Sam Stein: Can Trump Avoid Humiliation in Iran?

I'm your host, Tim. a few housekeeping items. We have the live shows coming up in San Diego and Los Angeles, downtown San Diego, downtown LA, May 20th, May 21st. Make a little weekend out of it if you're not from Southern California. If you live on the west side in Venice or Santa Monica, it's gonna be a long drive either way, so you can pick your poison. Tickets are available for both. Go to the bulwark.com slash events.

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This is unusual for me. I don't usually do this. Okay. I don't usually get bullied into having a guest on the show. I usually get to pick. Uh but in this case. Our guest today was upset because he had he had been the in pole position, like the most downloaded episode ever, was right before I went on vacation last summer.

Our guest today was the special guest for that episode. I think that the reason I had the most downloads was mostly because most of you were you missed me while I was on vacation. You kept kind of downloading it to to see if I was coming back. But it was a point of pride for him. And um uh uh as of A couple of days ago that has been passed. Now the episode of Jane Coaston where we talked about Melania.

not being able to speak English and Catholic school has passed it. I don't know why you guys love that one so much, but there it is. We love we all love Jane. And so he's back. He wants first. He wants to be first again. He wants pole position as the managing editor of the Bulwark Sam style. Just to c just to clear things up for for to start out here. Uh I did not beg to come on. You asked me to come on. Okay. You begin. You beg like a dog. Like a dog. like a dog. No, but I mean, I'm

I'm deeply offended that I've been passed by Jane. Uh so it would be nice to reclaim my title, but I did not ask to come on.

That's not uh not the report that I got. We'll have to go to the transcript on that and hash that out another time. We'll start with Iran news. Much to get to. Our cabinet rankings will be coming at the end. I know I know you guys are clamoring for that. The current position, as best I can tell, from the President of the United States, is that we are going to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed.

and let gas prices continue to rise for Americans until Iran figures its shit out. Like that's basically how I'd s sum it up. His bleat was this, based on the fact that Iran is seriously fractured. not unexpectedly so, and upon request A Field Marshal Munir and Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan. Why is Pakistan telling us what to do? We have been asked to hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.

I directed our military to continue the blockade and remain ready and able, will therefore extend the ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted and discussions are concluded one way or the other. So the ceasefire ends. We've unilaterally decided to keep it. The street is still closed. Oil prices are up again this morning. And our current position is, you know, Iran's

Iran's gotta figure out their shit. Like we I we get it. We get it. They got a potential coup happening there. I don't know. The Ayatollah might be in a coma. We don't know. We're gonna give them a little extra time. A little bonus time. If you read that truth, I did not sound like Donald Trump to me. There wasn't like a lot of all caps or I think that's a good thing. I think it was an auto pen situation. It someone authored it. It wasn't Donald Trump. Maybe he put a few flourishes in there.

B B I don't think B maybe BB's right in the truth these days. I don't know. But also I think there's uh one thing that's kinda getting lost is we're not actually in a ceasefire. I mean we're in a ceasefire that Trump claims we're in a ceasefire, but i the Iranians aren't. saying this is he's right. They think the blockade is an act of

provocation or war. And so they're not treating this as a ceasefire. And they apparently have boarded two vessels this morning in the strait. That's the stuff that we're seeing this morning while we're recording. They're not going to the talks in Islamabad so long as there is a blockade. So we're not actually in a ceasefire. We keep calling it a ceasefire. We're in a place where Donald Trump is not pursuing more aggressive military action, but it's still

an act of conflict or war or whatever you want to call it with the Iranians and and that that's the problem is that if you can't get a if you can't get a uh to the point where you can actually talk about a diplomatic offer you obviously don't have a diplomatic offer. Yeah, I and as you mentioned, uh this is a quote from an advised Iranian speaker the extension of the ceasefire by Trump has no meaning. I mean isn't that right? I'm I wrong here.

No, no, no, that's right. It seems right. Uh they all there's another statement about how the loser doesn't get to set the terms, just uh you know, a little bit of a bluster and a provocation, and then they've got another Lego video out and the Lego videos I I like whoever the pull The pullets are gonna go to whoever figures out who is doing the Lego figure. The like a video. Yeah. Is there a twenty three year old intern in in Tehran? It's some guy in Malaysia probably doing.

In Malaysia who's like DMing them. You know, the the foreign minister. I don't know.

Clearly, Iran isn't particularly trying to escalate. At this point. Are you sure? Well they did they did board the vessels.

They did board the vessels. But I just mean like they're not droning natural gas facilities in UAE or cut or or the other types of things that they've said they're gonna do. They said that that they said that they're planning other types of disruptive attacks. The Trump position here, I guess And it's not, I guess, it's what he stated, is that Iran is losing five hundred million dollars a day because of the blockade, and so eventually they're gonna cry, uncle

There's some conversation about how Carg Island, if you can't get the oil out of there, you know, and it there'll be some kind of logistical issues that would really cripple Iran's ability to transport oil outside of the country. But like The Daily Mail's reporting this morning that there have been a couple of Iranian ghost ships that have bypassed the blockade. We'll see. Like these things are all developing kind of as we're talking, but

It seems like a bad bet to me that it's gonna be the Iranians that are gonna be the ones that cry uncle over economic concerns. I don't think the Iranian leadership cares that much about I I mean they care about their long term economic interests and g getting a good deal in negotiation. But I I think that, you know, if there are shortages in Iran for a little while and their people were suffering anyway, I think that there's much more room for pain than there is in the in decadent America.

Neither outcome is great, but I tend to agree with you. Uh the regime doesn't particularly have a sterling record of caring for their citizens. So I have to imagine they're okay with more economic anxiety in the short term at least. It's unclear to me though, also, you know, I'm no expert on this, but uh to the degree that the Russians and the Chinese are helping them out.

I would be curious about that. Weren't we allowing the Russians to help them out at one point in time? Is that still happening? I I will say this. Like we in America have not felt the pinch to the degree that the Europeans have and other countries have because of these fuel prices.

I saw a story this morning about, you know, some German airliner canceling like a bunch of flights because the fuel costs for jet fuel is just out of control. We haven't really had that here. And yet at the same time gas is Pretty damn expensive. I had to fill up on the way in today. It was crazy. Were you filling up at that one gas station that uh the morning news always uses'cause it has the highest gas prices in the country and for some reason.

famous gas station at the w right outside the Watergate in D C forever had the highest prices, but they changed ownership and now there's a famous one in Near Union Station that always has high prices. I try I tend to try to avoid those two locations for those reasons. But even this morning, I was like just kind of.

filling up my tank and I was checking my phone and you know I was like committed to keeping it under fifty dollars. I don't know why. And then I look over at$70 hadn't even filled up. I was just you know it's like that's gonna add up for a lot of people. And then you have rising food

cost, which we were talking about in Slack this morning. So it is going to hurt and it's starting to hurt really badly. And I you know, Trump may be totally, you know, a sadist about this stuff, but he's at thirty three percent. What was that A P poll? Like He just lost redistricting in Virginia. We're gonna talk about that. The house is looking completely gone. I think he clearly is tired of this shit and wants to figure out a way out of it. Obviously. So it's not that he's not

feeling the acute political and economic pain here. It's just that he's in a game of chicken. And there's a larger thing here, theme through all these stories that I'm going to get to later, but it boils down to this. Donald Trump starts shit.

without ever knowing what the off-ramp is gonna be. It's the same with Virginia and redistricting. It's the same with Kevin Walsh and the Fed nomination. He always starts something and he has no idea how to figure it out and finish it off. And this is just what's happening in Iran.

