Tracy Alloway and Will Sommer: A Cabinetful of Clueless Grifters

Hey, it's Mario Lopez from the All Mario Lopez Daily Podcast. All right. Quick question. You ever notice how some cars just steal the spotlight? Well, that's the 2026 Toyota RAV4. It's got bold standout style, intuitive tech inside, and now hybrid power standard, which means efficiency without the need to plug in. So whether you care about looks, smarts, or just everyday practicality, RAV4 brings all of it. If you've been holding out for the right SUV, this is your sign. Check out the 2026 Toyota RAV4 at your local Toyota dealer or visit toyota.com. See packages and options at toyota.com for feature availability. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East. We've been talking about Kewpie Mayo for a minute now. And wow, so many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red. The one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it. You haven't tried it yet? Well, find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about, why don't ya? Kewpie. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Kewpie. The original mayonnaise. Kewpie. Kewpie. Kewpie. the bond market can intimidate anybody, including presidents. And that's kind of like where we're at right now. I think every bond correspondent in history has at some point used that quote in a column. They have it sitting on their desk. Right. But the reason is it's true. There are plenty of governments out there that have been toppled by the bond market, if nothing else. And you think back, I mean, we have recent examples in the form of Liz Truss in the UK, who got ousted after going through a bond market crisis. So it can happen. The bond market can be a scary thing for governments precisely because it's difficult to control. It's not impossible to influence, but it's very difficult to control. Okay. So Trump might send in the military, might send in the Marines to intimidate, I assume it'd be Jews in charge of the bond market. I don't know. I assume that's what he has in his head, but who knows what's happening in Trump's brain. Besson has a slightly more complicated plan, I guess. As of yesterday, this was Charlie Gasparino, Fox News business reporter. He wrote this. I'm just going to read it in full because it's hard for me to parse. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson will do whatever it takes to quote, put the fear of God into the bond vigilantes, shorting the long end of the curve in an attempt to drive the 10-year yield to 5%. Wall Street executives' direct knowledge of his thinking say that would include buyback, selling short-term debt, possible elimination of long-dated bonds like the 20-year, et cetera. It's a short-term solution to keep yields from soaring further, strangling growth as the midterms approach. They say. Thoughts? Yeah. So we should be asking the question, why is this a priority for the Treasury Secretary at this particular moment in time? And the truth is that the Treasury market is the benchmark interest rate against which all others are judged. So mortgage rates are priced off of U.S. Treasuries. So if Treasury yields are spiking, those Treasury rates are going up, so is your mortgage rate, right? Which is probably not what Republicans want to see ahead of the midterms. There's also the question of the relationship between the stock market. So we have all these huge AI companies that are financing themselves, selling debt at really unprecedented rates. And their growth also depends on what U.S. Treasuries are doing at the moment. They need to be able to fund themselves cheaply if they're going to keep growing, if stock prices are going to keep going up so that Trump can still take credit for the stock market. So everything's kind of interrelated. What you don't want to see is a huge spike in bond yields that not only increases the Treasury's funding costs, but also starts making its way into, I guess, the popular mind in the form of higher mortgage rates and maybe a stock market dislocation. Yeah. The interesting part of that at the end was the strangling growth. Because the question is, okay, what are the actual ways to get interest rates lower, right? I mean, if it looks like there are recession indicators, maybe the Fed will lower rates. Here's a crazy idea. I think we could probably issue less debt. It was something the Trump administration said was a priority at the beginning. They had a whole program around this called Doge that Elon Musk was supposed to be in charge of, where we're going to get our books more aligned. But that's it, right? I mean, those are the options. Those are like the real options on the table besides the gimmicks. Policymakers are nothing if not creative. So there are a few more, all right? So, okay. If you are a government struggling with high debt, how do you get that debt down? Okay. The you grow your way out of debt. You grow faster than your stock of debt is increasing. That sounds nice, but, you know, kind of hard to do. That's a great idea. But the problem, we are also doing tariffs. I saw that we're rescinding a record number of visas for tourists and businesses from immigrants. Like we're doing a lot of things to stifle growth simultaneously. So that option is a little challenging. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance, let's say, in some of these economic policies. So, okay. Put growth aside. We're not going to do that. The second one is you could have higher inflation and you erode away the debt, all right? Like the value of $100 that you owe from 10 years ago is less than, is a lot less than, you know, the value now. You just eroded away through high inflation. We know from the past six years experience that Americans really hate inflation. Trump was basically, you know, voted in because people seem to really hate inflation. So let's assume that we're not going to do that. The third way is actual fiscal consolidation. So reduce the debt, which you just pointed out. So raise taxes, lower spending, all that kind of basic stuff. Turns out that's politically unpopular too, right? People don't like to see entitlement programs that they've been paying into for years and years suddenly go away. So that's a tough one as well. And we've seen through things like the one big beautiful bill that Trump doesn't really seem that interested in consolidating debt. And so you're left with, let's see, the fourth and final way, which is what we call financial repression. And this is stuff like yield curve