Sam Stein and Mary Peltola: Cozying Up to Commies and Corporate Elites

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That's H-E-R-O dot C-O. Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I've got a doubleheader for you today. In segment two, we've got Alaska Democrat running for Senate, Mary Peltola. We taped the interview yesterday before a story came out about some of her staff management choices and some of the Sam Steiners. Sam Stein-esque text that she is sending to her underlings. And so I'll have a lot more to say about that before we get to segment two. But up first, he's the managing editor of the Bullwark, the aforementioned Sam Stein. What's up? What's up, man? How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. We had our president once again kind of kowtowing to a foreign dictator that we're supposed to be in competition with yesterday. The plane landed Andrews Air Force Base. Bill Kristol, as this is want in the morning. Shots Newsletter this morning pointed out that it was the first time since 1962 that a president went to greet a foreign dignitary at the airport. And the last time was Kennedy greeting a British leader. So, you know, a little different. I don't believe that time we rolled out the red carpet again and had U.S. troops literally on their knees kind of like smoothing it out, making sure that there were no kinks in the carpet while the Chinese waited. And looked on from above in the airplane. Just another absolutely humiliating degradation of our troops to the benefit of first Putin last year and now Xi. It wasn't that they were smoothing it out. They were like looking for little speckles of dirt that they were trying to. I mean, they were really getting in there. I'm surprised they didn't have a Dyson to go and clean it up. I thought it was pretty appalling. You know, it's like for a guy who's so obsessed with imagery, does he not recognize the imagery in that? Right. Like he's got Chinese dignitaries just waiting as he cleans up for them so they can walk on a red carpet for him. And then there's other elements of it that looked pretty silly, like him wincing and him wearing gloves and like the 60 degree weather. We're going to get to the wincing and the gloves. What was happening with that? It was very strange. And you would have thought it was the depths of winter in D.C. You're in D.C. It's not that bad. Trump was in a suit and a very heavy overcoat. And then also heavy gloves. Gloves. What was that? Wasn't it like in the 70s yesterday? What was that? It was high 60s, low 70s. I mean, it was. Beautiful day. It was my type of weather. I enjoyed it. It really was not that cold. It's like one of those days where you don't know if you should send your kid to school with like shorts or pants. You know, it's that type of weather, right? You're in a hoodie now, I guess, in Trump's defense. Well, the office is pretty cold. I am not wearing gloves for the record. The gloves are weird. I mean, is it the hand condition? That's that. That is. It's covering up the bruises. And then they put out some photos today and they clearly were AI edited where the gloves are off. I don't get it. And old people do get chilly. You know, this is why a lot of elderly move to Florida and Arizona. It's kind of like a running joke sometimes when you go to these. They get chilly when it's 40 degrees. Sometimes it's a running joke when you go to these retirement communities, you know, and somebody's sitting in their Lazy Boy with the blanket on, even though outside it's 92 degrees in Tucson or whatever. So maybe his blood circulation just isn't flowing to his extremities anymore. That's possible. That's possible. In terms of like why he does this for Chi, I don't, I don't, I mean, the conventionalism is that he just has a strongman complex, right? And he, and he likes his people and he, he's not a confrontational guy despite being confrontational. So when he, when he rolls up the red carpet for folks, it kind of is on brand. It's not the same as him getting gooey about mom Donnie, but there is, there's something to the idea that like he just doesn't want to do personal confrontation. He wants it to seem historic. I think, I think it's part of how he feel feels about it. Like the carpet and the plane and the airport. And then it's a dramatic scene and the fly over. I think that's part of it. How upset is he that the ballroom is not finished right now? But then also bill points out, he is consistent on this. He won't offend these guys. He won't offend Putin. He'll suck up to. She he's a presidential bully, but he's cowed by the big boy bullies of the world. I don't know how else, how else can you look at it? There's just no other way. I mean, he, there's so much to say to China too, right? I mean, they are helping the Iranians. Uh, they are an adversary, obviously on AI, not only they're helping Iranians. I mean, based on reporting, it seems like are responsible for the deaths of American troops and during in the theater. And they've been providing a lot of help to the Iranians, including in specific incidents. Yeah. And it's, um, you know, we were obviously supposedly in some sort of, sort of trade war with them, but he keeps pushing off the, uh, larger tariffs with China. And then, uh, and I know we're going to get into it, but the AI race, you know, he, he's, he doesn't want to win it against China, but it doesn't seem like he has any inclination to take a hard line against China. Uh, and like you said, against Russia, what he does is he, and it's the Dutch, right? Like he's got to go hard against the Netherlands. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Denmark, this game is so obvious at this point that I don't, I try to just. Really pick my battles for when I bring it up. But I mean, just imagine the Fox treatment of Obama in this situation. I mean, you have, here's the story I was referencing before Iran carried out its attack that killed three us troops in July Tehran acquired high-res satellite images of the base in Jordan, the us base in Jordan from Chinese entities, according to us officials familiar with details of the incident. So it's like us security officials briefing the press saying, no, China gave them the targeting images that led to the death of troops. So China was working with Tehran killed us trips fast forward, not even a month. And we have other us troops on their knees smoothing out the red carpet for she, it is fucking appalling. And, and it would be wall to wall in this case, it would have been for good reason. Like the Barack Obama is like in the pocket of China. He's too weak. He rides the bicycle. He's arugula eating like all of that stuff. And like, that's not, that's actually Trump. Everything they would have said is Trump. Well, also. Maybe butchering this, but I'm pretty sure back in the day Trump would have gone off on Obama for this type of stuff too. I mean, there was this whole thing where it's like, I think Obama had to get off the plane, the air force one at some back entrance. And because the Chinese didn't have some sort of staircase for him on the front entrance, I forget what it is, but I believe Trump was just like, I would have turned the plane around and I would have absolutely left within a second. And it's, you can, he always postures as a tough guy, but this gets me thinking we're not doing the cabinet ranking. We're just going to leave it at that. And I think it's, I think it's, I think we're, I think we're just going to do it. I think we're going to do it. like him like you like state bullying private enterprise you like masked agents in the streets like you like the gulags like what part of communism is that i'd like to know a little bit more about the critique of we got government paid for advertising on fox it's very coming to that communism's coming you mentioned the flyover though i wanted to get warmed up before i talked about the flyover because it's pretty funny because it doesn't do you any good for the audio listeners to see the video we'll put the video up for the youtube guys but i'm going to kind of do a i'm going to do kind of a second by second walkthrough of what happens on this on this video so we have we have trump and she's standing there uh the national anthem is playing trump is saluting you know the players the national anthem she is like shoulders slumped just kind of like hanging she's kind of like the the the cool kid in high school that when you know the pledge of allegiance is like i'm not gonna even i'm not even gonna put my hand up to my heart for this pledge of allegiance like i'm not my shirt isn't tucked in i'm just gonna hang it so she's chilling all right trump is at attention and then the plane comes over whoosh and you would have thought that somebody slammed a car door in trump's little tiny finger as hard as possible with his reaction he's like winces it's a full facial wince like his teeth his fake teeth you can see all the and then the nose scrunches and she doesn't flinch simultaneously simultaneously and then the plane comes over whoosh and you would have thought that somebody slammed a car door in trump's little tiny finger as hard as