And he lives day by day, he's a survivor. Here's the thing, uh Eger wrote a good morning shots about this a couple couple days ago or weeks ago, who knows, time is flat circle about like the end of Madman theory. Mm-hmm. And I I mocked Madman Theory'cause we can see the limits of it and we can see how stupid it is here, but like

Right. You have to acknowledge that there were times where it was effective. Where it was like Trump was so crazy that other country leaders just like gave him shit that they wouldn't have given to Joe Biden just because it was like, Who knows? Like this dude is too big of a pain in the ass and it's like whatever. Like we'll

we'll cut some deal with him that we wouldn't have cut otherwise if if we just had two bureaucrats negotiating. Like that it did work a couple of times. But like one of the limits of madman theory is that you always have to be the craziest man.

And like right now he's in a game of chicken with we don't even know who sometimes, right? Like there's a they have an internal negotiation happening and among the people on the other side of the game of chicken are the craziest sons of bitches in the world.

And then when push comes to shove, it's like he doesn't want to do it. This doesn't mean that he might not ever do it because he got himself into this fucking game of chicken with the craziest sons of bitches in the world. But like but you can tell he's trying to veer off. He's the one with the itchy

Yeah. It is a weird situation where it's like who is the biggest nihilist and we have to live with that. I was talking with Sarah about this uh over the weekend too, because I I grapple and struggle with how to handle these threats that he makes about ending civilization and bombing power plants and bridges and stuff like that. Because obviously

He ducks out of them time and time again. Uh, and now I think this is like the fifth time he's done it or something like that. And yet I don't want to not. Take that seriously, if that makes sense to you? No, you have to take it seriously. Yeah. Yeah. And he gets backed into a corner. The other thing about Trump is that he is susceptible to whatever the last person told him. You know, I don't know who around him wants to end Iranian civilization besides Hag Seth. Uh uh Lindsay.

Yeah, sure. But yeah, no, I think it's worth taking it seriously for that reason. I mean you have to take it seriously. And then I guess the real nightmare scenario is where he's just like, Okay, I've tried everything else and I'm looking like a big old pussy and I have to do this and boom. And that's a real risk,'cause he is looking like a big old pussy. We can say that now.

We we can. And honestly congrats to the hedge fund guy who after the election twenty f twenty four said to to the F T or whatever that he's excited about being able to say pussy again. Because, you know, well it's been a great run for him. I mean It was worth it. Hopefully he's with long oil. Hopefully he was long oil and and wanted to say the P word. Gas is four thirty, but at least we can say put.

Yeah. There's a couple other just things in around really quick. There's a uh Puck had a poll out last night, which I think speaks to his the political problems that you were getting to, which is they just asked open ended Like, why are we doing this? What exactly is it that we're doing here in Iran? And the top answer was to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but that was only twenty two percent. Okay. Twenty percent said it was for taking their oil.

Thirteen percent said it was a show of power, nine percent said regime change, six percent said distraction from abstinence, six percent terrorism prevention, five percent helping Israel. Nobody knows what we're doing. And I that just it does compound the political problem where it's like, hey I'm paying more at the gas tank and I I truly don't know why. I I mean, does Trump even know why at this point? Trump's been Trump's been all over the map.

No. What is the objective? If you went to Islamabad right now, let's say they were going to Islamabad. They're not. We don't have ongoing negotiations. But like what would be the objective? It kind of seems like the objective right now is just reopening the strait, which it was already open before this all started.

Right. Well then here is the real conundrum, right? It's like Any off ramp, any resolution to this is itself going to end with embarrassment for Trump. What's the best realistic deal he could cut right now, in your estimation? I think that they help'em save face by saying that they can take some of the enriched uranium out of the country. Not all of them. They open the strait but then they get sanctions relief. Some cap on their nuclear ambitions, some IEA checks and stuff.

Commit to not funding proxies that they they lie about. Uh uh yeah, that seems like the best deal. Great. Cool. First of all, Iran won't agree to taking all of the nuclear material out of the country. They will never do it. That's a red line. But even in that scenario, the rosiest scenarios, they reopened the strait, it was already opened prior to the war. So congrats. And everything else you described is a JCPOA. Right. And it's like Trump blew it up.

And we spent years trying to figure out what the hell to do. And then we end up back in the place where Trump started. It's a humiliation. Maybe he gets a cut off the string. US gets a cutoff to stretch. That's the difference between the JCPOA. We start we we get uh we get a ten percent VIG on the oil now.

No. Right. And and it'll be in some sort of Trump family crypto and it's also gonna be great and it'll fund the ballroom and what a deal. And fine, like I'm at the place now where like let him crow about some stupid deal that's just the JCPOA and he can pocket a few mil here and there, but like

it is objectively going to be some version of that deal that he killed. And it's a humiliation. And I think he sort of knows a little bit that it's gonna be difficult to sell any of this stuff because if you Now that we're like three or four deals ago, but the first deal was that ten point principle plan uh that they apparently had struck.

And if you looked at the sort of specifics of it, it was actually quite worse than the JCPO. It was much more sanctions relief. It was basically, you know, the type of uh you know, allowing Iran to essentially control the straight and charge and They backtracked instantaneously when the commentary turned negative on that. And so they're not ready, they're not ready to swallow their pride.

So what we said from the start, I said I don't I'd hate to give the guy advice, don't want to give him advice, but after the first weekend, Monday after the first weekend, he should have said, That's a huge victory. We've obliterated them. That's not recoverable. Good luck to you and all your endeavors, people of Iran. Like that was the his way out of this. And and he didn't do it this time.

I totally agree with that. And it would have fit the pattern of what he had done before with Midnight Hammer and Venezuela and all that stuff. I think the issue was the Iranians responded by basically bombing the entire region. And at that point you're At that point, you're sort of stuck because you've basically drawn in your regional allies and the gas prices are skyrocketing and you got to figure out what the hell to do with the strait, which gets me back to my original conceit.

He'd starts things and has no idea what to do after the first day. And it happens time and again. And one last important errand thing for you to Virginia. We like to call it straight here at the bulwark, Sam. That's why we brought you in. You know, we wanna we do wanna do real journalism. And I do think to be fair to Trump he does care about human rights for hot people.

