Alex Wagner: The Poster Child for Corruption and Grift

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
We're still in the first month of the Trump second presidency, apparently, and I'm with somebody that's going to try to help us figure it out. You would have usually found her hosting Alex Wagner tonight on MSNBC with me as a guest occasionally, but through April 30th, she's on special assignment for the limited MSNBC podcast series, Trumpland with Alex Wagner, reporting on the first hundred days of the second Trump administration.
It's Alex Wagner and we're in Trumpland, I guess. How's that going? I mean, we live in Trumpland.
It's just the reality of the situation. I hate to break it to everybody.
It may not be forever, but that's where we're at. Do you have any pushback on the title? Just for mental health purposes? Or you just are accepting? Well, there is a fine calculation between how much the word Trump in any given title is an attractant or a repellent.
Yeah. So I do think, though, I mean, we're looking at Tr Trump land, not just through the lens of Trump, but the people also affected by Trumpism and his policies and promises.
So it's not just about the dude. In fact, I would say it's a lot less about the dude and more about the sort of broader contours of the country he's creating.
Yeah. It's very little about the dude.
Actually, we're going to do a bunch on the pod. I was binging it yesterday.
We have a couple of news items we have to get to first, though, if you don't mind. Please go.
It's your podcast. We have a new...
I like turning the tables. I love it.
I'm a terrible guest. I am a terrible guest, but I'm telling you that now that I'm already booked and we've started this.
It's going to be great. I relish putting the host in the guest seat.
I'll bring out the best guest in you, I promise. All right.
We have a new edict from the Capitol. The dear leader's mouthpiece was asked about the banishment of the Associated Press from the press room yesterday.
I want to take a listen to what she had to say about that. I was very upfront in my briefing on day one that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable.
And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. And I'm not sure why news outlets don't want to call it that, but that is what it is.
That's a fact. That's a fact.
I mean, this is like my question. It's like, can you imagine, by the way, can you imagine the crowd sizes debate litigated in Trump 2.0? I mean, I feel like you have that clip actually.
Let's go. Can we hear another fact? Can we get that other clip really quick? This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.
I mean, can I just say the difference between then and now is it was just stupid son spicer embarrassing himself you know like becoming a national parody and now there's actual retribution the idea that the ap is not being allowed in as being punished for adhering to reality it's not good tim very george orwell of this. I guess another difference is they're making their facts real.
You know, like the Google machine and Apple have changed the name of the Gulf here as well. What's next? I mean, what's next? When you talk about President Trump, you have to now, by law, say the greatest president in American history when you print the words President Trump.
I mean, sky's the limit, right? It's a fact. I'm shocked.
I haven't tried to change anything to Trump. I'm annoyed that we went back to Mount McKinley.
I want Mount Trump. I want to just go all in.
Listen, from your mouth to Trump's ears, I do not think this is the end of this. If he can win at renaming large bodies of water just on a whim, what's to stop him from calling it the United States of Trump? I mean, I kid, but I do think this sets an unbelievably bad precedent.
Or Trump land. I got to tell you, I know this is serious now.
I know that the media, there's a free speech question here, the folks at FIRE, the good free speech advocates have been defending the AP, which I appreciate. This was just really funny.
I don't know. There's something about her being like, it is a fact.
It is a fact that I find it seems a little desperate and funny. No, is it not funny? I mean, I guess there's like a certain like, you know, Chekhovian like there's like a very Chris Hayes and I were talking about this yesterday.
There's like a very Russian kind of like dark humor embedded in all of this, right? Like it's so absurd. The theater is so absurd, but it's real.
I mean, like the consequences are real and as absurd as this all seems, this is what's happening to our country. It is absurd.
It's like, I was thinking about this yesterday uh yesterday i was like if i got into a time machine flew back to 2015 and like went to a gaggle of reporters or even better like a gaggle of like conservative media reporters like went on fox like if i got on fox in 2015 and i was like 10 years from now trump will be president still and he will demand that we call the gulf of mexico the gulf of america and everyone will go along with it. I would have been put in a sane asylum.
People would be like, you have such Trump arrangement syndrome that you need to be forcibly removed from society. As a matter of satire and comedy, they're firing on all cylinders.
We couldn't have conjured this nonsense, as you say, even nine years ago. They're very creative in that sense.
They are. Okay.
We've got some other news items we got to take through. Tesla.
Some great news for Tesla. The Trump administration is set to purchase $400 million worth of armored Tesla vehicles, according to a new State Department document detailing procurement for fiscal year 2025.
After reports circulated Wednesday of, got to shout out DropSite News for being first to the punch on this, the State Department changed the document. And now it says the federal contract is for 400 billion worth of armored electric vehicles.
Tesla's name has been removed. So I have a couple questions.
I have a serious question for you about the corruption that is taking over our government. But I also, as the non-woke former Republican here, I've got to say, why are we even doing French electric vehicles at all? What is the deal with this? What if our armored vehicles are in a place where there are no charging stations? Shouldn't we have Ford F-350s? Shouldn't we have real American gas-guzzling armored vehicles? Not this hippie shit? So anyway, two-part question.
I don't know which to tackle first, Tim. The grift? Do you remember when it was like, oh, he might be building a Trump tower and Abu Dhabi, nobody even bothers to disguise it.
And I do think unlike Trump, right? People like the con man in Trump. I feel like that's why in some ways he was elected because he cuts corners and does his own shit.
People do not feel the same way about Elon Musk. And Elon Musk standing there in the Oval Office with his child as a prop and pretending that he's president and tinkering around in payroll systems and using his teen dream doge crew to gut the federal government, I do not think that that passes by without the American public, without it ruffling their feathers.
And I say that as someone who spent, you know, some time in DC last week in front of the Treasury Department, where there was a large protest, and there was no talk about Trump, it was all focused on Elon Musk. And I do think that, you know, the Trump glow does not extend to anybody else.
I do not think it extends to Elon Musk. And I think Democrats, and people who are just upset about what's happened here, are finding a new narrative, and he's at the center, Elon Musk is at the center of it.
And I think this kind of who are just upset about what's happened here are finding