possible with his reaction he's like winces it's a full facial wince like his teeth is fake teeth you can see all the and then the nose scrunches and she doesn't flinch simultaneously simultaneously to trump having a full body reaction to this noise chairman she is just unmoved unperturbed and then the plane goes over and then both of them go up and look at it and then trump kind of shakes his head like woof that was something that i decided to deal with and chairman she is like whatever and i totally mogged plain mogged he was plain mogged it's it was it was the combination of the two that did it for me because trump's little reaction was like you know it was like the eagle it's like my favorite video of the eagle in trump tower where the eagle goes to like kind of peck him and he like acts like like so fucking the tiger was near him yeah no he he was not he was quite alarmed by it and i think it hurt his ears and then she just didn't get it's like she is cold he just doesn't care he's bored he's like bored kind of like looking away okay i've seen those before all right whatever by the way under and under noticed here because she's kind of hiding behind in this case i'm talking about s h e she not chairman she uh hiding behind trump i get it's hard to see i can't tell if it's his wife or a staffer i think it's his wife is it the blonde no no no behind you it's a it's a chinese delegation so behind trump's hand is a woman who stands there also totally unperturbed by this it's he's wincing she doesn't move an inch it's just that she doesn't flinch i feel like we're not appreciating it we're not appreciating it we're not appreciating it we're not appreciating the wince it is a dramatic i'm like scared wince it's like it's something like was very painful for him a full body shutter yeah yeah i maybe as a hearing aid in there's something i don't know what's happening with that it's like the first time you heard a loud sound in a while and then they put out a image from this moment because they thought it looked cool where the plane is flying over and trump and she are standing there but but they've they've edited out the wince they did an edit of this exact moment of trump getting plane mogged that's what the white house decided to put out but it was an ai edited so he's not wincing he's also only wearing one glove in the i edited image i'm not sure why they took only does he have six little fingies on there does he have a six stubby fingy i can't tell honestly but he's only wearing one glove in the edited image but the real one from getty is very clearly wearing two gloves weird choices here all around okay on the substantive side we don't have much yet on what's happening i guess we know that as you mentioned they're delaying the tariffs but that's kind of the extra extra level of tariffs we already have pretty high tariffs on china which is causing part of the inflation and we've hit record high like i think since 2004 on the 30-year bond today so that's not good for good times but on the ai is the one substantive thing we have this morning before the meeting trump bleats this a big day with president xi of china super intelligence parentheses si he's really sticking with that he's really leaning into si oh what a great brander he is it will be a big topic of discussion but i want to leave it exactly where it is that is china's position also our guard rail is the doj so no worries i mean todd blanchard there who's indicting jim comey over some seashells like they got this you know if we end up with a super intelligence that starts hacking into bioweapons facilities or whatever like the dojo and it'll take a little while i'll have to go to the court system you know they'll have to be an indictment to grand jury but you know i mean eventually assuming the whole human race hasn't been exterminated um todd blanchard get around to it i don't really understand you can't have both which is that we have to speed run to super intelligence because of the competition with china and also i'm meeting with china today that's all cool we're both going full speed ahead no worries we're gonna sell them chips and everything what's the point on rolling out the red carpet for this guy if you can't build some sort of diplomatic relationship to deal with the most existential threat facing humanity like what i don't really get why we're bending over backwards to be nice and kind and giving them all this pageantry if we're just gonna be like you know what let's not even worry about a deal with you guys isn't the carrot there for the reason also to me it's like doesn't it feel like these guys just given up right like i mean putting aside their deportation efforts it just feels like they've given up they don't really have any good ideas it's all i don't Trump vanity projects and i think the ai is where they think you know i mean if you're trump like i want good relationships with with jensen huang and all these guys maybe and you know who knows we got investments in there or maybe they think that's all the only thing propping up the economy is spending on data centers and ai and it's just i i feel though like there's like a sense of i don't know defeat emanating from the white house where they i mean you look at it across the board it's like this diesel export thing it's like really hilarious to me that they just don't know what if they should do an export ban on diesel and one minute they're like yeah he's gonna do it next minute like no he's not gonna do it and you know permitting reform same thing oh yeah it's gonna happen it's not gonna happen beyond again immigration and deportations they don't really have an ideological project at all even the terrorists they're on again they're off again it's just there's just nothing the arch the project about just praising donald trump as if he's a cult figure you know they kind of have that that's really what they have left to focus on donald trump's personal legacy this is a fox ad that says on it paid for by the u.s government shout out my guy jim defiedi down at uh local tv reporter down in miami who's awesome always does great interviews and he uh he spotted this and posted on social media an ad on fox news paid for the u.s government i'm going to place half of it because the first half is trump talking which we don't like to do uh but the back half you'll get the answer to that and then you're going to have to do a little bit of a talk about it and then adjust he's the toughest most resilient person that i've ever met and nothing was going to stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves love me love me love me what song is that what i don't know what song is that do you know do you what i thought it was this was a quiz no i was wondering i do know that i had to live through days of news cycles and then years of social mockery because jeb bush once asked people to clap for him and donald trump is using my tax dollars to put an ad on tv where someone sings love me over pictures of him and then uses dana white's voiceover to talk about how tough trump is because he's an mma guy like what possible rationale could there be for using tax dollars to play that ad and it's not like you know sometimes collagen's always getting a little cute with that sometimes it's like oh my god i don't know what i'm doing i don't know what i'm doing it's like hey we gotta let people know about the new bridge we built and so we're gonna do ads you know that's like hey guys have you noticed the road work okay but like this is just pure cult propaganda paid for by us embarrassing kind of too you're right about the a couple things one is like i remember like um you know obamacare the health and human services department had a big ad budget to like encourage getting into exchanges yeah so that that does happen but this is just propaganda i mean this is just pure propaganda there's nothing they're pushing beyond trump and it's both alarming because this is literally taxpayer funded propaganda pushed out on tv networks that are very deferential to the president you got to be scared of this stuff this is this is kind of orwellian right and then also if you actually and i feel bad because people are listening to didn't get to see it but like i nearly had a seizure while watching that ad it is just if you have epilepsy like you're you're in trouble watching that ad there is so many cuts so much light happening coming at you it made me like a little bit nauseous and i feel like it wasn't the best ad i guess that's some saving grace here but it's like this is all for the project of trump that's it yeah and i have a lot of problems with the ad and i stand in solidarity with our friends in the epilepsy community that wasn't on the top of my list but uh i hear i I appreciate you acknowledging them. They shouldn't be forgotten. I just. I think that we also just should also just focus on how humiliating it is. Like Trump's approval rating is 29. Like he's getting close to the dick line. Okay. He's like down at the bottom. You could possibly be on approval as a president. People are abandoning him. Finally, members of his own party are starting to distance themselves