S2 Ep1059: Sam Stein: The Divorce

Lowe's knows to bring your vision to life.

It's important to find the right color.

That's why my Lowe's rewards members get a free Valspar paint or exterior stain sample

to test your look to confidently refresh your space.

Offer valid in-store only 8-7 to 8-20.

Limit one per customer while supplies last.

Discount taken in time of purchase.

See associate for details.

Rewards program subject to terms and conditions.

Details at Lowe's.com slash terms. Subject to change.

A happy place comes in many colors.

Whatever your color, bring happiness home with SertiPro Painters.

And make your happy place your home.

SertiPro Painters. That's painting happy.

During our spring sales event, special offers are available through

April 30th. Schedule your home painting project today and bring happiness home.
Each Sertipro

painter's business is independently owned and operated. Contractor license and registration

information is available at S live from D.C. because we have our fundraiser tonight, Free Andree, which is now sold out at the Lincoln Theater.
But we have a rally beforehand over at the Supreme Court at 5 o'clock.

So hope to see some of you all there.

I am delighted to be here with my buddy, Sam Stein, managing editor of The Bulwark.

And what a great day for us to be together for this.

Lots of stuff happening.

You know, the only thing that sucks is like the worst time for news to happen for me for this podcast is like the early afternoon.

Because we tape it late morning and it goes out in the afternoon. i finish taping and then the messiest divorce in history happens i know so that was almost sad but guess what we get to go through it minute by minute together but but before we do obviously we got to start with the big news of the day and so i just i want to go to a quick clip and we'll get to the you know the lead story before we get to musk and trump but we begin tonight with the flurry of activity today at sixteen hundred pennsylvania avenue and yes let my heart be troubled i will address the battle between president trump and elon musk i know it's so the of such great international importance but first there is fresh scrutiny surrounding joe biden uh...
and a hard-working auto pet that there's a real of the Hannity show, the auto pen. Do you think there was like a debate before the show? Sean, I think we really need to do Elon.
No, no, no, no, no. The auto pen.
Do we have anything on the Hunter laptop? How far back can we go? What Biden scandal can we get? Not a good sign. Not a good day over at Fox.
Alright, so much shit happened, and we did a bunch of videos you guys have already seen, but for the pod crew, I just want to start, thanks to our friends at The Independent for doing this. We're going to do a minute-by-minute chronology of the feud, and, you know, maybe just chime in with little thoughts as they come to you.
All right. So, Becquins at 144.
Yeah. Quote, Musk posts a slew of tweets to X, including one asking, where is this guy today? Tweeting old Trump balanced budget statements.
I missed this one. He then tweeted, the big ugly bill will increase the deficit.
Harsh. By 2.5 trillion.
So he starts kind of dips the toe in. Probably should have workshopped that one.
Yeah, with the big. I've been doing the big fugly slut.
Yeah, that's even much better than the big – Nobody seems to get that though. Matt Iglesias didn't even laugh yesterday when I said big fugly slut.
I know. It was tough.
Not all my material lands. All right.
Then he goes on. He goes, is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle? This is when in the office – I'm just going to give you the office reactions because you weren't here.
We were like, how quickly is Nancy Jacobson? I know Libel's going to call him up. I'm like, oh wait, rich white man wishes that there was a big party that represented him in the middle.
I was like, one time I did a panel at the Aspen Institute and I had seven straight questions from rich white. So we're like, why aren't there any parties that represent fiscal responsibility and social moderation? Yeah, exactly.
So that wasn't Elon's best, but it escalates. Laura Loomer, 215, goes after Musk.
Musk says, you might be making a mistake. I'm going to be around longer than Trump.
Yeah. Then 237, Trump attacks from Truth Social, says Musk was wearing thin.
So he doesn't know what happened, but he just went crazy. Same thing he said about Putin.
Oh. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Trump says a bad read on people, I guess. And he put wearing thin in quotations, which I was kind of curious.
Wearing thin. Whose quote is that? I don't know.
He also mentioned that he took away his EV mandate, and that's what he might be mad about. This is when it was getting a little bit juicy, and in the office we were like, oh, my.
But we weren't freaking yet. Nobody was sitting up yet.
Nobody had leaned forward yet. But I was refreshing X a lot.
248. We talked about this the other day.
The Musk rapid response element to this, like if this was a Trump feud versus John Thune. You and I talked about this.
We were comparing this to Jeb. It was like it would take four hours for John Thune to reply to anything.
You know, you have to get your press secretary to address. Musk is just fired.
Eleven minutes after Trump attacks him, Musk hits back. Such an obvious lie.
So sad. Then things went quiet for 22 minutes.
It was all silent. People were like, oh, that's an interesting little dispute between two gentlemen.
At this point in the office, we were like, okay, wow. But there we go.
That's it. We're cool.
3.10 p.m. The bomb.
Musk alleges Trump appears in the Epstein files. Okay, this one in the office, people were screaming, like legit screaming.

It was like, oh, my God.

Mark this post for the future.

The truth will come out, Elon says.

That was a reply to his tweet.

Files linked to the investigation of sex inventor Jeffrey Epstein has emerged as a point of fixation.

Oh, wait, hold on.

Yeah, for Trump and his allies.

Anyway, time to drop the really big bomb. Yeah.
All right. So that was 310.
410 after Twitter is insane. Almost an hour passes, and Donald Trump bleats out, the easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's government subsidies and contracts.
I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it. That's a good hit.
At this point, I went to the fridge and I got a soda and a little snack. Because I knew I was...
Settling in now. I was like, this is going to be a long day and I need to hydrate.
I think the Trump hit in a vacuum, pretty good. Like threatening to take the money away, good hit.
Coming right after your petto? I don't know, Donald. Maybe he's lost his fastball a little bit.
What would you have done? I don't know. You're a petto, too.
Ketamine adult fat fuck. Take away your ketamine.
You can't even get hard. You have to inseminate your two end wives.
Pete Trump would have gone right for the dick. Okay, that was okay.
Elon then replies, In light of the president's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately. At this point, I got a little worried, honestly.
I was like, are we going to have a government? I don't know. Okay.
Decent hit there. Then Trump goes on and defends the bill, the substance of the bill.
Boring. Yeah, really boring.
For 11, boy, the Musk leans in again. The Independent says he seems to agree.
I would say he clearly agrees that Donald Trump should be replaced by Vice President J.D. Vance.
I think the word was yes. Yeah, here it is.
Ian Miles Chong, a Malaysian shitposter, posted, President versus Elon who wins. My money's on Elon.
Trump should be impeached and J.D. Vance should replace him.
I want to note here, Elon was not tagged in this tweet. So Elon is just like, it's like that smoking meme of Matthew McConaughey is just on X, just taking it all in.
He sees this tweet where he's not tagged, quote tweets it, yes, Trump should be impeached. I want to get back to that in a little bit.
426, Musk taxed the tariffs. Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of the year.
At this point, I'm like, how much ketamine is this man on? Musk is going to have the biggest endorphin crash in history. I was looking at my phone.
My endorphins are firing. I was like, can you imagine being Elon? He's got four phones out.
He's getting alerts everywhere. Ain't no way this guy's sleeping tonight.
How many times has he peed because of the ketamine at this point? Like five? Yeah. 7.50.
So a couple hours go by. Musk says, kill the bill.
Call your senator. Call your congressman, Bankrupt America is not okay.
And then Musk's last post for the day is a repost that says, this is why Republicans will likely lose the House in 26 and Democrats will spend two years investigating and impeaching President Trump. Well, that was not his last post for the day.
His last post of the feud, he then then tried to kind of dial it back and he, it was a very funny

moment where there was like, speaking of

being weirdly following weird

accounts on Twitter, he replied to like someone

with like 180 followers. He was like,

let's tone it down a little bit. He's like, you're right.

