Sam Stein: A Bunch of Violent Keystone Cops

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Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.

Delighted to be here with my friend, the managing editor of this year, Bulwark, a man who is just this very week derided as repugnant by the, what do we call Stephen Miller? What's his job these days?

The most powerful aide in America.

The most powerful aide in the White House. Maybe somebody who is reflecting how he feels about himself on the inside and lashing it out and projecting it onto others on the outside.

And given that moment for you, I felt like

we should podcast together this week. I appreciate that.
I didn't realize that it could have been projection, but that makes a lot of sense. You should go into psychiatry.

Yeah. Well, he also called somebody Vile.
Who was it they called Vile? He called somebody else Vile. Vile, disgusting.
I think. Dan Goldman.
Yeah. Yeah.

Vile, repugnant, disgusting. We're going to get into my thoughts about Stephen Miller towards the end and some of the things AOC said about it.
But first, we have a ton of news.

I want to start with what's happening in Chicago. I did a little monologue on this yesterday.
We're going to go much deeper, I think, with on-the-ground folks tomorrow.

So I kind of want to focus on the political, but like the video

and the examples of overreach that we're seeing in Chicago are pretty shocking. I mean, mean, overreach is a fucking understatement.

Like a Black Hawk helicopter, people repelling from it, jumping into a building, knocking down, banging down doors, American citizens' doors, in addition to migrants' doors, masked thugs, menacing people.

I posted a video yesterday. It turns out to be an old video that's been resurfaced of a priest who is praying outside the ICE facility who gets gatted with a

pepper ball. Yeah, pepper ball.
And, you know, I think that there is a lot of consternation about kind of where this is headed. And I'm wondering what your biggest picture thoughts are.

Yeah, definitely a lot of consternation. I feel concerned personally.
You're consternated? You're consternated.

Heavy consternation. Is there like a pill for that? I think the problem that the issue that I have is that the administration doesn't want to calm the tensions.
It doesn't want to.

make things smoother. It doesn't want to like ease the frictions between itself and Chicago.
It's not reaching out to J.B.

Pritzker saying, hey, we're going to send these troops, but like, how can we do it in a way that's palatable for you? It wants to make things more tense.

It wants to amplify these horrific situations and scenes, and then it wants to publicize them.

It is invested in creating chaos because that chaos allows it to justify further amplifying their operations, their ICE operations particularly.

So that's what makes me really anxious here is that, you know, in different times, perhaps cooler heads might actually prevail. At least they'd have some conversations.

In the current time, there is an incentive for this administration to just keep amplifying it. And, you know, the scenes in Chicago are just the beginning, right? Yeah, to this point,

they don't want a calm end game. Like you're saying, they are inciting.
Like the violence is being incited by them because they want it. And I think Pritzker has been very strong on this.

It's a minor nitpick, but I just think it's an important messaging point. He was mocking the president, which I encourage and support.

I think it was yesterday or two days ago, and saying, like, that these plans are so crazy, like that, he must have dementia.

And I think that while Donald Trump certainly has psychological issues, the point here is that it isn't that. It isn't that.
This is an intentional plan.

They had a plan. This is what Trump wanted to do in 2020, really, during the Black Lives Matter protest, but there were cooler heads prevailing within his own administration, right?

And now everybody is agitating for this and they want to fight. Like they want there to be an excuse for for them to expand the operations.
100%.

And to what end is, I guess, the big unknown, right? So they're going to send Texas National Guard into Illinois? Are they going to invoke the Insurrection Act if they can't do it?

How much military are going to be in the streets of certain states and cities? And how long will they be there? And what does it mean if there are actually

more confrontations, right? I mean,

you and I were talking a little bit earlier about whether this is sort of the beginning of the beginning, like or the manifestation of our worst fears, or something in between.

And the thing is, we just don't know, right? I think we could try to imagine where it goes from here, but like it could go in some fairly dark directions.

There's something we do know that you mentioned the Insurrection Act. I was talking at the

live show that we had in DC last night, where it was great to see everybody. We had a great time.
Sorry, I couldn't make it. You know, we wanted you there.
Did you?

Not a lot of people asked about you, now that you mentioned it.

I was talking to somebody

who has a lot of sources and friends in, you know, in kind of these offices and law enforcement and federal law enforcement.

And what they said kind of confirms reporting and what I've heard from other places, which is like the amount of resources that are being redirected right now from within DHS, from within FBI, from within DOJ, like everything is being refocused towards their plans in Chicago, their plans in Portland, Memphis, maybe my city, New Orleans.

They're being redirected towards all immigration stuff. And without giving details, because I haven't, I confirmed this, like it's alarming.

Like people who have very serious jobs in security and keeping us safe and going after bad guys that are doing very bad things are like now instead being redirected towards like supporting the ICE mission in Chicago.

Oh, yeah. I have people who I know at DOJ.

who, I mean, early on, they were like, you know, they'd have colleagues who are like, you know, experts in national security law, like cyber, or just trying like regular old cases of corruption.

And they were being reassigned to immigration operations.

And at first, everyone's like, well, maybe that's like punishment because they don't like these people and they're just like putting them down on the, you know, a ladder.

But like in reality, it turns out that that was just prioritization. They just want to put everybody on immigration cases.

that's their priority.

So it's not just, you know, it's across the spectrum of agencies and you see it all over the place and you know we'll see how that works out because i got to be honest i don't think immigration is the only problem the government has to deal with our colleague adrian kirskio wrote about the propaganda that these guys are putting out on this which is pretty dark and i want you to talk about uh his reporting i talked about this a little bit yesterday but the thing that has really shook me For some reason, I can't like stop.

I found myself re-watching the video like several times.

I don't know why. Maybe it's like a self-punishment or

that I can't believe it's real or something, but it's hitting me at a emotional level. It's like the video that they put out with the Zach Bryan song, Revival, to troll Zach Bryan.

He's the country music singer who

does the anti-ice song. And like this video is like, they are gleeful about it.

It is like these video of people being chained and they're trying to use this song that's supposed to be about redemption and gathering with your friends and community and you and co-opting it in service of this propaganda campaign that celebrates the just grotesque punishment of people.

You know, we don't know who's in these images, but you would assume based on their track record, at least some of whom, their only crime was trying to come to the land of milk and honey and live out their lives.

But what else did it talk about, Adrian's?

I thought Israel was the land of milk and honey. Is Israel the land of milk and honey? I thought it was America.
You know, shining city on the hill. You know, sure.
The place where you can live.

What are you drinking? The place where you can live your dreams. Can we get a look at that bottle you're drinking that beer? Yeah, this is H2O with some peptides.

I heard about the peptides in yesterday's podcast. I've been trying to do that.

