Sarah Matthews and Jason Horowitz: Trump Propaganda and Italian Fascism

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I am your host, Tim Miller. I got a great email, an uplifting email this morning from a listener Nicole Bassett, who said that in part, because of some rants that I've done on this show, she decided to jump into an R+19 state senate district in Oregon, and I do truly believe this. I just think that there are not enough people running in some of these local districts that you think are Republican, but where folks might be getable this year, because they're so unhappy with Trump. And so I'm happy Nicole jumped in. You can go find out more about her at BassettforOregon.com. Appreciate her. We got a double header for you today. In segment two, it is Jason Horowitz, an old friend of mine. We're gonna talk about fascism in Italy and the Bullwark Pope. But up first, couldn't be happier to welcome back to the show. A contributor to the Bullwark doing our TikToks and more. She's also sparring with Scott Jennings on CNN a lot, and really getting some good reps in there. She used to be Deputy White House Press Secretary in the first Trump administration. It's Sarah Matthews. What's up, Sarah? - Hey Tim, thanks for having me back on the pod. - I need to do it. I wanted to chat with you a little bit, because I feel like sometimes, you know, I get into my insider gossipy side about politics and there are a lot of people out there that are like, what the fuck are you talking about Tim? And I think that's particularly potent when you get into these kind of media stories around what's happening in the White House. And so that would be interesting. So you were there as Deputy Press Secretary to talk about just like the basics of what's happening here. With Politico and CNN and MSNOW getting kicked out. What does that mean? Do these guys have an office in the White House? Like, how do you get a seat in the pool? Like maybe just gonna run through for people like what actually happens and then why it's significant? - Yeah, so you can be credentialed White House media and not necessarily be part of the pool, because the purpose of the pool is that it's just a select number of reporters who are on duty to follow the president's movements that day. And that's because you can't have all of these hundreds of credentialed White House media in the room at every event. You can't squeeze them all into the Oval Office. You can't take them all on Air Force One. And so it becomes this group of around 15 to 20 reporters. And it's all split up between you have print reporters who are putting out a pool report of what the president is doing and saying throughout the course of the day. You have a TV camera crew that is there, that is recording all the video and audio. And then they are sending that and sharing it to all the other TV networks. A radio reporter, still photographers, let's go on. And so you have those reporters who are on duty to be part of the White House press pool that day and then just share and disseminate what they are gathering from the president's actions that day. And the reason that this is important is because the White House is sending out its own information. They send out their own transcripts. They publish their own photos and video and all of these things. But the White House gets to choose and be selective about what they are sharing with the public. And so that's why you need an independent White House press pool that is there gathering what is actually happening 'cause they can tell you here's what happened when the cameras were off. Here's who walked into this meeting or left this meeting and give you all these details that maybe the White House wouldn't be so willing to share. And what we've seen happen actually, that's been interesting even before Trump's ban on Politico and CNN and MSNOW is that at the beginning of Trump's tenure in Trump 2.0, the White House actually took control of the White House pool. Typically this was decided by the White House correspondence association. They would set the rotation for who was a part of the pool each day. But when Caroline Levitt took over as press secretary, that was probably the biggest change that she made was that she said, no, we're taking that away from the White House correspondence association and we're gonna be deciding who those pool reporters are. And that gave them substantially more power over how the president was covered. And that's why we're seeing these new media seats sometimes be part of which I would say is bullshit fake news, my interpretation of fake news. But these kind of fake outlets like OA and UN and newsman X and where it's completely biased. But Caroline took control of that and set who the pool reporters were. And now we're seeing what the consequences of that are of Walker even giving a little bit of power to the White House where now the White House is banning certain press from not just being part of the pool but not even having access to the White House in general. - I think this is why like this is just important in a layman's way, right? 'Cause it's just like it kind of layers the propaganda upon propaganda, right? And this has been happening slowly, right? Where you're inviting in these more new media people. So it's like now OA ends in there and now Newsmax in there, now Lindell TV has a seat, right? And like all this nonsense, right? And so the White House is putting out one thing but then the people that are there to monitor it are basically in lead with the White House, right? And so there are still some people around, you know, but like this has been like a gradual move away from it. And to me, like that ties in to like the other thing that they just launched yesterday, which was Trump TV. It was a great article our guy, Brendan wrote in the bulwark he had to suffer 36 hours of Trump TV. Luckily, they're not good at propaganda yet. It's extremely boring and Brendan, I think, wanted to start doing self-harm after a few hours. But like-- - Brendan comes to rinse. - Yeah, because he doesn't put some throat. - Yeah, go read his article. But to me, like everything, this is all in service of just like building to more and more of just a full propaganda effort that like looks more like how things look in authoritarian countries. And like we're not there yet, you know, but like that is the trajectory this is going. - No, it's a slippery slope. And I think that even if you don't watch CNN or MSNL or read Politico and you don't care about these journalists that are being affected by this ban, you actually should care as an American because this isn't a tack on the free press and the purpose of a free press is so that we can have an independent media body that is holding our government to account. And our government is operating in our name. And so we should care about what they're doing. And that is what's so scary about state-run media is that we wouldn't be getting this independent account of everything that's happening. And you know, for now, it seems like some of the media networks are banning together to push back on this ban. We saw that the TV networks all said that they weren't going to carry Trump's remarks at the United Nation because of him banning CNN and CNN was supposed to be the TV pool reporter that day. And I don't know how long that will last. Obviously, these networks are challenging it in court. And I think it's gonna very much be struck down. It just depends on how soon and how quickly that can happen. But these media networks for now are banning together, but we're not sure how long that will hold and that will last. And I mean, it's my frustration with them with them because they all seem to kind of bend the knee a bit. Well, I mean, I think back to them even hosting the dinner the White House correspondent's dinner with him. I mean, it's just such a slap in the face to the free press and then something like this happens and it's not a shocking thing to me at all. - It's just crazy. They went to that dinner still. I get so, it's one thing and one thing. But it's like in retrospect like you went to this fucking cozy, joky dinner with the guy and then a couple of like, what do you think was gonna happen? Yeah, a couple of times I was gonna take your credential away. There's still some. I mean, Caitlin, he gets to other places where they don't have as much control as they do inside the White House. So they did F.K. when Collins up in New York. Yes, I got a kick out of that. Trump was yelling at her. I'm surprised CNN is here covering me. You shouldn't be here. You should not be here. So I did like watching him flail on that. All right, I wanna talk about a couple of things. Some music last night and right before he came on, I was able to get a little jolt of energy that it wasn't from the alcohol. It was from like just a big hefty snort of opium when the Texas