Sam Stein Used to Be a Thief

This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East, that's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East, that's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, okay, hold on, I got a new favorite food! That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. Yeah, it's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it at the grocery store. And this mayo is different. Mm-hmm, most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Eggs, sandwiches, fries, burgers. Chefs use it, restaurants use it, people who really care about flavor use it. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise. Hello and welcome to Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have managing editor Sam Stein back on the show. And here's why. I'm going to tell you why. We're still at the end of the August doldrums. Okay? I don't know what Trump is doing, if he's getting a facelift, he's just bleeding all day. But he has been a little less on the crazy lately as far as the new news is concerned. That's one thing. Everybody's kind of getting back into school. They want a little fun. So I was like, what can we do this week to loosen it up a little bit? Sam's laugh. There's one thing people been counting about his new beard and they're a little worried about him. I received some texts or concerns that Sam was on vacation, getting into the hard drugs. And so what we're going to do here is we have a mailbag for you and the cabinet rankings we're doing. We're just going to have fun and we might dabble in some conspiracies because it's important to have fun and dabble in conspiracies because I was looking at the YouTube rankings and the shit that is still in front of us, Sam. there is lefty conspiracy theories jimmy door is beating me do you know jimmy door he was doing a segment about whether charlie kirk was hit with a drone this week that's beating me okay the right wing nonsense sorry one second was the segment that charlie kirk this week was hit with a drone okay no the death but the assassination wasn't really a gunshot it was a drone um and uh it was a pretty precise drone i gotta say like just just the neck okay didn't hit anybody else there at utah university how big was this drone small um and so you know and then you got all the right wing losers beating us candace megan and so i'm just like this might be the path sam begging people to subscribe if you're watching on youtube click to subscribe and and also doing the types of content that people want which is natalie harp conspiracies you yeah i don't want to be i don't want to like beg people because that looks a little desperate but like you guys should be out there you guys should be subscribing as a way to bolster the idea that you don't have to dive so deep into the conspiracy land in order to be a success in this industry like help us prove the premise that you can be sane and still attract an audience just some light thoughts about i am dabbling in some light thoughts about whether natalie harp is russian or about her health history her story her brother the communist i've got i have a lot of thought anyway we'll get into all that at the end okay serious news first yes almost like 15 minutes of seriousness 40 minutes of sam interrupting me and laughing um new york times this morning has done the analysis on the soaring number of arrests that ice has done for non-criminals it's been happening this summer thousands of people who had not previously been the focus of the mass deportation campaign have gotten rounded up they included people married to u.s citizens including one that we sent to central african republic um people who had entered legally and were pursuing an asylum claim and then obviously the haitians and others with temporary legal status that the administration pushed to revoke we have a chart we'll put up for the video folks right now and you can just see it's just like hockey stick go up of people who are being detained who have no criminal history no issues at all and um and that's what they're doing to get their numbers why do you think they're doing this i mean i that that was a question i was kind of asking i had a question about the fact that they're doing this i mean i think they're doing a couple of theories. What's your theory? Well, one is that Mark Wayne Mullen had this brief period of time where people were mad at him. There was those two deaths and then they made some sort of policy change where they weren't going to do the traffic stop arrests. And then everyone freaked out on the right about Mark Wayne. And so I think he recalibrated. That's one theory. The other is that Trump's got nothing else really going on and all the foreign policy stuff is distracting. And so he's going back to his bread and butter. But those are the only ones I have. And I don't know if you have any other profound thoughts. I would add to that. I mean, look, this is basically immigration and trade are the two things where there's any ideological coherence at all. Like they're very committed to a whites only immigration policy and they're very committed to deporting people. I do think that there's a genuine ideological effort and this is the easiest way to do it. I mean, if you want to get people out of the country, the easiest way to do it is to go nab the people that you have in the system already, right? Like if you are a TPS, like you filed for TPS, we have your address. If you have a job, you're paying taxes. Like the government can find you very easily, right? And they can find like the worst criminals too, right? Because that you went into jail. But like there's this, that gray area of trying to find people who snuck in here, right? Like who, that's a lot harder. That's a good point. So like you start with the people who are in jail already, and you ask the states for the records so that you can go and get them and throw them out. Low hanging fruit. You go after people who have work visas or who are here with some documentation, TPS status, and you go after them because you can track them down. Then it becomes a little harder and you can't just use the vehicle stops. You can, I guess, but it's going to backfire. But then you start looking for different ways to nab them. And so one story in particular stood out to me, like literally yesterday, and I guess it's sad to me because it's my home state, Connecticut, but Senator Chris Murphy tweeted that there were ICE arrests happening, parents at school bus stops. So like that seems both sick and cruel and awful and inhumane. But to your point, it's like if you are trying just simply to get numbers and you know you got to find people and you can't just knock on the door and enter, like you start looking for places like bus stops at school districts that have a lot of immigrant kids. And it's awful. I mean, what they're doing is a collective trauma. And the idea that a parent has to wake up, you know, you're a parent, I'm a parent. Getting your kid ready for school is a pain in the fucking ass. And it's chaos every morning. Imagine adding to that the additional element of whether or not you're going to ever see your kid again. And just think about that. Exactly. The other people have been showing up for ICE check-ins, you know, the asylees, right? Facial targeting, Kavanaugh stops. Like that's it. So that's what they're doing. Like they're doing less of like the ASMR porn of like, hey, we have these people in chains or putting out social media. They are doing less of that. But like they have killed two people this summer, right? I think it's just that like because of some of the circumstances, they're immigrants, you know, you're going to have more outrage and backlash if it's white American citizens that are being killed. Let's just be honest, right? And the video element, like the videos of Good and Pretty were just so. There's so many angles. It was so striking. And it was summary execution in the streets. Like they are still continuing on with the other parts of this too. I mean, with Maine, Houston, we've seen. And the other thing is they have like seemingly unlimited funds to do this, right? And this is why it was so pernicious to give them all this money. Because if you have like a resource check on you, you start prioritizing, you do the things that actually matter, and you don't just like spray and pray. But they have so much money. Much money to spend. You know, there was a story yesterday that kind of got under the radar, but Kilmore Obrego Garcia, the sort of original big immigration story, you know, he's still not deported. Like his case is 16 months in, it's still going on. And it really comes down to this, which is the government wants to send him to Liberia. His lawyer says he has no attachment. They want to send him to Siberia? Liberia. Oh, Liberia. Might as well. Just kind of hot. Keep going. Keep going east. He wants to go to Costa Rica. Costa Rica said they'd take him. Literally, the government can just say, cool, we'll send you to Costa Rica and be done with it. But