Jamie Raskin and Ryan Holiday: Expose All the Corruption All the Way Down

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have a doubleheader for you today in segment two. I am live from the Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Texas with my guy, Ryan Holiday, who runs the Daily Stoic. We figured you guys might want some lessons from the Stoics on election day. So we talk about that and the Manusphere and a bunch of other stuff. He has some feedback on Ivanka's turn to Stoicism that I think you'll like. But up first, he's a Democratic congressman from Maryland. He's a ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee. I think he's about to be the chair. And he was the lead impeachment manager in Trump's second impeachment trial. It's Jamie Raskin. How are you doing, sir? Welcome to the show. I'm doing excellently, I think, Tim, and it's great to be with you. All right. The vibes are high this morning. Where are you coming at me from? Well, I'm in back. We're in the Free State in Maryland in our beautiful 8th District here. And yeah, it's a beautiful day. And I just feel having been to 27 states, there are landslide conditions forming everywhere. And this last minute betrayal by Haley Stevens, I think, has boomeranged against them. And it's really motivated our people. Yeah. How's that Andy Harris looking in the Free State of Maryland? Are we going to have a sweep? Well, you know, it could go either way. I mean, because we're. We're surging in the rural areas and Dan Schwartz, who's our candidate out there, has really been just pounding the pavement. And I was with him out in the summer with our Democracy Summer Project for a whole weekend. And anyway, he's just been doing a fantastic job. I mean, the problem is that, you know, there's not as much of an infrastructure in the rural areas, but we're going to win a bunch of these seats and I've got high hopes on this one. All right. I want to talk about the other side's closing arguments a little bit. The president yesterday. Yeah. was in front of the reflecting pool. He's moved his message from ass to cock. We fixed the granite. We re-cocked it. He'd spent a lot of time discussing that and the algae and the reflecting pool. This morning, he was on Fox saying inflation is solved. Could you have scripted a better performance from Donald Trump to make your guys' lives better? No. First of all, we call the reflecting pool the Strait of Warm Ooze because he turned it into an algae farm. It's actually a symbol of the swamp that he claimed to denounce and then took over, then moved into, and then expanded so that its banks are overflowing and crawling up the Lincoln Memorial to try and attack the guy who founded the Republican Party by the guy who ruined the Republican Party. So, everybody understands that we are engulfed in war, inflation, illegal tariffs, and corruption. The whole thing has been a great opportunity from the beginning. That new swamp is actually a great illustration of it because he didn't need to do anything. He could have just left it there. It was fine. But instead, he decided he wanted to change the hue of the water for the 4th of July. He ruined it, essentially. He took advice from the pool guy at Mar-a-Lago, found a private independent contractor, gave them no-bid insider back for now more than $25 million, and wrecked it. And now it's all fenced off and nobody can get anywhere near there unless they were opening it up today for political purposes. And that's another vivid demonstration of what they've done. They've turned the government not just into a get-rich-quick scheme for the Trump family, but also a constant political prop. Yeah. I mean, nobody would ever go anywhere near using the White House or the government facilities or the reflecting pool. Right. And so, you know, there's a lot going on. And so, you know, for campaign purposes, it's completely illegal, but they just do it routinely. Yeah. It's illegal, but also kind of moronic. And it's just so strange that that is how he wanted to spend the last day. And, you know, the vice president then, he was up in Elise Stefanik's district, a plus-21 Trump district. Good Democratic candidate up there, Blake Jendebean. We'll see what happens. I've been there several times in this campaign, Tim, and he's going all the way, all the way. You think so? Oh, definitely. I mean— Oh, he's got his ears. I mean, that is probably the worst Republican in the country. Yeah. Yeah. Constantino. I mean, he literally, his job appears to be he makes stickers and he makes rap songs about Donald Trump, just repeating Trump's name over and over again. So Constantino brought up the whole crew. Don Jr. was up there. He said the Democrats are going to make Ohio a state. I don't know what that flub was about. And then J.D.'s message, I think this is really telling kind of about the two things that they're arguing. You have Trump doing his vanity projects. You have J.D. in New York saying this. I saw a story that there are illegal communities of illegal immigrant Somalis who are coordinating to flood the polls to drown out your vote. I was trying to figure out what he was talking about. And then my friend Jane Koston sent me this. Laura Loomer had tweeted at him a couple of hours earlier. I hope J.D. will call out the Somalis flooding Ohio polls. So like the vice president is just taking orders from a racist blogger. And like, that's their closing message. A fictional illegal Somalis and and we're reflecting for, I mean, they're completely detached from reality. But I do agree with their assertion that the Democrats are going to make Ohio a state again, because we are going to make it a state again, because it's been this authoritarian little mega fiefdom. And the Democrats are about to elect a senator for all the people there in Sherrod Brown. And Dr. Amy Acton is going all the way to become governor. So we are going to make it a member of the United States again. And because they've tried to treat it like some kind of subordinate little mega colony. Let's do a couple more midterm things. And then I want to spend most of the time, because by the time some people listen to this, we'll kind of know the results talking about what you guys have planned for oversight. But you mentioned it in the top, the Haley Stevens drama on Sunday. You're on Meet the Press. She said, My wonderful friend, Haley Stevens, wants me to tell everybody I talk to that she's voting straight down the line on the Democratic ticket. Like, what happened? Yeah. And I look back on my little phone call record, and that call started at 9:42. And it probably went for a half an hour. And on Saturday night or Saturday night, on Saturday night. Yeah. And multiple other people she spoke to reported the exact same thing. I spoke to Ambassador Jim Blanchard, the former governor of Michigan, who also expressed his astonishment. And she said that she woke up on Sunday and just decided to go and endorse him. So, you know, I don't know, how much we can extricate reality from all of the chaos there. But look, the good news is that our people have experienced it as a terrible rupture and a betrayal of our party and of democracy and freedom. But, you know, typically, in the way that the Republicans maneuver these things, completely ham-fisted, as you say, and ineffectual, we're saved every time from the sinister nature of their plots by their allies. So, you know, I'm not saying that there are absolute incompetence. And this one was incompetently rendered. And I can tell you, everywhere I've spoken to people, and I've been doing a bunch of Zooms over the last 48 hours across the country, everybody is super motivated by this act of malice and also kind of incomprehensible betrayal. Yeah. My colleague, Jonathan Cohn, who's in Michigan, said he was reporting this, that talking to kind of Black voters there also about how there's kind of this big fire about her going to do this at the Black church and not communicating with anyone about it and just sort of YOLOing and going to that venue with Mike Rogers, given the kind of nasty, you know, racially hateful campaign he's run. