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

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to The Bullwork Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. We have a double header for you today in segment two. I am live from the painted porch book shop 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 Manus Fair and a bunch of other stuff. He has some feedback on Ivanka's turn to Stoicism, but 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 is the lead impeachment manager and Trump's second impeachment trial. It's Jamie Raskin. How you doing, sir? Welcome to the show. - I'm doing it excellently. I think Tim and his great debut with you. - All right, the vibes are high. This morning, where are you coming at me from? - Well, I'm in back in the free state in Maryland and our beautiful eighth 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 is boomerang against them. And it's really motivated our people. - Yeah, how's that going to be Harris looking in the free state of Maryland? Are we going to have a sweep? - Well, you know, they even could go either way. I mean, because 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 Senate's closing arguments a little bit. The president yesterday was in front of the reflecting pool. He's moved his message from asked to cock. We fixed the granite. We recocked it. He'd spent a lot of time discussing that and the algae in the reflecting pool this morning. He was on Fox saying inflation has solved. Could you have scripted a better performance from Donald Trump to make your guys lives better? - No, first of all, what we call the reflecting pool the "straight 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 it's 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 money-making opportunity from the beginning and that new swamp is actually a great illustration of it because he didn't need to do anything. He could've just left it there, it was fine, but instead he decided he wanted to change the hue of the water for the Fourth of July and 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 contract 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. Nobody would ever go anywhere near using the White House or the government facilities or the reflecting pool for campaign purposes is 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 you wanted to spend the last day and you know your device president then he was up in at least a phonics district a plus 21 Trump district. Good Democrat, I can't get up there Blake Jen to be and we'll see what happens. I've been there several times in this campaign and he's going all the way all the way. He thinks so? Definitely. He lives to God's ears. I mean, that is probably the worst for public in the country here. 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 down. Junior was up there. He said the Democrats are going to make Ohio a state. I don't know what that flood was about and then JD'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 and you have JD in New York saying this. I saw a story that there are a legal communities of a legal 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 Kostin sent me this. Laura Lumer had tweeted at him a couple hours earlier. I hope JD 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 we're reflecting pool. - 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-fifdom and the Democrats are about to elect a senator for all the people they are in shared brown and Dr. Amy Akten is going all the way to become governor. So we are going to make it a member of the United States again 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. Talk about what you guys have planned for oversight. But you mentioned it in the top, the Haley Stevens drama. On Sunday, you're on the meet the press. You 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 looked 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 Sunday 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 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 typically in the way that the Republicans maneuver these things completely ham fisted, as you say. And in effect, we're saved every time from the sinister nature of their plots by their 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. So yeah, my colleague, Jonathan Coney's in Michigan said he was reporting this at talking to kind of black voters there also about how there's kind of this backfire about her going to do this at the black church and not communicating with anyone about it and just sort of yodeling and going to bat venue with microodgers 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 in Nicholas Fuentes and 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 interests 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 gonna be like? - You mean when Hailey returns, yeah. - You know, I wish her well. I mean, it doesn't bespeak a lot of either consistency of character or rationality of mind what's taking place there. over the last several days. - Just on the merits of the concerns about lefty antisemitism, just separating this from a duel, 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 antisemitism both on the right, like you mentioned, but also from left activists. Your Jewish is that, you know, 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 antisemitism that I see out there. And I would just love to see our friends on the right denounce not just antisemitism they see on the left, but also on the right. And I have no problem doing that. Antisemitism has been a curse to the human species for, you know, millennia now. And it's appeared in religious guises and secular guises and 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 antisemitism 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 know, you might want to pull down the shades and shutters, binge watch something on Netflix, get your mind 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 even if we'll get 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. 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And in New Orleans, 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 gotta get the shutters. We gotta make sure that, you know, our window situation is up to snuff. We don't want any leaking. We're gonna be going back to our friends at three day blinds for another round. Right now, your quality window treatments that fit your budget at three day blinds at the three day blinds.com/thebolark 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 threedayblinds.com/thebolark. One last time, that's by one, get one 50% off. When you go to the number three, d-a-yblinds.com/thebolark. All right, look at the other races around the country. I'm here in Texas right now coming at you from Austin. Last night, I saw Gina Hina Hosa and Tauriko 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 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 Tancawa 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. (audience cheering) 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. (audience cheering) - 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 