because they can spend unlimited money, they're just willing to incur the cost of litigating this thing for, I don't even know what the reason is at this juncture, but they can just take the legal cost and eat him. And so you have stupid shit like this happening all over the place. A little rumor that was flagged for us this morning that, you know, we know this type of stuff is happening, but like whether it's actually happening on Friday, but some immigration advocates had reached out and said the government has a flight for Afghans and Iranians that are going to the Central African Republic on Friday, you know, including Afghans that helped us. What is going on? Why are we always sending them all to these African countries? Do we have some sort of mineral deal that like, you know, we're getting an exchange? I feel like that's probably the other side of it. Yeah. I mean, look, well, part of it is. Well, part of it is, like, they avoid, you know, any issues. Trump, in all these places, have huge human rights violations in the Central African Republic. Like, the story of the man that, as Afra mentioned, has a us citizen wife it's cuban uh immigrant like this was like these types of people i thought that the republicans were for like the people fleeing communism and they didn't send him to cuba they sent him there he like doesn't know he has no money he's in the middle of central african republic he doesn't you can't get work there like what what is it what are you supposed to do i think it's fucking insane what we're doing it's wild um okay so rumors that's happening on friday and i do think this is again we've seen you know this is a whack-a-mole thing but we do see reactions to this when the when there is public outrage so i do encourage people to continue continue writing their representatives about this you know we got katie britt we got katie britt actually we got her to put out a statement baby you did i know and thank god i was on vacation when you were doing this whole thing but i i noticed and i was very happy and i and honestly and i don't mean this in like a shallow way i was proud like that you were doing this shit because katie britt like it bothers me that she glossed on to this poor kid in texas as like something she was crying about and couldn't stop thinking about and then she stopped thinking about it did a whole new york times take out i can't stop thinking about this guy until friday when i'm gonna stop thinking about this guy the beautiful the classic new york times picture of the you know person looking longingly at the window they love that pic it's like a pin-up picture of her it's just like what uh you know she had i think she had the state of the union response or i forget what she had some speech or something like that i don't know i don't know i don't know she had a horrible state of union response during the biden era where she was in the kitchen and it was like scream to it looked like scream to there are the knives there was some other there's some other speech she gave i was thinking about that one but there's some of the speech she gave where she was like didn't mention this kid who she apparently couldn't stop thinking about it's like she deserves all of it the knives in the kitchen with this state of the inner sense that was one of the weirder things that will stick with me from the 2020s i just remember texting my friends being like do i have trumped arrangement syndrome or is this the weirdest shit you've ever seen in your life and everybody and everybody like it's so weird i don't know i don't know i don't know weird yeah it was the airy voice yeah i want to talk about the midterms a little bit there's this report in the atlantic that really tickles me trump had an oval office meeting about how to spend their super PAC money one of kind of the less um covered elements of the corruption of this administration is how they're driving people uh corporations mostly but also rich people to just give huge amounts of money to their super PAC and in part because it's like administrations always did this kind of like on a small level like which like well you know one good way to get response back from the candidate is to like donate to the super PAC so so this isn't like so different like a lot of the other stuff that trump is doing is like unprecedented corruption um but like he is doing it on just a hypercharged scale like the reports i hear of like people you know like brian ballard like the close lobbyists like clients call them be like can we hire you to lobby and it's like yeah the entry fee is whatever 50 grand a month or whatever but also you got to give a million dollars to mag ink and like mag ink super PAC and then we'll take you like just crazy levels of so they have all this money like they've been they just they one unprecedented part of this is just how much money is in their super PAC right now for the midterms a lot of democratic strategists i've talked to are worried about this and and we have maybe a silver lining uh because trump called all the strategists in the oval office according to three people familiar with the meeting according to the atlantic um he he told them that they're going to have to spend money on ads that focus on him the president wants a series of ads focused on his own record he suggested the ad makers mine his own on-camera statements as the building blocks quote go look at the clips the president told the team i cite accomplishments all the time you're in comms prior to this like come on how many times have you been with a candy who's like we just need to add advertise better about me right like it's like a classic that's the problem we're not doing enough ads about how many ads we're going to have to advertise better about me how great i am um why he's got like 400 million i don't want to get the figure 100 million i think it's something crazy i've been wondering like why he hasn't spent this we're what 68 days away they spent some of it they spent i think 800 grand to help darlene graham 800 grand he spent he spent some money to be thomas massie hundredth of the total he spent some money to be thomas massie i think um so they spent a little bit in the primaries it's getting a little late in the game i mean like what are they waiting for i found republican i'd be a little bit upset you're sitting on all this money and it's like you're but you're gonna let us just get killed here the strategist i was talking to his word about i'm thinking of one conversation i had in iowa in particular i'm talking to iowa democratic party uh folks and they're like look we feel pretty good about sand uh obviously run a good race i've had in the polls we talked about that near yesterday turek you know kind of a coin flip good candidate bad year like the thing that they're the most worried about though is like you know iowa still went to trump by 11 or 12 last time and and they're worried that they have this huge you know war chest that it's hard in advertising to like convince people in farm country that things are great when they're shitty but it's kind of easy in advertising to go talk to republicans about how the democrat is crazy right and so that's what they were worried about the like they'll just be able to keep a lid on the democratic ability to win over trump voters because there'll just be so much advertising you know talking about how they're sharia law communists you know that you don't want to you know they're not going to be able to win over trump voters you know seize their farmland and give it to china or whatever uh that they do and and if they don't use the money for that and they use it instead for these ads that could maybe even backfire that are just like mr trump being like things are great look at my agenda best economy ever golden age like that that would be a dream come true really i would love to see uh the ad that trump if like trump actually got into the the business of making the ad himself and picking the accomplishments you i mean you said early up top that it's been like uh less than crazy week for Trump. And I guess so. But I was also sort of perusing his true social feed yesterday. He put up five posts in an hour about how clean the waterfall is at Meridian Hill Park in DC. I was just like, whoa. This is what I think is happening. I think he's getting the hair transplant. He's sitting around, you know, you can't go out. And so he's just bleeding. Sure. Well, my point is, would an ad that he crafted for the midterms include a lot of footage of Meridian Hill Park? And the Iowans being like, what the fuck is this park? Why? This is not, this is not in. Look at the big, beautiful fountain. Look at the big, beautiful fountain now. It used to be homeless people and drugs. And they called it Malcolm X Park. Obviously, if it's a bunch of ads focused on Trump and that's how they spend their money, Democrats would be positively thrilled. Both because they want to make the election about Trump. And then to your larger point, which is more interesting, is that I think the only