They're doing great work. Look at you.
You look great.

Adrian's piece was like both great and chilling.

The Zach Bryan thing, it was like, you know, that was like the perfect encapsulation of this administration because it was at once like petty to like a degree that I couldn't even imagine.

But also, to your point, it was, you know, they're celebrating like a very dark thing and they're just propagandizing it. Adrian's point, though, is that

the propaganda PR elements of the ICE operation are really sort of an underappreciated and telling component of what they're doing.

They know that they're in an information warfare ecosystem and that they have to compete with everyday citizens who are taking footage of ICE raids on their video. You see it all the time, right?

You know, you see pictures of like agents pointing guns at people. They're all over the place.

And so what DHS and ICE have done is they've put together, you know, really a sophisticated operation to just pump highly edited videos out into the ecosystem.

And they've collaborated with conservative influencers, bringing them on AIDS, helping them get access to ICE facilities, putting them on the roof of the Portland ICE facility so that they can...

both participate with the operations, get into scrums with protesters, you know, run videos of those scrums, and then take those videos and then go out to more mainstream conservative publications, mostly Fox News, and talk about it.

And creates this echo chamber in which ICE is glorified. Their mission is always taking down hardened criminals.
And they're trying to persuade the public that this is totally rational and justified.

I've never seen a government put this much attention into.

that the PR elements of what they are doing. I could think of one.
Well, our government. It was a few decades ago now.

You don't want to bring it up, but I could think of one government that put a lot of thought into their propaganda efforts. Yeah, the snuff films that they're putting out are really

sick.

And it's something. There's one where they have like this classical music background to it, and it's like, it's like

it really sent like chills up my spine because they're trying to make it seem like the ice operations are the sophisticated, you know,

highbrow operations. And it's just,

you know, it doesn't feel right. It is chilling.
Speaking of the influencers, a couple of thoughts on that. One that comes to mind is

one of the influences they brought out with them was a guy named Benny Johnson, who you might remember. I know who that is.
Yeah, a big conservative influencer. Did some work at TPUSA, other places.

Definitely not gay. Just want to make sure that's really clear.

He's very straight and masculine. And he did an AI video.

He went on the raid. And then he did a subsequent AI video where he's beating up immigrants.

And they're like a lot of these shirtless, oiled-up, tattooed men that he gets to beat up, which is again totally straight, like totally heterosexual.

It's not anything to do with any other issues that he might be dealing with. And

I don't know. I mean, that's

that's

pretty dark that that's where we're at. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
I just wanted to, I just wanted to mention it

because I was so impressed with his

mask,

his musk. Yeah, you mentioned the issue of projection projection earlier on.
I suppose

leave it at that.

Anyway, the other influencer thing I wanted to bring up, there was an Antifa meeting at the White House yesterday. Not after that.
Did you watch it? I just want to be clear.

Antifa was not invited into the White House.

It was a meeting.

It was a meeting with influencers, which they called independent journalists, who are mostly anti-whatever MAGA influencers that go and try to stir up shit with left-wing protesters and groups.

And they were invited to the White House yesterday, and

I couldn't stomach it. And it was just

too stupid for me. And I had to get my mind right for the show.
And I was just like, so did you, did you

engage any of that? Yeah, because I'm a sadist.

The point of the meeting, I guess, was that they announced that Attorney General announced that they were going to go after Antifa root and branch the same way they're going after the drug cartel.

So I don't know if that means that they're going to start sniping liberals from the sky like they're doing in the Caribbean or what she meant by that. But that was the main takeaway I had.

The details will be filled in later. No, there are some moments where like Trump at one point was like, we stopped free speech.
And people were like, what does he mean? What did he mean by that?

But what he meant is you can no longer burn the flag, which he didn't do.

There was another point where Trump seemed to be dozing off a little bit because I think even he got a little bit bored by it. And

the whole thing,

it felt a little bit like we had jumped the shark a little bit because all these people took 10 minutes to talk about how horrifying Portland was. And

I don't know. Yeah.
Trump brought up the one thing I noticed is he, like, they're still getting blocked by the judge there.

So shout out to, you know, one of the main elements of resistance, the judge and the Trump appointed judge in Oregon, and, you know, along with the sandwich person, one of our, one of our rare heroes of the year.

And I forgot about this. During that discussion about,

oh, yeah, the sandwich tosser. Oh, yeah, big hero.

During that conversation of Portland and how dangerous it is, et cetera, Trump said that he's under the impression they don't even have stores anymore, that they don't,

like when they open up new stores, they don't put glass. No, he literally says, Yeah, and then he goes, They don't put up glass windows.

Like, if they do put up stores, there's no glass, they just immediately start with the plywood.

There's no windows.

I just want to be clear: Tim's being verbatim. The quote is verbatim.
They don't even have stores anymore in Portland. What does he think? I mean,

I don't know.

I got a message from one of my little brother's friends from childhood i'm like but i'm an older sibling by a lot my little brother came around later and so i coached their basketball team when they're in kindergarten when i was like in high school yeah and so you know i like i love all those kids and they're like in their whatever in their 20s now and one of them was in portland and he was just like he's like sent me some pictures of his bike ride past the ice facility and he's like it's crazy he's like you don't even understand how little is actually happening like they're like the protests aren't even really that big and obviously there's also the video going on of like the the people in the cot the furries that were dancing around yeah the the furies and the dragon costumes and like there's one guy who keeps going around singing uh at them in a dragon costume which i find kind of humorous and they seem to chuckle at it too but they do have stars they do have stars

they do have stars i didn't ask tommy i missed tommy i should i'll confirm and report tomorrow i'll ask tommy if it's it's like when mike johnson said dc was a quote literal war

a literal war zone prior to trump's intervention in dc this is why it's just tough to balance all this right like on the one hand jvl writes this emergency triad earlier this week that's like, like, this is the sum of all fears, basically.

Like, it's like Texas is invading Illinois. May Insurrection Act maybe around the corner.

Like, on the other hand, like, they're talking about sending troops into a place where there's just like old hippies singing, this land is your land, and people and furries.

And, like, there's not like, and so it's comical. So, it's hard to kind of balance that in ahead a little bit.
That's a good point because sometimes I think to myself, these people are idiots.

Like, what are they talking about? obviously there are stores yes they even have glass windows and no dc you could actually go to a restaurant in dc like you could

and yet at the same time you know i'm sure there's a huge swath of the country i know there's a huge swath of the country that actually believes this

and you know so long as that's the case they get kind of a bit of support to do these

pretty outlandish things like sending Texas National Guard into Illinois. So I do agree with you.

