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

[MUSIC] >> Hello and welcome to the Board of Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. I got a double header 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 Steine-esque texts 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 at first, he's the managing editor of the bulwark, the aforementioned Sam Steine. What's up? >> What's up, man? How are you doing? >> I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. We had our president, once again, kind of cow-towing to a foreign dictator that we're supposed to be in competition with yesterday. The plane landed Andrews Air Force Base. Bill Kristolzes is wanting the morning shots news out of this morning pointed out that it was the first time since 1962 that a president went to greet a foreign dignity dignitary, excuse me, at the airport. And the last time it 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. trips 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. I just another absolutely humiliating degradation of our trips to the benefit of first Putin last year and now she 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 that 60 degree weather. - Boarding against the wincing, the gloves, what was happening with that? It was very strange and you would have thought it was the depths of winter in DC. You're in DC, Trump was in a suit and a very heavy overcoat and then also heavy gloves. What was, 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 not that time of weather, right? - You're in a hoodie now, I guess, in Trump's defense. - Well, my office is pretty cold. I am not wearing gloves for the right thing. The gloves are weird. I mean, is it the hand condition that is covering up the bruises? - And then they put out some photos today and they could or AI had to do where the gloves are off. I don't get it. - Old people do get chilly, you know? This is why a lot of elderly move to Florida and Harris. Oh, no, it's kind of like a running joke. Sometimes when you go to the-- - They get chilly when it's 40 degrees. - I don't know if it's a run joke. - 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, that's kind of true. 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 mean, the conventionalism is that he just has a strong man complex, right? And he likes his people and he's not a confrontational guy despite being confrontational. So 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 something too, the idea that like, he just doesn't want to do personal confrontation. - He wants it to seem historic, I think, as we get to see how he feels about it, like the carpet and the plane and the airport and then it's a dramatic scene and the flyover. I think that's part of it. - How upset is he that the ballroom's not finished right now? - Yeah, it's very. - And then also Bill points out, he is consistent on this. He won't offend these guys, he won't offend Putin, they'll suck up to Xi, he's a presidential bully, but he's cowed by the big boy bullies of the world. I don't know how else to look at it besides. - How else can you look at it? There's just no other way. I mean, there's so much to say to China too, right? I mean, they are helping the Iranians, 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 in the theater and they've been providing a lot of help to the Iranians including in specific incidents. - Yeah, and we're obviously supposedly in some sort of trade war with them, but he keeps pushing off the larger tariffs with China and then I know we're gonna get into it, but the AI race, he doesn't wanna win it against China, but it doesn't seem like he has any inclination to take a hard line against China and like you said against Russia, what he does is he's the Dutch, right? Like he's gotta go hard against the Netherlands. - Yeah, 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. The four Iran carried out its attack that killed three U.S. troops in July Tehran acquired high-res satellite images of the base in Jordan, the U.S.-based in Jordan from Chinese entities, according to U.S. officials, familiar with details of the incident. So it's like U.S. 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 Iran, killed U.S. troops, fast forward, not even a month, and we have other U.S. troops on their knees smoothing out the red carpet for she. It is fucking appalling. 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 a real glade, like all of that stuff. And like, that's not, that's actually Trump. Everything they would have said is Trump. - Well, also, and I may be 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 stair case 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 he always postures the tough guy. But this gets me thinking, we're not doing the cabinet rankings for this, but you ranked Rubio really high. I think one, and the last one. And it does kind of, I keep coming back to Rubio for some reason right now to talk about this, 'cause that's a guy who would have been all over this, right? They got a hard line on China. - Oh my God, you couldn't have pulled Rubio off the Fox set if this was Obama, like making the troops kneel to China after the Chinese killed American troops. And it's sick, and he was a supposed hawk, and Cotton was a supposed hawk. You know, I think that they're legitimate different notions about how we should deal with China, but like they are certainly in geopolitical adversary, and Trump doesn't seem at all interested in that competition, the opposite, actually. Sometimes when it's convenient, they pay lip service to it. Like, oh, we need it for the AI race or whatever. But like, we're also selling them chips. We're not doing anything to, it doesn't