a new narrative and he's at the center. Elon Musk is at the center of it.
And I think this kind of stuff, there's a reason they changed the wording to not mention Tesla's. I do think the Trump White House understands that Musk could be a problem for them.
And I think if Democrats are smart, they will keep Musk at the center of all of this because he is just a poster child for the corruption the grift the sort of lawlessness the entitlement the greed the you know sort of unelected you know billionaire storming the the federal government people are not cool with that and i think you should read a lot into the fact that they changed the wording on that that statement oh yeah i do too it means they're conscious of it for sure It was interesting. I saw there's this Joe Rogan clip where he says something essentially to the effect of Elon's too rich to grift.
Let's listen to Joe really quick. This is the thing about Elon.
Elon's going to steal everybody's money. He has $400 billion.
I'm telling you, he's not going to steal your money. I'm telling you, that's not not what he's doing What he's doing is he's a super genius that's been fucked with Okay, and when you've been fucked with by these nitwits that hide behind three-letter agencies and you're dealing with one of the smartest people alive And he helps Donald Trump get in office and he goes I want to find out what kind of corruption is really around Well, you fucked up you fucked up and picked the wrong psychopath on the spectrum because he's going to hunt you down.
He's going to find out what's going on. And that's good.
That's good for everybody. That's how you should be looking at this.
Like, wow, we have a brilliant mind that is examining these really fucking corrupt and goofy systems and bringing in a bunch of psychopath wizards that's is that how this works is that how this works a very rich people like design that they don't want to be richer no they always want to be richer i mean i think that's the thing about really rich people is sky's the limit can i also say the guy that nails this and the guy who is the id of maga is steve bannon and he gets that Musk is a, I mean, we've talked about this.

He's a problem.

He's not a true believer.

He's, I mean, he's in it for Elon and the glory attendant.

Okay.

Do you want to talk about why you can have electric vehicles on the battlefield?

I do.

Well, this kind of goes to the, this kind of goes to the Bannon thing, right?

There are a number of issues that Musk presents on the right for them too, right?

Like this is not a natural alliance.

Like we saw it with the H-1B.

I don't know. thing, right? There are a number of issues that Musk presents on the right for them, too, right? This is not a natural alliance.
We saw it with the H-1B. I'm joking, but really, this is not a movement that is really going to be thrilled about the advance of electric vehicles.
Wait, can I just say, Tim, an electric vehicle on the battlefield is the definition of wokeism. This is the thing that Pete Ex Hex has been hired to like pull out root and branch.
There'd have to be a black trans driver. If there was a black trans female driver of the, of the armored electric vehicle, then we'd really be woke.
The whole thing. None of it.
Musk, he embodies the contradictions here.

It doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't make sense.

I really do think that there would be vulnerabilities.

I don't think the Rogan position of, oh, he's uncorruptible.

He's too rich to be corruptible.

