Fox News FIRES Maria Bartiromo After She Secretly Helped Trump

Hey everyone, it's me Sam Stein, managing editor of the book and with my man Tim Miller, you're getting this on Labor Day Week and I presume we're taping it on the Friday before Labor Day Week and before we head out. Wilson was supposed to be with us, but he's got children to attend to and he's doing the right thing. He's been a father. Whatever. I was just like, well, lock your children up in a closet, come do the trio and they'll be fine. They'll find for themselves. Yeah. Actually, you're right. 30 minutes. Well, what is the worst that happens if you lock them in a closet? Nothing. I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, our publisher Sarah Long was a book party last night. It was great. I mean, it's fantastic. I want you to buy the book. How do you know if it's going to be, first of all, I've read it actually and it's really good. But my point here is I went through, I was in the audience. A bunch of people came up to me, good and one person in the bathroom, which was uncomfortable, but they're talking about like the trio and he's like, just, it saves me and whenever you guys get together, it saves me and I'm washing my hands after peeing and I'm like, that's good. I'm happy for you. Yeah. That's great. And that's why Wilson, this is a public service that we're doing and he's prioritizing his children's tire over us or whatever. Poor kids. All right. Let's start with Marie Bartroma. So yesterday, abruptly, well, it's not dead. It's not dead. Yesterday, abruptly, Marie Fox News announced that Marie Bartroma is no longer hosting her show. They wished her well. It was a very terse, good by statement. Then we get reporting from Oliver Darcy and others that the basic reason that this happened and this is kind of bad shit, is that when you remember when Trump made that big election fraud speech and none of the accusations checked out, Fox News didn't cover it conspicuously. Fox News had obviously been sued by Dominion. They had to pay massive settlement for spreading big live bullshit. After Trump's speech in July, Fox News basically was like, we're not touching this. And the White House noticed. And so they reached out to Marie Bartroma and she kind of served as an intermediary and she basically was sending the White House as far as this reporting goes. She was sending the White House information about Fox News's editorial decisions. Private acts. Yeah, devolging that Trump speech had received scant coverage on the channel because network bosses had ordered it. So I'm even told the text message in which Fox News brass offered their guidance was shared by Bartroma with the White House. And they discovered that and she was fired. I mean, I just, I'm going to take contrarian views on a couple of the topics today. Justice for Maria. Like, honestly, is this different than Sean Hannity or Laura in the text we saw about January 6th. Sean Hannity and Laura, like they're all talking to Trump behind the scenes. They're all taking orders from Trump about what to say and what not to say. And I guess the difference in this case was that Fox had to pay $787,500,000 in fines. But I said, it's not like a journalistic crap. You know, I go, we can't, we cannot accept a staffer at Fox sharing private text messages about our, about our coverage plans with the White House. The way that, you know, we must have independence from the White House. So come on. Well, she regarded a new, she regarded as the news side, not that there's a distinction at Fox morning. It's morning with Maria. It's a chat show. It's like Fox, it's like what, you know, it's a different show than what Pete Higgs was on. But same, same deal. Yeah, okay. I guess I'm with you now. What's the difference between her divulging internal Fox news programming and Lou Dott is literally being patched into like, advise the White House? Nothing. There's no difference. I mean, the difference, I guess, what is the fine and the fact that in this case fought that Maria was like kind of tattling on Fox saying they killed this, but I, I, I, I can't imagine. You're telling me this is the only person ever in history that's going to the White House and said, hey, my bosses aren't letting me do what you want at Fox. Come on. I just, it seems like, yeah, look, looking for a way to get her out because she's kooky. And that's, that's, and that's fine too, you know, I just want to be clear. I don't think you should, I'm not justifying Maria and I'm not justifying Lou Dott's getting on speak phone. Trump and I'm not justifying Sean Hannity, appearing at rallies or anything. It's all bad. It's just, it's an art. It says send me arbitrary line that Fox is drawing here. Yeah. It's state media and we're pretending like it's not so, okay. You know, they didn't, well, she's kooky. Do you want to look at the sizzle reel of her kookyness? I mean, here, it's not just kookyness because there's different types of kookyness, like there's like 10 foil hat nonsense, where she does. This was very specific. She seemed really hooked on the election conspiracy stuff. Yeah. She blew it. She brought it into all of it. Trump's looked in on all of it. I think this, this difference here is that I guess the one thing Fox did that wasn't say TV is after they'd to pay almost a billion dollars, they're like, okay, Trump's going to do a speech about Chinese fraud in 2020 election and we're going to pretend like it doesn't exist. Like, that speech doesn't exist. We're not going to talk about it. Like, it wasn't Fox saying, okay, we're