seem like we're doing anything to hurt their position. - And apparently they have access to an F-35 in all our technology. Like we accidentally handed it to them. - They hacked into government data and they have all the information of people who work at DOJ and other places. So whatever the Chinese word is for compromise, they could be using that. Their spies services could be using that against us. They are being fully aggressive and gaining during this Trump period. And Trump is like treating she, like the older brother that he wants to like like him more and invite him to the kick party. - I will say, you don't have to give her credit, but in this case, Laura Lumer was right about something. - Lumer was not happy by the she tweeted, truly embarrassing that American men and women knew from her S degree, Xi Jinping, the communist dictator of China today, I joined base Andrews while the GOP pushes out messaging about the need to come back communists. That's like, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - No shit. - That's the whole thing about the Trump and communist. He's like, the communists are coming. It's like which communists don't you like? What specifically is the part of communism you don't like? You love Xi, like you're accusing Zoran of being a communist, but you seem to like him. Like you like state bullying private enterprise. You like massed agents in the streets. Like you like the gulags? Like what part of communism is the, I'd like to know a little bit more about the critique of communism. - We got government paid for advertising or Fox. It's very, we're coming to that. - Communism is coming. You mentioned the fly over though. I went to get warmed up before I talked about the fly out work. Is it 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 gonna kind of do a, I'm gonna do kind of a second-by-second walkthrough of what happens on this video. So we have, we have Trump and Xi standing there. The National Anthem is playing. Trump is saluting. You know the players, the National Anthem. Xi has, it's like shoulders slumped. Just kind of like hanging. Xi's kind of like 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, the Pledge of Allegiance. [BLANK_AUDIO] that my shirt isn't tucked in. I'm just kind of hangin'. So she's chillin'. All right, Trump is at attention. And then the plane comes over, "Wooosh." And you would have thought that somebody slammed a corridor in Trump's little tiny finger as hard as possible with his reaction. He's like, "Winds us. It's a full facial winds." Like his teeth, his fake teeth, you can see all of that, and then the nose crunches. And she doesn't flinch. It's simultaneously. It's 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 said to deal with." And Chairman, she is like whatever. And he totally maugged, plain maugged. He was plain maugged. 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 pack him and he like acts like, it's like so fucking that, you know, a tiger was there? Yeah, no. He was not, he was quite alarm by it. And I think it heard 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 like. Okay. I've seen those before. All right. Whatever. By the way, under and undernoticed here because she's kind of hiding behind, in this case I'm talking about SHE, she, not Chairman, she, hiding behind Trump. I get, it's hard to see. I can tell if it's his wife or a staffer. I think it's his wife. Is it the blonde? No, no, no, behind it's a Chinese, it's part of the Chinese delegation. So behind Trump's hand is a woman who stands there also totally unperturbed. He's, he's wincing. She doesn't move an inch. She doesn't flinch. I feel like we're not appreciating the wins. It is a dramatic. I'm like scared wins. It's like it's something like was very painful for him. Full of drugs. Yeah. I maybe as a hearing aid in there's something. I don't know what's happened 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 wins. They did an AI edit of this exact moment of Trump getting plane bogged. That's what the White House decided to put out, but it was an AI edited. So he's not winning. He's also only wearing one glove in the AI edited image. I'm not sure why they took all the six little thingies on there. Does it have a six stubby thingy? I can't tell honestly, but he's only wearing one glove in the AI edited image. But the real one from Gettys, very clearly wearing two gloves. We had 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 what we've at record high, like I think since 2004, on the 30 year bond today. So that's not good for the president. Good times. But on the AI is the one substantive thing we have this morning before the meeting, Trump bleeds this. A big day with president, she of China, super intelligence, parentheses, SI. He's really sticking with that. He's really leaning into SI. What a great brand or he is. That 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 ain't Todd Blanche. They're who's in Diting Jim Comey over some seashells. Like they got this. You know, if we end up with a super intelligence that starts hacking into bio weapons facilities or whatever, like the DOJ, I mean, it'll take a little while. I'll have to go to the court system, you know, not to be in a diverse grand jury. But you know, I mean, eventually assuming the whole human race has been exterminated, Todd Blanche will 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, a meeting with China today, it's all cool. We're both going full speed ahead. No worries. We're going to 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, well, I don't really get why we're bending over backwards to be nice and kind and giving all this page and tree if we're just going to 