Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump SPEWS Propaganda in Unhinged State of The Union

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

On this episode of SPEECHCENTER Lovett is joined by Bulwark Media's Tim Miller to discuss Donald Trump's State of The Union speech, Ted Cruz being pressed on Kash Patel, and Zohran Mamdani's speech about snow balls. CHAPTERS 0:00 - New Epstein evidence 4:15 - Ted Cruz 8:48 - Trump's SOTU 21:07 - Mamdani's snow storm speech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to a very special state of the union post-mortem here on speech center. Tim, I just got back from Australia last week. How's Team USA been doing without me? The athletes crushing. I mean, doing just so much better than you did on Survivor. That's right. The gap is hard to measure. You know, you need, I don't know, the metric system or something. But, you know, the rest of America, shaky. I would say I did as well as the Israeli bobsled team, it would seem. I don't think there's only bobsled team, dude. I didn't watch a lot of boxlet team. I didn't watch a lot of the books.

I believe they came in last. Is that right? Last. That's tough. But before we get to the State of the Union, some news that broke before Trump hit the podium, based on some reporting over the weekend, which was corroborated by NPR, there are missing Epstein documents. The Department of Justice has not released this evidence, which seems to relate to a pretty credible allegation that Trump sexually abused a minor in the 80s. Here is Representative Jim Joy.

Gordon, learning about this in real time. A number of Democratic members are bringing in Jeffrey Epstein survivors as their guests. Some of those survivors have asked President Trump for a meeting. Should the President meet with them? I leave that to the White House. Would it be a good idea in your view? Everyone knows that the President didn't do anything wrong, because if he had, you don't think the Garland Justice Department

and the Biden administration would have brought something up? Our Justice Department is complying with the legislation we passed and with the courts and getting that information out there as the law requires. And as the courts have required, making sure you protect people who should be protected, but getting the information to Congress, as it said in the law we passed. You speak about President Trump. Congressman Robert Garcia said today that the DOG appears to have with a survivor who accused President Trump of serious crimes. Are you aware of DOJ withholding?

I'm not. Are you going to ask about it? Do you want to see this information? But I'm confident that Attorney General Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Blanche, the Justice Department, is complying with the law, complying with the courts, and, getting that information to Congress as the statute requires. Tim, are you confident that Pam Bondi is complying with a lot? I'm not. I'm not.

You know, the interesting thing, anytime you hear Republican talk about Merrick Garland, is there any person in public life where there's like a wider disparity between their public image? Anyone in the reality pro-democracy-based world sees Merrick Garland as like a wet noodle, like essentially was he comatose for many years? Like, did he do it? Was he even awake? Did he do anything? And then the Republican mega media image of Merrick Garland, as he's like,

J. Edgar Hoover on steroids. You mentioned NPR corroborated. Roger Solenberger's been on this. I talked to him on our page. And, you know, who the hell knows? The cues are 13 or 14. As you mentioned, is in the early 80s. The relevant thing is that there were four interviews.

The FBI interviewed are four times. And only one of the interviews in the Files, the other three or the fifth. 53 pages you mentioned have been covered up. And, you know, that speaks to the broader cover up that they're engaged in. We don't know anything beyond what is public and we don't know where the allegation is true. But the FBI doesn't interview someone a second, third, and fourth time if it is not in some way credible. And it is certainly the case that what Pambandi has been saying is not true. There is evidence.

This is obviously evidence of a crime. You may not believe it's true. It may not be corroborated, but there is evidence of a crime. This does change the story. There is an allegation that is serious that the FBI looked into multiple times that aligns with something in some of the evidence related to Galane Maxwell. There are so many moving pieces and information that has become public and been removed. It's often hard to keep track. But this is a different kind of allegation that the media is struggling to reckon with because it is so serious and so vile.