up to spend about 180 million or something to that effect. But Telleriko, 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 wonder 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 site to behold like all of the confluence of communities and activism taking place there. It's an inspiration to the whole country. And Telleriko's run of 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 mega and Donald Trump and JD Vance and their 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 we're starting to see the emergence of the real political alignments in the country right now. Any other races you're really that are special Jamieer-askins for tonight? - Well, I got a bunch of them. I mean, it's funny you mentioned New York 21, Blake gender being 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 in a high school basketball coach running against just a Magaloon. And he's done it the right way. Now, of course, he's fourth or fifth generation, 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. So, but I've seen this in a bunch of the rural areas, Cali Barr in Michigan one, the opera 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'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 kind of red fish. Yeah, but I mean, they're great candidates all over the place. I love Janelle Stelson 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. She's a great candidate. And she wrote dope sick and she's an incredible author. And it would be like sending Voclav Havill to Congress. We've got a real chance to put a really smart woman 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 of weeks ago. what we're talking about, you know, what their plans are on the oversight. side obviously judiciary this you know oversight and accountability investigations is going to be probably 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 rank 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 you know the the ranking member there has to coordinate with people from all the other committees to make sure that you know there's synergy rather than you know collision or redundancy. You have liked to have worked yeah. Yeah but 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 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 have been actively suppressing the truth refusing to cooperate with other investigations that are taking place like in New Mexico in the states and with 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 and the released Epstein files like how do they determine what to release and what not 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 in the bosses that 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 a not 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 the Florida to go talk to Galein 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 co-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 investigation into Kushner and I'm going to get to see Jared Kushner testify what what plans do you have there 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 believing 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 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 what is the 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 the incredible new book an amazing new book written by Matthew Cole called princes and thieves everybody knows that that Jared Kushner brought back more than two billion dollars from the oil monarchy's from Saudi Arabia uh Muhammad Ben 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 on its 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 una countable slush funds exist described 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 a corporate slush fund the White House 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 Dipides does 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 got enough you've seen this I just think there'd be so many examples of this type of pressure as well well look the 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 of prosecution in other words they were firing hundreds of people some of the best and uh 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 whatever uh Trump you know whatever was in Trump's interests that guy and so uh Todd Blanche was Donald Trump's personal attorney and 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 are gone and so every I mean look at all the prosecutions that have been thrown out by grand cherries or by prosecutors they just say you know what we can't go along with this it's like James Comey Latisha James Adam chef Mark Kelly Maggie Goodland or Jason Crowe my uh constituent Davey Harno got set up for the reflecting pool job claiming that he pointed to the Revegnable 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 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 our room for the kids room for the guest room that are comfy they're 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 in a hotel right now and I don't understand what it is about the marketplace the people think that we I want the pillow top mattress and the soft mattress and the 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the board for up to 30% off helix sleep dot com slash the board all right last thing I was on a briefing with some democratic leaders the other day and there doesn't 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's some more to stone around like measured and targeted and you know the people are going to want us to be responsive to their concerns about affordability I'm kind of on the side where I would like the investigations to be unmeasured and untargeted but on the 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 in the constitution but they're speaking from I don't know who you talk 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 impeachment of Pete Hegseth before millions of people get their health care back under Medicaid or they see tax credits, you know? I mean, we obviously don't have to choose. - Yeah, that Donald Trump's not gonna sign those bills, probably, right? - Yeah, he's not gonna wanna 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 wins. He doesn't care about them, and we'll just see how cultish and robotic the Republican Party continues to pay. - So where are you at on this question, about how to balance the achievements and investigations? - My point is we're obviously gonna do both. Exposing, countering, and stopping the corruption of the entire federal government. I mean, look at the way the government contracts are awarded to people who the Trump family is investing money in. And Donald Trump, Jr., got 1,000% return for his main fund in this new private equity company that he set up. I mean, that's extraordinary. It's considered remarkable if you get 20% return. You got 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 gonna let that go. The committees that are charged with justice and oversight are gonna be focused on that. But that's a small number of committees compared to ways and means and energy and commerce. And when you get people there, healthcare 