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 have 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 at all. I don't think they've given up on two things, making cash and the Trump vanity projects. And I think the AI is where they think, you know, I mean, if you're Trump, you're like, I want good relationships with Jensen Huang and all these guys. Maybe. And, you know, who knows? We got investments in there. Or maybe they think that that's the only thing propping up the economy of spending on data centers in AI. And it's just, 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're just don't know what if they should do it. Export ban on diesel. And one minute, they're like, yeah, he's going to do it next month. Like, no, he's not going to do it. And, you know, permitting or form same thing. Yeah, it's going to happen. It's not going to 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 arch. Yeah, the arch is it. They have the propaganda project about just praising Donald Trump as if he's a the cult figure, you know, that 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 US government, shout out my guy Jim DeFeedy down at a local TV reporter down in Miami. He's awesome. He says great interviews. And he he spotted this on post on social media and ad on Fox News paid for the US government. I'm going to place half of it because the first half is Trump talking which we don't like to do. But the back half, you'll get the gist. Love me. Love me. Love me. What song is that? What? I don't know. What song is that? Do you know? Do you? Well, I thought 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 voice over 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 got a little cute with that. Sometimes it's like, Hey, we got to let people know about the new bridge we built. And so we're going to 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 and 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 tax pair funded propaganda pushed out on TV networks that are very different 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 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. I and I have a lot of problems with the ad. And I stand in solidarity with our friends at the epilepsy community. That was on the top of my list. But I hear that I appreciate you acknowledging them. It shouldn't be forgotten. I just I think that we also just should also just focus on how you believe it. Like Trump's proof of rating as well as it's 29. Like he's getting close to the dickline. Okay. He's like down at the bottom. You could possibly be on on approval as a president. People are abandoning him. Finally, members of own party are starting to distance themselves from him. And he uses that moment to have an ad. Love me. Please love me. Please love me. Love me. It's desperate. Not as desperate. That's bad. It's bad. Across all 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 and kind of need to look a little privacy screen. And I can't even tell you how much time you 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 needed and we're like, I felt 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 Select Quote can help you with it. Select Quote is a life insurance broker that does the homework for you. 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This is an area where we want somebody to make it easy for ya. Select Quote's doing that. Get your free quote at selectquote.com/bolwork. That's selectquote.com/bolwork. Selectquote.com/bolwork. They shop you safe. All right, so 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 the Hopium. I've done a lot of Hopium this week on the show, and we had a round of New York Times Santa Poles 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 is approval plus three. I think that is pretty, you know, telling that this is, you know, whether Paul's exactly right, March and Barrett, et cetera. But like this is not something that's just over, like showing too many Republicans. Like the poll is showing that a lot of people in Maine that don't like Trump. It's still our happiest Susan Collins for whatever reason. Jackson's favorability, Troy Jackson's minus eight, even below that grand planter is down to like minus 43 for the Plata or Death Ender. So I don't think that was gonna be the answer. I don't know, man. We lived through this six years ago. Collins defied expectations. And I think that the Plata or Jackson hand off, obviously it's created some tensions within the Maine base. We saw that in New York Mag 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 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 done all the time. - Fair point. - So maybe this is just more resembling reality, right? But to me, there's a couple of things to take away from this. You want the sort of caution on the poll that I trust New York Times seeing it more than anything else. But this is not, this is like the first one she's led in a while. There's actually another one out today that has him up by five from UMass Amherst, whatever. It's gonna 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 wanna get your approval up, right? Like Collins has strategically come out against Trump. - Yeah. - Several issues. I don't think she's done it on any significance. She's always there with him when it matters. But like she's made her reputation about I can be somewhat of a bulwark to say at least. - No, no, don't do that, no. - Three though, and this is I think the most important thing in actually is in the right up of the times. The thing that she's done is she's just brought home so much money. And you could see it in all, she's the senior member of the Appropriations Committee. She gets a lot of stuff