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing that gets me. Okay. Let's say that she considers them just too distant on the issue of Middle East foreign policy. And she really felt, despite the fact that she agreed with them on pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-labor, that she would withdraw her endorsement of Abdul. Okay. You know, obviously not my position. I think it's ridiculous. But let's say she felt that. Why did she have to go from there to endorsing the guy who opposes everything else that she claims to believe in? He's anti-choice. He's anti-labor. He's anti-union. He's anti-environment. He's pro-Trump. And he's never once denounced like the extreme racism and anti-Semitism that pervades the Republican Party. Did he ever denounce Donald Trump for inviting over to his house Nicholas Fuentes, an unreconstructed Holocaust revisionist and neo-Nazi? And all of this, they claim, is about a TV ad that Abdul had nothing to do with, which he totally separated himself from. But what about the TV ad that kicked off Donald Trump's career in presidential politics? The very last ad of the 2016 campaign had a picture of Lloyd Blankfein, Janet Yellen, and George Soros and said, "These globalists do not have your best interest at heart." And all of the people who are yelling at Abdul about denouncing somebody else's ad, how about telling all these Republicans to denounce that ad? And how about telling them to denounce Donald Trump, saying there were very fine people on both sides of an anti-Semitic riot in Charlottesville? What's the lunchroom going to be like? You mean when Haley returns, yeah. You know, look, I wish her well. I mean, it doesn't bespeak a lot of either consistency of character or rationality of mind, the last several days. Just on the merits of the concerns about left anti-Semitism, separating this from Abdul, because I do think, again, like this is kind of crazy, like this is a video put out by somebody who has no relationship to the campaign. I think that there are legitimate concerns that people in the Jewish community have about rising anti-Semitism, both on the right, like you mentioned, but also from left activists. You're Jewish. Is that a fair concern for people to express? Sure, of course it is. Of course it is. And I have no problem denouncing all of the anti-Semitism that I see out there. And I would just love to see our friends on the right denounce not just anti-Semitism they see on the left, but also on the right. And I have no problem doing that. Anti-Semitism has been a curse to the human species for millennia now, and it's appeared in religious guises and secular guises. Stalinist, communist guises and Nazi and neo-Nazi and racist guises, and we should denounce it everywhere. But they seem to be perfectly blind to what's going on in their own party, where there's an eruption of anti-Semitism like every week, if not every day. All right, y'all, it's election day. If you're panicking in your house, you might just want complete darkness. You might want to pull down the shades and shutters, binge watch something on Netflix, get your mind off of it. And if you're panicking, you might just want to pull down the off of the New York Times needle. And if you had already listened to me and gotten with our sponsor three-day blinds, you'd be in even better shape to do it. But you might as well start getting ready for next year. There's a better way to buy blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery, and it's called three-day blinds. They're the leading manufacturer of high-quality custom window treatments in the USA. And right now, if you use my URL, three-dayblinds.com slash the bulwark, they're running a buy one, get one 50% off deal, where you can shop online at three-dayblinds.com. For almost anything at home, why not shop for blinds at home too? Three-day blinds has local professionally trained design consultants. They have a ton of experience to provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you and the comfort of your home. And by the way, they'll also set it up for you. If you're like me, you're not, you don't have time for DIY. You're not good at it. You've got 10 thumbs on your hands. You know, you need somebody to actually come put these blinds up. The three-day blinds people, they got that. They do it for you. They design, they measure, they install. You get to sit back, relax, hang out. Binge the bulwark podcast for me, three-day blinds. I've been talking about this. This is a great deal. They're offering you blinds can be expensive. You know, you get a new house. It's like, man, getting 50% off is not nothing. And in new Orleans, you know, we just got through because of the super El Nino or whatever, a very light hurricane season. And I'm worried about next year. I'm already worried about next year. It's like, we got to get the shutters. We got to make sure that, you know, our window situation is up to snuff. We don't want any leaks. We're going to be going back to our friends at three-day blinds for another round right now. Get quality window treatments that fit your budget with three-day blinds at the three-day blinds.com slash the Borg for their buy one, get one 50% off deal on customs, blinds, shades, and drapery for a free, no charge, no obligation consultation. Just head to three-day blinds.com slash the Borg. One last time. That's buy one, get one 50% off. And you go to the number three DAY blinds.com slash the Borg. All right. I want to look at the other races around the country. I'm here in Texas right now. I'm coming at you from Austin last night. I saw Gina Hina, Hosa, and Talrico had a joint rally here. This Senate seat has been held by some of the finest Texans. Ken Paxton should be nowhere near Lyndon Johnson's Senate seat. Ken Paxton should be nowhere near Sam Houston's Senate seat. As our state seceded from the union on the eve of the civil war, the Texas legislature removed Sam Houston from office because he refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. Upon his removal, legend says that Sam Houston rested under Austin's treaty oak, a 500-year-old live oak tree, and sacred meeting spot for Comanche and Tonkawa peace parties. As Sam Houston rested, he wrote the words to a speech he would never deliver. It included these words, "Do right and risk the consequences." Sam Houston, like my brave Republican colleagues, is a Texas hero because he did right and suffered the consequences. He didn't do it for himself. He did it for Texas. What would Sam Houston say to us at this critical moment in Texas history? What would Sam Houston say to the Republican voters who across this state tonight are thinking about breaking with their party tomorrow? I think he would say, "Do right and risk the consequences." A lot of positive energy for Gina. I think if she ends up coming up just short tonight, there might be some regrets that there wasn't more resources put into this race. She got outspent by a 180 million or something to that effect. But Talrico, very powerful close, a message from Sam Houston, "Do right and risk consequences." And I think that that was a very apt closing message for his campaign and for hers. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about what's happening down here in Texas. And then, like you said, you went to 27 states, so kind of open chance to talk about races you're watching tonight. I actually got to give the keynote speech at the Texas dinner, the party banquet, that was during the primary. And it was just a beautiful sight to behold, all of the confluence of communities and activism taking place there. It's an inspiration to the whole country. And Talrico has run a flawless campaign. It's amazing to watch. And it shows that Texas is just very much in play. All of the demographics are on the side of the Democrats there. The young people have no interest in MAGA and Donald Trump and JD Vance. They are whole authoritarian politics, no interest at all. And what's fascinating is after the '24 election, we heard a lot from the people in the GOP about how there was this grand new growth in support for Republicans among Latino voters, African-American voters, gay voters. They're claiming all of these big breakthroughs. And all of that is gone, just washed away because of what they stand for. And I think that's a really important point. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think we're starting to see the emergence of the real political alignments in the country right now. Any other races you're really, you know, that are special, Jamie Raskins, for tonight? Well, I got a bunch of them. I mean, it's funny you mentioned New York 21, Blake Gendabine, because it's a very rural district. And I spent time there. I've been a big supporter of Blake, who is a dairy farmer and a high school basketball coach, running against just a MAGA loon. And he's done it the right way. Now, of course, he's fourth or fifth generation, you know, upstate New Yorker and very entrenched in the community. But he's gone all over the place. He's had more than 100 town hall meetings, I want to say. I mean, I was there for several of them. And that is the kind of grassroots politics that will beat just the spending of Elon Musk's money on negative TV ads in the last week. And there's no doubt that we've been barraged and deluged over the last week or 10 days by Musk paid for TV ads. But number one, a lot of people aren't watching TV. Number two, a lot of people roll their eyes. And three, the candidates that they're fighting for are just terrible on the Republican side. You know, so but I've seen this in a bunch of the rural areas, Cali Bar in Michigan, one, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, running a fantastic campaign, a married to a veteran who was injured in the Iraq War. She's a teacher, she's a lawyer, just an incredible candidate, going against a Republican incumbent who moved to the Michigan to run for office, but basically still lives in Louisiana. There was a hilarious thing when I was up there about how he was holding up a fish that he claimed he had caught in Lake Michigan. But it was a kind of fish that doesn't, I can't wish I remember what it was called. But it doesn't, it's not native to Lake Michigan, and it's from Louisiana, and he's holding up the fish. But that's like such a- Some Gulf redfish. Yeah. But I mean, there are great candidates all over the place. I love Janelle Stelzen in Pennsylvania 10. She is running a great campaign. She came within one point of beating Scott Perry, a pro-insurrectionist, pro-mega extremist in every way last time. And there's just been a huge mobilization of resources in the Mid-Atlantic to get behind Janelle. So she's terrific. And let me just tell you, I don't know whether this one's going to happen, because I think people got invested in the race too late. But Beth Macy running in Virginia 6- I've brought her up on the show. Oh, yeah. She's a great candidate. She's just a magnificent candidate. And she wrote Dope Sick, and she's an incredible author. And it would be like sending Vaclav Havel to Congress. We've got a real chance to put a really smart woman in there. But I think she just got to the point where she said she doesn't want to just spend her time documenting the degradation and decay of the middle class and working people in America. She wants to go to Congress and try to turn around and fight it. All right. Let's talk about your plans. I had Robert Garcia on a couple weeks ago, We were talking about what their plans are on the oversights. side, obviously judiciary, um, this, you know, oversight and accountability investigations is going to be part of your remit as well. How's that going to break down as far as like dividing between those committees and other responsibilities? Yes. Well, Robert is a fantastic member and leader and he took over for me when I left as ranking member of the oversight to come over to the judiciary committee. The great thing about the oversight committee is you can roam freely over almost everything. And so, uh, you know, the, the ranking member there has to coordinate with people from all the other committees to make sure that, uh, you know, there's synergy rather than, you know, collision or redundancy. Yeah. But, um, you know, the focus of the judiciary committee is justice starting with the justice department. Remember that when that's what the justice department did and the rule of law, civil rights and civil liberties, the constitution and the federal judiciary, uh, all of which have been corrupted and prostituted by the Trump administration and the crime family he presides over. For example, what we did a report recently on Epstein. Now the oversight committee is taking the lead on the whole Epstein affair, but our interest is in the corruption of the justice department in the way that they've been actively suppressing the truth, refusing to cooperate with other investigations that are taking place like in New Mexico, in the States, and with, you know, foreign governments. And so yeah, like I'm interested in, for example, like who, who is making the calls on the redactions? Like who did the redactions in the released Epstein files? Like how do they determine what to release and what not to release? And is that the kind of stuff that's in your remit? Can you subpoena the government workers that were part of that, that were maybe not the bosses, but were told what to do? Absolutely. And it looks to us like the, like the department of justice is being just run straight out of the white house, on certainly a bunch of the Epstein stuff. I mean, why did Todd Blanche at that point, the number two ranking person in the DOJ fly down to Florida to go talk to Ghislaine Maxwell after the department of justice had already said that there were no further investigations and no further prosecutions indicated by anything they'd seen an Epstein file. But the moment that she was testified to go before the oversight committee, he flies down there and spends two days interviewing her for what purpose? Was he looking for leads for other, you know, conspirators and accomplices? No, he was obviously down there to make sure that she would have nothing untoward to say about Donald Trump. And when he finally satisfied himself, that was the case. What do you know? She gets transferred on an almost overnight basis to a minimum security club fed in Texas, a place that had never accepted a convicted sex