pole came off. It was just a big fat line of opium came right across my phone. Maris, Paul, and Texas, legit poster. Tarriko 50, Paxton 44. I think it's the first Tarriko 50 I've seen, at least in a legitimate poll. I get a little bit worried when he's like up 47, 43, it just might mean that he can't get to 50. Maris has been pretty good. You look at the last three cycles. They've been off about two points on average. So, again, we could be in a seltzer situation. She also was pretty good for a while, but this is a huge trend of polls. It's not one outlier. And for like a really solid poster there in Texas to have Tarriko up six. Are you getting high on opium with me? Where are you at? I think I'm getting high with you. I think that this seems like the perfect storm for Texas to finally go blue. And it took a lot of factors to get there. At, you know, you look at the state of the economy and Trump's leadership and how frustrated voters are with him. But then you look at who Tarriko's running against. I mean, Ken Paxton is just a dream candidate for Democrats to be running against just so corrupt, so unlikable. I mean, even John Ackornin and George W. Bush are fundraising for Republican Senate candidates, not including someone from their own state. They're not fundraising. for Ken Paxton. So even Republicans within the own party are against this guy. And so then you, you know, you put up a boy scout like Talleriko, I think that it really is just a perfect storm. And I think there's a chance that Texas goes blue. You're saying there's a chance. I did a big rant about George W over on the next level feed. So if you people want to, you know, feel my rage and how it sensed I am about George W's fundraiser. Nice that he didn't do Paxton, but that, but that he was doing the other people you can go check out the next level. I don't know. I can't see him put party loyalty over the country. Yeah. In the spirit of compassionate conservatism, I'm going to fundraise for a bunch of people that are voting for Donald Trump's gulags. Anyway, I don't know, not for me. People that supported the gutting of Pat far. Okay. Go to the next level. I already did 10 minutes on this. I just want to get your take on. I always whenever you're on a kind of like to have your temperature, because I feel like you're me from five years ago, where I still kind of had a temperature on what was happening in Republican operative world, because we'll still talk people and nobody talks to me anymore. And so, you know, you have a few tentacles still left. It was a more recent departure. Give me a vibe check on, you know, how people are feeling in your life about kind of the state of Trump. Yeah. People are often surprised to hear that I still have connections into the Republican party and Trump world. And I mean, it's just a product of having worked in Republican politics for so long. And yes, there are a lot of people who don't fuck with me anymore. And I'm happy that they don't. And I don't fuck with them either. But there are some people who still talk to me and, you know, we'll talk shop and they know how bad things are. I mean, they see the writing on the wall. They know that November is going to be brutal. And they privately say things to me like, God, all this is so batshit. Like just the other day, I had multiple people text me about Trump TV and the state run media. I mean, it's basically state run media. And I had people who work in the administration and on Capitol Hill, who work for Republicans, who said to me, this is insane. And, you know, and I've had conversations with them about, you know, Trump's decision to launch the war with Iran. And all these things where it's like these are, uh, unforced errors on his part where they're self-inflicted wounds that he has made this situation so much worse for them. And, and they are frustrated. And so, yeah, I have a lot of people who who privately say to me, Sarah, I love your bullwork videos. And I'll watch them. You'll never see me liking any of them. But just know that I support you. And that you're right. And I'm like, oh, thanks. Profile of courage. You can't even do a leg. I try not to hold the shoulders fighting the war in Iran. Think about the soldiers on the USS Lincoln and what they're doing. You won't even like my Instagram post. There's this poll in Puck yesterday that sent you. I want to just talk about for a sec. Was this been this big change? It's kind of, it became a common poll question over the last ten years. Did I get a sense for Trump's slay within the party? Like are you more of a Republican or more of a Trump fan? Basically, it's, it's the question. And in January of 25 after he wins, it's 60 Trump 36 Republican. This could be answered that question. This week, the poll that came out was 34% Trump, 56 Republican. So a flip. This is just within Republican voters, of course. I think that's interesting. I think there's some ways to look at that in a hopeful way. That's like maybe people are like, I've had enough of the crazy. There's another way to look at that, which is like of the 56, maybe like some of those people are like, I'm not Trump because I want more of a some other, you know, more even populist nationalist version of the party. I'd like to get dig into that a little more. But I wonder what your reaction is to that. And if you're sensing any kind of vibe shift there, you know, it's like, when I initially saw that, it gave me hope. And I got excited about it. Yeah. And then reality starts to set in a bit. And I try not to get too excited about things anymore. And that's just I've become so cynical about our politics and today's Republican party. And so I look at that 56% and I think how many of those people would still vote for Trump if you were on the ballot today, probably nearly all of them. And but maybe I'm wrong. And I hope I'm wrong. And I hope that, you know, this is a sign that the Republican party is healing and that they're moving away from this cult of personality and that they've had enough of Trump. But like, I think about what did it take to get your higher gas prices? That was what it took for you guys to get here to flip on him. I mean, beggars can't be choosers. I'm happy. Yes, people are identifying that. That's not encouraging. Yeah. I'm happy if people are identifying more first and foremost as members of the Republican party than a Trump supporter. That is a good thing. But I'm not completely sold yet. Maybe I need to see it to believe it. And, you know, I think November will be really telling of if it's a total just wipe out blue wave or if it's closer than we think, you know, obviously last election they thought there were going to be bigger blowouts and there weren't. And so I don't know, like I'm trying to be positive, but it's really hard when I become so cynical over the years. But I think it's a good thing. Well, there's good reason for cynicism. Yeah. I agree. I don't know. It's an interesting data point to monitor. Like we can just leave it there rather than getting excited about it. Zbiotics. I got to tell you about this game changing product I drank before a night out. It's called pre alcohol by Zbiotics. Zbiotics pre alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was engineered by PhD microbiologist to break down a seat aldehyde and unwanted byproduct of alcohol metabolism. Make pre alcohol your first drink of the night, drink responsibly and enjoy your next activity. Zbiotics is stole more than 14 million bottles and couldn't do a bunch of our listeners. Jazz fast right guy come up to me and talk to me about how he's become a Zbiotics acolyte. Thanks to the show. Had another big fan. I'm hoping to be seeing a couple of weeks here. She went on a family vacation. The whole family. They just, they just like, this is a fun family. It's kind of family you want to marry into where they shipped a casco sized package of Zbiotics pre alcohol to the beach house so that everybody could feel their best in the morning when they went for a beach walk. As for me, I've been Zbiotics thing. So I mentioned on the next level, there is the caveat that you aren't supposed to smoke 100 cigarettes also because that's, you know, that doesn't really have anything to do with the seat aldehyde but otherwise crushing. Try it for yourself today and if you're unsatisfied, though refund your entire order, no questions asked head to Zbiotics.com/thibolwork code the bulwark for 15% off your first order. Zbiotics is a partner of the bulwark. Thanks to Zbiotics for sponsoring this episode. A related thing kind of to me is like tucked into a story about RFK. There's this line that is a book coming out and the book is called America's Path Back to Moral Leadership. That seems like what somebody who's running for president would title their book to me. And again, when you look at that 56 and start to think where could the party