control. It's stuff like finding ways to force investors to hold your debt at lower yields. And it can be anything from the yield curve control type stuff that we just described to things like, you know, Scott Besson intervened in the Japanese yen recently. And as part of that, we're going to be looking at the yield curve control type stuff. And as part of that, the way he did it was he intervened in the yen in a way that discouraged Japan from actually selling a bunch of its treasuries to protect its currency. Or it can be something like you tell the banks that they need to hold a bunch more treasuries to satisfy regulatory rules. So there's stuff like that that generally falls under the umbrella of financial repression that governments can do. The problem with that is someone is still losing out in that scenario. And it's usually, like, pension funds, people who aren't earning as high a return on their debt investments as they could be otherwise. But the reason that governments often like financial repression is because it's sort of politically nebulous. It's really hard if you're an average person on the street to say that, like, I am losing out because some bank has been forced to hold more U.S. debt. It's much more, I guess, salient to you if you're living through high inflation or if your Social Security has been cut or something. So this is now way out of my depth. I was texting my father this morning. He knows about this stuff. So I had some dad questions. So I'm coming to you. And this is what, is that related to kind of the redemption issue with private credit? Is that like this, this idea that, you know, investors, like, have restrictions now on how much they can redeem? Is that it? Or is that a different thing? It's a separate issue, but I guess spiritually, it's kind of similar in that you're, you're like, you're forcing investors to hold the debt at prices, they wouldn't hold it otherwise. So for instance, you're telling a bank, you have to hold a certain percentage of your assets in government bonds. And so you build up like a forced buyer base for government bonds at lower yields. And that has the effect of reducing the Treasury's interest rates or interest rate expenses, I should say. Okay. We've been talking about QB. for a minute now, Bow. And wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love QB. And if you're thinking, wait, what is QB? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise, the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know it, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo. Well, the answer, egg yolks. QB is made with egg yolks only, giving it incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, QB it. So if you haven't tried QB yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand QB, the original Japanese mayonnaise. All right. So we're going to come back to the interest rates. You're going to Jackson Hole. We're talking about the Fed. Before we go, let's talk about the Fed. We're going to talk about the Fed. Before we do that, I do. I just feel like I have to put a pin on the sign. We covered why yield curve control will never work. It's a little bit. It's a little bit more nuanced than sign man has to say about that. But generally, we kind of covered the whole thing won't fit on a sign. But directionally, I think he's probably right. We didn't really cover you gay pedo. Do you know what he's? Do you know what the accusation is? That must be Epstein related. My opinion is there's plenty to say about the bond market itself without getting in to ad hominem attacks. So, you know, let's just focus, focus on the debt mechanics. OK, that's I'm just as the gay. I felt like I could cover that. We know we hate gay on gay crime now. All right. So you're going to Jackson Hole where there's symposium on the Fed. What's happening with interest rates will be discussions back to Tim's dad text. And by the way, I guess I don't want to out him or embarrass him right now on the podcast. I'm about to. I'm curious. I'm not anymore, really. But, you know, like this, not not a lib finance guy. Everything Trump is doing is putting more pressure on inflation. Interest rates have listed out a lot of things that are happening, which is whether that be tariffs, some of the stuff we've been discussing. So simultaneously, this is the disconnect we were talking about earlier. Like Trump says he wants the interest rates to be lower. He wants to point at Kevin Warsh and say lower rates. But like all of the policy choices he's making are making that more challenging. Is that is that a fair assessment of the state of play? I think that's absolutely fair. I mean, inflation has we've seen signs of inflation, building and a bunch of that is either through tariffs or through the war in Iran, which is pushing up energy costs, which is like the one thing that you wouldn't want to increase. if you were actually concerned about bringing inflation down. How do you think Warsh is going to navigate that? I mean, it's sort of like one of these things where it's like, I don't know, maybe they screw it up bad enough that the economy gets into recession and he can lower rates because of that. But there are other things happening, whether it be the AI investment boom, etc., things that are keeping the complicated American economy churning enough that we're not really getting into recession territory. And so he's kind of stuck, right? Like we have this persistent, relatively low but annoying level of inflation, and policies that Trump's putting in place are making it worse. And so I think a lot of assumptions are maybe rates even go up, right? Yeah. I mean, all I can say is I'm expecting the mood at the Jackson Hole Lodge bar to be more awkward, let's say, than in some previous years. I actually think it's going to be one of the more interesting meetings that we've seen. At Jackson Hole, it's the Kansas Fed's annual symposium. And what it really is is a research conference. So a bunch of policymakers get together and they present papers and they discuss them. But what it's known for is having the Fed chair of the time come out and make a big speech on Friday. And no one really knows what that speech is going to be, although, you know, in recent times we've had Powell who used it as basically another policy speech. The theme of this year's Kansas Fed symposium, by the way, which no one is talking about, is like financial innovation and payments. You could just imagine you could not choose like a less zeitgeisty