offender before. We also started an investigation into Kushner. Am I going to get to see Jared Kushner testify? What plans do you have there? He has no immunity. He has no immunity that would keep him from testifying on anything. Really, no citizen does. Obviously, the Supreme Court has complicated things with its outrageous decision on presidential immunity. But leaving aside the singular case of the president of the United States, where it might be a little more complicated, but basically the rule in our justice system is everybody owes the sovereign, whether it's a court or it's a Congress, his or her truthful testimony when it's not true. And so, you know, I think that's a very, very important thing. When they're subpoenaed to come and testify. And maybe they've got a privilege they can invoke, but they've got to come and invoke it as to a specific question where they claim, for example, it might incriminate themselves under the Fifth Amendment or some other privilege might apply. In Kushner's case in particular, I mean, what is the remit that you guys have there? And like, obviously, there's so many different elements that are potentially investigatable. Well, there's some astonishing things coming out on a daily basis about this. There's this, uh, the incredible new book, uh, an amazing new book written by Matthew Cole called Princes and Thieves. Everybody knows that, uh, that Jared Kushner brought back more than $2 billion from the oil monarchies from Saudi Arabia, uh, Mohammed bin Salman and from the United Arab Emirates and from Qatar. After the first Trump administration, uh, ended, um, it was the first day actually afterwards that, that Kushner created his business and then brought all this money back. But Matthew Cole's point is that money had already been deposited several years before during the first administration when Jared Kushner actually was a government employee with him. And it was essentially, um, a political slush fund for the use of Jared Kushner and the Trump family. And so the more you get into that book, and I'm in the middle of it right now, the more it looks, like if all of this is true, that, uh, Jared Kushner was operating like a billion dollar bag man for the Trump family. And if you see it through that lens, you start to see how many of these unaccountable slush funds exist described either as governmental slush funds, like, you know, the board of peace slush fund where Donald Trump is president for life. Okay. Um, or it's a private slush fund, like, like this one was, and then it became, uh, a corporate slush fund, the white house, uh, slush fund. They're not interested in following the law of what Congress commands them to do with federal dollars. And they try to corrupt every appropriation that exists into a slush fund. There's a story yesterday, uh, Douglas D Podesta is an FBI chief in Chicago. He's suing the DOJ claiming he has pressure to investigate Trump's foes. He's kind of anti-ice protesters, the broad view six. I don't know if you've seen this. I just think there'd be so many examples of this type of pressure. Well, look, the first thing that they did when they got into the department of justice was they began a process of firing anybody who had any involvement in the January 6th investigation or prosecution. In other words, they were firing hundreds of people, some of the best and most senior lawyers at the department of justice simply for doing their jobs because, uh, they didn't want anybody serving in the department of justice who would not be an automatic mega robot and do what ever, uh, Trump, you know, whatever was in Trump's interests, that guy. And so, uh, Todd Blanche was Donald Trump's personal attorney. Now he's become his personal attorney general and the whole department of justice is operating like that. Now there are still some people who are bravely trying to hang on from before these days, but most of them, uh, are gone. And so every, I mean, look at all the prosecutions that have been thrown out by grand jury. Or by prosecutors who just say, you know, we can't go along with this. It's like, uh, James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, Maggie Goodland, or Jason Crow, my, uh, constituent, Davey Hearn, who got set up for the reflecting pool job claiming that he went into the reflecting pool. It's just on and on. It just doesn't end because Donald Trump wakes up and decides he wants to use the federal government, the United States government against somebody and say, go find something on them or just go prosecute them. All right. We've had a mattress revamp in our home. It's important to get mattresses for both for our room, for the kid's room, for the guest room that are comfy, that are supportable. You know, everybody's got different demands. Everyone's got different desires. I need a mattress. It's hard as a rock. I'd rather sleep on the floor. I'm in a hotel right now. And I don't understand what it is about the marketplace that people think that we, about the pillow top mattress and the soft mattress and the pillows that you sink right through. I need firmness. I want to rock. That's not for everybody though. And, um, with our friends at Helix, you can make sure you get a mattress that's just right for you. We've made the switch to the Helix mattress and, um, I'm sleeping great. You know, some people are out there saying they like the hotel bed opposite for me. I gotta get home. I gotta get to my Helix mattress. Gotta make sure that my middle-aged back pains aren't flaring up. It's wonderful. They have, uh, they're personalized. They build the mattress based on your sleep needs. Uh, you take a two minutes Helix sleep quiz to determine the best fit. They give you a free shipping, seamless delivery. It's easy. It's easy for even an incompetent like me to get the mattress going and they have a happy with Helix guarantee. You can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges if you didn't end up with the right mattress. All right, so do it right now. Go to helixsleep.com slash the board for up to 30% off. That's helixsleep.com slash the board for up to 30% off. That's helixsleep.com slash the board for up to 30%. All right, last thing. I was on a briefing with some democratic leaders the other day and there does seem to be a little bit of mixed messaging about how much effort is going to be put into these oversight, you know, campaigns next year. Like there was some word that's thrown around like measured and targeted and you know, the people are going to want us to be responsive to their concerns about affordability. I don't know. I'm kind of on the side where I would like the investigations to be unmeasured and untargeted, widespread shotgun approach, but I'm wondering where your head's at on that. Well, everything is going to be well conceived and well orchestrated and consistent with the requirements of the rule of law and the constitution. But they're speaking from, I don't know who you talked to, but I assume they're speaking from the global perspective of everything we're doing. I mean, is it more important, for example, that we pursue the healthcare back under Medicaid or the ACA tax credits? You know, I mean, we obviously don't have to choose. get that. Donald Trump's not going to sign those bills, probably, right? Yeah, he's not going to want to sign anything. And then our Republican colleagues will be on the spot to provide us the margin for a two-thirds override. And yeah, at this point, I think Trump has thrown caution to the winds. He doesn't