done for Maine, but she also gets 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 gonna go after with this executive order is Cons who wrote Russ Fought and was like, "Don't do it." And they didn't do it. So she does, they have given her enough fodder to go back to Maineers and say, "Hey, I'm delivering for you guys. If you get rid of me, you're not gonna get all this stuff." And there's something true to that. - Yeah, and there's something true. It's like anything's gonna be good. There's something false also. I mean, the tariffs are still hurting Maine. The Canadian trade war is just in the way that Canada reacts and there's a lot of cross-border pollination there, economic, there's tourism. Canadians not going to the Maine beaches and all that sort of stuff. All that stuff trickles down. So there was a nice murder in Maine, so it didn't look that kept them out. - If Trump said negative 34, though, I just have a really hard time seeing her winning. I just do, it'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 the campaign's gotta get their shit together and make it really clear. The positive stuff about Troy Jackson, and I think at this point, is kind of meaningless. Like they gotta make a really clear case to people that those handful people want. - They gotta, yeah, they have to drive for favorabilities. - No, that's just good. - We got to. - Yeah. - Other polls have note Michigan and Elsaid up by five. I keep saying that I just, I think that the DC view of microaggers is totally wrong. He's not at all Lexus of Collins. Like there's a handful of like K Street lobbyists who are like microaggers who think that he has a appeal in Michigan, and they're like 22 people that like read the Wall Street Journal and go to the Chamber of Commerce and are like really passionate on Israel. That's like, that's like a 0.1% of Michigan that feels anything about microaggers. Elsaid's gonna win that race. Papus is up only five to Hampshire. It's time to keep an eye on. Interesting poll in Pennsylvania. Bob Brooks is a 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. I can one hand that, you know, you're seeing that some of these pickups are, that's a good poll for Democrats. That complicates the narrative of some of like, you know, 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 to 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, but that's happening. It's true, but that was not known to you. It's very known where the he happens to have like a truly comical opponent, you know. Yeah, some people might say Trump was a truly comical opponent and he managed to win. So anyway, okay. You're not actually like thing New Hampshire didn't play, do you? I do not think New Hampshire to 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 really different. Republicans, this was like, it was funny after the election, 24 wasn't that funny. There were, you know, some people who are listening to the wrong independent liberal media, I'll have sort of 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 New Jersey in New York and so there's this a little bit of this realignment happening. When I do think in the sun belt, the Democrats are going to really outperform Georgia, Texas, et cetera. And then maybe in the planes 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. And we'll see if that happens, but that's just something. For the record, New Hampshire's run by a Republican. But yeah, that is true, that is true. You're right. And for so is Vermont, even. Phil Scott. Last year. The last remaining to Bill Republican in the country. Phil Scott, okay. We're going to end with two things. One is I asked Sarah Matthews about the RFK for president 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. And 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 junior, you look advanced. You're like, this guy has no risk. I've got nothing but risk. Trump, I've already won Trump over once, you know? And maybe I can win him over again. Trump Kennedy, maybe Trump thinks, man, what if I could get one of the kids on the RFK ticket? RFK Ivanka, like, cements my legacy where Kennedy's 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 Polymarchard odds are. We don't do that here. But like, you know, if I were a Betty man, I could, I would absolutely put some money down him running. Look, this guy is, is there like, you know, levels of ego mania 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 has 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, you know, a donor or you have future ambitions. But the other thing, and I've heard this from a few folks, he's been told internally by like Susie Walsh and the like that he is one of their best political assets in the cabinet. And I do think his, His favorability is the highest among the entire cabinet. Yeah, I think that's probably true, and we can, I'm sure there's data out there. But if you're told, 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 help the like Donald Trump because you help bring the coalition together, and you have this cross appeal from liberals, and conservatives, if you get told that, why wouldn't you turn on and say, wait a second, JD Vance is going to take a ton here. Why would 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 I fall down a little bit on the podcast is all the latest in HHS. People can sign up for Jonathan Cohen's newsletter if they want to know all that to break down. But do you have a one minute on anything that's in rage due 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. Basically just, 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 are issued by people petitioning scientists to go through the studies and say, yes, this looks