I think that that is going to work for the people in my replies on Twitter with the blue checks who may or may not be from Romania, who are telling me about how great Elon is and posting memes of crying liberals via the Grok AI. I think those people will buy that.
But I just think as this goes along, I do think that regular folks didn't sign up for 400 million in Tesla armored vehicles. No.
Also, Elon doesn't have it. I just think that people need to get back to the essence of like this guy is a profoundly lame character and that is in trump high school which is what a place we all live in now and attend like he is not the popular dude that's donald trump he's the captain of the football team and elon musk is some weird person that has entered the sort of inner sanctum but does not have, he is not going to win any popularity contests.
And the longer this goes on and the more Elon is placed front and center, I truly think the bigger a problem it is for the Trump administration. Yeah, I think he's the captain of the baseball team.
Trump doesn't really like to be hit. Let's not insult baseball.
I'm thinking chess team. I mean, chess is also cool.
You can be captain of any team, but that doesn't give you, you know, you don't get to make announcements on the intercom. That's, I guess, what I'm saying.
Why can't I insult baseball? I mean, that's just... I'm part of a very big baseball family.
I know. I know.
The Mets, you know, and then the kids. I mean, it's great.
There's nothing... You can be a great baseball player.
It's a little different than being the football player that's getting tackled. Yeah, let's just...
You're treading on... It's...
This is not comfortable for me. Okay.
I like to, that makes me kind of want to pull the thread a little bit more. I mean, baseball is an amazing sport.
I'm not going to say that I'm, yeah, I mean, listen. We'll just agree to disagree.
Okay. We have some more news.
We've got the big one coming today. Three great weeks, all caps, perhaps the best ever, but today is the big one.
Reciprocal tariffs. Make America great again.
Trump's got a news conference that will be complete by the time this posts. Where are you on this? We have a little intro bulwark disagreement.
On tariffs? Yeah. Well, not about the value of tariffs, about the Trump.
Some people think that it's going to be all the Canadian thing all the way down, right? Like it's all fake. It's all WWE.
He's not going to do it. I think that he actually really loves tariffs.
And I think that he's going to do it. Like, I think that we're going to have tariffs.
I don't know if there'll be the ones today. I don't know if it'll be in a month.
But like, eventually, he's like a little baby throwing a tantrum. And he thinks it's a big, beautiful word, and I don't think that he's not going to do it.
I don't know. What do you learn? I mean, this is the genius of the strategy, the fact that there's an intra-Bulwark debate, which is probably an intra-Canadian debate and an intra-Chinese debate.
I guarantee you, Xi Jinping has a couple of advisors who's like, well, it's not all bullshit. But I agree with you.
I don't know that it's going to be as spectacular as what he's announced it to be. But I absolutely think he does not like the headlines that say he whiffed it or he pulled back or this is just, you know.
And he doesn't give a shit about the consequences, right? I mean, he loves finding an enemy, especially a foreign one. So, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised at all if we actually see some real tariffs.
Yeah. The consequence he would care about, I guess, is the market crashing.
But he has, to your point, this is, I hate handing it to him and using the word genius, but like, he's even submitted the markets on this, right? Like, he puts out this thing this morning, I've really come on that says this, these are going to be the big one, the tariffs. And, you know, markets only been open for for about an hour right now but they're up like people don't believe like they don't believe him and so like there was the pre-market not crash but like drop before the big canadian mexican tariff announcements then he backed off but he kept the he kept the chinese ones and he kept the steel and aluminum ones you know i mean that kind of under yes eventually you would think that reality would have to intervene but maybe not we're waiting for reality to intervene in it it's been quite shy there's reality has not raised her hand in in the trump oval office it's a stunning thing yeah so far all right speaking of reality not raising your hand, the other news item of today, RFK is going to be confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The most interesting thing about all this to me is less that the Republicans caved, because I always knew the Republicans would cave. I was hopeful is even the wrong word.
I felt like there was an outside chance that Bill Cassidy would show some backbone because he's a doctor and because he'd already impeached Trump. I was going to bet against it, but I thought that there was a chance.
I was, you know, I was in a dumb and dumber situation. I was like, you know, you're saying there's a chance for Bill Cassidy, but overall I knew he'd get confirmed.
The interesting thing is like there, there has that really been a big fight from like pharma there's a political article about this yesterday just like everybody just just kind of like okay like let's see what happens like bring whooping cough back and like take our chances you know i'm surprised because yesterday the white house released a statement on eggs yeah and they are clearly worried about what bird flu is doing to egg prices and dairy prices. The Trumpflation thing, the groceries thing, the shit he ran on and got elected for to bring costs down is a concern to them.
I mean, I don't know if you've tried to buy eggs. We're a big egg house here, Tim.
They're very hard to get. I'm not a big egg man.
Okay. Well, that's your loss.
But eggs and baseball. We finally found our areas of disagreement.
My family does eggs. It's just okay for me.
Well, they're hard to get, and they're really expensive. Everywhere across the country.
This is a problem for the Trump administration on a really practical level. And they're about to install someone who seems categorically, I mean, part of the statement that the White House released yesterday is, we inherited this problem with bird flu, and it's a Biden problem that is now landing on our doorstep.
But they're about to install someone at HHS who has zero capacity to deal with any kind of national health crisis, and in fact could make it meaningfully worse. I'm surprised that at no point, because they had a lot of gimmies on this one.
They could have taken a mulligan and just been like, you know what?

They're going full steam ahead

with someone who could make one of,

I think really a practical economic problem for them

considerably more problematic.

So that to me,

more than the spinelessness of Senate Republicans,

I thought was surprising.

I thought there's actually a vested interest

they have in installing someone vaguely competent at HHS,

but they're not going to do that, I guess.

Thank you. was surprising.
I thought there's actually a vested interest they have in, you know, installing someone vaguely competent at HHS, but they're not going to do that, I guess. Where are you just on like your expectations of this versus reality? I mean, you know, we're, we were together on that bleary late early morning of November 6th and talked for about a minute.
If I had told you that night, I was like, Pete Hegsatz will be Secretary of Defense, RFK Jr. will be Secretary of HHS, Cashford tells me FBI.
Would you have been like, yeah, that feels right? He's won and they're just going to go do it? Or has this been a little surprising to you? I was doing this show called The Circus, which I know you're quite familiar with seeing as you did several seasons. And I remember John Heilman and I went up to see susan collins right before her vote on brett kavanaugh and she was so angry at the threats and the left-wing sort of cabal coming after her on the issue of abortion and she was just defiant and it was clear she was gonna vote for kavanaugh and i thought you know what this is like the only thing you're known for is like trying to protect a woman's right to choose.
And you are going to, you are going to like let the fox into the hen house. And look what happened, Tim.
Yeah. Look what happened.
That for me is the moment where I was like, oh, these guys like truly don't care about anything other than staying in the good graces of the party, staying in power. And like, you know, there have been so many times since then where they've proven their spinelessness and proven their, you know, allegiance to the loudest voice, most powerful voice in the room rather than the, oh, I don't know the constitution.
So yeah, if you had told me, this is a long windup to use a baseball term. If you had told me on November 6th, these clowns would be the people installed, I think I would have believed you because it just comes down to whether the Senate Republicans have any ounce of integrity left.
And I think they've proven to us that they don't. No, they don't.
I mean, except Mitch is trying to pretend like he has some. Well, the Merrick Garland thing.
I mean, once you say we're going to change the rules to benefit ourselves and we're going to adulterate the institutions in a naked power grab, then okay, fine. He basically drew a blueprint that everybody's been working off of in the intervening years.