topic for monetary policy. So just ignore that bit. All eyes are going to be on Warsh. The problem that Kevin Warsh is facing is that he's coming in at a time when inflationary pressures seem to be building, when the president has explicitly said that he wants lower rates. And so there's a tension there, right? There's also a tension. That Warsh himself seems to have gotten himself into because in his last press conference, when the Fed decided to hold, he got up and made a very confusing speech for markets about how he doesn't want the Fed to provide as much forward guidance about its future interest rate decisions. He wants the market to kind of be the ball in the game of the global economy. Take the ball and run with it. Don't worry so much about what the Fed is doing. The problem is, now you have the Treasury, which is, you know, trying to manipulate the bond market. And so it's very tough to tell the market, tell investors that actually, you know, like, just go do your own thing. Ignore what all the policymakers are doing. And so what people are going to want to see on Friday is more clarity about how the Fed is thinking about stubbornly high inflation. So, you know, we've had three to four percent inflation for years and years now. That is above the Fed's two percent target. People are trying. People are trying to understand how the Fed is treating the relationship, the tradeoff between unemployment and inflation. The market didn't seem to like Warsh's explanation of how he's thinking about that, about that relationship back in July. So this is the opportunity for him to clarify. But it's coming at a time when the Treasury market is explicitly trying to get yields down. And it's coming at a time when Trump has said that he thinks rates are artificially too high. And so it seems like a very, very tough job for Warsh to kind of thread that needle on Friday. And I suspect what we're going to end up getting is a speech that's basically all about AI and productivity and how that'll lead to deflation in the long term. And so maybe the Fed doesn't have to move that high to curb inflation now. I suspect that's going to be his out card, but we'll find out. If you're just guessing, Tracy Crystal Ball, you see flat rates, slight increases. Like, what do you think's coming? So who the hell? Yeah. I mean, who knows, right? The problem is every time the Treasury is buying back more longer data debt, it's issuing more short term debt. And so it doesn't want short term interest rates to go up either, which is exactly what the Fed would have to do if it was hiking in order to decrease inflation. So I guess we'll see. I mean, again, Warsh is in this incredibly difficult position where he's basically talked about how he doesn't want the market to be interfered with. I mean, he's talking about how he doesn't want the market to be interfered with. He's talking about how he doesn't want the market to be interfered with. as big a proportion of that market. as the big banks are. So we're seeing like this revolutionary change in one of the biggest markets in the world in just two or three years. So things are changing really, really fast. Like again, this is an industry. Think about the big tech companies, the Googles, Metas, Facebooks of the world, whatever. They used to be really cash rich companies. Companies like Apple had so much cash, they didn't know what to do with it. And now they're all borrowing in the market to fund this AI build out. And it's just happened so quickly. I don't think anyone has really had a chance to digest what it means. Altman, I saw a quote the other day where he started, he started to downgrade, you know, his assessment of his own product, you know, where he's saying that, you know, three years ago, he thought that AI was going to move so quickly that we were going to see all these results unimaginably fast and people weren't ready for it. And he did an interview the other day where he's like, well, you know, now it's going a little slower than I thought, getting through the economy and maybe that can be a good thing. But that, I watched that and I was like, it does, that does feel like a risk for the company, you know, because a lot of that, you know, debt and a lot of that investment is based on these promises of this kind of growth that is coming in the future. I'm just wondering if you have any sort of hot takes on that about the AI bubble discourse or, you know, whether, you know, there are any concerns being raised about like, whether the productivity is going to match the investment debt. This is, this is the great, great hope of, you know, not just Sam Altman, probably, but Kevin Warsh at this moment in time too, is that productivity is going to go through the roof and the US economy is going to grow its way out of all this debt, all the hyperscaler debt, all the US treasury debt, all of that. And we won't have to worry about this anymore. I would say two things like setting the technology itself aside, you can have revolutionary technology that ends up being very difficult to monetize. And I think that's what we've seen so far. We've had models coming out of China that are a lot cheaper than the models from US hyperscalers that seem to do as good a job, like pretty close. I know a lot of US companies, they won't talk about it publicly, but if you get them quietly in a bar or something, they'll tell you that they're using a Chinese model like Quinn or Kimmy because it's open sorts. It's easier to plug in to their particular technology as it exists. And it's a lot cheaper. And so that's the question. We're spending a lot of money to develop these cutting edge models. Are we going to actually be able to get enough money for them in order to pay off that debt and then keep the data center boom and the broader US economy actually going? And I think there's a lot of disagreement on that front still. Okay. We've been talking about QB Mail for a minute now, Bow. QB is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. There's this video of JD Vance for a couple of years ago that started going around this past week. I don't know if you saw this. I don't know if you saw this on social media where he was talking about how the US being the dollar reserve currency is actually a resource curse and like leads to things costing more. And he was kind of talking off the cuff. So, you know, sometimes there's like galaxy brain analysis of all the stuff that it's hard. I'm unsure whether he even knew what he was talking about, but there