from him. And he uses that moment to have an ad. Love me. Please love me. Please. Please love me. Please love me. It's desperate. Not as desperate. It's bad. It's bad across all verticals. Look, sometimes when you're looking for something online, you find yourself over-researching. We're looking for a little extra privacy, for example, in our backyard. We kind of need a little privacy screen. And I can't even tell you how much time me and my husband sent sending back options to each other, looking at different options. And then finally, we're having friends over and we just really need it. And we're like, F it. We'll just get the Amazon. One looks great. Looks great. So why don't you just cut out that process of going back and forth? And that's certainly true when you're looking for insurance. And our friends at SelectQuote can help you with it. SelectQuote is a life insurance broker that does the homework for you. Their licensed agents shop over 100 policies and find you a better rate for free. With SelectQuote, getting life insurance is fast, free, and easy. The whole process takes about 15 minutes. Love that. Answer a few questions. Our agents shop the carriers for you. You get your quote. According to your specific situation, even if you got something like high blood pressure or diabetes, SelectQuote has got you. They've been doing it for over 40 years. They know what they're up to. They make it easy. Turn to SelectQuote. For me, it's all about making it easy as possible. Okay. There's a funny, who was it? Ben Thompson. There's a funny thing talking about how AI was making shopping easier for people because they're doing the shopping for you. And Ben Thompson was like, I like to shop for clothes. I like to complain about it afterwards. I like to shop for restaurants and complain. And afterwards, that is part of the human experience, right? It's not true for paperwork, for insurance. This is an area where we want somebody to make it easy for you. SelectQuote's doing that. Get your free quote at SelectQuote.com slash Bulwark. That's SelectQuote.com slash Bulwark. SelectQuote.com slash Bulwark. They shop you safe. All right. I want to take a moment here to give the counterbalance to that point. Trump is nearing the decline, but there are some concerns. I have some cold. I want to put some cold water on that. Hopium. I've done a lot of hopium this week on the show. And we had a round of New York Times Siena polls out today. And the one in particular that caught my eye was in Maine, which had Susan Collins winning that race, 49 to 46. Trump's approval in Maine, negative 34. Collins' approval, plus three. I think that is pretty telling that this is where the poll is exactly right. March to bear, et cetera. But this is. This is not something that's just over, like, showing too many Republicans. Like, the poll is showing that there are a lot of people in Maine that don't like Trump but still are happy with Susan Collins for whatever reason. Jackson's favorability, Troy Jackson's minus eight. Even below that, Graham Platner was down at, like, minus 43 for the Platner dead enders. So I don't think that was going to be the answer. I don't know, man. I mean, we lived through this six years ago. Collins defied expectations. And I think that the Platner-Jackson handoff obviously has created some tensions within the Maine base. We saw that in the New York. Tag story this week. Swing voters maybe don't have the same impression of Susan Collins as I do. I don't know. How do you. What do you make of it? Well, we didn't actually live through this six years ago because six years ago, Collins never led. I mean, she was down all the time. Great point. So maybe this is just more resembling reality, right? But to me, there's a couple of things to take away from this. One, the sort of caution in the poll that I trust New York Times, CNN more than anyone else. This is like the first one she's led in a while. There was actually another one out today that has him up by five from UMass Amherst. Whatever. It's going to be close. There's three points. Two is that this is a great signal to any other Republican that you do need to defy Trump if you want to get your approval up, right? Like Collins has strategically come out against Trump on several issues. I don't think she's done it on any significant issue. She's always there with him when it matters. But like she's made her reputation about I can be somewhat of, you know, a bulwark to say the least. No, no, don't do that. No. Boo, boo. Three though, and this is I think the most important thing and actually is in the write-up of the Times. The thing that she's done is she's just brought home so much money. And she's, you could see it in all, you know, she's the senior member of the Appropriations Committee. She gets a lot of stuff done for Maine. But she also gets engaged. I mean, she's got an incredible deference in Carvaths from the administration. So whenever there's cuts across the board, exceptions are made for Maine. Whenever like the Canadian tariffs, Carvaths were made for Maine. The NIH funding that they were going to go after with this executive order was Collins who wrote Russ Fott and was like, don't do it. And they didn't do it. So she does have, they have given her enough fodder to go back to Mainers and say, hey, I am delivering for you guys. If you get rid of me, you're not going to get all the money. You're not going to get all this stuff. And there's something true to that. Yeah. And there's something true. It's like anything that's complicated. There's something false also. I mean, the tariffs are still hurting Maine. The Canadian trade war is, and just in the way that Canada reacts, and there's a lot of cross border pollination there, economic, there's tourism, you know, Canadians not going to the Maine beaches and all that sort of stuff that all that stuff trickles down. So I used to say there was an ICE murder in Maine. So it's nothing like they kept about. If Trump said negative 34, though. I just have a really hard time seeing her when her winning. I just do. It's that's, that's unbelievably bad. Like I can't, it's unfathomable to me to be negative 34 in Maine. Well, that's not a blue state. They've got 40 days. Troy Jackson and their campaigns got to get their shit together and make a really clear. I don't, the positive stuff about Troy Jackson, I think at this point is kind of meaningless. Like they've got to make a really clear case to people that those handful of people, yeah, they have to drive for favorability. It's down. That's just it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. feels anything about Mike Rogers. I'll say it's going to win that race. Pappas is up only five to Hampshire. It's something to keep an eye on. Interesting poll in Pennsylvania. Bob Brooks is really strong, kind of a union, like an old school kind of union guy that's also a little bit moderate on cultural issues, running a really good race. He's up three in a seat that Republicans hold now. Shapiro in the same district up 23. So I think it is kind of interesting, like on the one hand, that you're seeing that some of these pickups are a good poll for Democrats. That complicates the narrative of some of your buddy Ryan Grimm and some of the left populists who want to talk about how the Democrats can't win because they've gone too moderate and they all hate Josh Shapiro. And Josh Shapiro is winning a Republican House district by 23. Just a little note. Yeah. Just a little note that that's happening. It's true. Was that not noteworthy to you? It's very noteworthy. He happens to have like a truly comical opponent, but, you know, yeah. Some people might say Trump was a truly comical opponent. That's true. And he managed to win. So anyway, OK. You're not actually like thinking New Hampshire's in play, do you? I do not think New Hampshire's in play. I think it's a little closer. I think it's interesting. I think we're seeing some interesting signs about the way that the trends are moving differently. Like Republicans, this is why I was like, it was funny after the election, 24, it wasn't that funny. There were, you know, some people who are listening to the wrong independent liberal media outlets or convinced that Elon Musk had stolen the election or something. And I would get this brought up to me from time to time, you know, out in the wild. And I'd always say to people like, Trump did better in blue states than in swing states, right? Like there was no reason to try to cheat to steal New Jersey. And like Trump did better in New Jersey and New York. And so there's this, a little bit of this realignment happening where I do think in the Sun Belt, the Democrats are going to really outperform Georgia, Texas, etc. And then maybe in the Plains because of the farm stuff. But then in some of these blue states where people are unhappy with their state governors, I think that maybe Democrats won't do quite as well like the New Yorks of the world and New Hampshire, California, Oregon, Washington. We'll see if that happens. But that's just for the record, New Hampshire is run by a Republican. But yeah, that is true. That is