This is so smart because he did the blueprint and he thought he was going to be in charge the whole

time. It's one of these things where we're like, let's break the rules and let's use maximum power

politics. And I'm running the Senate and let's use maximum power politics.

And I'm running the Senate and we'll be able to do this to advance my ends.

And as it turns out, no, he's alone.

Turns out you got got.

Turns out the Federalist Society is too mainstream.

The goalposts can move out of the stadium.

See, this is a football metaphor.

I'm not quite as good at it.

The goalposts can move out of the stadium and down the block into a football metaphor. I'm not quite as good at it.
The goalposts can move out of the stadium

and down the block into a different zip code.

Nobody thought about that, did they?

No.

Mitch McConnell sure didn't.

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For a limited time, listeners can get $20 off their best-selling Carver Matte Frame with code bulwark that's aura frames.com promo code bulwark support the show by mentioning us at checkout terms and conditions apply one last news item from this morning is uh this is from our friends at axios jim vande hei did gave this one uh I think two or three blaring sirens. President Trump and Elon Musk, arguably the two most unorthodox and influential American leaders of the 21st century, are practicing and fine-tuning a fused theory of governing power, masculine maximalism.
What do you think about that? I stopped reading after that. I saw that and I was like, okay, no, we're done.
I can tell you the next sentence was about how it was all guys, they're in charge and they're just using their maximum power. Finally, is what I say.
It seems to me like it's kind of like small dick maximalism. I mean, none of these people are.

And who are we talking about?

Musk, who lied about his video game prowess?

And Trump with his makeup?

I just, this is all just so, only in DC could they get away with this, I guess.

Yeah.

That's what I would say.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's like the deepest, darkest part of masculine insecurity that we're seeing on center stage. I guess that's true.
In that sense, it's masculine maximalism. Well, I guess.
It's the dark part of it. I don't think that it's the strong part of masculine.
First of all, I guess we have to put this in obvious gender tropes. The return of the white guys.
I think it is at Democrats' peril that they ignore the yearn for traditionalism, which seems to be a huge part of MAGA. I don't think that means a capitulation to it, but there is something shifting.
There's something going on socioculturally. I don't mean to quote Barack Obama, but here I go quoting Barack Obama, the idea that America should be for the waking and not just the woke.
I think there's something there about like, like a greater tolerance for, not the retrograde and not the diminishing, but something that seems more on its face traditional. I don't know.
I don't know how to say this in a way that is not controversial. You're in a safe space for this.
I'm not. Right here you are.
I want a podcast. But I do think that we have to examine what's happening here and why people elected Donald Trump who ran on the, I'm the daddy who's going to spank you.
That is not to say Democrats need to be daddies who spank people, but why is that happening? What is the platform of the left missing in terms of its inclusivity or its messaging or its policy that is opening up this space for this insanely ass-backwards version of the American family and American gender roles? Why, why is this happening? What is going so

wrong that this is the snapback that we get? I didn't plan to go here, but you opened Pandora's box, so we're going to do this. I do think that, to me, I just look at this, just silliness from Axios, but this broader question of the masculinity and the traditionalism, like you said, and how the democrats i think could regain some of this by just standing up to these guys with backbone and with authority there was this thing during the campaign on the left where it was like the democrats can redefine what it means to be a and like Doug Emhohoff and Tim Walls can do that by being nicer to people.
That feels like a challenging project because it's a project that some people will appeal to some people and that other people will mock and roll their eyes at. But I do think that there's a different way to kind of regain whatever being masculine, which is standing up to these fuckers and defending people and doing it unapologetically.
Right. And not having to feel like you're redefining masculine.
Yeah. Being masculine by being sweet.
I mean, I don't disagree with you. I guess, I guess I wonder like, what is that? Is that, does that look that different than what they, what Tim Walls tried to do? Do you feel like it was too overt? I think the media narrative is one thing, but just as a practical matter of strategy, I feel like it was like, he's a football guy, and he loves his wife, and he likes Kamala Harris, and he's going to roll with her and be her vice president.
It wasn't like, I am explicitly beta. And I'm here to tell you that being beta is just fine.
That's true. Even though it kind of was with Doug.
I love Doug. I love Doug.
So just say this, but like, there was a moment of like, you saw this in the discourse where it was like, we can model a different way of being a man by like standing up for your, like letting your wife take the lead. I'm all for people letting their wife take the lead and be tough.
But like, but there was a subtext of it, of, of men can step back. You think it was just trying too hard.
Of men can step back. Of men can, you know, men can be the, the P flag sponsor.
Like men can do that. But by making that the overt pitch, I don't know.
Yeah. I mean, I see what you're saying.
Like, make it, like, do it, but make it less obvious. Just do it in a more natural, less force, less, like, kind of like you're making a thesis argument for a different kind of masculinity to the American public.
Rather, just, like, behave. Show them.
Do. Or I don't know.
Maybe the right is, like, saying that, okay, you can be nice and be a good person, but also be tough and punch. I was talking to one of my former Jeb colleagues.
Wait, the right saying that? I don't think being nice is part of the message right now. That's what I'm saying.
But like the toughness part, I guess, is what I was saying, which was kind of missed, right? I don't know. I was talking to one of my former Jeb colleagues and I was like, is there anything we could have done? We were a little drunk and we were kind of rehabbing.
Very masculine. Yeah, it was very sad.
I'm not the remodel of masculinity here with my pearls, Alex. Sure you are.
I'm doing my best. And he suggested to me, he goes, you know, I think the one thing that he could have done is when Trump made fun of his wife, he could have punched him.
And I was like, literally? And he was like, literally? Like, had he punched Trump on the face on the debate stage? I mean, yeah, sure. That's where we need to go, Tim.
That might have been the thing that could have saved us. If we could have done one thing differently, maybe he needed to punch him.
I don't know. Yeah, I mean, so maybe what you're suggesting is a tougher edge with the same expansive ideas about gender.
But like an ass kicking version of a beta cuck.