way Republicans do pull this thing out is to figure out a way to somehow both depress Democratic votes, which I don't think is going to happen because I think Democrats are at this point willing to just do anything, but to more or less compel those fence sitters to just say, I'd rather not vote than vote Democrat. I don't think they're going to be able to juice turnout that much on there. I think that's the only way to do it. If I had to guess. I almost had a stroke right there. Hold on. What are we going to do? Am I supposed to talk about next? Oh, I had one other thing. Yeah. Fucking Ann Seltzer, dude. Honestly. I'm going to be an old, old man. I remember exactly where I was when that poll came out. And I remember slacking with you and Sarah and we did a take right away. And we were just like, the vibes were so great. Yeah, the take only is my picture in the thumbnail. It was a good sent to me about once a month by MAGA people. Not upset at Ann at all about that. Okay, the other bleep that Trump sent. This is hilarious. I love this one. Trump is so mad at Congress. He simultaneously thinks he's done all these things he's not getting credit for and that the Republicans in Congress are cucks, right? And so Trump doesn't realize how this looks, I guess, but he re-bleats, whatever you want to call it, a post from a guy who writes the following. This is on Trump's social media. Matt is the guy's name. Right wing nutjob. And he wrote this. I don't think the GOP. I don't think the GOP fully grasps how badly they're fucking up right now. I'm talking to people who normally have zero interest in politics who are legitimately pissed off. They're not seeing the major reform they thought would happen and they're really mad about it. No true accountability. No true mass deportations. Okay. No meaningful decrease in the deficit. Lots of very long vacations and no work. People are pissed they voted Trump into office and the GOP continues to slow walk every reform people want. Where are the doge cuts? Where's the SAVE Act? People are waking up. They're not happy about it. People believe they're voting for the Trump agenda instead. Many feel. Many feel like they're getting the same old Washington. If Republicans in Congress don't start producing results, they're going to discover that frustration has consequences. And by the time they realize that, it might be too late. Trump posted that. Because he sees that as an attack on Congress. Yeah. I mean, so the most predictable thing is what happens when if and when they lose in November, like Trump's not going to be like, yeah, that was on me. You know, I shouldn't have done that. It's going to be like John Thune fucked up and should have passed the SAVE Act and we would have won. And like everyone can see this one coming a million miles away. Thune can. So it should be fun. It's pretty encouraging, actually, because if Trump has already accepted that it's a loss and he's just going to blame John Thune and Mike Johnson, and he doesn't even care about Congress anyway because he does whatever he wants on the things that he cares about, the ballroom, the executive order. And that is kind of disincentivizes the cheating process. And I do think that, sure, they're already trying to cheat with the gerrymandering and they'll keep trying to cheat. But like to have the will to really create problems. Like you need. You need Trump to be fully locked in on that. Like he was fully locked in on the Stop the Steal. Right. And it kind of seems like he's like pretty locked in on the East Wing. Well, let's be clear about that, though, because the fully locked in on Stop the Steal came after the election. Right. That's right. Like, so we don't know. Like it's possible that it's possible we wake up on November 4th or whatever. And it's relatively close. And Trump's like, oh, man, I could really fuck with this shit. That's true. For sure. I've been more worried about the Post the Prey for a while. Yeah. This is just a story I just want to cover briefly because we haven't talked about it. And I guess you did an interview. Was it you that did the interview? Yeah. I re-listened to it. It was months ago. This story has been kind of on the low simmer for months. It's about Ron DeSantis. And I guess people just don't care about Ron DeSantis anymore. He's on his way out. He has no hope to run for president anymore. You know, it's kind of like, OK, so it's hard to get people's dander up about outrage. But it's a pretty shocking story. A state grand jury found the DeSantis administration, quote, misappropriated taxpayer money when it diverted $10 million from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation. From the Hope Florida Foundation, they had a sophisticated scheme where they passed that money through multiple organizations before landing the bank accounts of two PACs and the Republican Party of Florida. Those funds were then used to defeat a legalized marijuana ballot initiative. So to sum up, like the grand jury. The grand jury found basically that they took Medicaid money, should be going to health care for poor people, and used it instead to give to DeSantis' friends, political consultants, to do ads against a legalized marijuana ballot initiative. To which I ask, where is Nick Shirley? Where's Nick Shirley? Where's my man? He's got to get on this one. It's such a convoluted story, and that pretty much summarizes it. But there are a few components. I re-listened to the interview I did with the reporter who, who broke this story, and it's even crazier in a way. So basically, this Medicaid settlement happened with this company that overcharged states for prescription drugs. And a lot of states trumpeted the fact that they had this settlement. One state that did not trumpet the fact that they had this settlement was Florida. They kept it very quiet. No one knew that Florida had gotten $67 million in this settlement. It was just not there. And then they were talking about, separately, this Hope Florida initiative, which, to summarize, more or less, is like, we are going to use state administrators to take people who would normally be on food stamps or whatever government assistance programs and send them to churches. That's what Hope Florida does. It was a Casey DeSantis initiative. Somehow, Hope Florida got a $10 million infusion, and no one really knew where it came from. Well, if you dug into it, what happened was that they took $10 million from the $67 million, $7 million settlement that they never announced, sent it to Hope Florida. But then they didn't just keep it in Hope Florida. They took that $10 million, as you know, and put it to these anti-marijuana initiatives that they were trying to defeat in the state of Florida. And all this, which is crazy and undocumented and done basically by executive fiat, had the sign-off of really big players in the DeSantis orbit, including the current state attorney general, apparently, and then Ashley Moody, who is now a senator. The attorney general is just like, basically, a groper. I had some random guy that was like, you know, one of these, you know, the people who wants me to call more balls than strikes. Be like, why don't you go up to the Democrats more like, Trump is going to be gone in two years. What kind of Republicans are coming behind? And I was like, you have no idea the type of Republicans that are in these. In the wings? Yeah, that are in the wings. Yeah, go look at the New York Republican Party. Yeah, and ain't George H.W. Bush is the attorney general of Florida. Let me tell you. I look at this stuff, and it's like, so transparently corrupt, and it's unbelievable. And they're all like, well, I don't remember ever signing. Someone obviously fucking remembers that. It's like, do the Floridians look at this stuff and say, man, maybe we should try something new, right? Like, I guess I know, I understand the Florida Democratic Party is in shambles, and the people that they're putting up are quacks and crazies too, not all of them. But like, do you look at it and you're like, oof, you know, like, do we want this? Is this right? Like, maybe we should, like, dabble in something new. I don't think David Jolly winning that governor's race is crazy. Like, McDonald's doesn't, like, what is happening inside his brain? It's just like, the other day he was talking about how people who moved to Florida from blue states were stupid. Oh, yes. And then like, then yesterday I saw a clip of him where he was talking about how they're going to, one thing he's going to work on is the roads and make sure there's no potholes so that the ladies have a nice smooth drive when they go to get their hair done. I'm like, what? I'll vote for that. Hell yeah. Okay. No one wants to have their hair bopping. But I don't know. I think he's got a chance. All right. We're about to get to the fun part. But before we do, tomorrow's pod, I'm like obsessed with what's happening in Russia right now. The Russians and the Iranians are having a meeting. Trump might have stumbled into World War III. We sent our CIA