going to debunk. Right. It's like, we're just going to, like, the president gave a prime time to speech the whole of us. And the Fox policy, we just have a stated policy is like, we're just going to pretend like it didn't happen. All right. Right. That's because we just, we don't need any more lawsuits. And Maria was like, whoa, that feels wrong. I feel like we should, we should follow up on the, and so in that way, Maria is kind of being more honorable. No. No. No. I mean, this is right. He's got to something and we need to cover this. But at least she was trying to cover the news. I mean, she was covering us a lot. She's covering us. She at least has a nose for news. And she want, that's her doorstep. It's new. It's a president saying we got to cover it. That happens to be that she believes the nonsense. All right. Let's watch some of the greatest hits for Maria. Yeah. Sydney, we talked about the Dominion software. I know that there were voting irregularities. Tell me about that. I spoke with one source high up in the Intel community and he said this, and he said Trump did win. There was election fraud. This is disgusting and we cannot allow America's election to be corrupted. All weekend long, the White House leakers have been running around saying that Poon is going to invade Ukraine this Wednesday. So is it all a ruse that they are really going to invade this Wednesday or are they trying to create all of this drama because we were getting this Durham information and because we just saw 40-year highs on inflation. Joe Biden telling us get out of Ukraine immediately, was this a ruse? Was this whole thing an effort to take everybody's attention away from what Hillary Clinton did? The gentlemen approached her, one had tattoos all over his face. They looked like illegal, she said, and one had a clipboard and he said to her, "Hello, Miss, do you want to sign up to become a Democrat and vote?" What do you think about the Black community? Do you think Blacks are going more into the center of the line? We're not supposed to say mother and father now. We can't say mother. You know what? That's disgusting. It's kind of for my son for her weight. But I thought I was thinking about the other one where it's, "I will remember you." Yeah, that's the right one. I was doing the wrong one. There's two different signs that we're about it. We can get that. We can't play all of it. That's a weekend saw that weekend. Which one of those clips, I like the one where she was like, "Rush is not invading Ukraine." It's a root cause of the drum report. It's a root cause of the drum report. Or asking John James, asking John James what's going on with the Blacks, that was a little rough. Yeah, it's a root. Yeah, no, she's, you know, the whole raccoon look, I, like that, she's out. Out there. I mean, that is wild that that stuff has been on TV for eight years. It's, you know, you feel like you're outside the bubble and it's like the knit. It's just kind of like, I don't know, in our little media criticism bubbles. You know, you read a lot of the media newsletters. You're just reading Oliver Darcy's report on this. It's like, there is sometimes like a lot of knit picking. I'll do it. You know, I engage in some knit picking on one of Dana Bash's stupid questions that she asked. In the other week, and it's like, and, and my criticism was accurate, but it's like in the grand scheme of things, Dana's doing news like this is on Fox every morning, just like totally crazy earth three, like North Korea nonsense. Yeah. And look, there's something, it's not the craziest stuff that's on Fox or on the news. But there's something about her specifically that I think matters. I have, I have friends in like the finance world who, you know, they used to regard her as the very serious important journalist in that corner of the universe. And they're sort of befuddled by it all. And I think she, she represented a little bit of the kind of mental breakdown for a lot of folks that embrace Trumpism and, and I can't, I had a bunch of conversations with people like, whatever happened to Marie Barclay Roma, like, why does she become that? And, you know, a lot of you saying she had a psychological break? No, I'm saying she became completely convinced, she, she basically became a Trumper for obvious reason. Then she came convinced in this weird conspiracy theory around the elections. And people who thought of her as rational, didn't understand how someone who's, whole modus operandi was about the markets and making money in Wall Street became like, like, you You know, unlucky. denier, didn't make sense, didn't compute to them. I mean, the Wall Street folks that I know and I'm friendly with, who even those who are like kind of Trump curious and even supportive, they don't believe the election denying shit, but she did. So that's that. >> I mean, didn't just believe it. It was like the tip of the spear. >> Yeah, I don't know how people, how this happens to people. I don't understand. Hopefully not me. Hopefully I'll stay grounded. >> I'm not worried. What do you think next for before I move on? If you have to guess. >> I know. There's the online scuttle that's like she's going to be White House press secretary. And I just I think that even Trump is like, "Lady, I don't know that I want you in the old office every day. We're getting discussing what we're going to talk about. She's a little bit of a kind of a rogue actor." And he said that he did send a nice bleed about her. You could imagine. I mean, Kerry Lake, we learned, did you listen to the Ruby Kramer