I'm kidding.

Like,

yeah,

there's pearls and there's loving your wife and there's also punching mega

assholes.

Can we do all of those kicking someone in the nuts?

Can we do all,

I mean,

it's listen,

but can I just say part of it is not about politics.

It's just kind of where we are as a society and we're trying to fucking grapple our way through the darkness. It's complicated.
It's really hard. And I got to say, people who have been marginalized for a long time and are just getting heard and seen are like, yeah, fuck you, I'm not going back into the darkness.
And the people who are on the downslope, which is

to say, or feel like they're on the downslope or becoming less powerful in society are like,

yeah, fuck that. No way.
I like my seat just fine. Thank you so much.
And we're in a very

intense hinge point, I think, as a society and as a country. And we have it worse than most

because we're a really diverse, cacophonous democracy. So this is where we're at, regardless of partisan affiliation.
This is why you're good at this. This is why you're out in the field.
I like you in your circus mode, in your Trump land podcast mode. Yeah, it's exhausting.
Is it exhausting? Oh my God, I have no control over my schedule. I'm actually in the field.
I'm at the protest. I'm talking to the fired IGs.
I'm talking to the federal workers. I'm with the Jan Sixers

outside the jail.

I feel like this is your element, though.

Can I just say, it is so

hard. It's so worth it.

I felt like we needed to do

something different. Trump 2.0,

there are

people doing great work at MSNBC

HQ. I don't mean to diminish that at all, but

I just felt like, given my background doing

the field reporting, it was like,

dude, I just want to go out and understand what's

Thank you. people doing great work at MSNBC HQ.
I don't mean to diminish that at all, but I just felt like, given my background doing the field reporting, it was like, dude, I just want to go out and understand what's happening to this country a little bit better. And so in that way, it's been really worthwhile.
We're totally aligned on that. I'm wondering, is there something that you've picked up being out there that you feel like you might've missed had you been doing the studio grind? Oh yeah.
Well, I mean, I think just talking to the people who are at the center of all of this stuff, whether it's the January 6 families or Chris Rufo or, you know, migrants who are being targeted in raids and like, you know, federal workers who are like, I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow, whether I have a job or not. I think that it has cultivated a sense of, I always try and work from like an empathetic center, but I do think that I am, I feel the chaos and pain more acutely.
And I think that that's good for all of us who can get, as consumers and journalists who can get real desensitized to this. It's very abstract in a lot of ways and it's ongoing.
It's a fire hose of, you know, hell and chaos. And so this helps really distill.
I think it's really important to hear individual stories. And that's been profoundly enlightening for me.
But in terms of a hot take that I wouldn't have had, I got to say, and I think it's probably more on the Trump side that I've had the revelation. This guy, I think, has refashioned American politics and expectations that are set for presidents.
Like I don't agree with almost a single thing he's ever done, let alone in this second term, but he has delivered in a huge way. And the people who believed him when they voted for him feel so vindicated.
And it is a, both a cautionary tale, but also also for a Democrat who comes into office, the expectation I think can and should be, you better work your ass off ASAP.

And I don't think that it should be in contravention of the law or in terms of shattering norms

and institutions, but get her done.

Trump is going ham.

And his folks really believe in him, but even more so now than ever.

And they believe they're on the path of the righteous.

So I want to... Trump is going ham.
And his folks really believe in him, but even more so now than ever.

And they believe they're on the path of the righteous.

So I want to do a little confessional really quick on the empathy.

Because I'm happy to hear you say that because I feel like this is a shortcoming I have sitting here in my box.