true. You're right. And so is Vermont, even Phil Scott. He's the last remaining Tim Miller Republican in the country, Phil Scott. OK, we're going to end with two things. One is I asked Sarah Matthews about the RFK for Prez thing yesterday, and she just didn't have the passion for this question that I know you do. And so I kind of want to just take one more swing at it. He's coming out with a new book. It seems like the type of book that somebody who's going to run for president wants to come out with. I don't know if you're RFK Jr. You look advanced. You're like, this guy has no riz. I've got nothing but riz. Trump, I've already won Trump over once, you know, and maybe I can win him over again. Trump, Kennedy, maybe Trump. Maybe Trump thinks, man, what if I could get one of the kids on the RFK ticket? RFK, Ivanka, like cements my legacy. We're Kennedys and Trump families together. I just. I'm not predicting. it, but that doesn't seem like insane. You know, I don't know what the polymarket odds are. We don't do that here. But like, you know, if I were a betting man, I would absolutely put some money down on him running. Look, this guy is, is there like, you know, levels of egomania that we can rank? I mean, this guy clearly thinks he's not just, you know, God's gift to science, but maybe God. And the book thing is really astonishing. First of all, it's corrupt, right? Like the person who's paying in advance is also got apparently companies that have business before HHS. But beyond that, it's like $4 million. These books are about like, you know, his vision for America. You don't do that unless you either are trying to just get money through a donor or you have future ambitions. But, but the other thing, and I've heard this from a few folks, he's been told internally by like Susie Wiles and the like, that he is one of their best political assets in the cabinet. And I do think his favorability is the most, is the highest among the entire cabinet. Yeah, I think that's probably true. And we could, I'm sure there's data out there, but if you're told you, you are the one guy in this cabinet, who's got like a real cachet on the trail and we need you out there and people really like you. And you, you helped elect Donald Trump because you helped bring the coalition together. And you have this cross appeal from liberals and conservatives. If you get told that, why wouldn't you turn around and say, wait a second, J.D. Vance is going to take the baton here. Why wouldn't I? Why not me? Also, you know, he brought measles back. How could you not run on that platform? Any one minute rage on, because I feel like it's one area where I fall down a little bit on the podcast is all the latest in HHS. People can sign up for Jonathan Cohn's newsletter if they want to know all about the breakdown, but do you have a one minute on any, anything that's enraged you recently? Well, yeah, I do. I mean, they backed off it, but I just, this NIH thing, it was so, I felt like people, weren't actually appreciating how bad it would be. Basic gist, they were batting back and forth whether to do an executive order that would have created a panel to sign off on all these NIH grants. And we're talking about billions of dollars in scientific research. NIH grants are issued by merit. They're issued by people petitioning scientists to go through the studies and say, yes, this looks like a promising grant, or it may be there's, it's a real risk, but like it's worth the investment. Imagine if Stephen Miller is looking at your grant and saying, no, not, don't like it. The, the amount of breakthroughs we would have fumbled, the, the, the brain drain that would have resulted from that would have been cataclysmic. And already, and, and Cohn has heard from a bunch of people after he published his story on this, people are just in the science research community are just dying for more sensible and consistent funding. We are just absolutely killing the golden goose. I think people should be outraged by this. It's, it's, it's a disaster. That's my rant. Love that I am outraged. I share that. Thank you. Thank you. Final topic. Just a little, just for kicks. We're going to have a little giggle. We're going to see him giggle, dined out the pod. Uh, Tommy Tuberville, uh, was on, uh, the Senate floor yesterday and he had a big easel with a blown up photo of the emoji of the pregnant male. It's one of my favorite emojis, by the way. I liked, I love sending that to people. I don't send it to you. It's a little intimate for a work text. You can maybe talk about some of our other work texts, but let's, let's, let's hear what it was that Tommy was concerned about in re the pregnant male emoji. Many listen to this, that many airline pilots, flight attendants and air traffic controllers are part of the furry community. Lord help us. Lord help us. It's terrifying when you think about this. When you walk onto a commercial flight, it's possible that the pilot could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal. You can't make this up. No, you can't. Can't make it up. I know I'm going on a flight tomorrow to Springfield for the show and I'm, Tommy's got me freaked. I'm going to demand that I get a look in the cockpit to see, so to speak, to see if my pilot has a bunny hat on. And I'm going to be I want more. I want more. I want to scroll through your nudes. Okay. I want to scroll through your Tinder, your hinge. I want every pilot. I want to see whatever. And by the way, while we're doing that, I'd like to look at Tommy Toberville's search history and I'm interested to see what he's looking at. I'm interested to see what he's looking at. Why does Tommy know so much about the secret furry community of pilots? What's he doing? What's happening on Pornhub? Is it something freaky? Is it a deranged fetish? Because we certainly don't need somebody with deranged fetishes. That's a good idea for Perticon. I'll send Perticon up to the Hill and ask Tommy if he's, if he has experience with the furries and why he's so interested in it. Did you see the guy yelling at Josh Hawley walking through the hallway yesterday about what about Carlos the bus boy? Weird stuff's happening out there. Yeah. Weird stuff. All right. By the way, if you're a furry and you listen, I feel total confidence with you. You could fly my plane. Don't worry. Total confidence. I mean, I hope, hopefully like I want you to be able to see clearly. So hopefully like you're not like in the dog hat or whatever whilst flying the plane. Otherwise all good. Totally good. All right. I'm going to Patola next year. Any, uh, any, I've, I've got long thoughts on it, but do you have anything you want to share? Yeah. And I, I, I, I hate doing this, but because, um, the whole Patola story is about the like nasty texts that she would send her staff and all this stuff. I think it's worthwhile to just to be transparent about it. Uh, share some of your texts. Sure. No, share some of your texts to me because you're about to like, you know, talk, you know, you have the disclaimer and you're about to opine about this. And I went through our text history and I don't think you have much of a leg to stand on. Really? This is from March 7th, 2026. Hey, Sam, you're a piece of shit. Please stop over-editing my piece. Tim. Sounds right. You do over, you over-edit the fuck out of my pieces. My beautiful prose, you know, you're ruining. A month and a half later, direct quote, yo, little Jew boy, can you hop on the riverside? No, that is not real. That is not real. Little Jew boy, can you hop on the riverside? We're all waiting for you. Okay, fine. I did not say that. This was two weeks ago after you, me and Will recorded. Hey, that trio segment, that shit was retarded. What the hell, Tim? You have no leg to stand on when it comes to this. Okay. Just so people are aware. I didn't, I would, never say that about you. The second one. That was really, you didn't deny the other ones. For the record, they're all made up, but Tim is owning the first and the third. I do say nasty shit on text and, um, and we'll go over that a little bit more next. So everybody stick around. Thanks, Sam. All right, y'all, you know, those pieces in your closet, you find yourself wearing on repeat a sweater that goes with everything. The perfect pair of pants or the tea that you always reach for first. Cause it's so cozy. 