I think it's a little bit hard to kind of figure out how because you know they are to a degree Keystone cops and we'll get into the Comey thing in a bit. I know because that's let's just do it.

Let's go straight into the Keystone Cops.

Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

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After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

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Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

So, yesterday, Jim Comey pled not guilty on both of the counts against him. He was allowed to return home on his own recognizance.
He was not.

Peter Navarro was very mad yesterday on some MAGA media outlets about how he was. Because he didn't get purpoi.
Yeah,

he got leg chains.

What do they call those the leg uh shackles he was shackled i guess and navarro was shackled navarro was shackled yeah i don't know and so he was not happy about that maybe that was it i kind of don't remember the details of peter navarro's crimes but he was pissed that jim comey just got to go home and comey's saying that he's going to try to get the case thrown out based on vindictive prosecution and i think that there's some pretty good evidence there on that and uh there's a story from the wall street journal before i get to do you have any thoughts on that before i get to the wall street journal

the journal story was really

you posted it, and I think I saw it when I landed in DC yesterday. And I

had to read it twice before

I re-posted it. I was like, is this really true? So I'm just going to read it to everybody.

Folks might remember when Trump sent that truth the bleat about like talking to Pam Bondi, where it said like Pam, and then it gave her some instructions regarding how she needs to arrest his foes.

And a lot of people, I just want to admit this right up front, a lot of people were out there on social media saying this was supposed to be a DM and Trump fucked it up.

And I looked at it and I was like, no, I think Trump's just weird. And like, was like posting a public,

like a public declaration and just addressing it to Pam.

I was wrong. Funded accountability.
It was an errant DM.

On September 20th, Trump meant to send a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to prosecute James Comey and his other favored targets, according to U.S. officials, familiar.

We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and credibility, Trump wrote.

Trump believed he had sent Bondi the message directly addressing it to Pam and was surprised to learn it was public, the officials said.

Bondi grew upset and called White House aides and Trump, who then agreed to send a second post praising Bondi as doing a great job. What in the fuck? How is this real?

There's a lot to unpack here. One, like, I'm with you.
I'm with you. I admit, like, initially, I thought this was kind of like performative, and he's like pretending it's a DM, right?

But he meant it to go public. So,

you know,

even my depraved mind, I couldn't imagine the fuck up like that. I mean, our level of TDS, like, this is something where people are like, you guys have TDS.

You think everything, you think Trump is way worse than you actually, you know, as who wasn't one of the guys from

posting the other day about how the bulwark can't say anything nice about Trump and they've totally lost their minds. And I was like, I was giving Trump the benefit of the doubt here.

Trump's actually stupider than I realized.

So there's that. There's the fact that, like,

this is not me giving kudos to Trump because he doesn't deserve it.

But, like, my dad, who's like, you know, in his early 80s, so a little bit older than Trump, but not too much older, he wouldn't know how to fucking DM. Like, Trump's way too online.

He needs to be less online.

Like, anyone who's 79 shouldn't be DMing, is my theory of the case.

I guess also, but in addition to the DMing, though, I thought that it was like Trump would not possibly,

like, as corrupt and stupid as he is. I just call it.
I could not imagine that.

Yeah, I cannot imagine that he possibly would have thought that the right, the right vehicle for sending her a directive would have been truth social DM. I know.

And then he would say to her, Pam, you must prosecute Comey in a very performative manner. It's so weird.

Like, if I had to rank the mediums I would have done to send that directive, I would have gone first with like

phone or in person,

phone,

maybe an email, signal, encrypted app,

signal. I don't know, even a text, a DM over Truth Social is like way.
Park bench meeting, you know, like one of those things where you kind of both sit together. I don't know anything.

Like, it just was so, it's just so bad. And then, I mean, obviously, there's the, it's bad to direct your attorney general to prosecute your enemies.

Yes, it's bad to communicate sensitive information over Truth fucking social run by Devin Nunez. But also, like, it's kind of underappreciated here, but Pam Bondi, like,

she's upset that he made her look bad. It's like, that's what got your goat.
You need him to send a secondary post being like, Pam, you're doing a great job.

It's like, it's like, no, stop directing me to do prosecutions is the problem. It's not that you said I'm not doing a good job.
Oh, my God.

I know it's eye-rolly to do this at this point, but like, how many minutes of Fox News was spent about the tarmac meeting?

Do you need to do that? I mean, I don't? Well, I mean, the tarmac meeting

Hillary Clinton's use of emails,

all this. The president is directing the Attorney General to prosecute his political foes via Truth Social DM.

An errant DM got publicized where he's trying to be like, ma'am, you must prosecute these people. I hate.
Did he? We need to pull this up live. Did he call him Shifty Schiff in the DM? I was like,

it's like he can be a break character. He's just like,

it will have to be.

I'm going to have to call him Shifty shift now think about while you look it up i'll just say pam bondi was on the hill uh this past week as you know for the judiciary oversight hearing and she was so indignant about everything and she refused to admit anything to anyone and all this stuff but what she did admit well i think on her question was like i just want to be clear sunset was like i want to be clear is that um is that pam you

and she was like I will concede that's probably me. It's like, yeah, it's probably.
She fucking DM'd you.

I will concede that that is probably me.

That is some tough stuff. Hold on.
I'm pulling up. I tested, just so you know this,

I went to test true social DMs just to see what the user experience was like and

whether it would be confusing. Who'd you DM? I DM'd one of our staffers, Colin Jones.
Appreciate Colin for also being on truth with me.

Turns out I could have DM'd myself because I found out when I was trying to sign on that. I have two true social accounts.
I forgot about one.

One is titled Cuck Slayer and the

other one is titled Fred Doesn't Love You. Why?

Because Fred doesn't love him.

Oh, Fred Trump? Fred Trump. Yeah.
His dad doesn't love him. So one is Cuck Slayer.
The other is. So I could have just DM myself a little bit better.
From Cuck Slayer.

Well, you know, I mean, it's not always, I'm not always coming up with my best when I'm signing up for Truth Social, which apparently I've done twice. So anyway, I tested it out.
And

yeah,

it's not that easy to accidentally send a DM, I guess is my point. So, I mean, like, he really was struggling to look at it.
He did say shifty shift. I found it here.
So, this is in the alleged,

he's DMing his attorney general saying,

what about Adam, quote, shifty shift? Oh, come on.

How is that real? A woke rhino. He goes after also.

I'm starting to doubt the journal story. You don't DM that way.
Come on.

Unless you really can't break character, unless this just is who he is and he can't help it. I think maybe he he can't break character.

Then he signs it. He signs it, President DJT.

Do you think he does that in his other messages to people? Like,

Pete, nice job on the no fats and no femmes speech, President DJT. And then he like puts a silhouette of a woman and writes his signature where the pubes should be.