I'm not going to decommission the dragon.

Like, where did you find this account? Like, it wasn't

even responding to you. Like, where did that come from?

I'm telling you, Elon is just, like

Elon is in the main frame of X.

Like, he is like, it's like he is trying

to become the singularity. Maybe he

Thank you. Like, where did that come from? I'm telling you, Elon is just, like, Elon is in the mainframe of X.
Like, he is, like, it's like he is trying to become the singularity. Maybe he's receiving constant.
He's got the neural link in his brain. He's just getting exposed, sped to him.
Imagine, I think about this every now and then, but imagine you're a Tesla board member and you're watching this and you're like, okay, is this man running our company? Like, what's he doing? I would be like, you need to, like, focus. Yeah.
Like, on us. Yeah, well, it's kind of a side part, but the Tesla stock was going down most of the day, pretty significantly.
Weirdly, it went up when Musk accused Trump of being a bad elf. I don't know if the market saw that and was like, ooh, Musk might have more power here than we thought in this fight.
I'm not a professional stock purchaser. This is not financial advice.
But I found that interesting because being in the White House has not really been very good for Tesla. So why did – I don't know why the market reacted so negatively.
Do you have thoughts on that? Well, I think the prospect that Musk could be nuked. Totally nuked.
Like literally nuked. You know, although I guess in theory kind of if you're an investor, at this point you kind of want the guy to get gone.
Yeah, right. That's like focus on building cars a little bit.
No, I don't try to make sense of this. This is nonsensical.
Okay. Yeah, maybe it's...
JVL wrote an emergency triad last night that everybody should read. And one of the things that he pointed out is like, Trump does...
I mean, there's a worst case scenario for Elon that's pretty bad. Oh, yeah.
You know, on his financially. And maybe that is the thinking here, where he ends up in the sour spot where nobody's buying...
Like, the Libs aren't buying the Teslas. Libs ain't buying Teslas.
The Magas aren't buying this ugly-ass truck. Trump is apparently going to sell the one he bought, the red one.
Yeah, that was news. It's the Foxes in the morning.
So, yeah. So that's it.
There's a little SpaceX stuff I want to get into, but I don't think that's my top takeaway. We'll get to that in a second.
What? So did you get a good night's sleep last night? Did you take a melatonin? No, not really. I mean, it wasn't like scrolling through it or anything, but I had been hopped up on it all day.
Not to the extent that Elon had, but it was definitely pouring through my veins. I was excited about it.
So now with the day to breathe, I think that there's some people that are more excited. Bill Kristol is a downer this morning.
He's feeling more like that Trump will come out of this ahead. What's your global takeaway? Bill convinced me, I've got to be honest.
Bill definitely convinced me. So Bill's take is that Trump has, I think this is Bill's word, Trump has Elon's balls or something like in a vice.
Bill Kristol said that? He said Trump, yeah, you can read it in morning shots. Did you not edit? I just assumed that was an edit line for you.
No, I edited it. What I edited is I had, and he has big balls, but Bill took that out.
Big balls the person. Yeah, big balls the person.
Fuck Bill. No, but Bill's convincing because I think here, I mean, it's basic, like Trump could at any moment just say, you know what, we are going to nationalize Space Force.
And by the way, you know, we need to launch an investigation into this because, you know, we don't want someone don't want someone so unstable running these companies who's a government contractor.

And there's plenty of government levers.

And if you're sitting there being like, well, that would be really abusive of the government for Trump to do something like that, I beg you to look at what Trump's done.

So I think Elon – well, I don't know if Elon's rational to recognize that he's kind of screwed here. And Elon's cards, I think he basically played yesterday.
You are a pedophile and you are in the upseat. He threw, like, I don't know.
Does he have a bigger haymaker than that? We don't know. We don't know.
We don't know. He's got some picks.
I mean, what was the black eye? Maybe Trump punched him. You know, who knows? I think there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes.
We don't know exactly what he could have. He's been sleeping at Mar-a-Lago in the White House.
That's true. So, I don't know.
He might have insight on Trump's private behavior that other people don't have. That's true.
I think he could have more cards. It's a compelling case that I think Trump certainly is going to win the Elon fight in the sense of who ends up with more political power etc.
Trump has a base of support. As we were joking earlier, the idea that some rich Silicon Valley guy is going to start a party of moderates.
It's like, we tried that, buddy. It's called the Innovation Party.
It's going to be Zuckerberg and Jim Bandai. Yeah, we've been down the road.
Andrew Yang. Yeah, Andrew Yang tried it like that.
So I don't think that's going to work. I think that the political base wants the megaculture war stuff.
I think that the threats to Trump here are also pretty real. And I know that you might want to diminish it.
And this is maybe my critique of your old pals in the mainstream media. It's like, it's hard to contextualize this stuff appropriately because it's so crazy and you're just like how do I cover this? What do I do? But it's like, Donald Trump's top advisor and top donor, the key man that helped him get elected, thinks that he should be impeached and removed from the presidency.
Yeah. Like, that is a massive story.
And I do, I think it's... I'm not saying it's not.
I know you don't think it is, but it's like, because of like, they benefit from the clownishness of this. Right? You know what I mean? If this is like, let's just imagine a different world.
We're like six months into the Biden presidency, who would be the Elon equivalent? Al Soros. Yeah, or I was thinking somebody closer, an advisor, Anita or Mike Donilon or something.
Yeah, sure, whoever. Some Biden advisor writes an op-ed that's like, I think that the president should be impeached and removed.
He doesn't have his faculties. He's been lying to you about his health.
And he's on a pedophile's And he's on a pedophile's flight list. Like, I do think that the front page story of the post the next day would be Biden's top advisor calls for impeachment and removal.
Yes. And that didn't happen today.
Was it not on the front page? I mean, there's plenty of stories. There's plenty of stories about it.
But you're right. It's kind of in like a camp fight kind of way, right?

And so anyway, I think that that alone. Well, this is the problem is we're so conditioned to the circus with Trump that it's like, ah,

well, it's another chapter.

But if you object in this, I think I said this online the other day when this was all

transpiring, which is like, I'm deeply, genuinely like entertained by all this.