care about them. And we'll just see how cultish and robotic the Republican Party continues to be. So where are you at on this question, like about how to balance the impeachments and investigations? My point is we're obviously going to do both. Exposing, countering, and stopping the corruption of the entire federal government. I mean, look at the way that government contracts are awarded to people who the Trump family is investing money in. And Donald Trump Jr. got a 1,000% return for his main fund in this new private equity company that he set up. That's extraordinary. It's considered remarkable if you get 20% return. He got a 1,000% return in his first year. Donald Trump reported himself making more than $2 billion on the side in his first year in office. That's more than a million dollars an hour. So we're not going to let that go. The committees that are charged with justice and oversight are going to be focused on that. But that's a small number of committees compared to ways and means and energy and commerce. And we're going to get people their health care back. We need to get public lands back that have been basically stolen away or given away just for plunder by large mining companies or timber companies. I mean, we've got a huge agenda before. So I think that this whole question you raised, Tim, has been somewhat overplayed in the press. And I know everybody's looking into a future where we don't know what's going to go on. But once we get into the details of it, you'll see we're perfectly able and we are ready to do it all. The only reason I think it's not overplayed is I do think we could have done a little bit more oversight the last time around. But whatever. We are what we are. So we'll see how it goes going forward. And I think you're right. I think we have to resist the temptation to say, let's let bygones be bygones. And, you know, this was some kind of freakish incident that could never happen again. That's not true. If we don't act with muscular force to hold everybody accountable for what they've done and to expose it, then we're going to see a return of this in the future. Two different visions of government in this election, Tim. One says the pursuit of the common good of everybody. And the other says the government is a playground and a weapon for the pursuit of vengeance and for the accumulation of money, profit by the guy who gets in and his family. Those are two radically different visions of government. Speaking my language. All right. When the votes are counted today, how many colleagues are you going to have? Give me a number. Come on. Just have some fun. Well, I'd have to go back through it. But before let me just say this. I guarantee you. Well, I can't guarantee you want to guarantee. I say you buy a toaster, but I am very strongly of the belief that we're going to win in some rural red districts today. And that's going to blow some people's minds. That's number one. Number two, I believe that a majority of the districts that they targeted in Texas for a gerrymander are going to become a dummy mander and are going the other way, like Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar and Greg Kassar. And, you know, I think we're going to win. So I think a lot of their gerrymanders were based on the assumption that they were going to continue to make headway in Latino communities. And they're not. And with young people and they're not, it's going the other way. So I say that we will at least triple the margin that the Republicans have against us now. They've got three seats. I think we will get at least nine. And if I had to put money down, I would say we will at least quintuple. I think we will get 15 more seats than them. But that's what we should be thinking about. I'll take the over. I think it's going to be a good night. I appreciate you, Congressman. Thanks for all the work. And next year, you know, once the real work of keeping these guys accountable starts, let's get back together. All right. Yes, indeed. And those landslide conditions continue to form. Everybody get out and vote. All right. We appreciate you, sir. Thanks for doing it on Election Day. Up next, Ryan Holiday. Remember being a kid around the holidays and anytime you'd ask for something, Mom would always say, wait until Christmas. Well, with Mint Mobile's holiday deal, there's no waiting right now. This second, all of their plans are 15 bucks a month. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. And that's what we're going to network. You can even bring your current phone and your current number. Choose from three, six, or 12 month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill. It's so easy. Sign up online and get premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. So what are you waiting for? To get your new wireless plan for 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com slash bulwark. That's mintmobile.com slash bulwark. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash bulwark. Limited time offer upfront payment of 45 bucks for three months, 90 bucks for six months, or 180 bucks for 12 month plan required, which is a $15 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required availability, speed, and coverage vary. See mintmobile.com. All right, guys, we are back with my buddy Ryan Holiday. I happen to be in Bastrop, Texas right now, which is just outside of Austin. And I thought that for the election day show, there might be some value in bringing on Ryan because he has some subject matter expertise on how to handle a day like this. If you don't know him, this is the 10-year anniversary of the Daily Stoic podcast website. You're in a bunch of books about stoicism. And we're here. We're at your bookstore. Yeah, thanks. Are these real books? These are real books, but this is art. This is just a display. Like, you can't take these out. These are just. I'm not allowed to take one home if I see one I like? They're stuck. Oh, God. You know, have you been to Ford's Theater? Yeah. They have that spiral of the books about Lincoln. That's what inspired it. There's a chimney in the bookstore. It's the same thing. All right. I'm going to go to the bookstore after this. Okay. So, question one. Yeah. It's the people that are listening to this. It's now a few hours till the polls close. They're really stressed. What's going to happen? They're feeling good, most people. You know, they've been seeing the polls. Things are looking good for the pro-democracy side, but they've been burned a couple times by the polls. And so, they're stressed. So, what would be a Stoic's advice for how to navigate in both anticipation and maybe disappointment? Okay. So, Seneca reminds us that he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary. So, the results are going to be the results. If you voted, if you told everyone in your life to vote, if you made sure your employees could vote, if you did your job, you don't need to watch the returns. You don't need to check what's happening. You should on the Bullock YouTube live stream tonight. You don't need to, though. What's going to happen is going to happen. It's like we torture ourselves as if the news isn't going to come. You went to the doctor, you got the test, and they told you it'll be back in 10 days. You really, if you can, try not to think about it for 10 days, unless what you're thinking about is the preparation that's going to allow you to handle this news better or worse, right? Like, we do this thing where we wonder. That's the easiest I've been done. As a gay