 6th, pre-Trump winning against.

And you're like, I want to be, I want to roll with that crew.

Right.

Like, think about the type of person that attracts.

And I want the reason I want to just stay on this for a bit is because before these people are also mainstreamed under the skirt of Donald Trump, I want to acknowledge that from a purely just anthropological, objective level,

these people are

freaks.

Dozens upon dozens of them in his cabinet all said we would never work for/slash vote for him again, which speaks to how good he is actually at hiring people.

And so now he's going to the bench, the fourth stringers of this movement.

I feel like that's the part of it that is

even more terrifying is, yeah, the notion that there are people who already worked for him who are like, no, we can't do this again.

And

that it was still not enough to both convince voters to say, okay,

he's maybe not a good

CEO of a country, which countries don't need CEOs.

And it feels...

And even just that, the idea that like

you don't want someone to run a country like a business.

A business gets run where you are always looking to slash the bottom line.

You are not thinking humanely.

You are thinking profit-wise.

And maybe that all circles back.

But the idea that you have people who worked for him who came away feeling like, yeah, that wasn't the most humane way to do this shit.

And then new people have jumped on and said, hell yeah, actually.

Yeah.

No, actually, I was into that.

Like the worst parts of Trump, like the people that are around him now are like the worst.

They're not like the butt, the, oh, I wish, I wish, you know, he didn't send the mean tweets.

Right.

You know, it's not those people.

The people that are going into work for him now are like, hell yeah, the mean tweets.

Hell yeah, January 6th.

Hell yeah, mass deportations.

That's what I'm signing up for.

Right.

And in fact, I want to

strike my characterization of freaks from the record because I don't think that actually captures what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about scammers.

Yeah.

Right.

Just like people for whom corruption is the light that a moth should go towards.

These are people who are opportunists without any semblance of shame.

There are so many characters where I just need people to understand, I guess, that Tucker Carlson, just if you can't, in case you were wondering what he's talking about now,

he's talking about this.

Do you think that there are deeper forces at play here?

Is this more than just Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk and a bunch of guys running around talking about in this material world, you know, politics and being Democrats and taking on the intelligence, legal, financial apparatus.

Is there something deeper going on here?

So not only is this the battle in the unseen world, not only is it part of what we're seeing, it is actually what we're seeing.

We're seeing the physical manifestations of something that's been going on for eternity.

But yeah, no, I was on February 20th, 2023.

I was attacked in my bed by a spiritual being and clawed and left bleeding and scarred.

Again, this war between forces that we can't see, but that has been ongoing and has been, in fact, described by every culture since the beginning of every culture that we know about has described this battle.

And in fact, it's been the basis of every religion.

It's certainly the basis of Christianity, which I think is true.

By the way, factually speaking, I think Christianity is true.

But even if you don't, I think you can acknowledge that we're the only culture that hasn't been really absorbed in thinking and talking about this.

Not since we dropped the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, the second one, in August of 1945, and decided that we were gods and that God himself no longer existed.

Since then, we have been a secular society, and that's why we're now being destroyed, in my view.

If you're making the case that abortion is an affirmative good, you are evil.

You're practicing child sacrifice.

Worshiping abortion, the killing of kids?

Not as something that needs to happen, unfortunately, but as something that is good, that's pro-abortion.

You know, people,

and I have to say, I'm sure I'll be attacked for saying this, but I really believe it.

People are like, oh, well, we had another hurricane.

Must be global warming.

No, it's probably abortion, actually.

Just being honest.

Like, you can't do that.

You can't kill children on purpose, knowing that you're doing that in exchange for power or freedom or happiness or whatever you think you're getting in return.

You can't participate in human sacrifice without consequences.

I feel like we just need to really drill down on the part where he says he was attacked by a demon and it was bad.

I think in this clip, he says spiritual being.

In a different interview, he does say demon.

The word demon.

Yes, yes, yes.

He is very clear that he's in a bed with four dogs and his wife, and he wakes up with claw marks underneath his arms.

And the only explanation is that, and this is not a poetic description, a literal demon has attacked Tucker Carlson.

In his bed.

Physically mauled.

In a spiritual attack by a demon?

Yeah, by a demon.

The dogs would probably have been the number one culprit.

I would have gone to.

Dogs don't have claws.

Yeah.

We have four dogs in the bed.

Nope, don't blame.

Claw marks.

I would have probably gone to the dogs

on that theory.

A demon is an alternate case.

But, you know, I mean, to me, like, again, that, whenever you think about that clip, and some people believe in heaven and hell and demons and angels, and that's fine.

But like,

this is the inner circle.

That's the respectable one.

That's the f ⁇ ing inner circle up there.

Like, like, all that shit is talking about global warming is caused by abortion.

And, like, we're in a spiritual battle and the left is evil and the left are demons and the demons are attacking me because they're mad that I've gone after the left.

Like that, like that guy was very influential in picking the vice president.

Right.

When Trump was like finally deciding about his VP, right?