I'm also like really, really frightened by it. Yeah, it's concerning.
It's incredibly concerning that these two men, who are incredibly, the most powerful two men in the world, probably, among them. Really? Are so emotionally unstable, have so much potential blackmail over each other, are so distracted.
Like, again, I, like. Friedrich Mertz was in the Lincoln bedroom while this was happening, just as a quick aside, the chancellor of Germany.
Did you? Like, imagine being this guy. And he's like trying to have some tea.
Yeah, he's like, yo, I'm trying to like save Ukraine. And Trump's like, hold on.
I'm going to threaten the government contracts of SpaceX. And then it's, and then like, we didn't, again, the circus thing thing.
It's like we're not even going to talk about it. But yesterday with Mertz, he was like, you must have been really upset when the Nazis lost.
And I was like, holy shit. But, like, that doesn't register.
Yeah. Anyways, my point is there's something – underneath all the show is some really, like, obvious sirens about where we are as a society.
Yeah. No, the society is in a bad place, and so is the White House.
So I guess my point is, so that's just in a vacuum. In any other world, the idea that your top advisor would say you should be impeached and removed and a pedophile is very bad for you politically.
Maybe that won't help for Trump. Trump's polls are going to go up.
You know, it's never really happened. Karl Rove, I don't believe, ever accused George W.
of being a pedo. So, you know, anyway.
I think that also the political power, you know, this political fight between the techno-fascists and the MAGA, it's real. There's like a power struggle.
Trump obviously has more political power in the sense of there are more voters who care about him. If there was a primary between Trump and Musk, he would win 85 to 15 or 90 to 10.
But power in the different sense, not the direct voter sense. Obviously, there's a lot of influence in Silicon Valley.
It benefited Trump a lot. I know that it gave the Democrats this opportunity to be like oligarchs or whatever, but also like really helped Trump that the owners of all the biggest communications platforms were sucking up to him.
And that these huge donors, VCs were sucking up to him and the crypto guys. It's a different type of oligarch too.
It was like, these guys represent the future. They're innovation oligarchs, right? Not old banker oligarchs, right? So it felt like a little different politically.
Yeah. And so I think it gave him a lot of some benefits, you know, just direct benefits and like how their platforms treated him, et cetera, et cetera.
But also like future political opportunity for MAGA, right? This idea that like you could coalesce, you know, the Cletises and the evangelical Christians and like the traditional Republicans and also add in these kind of non, like, ideological, really, like, tech bro kind of crowd. Like, that was an important add to the Trump coalition this time for 2016.
And that definitely feels in threat right now. So it's funny, Dala, you're just articulating it out loud.
But it's bringing me back a little bit to what democratic politics actually used to be, which is you have this pretty wide tent. Yeah.
And usually the main players either have to sort of align themselves with the moneyed interest or the populists. And that was not always the case necessarily with Republicans, but this is the result of an expanding coalition.
And so, you know, Trump's real talent has been he's managed to bridge the two.

And I don't know.

That might be the ultimate thing here is it might not be bridgeable anymore because really it's like you have Steve Bannon basically telling Trump

that he does in fact need to nationalize Space Force and, oh, by the way,

maybe deport Elon Musk at this point.

We're getting to that.

Yeah, and we're going to get into that.

But that is true.

And it's forcing – it may force the Republican lawmakers to kind of take a side in this fight in a way that they haven't really had to choose this type of stuff before. A couple other, I think, top implications of where Musk has a little bit more – some power.
Number one is, I guess, his Politico. Your old pals are reporting that there's going to be a call today.
They're going to try to do a truce. Yeah, but that's been kind of debunked.
Has it? Yeah, so Trump made a couple. First of all, this is fun because Trump's like calling every reporter in D.C.
whose cell phone number he's had. Who has he called today? So far, just that we know he's called Bob Costa, Dana Bash, Dasha Burns, and Jonathan Carl.
So at least four people, they've talked to Trump on the phone. Is your phone on do not disturb? You might want to leave it on just in case.
Oh, missed it. No, in each call, he's telling every single reporter, I'm not even thinking about Elon, which is like self-refuting.
Don't worry. I'm not thinking about it.
I'm just telling you I'm not thinking about it. It's like the guy in the banana suit.
Like, we're looking for the guy. Don't know who did it.
But he's also dismissed the idea that he's going to have a phone call with Elon.

So I don't think there's going to be that today. And I also just – so generally, I guess my point was even if they did get to a truce, which I think is possible, who knows, that they would try to, it's not really sustainable.
And this, I think, goes to the Elon psychology. There have been kind of two schools of thought on Elon from the start.
There was one that this was a huge corruption scheme and that he wanted from his AI, whatever, to gather as much information as possible from the government. He wanted to expand Starlink and he was using this to enrich himself.
And there's maybe some overlap between these theories, but like that was his core intention. Then there's another theory, which is that his brain has been broken by his own app.
And the fact that his daughter was trans, and then he gets on X, and that he's doing all these drugs, and that his brain is broken, and he is just a rabid poster, and he ended up getting radicalized and maggot, and that's why he's doing this, and he doesn't actually give a fuck about his companies or the money. And I was always more in camp, too.
He just, to me, reads like somebody who's completely unstable and has lost his mind. And I know some of these people.
I have some of them in my life, people who have taken the MAGA pill, rather than somebody who's really strategically trying to manipulate the government. And if that is right, if the theory that his brain is broken is right, he can't truce because Elon's online all day.
And so something's going to happen. They can have a short-term truce, but then something will happen.
You were joking about this when you said something about posters. Posters are going to post.
Elon's a poster. Elon's going to post.
Are there cases of reformed posters that you know of? Nira.

Nira is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, Nira Tanden.

But she's kind of getting back in the game. She's getting back in the game a little bit.

She was the Center for American Progress.

It was an epic Hillary poster, neolib Hillary poster,

like really, really strong game,

and then went to work for Biden and chilled.

I don't believe that Nira was doing like a ketamine meth snowball.

I think it was easier for her to reform maybe than Nilan. You don't believe that Nero was doing like a ketamine meth snowball.
And so it makes, I don't, I think it's, it was easier for her to reform maybe than Elon. You don't really know Nero then.
And so I don't see it. And this bill, and so this takes me to my second point, which is that this bill is going to continue going through.
Right. It's created real political bronze for the bill.
I like, does it mean that it won't pass? I don't, I don't know, but like, it's made it much more fraught. And you don't really think that Elon, who's, like, on Twitter 20 hours a day,

is going to not shitpost this bill as it continues to go through the process?

Obviously, he's going to keep shitposting it.

No, and there's certain Rubicons he's crossed that you can't uncross.

Shame on you if you support this bill. Yeah, call your lawmaker.

But I was thinking more like once you say this man's on the Epstein list,

like, I don't think you can put that genie back in a bottle. I also think the thing – I don't know.
And the VP did say Trump might be Hitler. That's true.
So it's possible to get the genie back in the bottle as Trump, I think. That's true, I guess.
It kind of got lost a little bit in this, but probably something that will bother Trump is that he claimed credit for Trump winning. And Trump does not ever want to hear something like that.
So, you know, I think Trump will be agreed at about that. I think ultimately, like the effect on the bill is not that it's going to like convince lawmakers to vote against it.
I think, and you and I talked about this, I think what it does is it creates a bit of space for lawmakers who are already not for it to say, you know what, I kind of agree that we need to do more

and maybe we should pump the brakes a little bit

and let's get more deficit reduction here.