Second point, I think there's a horseshoe thing with Merrick Garland because I think where the right and the left agree is that. that Merrick Garland fucked up. Like, fundamentally did not understand what his job was as attorney general and therefore let down the country. And I think that's the place where Steve Bannon, Tim Miller, John Love, we agree. We agree on that. We now have a clip of Ted Cruz being pressed on why Cash Patel

was celebrating with the U.S. hockey team. Cash Patel back in 2003 went after Chris Ray, who was the former FBI director and said he, quote, doesn't need a government-funded G5 to go to vacations. And so I'm curious what your view is of Cash Patel's use of that plane. Murder rates across the country have dropped 20 percent. Violent crime is down. Terrorists are being arrested.

Gang members are being arrested. Rapists are being arrested. Child molesters are being molested. That's a real record of success. Why was Cash at the Olympics? Because the FBI has an important job protecting security there. You know, it's interesting. You see Democrats right now who are saying, how do we connect with real people? Then they turn around and get really mad. I can't believe Cash Patel was drinking a beer and celebrating with the American hockey team after winning the gold.

I would have loved to have been in that locker room. And I don't know, a guy on planet Earth that wouldn't have been thrilled to be celebrating. 46 years after the miracle on ice, that was a great victory. And I was cheering along with Cash. And, you know, it was awesome. The, like, pathetic raf that Ted Cruz has fully become... Where are you at with what Ted Cruz is saying here? Does Ted Cruz... Is Ted Cruz fully in now? It's hard for you to focus on his words because it's, like, full transformation

into an obese werewolf is, like, distracting. And I start thinking, like, what do you think Ted Cruz has to look like naked now? And it is a horrifying thought that really distracts me. And so I kind of missed your question a little bit as I was pondering that. But I think that the question was about what is...

Ted is genuine about all this. I don't know. I think he likes, like, you know, doing lib tier stuff. I think that's his comfort zone. That's his safe space. And so that's what he falls back into. Maybe he thinks that, you know, he's got to keep himself in the game here. You know, he can't become like a lib talking head, making fun of cash. If he wants to be in the game for that, that would be the most generous interpretation of what he's doing. But I just, I feel like it would be kind of safe, really, at this point, for any Republican to be like cash is a clown. And if you listen to like MAGA comedians, like, or even not MAGA, but like, Centa Red comedians, like, like, Cash is a punching bag for, like, the Tim Dillans of the

world right now. Like, he hasn't arrested anyone. Like, if you actually believe the conspiracies that they believe about the 2020 election and Fauci is free, Obama's free. They haven't found any fraud in the 2020 election. They haven't found Nancy Guthrie. They don't know the real, if you listen to Candace, they don't know the real killer of Charlie Kirk.

Like, Cash is such a dork. I think it would be pretty safe politically at this point to dunk on cash. When you look back on this era, it will be hard, I think, for people to understand how much the Republican Party became captured by Donald Trump when he was unpopular and when he did not have any kind of actual paramilitary at his disposal. These people are deferential to Trump as if there are brown shirts and there aren't as if he has the guys. As if there's like a million aggrieved German men with PTSD, angry about what happened in World War I running around in makeshift uniforms. There aren't. They don't have the fucking guys. He's unpopular.

They can barely find lawyers to do their political persecutions. They're dropping cases because the juries aren't on their side. The FBI is leaking like crazy against cash Patel. They don't have the fucking guys. And they're still so captured. It is so pathetic. They can't even jail Don Lemon. Yeah.

They can't even hold Don Lemon. They can't even hold Don Lemon. They don't have the shackles strong enough to keep Don Lemon behind bars. They can't do, they can't. They don't have the fucking juice. They got on their feet yesterday at the State of the Union, Tim, and applauded banning private equity from being involved in the free housing market. I love that you picked that story.

That's like, in what universe. He gives the anecdote. He gives him some of his ears. You can't even the frog of lies or you can't even keep up with them. But that was when I was watching live, it was like, wait a minute. He's like telling a story. And it's like, you know, Evelyn in Texas tried to buy 20 houses. But each time she was outbid by a corporate hedge fund.

There's simply no way that's, first of all, no way that's true. The idea that a bunch of Republicans are getting on their feet applauding for this, like, you all do not believe in this. What wouldn't you fucking applaud in this room? You absolute fucking weasels. It's unbelievable. We've already turned to the state of union. Let's let's go to a clip. Trump.

decided to bring out an old one of his classics about the people approaching them who are just so simply, they're just so sick of winning, Tim, but he found a way to save it with the help of some Olympians. Let's roll the clip. Our country is winning again. In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it.