are some worries, right? Like, I mean, Peter Thiel has talked about, you know, kind of getting off the dollar, obviously a big influence on JD Vance moving more towards Bitcoin. I did notice this week that Bitcoin is back up. Crypto is back up again, like as kind of US dollar, you know, issues arise in the bond markets. I guess I'm just curious what you thought about JD's comment about the dollar reserve currency being a little bit of a curse on us and whether there are like legit concerns that these guys have like a 40 chess plan for moving. Oh, man. Okay. I have not seen those comments from JD Vance specifically, but I mean, in general, like the dollar, the exorbitant privilege stuff has that conversation has been going on for a long time as has the idea that maybe the world is moving away from the dollar. And I think what we've seen, you know, that conversation, this idea that people aren't going to use dollars as much anymore in the future, it kind of comes into the zeitgeist every once in a while. And then it kind of flows out. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think it's coming back in now, right? So you mentioned Bitcoin going up last week. I'm not sure we can attribute all of that move to the dollar conversation, but we also saw gold start to rally quite significantly. And that's definitely a de-dollarization kind of idea. And I think the basic thinking here is like, well, if you want a reserve currency that's safe for decades, it has been the US dollar, but there are some things that have perhaps, dented that appeal. Not all of them have to do with Trump, by the way. You know, when Biden went after Afghanistan's central bank assets, that kind of boosted the conversation for a little bit. You now have Scott Besant declaring, I don't know, some sort of economic world war on Iran through sanctions. Every time you get those kinds of US sanctions, you see another bout of de-dollarization talk. I think the thing that people misunderstand in that conversation, because it has a lot of interest, is that the dollar is still the world's reserve currency. A lot of people will just dismiss it as like, oh no, it's never going to happen. The dollar is so embedded in the fabric of the global economy that it's just going to be here forever and people can't escape it for the following reasons. But in my mind, what we have seen is a sort of slow motion evolution to more of a multipolar currency world where people are looking at alternatives. We do know that more dollar-denominated assets. Why do you think that is? I mean, I think they're nervous about what happens to dollar assets in the future. And again, if the US Treasury is experimenting with things like yield curve control, that often means a lower dollar will come about as a result of those policies. Feels like a be careful what you wish for situation. Yeah, I think so. All right. Last thing, my favorite thing I like about odd lots is that you do these random things where you bring in experts who really know a lot about one topic. And you kind of get to learn a lot about that one topic, but you kind of brought it out to the broader impact. One of my favorite ones recently was the tungsten episode. And it's like when there's concerns about tungsten mining, when there's a rush on tungsten, that usually is a precursor to geopolitical instability. People should go listen to the whole episode, but give us the 45 seconds tungsten. All right. So tungsten is this mineral. The funniest thing about tungsten I should say is it went kind of viral a few years ago among crypto bros who for some reason got really into buying these little tungsten cubes, sometimes large tungsten cubes. So for instance, if you read the book about Sam Bankman Freed, the very end of the book is Michael Lewis finding this giant rumored tungsten cube that SPF was like rumored to have purchased basically just as a joke. And if you listen to the crypto bros, they said they liked tungsten because it had this very heavy material feel. It's one of the world's, if not the world's densest material. And so if you hold even a tiny cube, it feels like you're holding like you want some weight in your hand. Yeah. Yeah. Like something physical to offset the ephemeralness of crypto, I guess. But tungsten is also a very serious material. It's used in a for tungsten start to pick up tungsten production start to pick up. It's usually because people are stockpiling some stuff for military application. And unfortunately, tungsten prices have been rising recently. And it looks like at least one tungsten mine has restarted production because prices are rising and it now makes finding and sourcing tungsten economical and profitable for them. And if you look at history as your guide, that probably doesn't suggest that tungsten is anything good about the future direction of geopolitical stability. Well, maybe there's one smart person deep inside the Department of War that's doing that. But I've got some concerns. It's China. I was watching the Chinese robot Olympics and it feels like a little bit more of a long term view happening over there. I keep joking that my co-host Joe Weisenthal, so he has a tungsten cube. He lost it and then he found it again and was very excited about it. But that he's just going to have to donate it to the U.S. military after. anyway so he shouldn't get too attached all right we'll leave it there that's tracy alleyway i appreciate you so much for coming on here and uh educating us and dealing with my gay pedo jokes and um enjoy jackson hole and uh hopefully we'll catch well actually hopefully we won't catch you again soon because i usually call you and things are going wonky but i'm sure we will be seeing you again soon all right thanks so much for having me appreciate it tracy i'm next little summer this is matt rogers from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang this is bowen yang from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang okay we've been talking about qb mail for a minute now bow and wow the feedback we're getting i mean so many of y'all love this stuff you're stopping us in the street going i love qb and if you're thinking wait you're stopping us in the street going i love qb and if you're thinking wait what is qb uh do you not have the internet it's the og japanese mayonnaise the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle once you know what you start seeing it everywhere people ask what makes it different from basic mayo well the answer egg yolks qb is made