go? You know, people will talk about Vance and Rubio and all this. Is it crazy to think that like RFK might try to be a vessel for Trumpism? Is that crazy to you? No, I don't think it's crazy at all. I think there's going to be a lot of people who throw their names in the hat. And I think RFK is certainly one of those people. We know he obviously has presidential aspirations. And he probably sees a lane for himself where people are moving away from just that poll. We were just talking about people are moving away from identifying first and foremost as a Trump supporter. And so he'd think he might be able to capture some of those people. Maybe there's been murmurs of Pete Hegseth wanting to run and like him calling around. And which is absolutely hilarious to think about. But I think there's a lot of people who are going to throw their name in the hat. But yeah, that's a pretty interesting title for a book, even if it's just at 36%. That's like a lot of power. Whatever. It's 34%. It's a lot of power that Trump has a sway over all those people. And that's why JVL is always like it's going to be another Trump. And yesterday's George Stevens is like, I think JD's going to solve that problem by making a Vance as VP. Anything is possible in this crazy ass world. I think that that's interesting. And there's something about, I feel like you would play to Trump's ego though that's like, maybe my successor should be a candidate actually. Oh, yeah, he's going to put his name on the building. Yeah. He's the author. We'll start today. Apparently he's looking at putting his name on Ford's theater. It's just like it's all fucking so crazy. Anyway, that's something that I was looking at. We're going to fucking rip his name off of Ford's theater though. If he tries to put it on there, rip his name off of everything tear down the arch. I mean, I want it. I want it all gone. I just make it fucking stop. I'm so afraid. I can't even, I can't even believe that they're trying to put his name on Ford's theater. It's actually something you would think is straight out of the onion, but no, it's real. And like what was craziest to me is that it was AIDS who created a list of potential places that Trump could attach his name to. What that says to me is that he's having tantrums in the White House. And he's lashing out at them. And so they're trying to think, OK, how can we make the boss feel better? OK, let's find different buildings that we can put his name on. Obviously he's had two judges now strike down him adding his name to the Kennedy Center. They're trying to come up with with anything, but I mean it's just like job of the hot chung come up with a list, go to go to chat GBT. What can I put my name on? All right, final thing. You wrote a little while ago about next Miller experience with the son of a bitch. You got a tip yesterday that the Republican House Super PAC, CLF, is putting five million in to that one house race to try to save them. So it's not just that they're like not stepping away like Democrats that I'm platinum or like even Republicans did back in the day on Todd Aiken, even like that, but they're stepping away. It's not even that they're just saying, you know, good luck, Max. It's like they're saying we're putting in resources that could go to any Republican in the country. And we're going to put it into this race to try to get this guy credibly accused by multiple Republican women that you know of assault and battery. We're going to try to make sure he can stay in Congress. And it's pretty unbelievable. It's no, it's not true. It's pretty seconding. It's very valuable. It's very believable, but it doesn't make it any less sickening. And yeah, I wrote about this recently for the bulwark because I'm from Ohio and where I grew up is just a town over from that district. And so Northeast Ohio is somewhere that I love. If you know any Ohio and you know that they have a weird obsession with Ohio, like we love Ohio and love being from there and are so proud. And so it makes me sick that a man like him is representing my state and having known the women who have credibly accused him of domestic abuse. And just even the allegations that there are against him from his ex-wife, you know, things like he held a gun to her head. He broke their two-year-old daughter's collarbone. And that's not enough for someone like Speaker Johnson or CLF to say enough is enough. I mean, I'm going to get credit for credit to do. There are some Republicans who have come out and said that Max Miller should step aside, like obviously Senator Bernie Merino who has a vested interest in this because his daughter is one of the women who has accused Max Miller because she's his ex-wife. Senator John Houston has also said the same. But it just shows you how the Republican Party is just rotten to its core because anything has become excusable in the Republican Party's eyes if you're helpful to the party. And so clearly they're worried about holding on to their majority. And that matters more than if it comes down between women and power and holding on to power, they are going to choose power every time over women. And it's just sickening. And it's why someone like Max Miller can survive and thrive and rise in the Republican Party. And I thought what was most telling about what Max Miller said when he did interviews when he was facing all this pressure to, you know, step out of the race when it was before the deadline where they could replace him on the ballot. He said on Jake Tapper show on CNN that he felt inspired to stay in the race and fight because he watched Donald Trump do so in 2016. So that just goes to show you that he learned that lesson that the Republican Party is willing to support people like this who are incredibly accused of violence, whether that be sexual assault in the case of Donald Trump or domestic violence in the case of Max Miller. And God, the guy's just such a piece of shit. And it just makes me so angry hearing that they're putting 5 million behind him. But they clearly see that there's a chance. And I really hope that the people of Northeast Ohio don't vote for him because I actually think that he has a strong opponent in that race too. Yeah, Brian Point Dexter. Good candidate. Yeah, great candidate. So I think that, you know, hopefully we'll see him per bail, but I don't know. Obviously, if they're putting money behind him, they think that there's a chance that he could definitely still win. But that just tells you everything about the Republican Party, that a guy like that who is incredibly accused of breaking his own two-year-old daughter's call her bound and throwing boiling water on his wife and holding a gun to her head could still get reelected in today's party. I mean, that's what Trump has done to this party. And it's become so warped that they care more about holding on to power than actually putting up people of moral good character. We got some good daughter points tucked into your article because I saw that you said that your mother who is living back in the life I was looking at jobs in district offices and I mentioned back for the year. You're like, don't do it, mom. Don't do it. Yeah, my mom, my mom had worked in congressional offices and in the district her whole career working for a number of different Republicans in different seats across Northease, Ohio. And she had been working for Anthony Gonzalez, actually one of the few who voted to impeach Trump after January 6th, really, really good man and such a loss for the party that he got pushed out after that. But then, yeah, she got asked interview for a job with Max Miller and I was like, absolutely not. But thankfully, she was in full agreement and didn't take much convincing. Quite. So good to always be looking out for mom. All right, you know, pay back. She looked out for you a lot. Speaking of Ohio, we're there. I'm there on Friday in Dayton. We've got two days to our fundraiser and benefit show for the Haitians in Springfield. Come hang, everybody. There's still tickets. If you live somewhere around there, it's a Friday night. You can come drive, make a little weekend out of it. The Bork dot com slash events. We opened up a new section because we got so many people wanting to come, which I really appreciate. So come on down to us in Ohio. Sarah, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. All right. Up next grab a glass of San Giovanni. Maybe a little pasta. It's Jason Horowitz to ground. I've never noticed how the second you Google something suddenly every ad you see is about it. What you're talking about something in every ad you see is about it. I was joking with my daughter before soccer that I was going to start calling her big foe. For having a big foot, you know, big kick, whatever. It's just a little T off. Oh, joke. And then also now is getting T off of T shirt ads. I don't know. It's happening with