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And just I had this really cozy. It's like kind of a kind of a sea green, but dark. It's not quite hunter green. It's on the path to hunter green. I think whatever it is, it's cozy. It goes with blue and black. You like that? I was wearing that yesterday. It was looking nice. Find your next fall favorites of quints. Download the quints app for app exclusive offers or go to quints.com slash the bulwark. Get free shipping on your order and three to 65 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. That's nce.com slash the bulwark. All right, y'all. So I taped an interview with Mary Paltola yesterday afternoon. Very shortly after we stopped recording the New York Times dropped a piece about her by Kellen Browning called angry outburst slurs and firings tumult rocks a key Senate campaign. Some of the highlights from that if you haven't seen it as four former staff members, I think we're assuming the ones that she fired recently, said they directly heard her use the F slur rhymes with over the years, in some cases about her own staff members. This is an allegation they denied. She also used the word retarded in several texts, including some of their screenshots of she said, I hope Planned Parenthood knows that if we don't win, it's more their loss than ours. Fuck those bitches about Planned Parenthood. And you know, there's other stuff about mistreatment of staff allegedly. Here's my thing with this story. I really don't care that much about politicians One of the other things they said is they made staff members feed feed a chameleon, a pet chameleon, some crickets. I think it's kind of like a fun job in Congress, to be honest. I like the people complaining about that. I don't, I don't know. As Sam just alluded to, I definitely have sent some fuck those bitches texts to people on the staff. I may have even sent one last night. And so of all this stuff, I mean, obviously you want members of Congress to be respectful and to use good judgment. So you'd like to learn more about all that. I, the only thing, other thing I just would flag is this accusation about her use of the F-slur. Again, I'm just not really, you know, a big language police guy, but I will say that my husband reading the story, wasn't thrilled to read about it as somebody who got some F-slurs yelled at him at the lunchroom and they deny it, but it feels like something you should at least address. My main reaction to the story is that once again, like is an example of like all of the things that are harming Democrats right now from their strategy. It's being overly cautious, showing weakness, uh, like doing unnecessary harm to themselves through staff struggle sessions. Here's like the behind the curtain, real quick backstory and all this, the campaign canceled three times in this podcast. That's fine. It's just a podcast, right? Like if they just want to do Alaska press, like that is totally fine with me. I think I've actually said that in the past on the podcast. I was just like a little bit of a red flag given the story, how they handled all of it, especially given that like, I'm obviously favorable to her. Like this is not a high, the ball, fake podcast interview situation. I do radical candor here. The listeners know where I stand on my guests, good, bad, or otherwise peers knew where he stood. Jason Calacanis knows where he stood. Mayor Pete's knew where he stood. You know, in this case, I find Dan Sullivan to be an unbelievable quizling and coward more on that in a sec. And, uh, I've said a million times that Poltola has probably the best messaging of any Dem Senate candidate out there besides maybe Ossoff. So everybody knows guests, listener, like what they're getting on the show. It's not really a scary interview outside of the fact that I do some jokes, but again, like if you don't want to do it, there are a million podcasts out there, a million interviews, like that's fine. But like, this is not the situation where the nature of this interview is that we are candid with each other and like, we're not doing propaganda because if I disagree with something, the campaign does, I say it as I'm doing so right now, but on balance, everybody knows, obviously I want the Democrats to win the Senate. So eventually she goes to do the show. You're going to hear it next. It was a lovely convo. Right after the show ends, the story drops and the campaign refuses to put her back on to address it. I don't understand why, like she didn't seem incapable to me. This is the kind of thing a Senator has to do. We're asking for five minutes to just respond to the story. This one's going to be an Oprah sit down where we go through all the feelings. I saw a video last night. It's not just me. I saw a video last night of them running from local press after the event. I don't understand what anyone involved in this story is thinking. Like if you're Mary Poltola and the current staff, why are you hiding from this? Why are you prolonging the story? You can't explain what happened to someone that plainly wants you to win the race. Like this all seems pretty straightforward to me. I can't imagine there are too many Alaskans who are changing their vote because Mary wasn't PC when she was popping off texts. So I think it should be pretty straightforward to answer it and to address any concerns we have. As for the Dems staffers that created the story, like they're even worse. If you were the snowflake that leaked the text where Mary Bolton, said the word retarded, were you hearted the text? Like the person that leaked it hearted the text and then leaked it. Why are you leaking this 40 days before an election? What are you doing? Do you want Dan Sullivan to be the Senator from Alaska? Do you care about the creeping fascism in the country? I mean, it's not like you got a comb thrown at your head. That's a little inside joke. Like these people have to buck up. We're in the big leagues. Like the stakes here are so high. Like the time to do that was a long time ago or after the election, unless they're doing crimes or very, like, unless it's platinum, right? Like there are serious exceptions to this. Like her using the R word or telling Planned Parenthood to fuck off, like is not, this should not rise to the level of the New York Times in this moment. So again, again, like we're seeing from the campaign caution and from the staffers that leaked this, just like this over sensitivity. And we're seeing caution and unnecessary sensitivity from Democrats in the face of a really aggressive and dangerous authoritarian threat. And we're seeing it time and again. And I do not understand it at all. It's totally self-defeating. And in this story, everybody's guilty. So anyway, the conversation we had is next. I thought it was really interesting. I think you're going to learn a lot about her. I hope you stick around for it. You can read the Times story for yourself if you want. We'll put it in the link in the show And as for my view, after all this, like nothing in this story is even in the ballpark of the cowardice of Dan Sullivan, which we talked about on the pod. Dan Sullivan has been a loyal simp for the guy running internment camps. Dan Sullivan raised his hand and said, yes, sir. When he said, I want to make the head of the Department of Defense, a weekend talk show co-host who is a drunk, who has no ability, no experience, no knowledge to lead the military. Dan Sullivan is supposed to be like a strong pro-military Republican, said nothing as they've left our soldiers out to dry on the USS Lincoln. Eight of our soldiers attempted suicide. We started a stupid war with no plan to finish it. We put the biggest moron imaginable in charge of the Department of War. Dan Sullivan just sat over there and said, yes, sir. Okay, sir. It's like when it comes to cowardice, there's nothing in this New York Times story or anything else that is even in the same universe as what Dan Sullivan has shown. So I could not more strongly urge people to do everything they can to oppose Dan Sullivan and his rubber stamp for Donald Trump. But that said, the situation around this story and how it's handled is definitely unfortunate. Next up, Mary Paltola. Have you ever wondered why some people seem to age slower? Like they figured out some secret the rest of us missed? Well, it turns out someone else did. Actually did. And it starts with a melon. Yep, a melon. There's a rare French melon that stays fresh four times longer than the fruit you and I buy at the store. 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Hero Bread makes loaves, buns, tortillas, bagels, and noodles packed with taste, but without all the net carbs. We're talking zero to five grams net carbs per serving. With Hero Bread, there are no compromises, just flavor. There's none of the stiff baked goods you'd expect from better-for-you brands. There's just the soft, fluffy, bread you crave. Plus, small batch drops of indulgent favorites, like the popular 2-gram net-carb Hero Croissant and 3-gram net-carb Hero Penne au Chocolat. And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to Hero.co and use code IHEART at checkout. That's code IHEART at H-E-R-O dot C-O. See nutrition facts on Hero.co. All right, we are back. She's the Democratic candidate for Senate from Alaska, a former congresswoman and Alaska native. It's Mary Peltola. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Tim. It's good to be here. I don't know anything about Alaska. I just want to be honest up front. Here's all I know. When I was in college, my buddy Kevin went and did a summer on the boat, you know, to make some money and thought it'd be a cool experience. And he told me to come and I did. I was scared. And when he came back, he said the coolest thing about it was the butt sandwiches. And I was like, this is not joke. This is not a real thing. This is just a college boy bro thing. But he was like, no, halibut sandwiches are the highlight of his trip. That's great. I love it. I love it. Yes. Fish family freedom. Tell me about that fish family freedom. It has a nice ring to it, but I want to hear a little more. Give me the elevator pitch. Well, in Alaska, I just really feel like all of the marquee issues for us fit into one or two of those categories. Take health care, families, child care, family, food insecurity, fish, resource development, fish, our abundance issues, fish, corporate greed, fish, and many other things. And then freedom, of course. So that's why fish is first there. That was the thing I was always wondering. It isn't freedom, family, fish. It's inverse. Well, and it's funny because my husband used to argue with me about that. He really felt like family should come first. And my argument was you can't have a family without fish. They have nothing to eat. and it's really the glue that kind of holds us together. And he said, no, you can't go fishing without a family. So, you know, it's up for debate, the order of those. But freedom to me means everything from women's reproductive rights, to Second Amendment, First Amendment, the freedom to live our Alaskan lifestyle. Republicans have kind of taken freedom, right? Like they've tried to code it as a Republican term. And, you know, I'm just kind of wondering, in what ways, like you feel like, you know, maybe the Democrats have let them do that, or that you think that's inaccurate, as sort of a generic, whatever branding point? Well, the funny thing that I've noticed is, regardless of which party event you're going to, there is a lot of fear mongering that the other side is coming to take your freedoms away. I've heard it in both contexts. And I think freedom is something that means a lot to everyone. It certainly means a lot to people in Alaska. It means a lot to our nation. I mean, we were founded on freedom of religion, you know, many, many freedoms. And I don't know if one party has necessarily co-opted it over the other. It really resonates with every Alaskan. Just nerd out with me on the fish a little bit more. Okay, because I do hear you, I hear you, the family does need to eat. But you know, and there are meat eaters out there, carnivores, who could survive without the fish. I was watching some of your debate with Dan Sullivan. And you were really getting into the weeds on fish stuff. I mean, like, how central is it to the economy there? And to the way of life? Well, I think a lot of Alaskans see fish as part of their identity. It really is part of the fabric of Alaska. Most of most all of our towns are on the coast or rivers. That's how that was our transportation. Until around World War Two, when we got planes and roads and cars. I'm a Yupik Eskimo. And Yupik people have traditionally eaten about 80% of their diet is fish. And then half of that is salmon. So and the generic word for fish is the generic word for food, naka. And so, you know, we're not talking about fish. We're talking about fish and fish. And so it's just fundamental. I know she said, Yupik Eskimo there. Am I allowed? I got in trouble for saying Eskimo once. Am I allowed to say that? Or is that a slur? Is that like you can say it kind of like I can say the F word, but you can't? Or how does that? No, I don't know. However, you know, I've been corrected by academics saying no, no, no, you're not an Eskimo, you're an Inuit. And I just don't know anybody in my region or in the state who refers to themselves as an Inuit. We, you know, when I was growing up, we talked about being Eskimo and eating Eskimo food and living an Eskimo lifestyle, Eskimo language. I think exactly like that. Yes. So Dan Sullivan, like me doesn't seem to know a lot about some of this stuff. In the debate I was watching, he was cheating off your work on a question about salmon. And it was hard for me to even figure out what's happening. All I saw was you put up the answer immediately of no. And then him like go and cheat off your work, like I used to do in math class in high school, and then put up the same answer. What was the subject of that? And do you feel like Dan is just out to lunch on this sort of stuff? The question was whether or not the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and NOAA are doing enough or considering enough in their policies in their management decisions. They're not taking into account subsistence users. And subsistence really is a reference to people who live off the land and harvest wild foods for their own consumption. It's not contributing anything to the GDP. So the question really was, are these management bodies taking into account the needs of the people who are really living off the land? And the reason I ran in 2022 was to elevate ish issues, and specifically the issue of the lack of salmon in our two biggest rivers, the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River. For seven years running, people on the Yukon River have not been allowed to fish for salmon. And we're talking about hundreds of tribes. We're talking about hundreds of communities that have been there for thousands of years based, and the reason they're there is based on their relationship with salmon and this understanding that salmon would be coming back every year and are, you know, foundational to our food, food supplies. And I do not believe that the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council or NOAA is listening to people who are living off the land and haven't been able to fish for seven years in a row. So this really cuts to the core for many people living in those places because, you know, we're just accustomed to putting away hundreds of salmon a year and we dry them and smoke them. And it's just a staple in, you know, every lunch, every dinner, you just eat dry fish with your food. And we've been aced out of that now on the Yukon River for seven years. And every single river in the state has seen a real concerning decline in Chinook salmon, king salmon. So that was the question. And, you know, I don't feel that Dan is doing enough for those of us who depend on salmon. And I really think that he has shown his alliance with corporate greed and these commercial factory trawlers that are harvesting metric tons of forage fish. They're out there harvesting pollock, which is what goes into the McDonald's filet of fish. It's fish sticks. You know, not only are they taking out metric tons of these forage fish, but they're also dumping over metric tons of juvenile salmon and juvenile crab. And this just goes against the fabric of who we are. We really do not believe in wanton waste. You're supposed to respect your harvest. You're supposed to respect your catch and not waste any of it. Yeah. I'll tell you my bias on this is with Dan Sullivan, because I don't know if you know, but I used to be a Republican. And so back then I was, I remember I got my pack that I was working with, worked with him on that first campaign he ran. And he seemed like a mainstream kind of guy, wanted to work to solve problems. And now I just, I see more of the national stuff. And he's totally MIA and absent, like refuses to stand up to Trump on anything, never sticks his head out on anything. And so part of me is like, well, maybe he's like, that's because he's doing stuff back home. But it doesn't really seem like he's doing that either. What is he doing? Well, he's tripled his personal wealth in the last 12 years. He is a prolific stock trader in the Senate. He's one of the most active stock traders. He voted no to open up the Epstein files. I just, you know, when I look at it, it just seems like somebody who is in it for his own personal career ladder. It doesn't feel to me like he's working hard for Alaskans or listening to Alaskans. I think he hasn't had a town hall meeting in over a thousand days. It's a concern. Yeah. I don't know. I'd like to see what his schedule looks like. I don't know what he's up to. The other big issue is obviously, you know, the war itself is an issue because, you know, to me, that was just a stupid strategic maneuver from the start that's hurting us geopolitically. It's also hurting us back home though. And most acutely up in Alaska, I was talking to somebody the other day when I knew you were going to be on just kind of who's up there and talking about, they're telling me their personal story about like how much money it's going to cost to heat their house. And I was like, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And it was really eye popping. And so let's talk about like the home heating oil side of it first and then kind of the geopolitical. Well, in Anchorage, most people heat their homes with natural gas. In Southeast Alaska, most people's electricity comes from their hydro projects. And these are much less expensive sources of power. But once you get off the road system and even in the interior, even in Fairbanks, our second largest city, most Alaskans outside of Anchorage and Southeast, we rely on diesel. We rely on diesel for our own home boilers, our own home heater. If you have a Toyo stove, our powerhouses are generated by diesel. So our electricity is tied to the price of diesel. And one of the communities that I've heard