He cares about human rights for hot women. I don't know if you saw this bleat. I didn't he posted a bleat with a picture of eight women. They were all all pretty good looking, I will say. You know, I just as a game

This is an objective thing. I'm not objectifying them. I'm just saying they look pretty. They're younger women, they look pretty. And he posted this to the Iranian leaders who will soon be in negotiations with my representatives, fingers crossed. I would greatly appreciate the release of these women. I am sure that they'll respect the fact that you did so. Please do them no harm. Would be a great start to our negotiations.

I'm pulling up I just pulled up the blue I hadn't seen the photo. It's unreal. Come on. It is literally like this same thing happened to Zoran. Do you remember this? Zoran goes in there and there's a Columbia student and she was pretty and like within two seconds she was out of ice detention. That's where we at. We've got an old we just have a a creepy old fucking guard in the White House and you can get human rights relief if the victims are hot weather.

Well this this actually brings up a a possible end route for this conflict here, which is the Iranians can use AI and start creating these like MAGA women in MAGA women in Iran saying w we we love you, Trump. Just you know, open the strait but also agree to sanctions relief. Love you, Trump. Yeah. Yeah. MAGA women, Iranian MAGA Maga women. They should actually be the point people on the negotiation. Yeah, you know what the Lego shit is enough. Stop doing the Lego shit.

We need to switch it up a little bit.

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Big win in Virginia for uh the referendum to redistrict the state. There were a lot of concerns about this. And I had uh Sula Subrimonium on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and like they were basically saying the internal polling was showing it as a coin flip.

Virginia's not California. Virginia is a is a blue state, light blue, but I mean they elected Glen Youngin not too long ago. You know, there's good government types in Virginia, a lot of military types in Virginia, and the gerrymander that they put forth I just wanna steal this from a guy that I follow on election uh Twitter named James. He he called it

The ten one map looks absolutely insane. And it's wildly unfair. And the public had full knowledge of it. And that's like right. That map looks ridiculous. It's a ridiculous map. And it's like you're in the same district if you're in the Shenandoah Valley and if you're like right across the Potomac in Roslyn. I mean, it's an absurd map. And they pushed it through as an F U to Trump.

for trying to play hardball and trying to r jerry rig, to be honest, the midterm elections. And they get a win on this on this referendum. The people of Virginia fifty one to 48 three point victory. I was supportive of this. I think that this this is the way you got to do it. You got to punch these guys back in the nose, um, even if it's a little messy. But I was wondering what your takeaway was on it. It just to underscore the map and how absurd it is. It's like

You take the Northern Virginia Arlington district and then you just have like bacon strips all the way across. It is really a ridiculous gerrymander. I mean, in the most comical sense. And in the north. universe which we are not in, you'd find it a porn. There's like in District eleven there's like a tiny little strait of Hormuz that goes through Alexandria and then like goes all the way down to Southwest Virginia. It's unbelievable. It's unreal.

I I don't feel bad per se about it because I understand why they did it, but like you watch this happen and you're just like, this is just it cannot be this way. We cannot have a function in government in which basically the lawmakers are drawing their voters. What is the alternative here? Is it for Democrats to basically be morally righteous about everything and then get their

clock clean. I I've seen a lot of complaints on the right about this and they're like, well, you know, this is just abhorrent. How could they do this? They started this stuff. And like No, that is not true. You have to s look at what happened in this cycle, mid decade redistricting. It was started by Texas at the behest of Trump. And the only obvious r outcome of this again was that Democrats were going to retaliate.

And this is what happens. People who are complaining about this on the Republican side are full of it. They're full of shit, honestly. This is what you brought on yourself.

The Democrats' retaliation was stronger than I even expected. Tim, it was stronger than a lot of them expect. I talked to a lot of Democrats about this heading into this. They did not anticipate Virginia was going to do something like this. And if Virginia I mean, you wait was a surprise when it first got floated for a lot of Democrats. And then The original idea was they were going to go for a nine two.

Yeah, or eight three even, or like eight two in a in a swing, you know? And it's right. I remember I was talking to a Virginia Democrat prominent one I'm just being like, I'm the podcaster prick, I can do this. I'm gonna be like, push it for ten one. I was like it was like fuck these people. I was like, I've been on election Twitter. And they were like, Yeah, I was like, they're you know, who I was talking to is like I want to do it, but uh you gotta get everybody off.

on board, you gotta get the state Senate, Abigail just got elected. And so My understanding is Kane and Warner were not supportive of this at all. Yeah. No, there were a couple of House Democrats, Virginia House Democrats, and then Louise Lucas, which uh Lauren Egan did that great profile in her state senator. This was a revenge thing for her. Yeah. In addition to Trump, they redistricted her out of a

out of a congressional seat she wanted to run in like six years ago or something like that. And they're mean to her about it. And she was just basically like F you guys. All right. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The way which they went for the jugular, I I think is is important. And like my two big picture takeaways on this is is number one good on Spanberger for doing it. And then because she just gets in. She's not Gavin Newsom. She's not running to lead the resistance.

She spent a lot and she spent a lot of capital on this. I mean it's gonna be Her ability to come. Yep. But you know, the moment called for it. And that ties to my broader point, which is there's very few people in the ecosystem out there who are incentivized to say, you know what, the establishment Democrats really played hardball and and did a great job and won. You know, and the Republicans want to paint Democrats to look like Woods's, and Democrats help them with that a lot.

And I think a lot of the left wing ecosystem wants to paint the establishment Democrats to look like wusses so that they can overthrow them and have more progressive people in p in charge and and in some cases they have legitimate critiques on that and that

you know, and the mainstream media is never gonna be out there doing like woohoo, Abigail Spanberger for good reason. And so like there's not a lot of incentive for anybody to do it. And it's just worth saying that like the Democrats, you know, Hakeem Jeffries whether it was on both shutdowns and on this redistricting battle, like did what Democratic voters wanted their leadership to do. Like played hardball against Trump, pushed back at him and and won.

And I do think that, you know, they should deserve credit for that. They're a little too late, I think, for a lot of our tastes to respond aggressively to Trump, but But come like towards the end of twenty twenty five and now into twenty twenty six, like we've seen the Democrats show a lot of spine and succeed in playing political hardball back against Trump and it should be noted.

Yeah, I mean, there's just not many opportunities to do it, but when they've presented themselves, you're right. Like the shutdown fights, this, I know Jeffries has been trying to get even more. He went into Maryland, uh, wasn't able to do that, but they've basically been clear-eyed about it. And you know, it it is a little bit easier to operate from the minority position, right? Like you don't have anything to lose.

But you know, you could have he could have done exactly what um the Warners and the Canes of the Wood wanted and said, you know what, let's just do uh three and and we'll be happy.