that. And also sometimes you are traveling. You want to watch something. It's just blocked. It happened to be less year when we're in Toronto. And I was trying to watch the issue Ole Miss game, another loss. And you know, I got to see it. I got to see the loss. Thanks, our friends at Proton VPN. One their fault. All they did was bring it to me. You know, they brought the entertainment to me was Brian Kelly's fault that it didn't bring me joy. Proton VPN is a secure VPN service designed for people who want to prioritize their digital privacy and security keeps what you do online private and let you access the internet. Like it should work. Open secure and on your terms. Unlike most VPNs, Proton is backed by strong European privacy laws and years of expertise creating safer, faster and more open internet for everyone. It all works seamlessly so you can be confident you're getting an extensive server network, high speed connections, integrated ad blockers, compatibility services without restrictions and over 145 countries. So whether you want to watch content from anywhere, get around block sites, or just keep your activity private on public Wi-Fi. Proton VPN has you covered. It's easy to get started. Right now, Proton VPN is offering our list of 70% off a two-year plan. When you go to ProtonVPN.com/thebolwork, that's pro, t-o-n, VPN.com/thebolwork for 70% off your two-year plan. That's ProtonVPN.com/thebolwork. All right. I am delighted. Welcome to the show, an old friend who is formerly the Rome Bureau Chief for the New York Times, has booked the Italian job. A memoir of an American reporter in Rome will be out in a couple of weeks. Go pre-order it now. He's now the bureau chief in Madrid for the time. Some good jobs. Some good posts. It's Malphur and Jason Horowitz. What's up, man? I'm great, man. Great to be here. Great to see you. I bet you're good. You know, you've got to spend the last decade that I've been talking to the Trump era in Rome, Madrid, you know, prancing about Europe, covering Steve Vannon, flying to Prague. It's not a bad life. You know, they're not exactly hard luck assignments, but they're interesting. They're more interesting than you think. When you first reached out about the fact that you're having an upcoming book and you're checking in and I was like, God, I don't know, man. And a month from the election, I'm not sure we can do Italian coverage. But in the intervening time, I've become more and more fascinated with Maloney. And I just think that she's such an interesting character. And I want to do a deep dive on her. So we're going to do that. But first, you came to the board podcast. We're going to do a little TDS. That's like vaguely related to the book. Because you do mention your interregnum in him back in America, when we met, when you're covering American politics. And you interviewed Trump a couple of times. And there was one thing I feel like I have a stored encyclopedia of all the Trump things in my head right. Forgotten this when I was paging through the book that you once asked Trump what his dad would think about him running for president. What did he say to that? Yeah, it was a strange answer. So we were in his office in Manhattan. And it was one of his really, really long interviews. And it was about his dad, ostensibly, because I before are taking the wrong job, I really covered Trump in his family life and sort of what made him him. Anyway, his answer to that was he totally would have allowed me to do it. it. And the word that struck me was allowed. And Trump was already in his 70s, and it was just an odd way to frame, I was expecting would have been proud of me, or he would have had some thoughts on it, but allowed me. And it just was a tiny window into this very complicated relationship that Trump had with his father, trying to please him often, often not pleasing him, and something that continued after his father's death, and maybe still now. Yeah, I kind of wonder, I feel like the two things that could have taken the world on a different trajectory was spread loving him a little more, or Donald going into the theater business. Like if he had just owned a couple of theaters on Broadway, I feel like he would have been much more fulfilled. I don't know. What do you think? He wrote about a better time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, his brother, I did a lot of work on his brother too. I don't know. That was a sad story, and yeah, it's a complicated family. It's about alcoholism. Yeah, yeah, essentially. And which is which Trump says is about the reason he doesn't drink. But you know, in reporting that story, they weren't very nice to him. This brother who really just wanted to fly airplanes and do want to be in the family business, and things like that. And he was in a jerk, I think he was in a Jewish fraternity, at Lehigh, if I remember correctly, it was, it was a bizarre world. Yeah, so that was that was my Trump ancient history. But it was, it's sort of important because it's good to have that sort of base and know, know him and to sort of, it applies to other things you see. Taking us to Italy, the one, I think parallel before we get to Mollamy is Burllaskoni. And I think even back in 2016, you know, a lot of times people are grasping around for Trump comps. You know, you go to Hitler. A lot of people immediately go to Hitler, even as current vice president. And to don't know, that's like the most apt. And of the kind of modern day politicians, I feel like Burllaskoni is the one that had the most parallels. But you covered him closely. Why don't you talk a little bit about the similarities differences, what could be learned from the Burllaskoni experience? Yeah, so I mean, on the surface, there's so many similarities, right? Even the complexion, right? They're both one for the sort of tangerine look. And hair obviously is an obsession for both them. Burllaskoni lost his hair. And then one year had much more hair than he ever had, right? It looked like a sort of tar had been dumped on his head. Trump clearly has hair issues. I don't know what to call it. I remember once actually in Mar-a-Lago. I was in Mar-a-Lago and the butler snuck me into Mar-a-Lago when he was running for president. And he took me everywhere, showed me everything. The one place that was off limits was where Trump went into his hair. So like, that was like the inner symptom, the holiest of holies, or no one could go. And I was like, all right, I know my bounce. But the similarities between Trump and Burllaskoni are, I mean, they're not just physical, even though ones are tall ones are short, they're biography, right? BMI is pretty similar though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And though I think that Burllaskoni didn't like a well done cheeseburger, as like as has this go-to meal. I think if you look at their biography, they both come out of real estate world, right? They were both builders first. And then they both had incredible sense of media, right? Trump sort of has manipulating the media from the outside, and Burllaskoni as someone who became a true mogul, bought up tons of television channels and magazines, sorted from nothing, right? He created a broadcast network by essentially having people run around the country with videotapes and play like American soap operas at the same time to get around the rules. And very innovative. But media was, was he realized that that was, the television was a way to go. So there's all these sorts of similarities. It's kind of like a Murdoch Trump mashup, you know, a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and Burllaskoni and Murdoch also had like a long storied relationship and ended up hating each other. But with Trump, I felt a certain point of the the comparisons became a little too easy, right? Just because they had these enormous appetites, just because they, you know, were sort of fast and loose with the law, right? And there was plenty of criticize on both. There was a difference. And I think that the difference, what we're seeing now, especially in the second term, is that Burllaskoni for all of his enormous faults, right? And he came into power essentially to protect his business empire. But he didn't seem to have limits. And as someone, you know, great historian once told me, don't mistake Burllaskoni as a defender of democracy, right? He's not like your go-to guy. But at the same time, he sort of believed in the European Union project. He believed in democracy big time. It's a difference between believing like democracy as in like we should have fair elections and believing in the project of liberal democracy, rule of law, you know, all that kind of stuff that Burllaskoni was hostile to. Yeah. Exactly. His heroes were Reagan and thatcher, right? Burllaskoni's heroes, right? And he was a child of, you know, where were two bombs were dropping near his house. He