Does Elon going so crazy make that actually harder for some of the Republicans?

Yes. Surely, yeah.

If he's totally out there.

If Elon was narrow-focused on the deficit,

maybe the Freedom Caucus guys might have been like, I'm with Elon, But if he's like, Trump is a pedophile, he should be removed from office. It makes it a little harder.
I think that's right. I mean, Elon's out there.
His takes on Trump are now more extreme than any MSNBC primetime host. Like there's nobody on MSNBC primetime who has said that Trump should be removed.
If you want an MSNBC primetime and you said that, you might get like – Trump might go after the network. You get a call from the boss.
Yeah. It would be bad.
Yeah. It was – it's not something that normal people say.
Yeah. So Republicans, it makes it harder for them to be with them.
But he is still rich and he does still have the capacity to like amplify X in your favor. Yeah.
So let's say you're just like a random Freedom Caucus member who isn't in love with the bill. And you can now say, okay, you know what, I agree on the principles that he's talking about.
And then Musk starts boosting you and he makes you into a hero. He throws a bunch of money behind you.
I'm not saying it's going to happen, but now that is a component of this legislative debate. I think it's also, we discussed this a little bit before this all went down with Iglesias yesterday, but he is very focused on how do you raise the salience of this bill because his point is like this is unpopular.
So if you get to the Democrats thinking on this, like cutting taxes for the rich and cutting Medicaid is not popular. And so does just Elon talking about how awful it is make people who otherwise wouldn't even be paying attention to this like aware of this bill? Maybe that's harmful for the bill.
bill? So the issue for Democrats, I think, is that what Elon doesn't like about this bill is not what they give a shit. I mean, like, they obviously don't for taxes.
Sure, but just like drawing attention to an unpopular thing is maybe good. But if Elon was, like, being like, it is just irresponsible for us to cut Medicaid like this.
Democrats would be like, hell yeah, that's fine. But that's not what he's saying.
And so it becomes a little bit of a bank shot.

I think Edgar, Andrew Edgar in today's morning shots sort of made the case, well, you can

make it about like these two men who are in a dick measuring contest are just basically

trying to figure out how to like.

A really small ruler for that contest.

It's like one of those like preschool kid rulers.

You can't get a regulation size. Okay.
It's a mom and pop podcast. Just make it about them being like chaos agents who you're entrusting them to like handle your health care and your taxes.
And you sort of like tie it to their general unpopularity. But I don't know.
I mean Democrats – Democrats should be like, look, he thinks Trump's on the Epstein list. Investigate.
And I think the oversight committee is doing that. So we'll see.
I bet you've probably been to the doctor's office in the past few months. I bet you had to hand over personal info, like your insurance, your ID, maybe even your social security number.
And I bet you weren't thinking about how your doctor is just one of many places that has your personal information. If any one of them isn't careful, it's a good bet they could accidentally expose your details to hackers and identity theft, putting you at risk.
Fortunately, LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a LifeLock U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back, with plans covering up to $3 million for stolen funds and expenses.

Don't take chances with your personal info.

Help protect it even when it's out of your hands.

Save up to 40% your first year with promo code IHEART.

Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code IHEART or go to lifelock.com slash IHEART for 40% off. Terms apply.
A happy place comes in many colors. Whatever your color, bring happiness home with SertiPro Painters and make your happy place your home.
SertiPro Painters, that's painting happy. During our spring sales event, special offers are available through April 30th.
Schedule your home painting project today and bring happiness home. Each Surtipro Painters business is independently owned and operated.
Contractor license and registration information is available at Surtipro.com. Should somebody file the Elon Musk articles of impeachment? Maybe? That feels like a Jared Moskowitz bill.
That would be a Moskowitz. He's the one member.
He'd be like, yeah, if you want to troll, go to Moskowitz. Of course, Shree.
What's his name? Shree, the one congressman who tried to say this for impeachment? He tried impeachment. They were like, please do not do that.
It's only Shree and Elon are the only guys out there. Yeah, I don't know.
I guess I'm a little bit – I was in your camp yesterday on like this isn't that helpful for Democrats because it's focusing on the debt and deficit rather than the really unpopular stuff. But I don't know, man.
Part of this now, I just think it trickles out into the world in a way that it wouldn't have otherwise and that like people who do not really care. How do they view it? Yeah, just they start to feel like, wait a minute.
Okay, so what is this thing that they're fighting about? And it like increases the debt a ton and it cuts taxes for rich people and it cuts Medicaid. Like who's for that? I get like, Stephen Miller is really like the only person who seems passionately for this bill.
I can tell. And so I just, I think that if you get that out into the ether more, I don't know.
I think maybe it could be an opportunity for Democrats. The opportunity is to just sow dissent in the Republican ranks, right? It's like, you know, get the party's base upset with Trump for abandoning fiscal conservatism.
And, you know, you divide the opposition and that's your benefit. I don't think it's like, oh, we're going to, like, turn people into, like, staunch defenders of Medicaid because of what Elon's doing.
I don't think that's really what... I think it also puts a little bit of a damper on Republicans going around talking about how great it is.
Yes, 100%. So I think it hurts their sales pitch for the bill.
So that's the so-division thing. If you have even 10%, 20% of the party, it's like, actually, this bill kind of sucks.
I agree with Elon.

Then it becomes more problematic, and then you'll start to see in the polls that the popularity of the bill goes down,

and then that creates its own news cycle, and then you start seeing a little bit of snowball effect,

which is why I think they're trying to rush this thing through.

I mean, they cannot spare any time on this.

I bet you've probably been to the doctor's office in the past few months. I bet you had to hand over personal info, like your insurance, your ID, maybe even your social security number.
And I bet you weren't thinking about how your doctor is just one of many places that has your personal information. If any one of them isn't careful, it's a good bet they could accidentally expose your details to hackers and identity theft, putting you at risk.
Fortunately, LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a LifeLock US-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back, with plans covering up to $3 million for stolen funds and expenses.
Don't take chances with your personal info. Help protect it even when it's out of your hands.
Save up to 40% your first year with promo code IHEART. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code IHEART or go to lifelock.com slash IHEART for 40% off.
Terms apply. At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas.
Our dedicated teachers and discovery driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence. So your child is ready to take on the world.
Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the Bay Area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com.
Okay. A couple side journeys.
Okay.