He had JD and then there were like two boring old school Republican white guys, well, Doug Bergham, one white guy, and then Marco Rubio, the Cuban guy.

And from Dan's buddy.

Yeah, yeah.

And Tucker calls Trump.

He's like, if you pick Rubio or Bergham,

the neocon deep state establishment that wants war and that hates you and that is part of that demonic left-wing force that's them, they will kill you because then Rubio will be able to take over and the whatever, the military-industrial complex and the globalists and all that will take over.

And like Tucker said that to that was not like on Tucker's podcast.

Like that was a private conversation between Tucker and Trump that was that was later leaked to a reporter.

And to me, it's like,

I mean, these guys are deep in the sauce.

Yeah.

And they're about to be running everything.

The corruption is going to be, I think, way worse this time than the last time, in part because,

you know, I guess there's a chance Trump will try to stay, but most people around him will consider like this is our, this is the last time at the piggy bank, you know, so like I'm going to go in hard.

And then I think that he won this time with the help of like Elon and a lot of these very rich oligarchs in a way that that wasn't really true last time, actually.

Like the billionaire class was pretty much unanimously against Trump in 2016, and he won anyway.

Except for Teal, right?

Yeah, Teal, right?

Yeah.

So

this time there's going to be a lot more a lot more piggies at the trough right um yeah people for whom he is a vessel to accomplish their own goals yeah right um and he'll be 82 at the end of it so there'll be a lot more room for people to maneuver and so and i think trump will think it's well then trump family and everybody all of them will see this as their last opportunity so look there's plenty of corruption last time but i i just think that like the straight old school like machine city pot you know mayor daly type like bag paper bag type corruption like I think we're going to see a lot more of this time.

I think there's a certain group of people that aren't going to be cool with that.

Right.

Like, again, I think sometimes we, like, we do pejorative of it, the people that are listening to Theo and Nelco's and all that stuff.

And, like, some of those people are like ideologically have taken the red pill and are far right.

And some of them are just like guys that are like, f the establishment, f the people, f the mainstream.

And like, those people, I think, are way more gettable with focusing on the Trump corruption stories and how he screws you over and how he's, and how he's part of the establishment rather than the stories about like Trump made fun of Arnold or like Trump talked about Arnold Palmer's huge c and like that's unpresidential right like and so to me in my mind like that's something that I'm going to try to pivot my energy towards in this next time because I think it might be more effective also how much nothing might matter right like but I'm just saying like it feels like it could potentially what we might want to consider actually is running Joe Biden again can we try that do you think that do you think that we can get more Biden in the next election cycle?

Hunter.

Oh,

you know, you know who?

The Melga Bros kind of love Hunter.

You know who quietly might love an Elk boy and vice versa?

Hunter is Hunter Biden.

I think we should think about running.

So far the best idea I've heard on this podcast for 2028 is Hunter.

Would you get behind a Hunter Biden 2028 run, or is that a little too?

I mean, at this point,

I don't know.

I feel like...

You're open to it, though.

Well, no, I'm curious.

I technically have Grenadian citizenship.

So I'm kind of like, is this, do I just try to create

my own weird fiefdom down there?

And do I try to become the Trump of Grenada?

I would.

I'm into.

This is an interesting idea.

Do you need an advisor?

Did you seglier?

Yeah, no, I would, I need, I need a whole, I need a, this is a, this is a ground up build.

Can I get like a military Apaulettes

as Grenadian Trump's secretary of sports?

Yes, as Grump.

Yeah.

I'm just going to go.

I'm going to change my name to Gronald Grump and run.

I think I'd look good.

What are the rules?

How are gay?

Is gay marriage legal in Grenada?

Under Grump's administration.

Yeah, under the Grump's administration.

Yeah.

Yeah, cool.

Under the Grump administration,

socially liberal.

I'm not seeing a lot of holes here.

Yeah.

Super into crypto.

I do like the ring of grump coin.

This is all,

yeah.

We talked about this a little bit, but where, because now I feel like this, this is dovetailing.

And you mentioned Elon Musk.

And even just in thinking about

like there is the corruption that is, that I feel like we are going to see as far as like the financial corruption, but I also feel like there is a sort of human capital corruption that we maybe don't talk about as much, where I feel like for a lot of these folks, they view a certain amount of the population as just kind of disposable.

And so I look at something like what Elon Musk's influence in a Trump administration is going to be and what the human cost of that is going to be as Trump has said, oh, I would let him do what he did to Twitter, to, you know, government bureaucracy and let him take a, you know, take the red pen to that

with no regard for, okay, we will slash this department,

and then that means these hundreds of people are out of work.

I am not concerned with how to employ them.

No, they enjoy that, actually.

It's not just that they're not concerned.

It's like, hell yeah, learn to code.

Right, yes.

Yeah.

If at best,

at best, learn to code.

Yeah.

But also, I don't care if you don't.

And so I think there is that element of it that I'm just like, ah, like, that's the other part of this, which is, okay, they will slash a budget.