with egg yolks only giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything burgers fries sandwiches chicken noodles chefs use it restaurants use it people who really love food and flavor whatever you're eating qb hit so if you haven't tried qb yet find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about you'll understand qb the original japanese mayonnaise all right we are back he is the author of the must read false flag newsletter honestly if you have not subscribed to the false flag newsletter at the bulwark.com what are you doing um it is of course will summer hey will hey thanks for having me we got to hang out in person for people who miss this it's the same thing we got to hang out in person for people who miss this it's the summer you met we put out a lot of content some people miss things will and i took a tour of dc where we went to kind of maga landmarks places where the aforementioned secretary scott besant got into some fisticuffs at a private club uh with the breitbart embassy you know we went to a bunch of places around town showed people who haven't been to dc what that's like the feedback was mostly about will's arms because people get to got to see will yeah there it is outside of the door so we're going to go check it out if you missed it it was pretty it was pretty good i felt like we left some meat on the bone i feel like we might have to do another one what do you think yeah you know i was thinking like you know it's first administration we didn't go to where the proud boys were supposedly doing coke and stole a republican congressional candidate's girlfriend i think there's a lot of opportunities left over the masturbating guy yeah on the mall yeah where he was cranking his hog to the acrobats yeah you know we got scarlet oak where you know the young staffers are getting drunk all the time so yeah a lot of opportunities there i'm back in dc at the end of september let us know if you want to see more of that it's interesting the secretary of transportation who you think would have more stuff on his plate than us and like we're podcasters did kind of a video series on the road of his own a road trip was funded by people that he's supposed to regulate and our tax dollars he got to bring his whole family nice deal uh if you're in the cabinet you wrote a newsletter a while back about how like they made a big stink about this and then didn't actually ever really put it out maybe because gas prices are so high they don't want to draw attention to the fact that regular people can't go on road trips they finally did put it out they dumped it onto youtube all the episodes in one sitting if you added up the views of every episode i don't think it matches the views for our tour of dc so they're not exactly lighting the world on fire on youtube but i'm wondering what you you what you were one of the few the proud that watched the series uh anything of note oh it was so good you guys are missing out yeah so it's called great american road trip it's very weird even by kind of like the standards of like a maga media artifact from the promotion and as you said this was supposed to come out in june it came out you know what last week after i think maybe my newsletter is saying look it's bad for boeing and all these transportation companies to send the secretary transportation on a trip with his family for a show but it's way worse if the show never comes out because then they just got free trips for no reason so it did come out and i thought it was a little bit of that but like a lot of it is just about like interpersonal drama in the duffy family down to john duffy's like 10 year old kid gets constipation and has to go to the hospital there's i that that sounds like i'm making it up there's like a whole episode where he's like my tummy hurts and he goes to the hospital and they're like does he have appendicitis no he's just constipated i mean like this is content next time you go online and look at how much an airplane ticket costs and then you go to the hospital and you're like oh my god i'm gonna have to go to the airport and the lines are really long and then the flight is delayed think about the fact that the secretary of transportation should be overseeing all this that should be their remit instead was doing a reality show road trip where where there's an entire episode dedicated to his child's constipation think about sean's duffy's child's constipation the next time you're annoyed while traveling i guess would be some a suggestion that i might have i mean we have airports right now that are literally running out of fuel and sean duffy is is like going back and forth to his old real world house on this show all this stuff any other highlights or lowlights i know i saw one clip i haven't watched any i saw one clip about how the daughter they weren't gonna let her go to harvard because she might get the woke mind virus that was discussed as well yeah it's a funny one there um like there are several episodes about where's the daughter gonna go to college and i guess maybe originally that was kind of like the idea for the show is like they're visiting colleges and then they were like wait we hate colleges so to be clear she does not get into harvard at any point so it was kind of a fake storyline it was like oh i might want to you know maybe i want to run for president i don't know this is kind of what i told my parents when i when they wanted me to go to georgetown and i didn't even apply and i went to george washington i was like i don't want to go to georgetown okay i'm not interested with like meanwhile my 3.3 gpa it was maybe to hold up there yeah you knew georgetown wasn't the place for you know a young man with integrity as sean duffy says they've professionalized corrupting the minds of young women you know so then they go to harvard and they meet with a catholic priest there this is this is very weird you might be like wasn't this about road trips and he's like actually you're allowed to be catholic at harvard and they go oh wow which is you know not that donald trump will ever know about this show's existence despite being in it himself but like were you to watch it he's like aren't we like trying to crush harvard why are we saying like harvard actually isn't as woke as you might think fascinating program you guys should feel feel good with secretary sean duffy at the wheel a lot of duffy talked this week yesterday we're talking about how he apparently doesn't read or know anything about what's happening in