who has to take HIV tests all the time, you know, especially in my more party days in my 20s, you know, there's always the period between taking the test and getting the test. And it's an anxious, it's a stressful period. Well, let me ask you a question. Has that anxiety, ever changed the results of said tests? Right? Like, that's, of course, it's easy to say, but it's the thing I try to remind myself. It's like, I could stay up until 2am and get the results, or I could go to sleep and get the news when I wake up. I could have a good day tomorrow because I'm well rested, or I could have a bad day tomorrow because I'm exhausted. One of those is in my control. The results after I've done my job, like I voted in Texas on last Monday. Like, I've already voted. So I'm trying to like, go about my life as if, you know, the results are sealed in the envelope. However many times I refresh the New York Times app to see the polls is not changing what's going to happen or not. Yeah, that's right. What about, we just talked about this a little bit on your show, but kind of the broader anxiety and ennui about like what's happening in the world. And this could be something people feel after that. I remember after the Joe Biden win, for example, I was depressed, like I was in a really bad place for like, after the win. I was happy when it happened for like a minute, you know, but the next morning I woke up with this kind of dread because the wind wasn't big enough, you know, and I kind of sensed that this was, you know, we weren't over this era. Right. I don't know if that's going to happen tonight, but like Trump's going to still be president tomorrow. Right. And, um, I think that in kind of moments like this, that's, it's natural for people to, you know, have a period of excitement and then follow that up with like, okay, I did all this. Like I, I listened to this bullwork. I volunteered. I voted. I brought friends out to vote. I donated. And like, now we have 52 senators and now he's still invading Iran. And now I'm still anxious about everything that's happening. Right. Like how to process that. It would be wonderful if there was just like only one thing that we had to do. Like if there could ever be some kind of resounding repudiation of this or of like any injustice. And I think one of the things that we have to do, I think, is we have to do something about how it works. Like, clear and decisive. And, and we've kind of been in this, like, we were in this end of history period, which is not actually what that book is about or what that means, but where we thought like things were decisive and clear. And then we could just go back to our lives. Like we said this during COVID, right? Like when things go back to normal, but like normal is crazy. Normal is shit happening. Normal is bad politicians making mistakes. Normal is the sort of constant threat of authoritarianism, if not here, then elsewhere in the world. It's natural disasters. It's personal problems in your personal life. So like this idea that like things are ever going to be good and then you could just like chill and think about other things is just like a lie we've told. It's a false expectation we have set ourselves up to be continually disappointed with. And I think when you study history, you go like, oh yeah, like this entire period, including the fifties, like we think of the fifties as this idyllic time. The fifties were horrible. Like we were under the, that was the worst. part of the cold war. That was nuclear annihilation. That was all of these things. You think pre the civil rights act. Totally. And right. It's certainly not good for certain parts of the population. The one I like to point out is like, we think of Socrates as living in the golden age of Athens. Socrates lives through the Peloponnesian war, which his country loses. He was forced to fight in it in a battle that they lose. He lives through a time known as the 30 tyrants, like the penultimate part of the golden age of democracy. Is them putting him to death. Like it's shitty all the way through. And so I'm not saying that life is shitty and you should just get used to it. But what I am saying is like, if you're setting yourself up to think like things are ever going to be normal and peaceful and good, and all you have to do is this one thing. And then it's set. What you're setting yourselves up for is that continued disappointment. Like if you see it more as one battle after another, like you're probably going to be pleasantly surprised when things go well, then unpleasantly surprised when things go wrong and they keep not being normal. So the thing we talked about was just kind of this, I think that we've gone through a period where like bad people have been rewarded a lot and like kind of processing that and thinking about, you know, we, we started with this, like the never for us, the never Trumpers, like we felt like we did the right thing. It was like ultimately a failure, like Trump wins twice. Right. And so how do you like take in those failings and then process them into something worthwhile? Yeah. You did do the right thing. I mean, like, what is the alternative? Like, like I, it is true. We should, we should always be looking at like, did a movement succeed? How could it have done better? What were the mistakes that it made? You know, uh, because politics isn't just having the right view. It's also being able to effectuate them and bring about change at the same time. The alternative was like bend the knee. The alternative was like, keep silent. Right. Like I, I do think it's worth going. Like, like I've, I think back on the, like the last 10 years, and I'm like proud of the fact that I did not fall for this scam for one fucking minute. Like that, that is an accomplishment unto itself. Like literally hundreds of millions of people cannot say the same thing. You could look at some of your competitors and the man, not that stoicism is necessarily a man podcast, but there tend to be, for whatever reason, um, a lot of, um, you know, kind of guys that are interested in Marcus Aurelius. Uh, we discussed this men think about Rome straight men. It's mostly a straight guy. I think I don't, gays don't really usually bring up Rome to me. Which is interesting. I don't think about it because there were a lot of gays. Yeah. People were like, uh, yeah, the idea of, I remember I went to this talk once and they were, he was like, he was talking about how, uh, you know, he took his kids to this play on Broadway and there was like a trans person. And it was like, and he's like, but then I took him to the museum of, you know, natural history of their med. And there we saw, you know, classical beauty. And it's like the classical beauty had a lot of gay. Like, what are you talking about? A lot of gay stuff happening with bronze age pervert. But, um, yeah, I guess my question is though, like a lot of people did fall for it in that world, you know, and kind of like outside of my, and outside of politics world and influenced a lot of people into going along with Trump. And the lesson that they learned from like this last decade was like, Trump got away with it. But you know what I mean? Like Trump got away with it. And, and maybe like, there is, there's value in, you know, not succumbing to what like the goody two shoes wants you to do like that. That's a value that, that some people are holding right now. Well, I also think like looking at some of the people I know, like one of the things they were like, Hey, this is like a powerful audience