about, Shungnack, it's a small village outside of Kotzebue. They're literally paying right now, $26.82. That's a gallon for gas. And my understanding is they're locked into that price. The rest of the world, the price comes up and down and that's reflected at the pump. If you live in a community that has a fall barge and a spring barge bringing in your diesel and gas, you are locked into those prices until the next barge. So for communities that just, you know, and so much of it was dumb luck and timing. There are communities who got a halfway decent price because they happened to make their fuel purchase and lock in their price during the ceasefire. But unless you were in that sweet spot of that ceasefire, you're going to be paying, you know, as much as $26.82 a gallon. I think a neighbor village to Shungnack is going to be paying as much as $26.82 a gallon. is paying $24 a gallon. But even if you're from a regional hub, like in Bristol Bay, Dillingham is paying $9 a gallon. I just don't know how we're going to make it through this winter. And last winter, we were living hand to mouth. So a lot of Alaskans are very worried about themselves, their friends, their neighbors, people within their community, who we know, even this last winter, which was really cold, it was a very deep, cold winter. And it lasted through May, I started going to some of the villages outside, you know, on the on the coast on the Bering Sea coast, St. Mary's, we had a gentleman come into our meeting, and he was literally, he could not hold back the tears. He said, I'm so worried about my kids. I'm worried about my grandkids. Every day, they're deciding whether they can buy fuel to heat their home or food. So we are so low down. On Maslow's theory of hierarchy, I just feel like we are living so hand to mouth. And it's inevitably going to be harder this winter. Meantime, Dan Sullivan is living high on the hog. I mean, that's just unimaginable. I mean, the cost and what people have to deal with and how cold the winter is going to be. And then you kind of look at the point of the war. And it's one thing you've seen from some of these people from the president himself talking about how like this was worth it because of the nuclear. And to me, that's just from the start. This seemed unimaginably foolhardy. And they didn't have a clear objective. Dan Sullivan and the others, Republicans in the Senate didn't speak out against it. What's your thought just overall on the handling of the war? Well, for so long, and so many previous administrations, there is a recognition that Iran is a adversary. And there have been concerns about our national defense and our relationship with them. But everybody was much more cautious and much more risk averse because of the Strait of Hormuz. And everybody who knows Politics 101 knows the relevance and how critical that passageway is. And it affects all the other markets because it's a global market. And when one area is constrained, it affects the prices, no matter where that oil is being drilled and refined. And there's this story today, I know you have a couple sons who are in the Coast Guard, and the story today coming out about what we're seeing on the USS Lincoln, and CNN's reporting this, that we're learning now that there were eight suicide attempts on the U.S. carrier group out there. And so that's part of it too, just this, like there was no plan, no strategy, and the treatment of our soldiers is really unacceptable. From my perspective, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Well, I believe there have been 18, 18 casualties to date because of that war. And those casualties are being classified as deaths during a, how did they put it? Death during a conflict or an incursion or a ceasefire. And that has huge implications for the survivors. And if we, I just think it's beyond the pale that we would be so disrespectful. We would be so disrespectful. We would be so disrespectful to our servicemen and people who gave their lives in service of America and are fighting for us, that we would turn around and dishonor their survivors by not providing, you know, not classifying in a way. We're not that broke. It just doesn't make any sense to me. And the other thing that I- Even if we were, those aren't the folks we should be scrimping on. No, no, we should never, ever do that. That is just such a travesty. And just big picture, when I kind of zoom out, it just feels like reverse Robin Hood, where we're taking from the poor and middle income and shifting that to the ultra rich, not just rich people, ultra rich. And I just, it just doesn't sit well with me. Well, it turns out someone actually did. Yep, a melon. And get this, Meaningful Beauty partnered with world-renowned French cosmetic specialist, Dr. Jean-Louis Sabah, to capture that melon's youth-preserving power in a skincare line you can actually use every day. Because it starts with something nature designed to stay young. Bite into a stacked sandwich made with Hero Bread or a fully loaded, bagel. Hero Bread makes loaves, buns, tortillas, bagels, and noodles hacked with taste, but without all the net carbs. There is none of the stiff baked goods you'd expect from better-for-you brands. There's just the soft, fluffy bread you crave. Plus, small batch drops of indulgent favorites, like the popular two-gram net carb Hero Croissant and three-gram net carb Hero Penne au Chocolat. Let's talk about the Democrats a little bit. And if you get back, and they're in the Senate, and you're pretty independent in the House on various things, just wondering kind of how you think about that, balancing independence with party loyalty. Maybe in 2029, you get to a place where we have a Democratic president, and they want to pass something to the Senate. And, you know, we kind of saw how Manchin and Sinema created problems at times and saw how they worked with Biden at times. I just kind of wonder how you sort of think about that, like being independent-minded, caring about Alaska, but also recognizing that you're in a party. As an Alaskan, we really expect our congressional delegation, our federal delegation to fight for us, regardless of who the president is, regardless of your party. And there's always a lack of understanding about Alaska. You really just don't understand Alaska until you've been here. And we have such unique regions of our state. I think of Alaska as being six states within a state. And I'm talking about big Western states. Yeah. So we just have unique, unique needs. If we were our own country, we'd be the 18th largest country in the world. 82% of our communities, you can only get to by air. We're vast. And again, our energy sources come from many different places. So like when Biden was the president, I went toe to toe with him almost every week, if not twice a week, on things like prohibiting naturalization. Natural gas stoves. If you're in South Central Alaska, natural gas is your cheapest resource for things like stoves. And there was a push to require, to phase out internal combustion gas engines for electric cars. Well, if your powerhouse is generated by diesel, and you're paying $1 a kilowatt hour, it makes no sense to have an electric car, especially in a really cold climate. So there are a lot of. Extenuating circumstances. And we expect our federal delegation to form alliances and coalitions and with everyone and anyone to move our priorities forward. We expect our federal delegation to go against ideas or situations that are not in the best interest of Alaska. So 62% of Alaskans are independent, nonpartisan, undeclared. Most of us don't see ourselves through a partisan lens. If I had to describe myself, I think a Democrat might be the hundredth way that I would even describe myself. So every issue is unique and every circumstance is unique. And I think you just need to keep an open mind and really listen to Alaskans and how things are affecting them. Think about being in the Senate, assuming you could win. There are a couple of things that come up as far as how the process is going. I think there are a couple of things that come up as far as how the process is going. It's one of the most unprecedented times. I would love to have boring government. I'd love to have boring leaders who weren't doing a lot of work. outlandish things all you know every day um you know not knowing how the zone is going to be flooded but if i am so fortunate to win and this is not in the bag i don't have any thoughts that that i'm a shoe in or anything like that this really is a toss-up this is a dead heat and it's really going to take all of us to win this race so please go to marypeltola.com to chip in um we need to raise a lot of money to get out face to face in front of alaskans but this isn't a sure thing so we've got the email pitch but what about the vote for schumer you know i i am not interested in caucus dynamics and again i have no way of of knowing what the dynamics will be at that point and i just i hate to make big predictions and the filibuster question is i just think it might be so far away because you're talking about 2029 but like in the senate you know for the democrats to be able to do things