director to Russia, I guess, to warn them not to invade NATO. But simultaneously, I think reports seem like Russia is indicating that since we're running out of materiel, maybe they are going to try to. We got serious foreign policy matters. So do you have any other serious matters before we get to the cabinet rankings? No, I've been waiting to do this, the fun shit for a while. This is too much serious shit already. Yeah. Do you need a shot or something? You're a little low energy Jeb right now. Are you ready for the fun part? I am not. Get the fuck out of here. I am not low energy. All right. We'll start with this. Before we get to the cabinet rankings, boy, do we love our fans in Canada. You know, Sam came with me and Sarah, the three of us, those live shows. I have a complicated history with Canada. That's true. Canadians to get mad at you. I want to go back in 2027. I want to go back to Canada. Um, we love all the listeners we have up there, see it in the numbers. And I don't know for sure if this reporter is a listener of the show, uh, but they were at the Doug Ford press conference yesterday and it seems like they probably listened to us just based on context clues. Let's listen. Uh, you talked yesterday in your interviews about your confidence that a deal can be reached, but today you were. Talking about the problems that people like Howard, not like Howard Lutnick and other members of the administration present. Not like Canada. You've gone international. Unbelievable. Oh, I love that. Uh, Howard Nutlick scuttled the deal. We'll see if he makes it into the cabinet rankings or people have missed it. Sam and I've been doing this for a while now. Every, every quarter or so we update our rankings of the worst members. Of the Trump's cabinet, very competitive category. You know, it's really tough to narrow it down to the top five. You know, you've got to do a lot of pruning, uh, the April rankings. I just want to remind people, I'm just going to set a baseline. Sam had worst cabinet member, Pete Hegseth, second, worst RFK, junior third, Besant fourth, Chris Wright sleeper fifth, Marco Rubio in April. I also had Hegseth first. We had the same there. I had Rubio two, Todd Blanch three, RFK four and Brooke. Rollins was my sleeper in the fifth slot. Secretary of agriculture, uh, who is bankrupting farm country and telling all of us that we should grow chickens in our backyard. So first of all, you don't grow chickens, motherfucker, like plant them in the ground. They don't grow. You get a chicken, you beat it. It grows. You grow a chicken. Is that not right? Like a fucking Bush. Okay. So cabinet rankings. Now I'm going to give you, um, the members of the cabinet that kind of made my consideration list. Um, so these are, these are like, there's no way with the nominees. These are the nominees. There's something out there who we just would never put in the five. And yeah, well, it's just, uh, Mark Rubio, Besant, Hegseth, and Blanch in the four power ministries. Obviously we're going to consider all them. Yeah. Rollins isn't going to make the cut this time. So I did want to mention her, um, nut lick, of course, RFK, Jr. Sean Duffy, uh, has really been making an ass out of himself lately. Linda McMahon. At education. I felt like she had to be nominated because just yesterday, did you see this? Uh, the department of education posted a video, uh, comparing Trump to Hitler. I did see that. Yeah. And then deleted it. So, you know, that's where Linda McMahon is right now. We're doing Trump, Trump, Hitler videos, um, Russ vote. I like to throw in there. And I did want to mention, uh, she's never made a top five. I don't know if she will this time, but small business administration, administrator, Kelly Leffler. Oh, is this cause of that? She did put out a video where she, I, I believe that she's not a human. I think I'm now increasingly think of the aliens exist. that they're throwing us off the scent by releasing some of these supposed alien files. And I think that Kelly Leffner and Jared Kushner are non-human beings. They don't look comfortable at all in their own skin. They could be from Men in Black. And I think having an alien in the cabinet is concerning. So those are kind of the nominees. Do you want to start with your fifth or first? Do you want to go first to fifth or fifth to first? You didn't list someone who I have in my top five. Oh, really? Who's that? Mark Wayne. Oh, Mark Wayne Mullen. Yes, he should have been in the nominee list. You're right. Yeah. It was an oversight. Okay, so one more time with the possibilities. Kelly Leffler, Russ Vogt, Mark Wayne Mullen, Linda McMahon, Sean Duffy, RFK Jr., Nutlick, Blanche, Hegseth, Besant, Rubio. Right. He's not in my top five. I think he could have maybe cracked your we-should-consider-him rotation. Burgum, for all the reflecting pool nonsense and how shitty the America 250 thing was. Thank you for bringing that up. He also has been managing the Department of Interior horribly. They're firing all kinds of people randomly. Oh, yeah, and what's going on in Texas around the – Big Bend. Yeah, Big Bend. Yeah, he was defending the Big Bend wall. Yes, it is despicable, actually, what he was doing to that man, the Olympian, that did nothing. And after it was announced that they weren't going to investigate him anymore, Burgum publicized that they still want to go after him more, and that he did it. He's maligning this guy. But, yeah, he's not in my top five. I would put him sixth. So, just putting it out there. All right, you want my five? I think we'll just go one at a time here. Are we going five to one, as in, like, the least worst to the worst? Let's do that. Yeah, okay, yeah, sure. Who's your number five choice? Blanche. Blanche, number five. Boy, that's tough. That shows you how competitive the category is. It's a great field. When Blanche is number five for you. There's a lot going wrong, but Blanche, you know, he sucks. What can you say? The weaponization shit, the fact that he wouldn't – back away from it, the settlement on IRS auditing with Trump, just the way he kind of bulldozed the senators in the confirmation. And then, of course, obviously, DOJ is just – he's not even, like, hiding the ball that the DOJ is an arm for Trump. In fact, he's embracing it. So, like, yeah, he probably could have been four or three, but there's just real stiff competition. It's hard. I mean, it's just really hard, the people I had to cut. All right, let's hear your number four. Duffy. Duffy makes the top five. He makes his debut. I can't swallow this dumbass series that he put up about him vacationing across the country. Not because the content's so shitty, which it is. And, like, he's like, you know what? Like, he's dropping infomercials in for, like, credit cards and stupid shit like that. And then on top of that, the way he's treating his daughter, who just wants to, like, be able to say, hey, can I apply to Harvard? No. No, they're going to indoctrinate you. Like, it's just – it's corrupt. It's just so corrupt. He's just taking – He's taking bribes. So, yeah, he cracks my top five. And also, it's personal. It's personal. It's personal. I've flown a couple times this summer. It fucking sucks. I'm sorry to curse so much for those in the car. But I've had horrible experiences. And I know that's not necessarily just his fault, but I blame him. I thought you were going to say it's personal because you're still mending fences with the Canadians. And, you know, like, his smearing of them is not having a military when dead Canadians, you know, were buried because they came to Harvard. They came to our defense after we were attacked in 9-11. We did nothing except try to steal their land and make fun of their beady little eyes. Horrible. Yeah, that was bad. I didn't like that. And I should have put that in there, too. Thank you for adding it. Top four. Okay. All right, you want my three? I do. Mark Wayne. For all the reasons we articulated. Yeah. I mean, ICE's record-setting arrest and terrorizing parents and rumors of them, like, going now into, you know, Springfield, Ohio with the Haitians there. And it's like, no, not good, buddy. Not great. Obviously. We led the segment with ICE. I did a whole video out this morning over on YouTube you can watch about, like, just some specific horrifying stories. In spite of all that, Mark Wayne doesn't make my list. Wow. Because the cabinet is so bad. And it's really Stephen Miller. Like, this is Stephen Miller. Mark Wayne is a vessel for Stephen Miller. He's a proxy. And that is the reason why I don't use him. Duffy also didn't make my list. So we have two different members. And my top two are the same as last time. I got RFK at two. My brother. We got Measles. Dess in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And he's talking about natural measles being a great thing. I want to pause here. Because I feel like as just kind of a self-assessment of my work on this podcast, the RFK beat is the one that's the toughest for me to follow. Not only am I not one-sixteenth of a scientist