Just like what he does. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm feeling pretty good about Jim Comey's case.
We appreciate you, Jim Comey. I'll tell you, at the show last night, big cheer for Jim Comey.
Jim Comey is being rehabilitated right now.

Yeah, I was going to say,

classic DC 2016 Jim Comey love, right? Or maybe the

special bulwark love for Jim Comey, and this might be our few, the proud, those who can tolerate Jim Comey. All right.
Anything else on that? Cuck Slayer. No, let's go on.
Let's move on.

Yeah, all my topics. Comey, Chicago, Cuck Slayer, Ceasefire.
I'll seize. We're going to get to Candace later.

Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone. We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Winter is the perfect time to explore California, and there's no better way to do it than in a brand new Toyota hybrid.

With 19 fuel-efficient options like the All-Hybrid Camry, the RAV4 hybrid, or the Tacoma hybrid, every new Toyota comes with Toyota Care, a two-year complementary scheduled maintenance plan, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and of course, Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Visit your local Toyota dealer and test drive one today. Toyota.
Let's go places. See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.
We have a ceasefire. Yeah.

I have a lot of thoughts about it, but I just want to let you cook. What do you think about the news this morning? I want to just stress up top, like, kudos to the president if this can hold.

Honestly, it would have been more amazing if this was earlier, but it's a

nearly impossible conflict to solve. And it has taken way too many lives.
It has caused way too much hardship. It is a human rights catastrophe that has been unfolding for two years now.

And anything that can bring it to an end, you should applaud. And I have no problems applauding that and I hope it holds.
It really, stepping aside from the politics,

it really just, it's like really sad too, right? Like I'm incredibly grateful and happy to see this happen, but it does provide a place for you to sort of think back and say, what actually was done?

in the past two years? What was accomplished? Like,

was any of this really worth it? And obviously, you know, Israel had to respond to what happened on October 7th, but what objective did they achieve here?

And we'll see if Hamas agrees to the phase two component, which is they do need to willfully give up their arms and their role in governance. And maybe that's worth it for Israel.

But two years of incredible, horrific bloodshed, thankfully is coming to an end. But it is a reminder that this shit has been horrible, horrible.
I'm mostly with you on that.

For starters, I just want to say I'm very happy the hostages are coming home. And I think that those images are going to be really powerful.
And it's been way too long.

So, um, anybody that's involved in getting that done, kudos to them.

When you talk about it holding, like, I just want to say, like, part of the reason it's like frustrating to talk about this at all, like, for me, is that in particular, is that I just, I don't trust any of the people involved in this at all.

Like, I've, and, and so maybe they will all surprise me.

And all the people being like Trump, Witkoff, Kushner, BB, Hamas, obviously, Cutter, like there's no player in there that I'm like, that's somebody that I, I really feel like is a reliable good faith actor.

And so I'm just like, I don't, okay, like, we'll see. Maybe they all will surprise me.

And like, this is a good step. I just, I think that also

TBD, I mean, like, I'm at Siegel. Did you ever read him?

He's got this newsletter. It's called It's Noon in Israel, maybe, I think is what it's called.
He's like super plugged in to, you know, I was asking folks who are kind of more sympathetic to Israel.

Like, I was like, I want to read more from that perspective, right? And like, what's a good thing to read? And they suggested this newsletter. And this guy is very plugged in with BB government.

And he wrote this, which I thought was interesting. He goes,

there's no phase two, actually. That's clear to everyone.
Phase two might happen someday, but it's unrelated to what's just been signed. The deal signed now is a hostage release deal.

It doesn't imply anything about the future. Theoretically, fantasies, that's the word he used.
This could come true.

Emiratis and allies dismantling tunnels, an international body formed, Tony Blair governing Gaza. Obviously, this is from his perspective.
That wouldn't really be my fantasy.

All this could happen in theory, but it's not part of the current negotiations. What we have now is a hostage deal and a ceasefire while talks continue in good faith.

I saw somebody who was from the more

plugged in on the Hamas side or the Palestine side, whatever you want to call it, basically was saying the same. So I don't know.
So I'm like, I'm a little skeptical.

Dan Shapiro, just one other thing.

Because I've just been trying to read people who are actually experts on this, which is not me this morning. Dan Shapiro is Biden's envoy to Israel.
He's in foreign policy.

And he has a piece this morning that basically says Trump's style, this kind of madman theory, like demonstrates that it kind of worked more for like forcing people to the table on this and getting this part done, but that it's like a less effective method for like the more sustaining process in the future, which I think is probably a fair analysis.

So anyway, I don't know. What did you make of any of that? Well, I want to talk to Dan.

He might come on to Bulwark Tigs if we can get him. But

yeah, I don't disagree with any of that. And I think it's important to remember that there was actually a kind of ceasefire deal that took hold in the spring with Trump, and then it fell apart.

And so, and then, of course, over the summer, you had all, you know,

reports of mass starvation in Gaza and questions about whether Israel is just going to go and overtake Gaza City.

So yeah, there's no reason that anyone should be completely optimistic about long-term stability in the region.

And frankly, you know, Netanyahu has already right-wing cabinet members saying this is not good. He's got pressure from the right.

It's unclear if there's any moderate left party in Israel that could apply the same amount of pressure. And then, you know, you have Hamas that will,

if they remain in any sort of political power position, is not going to just go quietly. So tons of question marks surrounding this

real doubt about long-term sustainability of anything here. But a cessation of the fights and the return of the hostages is fundamental.

And you can't move to any phase two unless you get to phase one. And so,

you know, I go back to thinking these hostages, this deal probably could have been achieved, you know, a year ago, a year and a half ago. It really could have.
And tens of thousands of people.

The outlines of it are not that different from what Blink Jen was proposing.

it is exactly it's exactly what you would suspect it's we're going to give you back hostages dead and alive you're going to give us back prisoners that you've taken we're going to have a sort of retrenchment of the idf forces you're going to have a buffer zone and then we'll talk about a longer-term political settlement it's not i mean it's not that complicated actually

and

instead they spent a year and a half going back and forth allowing Israel, frankly, to you know cause an incredible havoc in hopes of getting something better.

And we ended up at a place where I think pretty much everyone suspected we would end up if we ever got to a resolution.

In a way, it makes me really sad again to think that what was lost.

To your point about the sadness, I saw this post from Mark Palomaropoulos, who's a former CIA guy, which I really thought it was a good perspective as you kind of think about obviously the good news that the hostages are coming home.

But then he writes, like, the trauma and horror of all this is about to become much more real for the public.

Hostages will return after two years in captivity, likely with terrible accounts of their suffering. They're going to look horrible.