podcast? I won't put you in the spot. Her reporting she was like, "I didn't know what to do with this little anecdote of reporting, so I'm just going to say it on your podcast." But when I was writing my Kerry Lake profile three years ago, and interviewing her former colleagues, one thing that kept coming up that just didn't fit in the profile was like she's really obsessed with Jamaica. And she really loves Jamaica. And she goes there every year and it's her and her husband's escape. Maybe they do a little cheap, but whatever. And so then she gets ambassador Jamaica, which I think we connect the dots. You know, she obviously must have begged like a dog for that. And so maybe Maria has a place she really likes, you know, that she can be sent to. You know, I don't know. Or Morocco, maybe she really likes or Barbados or, you know, that's probably what's next for her. Well, all the best, Maria. Maybe she'll be put on some sort of commission to undercover. The real story behind what happened in 2020. One little funny nugget that we didn't discuss was my cock-a-bee. So among the people wishing her well was my cock-a-bee, who tweeted, "I just said that Maria Bartram has left Fox business in Fox News and Co. Sad to hear. The smartest hardworking journalist in absolutely class act was in honor to work with him, Dash. Him slash her." Him slash her. Him slash her. And later to be guests on the show. There's not many explanations here. I don't, does he have an auto? It does, is it? Does he have like a standard statement that has him dash her and he just kind of pasted it and went with Maria? Like, I don't really understand how that happened. I'm at a loss. I don't know. Yeah. I don't, I don't have anything to add to that. This is what he said. Thanks for catching the him slash her line. I was typing while riding in a vehicle on bumpy streets. But I have no idea how that came out. Aside from my clumsy type of mistake, I still love Maria Bartram. Oh, yeah, that's what happened. Whoa! Oh, yeah. Can you just be boomer phone business, man? This happens to all of us, maybe happens to the best of us. And I don't know. You know, Jim Clyburn yesterday was talking about how his AI is control H. I'm like, what is control? What is control H? Do I think you want to control F or I don't know what he meant. Hold on. What does control H do? Okay. Control H is a keyboard shortcut used to open and find and replace dialogue box and word processors, text editors and office software. I kind of doubt that Jim Clyburn's using that. Literally, no way. There's no way. And I doubt that Mike Huckabee happened to just buy chance on a bumpy road to get him slasher on his tweet. All right. That's good stuff. Thank you, Mike Huckabee for that. And a report came out today. Tim, I don't know if you saw this. The Inspector General for the Department of Labor did release the investigation into now ex-labor secretary. Laurie Chavez-Deremer. She was kind of like, I don't think she ever made our cabinet ranking, so much. But she had like a bit of scandal. You remember we did some funny thing where the strip club she went to. Do you remember that? Yeah. I mean, it was in Portland, does I recall? I don't know if it's directly in Portland or right on the outskirts, maybe. And it looked rough. I didn't look like one of those harsh. Yeah, it didn't look like, shit, what's the Atlanta Strip Club? I keep forgetting. Go club. Yeah, it didn't look like the gold club, you know? And it looked like you got some kind of alternative strippers out there. Magic City is what I was thinking of. So I remember that. I remember she had, there was like a she had an affair with a security guard. It was the lesbian affair. Was it a male security guard? No, no, no. It was a male security guard. And then she, and there was also some staffer, stuff she was a little bit of a crazy boss, yeah. Yeah. So I've been diving through the report. You haven't looked at it yet. I mean, no. Okay, I'm going to read you a few bits and you can tell me if you want to comment on them. But there's some good highlights. As far as scandals go, this is relatively, you know, benign, but it does give you a sense of like, they weren't doing much work at all. And I'm sure none of these people are doing that much work. I mean, it sounds like this was the cushiest of gigs. So this is the stripper part. Okay. I'll just read it to you. During Shavez, Deremer's April 15th to 20th, 2035 personal travel to Oregon, she requested an off the record stop an establishment that was determined upon entry to feature partially new dancers. I'm going to skip a little bit her security guard with whom she was having an affair was there. They had a limousine driver and that security guard instructed the limousine driver to comply with Shavez Deremer's requests among them was to take the money from her purse and give it to one of the dancers. Shavez Deremer then took additional money from her person asked the agent to drop the bills one by one onto the partially nude woman. Okay. And where's the controversy here? I mean, she's supporting a local small business. She's out of the secretary of labor. She's supporting the honest labor that's being done by workers in Oregon. It's crazy. Like she is, this is the person we've kicked out of the Trump administration. You know, there are many Trump admin people that are making lots of money that are robbing us, that are corrupt, that are killing people. All she did was like throw some ones on a stripper in Oregon. That's not all she did, but I agree. This seems like, okay, cool. That's