J.D. Vance, the vice president, who is the human that most represents the kind of concentric, the overlapping circles between the tech fascists and the cult mega fascists.
He's right in the middle of the Venn diagram. And so it's a little bit of a sticky wicket for him politically because he's going to stay with his patron Trump.
But, you know, I mean, assuming that there's an open primary in 2028 and he's going to want the tech guys to be with him. Peter Thiel is his main patron.
So how does he play this? He's posted two posts about this. One tweet was a selfie with him and Theo Vaughn.
I guess he's going to do the Theo Vaughn pod, which as soon as I saw that, my heart sank because I was like, God, this means I have to spend two hours watching J.D. Vance and Theo Vaughn.
So that sucks. Cracking some weird jokes and laughing uncomfortably.
The other one was President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I'm proud to stand beside him.
You notice who wasn't mentioned in that? Elon? No. It was kind of limp, I thought.
Kind of. Exceedingly limp.
I mean, Trump's out there being like, Elon's gone mad and crazy. Like, this guy needs to get off those drugs.
And JD's just like, I like President Trump. That's pretty lame.
I would expect more from my VP. He's earned the trust of the movement.
And I guess what he's trying to say is that, like, people should stick with Trump. I guess that's what he's trying to say.
It's like. Again, what is that? That's like a very defensive defense of Trump.
It's like, if you really, you should have said Elon's totally wrong. Trump is the man, and this is bullshit, and I'm sad that Elon's having this breakdown.
Like, that would be a normal statement, but. Yeah.
I don't know. And it also feels like it could be said about kind of anybody.
Yeah. It was not a very, so the JD thing, like, in the end, what will matter for JD is if this administration is a total disaster or not.
And if he can stay in Trump's good graces. And that's basically it.
Those are essentially the two things that matter to him. I think that at the end of the day, if I expect the next three years to be a total fucking shit show and that people will be ready to move on.
I could be wrong from that. I've been wrong before.
We'll see. But let's assume it's just normal crazy.
Like there's no big recession. You know, bad shit happens.
But like within the normal bounds of football, you know, of Trumpy football. Just every now and then the top advisor.
Calls for an impeachment. The normal bounds.
Well, I mean, they stormed the Capitol last time and got reelected. So I'm just trying to set the Trumpy bounds.
And I guess, let me rephrase it. People's lives aren't materially hurt.
Like MAGA people. Sure, sure, sure.
Immigrants' lives are going to be very hurt. Lots of people.
But MAGA people's lives aren't materially hurt. And Trump sticks with them.
And Trump steps aside normally. And he runs.
It's going to be very tough to beat. You know what I mean? And the tech guys will know he's one of them.
So I don't know that it's quite as sticky as it seems. I think that the play for him is pretty clear.
He's got to stick with Daddy Trump and it would have to be pretty ugly, I think, to blow back on him. And I think the general lesson is that everything is ephemeral in Trump years.
It's like everything that we think is massively consequential eventually recedes into our memories. Like, you know, three weeks ago, we thought the Qatari airline gift was going to be a huge scandal.
He just accepted the plane and we moved on. I haven't moved on.
You've moved on. Have I? Yeah, spiritually, I think you have.
JD... I feel really read by that because, honestly, I kind of have.
I don't give a fuck about the Atari plan. I actually hope.
I go back to my initial take. We were talking about how this one is going to stick.
I was not. That was not me.
Find that. Find that quote.
This one's breaking through. That does not sound like me at all.
That was not me. Fine.
It was me. It might have been you on the weekend hits on MSNBC.
I do. That isBC.
I too. So JD's just got – I think JD probably knows this too.
I mean JD was out there saying Haitians were eating dogs. So we were like, that's going to ruin it.
It's a little harder to weather the storm if Elon keeps shitposting. It's a little harder to weather the storm if people are suffering because of your policies, including the MAGA people.
If coronavirus hits and like there's 20 million unemployed overnight, that's when it's hard to weather the storm. Fingers crossed.
A couple other side plots. You had mentioned it earlier, but the Bannon of it.
There's a strange JVL-Steve Bannon alliance that is developing. It makes me uncomfortable to even mention, but I want to hear Bannon,

and then we'll talk about it.

And for any fanboys that still exist, while you're wrapping up in your cape tonight,

understand on Doge, he didn't find any fraud. There's plenty of fraud out there.
This is President Trump's first complaint. Was this all BS, right, with the Doge? The act that President

Trump should be taking immediately, I think, when he threatens to take one of the big programs

out of the big programs out of SpaceX, President Trump tonight should sign an executive order calling for the Defense Production Act to be called in SpaceX and seize SpaceX tonight before midnight. Seize SpaceX tonight.
It didn't happen for the record. They did not.
SpaceX was not seized. That's bold from Bannon.
JVL has been calling for a while, I think even during Biden times. He'll correct me that he did so again in the triad, which people should go read on thebork.com, to nationalize SpaceX for a little bit maybe less cheeky reasons than Bannon does.
No, very much less cheeky reasons. Very legit reasons.

I think Elon basically proved JVL's point when he said,

oh, I'm going to decommission the dragon.

It's like, oh, one man can just decide that we're going to leave astronauts abandoned in space.

Is that really in our national interest to have all our space policy kind of at the whims of one ketamine-infused nut job? Not good. It's not.
I would like – maybe we need to bring in a space expert on YouTube to give me some – I would like to see some policy options put in front of me if President Tim was out there because the word nationalized gets me a little uncomfortable. Of course.
You're conservative. You don't like it.
I get uncomfortable if I hear the word nationalize. I don't like seize.
I really don't like seize. So when Bannon wants to seize something.
How about incorporate? Incorporate into the government. Yeah, I like that word, incorporate.
Here's the other thing. SpaceX has done better than NASA.
Yeah, Barry over here is a big proponent. He thinks it's broke through the cartel.
It's done better. That's just a fact.
You don't have to like it. You don't have to like Elon.
So I don't think that we should take our terrible shitty space program and take over Elon's successful one. So is there a middle ground, I guess, is what I'm looking for? I don't know.
I'm not an expert in law. If you could ideally put in – if the government had the power to put in a different CEO, I here declare you like not CEO.
Can we have a guy from the government in like the corner office? Just watching. Elon, don't touch your pillbox.
What was in the office where they put Milton down in the basement? Can we just like put a Milton in SpaceX? And just be like, when big decisions happen, you got to bring Milton up.. Or you just create a Truman Show type system where Elon thinks he's running SpaceX and he's not.
Yeah, I don't know. But it makes me a little uncomfortable that the war room and the bulwark are calling for the same thing.
But JBL's arguments have been very legit and policy based for a while. And he also adds, his point is, it's going to to happen, and it's better that it happens with Donald Trump doing it than Joe Biden

or whoever else is a Democrat.

Yeah, for sure.

I don't have the audio of this, but Bannon had a couple other suggestions.

Bannon's never liked Elon.

If anybody was, I know all the libs thought that yesterday was your best day,

it was our best day, the resistance.

Nobody was having a better day yesterday than Steve Bannon.

He was literally a pig in shit.