And then he said, ostensibly, we will see whether now journalists will be able to enter Gaza and they'll be able to witness, you know, a lot more firsthand the devastation that we're seeing in Gaza, you know, the trauma of that, the toll on that, like how that kind of impacts phase two negotiations and what comes next.

And I just think that there's a lot of potential, you know, for fallout there. Yeah.

Humanities can be pretty terrible to each other. It's it's awful.
Are you ready for this, Mickey Coss? I want to do one piece of objective. Why are we going to have Mickey?

Okay, well, he was the one, he was. I remember who it was.
He was the one that said the Blork never can compliment Trump. Here's my one, here's my one piece of thing: Mickey.

I have a history with Mickey, and that hurts. Okay, well, Mickey, here you go.
I'm going to compliment Donald Trump. We're really lucky that Donald Trump wants a peace prize and not world domination.

Like, there's a version of Trump that is much more focused on his legacy being whatever, Greenland or U.S.

expansion to Panama or whatever, a Putin-style obsession with their kind of legacy of expanding empire. It's not crazy to imagine a version of Trump that's

like that. And that's the main thing that is their obsession.
And the fact that

his self is an assessment of his self-or what he wants to be known for is as a deal maker because of his real estate time, because he wrote a book, The Art of the Deal.

It's kind of like, thank God God he wrote a book, The Art of the Deal, because the fact that, like, that is what his obsession is, he wants to be seen as the guy that gets peace deals done.

Well, I'll take it. It could be worse.
How about that? You make a good case for the Nobel Committee to not give him the prize, to just dangle it out there to keep him going. Okay.
Yeah.

And I hear they supposed to have to decide on Monday, so the timing on this isn't great for them. So maybe, maybe 2026, Donnie.
Yeah, 2026.

I'm assuming you've seen all the over-the-top members of Congress rename the Nobel Prize, Peace Prize, the Donald Trump Peace Prize.

Yeah, I saw Javier Malay, the Argentine leader that we just bailed out with $20 billion

is like, I will officially nominate Donald Trump. It's like, okay, I'd rather keep our 20 billion than

have.

Also, he's been nominated by like 18 different people at this point. It doesn't take much to nominate the guy.

Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone. We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Winter is the perfect time to explore California, and there's no better way to do it than in a brand new Toyota hybrid.

With 19 fuel-efficient options like the All-Hybrid Camry, the RAV4 hybrid, or the Tacoma hybrid, every new Toyota comes with Toyota Care, a two-year complementary scheduled maintenance plan, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and of course, Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Visit your local Toyota dealer and test drive one today. Toyota, let's go places.
See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

All right, back to our usual bullshit. This is real zigzags.

It's not like he's only about PE steals.

um we are we're we are still currently bombing people in the caribbean bombing people in the caribbean and the president of colombia gustavo petro put out a statement claiming that one of these strikes had hit a colombian boat with colombian citizens inside we'll see we don't you know we don't know the thing to me that is the most alarming about all this is like

This is an illegal war about nothing. Like the war is about nothing.
Like we are bombing boats boats out of the Caribbean with no like real objective.

And I guess there's some reporting that we have an objective of regime change in Venezuela, which is like, okay, I guess maybe we'll see if that's what Marco Rubio tries to push through.

But like it's insane that we are just bombing boats for like no real reason. The fact that you said we don't know if there were Colombian citizens is a problem, right?

Like you should probably know who you're bombing before you do it.

I'm laughing. Why am I laughing? It's so fucked up.
I don't know. Do you have a therapist? That might be something to talk about with the therapist while you laugh.
No,

it's a defensive mechanism, obviously. It is.
Can I tell you something? Gosh, I'm going to get in big trouble with my mother for bringing this up. Don't worry.
Don't tell her, everybody.

She was a respiratory therapist. Okay.
And she was like, this was a big problem for her. in the hospital, which is like in moments of like seriousness

and discomfort, she would laugh. Yeah.
This is a problem.

This happens all the time with my kids. I don't know if this happens with your kids, where it's like when they get super angry and they start like freaking out.
Like, I just can't help but laugh.

And that just makes them madder, like much, much matter.

And then that makes me laugh even harder. And my wife has to be like, leave the room, leave the room, Sam.
And I just, I can't, I can't stop.

That does not happen to me on the peacemaker in my household. You're the Donald Trump on the peacemaker.

Blessed be the peacemaker. The cuck slayer.

No, back to Columbia and the boats. It's crazy.
They tried to put a war resolution. They did put a war resolution on the Senate floor, Adam Schiff did, and it got voted down.
And

essentially what's happening here is that the Pentagon's just basically bombing targets without giving us any indication of who's on these boats.

And essentially, and basically saying, well, trust us, these are drug smugglers, and we're doing this because it's a war on fentanyl. There's no urgent drug crisis.

There's no evidence that this is fentanyl. They don't, this is cocaine.
This isn't fentanyl. The fentanyl comes from China and Mexico.
And people can make it here.

Like, there's nobody's even making the accusation that there's a Venezuelan fentanyl trait. Correct.
So what? We're bombing people because of cocaine?

That's what we're like, there's a Coke crisis down the country.

I think your point is probably valid, which is there's a larger angle here around Venezuela and trying to provoke them to do some sort of response that could be escalatory. And then.

you have sort of some rationalization for, you know, doing something even grander, like regime change.

But, you know, beyond a few members, I know Todd Young voted against the war resolution, but said he was deeply concerned about what's going on.

Like Rand Paul has been good on this, but like, that's it. And you got to be like, what is the, we say this all the time, but like

your job as a member of the Congress is oversight, is authorizing these types of things and to just basically abdicate that and say, yeah, go ahead and bomb. It's just, what are you doing there?

Have some dignity. Do we know who's for this? I guess it's basically just Marco.

It's Marco and Pete Hegseth wants to get butched up because there is this internal tension, right, within the administration. Marco, definitely Hegseth.

But there was a lot of reporting about Rick Grinnell and him having some sort of different agenda. I didn't get too deep into it.
I don't know if you saw it. I don't know.

I guess there is some tension in there. But again, this goes back to the PR elements of it, too.

Every time they blow up a boat, they absolutely rush to disseminate it on all their channels. They're like, look at us.
This isn't actually that much of a zigzag from what my point about Trump.

Like the administration simultaneously

wants to represent Donald Trump as his deal maker who does a lot of peace deals. And like that's important to Donald Trump and to his own identity.
And so they want to project that.

But they also want to project that they're tough guys, right? Fuck around and find out.

And so you can't be a fuck around and find out guy and also a give peace a chance, blessed be the peacemakers guy, right? Like there's, there's an internal tension there.