And Jeffries takes a lot of shit for the various times in which he has, you know, not you know gone to the mat and done with a lot of the base wanted. And he had internals, like you said, there's the senators from Virginia weren't so excited about it. A lot of the uh Congressional Black Caucus wasn't excited about it'cause these sort of things dilute.

the percentage of black vote in some of these districts. So in theory that could mean fewer black representatives in the future. I don't really think that's a real risk. I think they were being a little over cautious, but still like they he had to he had to navigate all that. So kudos. Isn't the more interesting story on the Republican side here? Like, Trump opened up this can of worms. Trump's super pack is sitting on like three hundred and some odd million dollars. They spent nothing.

Unbelievable. Zero on the Virginia redistricting fight. And what are they waiting for? Well, what's the money for exactly? That was that's insane to me. I mean the Trump family, Devin Nunes, the Senate, I guess. I don't I'm not sure. And I know that they're gonna start spending on Senate ads early, uh that we've seen those reporting. But I agree with you. And I think the other thing that's insane is just

the way in which they failed to press their advantage. Just kind of taking back the clock because you kind of forget this stuff, go on news cycle to news cycle. But there was at least one of these podcasts where I sat Where The Texas thing looked like it was gonna happen. Missouri, Indiana, Florida were talking about getting on board. There was a concern that the Voting Rights Act would would drop.

I remember I had a conversation with Mark Elias about this and it was like there was a inflection point before the Gavin thing literally looked for certain where it was like Actually, they might be able to gerrymander their way into almost a foolproof majority. Like had everything gone right for the Republicans and had the Democrats dithered, they could have like built themselves up like a twenty six, seven seat cushion. Who knows? Like maybe that

in a wave they st the Democrats still eke out the House barely. But the they could have almost like gerrymandered their way to a full proof majority. And there was like a week a couple months ago where it looked like that was maybe the median outcome. And and to go from that to now, the Democrats probably end up netting one or two seats out of this whole thing. It is crazy. Again, Trump starts something, doesn't figure out how to finish it off.

And I think the other big inflection point was when Indiana decided they weren't gonna do it and then Trump basically just like flailed and said he's gonna prime rate the hell out of these people and nothing's really happened.

Yeah, speaking of primaries, the other thing I thought was interesting is showing Trump's weakening position in these sorts of things. So Massey is the other one that there is a primary and they are spending some money against his primary opponent in Kentucky. That's coming up. But yesterday I just saw you remember our old friend Kyle Rittenhouse? Yeah. Old friend Kyle Rittenhouse endorsed Thomas Massey yesterday.

And this might seem like a silly thing, right? It's kind of like, okay, who cares? But They're just all these little data points that the conservative grift class is not scared of them anymore. Yeah. You know? Like ten months ago, there's just no way that a conservative grifter would have endorsed Thomas Massey. Uh you know, unless they're personal friends with Thomas Massey or a libertarian or something. But like, why why risk Trump's ire?

you know, when t Massey is his number one foe right now. We'll see how that primary shakes out. And I think I I've I've talked to folks around that race and, you know, I think there are legitimate concerns that Massey still goes down in a close race, but The fact that Massey is not only surviving, but getting endorsements.

And not backing down an inch and not doing the kind of campaign where he's like, I'm I'm the real endorsed Trump candidate. You know, like some of the people who oppose like that's what Bill Cast is doing here in Louisiana. Like he voted to impeach Trump, and every time I turn on the fucking NBA playoffs, it's like Bill Cassidy is the real MAGA Republican. Julia Letlow is a woke bulwark lib, you know, and it's like, okay. That's not what Massey's doing. And I think that's pretty telling.

Are we gonna talk NBA plus by the way or no? Sure, we can save up well, I got potpourri at the end. I will say you're right about that and it's only gonna get worse after the midterms. I mean he's a lame duck. That's just what happens with these people and he has a lot of power. Still, I'm not gonna undersell it and he can you know, get a social media horde sicked on someone and he's got that money. And yet

After the midterms, he's not up for reelection. No one knows where that money's gonna be placed. And I think you're just gonna see a lot of these people who would have been scared of Trump just like Kyle Rittenhouse just be like, you know what, I don't really give a shit anymore.

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What will happen for the people that are in the administration, though, I think was gonna will be the real question of the post midterm. What do you mean by that? Yeah, what are the incentives for people who are in the administration and now how loyal will they be and what will they go down with the ship with them? And so to that

Uh I want to start with Kevin Walsh. All right. He had his confirmation hearings yesterday to be the new Fed chair. Kevin Walsh is the Nepo son-in-law of Ron Lauder of Estee Louder fame. He is the billionaire who is behind the season Greenland plot. He's also in a lithium deal with the United States government right now. Epstein friend louder and Epstein were friends. Uh Warsh was also invited to some Epstein parties. So that was the choice.

for the Fed Chair. Somebody who's like kind of serious on the economic stuff, but also has been a Trump hack. And um his performance yesterday. I've got one clip I want to play, but what was your what was your big takeaway from Kevin Walsh's confirmation? Having read Catherine Rampel's piece on it. uh I'm kind of struck by how hackish he is. I if you looked at his resume, not sort of with great detail, but just saw all this the stuff on the on the CW, like he does play the part Right.

And yet he's contorted his views of fiscal policy just to get the job. I mean he's basically been an inflation hawk his entire life, except for when Trump's

the president and then he becomes someone who wants to cut rates. And there was one moment I it's obvious he gotcha from the hearing and I didn't think the senators did particularly great, but there's this one moment where Elizabeth Warren asks her traditional question and it's You know, the thing that they do now at all these hearings where she's like, Who won the election in twenty twenty?

We actually have the audio on that Sam. Uh let's take a listen to Elizabeth Warren, Grill and Kevin Warsh. So independence takes courage. Let's check out your independence and your courage. We'll start easy. Mr Walsh, did Donald Trump lose the twenty twenty election? Uh we try to keep politics if I'm confirmed out of the federal design. Ask you a factual question. I need to know, I need to measure your independence and your courage.

S Senator, I believe that this body certified that election many years ago. That's not the question I'm asking. I'm asking did Donald Trump lose in twenty twenty? Man, I'm suggesting you in twenty twenty the Fed meeting. That's what they are. Your huge inflation problem.

And so I I watch this and I'm like at first I was like, Well, why is she asking this is like you should be focusing on fiscal policy and and the independence of the Fed and the investigations into uh Lisa Cook and and Jay Powell, obviously. And then it got I I thought about the reason she said it, which is obviously you have to be able to like stand up to the guy. That's pretty much the biggest part of this job.

Is can you be independent from the present? Cause they're gonna have tons of pressure put on you. Yes. And if he can't just basically answer that question, then he failed the test. He did. And so I thought in this case it was a very useful use of that gimmicky question, because it shows that he just is gonna do what he can do and say what he has to say to stand the job, which is concerning.