and you should play footsie with it. And then it's bad for business. If you say what is obviously true and you have some sort of red lines about what you will and won't sort of condone, right? Like, it's like, I don't feel like when you say concentration camps are bad that you're being political. Like, so, right. So like, so I, I know some people that have decided to play footsie with that audience and other people who are like, I just won't say anything that will piss that audience off. Yeah. So like, yeah. So there there's that. And, and I like what I've learned from it is like, no, no, no. Like the key is to like, say what you think to be who you are and to not participate in what I think is evil and wrong. But yeah, I think like you are, you, we are looking at a coarsening of the culture and we are looking at like a sort of a moral inversion where the norms we are, it's not just we're seeing the destruction of old norms that stood for a long time, but the establishment of new norms. Like when somebody runs an ad with the mother who facilitated, I guess, allegedly the, the horrendous sexual abuse of her own daughter to the degree that the state took them away, like when a politician runs that, we are now living in a world where the most powerful people in a party, not only don't condemn it, but like double down on it. The double, the political relations switch where you now never admit error and actually lean into whatever you did is wrong is like a terrible lesson that's been learned. I don't, I don't know how to make those people learn the lesson. Yeah. Like the thing we control, I guess what I would say is like, whether we participate in that or not, and whether we try our best to reestablish the norm by living by what we say. Yeah. Is there not kind of a success is the best revenge element of it too? I don't know. That's not very stoic, but like an idea of modeling that like, actually guys, you can do well as a, whatever it be, politician, podcaster, commentator in the manager space person who exists in the world, like without going along with us. Well, in meditation, the market shows as this gray line, it says the best revenge is to not be like that. Like to just not be these shitty people. Like it's not, it's not fun to be these people, although it might seem sometimes like they're having, they're actually horrible and miserable and they have to spend time around some of the dumbest and worst people pretending to be, you know what I mean? Like I don't have to pretend to be Donald Trump jr's friend. You know, I don't, I that's, that's a win. You know, I don't, I don't have to pretend, I don't have to pretend to like some of these horrible things. I don't have to pretend to be outraged on behalf of the cheesecake factory or Ken Paxton or whatever. I can just, I think that's a, that's a huge win to be able to truthfully live in yourself and not have to live in this weird fantasy world. But also, yeah, like it is important to in light of the, yes, there's all sorts of corruption and some of these people are making ungodly amounts of money, but most of them are fucking losers, especially the online ones. And they're like, they're not doing that. Well, and I think they want you to seem like they're doing very well, but, but, you know, Andrew Tate did not actually own a Bugatti. Like he was leasing one for Instagram purposes. So he could fool young teenagers into thinking he was the kind of person who had a Bugatti. Theo Vaughn did go to dinner with Ivanka and Jared. So that's a dinner that he, I'm sure, enjoyed. It's a, there's this great company. You had that opportunity. I don't know if she'd ever invite, invited you, but she probably would have because she went through a stoic face recently. She said, Marcus Aurelius, his perspective is amazing. And he once wrote that the soul becomes dyed the color of its thoughts. And I think about that all the time. You weren't really impressed with that as I saw. It was very clear to me that she had read one of my books because I just, I've seen it enough times. Like it just happens. Like I watch the face start and inevitably it, it, it traces back. One of my buddies and I, Dr. M. Baton Rouge is going through the phase now too. So he's, it's welcome. Yeah. But like, that is a really powerful idea from the Stokes that like, we are what we frequently think about. I was responding to that, not because she can't like or read the Stokes. I hope she does. I just think that's a hilarious one to pick when you are the daughter of the most negative, mean, like obsessively cruel person in the world. Like, like there's no one who thinks more about what he doesn't like and how things are going wrong and what's, what's fucked up in the world and these cities. And that this is a guy who celebrates Thanksgiving by thinking of the haters and critics who, you know, so, so like, I, I mean, honestly though, maybe, maybe that's her kind of saying, I don't want to overanalyze, psychoanalyze her, but maybe that's her explaining that. You think she's sub-tweeting her dad? I'm saying that that's why I'm not thinking about him. And she has checked out of Trump too, right? Maybe she needed Aurelius to stop thinking about, I mean, that's not moral courage. Yes. But I guess, it's not, it's better than participating. It's the nicest thing I've ever been said about Ivanka Trump on this podcast. Yes, yes. If that's what it is, then I take it all back and I commend her letting him slowly destroy himself. I doubt it. You also got some backlash recently because you posted a picture of yourself flipping off a Ken Paxton sign and announcing your vote for James Tallarico on Instagram, I think. And a lot of annoying people, MAGA people on Twitter were talking about the stoic guy has gone full woke. And it's like, it's not very stoic to do a middle finger. I thought that he was supposed to be calm and measured. And so I'm wondering kind of if you feel like you betrayed the stoic virtues by flipping off a Ken Paxton sign. Yeah, you know, it's really possible to think Ken Paxton is just a pathetic piece of shit and not be like, Like, I don't go through my life thinking a lot about Ken Paxton. I just think, I just know he's a crook and shouldn't be the senator from Texas. And so, like, there is this weird, I'm sure you experience this too, where people are reacting and projecting onto you a level of, like, sort of, they're thinking you're much more upset about something than you actually are. What I'd just done was vote. And I was showing a Tallarico sign of who I'd voted for. And Paxton said, But I just, I felt like thumbs up, thumbs down seemed a little, wasn't. Commensurate for your feelings. Just how shitty a person this guy is. Yeah, I assume you get that, like, just kind of the projecting of your, of, like, how you should behave and your feelings. Like, I get this as, like, we've been getting this with the Haley Stevens thing, which is, like, as a never-Trumper, shouldn't you be in support of somebody putting country over party? And I was like, I don't think you understand what my critique was. Of the Republican Party. But I guess there are probably some lessons from the Stoics in managing that, right? Well, and look, I, the idea that I never get angry, that I never get triggered by stuff, that I never have opinions about things that in retrospect, like, I wish I had had fewer opinions about. I mean, there's a reason I don't have access to my own Twitter account. Like, what, like, my Stoicism is that I don't go on Twitter. My Stoicism is, is