I mean, he was rolling around. Dude is on NPR this morning.
He's like, are you doing the rounds? Rubbing his nipples between the three shirts. He's hated Elon for a long time, and so he loves us.
And so he was chiming in. He might have put on a fourth-collared shirt.
It got so hot. He was chiming in on how Elon should maybe be deported.
Another strange alliance, Congressman Adam Smith of Washington also suggested this Democratic congressman. So maybe a little bit over his skis.
But I don't know. I feel similar to this as I do about the Epstein situation.
Like it does seem to me to be true that Elon was an illegal immigrant in the country. and maybe DHS should look into that in the same way that it does seem to be true that Donald Trump was involved in a very deep way with Jeffrey Epstein and maybe has covered up some of his involvement and that should be looked into.
I kind of think that those are both legitimate. They're trolls and legitimate.
What do you think? I mean, do I have to respond? Yeah, you do have to respond. I think I'm not ready to go down these paths.
You don't think the DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, should look into Elon's immigration history? Okay, on a— If Susie from Missouri or whatever— Do I think I would enjoy watching it all transpired? Yes, I would go and get another seltzer and some popcorn. I'd sit back and hit refresh on X.
I think when we have the government targeting critics and deporting them, that's a problem. But maybe I'm like – I'm against that too.
Yeah. I'm against the government targeting critics and deporting them.
Again, I will say though that they've set a policy in this administration. What's good for the goose, right? Yeah, and their policy is basically no exceptions on immigration rules.
Does it apply to people who came here lately but have since become citizens? I don't know. I mean, they've been taking random ladies that have been working at diners, working in this country for 30 years.
Next thing we know, we're going to get a picture of Elon with MS-13 transposed on his knuckles. Look, we didn't see it when he was at Doge, but it was right there.
They've been taking, you know, they took the high school kids who are on the honor roll. Oh, no, no doubt.
I'm not saying they're clean. I'm just saying.
Just they're going through everybody's files? Sure, sure. I mean, yeah.
Let's see if it happens. What do you think about the white Afrikaners? Do you think they have anything to worry about right now? Yeah, see, would he come back in through the white Afrikaner refugee program? It was a great day on the X platform.
I know that makes some people uncomfortable, but it was. Well, let's actually do this.
Yesterday, obviously, was a great day on X. Yeah.
And I might guess that it was the best day in a long time. What was your best day? The best day ever was when Trump got COVID.
That was a crazy day. Trump getting COVID was the best day day on Twitter.
It was Twitter then, and it was the best day by far. It's hard to even think of a close second.
Honestly, that one was so much better than everything else, but I'll have to, I'm sure. When he was flown to Walter Reed, and we were like, I have a few text chains that are going to be disappointed in me, so please nominate for me some other candidates.
Yeah, we should come back and circle back on the best days of my time. Well, my two favorite posts yesterday, one was, this is like the Kendrick versus Drake beef with two Drakes.
I really enjoyed that. And the other one was, Trump's new policy towards white Afrikaners, and it was that guy jumping around going, kill the bar.
There were a lot of good tweets. Those were both good.
The meme of Trump on the test. I got this before Elon went crazy.
That was good. So do you think the white Afrikaners should feel a little nervous? Maybe.
Yeah, probably. Their champion is no longer there.
All those Doge people, are they going to be tossed? Speaking of white Afrikanersers is David Sachs do we know who's side David Ballsax is on is he posted ok we're going to look to see if David Ballsax is posted there are a lot of people who are going to be caught in the middle here I bet you've probably been to the doctor's office in the past few months I bet you had to hand over personal info like your insurance, your ID maybe even your social security number and I bet you weren't thinking about how your doctor is just one of many places that has your personal information. If any one of them isn't careful, it's a good bet they could accidentally expose your details to hackers and identity theft, putting you at risk.
Fortunately, LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a LifeLock U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it,

guaranteed or your money back, with plans covering up to $3 million for stolen funds and expenses.

Don't take chances with your personal info.

Help protect it even when it's out of your hands.

Save up to 40% your first year with promo code IHEART.

Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code IHEART or go to lifelock use promo code I heart or go to life lock.com slash I heart for 40% off terms apply at bright horizons infants discover first steps toddlers discover independence and preschoolers discover bold ideas our dedicated teachers and discovery driven curriculum nurture curiosity inspire creativity and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world. Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the Bay Area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom.
Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com. All right, we have an important final segment on the Commerce Secretary that's going to be pretty good.
But I have a couple other side plots. There's been some discussion.
Is there an Elon Lib redemption arc possible where Elon decides to go whole hog? He's on this podcast by Labor Day. You know, he says Trump's been wrong.
He has always cared about the environment. He also has always cared about the debt and deficits.
And he still has some concerns about the trans thing. But other than that, like, he pretty much has seen the error of his ways and him and Bill Gates are going to go to Africa together.
Is that possible? That's fantasy, right? Well, your podcast guest yesterday, Matt Iglesias, proposed maybe, you know, some sort of detente there. An armistice? Yeah.
Again, I'm a moving target here because I initially was like, of course you let him back in. You know, the enemy, the enemy, right? But then I kind of thought about it and he is so crazy and he's so unpopular.
And he also like did like so much damage. so much damage.
You know, just even the USAID stuff alone. It's like you can't let someone like that back in.
Like, what would it say about your moral values? It doesn't mean you can't use them strategically. And I'm assuming they will, right? Like, they should.
But, like, you know, maybe if you want to take some of his cash quietly, probably you should do that. But, boy, I wouldn't be like, Elon's not one of us.
Yeah, I don't think it's possible because it goes back to my earlier point. What is his popularity rating among Democrats? It's got to be zero.
It's, like, close, right? Close to zero. How do you let someone like that? Actually, we like this guy.
It's like, no, it doesn't really work. Yeah, I don't think so.
And the other thing is it goes back to my my you have to have a theory of the case of what happened to Elon and if your theory is mine which is his brain has been broken by the internet he's not capable he's deep in poster brain he's still retweeting random white nationalists he's too far lost it would be pretty funny though this point. It would be pretty funny, though, if he does the opposite

and starts retweeting

lib posters,

like the Krasensteins.

Well, he occasionally has.

It would be kind of interesting.

He just adjusts

his own algorithm

and like,

oh my God,

he and Ro Khanna

are hanging out.

Did we miss,

I'm going through

to see if there are

any other side plots

and I pulled up Drudge.

This is a great day

for Drudge.