There's the bad part of me inside that wants things to be be terrible because that's the only way anybody will learn and that's the only way that i can some like it might be the only way that we get through i guess not the only way but you know there needs to be consequences to like risky choices or else like whatever else we're in trump land forever and then then I listened to your show and like, I hear from the actual people that are suffering. Cause it's not really me that's suffering.
Like it's easy for me to say like sitting here. So I don't know.
I mean, do you, do you have that like tension inside of you or are those just my sins that I'm trying to deal with? I get a little pessimistic, a lot pessimistic after I'm out for a long time, just because I'm seeing this stuff, right? Like I'm talking to the moms who are like telling their kids before they go to school, if I don't come home or if I'm not here, this is where you go. Cause I might've been deported, right? Like, and as a mom, as a person in the world, like, can you imagine having that conversation with your kid? Like, who's like, you know, a little American kid going to second grade.
And it's like, what do you mean if you don't come home ever? So that's, right, like wrenching. But then I also look at the national narrative around this.
I don't see Democrats defending, anybody defending these people who are part of the backbone of the American economy. And it makes me wonder whether if we hit bottom, anybody's going to notice.
Because it, man, when you hear these stories and see what's happening out there, it's like, wait, this feels a lot like end times. Aren't we supposed to be bouncing back and realizing that we've erred and that this is all wrong? And then you get polling that it's like, oh, no, a vast majority, like a significant majority of the country is okay with all of this.
I think it's great. And it, I think, suggests that we have become a remarkably desensitized, really uncurious country that doesn't bother giving a shit about anyone who's not us.

And that makes me wonder whether hitting bottom for real for real is actually the way out of this.

All right.

Now you're speaking my language.

Okay.

You can have empathy and recognize what might be needed. Your episode that's dropping today is about the efforts to eliminate DEI from the federal agencies.
The war on woke, the war on woke. Yeah, there's one example of this one that's just, I guess, takes us back to the Russian dark comedy at the start, I guess, which is that some education department employees were placed on leave after taking diversity training.
But the end of the gag here is that the diversity training happened during Trump's first term. Yep.
So what else did you kind of uncover for that episode? Well, the Doge purge is like purge by keyword. It's like, is there anything in the resume that has the words dei in it regardless of whether you work on dei like did you go like for example these guys who went to training it's so wanton and haphazard and i think that's twofold one i think that the haziness of all of this the lack of standards for who's placed on leave and who isn't gives them like ample opportunity to take out people of color or women or people who just are not going to be seen as friendly to a Trump administration agenda.
And then for everybody who's not like a woman or a person of color or whatever, it just instills fear and like makes them all the more likely to say, you know what, I do not need to live like this. I'm taking the buyout.
I'm out of here. And it also, I think, fulfills, it ticks the box that Russell Vogt outlined, which is they want to traumatize federal workers.
They see them as the bleeding heart libs. The USAID stuff is so vengeful and so personal.
They want to punish this group of people who believe in civil service. So the chaos and the confusion in all of this is a multi-pronged assault on specific communities, the body of the federal government on whole, and the institution of civic service.
So it's very useful in that way. It's incredibly craven.
One of the other episodes you did was talking about the non-buyout buyout, this idea that Elon sends us the fork in the road email. It yesterday actually if you have to say by february 12th that you want out and then he sent an email last night that said the fork in the road is closed which i think is a mixed metaphor it's turned into a spoon i don't exactly know how that works but um according to them and you have to really say according to them at the beginning of everything at this point, because who the fuck knows.
But they said about 77,000 workers accepted the offer. But that's like a pretty standard amount of turnover for a given year in the federal workforce, or is it not? I mean, it's like, I think we, it's like the numbers are a little fuzzy, but that's like almost 4%, and their target was 5% to 10%.
So it's not nothing. So when you were talking to these folks, some people were doing it because...
Most of the people I talked to weren't. They'd been advised by their unions, don't do it.
We can't guarantee that you're... First of all, Congress hasn't appropriated any of these funds.
Who knows what this offer is? It could just be a way... This was such a good point in your piece, though, because it was trying me right which is like sure you can't trust trump ever but like in this specific case the government funding runs out next month march 14th right there's an ongoing battle about it so like they don't have the money appropriated to give them money for an eight-month buyout so it's it is a seriously just like you know as well offer them a car.
Like, you each get a car and a timeshare in Florida and like a salary forever. Like, none of the now, maybe they'll make good on it.
I don't know. But I also just don't think I don't think it's, right? Like, they're not done.
They're not done gutting the government. That's like 4% of the government that said, yeah, I'll raise my hand for this bog bogus offer.
But then they're going to also just fire people. So it ain't over.
No, it ain't. Let's talk about the pushback to it.
You spoke to just such a sweet inspector general who was just so sweet and earnest. God love him about caring caring about he was talking about how he wanted to like his job was concerns about efficiency and he was like my mission should be aligned with elon and donald trump's mission and i was just like poor guy you just don't you don't see it i got it they don't it's it's fake anyway you talked to some of the, you're at the protests, like talk about kind of what your sense is from the kind of the pushback at this point.
So I will say the inspectors general are not a bunch of like, liberal party animals, right? Like they're very circumspect. They're very by the book.
One of them who I talked to Michael Missal was the inspector general for the, where there's like, you know, it's a sprawling bureaucracy and you definitely want the hands on the captain's wheel in terms of waste, fraud, and abuse. There's like a number, I feel like there's constantly stories of scandals unfolding at the VA having to do with waste, fraud, and abuse.
And he is actually part of a group of several inspectors general who this week have decided to sue the administration for wrongful termination because there's a very clear playbook or set of protocols by which you can fire an inspector general and Trump of course didn't follow it. So I do think while you know they may not have the sharpest language and not have the most revelatory ideas about why they were fired and the mendacity of this administration they they're not going quietly into the night.
I mean, they are going to fight back in the, I think the most buttoned up, you know, lawful way possible, but they're raising their hands and legally and saying, you can't do this to us. That's resistance.
The resistance as we see is all in the courts, Tim. And like, I think there's like, there's the good and the bad, right? Some of the courts are going to be great.