fine. I'm, that's pretty good. All right. This one describes the office of the secretary deputy chief assessor hurt deputy chief of staff, woman named Rebecca Wright. Okay. So basically they had a bad employee culture there. Witnesses attributed several comments to write related to employees' appearance, race, and sexual orientation. Witnesses stated that during a period of turnover, right reportedly evaluated applicants in part by appearance in weight, including right relocating an employee's desk because she did not want quote a fat person visible in the front office. Witnesses further stated that right advised an employee not to cut her hair above her shoulders to avoid quote turning into a lesbian turning. What is that? What is Rebecca? It's Rebecca Wright, you said? Rebecca Wright, yeah. I'm just trying to get a picture of her here pulled up. I don't have a picture. Okay, I do. You know what she looks like? She kind of looks like a poor man's version of the mother from home alone. Oh, what's her face? The actress I just died? Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at it. What's her name? Mother, home alone. Catherine O'Hara, thank you, man. I really, I'm going to doubt. It's kind of like a really like one of like a homeless man's version of Catherine O'Hara. It's in the market. You could see that she would be doing this again. I hate to sign with Catherine O'Hara here, but are we woke now? Is the administration woke? Okay. I got five every week after everybody's a snowflake. We had to care about people's feelings. I thought this was the Trump administration. Trump calls people call people ugly and fat all the time. I mean, it's pretty morning meek. I didn't know that if you cut your hair at a certain point above your shoulders, you get turned into a lesbian. No, that's not. I mean, obviously, this is not true. And obviously, this is me like totally inappropriate. But I think that again, everything I've heard so far, strip club visits and being mean to people based on their looks is fully on brand for the Trump administration. And these feel like pretty modest actions compared to what we're seeing elsewhere in the administration. Okay, that's fair enough. Okay, let's go continue on with the with with continue with the staff abuse allegations. Interviewed witnesses attested that Chavez Deremer, Han who is the chief of staff and right, regularly drank alcohol in Chavez Deremer's study during official duty hours. Witnesses reported that when other employees attending those meetings declined alcohol. Chavez Deremer, Han and right pressured them to participate or ridicule them for abstaining. It's amazing. Have a sounds like Sam fucking to me at the Christmas party last year. Okay, he's trying to come out of podcast to do the next day. He's got one more round. I never said a little bit of pressure. Again, I don't endorse any of these actions. Anybody that works in the Trump administration is a bad person. Like I fully reject all of these people as morally repugnant. But these now the list is strip clubs drinking, making fun of people based on their looks. That's the cat. What about cash? Cash is running the fucking FBI over. over there. >> She has been a director for personal aid and executions and commute using D-O-L motor pool transportation to her personal residents to organize her bedroom closet during the work day. She has been authorized their access to her residents and directed them to hang her laundry and dry cleaning and organize her clothing, shoes and purses after completing the tasks and plays provided. She has been a video documenting their work. They included the footage of her clean closet, which didn't look all that clean to be honest with you. >> Can we do this? >> Could I do this? >> Can I send Jim Swift down here to Norlis to do my laundry? >> No. >> In this case, my fiscal conservatism comes in. The taxpayers should not be funding the work of someone to do the Department of Labor Secretary's laundry. >> Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. Okay. There was multiple, I don't need to get into the whole thing. She clearly had an affair with her security guy who kept showing up at odd hours. They did have this thing where the Inspector General for some reason was dispatched to like surreptitiously monitor Shavez Dreamer's home and residents in Washington, D.C. and the security guard with whom she was clearly having an affair obviously didn't know that her home was being monitored by the Office of Inspector General. So at 9.32 p.m., he goes into the building, goes to the elevator, and he's not viewed exiting the elevator residents that night. There is this thing where he is viewed in video footage, entering her apartment and then leaving the next morning wearing the same exact clothing. So he had a little bit of a walk of shame that was included in the IIT report, but she clearly had an affair with her security guy. There was some security lies. >> So here is my takeaway from this. Number one, again, Lori Shavez Dreamer has fired cash per tell store of agencies taking a private jet to go to Nashville to his girlfriend's house. But more importantly, interestingly, is that they have fired almost all of the inspectors general. It's important to know that it's inspectors general, not inspector generals, and it's telling I think that they left with the one at the Department of Labor. Like, well, maybe that inspector general kind of look into union mismanagement, or whatever. It's like, we're going to, we don't want any inspector general looking into what let next up