He wouldn't condemn the Cook and Powell investigations too. Right. And this is one of those things where You know, my point of view is just if you ask you ask who won the twenty twenty election, you just say Joe Biden and move on, like the degree which she's like, I would Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok Just like shut up. Stop being a douche. Yeah, do you think tr do you think Trump would act I mean, maybe Trump's so petty that he would be pulled the nomination?

Right. He's already been nominated. He's already been nominated. So what what are you worried about? And and this is what worries you about him being in there and this role. You know? You'd roll your eyes at it if that was him on C N B C and Andrew Ross Orkin asked him that a two weeks before he was nominated and it's like, okay, this guy wants to get the job, he shows himself out to be a big wuss, but okay, that kind of

Now it's alarming. It's like you've already been nominated and you're testifying under oath. Like just and and you're supposed to be the independent fetcher, just say it. And again, like it would have maybe been different if you if he was if then at least in the areas under his remit.

he was clear that he'd be independent, right? And then he was just like, no, those investigations into Cook and Powell are wrong or sure, you know, yes, I will abuck the president if he ever tries to pressure me. But he wouldn't he didn't do it. None of those he he weasel out all of them. Weaseled out of all of it. And the most charitable view of this is that he's just saying what he has to say. And once he's in the post, he'll be fine.

There's nothing that's given me any indication. And I I I really trust Catherine on this, but she was watching and she's just like, there's nothing really that comes to the surface to suggest that he will And Trump's been very explicit that he wants rate cuts no matter what. And Walsh has been pretty explicit that he recognized that the reason he didn't get the job in the first Trump administration

was because he wasn't forcefully advocating rate cuts enough. So it's all pointing in the same direction, which is he's gonna go in there, he's just gonna do Trump's bidding.

Yeah. The other thing he said, I would say that the broad contours of the economy are improving. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Are they? What what parts? Yeah, it doesn't what's the broadest contour? The crypto to the market. Crypto's kind of down. Okay. Private prisons? Private prisons is improving. Uh if you're if you're a landman character, things are pretty good right now. I don't know. Other than that, question mark.

I wanna highlight two uh bulwark stories and we'll get to our cabinet rankings. Will Salantin uh was stepping in for Joe Purticone. Shout out Joe Purticone having a baby. B a lot of bulwark babies out there these days. Had a baby not having had a baby. Yeah, didn't I say that? Pad, baby, beautiful, ant, obviously.

Obviously great jeans. Yeah. Not that we're doing calipers stuff and like jeans stuff right here. The new baby, Joe Burgo's new baby, really looks the part. Okay, really looks the part of a good looking baby. Um sitting in for him on the Press Pass newsletter, we're looking at The various Mam Dani acts going through Congress. Three of them. Kids really think they're clever with various things that are uh would have the Mamdani acronym.

The couple of them that really uh jumped out at me was one was the Chip Roy Act about measures against Marxism's dangerous adherents and noxious Islamists. And it basically was saying we will deport people. who are immigrants to this country, who are socialists or Islamists or who believe in Sharia. will not allow immigrants to come in if they believe in Sharia or if they uh believe in socialism. Chipperway is a separate act banning Sharia in the country.

I got a couple of thoughts on that, but I was wondering what your takeaways were from the story as the editor. I feel like well yeah. I feel like we could get to five momdaniaks. The the acronym game could be yeah, at least. Mom Dani is just really mogging. It's on movie. I turned on Hannity the other night. Literally, not like a little funny bit, like we do a little bit for five seconds. There's a full segment, like commercial segment commercial dedicated to the Mamdani Kurt.

Which was that the Mets have not won a baseball game since he hugged The the mascot. He had a guest on to discuss it. And it was like an eight minute

I'm just like the Montani derrangements and no, I'm dead dead serious. I sat there. I maybe it was four minutes. I don't know. It was a length it was a full guest. It was a l it felt like eight minutes. It was a lengthy segment on this. And it's like these guys are Or the conclusions they drew that he actually My done, he's a socialist and he's bad for New York and he's a c he's cursing the city. He's responsible for their bullpen collapses. I don't really understand this.

The grocery stores. I don't know. But I there's the obsession And there are no chinks in the armor. It is kind of like it's very trumpy. There's a little bit of uh like Mam Modani has some like for a long time there were no chinks in the Trump armor. Like it doesn't feel like they can land a punch. Anyway, sorry. Three Mandani.

One other problem is that Trump is seems to be totally obsessed with the guy in love with him and he just can't get enough of him. These acts, they're so stupid. This is so this is so dumb. But I will say the Chip Roy one is particularly dumb because if you actually read it as Will did and you like take it to its logical conclusion. It's not that you're like a self-identified socialist or something like that. It's like you believe in socialism. Yeah. And that would be enough.

So I it would be uh if you if you took it to its Basic conclusion, like AOC would be thrown out of the country, Bernie Sanders would be thrown out of the country. It's so dark and silly.

And worse than that. Un I mean, it's un American. I mean it's just fundamentally aga uh against the basic tenets of America. We live in a pluralist society. It doesn't actually matter what your political beliefs are. We live side by side as neighbors and work in a democracy and you can vote for your side and we can vote for our side. Like do you think people really believe that we're about to be overrun by Sharia law in this country?

I'm glad you asked that, Sam, because I don't know, but if you were If you were, if you were genuinely concerned about Sharia coming to the country, I would think that you would also be pretty alarmed that the Sharia law dictators in the Middle East seem to own our government. Yeah. We're getting a free Air Force One from a Sharia Law government in Qatar.

Donald Trump's kids are in business from a s with the Sharia government and the UAE. His son-in-law is in business, the Sharia government and Saudi. Apparently those Sharia governments were pushing for us to get into this war in Iran. We're sending our you know, young men and women over into harm's way because the Sharia governments that Donald Trump has buddied up with are concerned about the s their safety.

It's like, okay, you know, they've they've bought our sports league, so maybe they're getting out of golf now. They're getting into our movies, they're investing in the movies. I I just I would think that if like you were serious about combating the influence of Sharia in the country, like rather than talking about like deporting a handful of immigrants.

You'd be talking also or maybe not rather, maybe in addition to that, you'd also be talking about like limiting the ways in which these Sharia dictators can invest in and and get their, you know, tentacles into our economy and into the president's family. Someone needs to put together the Kushner Act. I I can't come up with the acronym right now. Or the Witkoff Act.

Yeah. Someone someone in the comments give us a good acronym for that. But like, yeah, why why does Jared get to hang out with all the Sharia dictators and take their money, but we can't incorporate some of their great laws? I sh I should say for full disclosure. You're gonna make fun of me for this, but I may go to the Qatar Embassy party for the White House correspondence here. That's a short party. Yeah. I think it's cutter. I think it's pronounced. Oh you you it's to each his own Tim.