People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore. take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country. Look at like Johnson. You came along. We're just always losing, but now we're winning too much. And I say, no, no, no, you're going to win again.

You're going to win big. You're going to win bigger than ever. And to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud. The men's gold medal Olympic hockey team, come on in. Yeah, we're winning on the domestic front because of terrorists. We're winning internationally because of hockey. Winning on the ice.

It is such a sign of weakness that this is like what he has to fall back on. For starters, it's hockey. If you asked Mike Johnson to name a single player on the team a week ago, I would have been like that guy that bet his entire life savings on Kalshi, on Doge, working there's an All Street Journal piece on him today I would I would put my entire Charles Schwab account on Mike Johnson being unable to name a single player in the men's hockey too this is what he doesn't care about hockey I he obviously is in kind of a sub-dom relationship with either Trump or his wife I mean he's not this is not this is

not a man that cares about I think he would name I think Mike Johnson would be like well there's Elia Romanov yeah Hollander Hollander right of course Hollanders Hollander is one of my favorite players, he would say. Yeah, that's right. So this is obviously fake. They don't care about it. And so the fact that Trump has this platform and wants to talk about all the successes and really, like, can't cite any specific successes of his own.

And there's the amorphous things about how we're in the golden age and how everybody respects us and loves us now and calls him, sir. But instead has to turn to the success of athletes that he had nothing to do. do with that doesn't they didn't know anything about they didn't care about until two minutes earlier um you know i mean whatever like uh it's a it's a gambit it's propaganda it's worked somewhat because it got you know people into a food fight over this which was which is what he wanted he wanted to steal their glory and and wrap himself in it but it's it's a sugar high like that doesn't really last the end of the day in november nobody's going to be like well we did win that hockey

Trump, we did win the hockey tournament. Yeah, I think that's mostly true. I do like, he doesn't want to acknowledge people's pain in the economy because he believes he gets nothing for that because he thinks he gets more out of saying the vibes are good and that that will make the vibes better and that he benefits from good vibes and he wants the good vibes from the hockey players. I think he got his stink on hockey more than hockey got its glory on Trump. And, you know, there is a lot of discourse around the hockey players and them laugh, whether they laughed at the joke. than being willing to go to the White House. And my feeling about the whole thing is, I am sorry we're in a moment where the president praising an American team

for doing great for the country at the Olympics is political, but it's political because this president is such a dangerous outlier. And that's unfortunate that it puts new responsibilities and onus, even on athletes, but it does. It does. And maybe that's actually not like a cool thing to say, and not the fun thing to say. And maybe what you're supposed to say, right, if you're like- No, it's a popular thing to say I was fighting with JVL about this over on the bulwark, and I was, I was swamped.

I was, I got crushed, dominated by JVL according to the listeners. But we might not have cool listeners, I guess. JVL's on my side, I assume. So I think there's, I think what's happening is, I think hyper-engaged people tend to have my view of this, which is everyone has a responsibility. I think the normies of the world would be on the side of why does politics have to be about everything? Like, why can't we just have a moment where we celebrate the hockey players? And I understand that. And like, so it's like, I get why the political, like the larger politics of this are just celebrate the hockey team.

Don't be a fucking scold. I don't want to be a scold. I hate the way I stand when I talk about this. But the truth, the moral truth, regardless of the politics is they were used as a political prop by the president. They were. That is not an a political act, even if they don't want to be political. That sucks. I wish we lived in a better moment.

But isn't that just true? What John Lovett is asking for, I think it's totally reasonable. You know, somebody spends their entire life, three decades, waking up before dawn, going into the rink, practicing hockey. Yeah, hit me. Lifting weights. Going to class, class ends. Other kids are going to smoke pot, not them.