canada i want to move on we've got some trump tucker stuff i'm gonna get to at the end but um you have a classic will summer story and this is the purpose that you serve in my life personally and i hope it's true for other people as well i received a text from a friend of the show chris krebs american hero who's the guy in the first trump administration who was trying to keep our elections safe and then trump tried to lie and said the elections were stolen he was like no it's not true we have a lot of good people working in the government anyway chris krebs text me he's like have you seen the data republican story and then sends me like seven texts that are like totally incomprehensible to me about this drama that is happening online and so i i messaged you and i was like are you following this you're like yep it's my next newsletter i was like thank god thank god i don't have to do anything will explain it to me so the newsletter starts like this pro trump internet sleuth jennica pounds better known as data republican to her nearly 1 million followers on x made a grim announcement on friday deep state operatives embedded within the trump administration had tried to entrap her into committing treason tell us about that ominous news indeed um yeah so this is a lady named jennica pounds uh she is uh as i said she's data republican and and this is she emerged in during doge she has no real like expertise with you know government data or this she's kind of this like wonk figure and whenever elon wanted to be like i'm eliminating usaid she would produce this ai written summary that would say actually usaid is a front for george shoros and then so republicans were like wow data republicans said so it must be true she's wrong like constantly she misunderstands basic things um and yet they love her and so in this case what happened was sarah rogers the undersecretary of state for for you know sort of like public she handles like publicity essentially um and her big thing is bullying europe into making it easier for these far-right kind of quasi-nazi parties to get traction um and so she's seen as very based important role yes well certainly in this administration very fancy and role so she secretly approached data republican and said look i've got some documents on like cuba and like anti-disinformation efforts during the the the biden administration um and these things like really are very important to her and she's seen as very based important role yes well certainly in really they don't there's not a real expose here but what they were trying to do is kind of spin something up and so they say let's give it to data republican however when data republican gets the documents she goes wait a minute this says like government document do not distribute if i post this i'll go to prison for treason and if i hold on to it i'm participating in the biden cover-up so she then turns on sarah rogers and says you were trying to send me to prison sarah rogers is kind of like we're seeing how the sausage gets made she has some egg on her face they start fighting and this kind of broader or a few. breaks out on the right there's an interesting subplot to this which is that there's several actually but the the one in particular that's noteworthy is that jennica the anonymous data republican who said that the deep state was trying to influence her to get into trouble is herself a member of the deep state it's the plot thickens yes so so this is very interesting so amid this clash and basically sarah rogers is like it or not for her aligned with more nick fuentes america first type gropers she's represented some of them in court as their lawyer and so she talked about like the average differences in iq between racial groups uh you know talked about how europe's importing barbarian rapist hordes like that's kind of her milieu so that element gets really mad at data republican and one of their accounts says well this is all really weird because data republican works for the department of defense and that was like the first i had heard of that i think the first a lot of people had heard of that so then the department of defense says yes data republican is a special government employee which is the thing where you can work for about a third of the year that elon musk was also under without having to go through a lot of disclosures divest your holdings or really like be like an official government employee so this is very odd and so since i wrote that newsletter we've made some new findings she appears to work for the department of defense's thing called like the office of administration and management so it's essentially like this huge bureaucracy it's very difficult to know exactly what she's doing there i asked the pentagon about it and they said essentially like we're not going to say what her job is since she took this job in july she was attacking driscoll the secretary of the army who was opposed to pete hegseth since taking that job so it's like was her job some kind of like weird messaging stuff to be clear she did not disclose any of this pentagon affiliation even as of sunday she said my only affiliations are you know some random think tanks nothing with the pentagon so it's very mysterious and now even her fans are saying is she the deep state operative it seems like she is um just to put a finer point on this so we have an anonymous mega propaganda account that is actually a taxpayer funded person of kind of unknown remit in the government and the government won't tell us what this person is doing that we're paying while she's simultaneously advancing like false propaganda about the government's actions that's a pretty decent summary of what's happening with data republican it is and to add one more and that the state department is using to drum up both sort of political ends attacking people from the biden administration and seemingly to kind of like beat the war drums on cuba because supposedly these documents were supposed to relate to cuba right so that's interesting so it's like one person in the government is giving the another person in the government information to put out but under their anonymous account essentially this is a sock puppet account which like kind of we use in other this is like an intelligence tool that is used obviously the russians use against us sometimes we use in other countries but like we're using against our own people there's like a sock puppet account within the government charged with disseminating false propaganda to influence