sometimes if I. You hear that, Sarah? Yeah. Sorry, that's just a personal one. I send it to someone who does social media for Daily Stoic, and I go, maybe? And they go, this will do well. And I go, that's why you're the social media person. So, like, and there are things that I've said and opinions I've had. Anytime I'm responding to a comment on something, I probably wish I could have it back at some, like, because it seems like you have to win this encounter in the moment. And in retrospect, you're like, I probably was interacting with a bot. Right. You know, so, so I. Well, what was the purpose of it? For, like, well, let's just, like, so I won the argument in the Facebook comments with my aunt or my cousin or my neighbor, and it's like, why? Like, so? Yeah, and meanwhile, I was like, hey, can you guys be quiet? I have to, I have to write this. You know, like, like, I was, I neglected something actually important in my life to say something on social media. So, like, those lessons, like, I'm constantly learning them. But, like, I do think there is this idea that Stoicism is about being, like, unbothered and unaffected. And it's like, if there's anything to be unaffected. It's not getting sucked in to the shittiness of a universe where Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee for Senate in Texas and going, like, I refuse to accept that reality. Like, to me, Stoicism is not being made awful by the awful moment in time that we're in. And so, like, I try to be involved. I try to be engaged. I try to participate. And, like, almost all the Stoics were engaged in politics in some form or another. Like. The idea is, like, how can you be philosophical about your beliefs and your principles and actions in the political sphere, not how do I live in my fantasy bubble of books and not know, not participate in what's happening in the world? All right. So, you're in Texas. What are the vibes? How are you feeling? I mean, I think the vibes are good, but I've thought the vibes were good several times in the past. So, I would say there's something Stoic about the current vibe of, like, let's be pleasantly surprised than unpleasantly surprised. Like, let's do everything we can and hope it goes our way and not tell ourselves that it is going to go our way. Because, like, by the way, what you think about it doesn't change it either way. But, like, if you are playing with the assumption that there could be a disappointing outcome, I think you're going to. Like, if the boxer goes in thinking they can lose the fight, they'll fight better than the boxer who thinks there is zero chance that this person can lay a hand on you. And so, I think there is, ideally, that this kind of, I don't know what's the word for it, but, like, this refusing to take any of the polls for granted is probably a good thing. Last thing. So, what about, you know, in your more proximate world? I guess I've met, you know, I mean, you're. The Republicans don't talk to me anymore. Yeah. You know? So, because of the nature of the type of stuff that you're doing with Stoicism, like, you're encountering, you know, sports coaches that, like, want to teach you how to play. They're thinking about Stoicism. Business leaders, executives, right? And so, I assume that you are hearing from people, you know, you're kind of sensing the vibe shift where people were selling themselves on Trump between whenever that was, basically COVID and 2025. Have you sensed in those quarters, like, disappointment, reflection, anything yet? Or is that hard to say? Kind of dissonance is a real thing. And I think it's going to take a bit. The tech, right? Being sort of. Being sort of recent to this. I think it's going to take them a while to process what. I think they're going to be the last ones off the ship, actually. I think so, too. Because they're getting the most out of it. Yes, but also, like, the move they made is so recent. Yeah. I think they'll need time to process the reality of what they have done. Yeah, right. But, yeah, I mean, the fascinating part about the last 10 years is, like, almost no one thinks this is okay. Like, almost no one behaves like this. Almost no one behaves this way. Almost no one would want their children to behave this way. Almost no one would, in any other sphere of their life, encourage or condone this level of corruption or cruelty or incompetence or just, like, emotional instability. So, like, it's always been this real part of it that you can sort of talk to people about it. And you sense their uncertainty, their frustration, their fatigue with it. And then every couple years, they go back and they go. They go, give me another round of it. And maybe we're at the end of that, and hopefully we are. Or hopefully we are just. We have just enough people tired of it that, like, we'll now have some of the leverage and power to expose the full extent of the scam and the looting and the. Like, it's crazy to think we only know a fraction about what they've done. Crazy. I mean, we're still learning things about. The first term. The first president. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, they just officially recently confirmed that Thomas Jefferson was the father of, you know, Sally Hemings' children. Yeah. It's easy to think, like, well, we'll figure this out quickly. And it's like, we're still figuring stuff out about things that happened a million years ago. Like, it's going to take a while to fully expose it. But it's going to be. I think about that Mad Men line of, like, it'll. It'll surprise you how much this never happened. Yeah. As that starts to come out, everyone will have always been opposed and horrified by this. Yeah. That was the line I used, I think, right after George Floyd. I was just like, just do it now, guys. Everyone will eventually be opposed to this. Yes. Why not now? Yes. Well, there's that book that's really good, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, which came from a tweet, which I think is the tweet of. Cruelty is the point, and one day everyone will have always been against this are, like, the. The tweets that describe almost this movement and period to a T. Shout out Adam Serwer. All right. Well, hopefully this brought some peace. And what are the Stoic virtues again? Well, you'd be very familiar with them. You went to Catholic school, right? I did, yeah. The cardinal virtues. Yeah. Courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. They're the same. They stole. The Catholics stole them from Marcus. So, I don't know that this podcast will have necessarily brought temperance or justice. But maybe a little bit of courage and some wisdom and some peace to the viewers on Election Day. I feel like being a bulwark against fascism and corruption is the definition of what that virtue is about. So, that's why I listen. All right. Well, I appreciate it. That wasn't a fish for compliments, but I will take it. That's Ryan Holiday. I appreciate you very much. Appreciate Jamie Raskin. And, you know, I'm sure we'll be seeing some of you tonight on the live stream because you're not taking Ryan Holiday's advice to wait till tomorrow morning. See you all then. Bye. If you don't do right by yourself, do right by me. Do right by me. Do right by me. Do right by me. Do right by me. Don't sell me down the river. Put me out in misery. Do right by me. Do right by me. The Bulwark Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Conway. Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DiCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.