like a problem's in 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, not, not, don't like it. The amount of breakthroughs we would have fumbled, the, the, the brain drain that would have resulted from that would have been cataclysmic. Alrighty, and Kohn has heard from a bunch of people after he published a 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 way. Well, that, I am outraged. I share that. Thank you. Thank you. Final topic. Just a little, just for kicks. We have a little giggle. Yeah. Cooperville was on 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 like, I love sending that to people. I don't set it to you. It's a little intimate for a work tax. You can maybe talk about some of our other work tax, but let's, let's hear what it was that Tommy was concerned about in re the pregnant male emoji. Tommy, 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 terrible. Lord help them. You think about this. When you walk on to a commercial flight, it's possible that the pilot flying around should could have a deranged fetus of dressing up like an atom. You can't make this up. You can't. You can't make it up. I know I'm going on a flight tomorrow to Springfield for the show and 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 it. I want to see, I want more. I want more. I want to scroll through your needs. Okay. I want to scroll through your tinder, your hinge. I want every pilot, I want to see, and by the way, what 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 for. Good point. I'm interested to see what he's looking at. It's time you know so much about, why is Tommy know so much about the secret furry community of pilots? What's he doing? What's happening on porno? Is it something freaky? Is it a deranged fetish because we certainly don't need somebody that need deranged fetishes? That's a good idea for pericone. I'll send pericone up to the Hill and ask to test me 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 hall yesterday about what about Carlos, the bus boy? I do. I do. It's happening out there. Yeah. All right. By the way, if you're a furry and you listen, I feel total confidence with you. You could fly my plane. Fly. Total confidence. I mean, I hopefully like, I want you to be able to see clearly, so hopefully 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 patrol the next. Yeah. I've got long thoughts on it, but do you have anything you want to share? Yeah. I hate doing this, but because the whole patrol story is about the nasty text that you would send her, staff and all of a sudden, I think it's worthwhile to just to be transparent about it. 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, your piece of shit, please stop over editing my piece. Tim. Sounds like you're over at the fuck out of my pieces. My beautiful prose, you know, you're ruining a month and a half flavor, direct quote. Yo, little Jew boy, you know, that is not real. That is not real. Little Jew boy. Can you help me? I'm not saying we're all waiting for you. Okay. I did not say that. And this is just two weeks ago, after you and 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 some people are aware. I would never say that about you, the second one. That was really the thing. You did deny the other one. I did deny the other one. Just for the record, they're all made up, but Tim is owning the first one. I do say nasty shit on text, and we'll go over that a little bit more next, so everybody stick around. Thanks, Sam. All right. Thank you. All right, y'all, y'all, you know those pieces in your closet, you find yourself wearing on repeat. It's sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants or the tee that you always reach for first, because it's so cozy. 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Producer Man's Ansely might be in that cashmere sweater weather, and I've heard that she is, and she's loving it, but I'm still in tea weather, and just, I had this really cozy, it's kind of a sea green, 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. That's one of the issues looking nice. Find your next fall favorites of Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com/thiballor and get free shipping on your order on 3 to 65-day returns down available in Canada in the UK too. That's qunc.com/thiballor Alright y'all, so I taped an interview with Mary Peltola yesterday afternoon. Very shortly after we stopped recording, New York Times dropped a piece about her by Kellen Browning called Angry Outburst Slurs and Fireings, Tommel Rocks, a key center camping. Some of the highlights from that, if you've had seen it, is four former staff members. I think we're assuming the ones that she fired recently said they'd directly heard her use the F-slur, rhymes with maggot 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 third screenshots of. She said, "I hope Planned Parenthood knows that if we don't win, it's more of their loss than ours, fuck those bitches about Planned Parenthood, and 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 texting nasty grams. Oh, one of the other things they said is they made staff members feed a chameleon, a pet chameleon, some crickets. I think it's kind of like a fun job in congress, to be honest. The people complaining about that, 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. Of all this stuff, obviously, you want members congress to be respectful and to use good judgment. You'd like to learn more about all that. The only thing other thing I just would flag is this accusation about her use of the 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 assilers yelled at him at the lunchroom, and they didn't know it, but it feels like something you