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 gonna 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, 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 this was some kind of a freakish incident that can 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 gonna see a return of this in the future, two different visions of government in this election, Tim. One says the government must be an instrument for 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 gonna 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. You wanna guarantee, I say you buy a toaster, but I am very strongly of the belief that we're gonna win in some rural red districts today and that's gonna 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 gonna become a dummy mandor and are going the other way. Like Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Coyar and Craig Cousarr. And, you know, I think we're gonna win. So, I think a lot of their gerrymanders were based on the assumption that they were gonna 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. The best thing to do. - I'll take the over. - Yeah. I think it's gonna 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. So, thanks for today on Election Day. Up next, Ryan Howard. (upbeat music) - Remember being a kid around the holidays and any time you'd ask for something, Mom would always say wait until Christmas? Well, with Mitt and Mom's holiday deal, there's no waiting. 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Taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes, main slow and network is busy, capable device required availability speed and coverage vary, see Mittmobile.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 take these out. - These are just for them. - I'm not allowed to take one home. - Well, they're stuck. - They're stuck. - Oh god. - Have you been to Ford's Theater? - Yeah, they have that spiral of the links, the books about Lincoln, that's what inspired us. There's a chimney in the bookstore, it's the same thing. - All right, when you go to the bookstore to this, all right. So question one, it's the people that are listening to this. It's now a few hours 'til the polls closed. They're really stressed while it's gonna have and they're feeling good, most people. You know, they've been seeing the polls, things 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 it's necessary. - So like, the results are gonna be the results. Like 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. Like what should-- - Yeah, sure. - You should on the bullet lives. You should buy a string tonight. - You don't need to though. - What's gonna happen is going to happen. It's like we torture ourselves as if the news isn't gonna come. Like 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 gonna allow you to handle this news better or worse, right? Like we do this thing where we-- - That's easier said than done. - It's a gay who has to take HIV tests all the time, especially in my more party days and my 20s. 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? (laughing) - All right, 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 2 a.m. 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 'cause 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 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 gonna 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 on we, 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 two, after the win. - After the win. - After the win. I was happy when it happened for like a minute. - Yeah. - But the next morning, I woke up with this kind of dread because the win 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 gonna happen tonight, but I think Trump's gonna still be president tomorrow, right? And I think that in kind of moments like this, that's natural for people to have a period of excitement and then follow that up with like, okay, I did all this. Like I listened to this ballwork. 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 study of history gives you is that that's just like not how it works. Like, and in fact, like the last few decades for misleading, like gay rights was. 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 yeah but like normal is crazy normal is shit happening normal is bad politicians making mistakes normal is this 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 yeah and I think when you study history you go like oh yeah like this entire period including the 50s like we think of the 50s that's this idyllic time the 50s were horrible like we're under the that was the worst part of the Cold War that was nuclear annihilation that was all of these things you think crazy 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 is living in the golden age of Athens yeah Socrates lives through the Peloponnesian war which his country loses he's 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 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've started with this like the never for us the never Trumpers like we felt like we did the right thing that 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 you did do the right thing I mean like what is the alternative like like 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 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 do think it's worth going like like 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 bit like that that isn't accomplishment unto itself like yeah literally hundreds of millions of people cannot say the same thing you could look at some of your competitors and the method socialism is necessarily a man podcast but there tend to be for whatever reason a lot of you know kind of guys that are interested in Marcus Aurelius discuss us men think about Rome straight men it's mostly a straight guy thing I don't gays don't really usually bring up Rome to me which is interesting yeah I don't know about it because there were a lot of gays yeah people are like yeah the idea I remember I went to this talk once and they were he was like he was talking about how 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 they're met and there we saw you know classical beauty and it's like the classical beauty had a lot of gays like what are you talking about a lot of gays stuff happening with Bronze Age pervert but yeah I guess many questions though like oh a lot of people did fall for it in that world you know and kind of like outside of my and outside 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 value in you know not succumbing to what like the goody two shoes want 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 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 yeah so there's that 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 it's said 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 yeah 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 stoked like an idea of modeling that like actually as you can do well as a whatever it be politician podcast or commentator in the manager space person who exists in the world like without going along with us well in meditation the mark sure