like JVL, like, my ACT score was brought down by, like, three points just based on my science category. Like, I was at the top of the pops on math. And all the other stuff. Science, I was, like, down at Forrest Gump levels. So I just, it's hard for me to understand this stuff. And so I don't cover it as much. And so I'm, and you do. You and Cone, this is kind of your, you know, among the things you're really locked in on. If you're going to put RFK at number two, I want, like, a two-minute RFK hate where you explain what's been happening with him. I don't know if two minutes is going to suffice. But let me just say. Okay. There has been 2,800 cases of measles this year. That's the most in three decades. And this man has the audacity to say that's because of Joe Biden. Okay. He won't take ownership for the fact that he spreads nauseous, problematic, anti-vaccine nonsense across the country. And when kids die, which is happening, he then has the gall to go out there and tell the governor of Pennsylvania, you know what, natural measles may actually be the way to do it. On top of that, he oversees a bureaucracy that's tasked with making sure that our food supply is protected. In fact, this is a big feature of his political appeal. I'm going to make food great. And I can't buy a bag of fucking lettuce without worrying I'm going to have explosive diarrhea. So food's not particularly great. On top of that, beef's not particularly great. On top of that, food prices aren't particularly great. We don't know if we have proper food inspectors. If that was it, that would be enough. But it goes so far beyond there because we're standing on the cusp of incredible breakthroughs in cancer treatments. mRNA technology could make us have personalized immunotherapies for cancers, if all goes according to plan. And RFK Jr. hates mRNA and has launched a campaign against it and has sat on top of a bureaucracy that has systematically gutted the federal investments in groundbreaking research, including into cancer research. And he has the audacity to say he wants to make America healthy again. That, to me, is an abdication of leadership. It's an indication that he is not fit for this role. And it's a sad, sad commentary that he somehow has stayed, not just in the cabinet, but atop our health care bureaucracy. So he is number two. And number one for you is Pete Higgs. Great job on that on RFK. And he has a fucking brain worm. And have you seen his diary and what happened to his wife? Okay, never mind. That's your top five. Sam, Hegseth, RFK, Mullen, Duffy, Blanche. Wow, we're going to have some divergence. So we're going to get to see some comments and let people know who they think is more in touch with the incompetence in this administration and who's doing the most damage. You do not even list my number one. Come on. I'll just leave it like that. I'm going number five, RFK Jr. You covered it. I kind of didn't want to. I wanted to include him. I wanted to include Besant. We discussed Besant a lot on Tuesday. I've got some more Besant material coming in the mailbag. The two measles deaths this week pushed RFK over Besant. You know, once you start causing actual deaths, you got to make the top five. Number four is the aforementioned Howard Nutlick. I mean, he created a trade war single-handedly. I mean, I guess two-handedly with Trump. There's also this insane Vanity Fair story people should read this week, which is like he has gotten, himself and the Department of Commerce involved in this like real estate deal with the pied-a-terre issue. And he's kicking Tory Burch out of her house. He's wrecking havoc everywhere he goes. And his kids are corrupt. And Howard Nutlick is number four. He's back in the rankings. I think in my very first ranking he was in, it hasn't been in for a while. Number three is Todd Blanche. You kind of covered this. I mean, like having the Department of Justice be an arm of the president's vengeance. It's extremely bad. And in any other administration, Todd Blanche would be far and away the worst Attorney General option. And all we can do is hope that he suffers the same fate that Nixon's Attorney General suffered. Number two is Pete Hegseth. Okay. Which we didn't really cover that much in yours, but like we both have him in the top two. He changed the name of the Department of Defense Department of War, started one war, lost it. When you put it that way, yeah. I don't know what else to do really with him. Like he was in Iowa. He's doing pushups. He's like has this new thing where he keeps saying trannies. Like he thinks that's going to help. He's like, oh, if I use a pejorative about trans people and talk about how tough our military is and how we have real men, real fighters. And it's just like, man, maybe you'd be better off if you had trans people running the military because what's going on right now is a fucking disaster. People are jumping off ships. So Pete Hegseth's too. And as you mentioned, My number one is Rupia. - You love shitting on Rupia. I'm sorry. He is the national security advisor. Like Marco Rubio is the secretary of state and the national security advisor. I think he might also be like the grand marshal of the Supreme Court or like the auditor of the post office or something. He's a national archivist too. The archives. Okay. I don't know what's happening at the archives. I'm sure it's not going well because nothing he's doing is going well. Everyone just kind of wants to – like, oh, he's the fixer in here. He's the serious one. Marco's one people turn to. So based on what? Like the job of the secretary of state is to be the chief diplomat. How are we doing in diplomacy right now with our allies? Has Marco done really a great job of navigating diplomacy with our NATO allies? No, they all hate us. How about our Middle Eastern allies? They're all begging Trump not to continue escalating the war that he started. The Kuwaitis are like, what the fuck is happening? We had thought we were close allies and now like the Iranians are bombing our infrastructure. We might have to kick your military bases. This is out of our country. Kuwait started talking about that this week. They might kick our soldiers out of the country. And then how are things going in Central America? Well, we're doing coups. Most of – all the governments besides El Salvador hate us and Argentina. We'll see what happens there. We're bombing things in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean. What are the points to point to from the diplomacy side of things where he's improving things? I guess we're improving relationships with North Korea. But that seems to be a one-to-one Trump to Kim Jong-un thing. South Korea, they hate us. So Marco has totally failed as chief diplomat, as secretary of state. National security advisor, I would think, would be the main advisor for the stupidest war that I've ever thought of. I went back and re-listened this morning to our podcast from before the war started. I had Jonathan Chait on it. Before it started, I was literally on the show being like, I don't understand this. There's no objective. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What are these guys doing? Marco Rubio was the national security advisor that advised. Trump, you would think, to get us into this war that had no objective and it's been a total disaster. At least J.D. Vance has been leaking that he was against it privately. Marco, I kind of half-ass leaked that he was worried about this. But it seems like he didn't do anything to stand in the way of it. He's still the national security advisor. Do we feel more secure right now? Is he doing a good job at that? Marco has been just an utter catastrophe. I guess the only thing people would point to is that the coup in Venezuela. Was successful from a military standpoint. But we'll see how that goes long-term. I don't think things are going that great in Venezuela right now. For me, it's not like a mark of a good thing that we did a coup and now we're stealing oil from another country. That's the feather in his cap that he's going to run for. Everybody's like, J.D.'s such a clown. Marco is really the guy to watch out for. What record is Marco running on? The worst foreign policy since the Iraq war? Sorry, Bill. Yeah, but the National Archives has never been better. Fuck Marco. That's where we're at. He's doing a horrible job. Marco. Marco Hegseth Blanche Nutlick RFK Jr. I'd have to check the archives, but I think that's the first time we've had Rubio as your one. So this is new ground here. Welcome to the list, Marco. Welcome to the top of the list. So people can vote in the comments on who made a more compelling case for their list. Do you have any critiques of mine? Anything you want to push back on? No, those are solid. And you're making me reconsider, Marco. That's a very valid case. Thank you. It was tough not to put Kelly Loeffler on the list. I mean, if you can't walk like a human, it's pretty concerning. It's pretty concerning about what's happening inside the cabinet. Honestly, if you hadn't seen