did not want to go back to that. He viewed nationalism as something sort of scary. Now, we can talk about, and we should talk about how he, how he dealt with that nationalism in his own country. He brought the man and well, that's essentially we'll get to Maloney. But his goal was to sort of neuter them, right? Because he feared them. Burllaskoni in the end. He didn't want to go back to Mussolini. And I think that when you listen to Trump now, and I'm not saying Trump wants to go back to Mussolini, but clearly they have very different, very different views of the borders of democracy. And, and I think we're always seeing new ones with Trump obviously. I mean, Trump sounded all scared of fascism. I mean, or nationalism, and he doesn't see any, have any obligation to neuter the more nationalist wing kind of the opposite. I mean, he is various areas where they disagree and he thinks that they're weird. But I don't think he thinks that neutering the project in any way is of service to him. And then we get back to the like that relationship with the fascist, but just I want to touch one more thing on the similar days. So it was more political that struck me reading it. You got this. Both enjoyed an opposition that played into the savior complex trap. Burllaskoni critics didn't know how to respond to his bon homie and humor. They often appeared melee mouthed kill joys in comparison. That felt kind of like an attack on the bulwark. But it's looking at a head or at least an attack on the democratic party. You know, that is if you could get back into a time machine to 10 years ago, you know, would be the section that I would pull out and, you know, go to the Clinton campaign headquarters or whoever and say, guys, like, this is a lesson you need to learn from this guy because because we did walk straight into that trap that the Burllaskoni opposition fell into. Yeah, it was something with Burllaskoni. So over and over and over again, the more they talked about him, the bigger he got, right? And he did it and he did not mind it at all. And he also, his skin was less than the Trumps, right? You could take a joke a little bit. He can play the game. But he knew that the more everyone was talking about him, the more they were hitting him, the more Burllaskoni was the central character on the Italian stage, the less room there was for everybody else. The real problem was that in the meantime, the left did not come up with, you know, solutions and policies and messaging that actually reached the people that they were trying to convince. And Burllaskoni had a message that was very different from Trumps. He was much more optimistic. You know, one could argue it was, you know, he was full of it. Sure. But it was an optimistic message about prosperity and, you know, greater, really, whereas Trumps, I think we've seen is not, is not exactly that optimism. On the relationship with the fascist, so as Burllaskoni is in, you have kind of this rise, and I don't know, I guess maybe there's some parallels here and you can always overextend, but like we're kind of seeing this right now in the Trump movement where there's a rise of like an even fascist ear wing. You know, you talk about Betbe Grillo as an example of that. And it's kind of this sort of comedian clownish right wing nationalist type. And I don't know if that's Tucker for like straining these metaphors. But, you know, I'm just curious like how that like developed and, you know, in these sorts of relationships, there's always a question of like who's using who, you know, and was Burllaskoni using the nationalist to kind of maintain a more stable power or kind of the other way around and then kind of take us from there to Maloney. Yeah. So this sort of populist surge that starts around 2010 is in a way in response to Burllaskoni, right? Because there's a zillion trials. The corruption is, you know, pretty apparent. And this is the time also of Bunga Bunga. I don't know if you remember, which was this wild sex scandal where Burllaskoni has having what he called elegant dinners and his palace, which the accusations were full of women. There's some shirt. I'm going deep into my memory bank. Where there's some shirtless pictures. There's some shirtless pictures. They're very open shirted. Well, there was one picture. Oh my god, I'm remembering this now. There's a picture from his vacation resort in Sardinia with all these different leaders. I think it was the Czech leader. Sorry, if it wasn't the Czech leader, but, and no one was wearing clothes, right? It wasn't shirts. It was just a no-course, right? Yeah. And there were women there who I'm assuming were not their wives, right? Or daughters. So that was sort of the Burllaskoni vibe. But in Italy, it was like, that's the Burllaskoni vibe. It wasn't surprising anybody, right? That part wasn't driving everybody crazy. The part that was driving everybody crazy was that there was like a financial crisis and instead of you know having a steady hand on the wheel, the guy has one hand texting like a girl in Naples, right? And so that was really the problem that the country had with Brothers County at that time. And so out of that rises this enormous ups well of populism. And that's this guy, Bepe Grillo, who was this blogger essentially comedian, he harnessed all the anger in the country, and it was this real old school sort of populist uprising. You know his big calling card was like Vaughan Kulu Day, which means go fuck yourself then. Essentially and they would read off all the names of the people on trial in Brothers County's government and the whole hundreds of thousands of people screaming Vaughan Kulu, right? And so it was like a real populist movement. And that has not gone. Or right or right left horseshoe. So I think horseshoe, right? And actually according to them nothing because they were never even a party. And they also didn't believe in representative democracy, they believed in the internet. So it was this weird sort of futurist things that we see now I sort of saw in Italy, years in advance. And you do one thing that I constantly kept thinking is like the more I reported on this place, the more the sort of land of the past started feeling like this land of the future. Because everything I started seeing sort of came back around. Bepe Grillo was basically was with the futurist and there was populist futurism and this whole thing and they actually ended up getting into government. And it wasn't a very successful government because they weren't very competent. But it revealed this hard right populism in the country, even if they were maybe left, maybe right who knows. But it revealed that it was really there. And so then Italian politics essentially became a competition for who could get that vote, who could get those people who were like come out of the work. They could get the Joe Rogan voter. I mean, we're doing this right now. Yeah, basically. It's exactly what we're seeing now, right? And so there was this competition for that. And so the Italian politicians became very good at appealing to those people. Okay. So is Malone been trying to remember like is there another figure before her on the populist right that emerges? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's one more step before you get to Malone. At first, there's this guy named Mateo Salvini. And he is this, you know, also very brush populist comes from a northern separatist party. Actually started as a technically a communist in the Italian north. But he is original sort of ideology was just northern Italy should secede from southern Italy because southern times like stink literally smell like dogs. You know, just terrible things he was saying. But then he realizes that nationalism is the way to go after Pepe Grillo. And so he needs a new enemy and looks further south. And so you have Africa and you have the migrant crisis and that's what fuels everything. Yeah. So he has this a really strong few years and is actually in government with five starts is very odd government where you have the the futurist populist with the nationalist northern separatists. But that's Italy like you just get these experiments. Right. But he flames out on a sort of hysterical way because he's so into his power that he sort of moves the seat of government from Rome to a beach up north. And where he's hanging out with his like pros and drinking caparinas. And there are, you know, like women on big called them Cubisti like basically go go dancers dancing to the national anthem. And that was just like, okay, this is over. I mean if we're going to descend to Italian adiocracy and copy everything having the next, you know, leadership try to move the capital to Miami and hang out. I don't know. That's fine. I love it. It's better weather. You know, we could have capriinius. Eventually this guy in Selvini flames out the government breaks. You have