They're going back to the rink again, more practicing, working hard. They have a really kind of either a tiger mom or an asshole of a father riding their asseshoe. all the time forcing them and bring no joy into their lives is there you know traveling to Saskatchewan on the weekends to compete against the other hockey players while their friends are having fun wondering what a skittal taste like yeah they grow up and it's entire everything you know kind of meets in this moment where you win this unexpected championship for your country something nobody thought you could win and all of your sacrifice becomes worth it

and then you get into the locker room and the FBI director is there and rather than having a beer with him what you are obligated to do is say sir release the Epstein files release all the files right now sir I'm sorry you are a murderer sir am I made of straw am I

I didn't think I was a am I a straw man am I am I a scarecrow here to word off the dangerous birds I don't care about the hockey team I'm just joking I know I don't Trump sucks, cash sucks. This was annoying.

Why are they fucking ruining everything? They're ruining everything. That's my point. They're just ruining everything. And I'm sorry that the hockey players are in this circumstance. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we live in a world in which we can't have an apolitical moment of the president celebrating the hockey team. But justice, the world we live in.

You're not mad at me for saying it. You're not you. People who are frustrated by this are not mad at you're mad at the situation. Really, because Republicans want it to be apolitical too, because they want Trump to be normal because of their great shit. because of their great shame and humiliation for what they've allowed themselves to become. Everything is about the shame of Republicans

and what they have done because in their hearts they know. Because even if they can't, even if it's subconscious, on some level, on some level, the quiet thing, whatever, call whatever you want, they know. And everything about our politics is about the denial of that truth

because that's why they hate us. They hate us because we're not dirty cops. Cash is just all. I mean, somebody just, honestly, though, it would have been fun for one of them to just give them a swirly, you know, or just give them a, what do you call it when you pull the under? A wedgey? An atomic wedge? An atomic wedge. Underware over the face.

Underware over their head. Talk about a moment of great triumph, something that would resonate through the generations to win the gold medal and then give the FBI director a wedgy in the locker room. That would have been something to consider for Jack Hughes. Didn't do it. Once Trump got through trying to take some of the glory of America's Olympic triumph, it was time to turn his sights on the Democrats. Trump had set up quite a trap and Democrats fell right in it. Let's watch.

Well, I mean, they did. I don't think it's much of a trap, but they did. It was a trap and they spunk it. Don't you think? I mean, I don't know. I go. Let's roll it. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support.

The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not a legal alien. Everyone, all the Republicans on that speak, Democrats aren't standing. You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself. That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminal. and enact serious penalties for public officials who blocked the removal of criminal aliens. In many cases, drug-lobal. So just for people who might not know exactly what's going on there, obviously Trump had

this line where he wanted Republicans to stand up and Democrats to sit so that he could call them disgraceful for an outstanding. What Elon Omar is shouting there is you killed saying that Trump is responsible for the death of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who are both. constituents of Elon Omar, so this is a, you know, he's claiming to be the one standing up for American citizens. His policies led to the death of two American citizens. So that is what that confrontation was about, man, Republicans want to make this the moment. They got us.

They got us. This is it. C-plus Santa Monica fascist Stephen Miller said that this is a moment that will live for a thousand years. That's how damaging it was. A thousand years from now. year 3,026, they'll be saying, remember that state of the union where the Democrats didn't stand. Do you think it's that damaging?

Oh, man. He was so proud of himself, that little gobbles, gerbils. I always want to say that wrong. That little fucker, he was so proud of himself. He really got him. He really trapped him. No, I don't think it will matter. I either could have stood up and give him the bird.

It's just like, it's so stupid. It's like, oh, you care more about American citizens than illegal immigrants. Like, you killed so American citizens. Sorry. Trick doesn't work. Trap doesn't work. Nobody cares. The only person watching to see who was standing was Megan Kelly.

She was like the hall monitor doing a roll call to see, make sure nobody didn't go outside the building during the fire drill. Eating her nightly meatloaf. Every night. Every night. It's a fresh meatloaf out of the oven bar. There's like, nobody fucking cares. So not, I don't think it will resonate for a thousand years now. The state of the union always just, it is a, like, he has the, like, the pomp of the old world and of the institutions that he tries again to, similar actually to the Olympians.