it and you're an audio listener, please watch. Please do. Please come to the video and watch us. And then we get double counted. You know, that's nice. All right. We're on to the mailbag. Yeah. Are you ready? I'm ready. Pod's already been logged. This is going to be a good show, long show. Do you got anywhere to be? Probably. You are the managing editor of the site, right? Well, you're doing a note. Pulling up the calendar. Yeah, I got an 11, but I'll push it back. Don't worry. Okay. You're the Marco of the website. I guess Jared Poland is really the Marco of the board. Jared is. I want to start with number one just because it kind of gets us ready for all this. Sarah had a very innocent question, which is, what's your go-to morning routine? Coffee, Twitter, sunshine. Best wishes, Sarah. I thought it was interesting because Sam asked me to provide him the questions last night, but my morning routine is like this. I get up, usually around 630. Sometimes seven, and I don't leave the bed, okay? I don't leave the bed. I have a great life. Listen to how amazing my life is. My husband, who gets up like the crack of dawn because he doesn't sleep, brings me an iced coffee. Oh, come on. Yeah, and then I sit in the bed, and I go, what are we going to talk about today? I'm reading the news. I'm reading all the newsletters. I'm creating an outline, and I sit there for two hours, and then I tape the podcast at nine. And during that time, you know, I'm thinking about what you all are going to like. I'm having two iced coffees. I go and brush my teeth and put on a shirt like this Jacquemus shirt, and then I come upstairs, and that's it. That's my morning routine. Sam must be much busier than me because last night at like 11 o'clock, he's like, where are my questions? And I'm like, you're going to get them in the morning when I do the outline, but you must have had a lot of things going on because you didn't review the outline until like five minutes before we started. So what's happening for you? Slightly different morning routine. I get up. I go downstairs. I cook my kids breakfast. Horrible. Like, I don't mind that. That sounds horrible. You know, I got a dog. Let the dog out. Make sure the dog pees. Discovered that because the dog's urine is absolutely destroying my lawn, I often then have to take a hose, pocket hose, and spray the lawn like just to wash out the urine. This is all in the morning. Then, you know, get my coffee, sit down, make sure that with my wife, my loving wife, make sure that the kids' lunches are prepped for school. Jump into morning shots. Seems like she does. She does the lunches and you're just kind of, you're just there for quality control? No. Okay. The way you said make sure the lunches are done, it kind of, just the way you phrased it to me. Yeah, she might, she might. There's a couple of implications there that my wife is absolutely burning the shit out of our kids' lunches and I got to make sure. That's not true. Then I get on the computer. I got to make sure the morning shots is decent, or at least I hope it's decent. Our morning newsletter, signupatheblog.com. Yeah, absolutely sign up. It's a great newsletter. We spend a lot of time working on the headlines. As Tim is aware, and then I drive into work and make a couple phone calls to reporters to talk about what they're working on on the way into work, get into work, and do my 10 a.m. call. Oh, sorry, I forgot. I also walk the kids to school, so I got to get to 10 a.m. Kind of late. You show up at 10 a.m. No, I said I show up for the 10 a.m. call. That sounds like a peaceful morning. One thing I forgot to mention, just because I don't want to, it feels rude because I don't leave the bed, right? So it's like hard to nitpick my husband when he's doing all those things that you do. But there's a lot of yelling, like between the two of them. Are your shoes on? Brush your teeth. And I'm like, I'm doing my outline. Shut up. They're blaring Dolly Parton this morning, you know, Kesha often. That's nice. So is yours peaceful or do you have yelling also? No, and it's not peaceful ever. And usually it sort of just falls all apart about 10 minutes before they need to get out the door. One of them doesn't have socks and the other one has to go poop. They start screaming at each other. The dog's getting a little antsy. I forgot to feed the dog, so I got to go feed the dog. You know, there's always like chaos right there. And then you start getting like anxious, like, we got to get out the door. Got to get out the door. What a pleasant morning. One thing that doesn't happen is drinking. I had some people that have been suggesting from time to time that I'm drunk on the podcast or that a guest is. There's never a drunk guest. We taped this podcast at 9 a.m. Central Time. Okay, everyone suggest if we're getting a little loose, it's just because we're creating fun content for you guys. Okay. Question two. That was from Sarah. Thank you, Sarah, for caring about our lives. We're getting sillier from here. This is Nick in Erie, Pennsylvania. It was this email from Nick that prompted me to say we've got to do another mailbag. Just, you know, it's such a good email. So we'll start with him. Shout out, Nick. Not sure why Scott Besson can be so triggering. Obviously, there's the smugness and smarmyness. But also, he sounds like his mouth is full of saliva when he talks. I think there might also be something about someone who either thinks they're good on TV or just likes to talk. He likes being on TV but isn't good at all. Can't put my finger on it. Also, I have an indelicate follow-up question. Could you give special dispensation to the straights to use the F-slur for Besson? I think you have the authority to do that, Nick in Erie. I do have the authority and I will field that in a second. Sam, do you have any thoughts? He raises an interesting question about who. Well, does he sound. I can't tell if he sounds like he's got his mouth filled with saliva. He kind of does. Kind of, yeah. But who are other people who think they're good on TV but are not good on TV? Sam. Yeah, I noticed in the Google Docs, he said me. So, thank you for that. You're so much better on YouTube than on TV and it's a compliment. This is why people come here to TheBullock.com. I guess. I feel like I'm good on TV. You're pretty good. You're like a B on TV, but you're an A here. I'm an A on YouTube. Okay. I thought the obvious answer here. Fuck off. I thought the obvious answer here was J.D. Vance. Yeah. Right? Like, J.D. is someone who has supreme confidence. There is a J.D. and Besson parallel across all of those things. Like, they're both extremely smug and smarmy and condescending. They both think that they're way better than they are, you know? And you can kind of see them laughing at their own jokes. And for J.D., it's more like laughing at his own jokes. For Besson, it's more like. You can see him kind of smirk at how clever his little maneuver is. Like, he thinks he's come up with a. clever little spin on whatever. terrible economic news there is when he goes on TV, thinks he's got one over on Kristen Welker, and that is off-putting. I would also put Stephen Miller in the category, but I don't think Stephen Miller thinks he's good on TV. I don't think he thinks he's good, yeah. Yeah, and he's just mean. He's condescending in a way, but it's kind of in a. There's something about the smarminess that he doesn't. He can't even get that. He can't even reach that register, you know? Yeah, I got you. Like, Scott and JD think they're pulling one over on you. Yeah. Stephen doesn't. He's just like, send the Browns back. Okay. Yeah. To the question of whether I can give dispensation of the straights to use the F-slur, I do have that power. Congrats. And I take it seriously, and I thought about this. I laughed, because if there ever was somebody that deserves the F-slur, it's really Scott Besant. I mean, he encapsulates the word in every possible manner. Like, the way that he carries himself. He used to live in a Barbie house. Like, he's almost like a stereotype of. Like, in a different era, he would have been on the TV show as, like, the rich uncle that is always a confirmed bachelor. That they don't ever say that he's gay, but he has all of the gay stereotype traits. So, like, you want to say it so bad, and I have bad news for you, Nick. Only I get to do it. Sorry. Sorry. Only other gays get to do it. It's close. I thought you were gonna give him the. I know. I wanted to give it to him. But unfortunately, we've got to protect our ability to say the F-slur. And, yeah, I was in the LSU tailgate once a couple years ago, and I was kind of in a little small group of, like, my closest friends, and then a couple of their friends. And one of them dropped the F-slur to make fun of, I think, the opposing team's coach or player. And I looked at him, and I was like, eh. And, you know, he looks back at me, and is like, well, I thought we were cool, though. And I was like, you know, Blake and Grant could do it. Like, they're in the inner circle, but, like, you're not there yet. You know, you've got to really protect it. So, Nick, maybe you can grow into it. Sam, the next two questions are for you. But I'm gonna weigh in on the first one. You had a show. This is from Joe and Casper. You had a show called Candidate Confessional. He's a big fan. Talked to losing candidates and staffers about their races. Talked to me once, actually, about the John Huntsman race, I believe. No, we talked about Jeb. Did we do Jeb? And there were two questions you had. Because I talked to Huntsman. Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right. I think I'm gonna connect you with Huntsman and did Jeb. I think that's what happened. Yeah. Two questions from Jeb. Which of those losers ran the worst campaign? As in, they may have been able to win, had they had a better strategy. And number two, as a Jew, you've never experienced the joy of a real confessional. And he's wondering if you want to confess to your Catholic priest, Tim, right now. So. It's hard to. It's hard to say who ran the worst campaign, because they all lost. Right. Like, the most torturous. There's different variations of this, as I was thinking about it. One of my favorite episodes is. And this is actually appropriate, because we talked about Doug Ford. His brother, Rob Ford, famously was caught buying or taking crack, and it was a remarkable scandal. And yet, somehow managed to win the mayorship of Toronto, even with that happening. And we interviewed the guy he beat. Like, how do you lose to Rob Ford when he got caught with crack? But that wasn't even, like. The guy had a compelling reason for why he lost, which is that, you know, it was very hard to actually attack Rob Ford for the crack, because people were like, yeah, you know, he fucked up, but we all fuck up. So I would just say. So I would just say, in terms of, like, looking back at all the interviews we did for that series, and I love that series, and I kind of want to bring it back, the obvious answer is when we interviewed Ron Klain about Al Gore. That is a race where it feels like if you did two things better, you're really cool. It's exactly. There's like a very, like, it's not just a butterfly effect. It's like 50 butterfly effects, right? It's like, there's just little things here and there, and if we had just filed it this day and, like, done this, and he thinks about it all the time. He's like, of course I think about this stuff. And of course, obviously, the consequences of that are profound. Yeah. Since you know, I'm going to do my answer to this, too, just of the races I was in since I didn't do confessional. Fred Thompson is the answer. The 08 primary was so, like, he really could have won. Nobody liked any of the candidates, the Republicans in the field. The Democrats, this was kind of proto-Tea Party. Democrats conceivably could run up against this next time. But it's like McCain, it's Mitt's first time. It's Rudy is still pro-choice Rudy. And then the conservatives were like, Huckabee is just like, you're not going to make Huckabee your nominee. Like, there just wasn't anybody that was, like, the perfect fit to get the kind of populist or the Christian voters or the well, you know, Chamber of Commerce voters and get them all together. Fred Thompson comes in the late and kind of, like, has it. Like, he's celebrity. Like, had he done some culture war stuff and, like, really tried? I think he could have. He could have been the nominee. But he ends up, like, wearing $400 Florsheim shoes to the Iowa State Fair and, like, riding around in a golf cart and he doesn't even try. And, like, he doesn't learn anything. And on the debate stage, he looks like Admiral Stockdale. So, that'd be him. If you've enjoyed this and want more flashbacks, me and Bill have decided we are going to do the 1994-2006 retrospective episode for the Labor Day podcast. So, we're going to do a midterm preview looking back at past waves. People wanted it. Heard from many people. Question two is, you've never experienced the joy of a real confessional. What would you like to confess to Father Tim? I think the question was, what sin would I confess to? And it is something that's kind of haunted me a little. A little bit. And it's a crime. And it's not like, I wouldn't say it's totally victimless, but it's somewhat victimless. And it's a great shame, in fact, in my family that I got caught doing this. But back when I was in D.C., when I was very young and I was not making much money in this industry, I was obviously in the news occasionally. Every now and then, I would go into a bodega on Sunday and I would steal the Sunday New York Times. It was very expensive. And I was like, I can't spend this money, but I also need this information. So I was like that guy in Les Mis taking bread. Winona Ryder. I mean, I was bad. You're stealing the New York Times? You asked me for a confessional. That is the nerdiest confession I've ever heard in my life. You didn't steal any SIGs or a 40? No, I didn't. If I wanted SIGs, I'd have a friend, an older person, buy them for me. But I got caught by my parents doing it once. They saw me steal it. They're like, did you pay for that? I was like, no. I was like, news should be free, right? I was working for HuffPost. So I made some intellectual argument about it. Anyways, I'm embarrassed by it. News should not be free. Subscribe to theborg.com today. You're a grown-up when you're doing that. Wow, what a bad boy. Hey, I confessed. I've been having some wrong thoughts. You know, everyone says confession makes you feel good. I just feel worse now. Do you? No, I feel much worse about it. I wish we could edit that out. Now that it's off your chest, you're going to feel good later. There's a period of time where you're embarrassed, then you get over the embarrassment and you're like, ugh, that was freeing. Kind of like right now what I'm about to say. No wonder Catholics live in guilt and shame. This is awful. It's horrible. Yeah. You're right. I don't know why I'm spending it. It's terrible. I've had some wrong thoughts about Nikki Haley's son lately. Okay, moving on. We'll save the last one directed just at Sam for the very end. Two more fun ones. I like to shout out the people that send creative emails. This is Earl. Earl says this. In an alternate universe, Natalie Harp would have made an incredible kindergarten teacher. Her devotion to the children would be unmatched. She would constantly have a positive attitude. She also has experience dealing with a man with the mentality of a five-year-old. Plus, she probably has experience with the occasional potty in the pants situation. What are other jobs for people in the cabinet and extended universe? That's a brilliant email. Thank you, Earl. I want to eject that one. It's funny. It's a funny email. The premise is funny, but if Natalie Harp was my kid's teacher, we would be transferring schools mid-semester. I'd be like, this is too creepy. Well, knowing what you know about her now, yeah. But if you just happen to stumble upon her, you'd be like, oh my God, she's so caring. And she's carrying this printer. She's carrying this portable printer for little Johnny's work. Yeah, little Johnny gets a printout every day. I have one. I thought about this a little bit. I could have done stupid, spoofy stuff like, oh, Stephen Miller should be a Rogaine spokesman. But the real one is Hegseth. I think he'd be fantastic as a gym teacher who sells coke on the side. And you could see it, too. He's telling you he's getting your kids to climb the rope, and then he's selling weed to the seniors in the parking lot. He would have been great at that. Yeah. White school, though. Of course. That's my personalized experience here. A white public school. Yeah. I think that's right. That's a good one. Pete Hegseth is a gym teacher. I have three. Okay. I mean, this one's the most obvious. Howard Lutnick is just a used car salesman. And you can see him on the TV with the ads. Lutnick doing the ads as a regional car dealer. Perfect. Was meant to be a regional car dealer. What would his tagline be? Come get your nuts licked with Lutnick. It'd be something related to the truck nuts. Sure, yeah. Truck nuts, nut lick. Someone come up with something. That would have been good. Scott Besson antique dealer Scott Besson is an antiques dealer not just any antiques dealer he'd be the best and he'd go on he'd go on those shows where they're like he's been on all these great discoveries he'd be so fantastic at that yeah you'd feel really good if you went to an antique shop and you saw Scott Besson lastly RFK Jr voice actor voice actor for RFK Jr he needs to be very unique you need a bad guy he needs a very unique voice I mean who else could do the RFK Jr voice yeah Hollywood's like ah I guess we gotta go to RFK again he's got that one voice great jobs alright we've also got here this is from Clayton if all members of the bulwark were arrested by the administration and you could only get one of them pardoned who would you pardon and how much Trump coin would you buy to make