this small period where you have extremely competent technocratic government with this guy, Vario Draghi who is still to this day in Europe, sort of seen as the savior of Europe, save the euro, competence, competence, competence. It's another time experiment. But that falls forward too. And then we get to Monty. And Maloney is there not because she's more right wing than anybody or better at something in a way, but Maloney was the only one who hadn't been given a chance yet. And Italians love to give people a shot. And so they look to the place that had been off limits for a very long time since World War II, which is the true Italian far right. She comes out of neo-fascism. She is the real deal. I mean, she went to like this strange, I was reading the book. I was like, I knew nothing about this. As a teenager, she was in kind of like a Mussolini youth group that was themed like the Lord of the Rings. So yes, essentially. So it's kind of like Jewish summer camp, but for Nazis. And they do custom cosplay. They do some hobbit cosplay. So I've talked to Georgia Maloney about this at length. And it seems to me there is nothing she enjoys more on her. It's been talking about the hobbit. Right? And I'll tell you why. And it's actually sort of fascinating. So the Georgia Maloney story is this. She's 15 years old. She's in a working class neighborhood of Rome. She's a complicated family history or father left. She's raised by a single mom who to earn extra money starts running romance novels under under a pen name, Josie Bell. And writes like a hundred of these books. Maloney told me they were all they actually didn't make much money, but they're hysterical. I actually know one woman who collects them now. Her goal in life is to get all hundred whatever Josie Bell books. Anyway, so Maloney is 15 years old in this working class neighborhood. Something is going on in her life. She's unhappy. She wrote it that she was overweight. She was quiet. She knocks on the door of the neo-fascist party in Italy. And that's a very odd thing for a girl in this neighborhood to do. Right? So that to me is still one of the big questions, the why question. She's never really explained that she talks about because of the corruption in the country and they had just killed a crusading prosecutor, the mafia had. And she felt that they're really the only people standing up for it with a neo-fascist maybe. But I just feel like there's something else. She gets into this party. And in this party, there are no heroes allowed anymore. Think about it. Like if you're a neo-fascist in the 1990s and you're a teenager, who are your heroes? You're not allowed to have Mussolini as a hero. There's all these sort of creepy ideologues who wrote these very strange esoteric books, Munganian Julius Evella, who is who Bannon actually knows quite a lot about. Yeah, I was just going to say. I only know about that because I saw this fucking book in Bannon's basement when I was writing about him. Yeah. And I've talked about Evella a lot with Bannon, but Evella is like a very scary thinker. Even the Nazis were like, I think Evella is a little far out there. But they don't, I can't really do this. But anyway, so they're reading all this weird stuff, but they don't have like a text, a founding text that they can really get behind that isn't taboo. And then a version of the Lord of the Ring appears in Italy in the 70s, right? And they glom onto this big time. And so by the time Maloney is there's a 15 year old, the 90s, this thing has become like biblical, right? So the Lord of the Rings for the hard right in Italy is not just a story about like elves and dwarves and hobbits, which when I read it to my kid, it was, or when I watched the cartoon when I was a kid, that's what I thought it was. For them, it is basically the story about them, about, you know, people who are alienated and who are victimized and who are really just people, like good people, the hobbits, who now have to defend, you know, their identities, like dwarves are dwarves and elves are elves, and no one should, you know, no power should change that. No sort of European union or overarching power should stop a dwarf from being a dwarf. So they extrapolate from this fantasy novel all the sort of political feelings that they have and it becomes their most important text and hers. And one last thing on it, she actually, when she'd get on the phone with her friends, like in the party, their code names were like Frodo. And she dressed up as a hobbit, she'd go into schools to try and get kids to, like, get over to the right wing a little bit because Italian high schools, public high schools are extremely political. So to show that like, hey, we're here too, they'd like dress up as hobbits because they thought that that might be more sort of persuasive. Anyway, so it was a weird scene. Yeah, Bannon's told what he called, you know, the bible listeners, like hobbits and deplorables and the guys in their basement, like he kind of appropriated that is like, if you're a weirdo, you know, we're taking over, you know, these whatever, you know, more dressed debankers and, you know, the people that looked down on you, etc. There's like a little bit of that. Yeah, they did, they did this weird thing also in the 70s before Maloney's time where they actually started these hobbit camps. If you were like a young neo fascist, you'd go to the hobbit camps and, you know, you'd be into fantasy and stuff like that, but you'd also be into really hard, right politics. And their anthem was this song, which was actually from the movie Cabaret, from the play Cabaret. It's the scene, if I don't know if you remember, where some of the Nazi youth get up, and they're singing this song about the brighter tomorrow, I think it is. And it's a very ironic dark scene in the movie. They just took it, and they were like, yes, this is us. And that became their anthem. And so Maloney still remembers that. She went to a sort of reiteration of that in the 1990s. So that's where she's coming from. It's kind of like the anime fascists now that you see online. Okay, well, let's fast forward to her taking over. She takes over as Prime Minister. And I think the conventional wisdom was that this is like an Orban, right? That she's going to have an Italian Orban, and obviously, you know, there are always little differences. But that was the direction we go. And she, like, gradually goes a different route. And you know, again, like I said, why I wanted to have you on, like one of the thoughts I had a couple of months ago is like, do I like Maloney kind of? I'm just going to read you a list of the things that she's been doing recently. She denied their craft for the Iran War. She's been pro-Nado. She's been pretty good on Ukraine. All things considered. Defended Pope Leo against Trump, fought back at Trump, called him a liar. And none of this stuff is anything to do with Italian domestic politics. I feel like an average person in Urpeña that doesn't probably do anything for you. But like for me, I'm looking at all that going, this is kind of like a best case scenario. So what, what am I missing? How did that happen? Can you just kind of talk us through that trajectory? One thing that's important to understand before getting the specifics of it is serve Italy as a whole, as a country, right? It's actually a pretty conservative country. It does all these experiments, right? It'll try brothers' go name. It'll try five stars. It'll try this super technocrat of Draghi. It'll even try the super far right candidate in Maloney. The deal is, once you get in, you're normal, right? Don't change anything. Don't mess with our inheritance laws, right? Don't mess with our taxes. It's a very conservative place. You can do whatever you want. You could say whatever you want, but don't do much. In fact, I think the main criticism of Maloney is that she's not actually doing much. It wasn't exactly shocking to me that once she got in, she was immediately moderate, right? She moderated her language. There are certain things on immigration and things like that. She's top, right? She's definitely right wing. But actually. I mean, the right wing stuff she's still doing is, you know, like hijab laws, like, you know, dealing with Islamic immigrants, LGBT stuff, immigration, and maybe there's other stuff. Which, if you're Maloney in Italy, which is a pretty conservative country, it's really easy. Right? Like, it's give a little bit of red meat every now and then to your base, but probably people are going to agree with you. You know, she's not advocating anything really beyond the pal, right? So she threw some red meat and everyone sort of, she still has numbers. You can't adopt as, you know, gays can't adopt in Italy, but I think that was always true. I don't think that she changed anything. It was hard. I mean, she has made it crime. She has made it