I'm just going to read

a couple of the headlines if you want to weigh in on any of them. Sure.
Musk says Republicans should side with him because Trump will die first. True.
We've got here Russia offers Musk asylum. Did they really? Apparently.
I didn't see that one. I haven't seen that one.
Let's see. Trump's hints to Musk's drug use.
Abandoned to Port Elon. We covered that.
Oh, the Sergio Gore. There's a picture of Sergio Gore.
If you don't know him, he's this super dork dweeb that used to work for Rand Paul. And his picture is on Drudge right now doing the raised fist because apparently – He started this.
He was like, apparently Sergio Gore started this. So the weirdest he was like a guy that when i go to parties in dc like 13 years ago he would be like in the corner like being very weird like hoping girls could talk to him while he's like to his blackberry yeah he's like an incredible power broker in trump's white house yeah so he basically the the backstory is that he killed the nasa administrator job and that was an Elon guy, and he did it because he showed Donald Trump that the guy had donated to Democrats and Trump didn't like that.
And then Elon flipped out over that, and that's what precipitated all this. So Sergio Gore started all this.
Apparently. That is wild.
Alright, two other Trump-related stories before we get to the Commerce Secretary closing segment. Reagan National Airport will close.
Okay, this is fucking, I'm mad about this one. Go ahead.
It will close during the President's Birthday Bash slash the military parade. We're closing down Reagan National Airport.
I'm supposed to fly out of Reagan that day. No.
Yes. I'm supposed to go.
I thought you were pissed about it on principle. You You were pissed out of it personally.
Personal inconvenience. You gotta go to Dulles now.
That's your final straw with Trump. How dare you send me to Dulles? No, I'm supposed to go to Fenway with my little kid for a baseball game and it's gonna get fucked by Trump.
Motherfucker. It's just wrong.
It's ridiculous. Any other president who would do this shit, I mean, it would be like a scandal of epic proportions.
Closing the airport, $40 million on a parade that's going to tear up D.C.'s streets. It's nutty.
It's totally insane. He's not a fucking king.
That's why they're having no kings rallies that day. People should go June 14th to one near you.
We've got to discuss how we're going to cover it as a site. I'm going to be in New Orleans at the protest.
Okay. Maybe go live.
Yeah, sure. Nobody's invited me to speak yet, but we'll just take a bullhard.
My other side thing, I mentioned this before we came, and you're less excited about this than me, so maybe I'll just do it. But Trump did a bleat this morning about how Jerome Powell should cut rates again, but a very direct call from the cut rates that Europe's already cut.
We should cut. We need to.
It'll be a big boom. And this is going to a bad place.
And I think that my reasoning here is that, yeah, Trump does this stuff a lot. There's a lot of bluster and all this.
But he's in a pickle where with this bill and the trillions that are going into debt, interest rates are going to be high his whole presidency. That's just true.
And so I do think that eventually this is going to come to a head. And these guys could cut rates a little bit and it probably wouldn't matter that much actually.
And that gets into kind of econ dork stuff. Well, yeah.
And that's the reason to not cut rates is you want an error on the quiver, right? Right. When you're going to need it.
Yeah. And so I just think that like the whole, and when you listen to like my buddy Joe Weisenthal and the Oddbots, like all these econ dorks, like the worst case scenario essentially is like Trump getting rid of Powell just, you know, because of how that would roil the markets and what the downstream effects would be.
And I just, like, that feels to me like a little more likely today than yesterday. I guess that's all I'm saying.
Yes, maybe. I mean, he's always been deeply frustrated with Powell, and he makes it publicly known.
There was a recent Supreme Court case that seemed to suggest that they would stand up the independence of the Fed. But you don't know until you don't know, right? And, like, who knows what Trump's capable of if he gets mad or if the economy goes south.
I think that's what, you know, this is, we don't appreciate this part enough. And this is what I think, you know, even with all the must-drum, it's like this is the shit that's happening when things are relatively stable, right? That's the scary part for me is, like, things are not bad.
I mean, if they are bad, it's because Trump made them bad himself. So it's not like – but when things do get bad, and they get bad in every presidency.
There's no really external force like new – you know, like the Russia invasion, like some stuff happening in the Middle East. All that stuff was already happening.
It all predated him. All the Liberation Day stuff was of his own making, and then he backed off of it, right? But when things do get bad, and they will because that's just how it works, then we don't really know what Trump is going to do and what he's capable of.
And so while it seems incredibly dramatic and off the rails right now, and it is, I'm a little bit anxious, a little bit, really anxious for what happens when the external stuff. Because things are more rickety.
Obviously, COVID and COVID and all that was really bad. But, like, when COVID hit, and, like, that was, you know, the big crisis of his first term, things were pretty good.
Like, the Trump part, the drama, the craziness, his behavior. Yeah, I mean, he did get impeached before COVID.
Yeah, but I just mean, like, geopolitically and economically is really what I mean. Like, there were not, like, you know, huge disruptions overseas or had been a terrorist attack.
Economically, we were pretty stable here, right? Yeah. Like, things are much more rickety now than then, I guess is my point.
Just like the U.S. economy is way more rickety than it was in 2019.
The global environment, like, there are a lot more hot spots, a lot more bullshit happening than there was back then. So, anyway, I'm with you.
I bet you've probably been to the doctor's office in the past few months. I bet you had to hand over personal info like your insurance, your ID, maybe even your social security number.
And I bet you weren't thinking about how your doctor is just one of many places that has your personal information. If any one of them isn't careful, it's a good bet they could accidentally expose your details to hackers and identity theft, putting you at risk.
Fortunately, LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a LifeLock U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back, with plans covering up to $3 million for stolen funds and expenses.
Don't take chances with your personal info. Help protect it even when it's out of your hands.
Save up to 40% your first year with promo code IHEART. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code IHEART or go to lifelock.com slash IHEART for 40% off.
Terms apply. At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas.

Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the Bay Area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com.
All right. I'm looking directly into the camera for the YouTube viewers, the final segment.
The Commerce Secretary was over on the Hill this week, and I want to play a couple clips from it. You know that he's my favorite member of the cabinet.
Is he? Well, in some ways, we'll talk about that. And before I name him, I want to go to Senator Jerry Moran.
You forget Senator Jerry Moran exists, by the way. No, there's way more forgettable senators.
There are these whole category of Republican senators from the before times who just, like, don't want you to remember that they exist. Name both senators from Idaho.
Reisch and Crapo. Oh, damn, dude.
You're good. Yeah, of course.
I'm a fucking professional political podcast host. Okay.
All right. The senator from Kansas addressing the Commerce Secretary.
Barry, please play that. Secretary Nutbeck, thank you for your testimony today.
I look forward to working closely with you and throughout the appropriations process. Barry, play that one more time.
Secretary Nutlick, thank you for your testimony today. I look forward to working closely with you and throughout the appropriations process.
He does it twice. Nutlick.
Senator Nutlick. I got to tell you, Commerce Secretary Nutlick, I got to tell you, Sam, it has been extremely challenging for me to not say Nutlick on MSNBC.

And I have to sit there when I'm on Deadline White House. And you slept? No, I haven't yet.
But I think it was earlier this week that Nicole started playing some clips. And I'm sitting in the chair, and I'm just in my head.
I'm going, Lutnick, Lutnick, don't do Nutlick. Lutnick, Lutnick, Lutnick.
I have to talk to myself in my brain to make sure I don't call him Howard Nutlik on MSNBC. I think Jerry Moran's giving me some cover, though, now is what I'm saying.
So it might be happening. I think it might be happening.
All right. I want to play a couple of the other clips of Nutlik on the Hill.
It was an exchange between him and my senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, and another exchange with Madeline Dean, a congresswoman from Pennsylvania.

If Vietnam, for example, came to you tomorrow and said, OK, Mr. Secretary, you win.

We're going to remove all tariffs and all trade barriers.