it happen I thought a lot about this I have three criteria okay wow three criteria to determine who deserves all the Trump coin in the realm for their pardon okay okay do they have a lengthish life ahead of them if they get pardoned oh no more boomer slander excuse me on this podcast we honor you can take you can take your turn but like Bill we honor but like if Bill got a pardon and we there's not as much time as Andrew oh come on we honor every day equally disagree with you second criteria could they handle being in in prison or not do they have a steely resolve or do you need to get them out of there like that's an obvious criteria and third is would they make a profound post pardon contribution to society wow and I went through everyone on the list and it was very clear I went through the entire staff I went through the mass it was very clear who hits all these criteria and who would be the best to receive the pardon there was no runner up I just because you took this so seriously I do want to just I'll just do you want to know who it is I'm wondering if there was a runner up though no it's far and away obvious to me again do they have a semi-decent life ahead of them for the pardon could they handle being in prison or not and would they make a profound post pardon contribution I deserve the pardon laughing I'd send it all on myself I hit all the criteria what what contribution would you be making in the post pardon world we're already at an hour and five minutes there's no need to list all that take too long I have two criteria one Catholic guilt and two would that person be able to get me out because I didn't consider myself you know would they have the skills and the wherewithal to get to be able to get me out and that left me with two candidates producer Ansley Skipper who I brought here smart and I was like I would feel really bad if she was still in the detention camp I mean she had a good life young person life ahead of them I'd feel bad then I was like lawyer Heather also a good opportunity because she would really make it her life's duty to get me out after I saved her I think but I'm not going to both lesbians lesbians are very resourceful also so both would be interesting choices your second category could they survive in prison though lesbians would do well in prison so that makes me think maybe I should also pick we picked ourselves no all right rapid fire this question is how about Roger Clemens not being in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown New York all because a bunch of jealous people it's far less talent voted that he shouldn't be there he was also not convicted or admitted to taking drugs Roger is one of the greatest pictures of all time no wonder baseball is in trouble that came from Donnie in Queens oh Donnie first time long time no do we have to engage that Roger Clemens Donald Trump pleaded that yesterday I know he pleaded that yesterday I was trying to figure out why like was Roger on TV or something like that Roger's probably maggot now Roger fucking sucks I would trade any person that was not a violent criminal who's currently in a detention center for Roger Clemens in a heartbeat just snap my fingers I would send Roger to Dilley and take out a Gariana very easy choice for me alright the final question is about you in particular actually we never get life advice so I'm going to do the one life advice question really fast Mike in Nebraska this 100 year old Omaha house I'm in is a big old money pit this week it's the water heater last month it was the kids bathroom toilet leaking to the bathroom below I'm tempted to just move and go rent but we got that sweet 2.75 COVID finance rate a bigger city like Chicago or the Twin Cities to rent downtown for a few years till the kids go to college could be great if we can find high schools I don't know AI on our future jobs and economy it's all scary out there you ask for life advice and I just rambled love the shows Mike in Nebraska that's tough you want me to handle this in rapid fire I don't know what would you tell Mike in Nebraska if he asked you for your advice on that I guess the only thing I would say is that the grass isn't always greener that rain that rain is fucking dope I'm at 3.25 it's awesome and yeah houses are money pits and I'm dealing with a leaky roof right now myself which is annoying but you have to understand that comes with the biz and you just salvage it until you get to the next problem so you know stay put for a little bit let's hope that things get a little better but I don't know anything else other than what you said to me about your circumstances I have a couple thoughts a lot of people are in this circumstance and it's an underrated reason why people hate the economy right now people feel very stuck the interest rate situation is so bad and Trump could have gotten what he fucking wanted which was lower interest rates if he had just done nothing except golfed and instead every decision he's made has made has put more pressure on the bond markets and interest rates are higher and now everybody's stuck and he's going to get punished for it politically and that is a silver lining that you should think about Mike when you have a leaky bathroom just that Donald Trump is being punished at scale for other people suffering like you but I don't know you live in you live in Nebraska I don't know I might sell that fucking house move to the south slander Nebraska move to the house rent you know you could get a great rental out here in like Kenner in Metri come down to New Orleans real estate in Nebraska is much cheaper than anything yeah Baton Rouge though you could come to Baton Rouge rent go to LSU games with me on the weekend something to think about Mike alright final question is just for Sam and it's from a former employee in the Valley why does Sam have a labradoodle no offense to Martha who is very cute but why is it now a rite of passage for bougie podcasters to get a labradoodle it was odd enough when Jon Favreau Tommy Vitor and John Lovett all decided simultaneously that they should get the exact same kind of dog a labradoodle but I thought we'd moved on from that why not a nice ugly mutt from the pound genetic attributes not bespoke enough for you you know who I bet has a labradoodle Steven Miller I'll hang up and listen I'll hang up oh that last one was harsh real wind up long story short well long story we had a we had a beagle a mutt beagle not a purebred for 14 12 years he was 14 when he died rest in peace Bennett he sucked I loved him to death but he was just awful he bayed he was food obsessive he towards the end of his life was peeing all over the floor and he shed and the shedding part was the key that's just kind of like Trump really we needed a Natalie Hart for him and we didn't have a Natalie Hart but we gave him a lot of love and care and I loved the little guy so much and when he passed I didn't really want to get another dog for a while because it tore my heart out like I just I lost my buddy and my kids were really upset and then for a couple weeks it felt really good to like not have a dog and then my wife was like you know I said it would be a couple years but what about like six months I was like oh really and then the next day she came and she was like you know I said six months but what about six weeks I was like what the hell and then she's like what about six days and so eventually I was like look fine we can get a dog but she's like actually there needs to be a condition I can't deal with all the hair it's causing like you know my throat to clench up and it's just everywhere labradoodles don't shed it's like the one breed that really doesn't shed and so we decided that we were going to get a dog and we decided to do a labradoodle and we have Martha now and Martha is the best and I love her to death and I have no qualms or regrets whatsoever about getting the dog of the podcasts I gotta tell you I think you're gonna be sleeping in the guest room tonight because I think the person that's caught the most strays on this podcast is your wife is my wife you're making breakfast you're walking the kids to school it's her fault that you couldn't get the dog you wanted no no no no no just saying what I'm hearing my wife is an unbelievable wife and I love her to death and I'm so glad she made us get that dog I love the dog it was one of the great decisions we made and I am so grateful that she walked the kids to school including this morning which I didn't do I do supervise lunch making I'm not gonna lie about that that's Sam Stein he's the managing editor former New York Times thief thief thief I will pay them back I'm a subscriber now so we'll be back tomorrow we'll have a laugh or two but we'll be we'll have some more serious fare but it's it's gonna be good so please come back for tomorrow's weekend podcast we'll see you all then peace thanks Sam bye We'll see you next time. The Bulwark Daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DiCicco, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown. Thank you.