And so like they're trying to solve that, I think, by being like, we're the peacemaker guys in these overseas deals, but in our little sphere of influence here with the migrants and with the drugs, we're going to butch up.

I think that's what's happening. I disagree a little bit.

Maybe, but I think a twist on it is I think they believe that by being overtly tough to the point where you're blowing boats up and, you know, detaining and arresting anyone who looks brown.

uh or illegal here that you can create peace right like that's how they would rationalize it is you just get rid of, you know, just eliminate all the badness from the world and you can then live in some sort of utopia.

But of course, that's not how reality works. We're taking a hard turn into politics world.
But before I get to kind of some campaign stuff, did you get to do anything on Candace yesterday?

Or was that just JVL and Sarah?

So I edited Will. I edited his newsletter, but I didn't do the video.

You've not spoken about it. I've not spoken about it.

I think we should do it. I was weighing back and forth whether or not

we should talk about Candace, and I think we should. I I think people deserve it.
It's Thursday. We've had some heavy material.
Candace is a kind of a medium now between the living and the dead.

And I'd like to hear from her. Had a vivid dream this weekend, and Charlie came to me and he told me that he was betrayed.
And so for me, you don't have to believe that,

but I do believe that. And

it was the immediate sense I got actually.

And I don't know who exactly it is that betrayed him, but I also felt in the dream that it is soon going to be revealed, that it's actually inevitable that it is going to be revealed, that there is nothing and no one that is going to stop the truth from coming out, and it is going to have international consequences.

Take that to the bank. Quote me on that.
We're quoting you, Candace. It's going to have international consequences.
What do you think? Who do you think might have betrayed Charlie internationally?

Sam, do you have any thoughts on

obviously the Jews?

And Jews.

Let's be clear.

She's been dangling this idea that, you know, Israel is responsible for the assassination and Charlie was getting pressured by Jewish donors because he wouldn't break ties with Tucker Carlson.

And you should just, for folks who actually like this stuff, go read False Flag. Will's got it covered.
It's so gross. And,

you know, some of the shit that they throw at each other, I can't even understand.

I will say, I understand the idea of someone coming to you in their dream and saying that you've been betrayed happens to me a lot.

Did the Jews betray betray you? No, no, no, no, no. In my dreams, my newsletter writers come to me and say,

you betrayed me, Sam.

And I get haunted by that. So, no, Candace is a little bit nutty.

The other thing, though, and Will's writing about this today, about Candace, which I think we, you know, we're rightfully laughing at this

seance. I'm not laughing.
Yeah, you are. I'm taking very seriously.
Your girl, Megan Kelly, that you seem to have some sort of relationship with online.

Will's writing about her today. Megan Kelly's under a lot of pressure to

criticize Candace Owens for what she's saying about Charlie Kirk because Megan Kelly's friends Charlie Kirk. Megan Kelly won't do it.

In Will's theory of the case is that Candace Owens is just too powerful now. Yeah.
Just too powerful. This is important to like, why do we talk about this? And this is these guys' numbers are huge.

And I want to play a quote from Tucker next, and I have a little bit more. But Sam Altman, I talked about this on yesterday's show.
Sam Altman did an interview with Tucker, which is insane. He did?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I guess you didn't listen to yesterday's podcast. You probably should.

Jim Halton, who might end up being the most powerful private sector individual in the country, probably, if he's not already, is likely to be soon.

He felt like he needed to sit down with Tucker. Like the numbers that Tucker and Candice do are crazy.
Throw Nick Fuentes in the mix, man, because these people are really, really powerful.

They have incredible online followings. And, you know, the power brokers in conservative media have shifted even.

We thought things were like really bad heading into this administration since this administration, the real power brokers in consumer media are just even further out on the spectrum.

And Fuentes and Owens are two of them. Benny Johnson is obviously becoming one or trying to become one.
The Megan Kellys of the world, who were

from more mainstream outlets and actually believed in some version of reporting and I guess the truth at some point in their careers, they no longer are.

you know, the real power brokers. They understand where it is.

Well, no, and that's why Megan's dabbling in that because Megan's numbers, if you look at the bench of heroes, like like numbers are trying to decline. Like he's the responsible one.

Like that's where things have happened is like, you know, relative to this other stuff. Speaking of irresponsibility, I just want to play a Tucker clip as well.

This is from, I believe, this week's show. Why is America moving towards civil war?

For the same reason, all countries that wind up in civil war get there because the differences between their population, between people within their borders, becomes too great to bear.

People decide, I have nothing in common with the people who live near me, and I don't want to live near them anymore. In other words, diversity, difference, is actually intolerable to most people.

Not necessarily racial diversity, though sometimes that too, but diversity of all kinds. It is not our strength.
In fact, it is without question our weakness and has always been.

I want to talk about the merits of what he's saying really quick and why I'm worried about it. But just before that, I just want to flag a little tell for everybody.
Anybody who

watched rounders, you know, and knows that sometimes poker players have a tell for Cody KGB, it was the Oreo that he ate.

Can you do your Malkovich Russian accent? I can't do it. Malkovich Russian accent.
So his tell is eating the Oreo. The tell for Tucker and Candice and these people is the word actually.

It's the word actually. Tucker does this all the time.
He's like,

diversity is not our strength, actually. It's our weakness, actually.
Candace is like, in my dreams, the spirit of Charlie Kirk told me he was betrayed. And I believe that, actually.

If you feel like you need to say actually,

you don't really believe it, I don't think.

I think that is your way of just

of trying to emphasize a point that you know is ridiculous. Anyway, so that's just a little tell for everybody.

Just a little tip when you're out there listening to these guys actually is there is their tell.

The Tucker Civil War thing is pretty alarming because it's something I've brought up a couple of times, but I just want to keep chewing on it because the Ken Burns interview, he was talking about this optim, the thing that worked in the revolution was that a lot of those, a lot of the

principles of the founding and the Declaration were like these aspirational principles that obviously these guys didn't live up to, and that some of them didn't even really believe could be lived up to.

But, like, putting that idea kind of made it happen, right? Like, they manifested something that they wanted to happen imperfectly.

And I'm very concerned about the inverse of this happening right now. This stuff wasn't happening before.
Like, people were prominent, people were not talking about how civil war might happen.

And I worry that, like, that, just that idea getting out

kind of leads, in some ways, ways sort of leads us to a place where like it becomes reality because it is it is in the ether i'm not saying that we're imminently at risk of civil war but it's very dangerous and i think that it's important to rebut it rather than kind of be like oh tucker's crazy well that's a good point actually

thank you actually actually thank you everyone's everyone's throwing that good point that's my tell everyone's wrong

it wasn't a good point no uh i will disagree i will disagree with you on one front Okay, agree.