Like, he tries to take the kind of prestige of our institutions for himself, but the end result is he doesn't actually get it. It bugs him. Like, he's still, he's president. He still doesn't have the respect of the New York Times and all the people that he's, sort of. the New Yorkers that he's craved the attention of all his life. Like, he tries to get the prestige, but he just brings the whole place down to his level. All these sort of sycophant Republicans applauding his nonsense, pretending that this is anything other than a travesty, his ridiculous speech.

The fact that, like, there was a political story that was basically saying it was impressive that Trump managed to stick to the scripts or Republicans were breathing a sigh of relief as if the bar is on the fucking floor with this guy. But you don't worry, you're not worried about this moment. You don't think that this is actually the political windfall that Stephen Miller thinks of this. Nobody is going to remember this in a thousand hours. Forget a thousand years. Nobody cares about the state of the Union.

It was unbelievably boring. Like it was, it went on forever. That's it for the state of the union. One last moment we wanted to talk about, which is, you know, here in Los Angeles, it's been, the weather's been too good. It's been too nice. I don't know how it is down there in New Orleans. It was a little chilly.

You know, it got into the low 50s. Low 50s. But things are looking up for the weekend. I think that we'll probably be back in the speedo this weekend, I think. Wow. Looking up in more ways than one. In New York, meanwhile, they've had yet another snowstorm, and that led to a delicate moment for New York's new mayor.

Consider it or would you consider banning these crowdsourcing events because they can and sometimes do get out of hand? So I'm not going to be banning snowball fights or organized snowball fights. I've shared my thoughts with New Yorkers, and I continue to believe that what we are seeing in this response this winter blizzard from the city workers as a whole, and that includes the hardworking minimum of the NYPD is part of why the city is getting back on its feet, and I'm appreciative of that work. For people that may be not keeping up with the snowball politics in New York, there have been some snowball fights. some snowballs were thrown at police. Mamdani in a previous event,

or maybe earlier in this event, said that he appreciated how much the police were doing to help get the city through the storm and that if you're going to throw snowballs at a city official, do it at him, which I thought was a cool move. He's so fucking charming. He's just so good at handling these things in a way that takes the air out of them.

What do you think? He is good. I want to focus about how important, is that each generation is stalwart in defense of liberty, though. Yeah. Because there are, there are threats everywhere to liberty. Yeah.

You know, they're the ones that we see very clearly from the MAGA Republicans, as we've been discussing. But most ideologies have little, you know, kind of interests in authoritarianism, you know? Like that question for that, I assume it was a reporter who knows these days. Could that have been a local Karen NIMBY that is just, just like concerned about local officials could be. Could it be like a far leftist like Brooklyn food co-op person?

Could it be a Blue Lives Matter person? I don't know. I don't know who was the one that believed that the government should ban snowball fights. And we should criminalize throwing snowballs and that the police should be surveilling public parks to make sure that groups of people don't gather for revelry. I don't know who that person was or what their motivation was, but you can see there that, like, we always have to be watchful in defense of our liberty and our rights. And the fact that the socialist mayor, DSA mayor, a valid socialist, laughed it off, said, no, I will defend your right to throw a snowball.

I love that. I love that because we're going to need it. We're going to need the socialists, the neoliberals, the two moderate, moderate, Republicans that are left. Everyone is going to need to unite together in defense of our rights. And I love having Zoron on board for that. And you know that you know that you know that you know that you know that's a libertarian streak still. And a libertarian socialist might be my final form. Wow. Libertarian socialism. Uh, just a yeah, I that's that excites me. It's a constituency of no one. Uh, it's a beautiful thing and it has been so good seeing you, Tim Miller. Always love seeing you love it. And. And, And for everybody in New York, be grateful to your socialist mayor for getting the streets clean, not something a Democrat in D.C. could do apparently. So that tells you something about a socialist who can clear the streets.

You tell me we get a lefty who can build an apartment building in L.A. I'm in. Libertarian snowplow socialism. And on that note, that's speech center. See you guys next time.