to, or what's happening with RFK, but maybe keep one over at the Department of Labor. >> Yeah, I feel it. I feel it. All right. I'm done with this except there was a really funny thing just for me because it didn't even make the news. It was so tucked into the IIT report, but it just tickled me a little bit about how crop there were. So she's going on all these trips. She's going to play golf with her, the guy with whom she's having an affair. She's going to cigar bars. She's going to ice museums. It's weird shit. Anyways, at one, and it's all like personal travel that's intermingled with professional travel. And they write this. There was one trip to Las Vegas, Nevada in Nevada in December 2005. The initial itinerary contained no DOL engagements, Department of Labor engagements. After write, and Shavez Deremer received complimentary tickets from a lobbyist to attend a rodeo. The previous scheduled Western caucus speaking engagement assigned to someone else was reassigned to Shavez Deremer, apparently to provide an official business justification for her personal travel. So she cooks the books to go to Vegas because she got tickets to a rodeo show from a lobbyist. So let's go to the rodeo. What? I'm going to sell to the earth person stripped of rodeo. She sounds like a good hang, honestly. She does. I have all the cabinets. I mean, the Casanoherra lady doesn't sound like a good hang. She sounds like a bitch, but not Catherine herself. We got a captain of her RIP, but the lady that looks like an ugly version of her. That Laura Deremer sounds great. She sounds great. She does. Okay. As far as as far as you can be for it. Yeah. I mean, she was partying. She was drinking. She was going to rodeo. She was gambling. She was playing golf. She was having affairs. She's like, fun. She seemed. Didn't do any authoritarian things as far as I can tell. Didn't, didn't weed out any, you know, a. I mean, I mean, you know, Chrissy Nolan was doing pin up girl pictures in front of prisoners. Yeah. Seek off by comparison. Yeah. Bring back Chavez Deremer, honestly. Bring her back. All right. Chief of staff. Lady. But there's a predatory. They need a press secretary. All right. Last bit. Apparently Kelly Laughler's got, if she's human, we don't know for sure after the video. She's a visitor from another planet, for sure. She's got a contest. Just a blade and rip off of the apprentice. Why don't we play the video? They're giving away a million dollars and they got some weird judges for it. Let's play it. Please put together a contest, and the judges are? Nicky Minaj. Yes. Grant Cardone, Joe Gabbia, and it'll be hosted by the great Dean Kane. Wow. So, and you have already found the small businesses that are finalists to win potentially a million dollars. We have five finalists. The competition takes place September 18th in Washington. And we're hoping to get it out to everyone. And it's a really exciting time. Look, President Trump understands that small business is big business. He tells me all the time. How do you have any dignity left if you're Brian Kilmate? You said they're like, well, so you're telling me that you're going to, uh, uh, the administration is going to have a contest where Nicky Minaj decides who gets the government contract. How great is that? That's ridiculous. The great Dean Kane, they give you these guys the same nickname. The great Mark Levin or the great Dean Kane. It's like, get, just try something new. Shouldn't Dean Kane be busy? I thought he signed up for ice. I thought he was, shouldn't Dean Kane be on the border? Do we have the video? Can we pull the video back up of Dean Kane, uh, his try out for ice? He did. He didn't know it's in August, 25 that he was joining ice. Dean Kane. Ice try out. That's close with that. You know, you have. You have seen it. No. Sure. You have things said. Yes. We've got it. Hold on. Here we go. I got it here. Why did you want to do it? You know, I think that, you know, ice is this horrible and nefarious group and they're not. They're phenomenal people. And so this time, Dean Kane isn't flying. There he's going through that obstacle course and training to be an honorary ice agent. He was working hard out there. And this is exactly what those recruits will do as they're picked one by one. And they're at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and Brunswick, Georgia. This place is amazing. You should see it for yourself. He hit the shooting range too. He was out there with the acting ice director, Todd Lyons, who was hard to tell who had the better shot there. They were both pretty good. The obstacle course and more propaganda for our friends and Fox, you could tell I had to take a principle stand for Maria there. It's like, boy, looking out, going to a shot, Todd Lyons, look at Dean Kane. He's like, Superman out there as he slowly crawls through the security. I'm holding him. I'm holding him. I'm mannequin. It's like, Dean Kane has a two inch vertical. Anyway, I'm glad he's going to be hosting this. Well, he can maybe do ball, you know, do kind of raiding Kingston Yeras during the week and then hosting the Apprentice spin-off on the week. The great Dean Kane. I'm so glad you re-opped that clip. That was very fun. All right, man, look, it's been pleasure to have a great Labor Day weekend for those who watched. Thank you. Hope you guys have a great Labor Day weekend. Do you know what's great to do in Labor Day? Subscribe to the Bullwork. And subscribe to the football go Tigers. We'll see you guys later. Oh, screw the football, subscribe to the Bullwork Jesus. Bye.