Go to the hot don't go to the fucking cutter party. Don't what are you gonna you gonna throw blood on? Take some red paint and throw blood on the wall. There's the grinder party and then there's the cutter party the same night. You're gonna be a bridge, if you will, an Eiffel Power between the grinder party and the cutter party. Maybe we can intermingle the two. Yeah. How would that go over? I don't th I don't know.

Final point. I think that Sharia's much more dangerous that Sharia has integrated itself into Mar-a-Lago than into you know local governments across the country. Which they have not done. Just to be clear, they are not in local governance.

I do I do hope that the chip roys of the world w will will get on that if they're concerned about Sharia. I just want to mention this, I'cause I appreciated Jonathan Cohn's article about this and I felt that I didn't talk about it yesterday. Uh there's this horrible mass shooting in Shreveport. Arkansas, Louisiana, we kind of

Shreveport's basically Arkansas though. I could it's I I don't like to own it. But uh Shreveport, Louisiana, just this horrible mass shooting. One guy killed eight kids, uh, aged three to eleven in various houses. You know, it's horrible. And Jonathan Cohn wrote about how it's the worst mass shooting we've had.

in in quite a while as far as the number of deaths and and then for all the deaths to be children. And it's just it just didn't like the n the news coverage of it was basically nonexistent. Sad. Yeah. No, this I I'm really grateful that Jonathan wrote this piece. Um

'Cause it's i it really does get to me. You and I were were fr the same age and obviously we were around uh during Sandy Hook. And I remember that day very vividly. Sandy Hook uh is a town that's about forty minutes from where I grew up and And also just the sheer horror of it. And I remember like walking around that day and just it's kind of like daze. It was just awful and you couldn't really comprehend it. Like it it didn't compute that something this horrible could happen.

in our country and then, you know, we had a big gun control debate afterwards and it failed and all that stuff. And it was just demoralizing. And, you know, I I wrote a lot about this, about how this was the toughest day at the Obama White House and how they had to go about trying to figure it out. And I say that all because, you know, that wasn't that long ago. I mean, it was long ago, obviously it was twenty twelve, I believe.

But we cared then. And now you have eight kids who are just slaughtered and It didn't even and Colin was looking at the the major news outlets, it didn't even make like top six stories. And we live in a society where we basically become totally callous to the idea that someone can gun down eight kids in two houses.

And that's just the way of life. And we deal with it and we move on because we have become accustomed to it. Now there are circumstantial differences here, obviously. This was two homes. It was a father, he was suffering from clear mental issues versus a school where anyone's kid could be. But at the end of the day, eight kids died, three to eleven, and nobody seems to have cared. And this is not a unpreventable

Situation. There are things you can do to prevent these types of tragedies from taking place. We just choose not to do it. That's the problem.

Yeah, and the guy had had another gun gun crime in the past. I continue to just say that I I think that there is this sense of political fatalism around this issue. Which I understand. I think particularly after Sandy Hook and then after Parkland, like this idea that's just there's nothing that can be done, but like stuff can be done. I a Republican governor, Rick Scott, who's now a senator, signed the red flag while after Parkland. Yeah.

And since then Florida's gone the other way. Like they've loosened gun laws under DeSantis, right? They can be pressured and and I do think I I continue to think that I there was a period for good reason You know, th there was a lot of I'm for criminal justice reform and there are a lot of reforms that were needed to our criminal justice system and and continue to be there. But I think that that the focus on that on the left

People are a little bit scared to come out for like harsher, you know, kind of penalties and restrictions around people that have been violent criminals in the past or done gun crimes in the past. And I do think that like pairing something that is a little bit stricter around violent criminals and gun crime, like crimes using guns, you know, not drug crimes or whatever, but like, you know, crimes where improper use of gun was what you what the person did. Pairing that with

Gun reform, I think is popular. I think most of the people in the country want that. And nobody's really done it or tried really hard on it. I don't know. I think that that's a viable. policy platform for a twenty twenty eight Dem if if they want to have the the courage to do it. Well Is a different version, but similar to the ninety four Crime Book. It is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean the knife.

And there were bad stuff in the crime bill. You hate to bring that up because there's some bad stuff in there, but like the the the basic contours of that deal, which is like cracking down on criminals and cracking down on guns. It was tons of money for cops, yeah, after school programs. much stricter penalties for those who were convicted, and that was the issue that got a lot of people. But in exchange, real gun control legislative reforms, including the assault weapons ban and

Look, it worked. But the assault weapons van, this is irrelevant to this situation in in Louisiana, but the assault weapons van lapsed because of it had to be on a ten year window. But yeah, you're right. Like This is the combination legislation you're going to have to do. And no one's putting it forward because there is a fatalism about it.

All right. To the cabinet rankings. Everyone's favorite part of the show. Hell yeah. Want to go back into history here. Me and Sam have been doing this since the beginning of the uh administration. We rank the worst cabinet members. It is so competitive. It's so and I agonize over. If it's a good idea. It's so challenging. If you go back to the end of the year, for example, our Christmas time rankings. Sam's worst has Christy Gnome now gone, uh our rest in power. Uh Christy and Brian.

That's why the Bryon story really got dark. Yeah. That's tough. I mean it when it when you like literally are Sam Rockwell and White Bonus, things are getting a little rough. Christy Gnome was Sam's first, RFK was number two, Hegset three, Russ vote four. For me it was Gnome Rubio Bescent. at the end of the year. And then a couple of months ago, uh, after Gnome was defenestrated, on my list was Rubio Hegseth Bondi was my top three. Arrest easy, Pam Bondi and Sam's was Hegseth Bondi RFK.

So Bondi is now out of the picture. We've put Russ's vote out of the picture. We're not counting him in the cabinet. I think just because of all the attention that he has received in the past week, I'm gonna throw cash in. So it's a range. In the cabinet. He's not no no no no he's not in the cabinet. No, we can't do that. Fucking Steven Miller. We can make up the rules. No no no no no. There have to be rules. No, absolutely not. Market zero Market Zero Smoker Smoky was it Stepped over the line.

Canton. Zero. Okay, fine. We won't put cash in. Where would cash be? We'll d we'll discuss those a bit. In Claire Watts. That's why you can't put'em in. All right. So the worst cabinet officials, as it stands right now, we are gonna include Obviously a as an option, the new uh DHS secretary, Mark Quayne Mullen. Uh and then I would like to include acting attorney general Todd Blanch. Is that okay for you? Yeah, acting attorney general Todd Blanche.