Even when I think about somebody like Musk talking about when he was initially talking about going to Mars and Mars colonization, I feel like one of the things that often got forgotten in that conversation was him

very openly saying

the first generations of people who go there will die very quickly.

It's dangerous.

It's uncomfortable.

It's a long journey.

You might not come back alive,

but it's a glorious adventure and it'll be

an amazing experience.

And your name will go in history.

Yes, you might die.

It's going to be uncomfortable and he probably won't have good food.

Yeah.

That's fine.

They're going to die.

As I sort of make peace with the fact that, oh, Elon Musk will be the most powerful private citizen in the history of America.

By far, right?

By far.

I am now afraid of the way in which I do believe that Elon Musk himself is somebody with a vision and a multi-planetary, multi-generational plan.

There are lots of people that we've described who aren't actually planners, who are in fact the Ramora fish at a Steve Bannon press conference.

Elon Musk is playing chess.

And

that's, that's, that's, that's good.

Is it chess or is it hungry, hungry hippos?

Because it feels a little bit like hungry hungry hippos to me, honestly, more than chess.

I feel like we're we're giving him a little too much credit.

Um or the little pearl balls.

Yeah, yeah.

He's a hippo.

Yeah, he's the hippo.

He's all for hippos.

Yeah.

But I also, this, this,

you asked me to bring something and

something that I am reminded of is a book that I read some years ago called The Space Merchants.

And it's an old pulp science fiction book.

And not too long ago, I listened to this podcast that Jill Lapore did called The Evening Rocket.

And it was a really fascinating podcast.

And the podcast kind of looks at Elon Musk through the science fiction that he is a fan of.

And as it happens, this was a book I found just like someone was selling it on the sidewalk in

Manhattan.

And I was just bored and I bought it for like three bucks.

This book is a book that is beloved by him.

It's a book that's beloved by Jeff Bezos.

The setting of this book is a sort of future dystopia where we don't have states as they exist anymore.

States have now been carved up to

companies.

And so there's no longer the senator from Missouri.

It is now the senator from Dow Chemical, the senator from 3M.

And

the other part of this is

perhaps the biggest industry in this society is advertising.

And it's advertising to just keep a consumer class that is just buying things and is totally blinded to the fact that the country is being run by corporations.

And this book is...

I feel like when you're saying like, oh, this guy's playing chess, it kind of feels like, no, he's just cribbing this book that is a science fiction book where I don't know that he finished reading the book, which is by the end of the book, one of these ad agents who had been sort of red-pilled into this world

gets radicalized and realizes, oh, wait a minute, we're all like, I need to fight against this.

And then uses his energy to try to fight against this thing, which I feel like it's at that point that perhaps Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos fell asleep before, and they were like, yeah, that book was good.

Let's, yeah, I want to be the space merchant.

Yeah, I should be clear.

I'm not sure Elon Musk is good at chess.

He's definitely attempting to play it.

At the end of every episode of Palatoria Finds Out, a show where we find stuff out.

We go around the table and we say what we found out today.

Wyatt, do you want to start us off?

What did you find out?

I mean, I guess I found out a couple things.

Perhaps the best thing I found out is that the Grump administration,

it's beginning.

We're laying the groundwork.

Yeah, we're going to make Grenada Grump again.

That I'm excited by.

Beyond that,

yeah,

nothing hopeful.

I guess I don't know if I found this out, but you've made me think about this more deeply than I have since Tuesday night as my brain just won't turn off.

Like we all knew that like the democratization of everything was was created, was crumbling, all of these establishment institutions, right?

And like there is, in some ways, it's like good.

Like you mentioned Sports Illustrated earlier, it's like Sports Illustrated is dead.

And now I'm here.

Yeah, yay, we've replaced it with something better and more authentic and like closer to the people, right?

And, you know, you could do this across like a million, a million verticals, right?

And I knew that was happening in politics.

The malicious forces took advantage of that in a much more effective way.

What I found out today is that Donald Trump is mainstream media.

There is no more mainstream character than that guy.

And all of these downstream effects follow from that.

And so what we really need, if we're going to save, you know, the institution that is America, democracy, which is a deeply unpopular cause, it turns out, relative to expectation, that you need someone who is both an institutionalist, but also a revolutionary, someone who can speak to a broad, it turns out, almost startlingly racially diverse coalition of Hispanics and

all of the others that are now trending.

I'm sorry, you can't let you know.

You can let your people know.

No, no, no.

We got folded into the other category every chart that I saw.

We're in the other thing.

Can't prove that we're in there.

We need someone who can be all of these things, who is familiar with sparring against conservative influencers on podcasts.

And so I just want to say

I salute Democratic nominee Stephen A.

Smith.

Oh, God.

SAS.

Okay.

Hunter Biden or SA or Stephen A.

Why not both?

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metal Arc Media production.

And we are produced by Walter Averoma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Rachel Miller-Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumanello, and Juliet Warren.

Our studio engineering by RG Systems, our sound design by NGW Post, our theme song, as always, by John Bravo.

And we will talk to you next time.