to crime. Okay. So she's criminalized my family. It's not nothing. I mean, it's not nothing. It's not nothing. Yeah. Okay. So it's my knowledge. I'm not like standing Maloney here. I'm just saying compared to the baseline. You're watching this. Orban Mussolini mashup that we were talking about. It's better than that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think on the, on the geopolitical issues, I think you're right. And I think that she has been, she's been moderate because Italy wants their, their leaders to be pretty moderate, right? And they liked the idea of her being the sort of bridge to first Orban, which sort of worked a little bit. Like she got him to do some things in the European Union that he didn't want to do. And then it was Georgia Maloney's going to be the bridge to Trump. And that worked a little bit less well because, you know, she tried to build a relationship with him. He said all these like effusive, certain virus and things about her, about fantastic she looked and things like that. She went along with it. It got kind of psychosexual though for like both, both when he was praising her. And then when they had a breakup, it was like he was trying to act like she was a single white female stalking him. There was a lot of weird stuff from the Trump side. You have to know Georgia Maloney. She's just not going to take it, right? So when he did his usual thing, like, oh, she's stalking me. She did this very sort of funny direct to camera thing where she's basically just went at him really hard and said, you're, I, we don't understand why you insult your allies and that you cozy up to bad guys and, you know, really hit him. I think she does this very Maloney thing at the end, she does. And one thing you need to understand, you know, we in Italy, we don't beg to anyone, right? And Mike put the eyes out and there's just like, okay, that's, that's the real Maloney. She's back. And so the bridge is over, right? Which sounds like I'm talking about the Bronx, but I'm talking about, like, the Georgia Maloney and Trump. And so I think that what she has done is two things that I think are really important. And I think the jury's still out on this, but this is good or not. So going back to Berlusconi, Berlusconi's big innovation. If you get rid of all the sort of scandals and everything like that, in order to govern the first time when he made it in 1994, he needed more support. So he brought in what he called the fascists. He said, we're going to legitimize them. We're going to constitutionalize them. They have been not allowed to participate in real Italian mainstream politics since the 2nd World War, Berlusconi brought them in bedding that he would basically moderate them. So then we get to Maloney. And the question is, is Maloney the proof of that, right? Like how she proven Berlusconi right, that he took the far right and over a long process of decades. He produced a Georgia Maloney who was, you know, knocking on hobbit doors when she was 15, but is now, you know, a very mainstream center-right leader in your view card. The only thing I would say, though, is the 2nd point, which is, Georgia Maloney coming into power also does another thing. So Italy likes its politics very moderate. It has enormous guardrails about what you're able to do. Other countries don't, right? Other countries allow you have a much stronger president or prime minister. You can do more things. Right. Georgia Maloney is a pioneer for those people. So if you look to Germany and AFD, if you look at Le Pen in France, they point to Georgia Maloney and they say, well, you could do it in Italy. Why can't we do it here? And is she still playing footsie with those leaders? I know that she plays nice with Macron and at the, you know, you meetings and stuff, but is she doing stuff behind the scenes to boost them, like JD Vance does here, for example? I don't think she is. I think, well, I think she and she and Macron legitimately hate each other, but they'll play nice, but they legitimately hate each other's guts. She's always been a little weirded out by the AFD. And Le Pen is different, but she's always sort of kept some distance from them. Also, she's very sort of wily. She sort of sees what might be a bridge too far sometimes and keeps distance. But I think the big question with Maloney is, has she, and I guess you could say, has Bruce Coney earlier, have they opened the door to something else in Europe? And the return of nationalism and mid-errand, I think in France, once said, if nationalism is war in Europe? Yeah. And I would say that the Bruce Coney plan failed and that he got used by the fascists. And just because Maloney ended up chilling out, does not prove his theory, right? Because I could have gone the other way, right? And I do think you're saying this now with us. And in some ways, Maloney in herself and her party represents, like what I think are the two post-Trump possibilities for the GOP, which is that, like, the best possibility is what Maloney is now, which is like somebody that does nationalist cultural war issues at home, because I just think that's baked in. But does not do Trump's crazyness abroad, like coasting up to dictators and creating wars with Canada, right? I think that's the best case scenario. But like, a bad version is whatever, the buffet, real or whatever, right? I mean, maybe not him exactly. Like some more, you know, somebody that she has the populism and is even more of a true believer about it, you know? And I don't think that Trump or Bruce Coney had any control over what that monster becomes, like that's, you know? Right. And yeah, I mean, I think it would be naive of us to say, like, well, Maloney's been okay for a few years, for four years. So that's, it's okay, everybody, but I think that it is a data point, right? It is something like it's a real example. But I don't think it's like a settled example. I think that we will now see as the politics of all of here was this maybe, you know, like I said before, is this just opening up the door to something that we're going backwards for? You know, that's maybe dangerous. You also covered the Vatican, who you're there. So I'm going to close with a little talk about the bull or Pope, Pope Leo. We don't have any proof that he's a bull or plus subscriber, but a lot of the demographic signs point to it. I feel it. I feel it. I know you wrote about like being there and seeing like the American Pope come out. And you know, you kind of covered this. And a lot of these similar ideological fissures were happening in the church. Those happening outside, you know, while you're covering it, you had the rad trads in like Cardinal Burke, which is the more whatever conservative, if you want to call it ban and ash, I hate to keep like invoking him, but whatever, like that side of the church. And you know, you had Pope Francis, obviously, that came from the more liberal wing. And I don't know. I mean, who I don't think anybody really knew, I didn't know certainly like what would succeed him. And you know, it certainly could have been somebody and more of a Benedict malls and it ends up being Leo, who's both. kind of an ideological successor, but also American, which carries so much with it. So what was just just take us behind that transition and what you were seeing there up close? Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I've been covering the Vatican for 25 years. And so I've covered four popes. And the one rule was that you can't have an American pope. Because it was too much power in one place. And so it was sort of a given. There was, you know, there's, there's a couple of like Vatican truisms. One was that if, um, if you've been promoted, you've really been fired. My top's the other one. So we get rid of people. Yeah. So I mean, covering Francis, first of all, was really, um, yeah, it was sort of thrilling and fascinating because he had this amazing project. And he, you know, he was very political, right? I think everyone knows he was political, but he was a really political guy and really did not like, um, also did not really like the United States. I don't think I didn't trust it. You know, I will say that like my one like reporting success ever, he was on my short list. So, uh, Leo, so, you know, it's something, uh, you know, some one time I've ever gotten a lot of them in the pool. No, yeah, I lost. So, you know, I was there. I was, I had a feeling it was going to be that day. And I called my wife who was with her kids and they were with her kids and my kids, and they were like, you know, two kilometers away. I was like, get here now. And she's like, no, there's time. I was like, there's no time. It's going to happen right now. In fact, you know, so they were in the, in the Piazza, too, when he was announced and my son says that he was standing next to an Italian priest, when he came out as the