So they're both in there. Sam, uh are we gonna do a f uh a power four or a power three? Power four. Power four. Okay, fourth place. The fourth place cabinet member for Sam Stein. Fourth work. Okay. Wow. See, the bet the my top ones now being gone makes this a little complicated, obviously. I'm gonna go with the ones who I think are the worst. I'm not gonna rank them yet. Yeah. I'm just gonna throw my'cause I wanna think this through a little bit.

we're gonna talk it out Like who is even in the no who could even be in the nominating category? Amen. Go to the nominating. It's very clear that Hegseth is obviously in top four. That's Pixeth and Rubio and Blanche and RFK, I think, are obviously in the nominating category. So you don't have to include them, but they're all in the nominating. Yes, they're in the Namanine category. You know. Are we just gonna take Lutnik out? I guess he's kind of fallen off the radar.

Chris Wright's had a really bad run. Yeah. Chris Wright's had a bad run. Like he's talking about bringing back coal as like our main source of energy. Yeah. And he's just satisfying. It's like, yeah, you know, I mean, the gas prices were high among guys. That's what it is. Yeah. I keep wanting to get Brooke Rowland. Brook. I knew you were gonna say Brooke Ron. I keep wanting to get her. Make the case for why she should be. Who has been harmed were I I mean I I guess

Uh immigrants? If you're if you're just kind of trying to categorize groups, all right. I know we don't like to do identity politics on the board, but if we're gonna do identity politics, which identities have been have been most harmed by this administration, materially harmed? Immigrants, recent immigrants, people of Sileys, like anybody in that category would be number one. Farmers might be too. I mean, like the farm economy, uh the Iowa's economy is in shambles.

The farm economy's only gonna get worse. Fertilizer prices now are skyrocketing, gas prices are skyrocketing. Brooke Rollins is like you guys should just have a chicken in your backyard and do your own farms Uh Like the I'm doing anything. Yeah. So I just I think that you have to throw it out there. That's a good thing. Did you see a picture of the strip club that she went to?

I gotta tell ya, I haven't been following the Department of Labor drama that closely because, you know, there's just a lot happening in the news. But there's a lot of weird stuff happening. I mean, her her husband and her dad We're sending inappropriate text messages to the staff. Your dad too? Yeah. I did not know that. Okay, I'm gonna put this we'll put this on the screen for YouTube people and I'm gonna share this with you right now in Slack. Exactly.

This is a post from the person that you're trying to dethrone right now, Jane Coaston. And uh she visited this chip club. That is a script called. Angels, Dancers, Lottery, Food. It is the most depressing building I've ever seen in my life. The Secretary of Labor was in there. Well, you haven't tried the food there. Uh you don't know. Could could be top cuisine. Now open. That's a rough that's a rough joint.

I I wish I could describe this. I mean we are in what looks to be a rural to ex urban strip mall that where everything else is is is empty. There's a parts store and then there's Kind of like a a s concrete a small concrete square with like a Some shingles on top of it. It says Angel Strip Club with a ladies the outline of a booby lady in the picture. Do you see a little sandwich? Yeah. Do you see a little sandwich sign s sign? It says food to go in case you just want to grab the food. Mm-hmm.

In case you know you just want the food but not the stripper. The Secretary of Labor was just vibing. Angels Strip Club. Imagine you work in that club and the labor secretary kind of rolls up, Madam Secretary. No, no. This is in Portland. This is in Portland, Oregon. Okay. So we're not gonna we can't include her, she's out.

But we do have our next assignment for uh Jared Poland's video series. Yeah. Uh and let the economy's still not going that well. We can't let Nutluck out. So I would say that the nominating category would be Heggseth Rubia, Blanche, RFK, Wright, Rollins, Besant, and Nutlik. Those would be the eight potential nominees for Word. Okay. I'm gonna go my first, the worst. I'm gonna work it down. Worse is hexagon. Absolutely. And the reason that he's bad even more bad now.

Is that he's taken some of the RFK shit and just adopting it as his own. Like getting rid of the measles, uh sorry, the flu vaccine requirement was a real stroke of fucking genius. Uh, let's just get everyone really sick. That's that's smart. So he's my number one.

It's not even close. And we should just say that I think that at the end of the year, like following, you know, the murders of Americans in the streets, I Christy Gnome really solidified herself as the worst cabinet member. A lot of competition, a lot of discussion. I I think now uh pretty clearly Pete Hagseth is the worst and it's not really even a close second. It's hard to even to to to provide a secondary nominee. I I totally agree with that.

I continue to put Bobby up there as my number two. Uh I can't just quit him because he sucks. Okay. Well I'm gonna make the pitch for Rubio is number two. Okay. He was your number two last time too. Yeah, I think Rubio stays in my number two slot. He's the reason all this shit's happening. Yeah, that's a good point. He's the reason why it's all happening. Like it's not uh uh the Venezuela keeper was a Rubio

deal and the it succeeded. And, you know, he's the neocon in the administration. He's the one that wants to overthrow these regimes. I do think that there's some reports that he was a little bit skeptical, at least of the BB presentation and the in the situation room. Unfortunately, if we could include B B Yeah. As the cabinet member in New York.

number two for me, but I I think that's a little bit of a stretch. And so I you know, Rubio to me is like supposed to be the adult in the room and the thing that is in his portfolio is the policy item that is wrecking the president's standing, wrecking the economy, resulting in the deaths of American Service members unnecessarily. I just think he's a clear two for me.

Okay, fair enough. I'm gonna ask to go top five because I have I have a couple things here. Yeah, I just I'm thinking it throwing out. Make you s I was gonna make you s do only three. I was gonna leave this hard choice for you in the third uh third slot. It's it's there's a lot because you made a compelling case about Ruby. He's gonna be my fifth. Ruby is gonna be my fifth. My third is gonna be I just think the economy's

Yeah. I I mean do you like the economy? Are you happy with how things are going? No, the economy's a nightmare. Yeah. No, and I hate I hate Vescent. I just have to look around and um, you know, I can't let my personal Distaste for Scott Bessant, you know, affect my rankings. I mean the sanctity of the rankings seem to be most important.

I know, I know. And I I I mean look, I find him totally repulsive in every way, and he's a horrible representative of homosexuals. But um it's gotta be Todd Blanche. It's gotta be Todd Blanche. I guess I might I I'm not saying Todd Blanche isn't But he's just started and I need a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit Did you did you watch Todd Blanche's press conference yesterday? Well it was like

He's like I've that he's I never have a press conference about the Atlantic article about how Cash Patel needed the SWAT team to break down the door'cause he was so drunk and he's just like I didn't read the articles. I he isn't he is responsible for the Glenn Maxwell move to Club Fled.

Trump obviously trusts him more. He moved I I as insane as it sounds, the reason why Bondy got moved out is that Trump didn't think she was doing a good enough job of going after his political foes and he felt like Blanche could do better. I don't even really think it's close to for much.