us and that was revealed accidentally via a mega feud yeah exactly and so it offers an interesting glimpse into sort of what's going on here it makes me wonder what other special government employees are working at the pentagon you know it makes me wonder what other big x accounts have government contracts or government affiliated because it feels like unlikely that's just jennica i would say based on this performance i would not reach first to jennica if i was looking for a sort of henchman i might if i was you know running propaganda at the pentagon i might there are some you know um this guy who runs like a shipping news thing who's like inexplicably also a real conservative activist he was considered for a special government employee status at the pentagon so there have been these like links between right-wing media and the pentagon um it's it sounds when you put it like that it sounds pretty nefarious yeah and i think there's a lot more to be discovered yeah i mean i don't think that the department of war that the government's military should be funding partisan propaganda uh outlets to misinform us the american people it's not really i'm against that like in a free country doesn't feel like that's what should be happening feels like we should know who is who is communicating that's for the government and there's a reason why they didn't put this out from spokesperson from the pentagon or spokesperson from the secretary of state right like that you know there's a reason they tried to go through a cutout and it's like but the cutout is somebody we're paying yeah and you know the other thing i would add is that data republican is she lives in utah she's very like sort of homebound because of some disabilities as i understand it or you know this is i suspect very related to her media role it's not as though she's like also an accountant at the department of defense right right just a couple other little interesting subplots i noticed from your story i just wanted to raise um uh she's become such a figure on the right that her mom also has an account mom of data republican um that gets involved an old i feel like to call him a nemesis would be to overstate it a old antagonist of mine ricky vaughn he had a he also had a sock puppet gone after the major league character um he ended up going to jail which i wasn't unhappy about at all uh and then is now out of jail and i guess he was he's back in the game he was wrapped up in this somehow yeah he was represented by sarah rogers during his criminal case um and so he's one of these people who's saying you know sarah's so based you know boomer brained you know data republican you're screwing this all up yeah sarah didn't nail that criminal case saying is he he lost the one thing i would add about mom of data republican who confusingly also goes by the handle data republican on x she she's very obviously defensive about her daughter and so she had said to sarah rogers you know my daughter is not quote naturally cunning like you kind of like you know what are we implying here um and now but now that the pentagon job has been exposed mom of data republican was saying people on the right act like it's bad to be a fed but what is a fed an employee of the federal government which really is a good thing when mom is on twitter saying their adult daughter is not that cunning that's probably not a great sign that that's the person you should be using for your subterfuge if you're the if you're the government but uh we'll continue to monitor the story i know you will um but i i think i'm interested on whether this is one of those things that um like one string gets pulled out of the yarn ball and all of a sudden we start to learn that there's a lot more of this happening in the pentagon it seems like that seems likely to me anything else in that for me move on to trump and tucker let's do it okay this is matt rogers from lost culture east that's with matt rogers and bowen yang this is bowen yang from lost culture east with matt rogers and bowen yang okay we've been talking about qb mail for a minute now bow and wow the feedback we're getting i mean so many of y'all love this stuff you're stopping us in the street going i love qb and if you're thinking wait what is qb uh do you not have the internet it's the og jazz mayonaise the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle once you know what you start seeing it everywhere people ask what makes it different from basic mayo well the answer egg yolks qb is made with egg yolks only giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything burgers fries sandwiches chicken noodles chefs use it restaurants use it people who really love food and flavor use it whatever you're eating qb hit so if you haven't tried qb yet find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about you'll understand qb the original japanese mayonnaise trump sent out the following bleat over the weekend which i'm going to read for you guys tucker carlson just met with lightweight former congressman thomas massey and marjorie trader green losers all tucker's views have fallen to the floor and will only get worse trump accidentally said something right there i think um nobody cares about him and he longer and that he has become totally irrelevant and happens to be surprisingly a very low iq individual it's unusual trump usually reserves that insult very low iq individual for black people so that tells you something about where he's going with tucker tucker could barely get out of college trump writes and maybe he didn't but only really dumb people can't make it through that wonderful four-year time in life tucker wants to run for political office but he should be required to take a cognitive test like me tucker is a loser and always has been marjorie taylor brown we're trying on a separate nickname here green turns to brown under stress a highly neurotic young woman went from ultra conservative to a liberal fool on a matter of weeks because i refused to return her phone calls not because i didn't like her just because i had no time the only chance they have is to join the radical left democrats and try breaking into the primary system to all of them i say praise be to allah that's the president of the united states put out that statement a lot there uh i think that um the uh you know there's kind of the small ball observation that i have which is like if in 2015 you'd showed this to somebody and said this is 10 years in the future um they would have said that you