If we get to the Supreme Court,

I think Trump has a real shot

of getting a lot of what he wants,

if not everything he wants.

So, I mean, the other part of the resistance

is the American public.

And I do think it's been distressing

to see the lack of engagement

on any of these topics

that should fire up the American citizenry.

So Dave Weigel, who I love, always read Dave Weigel at Semaphore. He has a great newsletter, Americana, I think it's called.
He wrote this this morning, and it is that the new resistance to Donald Trump's presidency had a plan. State attorneys general from Maine to Hawaii would rush to court to stop vast portions of the agenda.
He spent years promising to deliver. Weigel writes, there's a weird thing going on where the massive liberal lawyer alliance is winning cases, the White House is denouncing it, and the mood is that wimpy dems are blowing it.
I take his point, you know, and I think you're, you sort of explain this, right? Like there's this bifurcated, quote unquote, resistance effort, right? Like there is the legal effort to just like literally resist the letter of the rules. I won't even say laws.
The letter of the actions that have been put in place, you know, extra legally in a lot of cases by Elon and his cronies. But then like there's the political resistance, right? Right.
Which is this is bad, like convincing people that this is bad and harmful and that it should be rejected. Like that is the part that feels limp to me.
Very, very limp, very limp. I mean, I think the legal front, first of all, they've been ready for this, you know, before even the election.
These legal groups, they knew what was coming and they were prepared in the state AGs. Hats off to them.
They've been tenacious and very fast. But the courts are the courts and we are talking about politics here.
And I talked to Chris Rufo yesterday, the architect of a lot of Trump's anti-woke agenda, and he's like, we got the public is with us 100%. And until and unless there is real public disfavor and a sense that the public isn't with them, then maybe they're right.
I don't believe that they are because I fundamentally don't believe that the values that are being reflected in this administration are in sync with where the country that I know is at. But I mean, where is everyone? I think people feel demoralized and beaten down and confused and just overwhelmed.
But I also don't think that's an excuse because this is the country and it's all moving fast, but that's exactly why people need to get involved if they have an issue with it. This is why to me it's like both parts of the resistance need to work for it to be effective.
We have Preet on tomorrow, so we'll get deeper into the legal side of of this but like to me if only the legal side

is successful like that actually could be a long-term loss right it could be short-term gain

for people whose jobs are protected and that's great and they should you know everybody should

fight you know for their own interests and i support that but like you know let's say that

the courts end up blocking whatever 60 of what musk's tried to do right and they get 40 through and they're able to then say like,

oh,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, the courts end up blocking whatever 60 of what musk's tried to do right and they get 40 through and they're able to then say like oh these woke judges stopped us from doing more and because we only did 40 like there's actually not that much backlash because people don't don't really experience you know the totality of what their agenda was it could end up being kind of a win-win for them a little bit right if they're like okay well the courts blocked like the worst part of our ideas and so we get to do some of this other stuff and then kind of then make the courts the bad guys and use that as a rationale for further political victories and further illiberal actions i would say also like the more cases that the Supreme Court is really good at nibbling around the edges at a number of things in each of its opinions, right? Like, the affirmative action case, you know, with Harvard and admissions, you know, that's the jurisprudence they're working off of to do all this DEI stuff, right? Like, there's precedent set in all of these rulings. Honestly, regardless of whether they're favorable or not favorable, Clarence Thomas opens the door to, you know, maybe rescinding gay marriage and throwing that out the window too.
You don't want to have to get the whole Trump agenda in front of the 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court. Like that's not a great long-term play to your point.
And like public outcry matters. It really pissed Trump off that there was a women's march the day after his inauguration it really did and maybe i mean i don't know how that you know informed the decisions he made in the weeks thereafter but i do think the public saying this isn't us you can't do this in our name is really meaningful and it helps i think the machinery of democracy requires that i'm gonna say this so i'm blue in the face.
There might have been some cringe. We might roll our eyes at the pink pussycats or whatever now, but the resistance worked the first time.
I mean, he didn't repeal Obamacare. He got crushed in the midterms.
He lost in 2020. It didn't work in the sense of it didn't create a lasting coalition that prevented him from getting power again and that is terrible and people they democrats should reassess their strategies and what to do moving forward but just like the question of should we protest should we you do everything possible to try to stop him should we scream from the rooftops like there is like this conventional wisdom that is like congealing that like that isn't useful that like whatever and it's like i don't think that's true it doesn't have to be just a generalized march there are really specific things and specific groups of peoples and institutions that could be at the center of any and every protest and i think that that would have a maybe more meaningful impact in trump 2.0 than just a you know kind of a march on the mall like when i was outside I was outside the treasury department, it was like, it wasn't huge, but it was like a thousand people.
And it felt like, okay, this is, this is both a protest and a rally, right? This is in a meaningful inflection point for the Democrats and the citizens who are watching this and are not okay with it. And there needs, I think, to be more of that and should be targeted.
And there should be specific demands like you cannot do this thing. Generalized resistance may not be that effective this time around.
But man, he's given a lot of explicit examples to push up against. And you don't know what will spark things.
Like who would have thought that some CNBC guys rant would have turned into the tea party? You know what I mean? Like you don't know what ends up sparking something that has mass movement. Okay, one last episode was a couple weeks ago, but it was so, I don't know.
I was about to say powerful, but I don't know. Depressing maybe was,

it'd be a better word. I wanted to play a clip from one of the conversations you had

outside of the prison after Trump pardoned the January 6th.