Okay. I I I I I look when we revisit these rankings soon, it's I I will have more material to work with with Blanche. I'm gonna give him a little bit of space here. Also, I thought the press conference was awesome. But I thought Cash was the real star. I mean Cash just absolutely getting killed under under questioning and refusing to answer whether he they're like, Were you worried you're gonna get fired because you couldn't it's couldn't log into your system? He's like

Couldn't answer the question, refused to answer the question. Shout out to Ryan Riley at NBC for pushing him on that. All right, uh, four for me, four for me, because five is Rubio, four for me is gonna be Chris Wright. For the reasons I explained. This man is in over his head. Like we are in an oil crisis. He's talking about gas, never coming back down for a while. And then he's like, well, we got coal. And I just feel like we need someone a little bit more in their debt.

at this moment at the Department of Energy, and this guy ain't it. So he's not ever been in our rankings before. Chris Wright. This is new. Yeah. Chris Wrong, you might want to call him. Okay. Chris Wrong is not gonna make my list, but it's a good nomination. Um I mean it's it's really

If RFK, I uh you know, Tulsi uh uh was out in the nominating category because she's against the war and she's gonna be fired. So I I was like looking for another foreign policy person because uh since the foreign policy thing is driving everything, it's hard for me to blame Scott Bessent.

for the economic situation right now in this moment because it's really driven by the war side of things. And so for that reason, I think he's gonna fall out of my rankings this time. I'm gonna put RFK number four And close out I've been dying to get Brooke Rollins into a ranking, so I'm gonna close her out at number five So I'm Heg Seth Rubio, Blanche, RFK, Brooke Roller. Congrats to Brooke. I'm really proud of her. It took a long time.

To even get a sniff as one of the worst cabinet members in this administration. And she's done it and she's earned it. You made a really compelling case for her and I'm really proud of her. Final pick for you, you'd Rubio. So your final ranking is Hegseth RFK, Bessant, right, Rubio, and Beg Rubio, Blanche RFK, Brooks.

Okay. Well that's good. We'll check back in in a couple of months. We're to close in the potpourri section. I'm gonna So two two items for you on Popori. One you posted this. Why aren't we talking more about down to fuck St. Louis? Dude, have you not watched it? I mean I watched a couple of episodes, it's okay with Jason Bateman. I love it' it kinda it feels kind of like Ozarks, but in St. Louis. It's a little Ozarky. The reason I liked it is because it was both fascinating.

It's because it's making you and the missus talk about maybe whether there's some ways that you could open 'Cause that's the thing that DTF say. It's like married couples are trying to, you know, mess around a little bit. Is that why? Not quite. Titillating the marriage. No, that's not it. Uh it it it's a really it's funny, but it's also incredibly sad. They managed to do the combination of that. And then I don't know, it was I thought it was really well done. Bateman's great in it and

I mean, obviously like it's probably one of the more interesting shows when it comes to the concept of like midlife loneliness, especially male loneliness. I'm not saying I'm suffering from loneliness, but I thought it was a really provocative I'm not. I'm really happy. I don't know. I I left every episode sort of

thinking about it. You know, when a show's really good when you're when you stop the episode and you're like, damn, I want to just stew over what what I just watched. And I I I really liked it. Now when I posted that, the the responses I was curious for the responses. A lot of people did not like it. And I was surprised by that. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh my husband did like it. We watched one or two episodes and I don't I I'm like way behind he's it's I'm kinda deferring to him on shows now'cause you know I'm either uh yeah, I'm either doing podcast outlines or following or fighting with someone on Twitter or dozing off during the shows now. So it's kind of like we're gonna let do what he wants.

I do have hacks' back. I haven't I haven't checked out yet. No spoilers. Okay. The one exception to that is obviously the NBA playoffs. Yeah. I'm kind of down about it right now. My nuggets my Nuggets fans, uh my Nuggets media pals. Um I did a Nuggets podcast with my boy Jeff Morton. If you want to hear my Nuggets takes, go check that out. But uh Jeff's more positive than I am.

I don't know. I just it doesn't feel like the Nugget's got that dog in them. Feels like we need Peyton Watson. Uh we've had some great games, though. The plan was great. Wemby just got hurt. That was what I wanted to talk about, Wendy. You saw the concussion. Brutal. I mean when you're that tall and you fall and hit your head Right on the He might be out the whole series. Yeah. I I still think they pull it out because the blazers are fine but they're not Yeah, they're just on the cover. Yeah.

Blazer's owner is funny. Have you found this story at all? He's like he didn't let the team have a late chat. He didn't let the team have late checkout. So ever the team had to hang out in the lobby for a couple hours. Currently super currently super cheap. Paid four billion dollars for the team. All right. Let let everybody get late checkout at the Hilton, all right? Not great. Uh

And then the the other series that's really the other series that's really intriguing is um Hawk's necks. I don't know if you've been checking that out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I got a lot of next thing. I again this is one of those things where it's like it's something similar. I feel like the Hawks are plucky and they're good, but they're not gonna pull it off. But man, these these two can both go seven. I would not be shocked by that.

Yeah. Well and I think Nuggets Timberwolves good too. I mean it's been like that game too. More realistic I I could have seen that even before these two series I was like, Okay, yeah, Spurs might sweep. Yeah, I'm a little down because I just it feels inevitable that we're we're Yeah. Thunder Celtics and I just can't. I can't do it. I can't I can't do Thunder Celtics. Can't do Thunder Celtics. Just the east feels weak anyway. I don't know. We'll see.

Detroit looks weak, Celtics look weak, Knicks look weak. I mean I I don't know. I don't know. It's it the funder on it. Who are you rooting for? Well I was rooting for the Spurs because my boy Steph Castle's on the Spurs and Clankens on Portland. I know. It's a little bit hard. But Steph, I I I don't want to get too into it, but like if you watch Steph just for a little bit.

you really start to appreciate just the the defense he has. I mean he does this kind of shadowy defense on these players where it looks like he's just totally beaten and then he can catch up with them and get in front of their shot. I just think he's so gifted. And then obviously Wemby's generational. And I'm worried that Wemby's not gonna come back in a while and and who knows what happens. But yeah, I'm rooting for the Spurs for sure.

It was really cool what they did with the with the uniforms in the stadium. Um I got love for the Spurs, hate for the Thunder. Sorry, okay fans. All right, that's Sam Stein. I don't know if it's gonna happen for ya. I know you really wanted to get back into the first place slot on most downloads, but uh the Wednesday one is tough. We got uh a lot of competition out there in the content space. I'm hoping for you though,'cause you you really you elevate the show when you come on. You do.

Well that's why you invite me and beg me to come on, yeah. Uh, you beg me. We uh on tomorrow's show we got a double header. We got a double header. We're gonna bring a little Chrismica, a little Chrismica in April, uh to tomorrow's show and have a new member of the bulwark on. It's a fun double header. Come out. Hang with us then. Make sure that podcast has more downloads than Sam so I can really rub it in his face. We'll see y'all tomorrow. Bye, Sam. Bye, everybody. Peace.

The Borg Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by