American Pope, there was a priest next to an Italian priest. And he was like, what? Right? It astonished everybody. He's like, what? You can't have this, right? So it was, it was shocking. I think as far as who Leo is and what he's doing, I think he's very much in the footsteps of Francis. I really do. Just so that those of us that have, you know, sometimes it's like, we have such an American view of everything and everything's about us and all this. But like, there was some sense out there that like, that, you know, you said this rule, there's this rule that wasn't going to be the American Pope. And it was something like that was because of what was happening here that there was a feeling that not only was it okay, but that it was maybe necessary. Is that too, is that too much? Do you think or is it, you know, it's one of these things, is it about like these big meta narratives? Or is it more about, you know, favorite trading and vote count in the, you know, among the Cardinals? Well, he checked a zillion boxes, right? He's, you know, he's sort of ran as a Peruvian, right? Because, you know, he's, he also has Peruvian citizenship. And so a lot of the Cardinals didn't even know he was American. They were like, wait, he's American because he, he presented as Peruvian, he's Spanish, just flawless. It's a times great. But why? Because he feels himself in, in a Latin American context. I do think that the European Cardinals, especially, didn't really understand what was happening in America with Trump. And they, I think the idea of having a native who understood America from Chicago, that didn't hurt. Yeah. Right? I also think it didn't hurt to have an American who understands, you know, fundraising and money. And, and, and, and, and I know this sounds sort of, like a put down on the Vatican, but competence and like management, sometimes I miss a little uncharitable to Leo, but sometimes he like struck me as like a, like a Microsoft VP, right? He was just like extremely, he's just extremely confident. The successor to, you know, the successor to Steve Jobs, kind of, yeah, well, not even Steve Jobs, but just like middleman, right? Right? Like, but uh, the successor, like the person you always put in after the thing. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when I was like talking to some Cardinals about him and, and lots of other people excited to find out everything about him. And it was very hard to get like a meaty anecdote. And one guy was like, well, I have something really good on him. And I was like, all right, finally. And it was like, he's, you know, in a meeting, he listens really well. And I was like, he gives good meeting. That's, that's it, right? So, um, you know, it turns out, and, and I think what we're seeing in real time is the guy growing to the job, right? And, and, which is really interesting, he's young, so he's taking his time. But, um, I think Trump accelerated his time table, right? I think by, yeah, calling the Pope like soft on crime was like weird. And, um, and that sort of brought Leo out of his shell a little quicker, probably than he wanted. But he just seems like he's, um, he's growing into the job with AI, which is central to what he views as his mission. He's named himself after, uh, uh, the prior Leo was during the industrial revolution. He sees that this will be just as, um, you know, destructive to the, to the labor force. And he wants to basically be that Pope. So, no, he's, he's an interesting guy. All praise from, from this chair, the Bullwork Pope, where we're so far from that disappointment. All right. I need some tea. They didn't give you any good anecdotes about Leo, but could you give me a good anecdote about the gay lobby in the Vatican? I just want to know something. Just give me something. Oh, yeah. Sure. All right. Well, let me see the best ones. So I hung out, I hung out once with this, um, this guy who was, who's terrific. He's a fluent Latin speaker, right? And so he came up, he was a, he was a priest in Southern Italy, realized he was gay and then was like, all right, I can't be a priest. This is like, um, you know, this is a, I'm living a lie. But as writers is about to, um, where you get to call from the Vatican, like the top office in the Vatican. And so he goes to Rome and he goes into this great office though, he's in the Latin office of the Vatican. And he just told me, and who knows if he's telling that, like, I, I believe him, but like, you know, I, I'm not, you know, it's tough to verify. But he said, and I don't know if this is the gay lobby, but he almost was a gay lobby. Like he said, he did so much damage in the Vatican. He slept with so many gods in the Vatican that, uh, that he put the number, like, oh, 80%, 80% of the Vatican. I was like, that seems hot. Um, but, uh, gays are known to exaggerate a little bit. You know, we're at no bad, a little flared at something, but even if it's 60% of the Vatican, that's a lot to sex. It was, but he was, he was great. And um, he told me all the nicknames and all the cardinals give each other. Uh, it was, it was a, it was a, it's like a fun sexual nicknames. Not even like, um, one was the devil, right? Because it was one cardinal who, you know, we can't name, but we certainly who was. And, and then just sort of being caddy about, uh, you know, the hairstyles of nobles who come to meet the Pope. It's a great scene. It's clearly not the whole Vatican. And this guy, um, it was fantastic, but, um, you know, I think he had maybe a little bit of an agenda. Okay. But when he got there, well, you didn't finish the story. You got called in. And then what happened? Did he get promoted? He got fired. He got busted looking at stuff on his computer that he shouldn't have been looking at. And one of the cardinals who was his mentor from remembering this correctly. So it was like, you, you got to know when to look at the computer. And then when not to look at the computer, which it wasn't like, don't do it. It was like, come on, man, I'm not in the office, you know. And, uh, but I think that he got walk it walk away money from the Vatican, if I remember correctly, maybe even the Pope. So the, you know, Francis, famously, who am I to judge actually, you know, what did give me here some of the Italian? What are the? What was the charge? Was that how you said it? All right. So for charge, you know, is okay. So Francis let us not forget when he was alive was still a very old guy from Argentina, right? And so my read on the, okay. So for charge, you know, is basically a, a made up Roman slang word for, and I guess it's bags, right? It's bad, right? Def slur. But like the cardinals were all using him, right? And I think what, I think it was a trap. I, this is my, I don't know. I didn't report this out. But my guess is it was a trap that the conservative cardinals were saying, like, there's just too much for charging it. There's too much for charging it and wide. And he, and Francis always sort of wanted to be sort of down with the Romans, right? Like, because he only read the Roman hometown newspaper. So I think he was just like, it's a cool Roman term. It's like a slang term, and he used it. It's like when I started saying log to stuff, you know, I'm starting, I'm trying to take out Gen Z words and don't know it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it just sounded bad. And it was bad. It was like, it was a slur, right? And so, so he says it the first time. And I actually know that like he got called in, but people I know who we're trying to explain, but you can't say that. Like, it's a slur. It's bad. It's bad, right? It's like explaining to you, you know, the grand uncle or something. But then and he's like, yeah, so I got it. I got it. I got it. I knew she came back and said it again. Right? And that's when everyone was just like, oh, this guy's just like, I mean, this is not ideal object. Or this is just an old guy. Yeah. Um, but there it was very fun ones. I appreciate it. Jason Horowitz, the book is the Italian job. A reporter's memoir in Rome. Is that right? I'm going from memory. Is that the right subtitle? I think it's an American reporter's memoir in Rome or a memoir of an American reporter. I don't know. Basically, I'm an American reporter. You don't know your own subtitle. It's the Italian job. The Italian job. Go get it. It's out in two weeks. That's Jason Horowitz. I appreciate it, brother. It's good to see you. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks so much to Sarah Matthews and Jason Horowitz. Really appreciate it. Thanks for my guy at BJ's lounge. If you ever in New Orleans. Just go check out BJ's lounge. He did me a solid last night and everybody Everybody else will see you tomorrow on another edition of the Bullwork Daily Peace. The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzali Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.