and that that has been a pretty big controversy among democrats i don't know even when you were there in the house i just i mean do you have any thoughts on it one way or the other well we don't have the filibuster in the house um so right i mean when you were in the house trying to get stuff passed and to get stuff passed through the senate there was a big you know in like 2021 22 there's a lot of discussion about how the democrats senate couldn't do certain things without breaking the filibuster well and this is a tough one because the filibuster threshold has come down it hasn't been static you know it's been a moving target and i think historically we have never been in a position where the majority flips back and forth so often every two years this seesaw this kind of whiplash between the two parties and our system was really designed to go slow and build coalitions and have broad support and and and i think that's healthy i do worry about one and two and three and four and five and six and administration one majority coming in and making dramatic changes and then in two years another majority comes in and flips it again i think the level of uncertainty that we are all living in currently is only exacerbated when we have a congress that's just you know got these political footballs going back and forth by nature i am attracted to people that want to do bipartisanship and i like bipartisanship and i like people that want to work across the aisle one frustration i had with the biden administration and the more centrist members during that time was i think that there was a sense of okay we want to let's move on from trump and let's like work together and and let's not deal with some of the stuff that was happening in the past would that be january 6 etc and to me it's like i don't think you can be bipartisan on policy issues without necessarily commiserating with people that broke the law broke rules etc and i'm just kind of how you think about that like obviously there'll be a a policy agenda for the for the democrats but shouldn't there not also be a corruption and accountability agenda given what we've seen the last couple years i think everyone across alaska is feeling the weight of the corruption in washington dc and the corporate greed that has been allowed to happen really unfettered if you look at every single thing we're paying for we are getting crushed by these runaway prices whether it's diesel or gas transportation costs freight costs health care costs grocery costs even the issue with factory trawlers um you know dragging the bottom of the bering sea that's a corporate greed issue and our government was designed first of all to have three different branches and a balance of power and it was also designed to be reflective of the electorate and right now we have a house and a senate that's half millionaires and billionaires this is not a mirror of america and i think that their agenda is very different than the average household agenda and we we all know financially we are going backwards every month and and there is a direct tie with corporate greed and you know these millionaire and billionaire are on board for oversight of whatever kind of greed whatever scandals we've seen people doing deals with this administration um that are not they're not legal or fair baked into our democracy and we've been ignoring that and we have a congress that acts like they don't have the power of the purse we have a supreme court that really kowtows and it just is feeling more and more like we just have one branch of government all you know all of the attacks on the freedom of the press this is just a huge concern and i i just think this is not the way our system was designed and it's really becoming bastardized i've got an alaska rapid fire from you i've heard two two things about you that have little birdies have said my ear uh one is that you're you're like friends with sarah palin i guess alaska is so small and you ran against each other but i don't i had a friend of a friend of palin who said that palin liked you like you guys are pals i don't we met uh before the current state of affairs we we worked together before social media before the maga movement um she was our governor for two years and i was in the state legislature i served in our state legislature for 10 years and of course that was 18 years ago now but um i was serving in in the state house and the chairman of the what we call the bushcock it's it's the rural members there were 10 of us five republicans five democrats and we worked really well with her her then husband todd palin is from bristol bay and he's a fisherman and he's also youpik and uh we i found sarah very easy to work with when she was governor so you guys are like together or what you know i don't know what you do in alaska had a we bonded because we uh yeah we do that um we uh sarah and i bonded because she was pregnant with her fifth child at the same time i was pregnant with my fourth child and we were both going to work and getting dogged for being pregnant moms in these um you know white collar positions so you know there there were a lot of things to bond on as as working moms i hear you also can't go running like you like because of the fat bears and you know at gay pride sometimes i've got to run away from the fat bears too it's a different kind though is that that's true like literally like you're scared of the bears like you can't run because the bears might might eat you well we've got some black bears in our neighborhood and i'm on a group chat um with my neighbors and there were some pretty stark pictures sent around of a bear or bears just tearing into somebody's garage door because they were trying to get to their their trash we've you know like most places there are people who want fresh eggs and have chickens and so it's very bears versus chickens chickens uh in in the part of town that i live in and actually i was on my treadmill a couple weeks ago just you know happily running away and i actually saw this pretty big black bear dashing through my yard he he ran so fast i couldn't even get a picture of it on my phone but black bears terrify me you can't look big to intimidate them you can't you know start yelling and you can't run you can't climb so i'm pretty scared of black bears okay me too that's a really into the wild type story you ever see into the wild that's a good one that's a good movie i like that that's the closest i've gotten watching into the wild all right i want to end with this i was changed from light to heavy but we've never met before and i just i've been i was reading just about the tragedy of your husband and buzzy and who died in a plane crash about three years ago now and i just 57 i can't even imagine what that's like and and so i just wanted to kind of give you the opportunity to tell our listeners like a little bit about him oh he was incredible he was a force and it's been really a bummer that after he passed away he was largely characterized as my husband because that was not his role he he was just a larger than life guy he was such a good hunter he grew up as a child hunting muskrat and beaver and just went on and prolific hunter prolific fishermen we call them hunters up here he really knew how to fill a freezer he could humanely get his catch process it put away he could butcher his own meat i had an amazing vacuum sealing setup we would grind our own moose meat when we had seven kids together i have four and and he has three and we've been a blended family now for 17 years but when all of our kids were home and our parents were home we had to put away two moose a year which is a tremendous amount of meat and and a tremendous amount of hamburger you know and he was a pilot there there just wasn't anything he couldn't do he testified before senate you know he was rated for multiple different planes he could fix our boat motors put floorboards in my boat in one afternoon painted and all uh he was just a really exceptional great guy thank you so much for sharing that i appreciate it i i guess i have to see it for myself so will you come will you show me around sometime i guess you'll be busy in D.C., but you'll be getting back. Please come to Alaska. We can go anywhere you want to go. We can go. Yesterday I was in Valdez. It is gorgeous there. Kodiak's amazing. I think it's the second largest island in the United States. It's the largest Coast Guard base in the United States. Huge fishing fleet. Juneau is beautiful. Where I'm from is a different kind of beautiful. It's a tidal estuary with two gigantic rivers. So yes, please come. We would love to host you. So I'll bring my daughter. I think she would love it. All right. That's Mary Feltola. Thank you so much for taking the time. Get back on the campaign trail. We'll be talking to you again soon. Thanks, Tim. Go rent a Ferrari and sing the blues. Believe that Clapton was the second coming. It falls apart. We all got work to do. It gets dark. She's leaving me. She's leaving me. The Bulwark Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and the team at The Bulwark Daily. Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.