should at least address. My main interaction with 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, doing a nice job. necessary harm to themselves through staff, struggle sessions. Here's the behind that curtain real quick backstory and all this. The campaign canceled three times in this podcast. That's fine. It's just a podcast, right? If they just want to do Alaska press, like that is totally fine with me. I've actually said that in the past on the podcast. It was just a little bit of a red flag given the story, how they handled all of it, especially given that I'm obviously favorable to her. Like, this is not a hide the ball fake podcast interview situation. I do radical candor here. Listeners know where I stand on my guests. Good, bad or otherwise. Pears knew where he stood. Jason Calcana knows where he stood. Mayor piece knew where he stood, you know. In this case, I find Dan Sullivan to be an unbelievable quizzling and coward. More than that in a sec. And I've said a million times that Poltola has probably the best messaging of any damn Senate candidate out there besides me. So everybody knows guest 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, their million podcasts out there are 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. 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 in here next is a lovely combo. 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 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 long going to be an open 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 I'm running from local press after the event. I don't understand what anyone involved in this story is thinking. Like, if you're Mary Paltillo and the current staff, like, why are you hiding from this? Why are you prolonging this story? You can't explain what happened to someone that plainly wants you to win their 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, then to address any concerns we'd laugh. As for the damn staffers that created the story, like, they're even worse. If you were the snowflake that leaked the text where Mary Paltillo said the word retarded, were you hearted the text? Like, the first note leaked it, hearted the text, and then leaked it. Why are you leaking this 40 days before an election? What are you doing? I do 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 off to buck up. We're in the big leaks. Like, the stakes here are extremely high. If you're going to leak against a Democratic candidate boss because you think that they're mean to you. 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, heard using the R word or telling Planned Parenthood to fuck off. Like, is not just should not rise to level 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 a 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 time story for yourself if you want. We'll put it in the link in the show notes. 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 talk about in the pod. Dan Sullivan has been a loyal simp for the guy running in tournament 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-hosts who is a drunk who has no ability, no experience, no knowledge. To lead the military. Dan Sullivan who's supposed to be like a strong pro-military Republican said nothing as they've like 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, more unimaginable 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 or Donald Trump. But that said, the situation around the story and how a scandal is definitely unfortunate. Next up, Mary Paltola. All right. We are back. She's the Democratic candidate for Senate from Alaska, former Congresswoman in Alaska native. It's Mary Paltola. 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 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 where 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, families, food insecurity, fish, resource development, fish, or abundance issues, fish, corporate greed, fish, and many other things. And then freedom, of course, that's why fish is first there. That was the thing I was always wondering. It wasn'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 Alaska lifestyle. Republicans have kind of taken freedom, right? Like they've tried to code it as a Republican term. And I'm just kind of wondering in what ways you feel like 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 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 doesn't need to eat. Yeah. But I, you know, I never, I think they're meat eaters out there, carnivores. You 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 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 II when we got planes and roads and cars. I'm a UPIC Eskimo and UPIC people have traditionally eaten about 80% of their diet is fish and then half of that is salmon. So the generic word for fish is the generic word for food. Naka. And so it's just fundamental. I know she said you pick Eskimo there. Am I allowed to, 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 how other, you know, I've been corrected by academics saying. You're not an Eskimo. You're an Inuit. And I just don't know anybody in my region or in this 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. to ask him a language. - Control ask. - 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 was happening. All I saw was you put up the answer immediately of no. And then him, I'd 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 I do feel like Dan is just out to lunch and the sort of stuff. - The question was whether or not the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and NOAA are doing enough, we're 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 issue issues. And specifically the