I don't think this is all that new. I feel like there's always been a strand of people, including in the commentariat, who have argued that

diversity is not our strength, that we are destined for civil war, that we should succeed, or that our populations aren't meant to be integrated. I do think that's just a strand of our history.

I think the difference here is that the dissemination of these viewpoints is a lot wider. I think some of it is embraced by by more

official government entities and politicians. I think people are trying to take advantage of the sense of division, obviously, as Tucker is doing right here.
And so

that makes it scarier and it makes it more likely to cause real strife and problems. But

I don't know if it's necessarily all that distinct from other parts of our history. Actually, I think you're wrong, actually.

I think it's, I mean, not made on our history, but in present days, I think it's pretty,

I think the proliferation of it is noticeably different from when we were growing up. Well, we grew up in the 90s when everything was fucking awesome.
Yeah, that's true.

And I want to be, can I be corny for a second? Sure. Because it is.

Not only dangerous, it's just fundamentally wrong. And I think it's important that we both rebutt them, but also mock it.

I was outside of 30 Rock last week, and

a woman came up to me from Georgia in a nice southern accent. She just, she was excited excited to see me.
She watched MSNBC. It was really sweet.
You know, did it, said hi, did a little selfie.

And as I was waiting for my Uber, she said,

you know,

I'm up here and I just, I don't understand why where everyone's so at their throats, each other's throats.

She's like, I'm walking down the street here in New York and there are people of every race and a different, you know, rich people and poor people.

And she says, everybody seems happy and fine and vibrant. Everything seems normal.
Things don't seem dangerous in any way. And I don't understand why these things have spiraled out of control.

And like, that is a corny sentiment that is just right. That is just the correct.
Like, it is a corny sentiment that is correct. We are all fine.

The vast, vast majority of people, even those people that disagree with us in the country, are not looking for a civil war, are not interested in blood, are not interested in revolution.

And we should mock these people that say that they want it. And Tucker should just have to walk around liberal places.

And I think he would realize that people would maybe shout nasty things at him, but things would be fine.

It'd be fine. Yeah, well, a lot of what Tucker is doing is just sort of self-fulfilling, right? Like because you talk about, you know, how we're so close to a civil war, you're forementing it, right?

Like, and also, as you know, like, I'm a big believer in the fact that people can, if they just talk to each other, actually can, you know, realize that there's a collective humanity and that we're not totally different and we can be civil to each other.

like just have a civil conversation. I believe that.
I fundamentally do believe that.

It's why I stupidly call people up all the time just to just talk about why they call me, you know, a piece of shit on Twitter. And also, it's self-refuting.

Donald Trump's own rise for whatever you want to say about Donald Trump has been built on the idea that you can convert people who are liberal into being MAGA.

Like, that's it. Like, he constantly boasts about all the Hispanics and black voters he's brought into his tent, all the disaffected liberals,

Maja people who were once tree huggers and hated Skittles because of the red dye and now love MAGA.

Like Donald Trump's entire political existence is predicated in the idea that you can convert people to your cause and that we are not so rigid.

Now, I don't think Donald Trump's actually bringing the country together, but that's another point.

I think what Tunker says is just fundamentally wrong. And I think you're right.
He should be mocked for it because it's so cynical.

and it's so small in its scope and it just is so it's such a negative reflection on how he views people, not on people themselves. I want to read one other critique of

Candace and Tucker. Sure.
It was from Dinesh D'Souza. Very insightful point, I think, that he made.
Dartmouth, my man. Yeah.
Oh, yeah.

Fellow Dartmouth.

Fellow Dartmouth one. Was it Dinesh that

did a lot of anti-gay stuff, the newspaper? And Dartmouth was at Laura Ingram. He was in the love triangle with her.

I think they were at the review together, and it might have been anti-gay, but it also might have been pro-apartheid. I'm not totally sure.
Is it a pro-apartheid thing?

There's a big thing about shantytowns and the college. I haven't been trying to pitch a story to Hollywood.
I know we have some Hollywood people that listen about

Dinesh and Laura Ingram in college and then how they got into a love triangle with Ann Coulter and have it be like a comedy, like a romance comedy, a rom-com.

Wait, if you just set it to a musical of some sort and it could be the next Tamil, I think

it would do really well. Hollywood, just talk to me if you're interested in that.
Here's a Dinesh. Where's Blue Manuel?

Here's Dinesh. I can't comment on Candace because it's quite obviously a freak show.

Hard to argue with that. On Dinesh, agree with that.
It's like driving on the highway and seeing a farmer having sex with a sheep.

Okay, you losing me a little bit.

Then he goes on.

I just couldn't believe he said that. Okay.

All right. So I'm just going to repeat in case he'll miss it.
It's like driving on the highway and seeing seeing a farmer having his sex with a sheep.

And he goes on, you don't want to look, but you can't look away either.

Really, you can't look away either. Candace.
Wait, can we get to the reply? I just want to take a moment on that tweet.

One,

how fast are you going on the highway?

That you can even see it. Like, are you going.

What kind of highway are we talking about?

Where is the farm? Why is the farm so close to the highway? And why is the sheep right so close to the road? Get those sheep away from the road. Why do you want to watch?

Dinesh is rubbernecking, swamming on the brakes.

He's thrusting his cock into that sheep. Is that good?

Honey, hold on, put it in reverse. That's a farmer fucking a sheep.

Like, what is Dinesh talking about?

Horrible.

Where's the sheep's vagina? Okay, um, Candace, uh, or is is it a butt? It's the butt, I guess. I don't know.
The gender of the sheep is obviously.

Candace, Candace replies, who openly admits that they wouldn't look away if they watched a person having sex with a farm animal? Fair point by Candace. Dinesh, I was being humorous.

Candace, humor is typically landed upon with relatability. I don't know what's on your laptop, but most people could not relate to feeling fascinated by farmers having sex with their sheep.

Hope this helps. I mean, how bad at this do you have to be if you're Dinesh D'Souza?

That Candace Owens, who is currently holding a seance with the death, with the spirit of Charlie Kirk, and talking about how the Jews killed him, and you decide to pick a Twitter fight with her, and she annihilates you.

How do you get annihilated by somebody that believes that they're talking, is advancing an anti-Semitic spirit argument? Candice was probably like,

hold on, Charlie Kirk ghost.

I got to respond to Dinesh, who's made some absurd sheep fucking joke on Twitter.

Like,

the whole thing, these people,

and yet, your society,

they're running the shit.

Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone. We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center, that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Winter is the perfect time to explore California, and there's no better way to do it than in a brand new Toyota hybrid.