Would the United States please do the same? Would you accept that deal? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
That would be the silliest thing we could do. What's the tariff on bananas? Americans, by the way, love bananas.
We buy billions of them a year. I love bananas.
What's the tariff on bananas? The tariff on bananas would be representative of the countries that produce them. And what's that tariff? Generally 10%.
Correct. 10%.
Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas by 8%. There's no uncertainty.
If you build in America and you produce your product in America, there will be no tariff. So the concept of building in America and paying no tariff is very, very clear.
We cannot build bananas in America. This man ran Cantor Fitzgerald.
Howard Nutluck. What is happening? He wants us to build banana groves? Where? I don't think he knows what he's talking about, but I think his belief is that if he with enough, like, infectious enthusiasm, it'll just bullshit his way through it.
It's really amazing. The banana thing is too funny.
And, yes, I know you love bananas, but. Banana daiquiris, really, are my favorite.
My dad is, I don't think anyone loves bananas more than my dad. Really? Can I tell you something? My dad has had a banana every morning with his cereal for every day.
No. No, we calculated once.
Does he cut it up and put it in the cereal? Cut it up, slice it in the cereal. And this is no joke.
We calculated this once. We discovered that if you do the math, he's had something like 17,000 bananas over the course of his life.
What is your dad's first name? Steven. Steven Stein? Yeah.
Just every morning he gets out his little knife, just cuts the banana. Does he like them green or brown? Oh, that's a good question.
Whenever he comes to see me in D.C., he's always calling me up. He's like, get me the bananas.
Buy me them where they're still green, but they're starting to turn yellow. Okay.
He likes them a very specific. Me and Steve, same.
That's how I like my bananas as well. I like mine overripe a little bit.
Oh, no, I like closer to green. Oh, not too much.
I want totally ripe for the daiquiri because you want it nice and sweet for the daiquiri. You, yeah, yeah.
You want the sugary ripeness, yeah. Yeah, but if I'm going to eat a banana whole, I want it greenish.
17,000 bananas is a lot of bananas. I think that's just too much.
Think about how much you would have lost in your inheritance if he was paying 8% more on a banana every day for 17. That's why we've got to grow bananas in America.
The one other thing I want to talk about about that nut look exchange was John Kennedy, who's a fucking moron. Yeah, but he got him there.
Yeah, he got him there. He got him there.
Okay, so this is my point. There are two kinds of stupid in this world.
There's Howard Lutnick stupid. He's like, oh, I don't even know.
What am I going to do? No deal. No deal.
Give us a zero. But then there's Kennedy, who thinks he's smart, and he thinks he's making this point that it's like, hey, why don't you guys try to get it down to zero? I'm a free trader.
We're the free trade party. Remember, he's trying to nudge not like – I read it a little differently.
Go ahead. Okay.
But I think that he's – by his own words later, he says I'm trying to nudge them towards my policy goals. And it's like, bro, you signed up for this.
They want the tariffs. Making a pure free trade argument against Nutlick is not going to convince anybody.
Like that's not – Trump is not going to be convinced by that. And he has still like bought these guys, the free market, the Wall Street Journal, Republican Times, have like convinced themselves that Trump is one of them and that there's a deal coming on the back end that's going to be good for the economy.

It's like, no, this is the guy that bankrupted the casinos.

He loves the word tariff.

Right.

That's what's happening.

And Kennedy has like fooled himself, I think, into thinking that this is going to work.

Well, maybe.

I think he was just trying to expose the ridiculousness of their arguments, right?

And he's like, if you guys really believe in reciprocity, then surely you would believe in reciprocity. And Lullick's like, no, never, no way.
So, yeah, I mean, they're both a little bit delusional in their own separate ways. And I guess to your point, you know, now that Musk is gone, I mean, he doesn't like the terrorists too.
You now basically have, you know, Peter Navarro, Lutnik, who's just going to do whatever the hell

Trump tells him to do,

and Trump and Vance basically making policy.

And it's just like, this is,

the guardrails for the free trade crowd

are not there anymore.

Elon is a guardrail?

Well, to a degree, yeah.

Whew, all right.

That's a good podcast.

Did you have any smokes yesterday?

Did you feel the majority of you guys

riding so high that you felt like... Kind of needed one at the end of it.
All right. Any final thoughts for the people? Taking them into the weekend? I don't know.
Good luck. It's rough out there.
I'm excited to see what drama comes today, but then I step back and I'm like, we're living through something really dark. Let's close with that because there's this little person inside me, my little Jiminy Cricket.
He still exists. Oh, dude.
He's louder and louder every year. So I get older.
I'm getting soft. And yesterday, Jiminy was cricketing in my ear, you know.
And he's like, you shouldn't enjoy this as much. Like, things are still really bad.
Trump's still going to be president for three and a half years. Blah, blah, blah.
And I just kept muzzling Jiminy. Shut up, Jiminy.
Shut the fuck up. Let me have a little joy.
Let us have a little joy. And so I would like to tell the listeners to do that.
Enjoy it. We do that a lot.
You and I especially. We laugh at it and it's good to laugh.
I think it's important to laugh. And it's important to say, what the fuck? This is ridiculous.
And that's fine. I'm not saying you should feel bad doing that.
And then I sit back and I'm like, these guys are running shit. It's also important to protest.
And that's why we'll be doing that today. Hey, good luck tonight.
Thank you. I'm excited for it.
It's going to be rowdy. I'm nervous.
Yeah, you should be. Me and John Lovett with Longwell.
I think that we'll be posting that either on the Lovett or Leave It feed or right here. People can check it out.
Maybe bits on both. It might be NC-17, I guess is all I'm going to say.
I can't wait. It might be NC-17.
There will be some very serious parts, and then there will be some parts that are a little yucky for people. So enjoy.
Everybody else, we'll see you back here Monday. We're working on the sked.
We might have a little change of sked.

It might not be Bill Crystal Monday. It might be.

So, you know, I want to leave you

on your toes this weekend. Enjoy the feud.

We'll see you back here Monday.

Peace.

Peace. Freak throw, man damn, call a emblem lambs, tell him breathe bro, nail a nigga to the cross, he walk around like T-Zo What's up with these jabroni ass niggas tryna see Compton, the industry can hate me, fuck em all and they mama How many ops she really got, I mean it's too many options, I'm finna pass on this body, I'm John Stockton Beat your ass and hot the bible if God watch you Sometimes you gotta pop out and show niggas, certified boogeyman, I'm the one that up the score with him Walking down whole time, I know he got some hoe in him Pole on him, extort shit, bully that flow on him Say Drake, I hear you like I'm young You better not ever go to cell block one To any bitch that talk to him and they in love Just make sure you hide your little sister from him They tell me Chubb's the only one that get your hand-me-downs And party after party, playing with his nose now And Baka got a weird case.
Why is he around? Certified lover boys, certified pedophiles. Wap, wap, wap, wap, wap.
That fuck him up. Wap, wap, wap, wap, wap.
I'ma do my stuff. Why you trolling like a bitch? Ain't you tired? Trying to strike a chord.
And it's probably a minor. They not like us.
They not like us. They not like us.
They not like us. The Borg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
They not like us. They not like us.
Chances are you've been to the doctor recently and you probably handed over your insurance, your ID, and even your social security number.

Your doctor is just one of many places that has your personal info.

And if any of them accidentally expose your details, you could be at risk for identity theft.

LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second.

If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back.

Save up to 40% your first year.

Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code IHEART or go to lifelock.com slash IHEART for 40% off. Terms apply.
Having MG can make cooking difficult, but over the years, I found some really helpful tools and tips that I'm excited to share. Hi, I'm Alicia.
I think cooking should always be fun, creative, and of course, delicious. These black bean burgers are hearty, full of flavor, and MG friendly.
You're gonna love them. Check out Alicia's black bean burger cooking video and other recipes full of tips and tricks for managing common MG symptoms while cooking only at MG-United.com.
Ready? Let's cook. At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas.
Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world. Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the Bay Area and see for

yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com.