issue of the lack of salmon in our two biggest rivers, the Yukon River and the Cusco-Krum 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 foundational to our 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 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 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 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 paulic, which is what goes into the McDonald's flay of fish. It's fish sticks. Not only are they taking out metric tons of these forage fish, but they're also dumping over metric tons of juvenile halibut, 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, 'cause I don't know if you know, but I used to be a Republican. And so back then I was, I remember like at my pack, those were going to work with him on that first campaign he ran. And he seemed like a mainstream kind of guy. I wanted to work to solve problems. Now, I just, I see more of the national stuff. And he's totally MIA in absent. Like refuses to stand up to Trump on anything, never sticks his hat out on anything. And so part of me is like, well, maybe he's like, that's 'cause he's doing stuff back home. But it doesn't really seem like he's doing that either. Like 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. This is a concern. - Yeah, I don't know. 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 the war itself is an issue because 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, there's telling me their personal story about like how much money it's going to cost to heat their houses winter. And it was really eye popping. And so let's talk about like the home heating on the 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 interior, even in fairbanks or 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. We are 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 Katsabu, they're literally paying right now $26.82 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, and so much of it was dumb luck and timing, there are communities who got a half way 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 gonna be paying as much as $26.82 a gallon. I think a neighbor village to Shungnack 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 gonna make it through this winter. And last winter, we were living hand-to-mouth. So a lot of Alaskans are very worried about their 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, 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, that's the cost and what people are going to deal with and how cold the winter is going to be. And then you kind of look at the point of the war. I mean, it's one thing you've seen for some of these people from the President himself talking about how like this was worth it because it was a nuclear and to me, it's just from the start, this seemed unimaginably full-hearted and that they didn't have a clear objective, Dan Sullivan, the others, Republicans of the Senate didn't speak out against it. What's your thought just overall on the hand-butting 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 of sons 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 US carrier group out there. And so that's part of the truth. Just like there was no plan, no strategy and the treatment of our soldiers is really unacceptable from my perspective of what your thoughts are on them. Well, I believe there have been 18 casualties to date because of that war and those casualties are being classified as "desk." 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 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 it away. 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 scrimped at. - 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. - Let's talk about the Democrats a little bit. If you get back in there in the Senate and you're pretty independent in the House on various things, there's only kind of how you think about that balancing independence with party loyalty. And 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 just kind of saw how management and cinematographic 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, mind it, care 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. 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 natural gas stoves. If you're in so 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 a dollar, 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. Thank you for being in the Senate, assuming you could win. And there are a couple of things that come up as far as how the process is going to work. I just wonder if you've put any thoughts into Chuck Schumer as majority leader for the Democrats and whether you'd support him and the question of the Philobuster. - You know, I'm not focused on the composition right now. There's, you know, and it's so funny because we live in an unprecedented time and it's been an unprecedented time for a very long time. So I think-- - I'm sick of talking about how unprecedented it is to be honest. - I am too, I would love to live in precedent at times. I would love to have boring government. I'd love to have boring leaders who weren't doing outlandish things all, you know, every day, 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 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. (laughing) 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? (laughing) - You know, I am not interested in caucus dynamics. And again, I have no way 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 to talk about 2029. But I can send it, you know, for the Democrats to be able to do things and 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. So when you were in the house trying to get some pass and to get some pass through the Senate, there was a big, you know, in like 2021, 22, there's a lot of discussion about how the Democrats kind of 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 I think that's healthy. I do worry about one administration, one majority coming in and making dramatic changes. And then in two years, another majority comes in and flips it again. And I think the level of uncertainty that we are all living and 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 wanna, let's move on from Trump. Let's like work together and let's not deal with some of the stuff that was happening in the past with that B. January 6th, et cetera. 