With 19 fuel-efficient options like the All-Hybrid Camry, the RAV4 hybrid, or the Tacoma hybrid, every new Toyota comes with Toyota Care, a two-year complementary scheduled maintenance plan, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and of course, Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Visit your local Toyota dealer and test drive one today. Toyota, let's go places.
See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

I'm going to just do a dealer's choice for you. Maybe I'll do the rest of it on YouTube.
We'll do a little bonus for people.

Here are a couple options for my politics things I wanted to talk about. One is AOC

just crushing Stephen Miller, your friend, and going at him. He called you repugnant, and then AOC shot back and said he's like a small man.
He's like four foot zero. He's little.

Just to be clear, AOC shot back in my honor, right? In your honor. And AOC came to your defense.
And then

she called him short. And then her viewers got mad at her.
And then she had to do an apology video. Did her viewers actually get mad at you? I don't know.

I'm just letting you know she did a video where she apologized and said she wants to shout out short kings. I have the audio for that.
That's one option. If you want to hear that, apology.

Or people can just check that out themselves. Another option for videos or audio that we have for people is Katie Porter, who was

which I never understood how this was possible, but she was the frontrunner in the California governor's race till recently.

She has an utter meltdown on Sacramento TV, Democratic candidate for California governor. We could play that.

There's also Hakeem Jeffries on the positive engagement side on the Democrats, a rare attaboy for Kakeem out there.

Hakeem goes nose to nose with Mike Lawler, the Republican Congressman for New York, kind of owns him. Those are my three.
Which one of those do you want to do for our close?

I'm going to do the one that probably is going to anger people the most, but I have the most to say about. Katie Porter.
Let's listen. I don't want to keep doing this.
I'm going to call it. Thank you.

You're not going to do the interview with us. Nope, not like this.
I'm not. Not with seven follow-ups to every single question you ask.
Every other candidate has answers. I don't care.

I don't care. I want to have a pleasant, positive conversation with what you ask me about every issue on this list.

And if every question, you're going to make up a follow-up question, then we're never going to get there.

And we're just going to circle around. I am an international person.
I have never had to do this before, ever. You've never had to have a conversation with

your own. Okay, but every other candidate has done this.

What part of, I'm me, I'm running for governor because I'm a leader.

I'm a leader.

I'm a leader. And a leader does not deal with follow-up questions from bit rate, down market local news anchors from Sacramento.
I am a leader, Sam.

She's acting like this reporter was, you know, saying, hey, can you put like staples in your eyes? Like,

these are like you have to make it through 10 minutes of questions. Just give me a fucking break.
Like, come on. Questions for people who have not seen the full video, it's much longer what I played.

We're about, essentially, the question was like, 40% of California voted for Trump.

How do you reach them? What is your message for those people? It was the most generic,

how do you talk to Trump voters if you're a Democrat was essentially the question. And Katie just got very wrapped around the axle.

On the one hand, you could just say, I welcome everyone to my coalition, yada, yada, yada. Like any normal person would say.
On the other hand, you could say, this is me.

I'm a leader, and I've never had to do something like this, answer seven follow-ups. And it's like,

she has some qualities that are good about her uh and i you know i appreciate some of the policies that she pursued but like attitudinally you got to expect more from the people who you elect than that frankly and i know people are like well you know actually

actually frankly frankly

frankly i agree and um and i gotta say this is a gift for the democrats so if you even if you're a katie for fan uh let's teach their own uh but uh if you're a democrat out there you should be grateful she had this meltdown because the democratic governor candidate field in California was

preposterous. The Katie has a lot of flaws as a candidate.

The other candidate was Mayor Villa Garosa, who's run like a hundred times and is not exactly the person that you're looking for if you're looking to

reform and reignite the animal spirits of California.

And so, hopefully, before this all happened, I was talking to our friends over at Crooked Media and I was saying, I want Dan Pfeiffer. I want Dan Pfeiffer again.
And yes, we Dan.

And before all this happened, I I was like, this field is terrible. You guys all live in California.

Either find somebody that is good to run for governor of the fucking biggest state in the country or else Dan has to do it. Yes, we Dan.

And so maybe Dan gets in now or maybe some other folks will emerge when they see just how embarrassing this field is. Dan, are we sure Dan doesn't have similar temperamental issues?

I've never seen Dan.

Does he have a temperamental? I've never seen it. Okay.
He's called me up and read me. He's called me up and read me out a few times for some stories.
We're going to end it here.

I don't want to, I have a message that's also asked, did Katie

Katie Porter assault the reporter? And I just want to say that that isn't, there's a hilarious AI video that is out. So this ties to yesterday's

podcast that I also believed. Okay.
So no shame. Please

believe that. For one second, the first second, I was like, wait a minute, did Katie touch the reporter? Because

the video is very, very realistic, but then it becomes kind of silly after a while. They start tumbling on the ground.

I believe it was made via Sora, which we talked about on yesterday's pod. We're going the AI videos, man.

It's a different world. Yeah, they're getting real out of control.
It's a

bad thing.

How are you feeling? You good? Do you need to get baptized to Jim Beam after this podcast?

I'm sure a little bit of a more elevated bourbon than Beam, but

are you concerned about my Katie Porter-esque behavior this morning?

Look,

I'm all for demanding bosses, but you got to be human. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.

I'm sometimes on the side of bosses in these situations. I was, anyway, hopefully my spirits felt good on the podcast because we had a little bit of a rocky start at a Katie Porter moment.

I wasn't going to bring it up, but you know what? Nobody got it on camera, though. So it didn't happen.
No, they did get it on camera. Oh, really? Okay.

Well,

let's see what it looks like in public.

I am a leader, Sam. I am a leader.
I'm going to tolerate this studio. I am a leader of the bulwark.

Is it Friday? No, it's Thursday. We have another podcast tomorrow.
Everybody, I appreciate Sam's time very much. We'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the Bull Podcasts.

We'll see you all tomorrow. Bye.
Peace.

Gather around this table, boys.

Bring no shame, I'll lose my voice.

Screaming at the gods about the bad we've done.

Merle said, Mama tried, but the prisoners still won

Your transgressions are mine as well

Anger rose in my bones if you could not tell

But I'll find comfort and company

Lord, forgive us, my boys and me

We're having an old

night revival.

Some call the women, and someone steals the Bible

for the save

my survival.

Baptize me in a bottle of bean for Johnny on the vinyl.

Well the devil can't scrap but the Lord has one

And I'll talk to him on the rising suns

His sun arose and mine did too

I was coming down but now I'm talking to you

Cause we're having all

night revival

Some call in and some gonna steal the Bible

for the sake

of my

survival

Baptize me and by the beam of Johnny on revival

The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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