had derangement syndrome and or an insane person and you know etc but like this is our life now people just accept us and move on that our president is a lunatic he's posting like a crazy drunk uncle um constantly on social media it's hard for me to find this actually because it was like three days ago and i just scrolled through like a hundred trump bleeds like he's still doing this it's a small observation big observations it seems like they're a little concerned, you know, like to go this hard at Tucker about like whether this faction might actually have some juice inside the coalition. It's interesting. It was also, I mean, at this point, it's several weeks since that meeting. So it makes you wonder, has Trump heard something else about Tucker's plans or are they, did they do some poll or, you know, whatever that, that has them freaking out so much. He's really also starting to do that praise be to all. This is not the first time he's done the praise be to all the thing. I remember the first time he did it, it got kind of a pop, but I guess this is just like one of his signatures now. He thinks it's funny. Do we think praise? It's like, it's like, Oh, I'm like making fun of Muslims, but like I'm doing it in a little cheeky way. So people can't really accuse me of being a racist, I guess. Is that what's happening there? Well, I wondered if, if it's sort of like playing on the idea that he's Tucker Katarelson, that he's like in hock to Qatar or other Muslim countries. But then again, Trump flies around on the Qatari. Yeah. So it's, it seems a little unfair to single out Tucker. Yeah. Similarly, I've had a rant lately about how the MAGA Republicans are all like, you know, their big message now for the midterms that the Democrats are socialists. You can't put the socialists in charge, but like Trump is running the most socialist government we've had, certainly in the post-World War II era. And, and the thing is similar on the Sharia law thing. Like you see Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, and now in Michigan, Mike Rogers and all these guys, you know, trying to, you know, fear, you know, make people afraid of Abdul Al-Sayed or, you know, the Muslim candidates running on the Democratic side, talking about how Sharia law is coming to the country. But like, we are totally in league with the actual Sharia law countries. Like Trump is, Trump's business partners are Sharia law countries. Like the people I think most aligned with Sharia is this administration. That's a great point. I mean, there is really, particularly in Texas, there's such a, just rise of this anti-Muslim sentiment. You know, the, I saw now people are like, they were freaking out because Muslims bought some land in the woods and it was for like Muslim kids to have activities and to stay during the summer. And they were like, what are they up to? And it's like, well, it's, it sounds like what's called a summer camp, right? And so, so this is like. Have you ever watched Wet Hot American Summer? Yeah. It's like that. Just check that out. But, but, but as you said, I mean, it, it, it reminds me of when Laura Loomer was very upset about the Qatari jet and Trump basically said, shut up. I want my jet. And then she said, okay. Yeah. But you, you're seeing this online, like this increase in anti-Muslim, anti-Islam sentiment, like rising because for a while, I don't, you know, obviously like there was a lot of this after 9-11 and just look to be clear, I'm, I'm no fan of Sharia law. That's why I think it's concerning that our president is, is friends with Sharia law dictators, but like it was, it was more than that, right? Like there were like these really, you kind of bigoted, you know, anti-Muslim efforts, Laura Loomer was point person and this for a long time. And that went a little dormant, you know? And I think that there was like a period of time where like we really saw a lot of anti-Semitism rising and obviously, you know, a lot of focus on the invaders, the Mexican invaders, but it does seem to me, I don't know what, do you, do you feel this way too? Like that we've, we're really seeing a spike again in right-wing agitation. Very real. I, and it's surging back. I mean, I, and I, and I think these, you know, whether it's maybe a reaction to like Zoran Mamdami and Abdul El-Sayed in the sense to like otherize Muslims, but I mean, I do think for the past few years, you know, it, it, it was much quieter. And I, and I think also relatedly, I think there's just like a real like hatred of people, like sort of of like brown skin in general. I mean, this is probably an obvious observation, but like, there's also like a real surge in hatred of Indians and people in Pakistanis. And I think there's a lot of that in Texas. And so these are kind of like the, I would say, I hate to say like the hot, these are kind of like the surging hates, I guess, as the immigration stuff for recedes for now. Hmm. All right. Anything else you're seeing out there? Anything you want to tease us? Any exciting, I don't know, kind of lawsuits or I don't know, anybody Arby's in anybody's pants, you know, anything to look forward to? Well, you know what? Alexis Wilkins, the Kash Patel's country singer girlfriend is she's on the verge of settling. Her lawsuit with Elijah Schaefer, a frequent topic of ours on the trio, the kind of the philandering right wing media bad boy. He had accused her of being a Mossad operative sent to seduce Kash Patel. So we'll have to see, is she going to get a big payday or is she going to, you know, concede and, you know, say, well, maybe he was right to suspect or whatever. We'll see. We'll be monitoring that court case. Will will be monitoring actually. And he'll be briefing me and we appreciate him for his service. Everybody go subscribe to false flag. Thanks so much to Tracy and will. If you want more politics topics, I'll be on the next level tonight. The whole crew is back together. Vacations are over. So come hang out with us in the next level feed. And I'm sure we'll, we'll be coordinating a trio video later in the week. So we appreciate everybody very much. Thanks to Tracy and will we'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. The Bulwark Daily is brought to you thanks to 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. All right. Quick question. It's got bold standout style, intuitive tech inside and now hybrid power standard, which means efficiency without the need to plug in. You've been holding out for the right SUV. This is your sign. you