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, et cetera. And I'm just gonna wonder how you think about that. Like obviously there'll be a policy agenda for the Democrats, but shouldn't there not also be a corruption and accountability agenda given what we've seen the last couple of 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, healthcare costs, grocery costs, even the issue with factory trawlers, dragging the bottom of the bearing 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 in 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 all know financially we are going backwards every month. And there is a direct tie with corporate greed and these millionaire and billionaire agendas that really are-- - Sure, on board for oversight of whatever kind of great, whatever scandals we've seen people doing deals with this administration that are not, that are not legal or fair. - And oversight is baked into our democracy. And we have 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 cow-tows. And it just is feeling more and more like we just have one branch of government, all of the attacks on the freedom of the press. This is just a huge concern. And 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 things about you that have little birdies have said my ear. One is that you're like friends with Sarah Palin? I guess Alaska is so small and you ran against each other but I had a friend of a friend of Palin who said that Palin liked you, like you guys are pals. I don't know. Is that right? >> Well, we met before the current state of affairs, we worked together before social media before the MAGA movement. 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 I was serving in the state house and the chairman of what we call the Bush Caucus. It's the rural members. There were 10 of us, five Republicans, five Democrats. And we worked really well with her. Then husband, Todd Palin, is from Bristol Bay and he's a fisherman and he's also Yuppick and I found Sarah very easy to work with when she was governor. >> So you guys are like having one of those together or what, I don't know what you do in Alaska. >> We bonded because we do that. We, 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 white collar positions. So there were a lot of things to bond on as working moms. >> I hear you also can't go running like you like because of the fat bears. And you know a gay pride sometimes I've got to run away from the fat bears too, it's a different kind. That's like you're scared of the bears, you can't run because the bears might eat you. >> Well we've got some black bears in our neighborhood and I'm on a group chat 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 trash. And you know like most places there are people who want fresh eggs and have chickens. And so it's very bears versus chickens in the part of town that I live in. And actually it was on my treadmill a couple of weeks ago just happily running away. And I actually saw this pretty big black bear dashing through my yard. He ran so fast I couldn't even get a picture of it on my phone. But black bears terrifying me, you can't look big to intimidate them, you can't 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 note, I like that. That's the closest I've gotten watching into the wild. All right, I want to end with this, change from light to heavy. But we've done it before and I just, I was reading just about the tragedy of your husband and Busy and who died in a plane crash about three years ago now. And I just 57, I can even imagine what that's like. 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 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 fisherman. We call them providers 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, had an amazing vacuum ceiling setup. We would grind our own mousse meat when we had seven kids together, I have four 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 boys were teenagers, we put away two mosa year, which is a tremendous amount of meat and a tremendous amount of hamburger. And he was a pilot, there just wasn't anything he couldn't do. He testified before Senate, he was rated for multiple different planes. He could fix our boat motors, put floorboards in my boat in one afternoon, painted and all. He was just a really exceptional, great guy. Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate it. I guess I have to see it for myself. Will you show me around? Sometimes I guess you'll be busy in DC, but you'll be getting back. Just come to Alaska, we can go anywhere you want to 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, Juno is beautiful, where I'm from is a different kind of beautiful. It's a title estuary with two gigantic rivers. So yes, please come, we would love to host you. I'll bring my daughter. I think she would love it. Thank you so much for taking the time. We'll get back on the campaign trail. We'll be talking to you again soon. Thanks Tim. [Music] The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to 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.