You've been out here holding vigil. Who do you, who do you have inside?

I got Jonathan Pollack and Olivia Pollack. We came up, we were all as a family came up on January 6th.
out here holding vigil who do you who do you have inside i got jonathan pollock and olivia pollock

we came up we were all as a family came up on january 6th and then uh with our church and i got i got friends and michael perkins and uh uh and he's going to be released out of coleman in florida and then i got another buddy on an ankle monitor all my friends are locked up right now what What happened with your son and daughter?

Yes.

What exactly?

What are they in for? another buddy on an ankle monitor. All my friends are locked up right now.
What happened with your, is your son and daughter?

Yes.

What exactly, what are they in for?

They're in for about everything.

We looked up the exact charges

and just about everything isn't a bad description.

Jonathan faced 17 counts and multiple alleged felonies,

including assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon.

In Jonathan's case,

that meant charging at police with a flagpole. Do you think now that he's pardoned everybody, he can count on this group of people again? Oh, absolutely.
I would die for the man. I would have died for him that day.
I would die for the man. Woof.
Woof. I mean, I also, you know, to our earlier point, I, where are the Democrats? The asymmetry of the passion is like these folks, they feel like, you know, the sun has finally come out and they've been, you know, like there, I cannot tell you the amount of joy, the celebration, the feeling that, like, everything was right in the world again.
I mean, and I will say Trump, like, half the people I talked to had gotten personal phone calls from Trump. They had been invited to Mar-a-Lago.
Like, he does constituent outreach, Tim, in a big way. Dude is working.
I was hoping he was just going to golf. No.
Dude is working.

He did that press conference with the guy that was in jail in Russia, the prisoner swap.

Mark Fogel.

Yeah, Fogel.

It was like 11 o'clock at night.

He's out there doing it.

And guys having four press conferences a day, he's calling these people.

He's working.

That's bad news. Well, and his people are with him, which is why it's like, you got to hear from these people.
Because it's like, the other side has got to hear that and scrape itself off the floor and get back into the ballgame. This guy's saying he'd die for Donald Trump, right? Now, I'm not suggesting that people need to die for Chuck Schumer or whatever.
But man, can you show up to a protest or like do something i don't know the asymmetry is staggering scrape yourself up the floor it's gonna be a good place for us to leave it alex thanks for doing this no i'm sorry that's good i was like i was gonna i was like oh man i'm leaving people with the guy who's kid that's speared a cop is getting out of jail and he's thrilled about it. That's kind of a dark place to leave the episode, but scrape yourself off the floor is a good place to leave it.
So we'll do it with that. Okay.
We'll take it. You've got what? How many more days on the road do you have? A million? I don't know.
I've spent how many weeks of the Trump administration? I think four. I have till the end of April, whatever day it is.

Okay.

At the end of April.

We got Jazz Fest down here the first weekend of May.

If you want to come down, hang out, and have that purple drink with me.

I do.

Oh, my God.

You, me, and purple drink.

That perp.

All right.

I'm ready.

That sounds good.

If we don't do that, we'll have you back on for a 100-day recap.

Yeah, I'll be scraping myself off the floor then buddy all

right thanks so much to alex wagner everybody else will be back here tomorrow for another

edition of the borg podcast see you all then peace Gotta run through the racks with my man on my back I fell in love with the motherfuckin' racks I fell in love with the motherfuckin' stacks No, I cannot fall in love with no neck Hit from the back, then I pull out her tracks I come in first, no, I can't come in last I know nobody out here on my back Everything I say, I know that's a fact Gotta run through the racks with my man on my back I fell in love with the motherfuckin' racks I fell in love with the motherfuckin' stacks No, I cannot fall in love with no neck Hit from the back, then I pull out her tracks I come in first, no, I can't come in last I know nobody out here, ain't got my back Everything I say, I know that's a fact No hoes evert, yeah, I came with the cash Niggas, they mad cause they bitch on my ass Niggas, they mad cause I pulled up the racks Don't got my gun, then you probably get stabbed I do the crime and I don't need a mask I still walk around, but man ain't on my ass I ain't walk around with a whole lot of gas Not in the mall but I'm popping them tacks Yeah I move around like a alien None of my best friends they move like a felon Yeah I'm not a stitch I'm not telling them If you get locked up you know that I'm bad Gotta run through the wrecks with my man on my back I fell in love with them motherfucking wrecks I fell in love with the motherfucking stacks No, I cannot fall in love with no net Hit from the back, then I pull out her tracks I come in first, no, I can't come in last I know nobody out here got my back Everything I say, I know that's a fact Gotta run through the wrecks with my man on my back I fell in love with the motherfucking wrecks I fell in love with the motherfucking stacks No, I cannot fall in no neck It's when I'm back, then I pull out her tracks I come in first, no, I can't come in last I know nobody out here got my back Everything I say, I know that's a fact Who the racks put my man on my back? I fell in love with the motherfuckin' racks I fell in love with the motherfuckin' stacks No, I cannot fall in love with no neck It's when I'm back, then I pull out tracks. I come in first, no, I can't come in last.
I know nobody

out here on my back. Everything I say,

I know that's a fact.

The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing

by Jason Brown.