as this great line he says the best revenge is to not be like that like to just not be the shitty people like it's not it's not fun to be these people though might seem sometimes like 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 know 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 can pass in 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 it is important to in light of 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 and rotate 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 Vaughan did go to dinner with Ivanka and Jared so that's a dinner that he I'm sure enjoyed it's a there's just great company you who had that opportunity I don't know if she ever invited you but she probably would have because she went through a stoic face yeah recently she said Marcus really this is perspective is amazing and he once wrote that the soul becomes died the color of its thoughts and I think about that all of the time you weren't really impressed with that as I saw it was very clear to me that she hit red one of my books because I just I've seen it enough times like it just happened like I watch the face start and inevitably it it traces back to what is an eye doctor in Baton Rouge is going through the face now too so he's it's welcome yeah but like that is a really powerful idea from this dogs that like we are what we frequently think about yeah I was responding to that not because she can't like read the stories I hope she does I 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 fucked up in the world in 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 mean honestly though maybe maybe that's her kind of saying I don't want to over analyze like analyze her but maybe that's her if she's sub tweeting her sub tweeting her dad or saying that that's why I'm not thinking about him and she has checked out of tried to or I say this is maybe she needed a really us to stop thinking about I mean that's not moral courage yes but I guess it's it's better than participating yeah the nicest thing I've ever been said about Ivanka Trump on his podcast Yes, yes, if that's what it is, so 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 again, Paxton Sign, and announcing your vote for James Tallerika on Instagram, I think. And a lot of annoying people on mega people on Twitter, we're talking about the stoic guy has gone full low. 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 angry about it. 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 just done was vote, and I was showing up, Talarika sign of who I voted for, and it Paxton sign who I'd not voted for. 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 Ken Paxton is. This guy is. Yeah, I see me get that like just kind of the projecting of your, of like how you should behave in your feelings. Like I get this is like, I've been getting this with a Hailey 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 ticket was of their Republican party. But I guess they're probably some lessons from the Stokes and 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. Why is my stoicism is is sometimes if I hear that, Sarah? Yeah, that's just a personal one. I, uh, I send it to someone who does social media for Daily Stoke 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. It's something 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. You know, so, so I, I, what was the purpose of it? For like, well, this was like, so I won the argument in the Facebook comments with my aunt or my cousin or my neighbor. And it's like, well, I 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 that 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 by, it's not getting sucked into the shittiness of a universe where Ken Paxson is the Republican nominee for Senate in Texas and going like, I refuse to accept that reality. Like, to me, stoicism is, 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 stokes 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. How do you, 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 stuck about the, the current vibe of like, let's be pleasantly surprised, then unpleasantly surprised. Like, let's, let's do everything we can and hope it goes our way and not tell ourselves that it is going to go away. 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 you're, 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, 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 Texas, I'm like, you're encountering, you know, sports coaches that like want to teach their team about the doses of business leaders, executives, right? And so I, I assume that you were hearing from people, you know, you're kind of sensing the vibe shift. Yeah. Where people were selling themselves on Trump. Yeah. Between whenever that was basically COVID in 2025. Have you sensed in those quarters like disappointment, reflection, anything yet? Or is it, is that hard to say kind of distance is a real thing. And I think it's going to take a bit the tech right being sort of recent to this. I think it's going to take them a while to process. Yeah. What I think they're going to be the last ones off the ship actually because they're because they're getting the most out of it. Yes. But also like the movie made is so recent, I think they'll need time to process the reality of what they've done. 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 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 accrualty 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 give me another round of it. Like 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 in 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 you know what I mean? Like they just officially recently confirmed that Thomas Jefferson was the father of of you know Sally Heming's children. It's easy to think like we'll 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 madman line of like it'll surprise you how much this never happened. Yeah. As that starts to come out, everyone will have always been opposed in horrified by this. Yeah. What's the line I used? I think it's always 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. A cruelty is the point. And one day everyone will have always been against this are like the the the tweets that describe almost this movement and period to a tee. Shout out out of server. All right. Well, hopefully this brought some peace. And what are the first dog virtues again? Well, you'd be very familiar with them. You went to Catholic school, right? I guess. Yeah. The Cardinal virtues. Yeah. Courage, Temperance, Justice, Wisdom. They're the same. They stole the Catholics stole them from from Marcus. So I don't know that this podcast will have necessarily brought Temperance or Justice, but maybe a little bit of a little bit of courage and some wisdom and some and some peace. I feel like 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 your asking and I'm sure we've seen 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. The Bullwark Daily has brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzaly Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.