Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: Trump Asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to Resign | Morning Shots

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Andrew Egger and Bill Kristol give their takes on the news White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia made when she announced on her first day that the White House asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign as U.S. ambassador to Greece. Beyond that, Zacharia’s first briefing was remarkably short, with questions from just a few outlets, all of them conservative, yet she still struggled to deliver clear answers and repeatedly returned to praising Trump.Plus, they examine Trump’s latest rally in Ohio, his attacks on Haitian and Somali communities, the federal raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home, and the growing weaponization of federal law enforcement just weeks before the midterm elections.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Morning Shots Live. I am Andrew Eger with the Bullwork, joined as always on Tuesdays by my Morning Shots co-author Bill Crystal. We've got a lot to talk about today. I should say off the top, thanks again to Ben Parker for covering on this show for me last week when I was sick. Back in the saddle now, mostly playing hurt. We'll mute to cough here and there. But we got a lot of news to talk about on the show today. The White House Press Secretary, the new White House Press Secretary, Katie Zachariah, she just gave her first White House press brief. as we were preparing for this show. We thought she would be giving that press briefing throughout this show and that maybe we'd cut to her, but it's already over. It was extremely short. She only called on four outlets, all of which were a conservative outlet. She called on Breitbart.

She called on Fox News, on News Nation, and then on the Daily Mail. But she did manage to make a little news here. I mean, it was sort of shocking because almost every question was a total softball, except for this one, she was asked, well, let's just play the clip. Why not? Let's just play the clip. Here's some news that the new press secretary broke just moments ago.

Alina, Shrazzi. Katie. Hi. Congrats on the job. Thank you. First of all, and I have two questions for you. I can. First of all, on Kimberly Gilquil, the Daily Mail has been reporting on her since last year.

The president said yesterday to reporters that he is considering firing her. Do you know a timeline for that? And also potentially, who could be on the short list to replace her if he does? We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign. She has been a wonderful asset to the team, and we wish her well. Okay. So that's news. Bill, Gilfoyle out as ambassador to Greece. Do you want to kind of like remind the people the bad situation that Gilfoyle has found herself in,

scandal-wise, while she's been over there? You know, I'm going to let you do that, Andrew. I think she was just a great asset. I really felt this American that it was great to have her there, for Senegal in such a fine way that in the cradle of democracy, which Mark Rubio spoke so eloquently about last week there. Yeah, well, it's been, it's been tough. Okay, sure, sure. Why not? I mean, it's, it's, the Wall Street Journal has been on the gilfoyle beat for, for a few days here. There have been a number of really unfortunate headlines. We, we talked last week. We wrote a lot

about the, the scandal between her and a MAGA donor who she had kind of strung along as she was going to be his his Trump whisperer in the White House and in the administration as long as he would continue to pay her a lot of money and, you know, wire $100,000 to cover her Amex bill, you know, before her confirmation hearing and a lot of things like this. Then a few days after that, we got another headline from the Wall Street Journal, basically saying that after she got to Greece, her, these sorts of ways continued, you know, she's she's paling around with Greek tycoons who appear to be underwriting various parts of her lifestyle. And she's doing, don't you know who I am, you know, kind of like bullying stuff to get into

various social functions. And she's telling different Greek businessmen, I'm going to make you a lot of fucking money. You know, you don't have the FNUS, you know, ambassador to Greece not come to these fancy dinners. She should be kissing my effing ass, Gil Boyle said to the events organizers. I just said it. I don't know why I'm censoring now. But so this is the kind of reporting that we've been getting.

about Kimberly Gilfoyle. It's kind of small potato stuff compared to the unbelievable grift we see from the president and his actual sons. But then again, she's not in the family. You know, she was Don Jr.'s longtime girlfriend. Maybe if he'd wiped her up,

they'd be able to get away with a little more or Trump would be a little more willing to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing. But as things are, she's just sort of the X that they kept around because she knows where a lot of the bodies are buried. I guess it's a bridge too far. I guess it's a bridge too far, even for a one-time paramour of the Trump's son.

I wonder if they're going to give her something, not in government, but make sure that she's well taken care of in Maga World. That seems to be their procedure when they fire people, right? Because they really do have a problem with some of them, if they ever said everything they've seen. And we probably know most of what they've seen, honestly, but still, it would be interesting to have some of it. A lot of the incredible grift and misbehavior confirmed. So I bet she'll quietly be taken care of. of fine, she won't be out in the street. Yeah, yeah.

In case people were worried about, you know, her well-being and stuff like that, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, I think as a first option, the president would certainly rather bundle her off as an ambassadorship. That way he doesn't have to have her underfoot, you know, around the White House or at Marilago, making things awkward for Don Jr. And also the public can pay her salary rather than, you know, him actually having to dig in and fork over some money to anything like this. But I kind of think you're right.

I kind of think you might be right. Kimberly Gilfoyle will almost certainly do just fine for herself. But, you know, do you have anything else on Gilfoyle before we turn the page on this? Because I do also really want to talk about Katie Zachari. I mean, the new White House president. Yeah, let's get to her. No, I just want to say, I'm amused by your somewhat old-fashioned notion that it would be awkward for Dodd Jr. I have her around.

I think we're kind of beyond the awkwardness of ex-girlfriends being around these days. You know, in Trump world, that's just like, I don't know, part for the course, isn't it? I don't know, man. There's no awkwardness about any relationships, I guess. I genuinely find it very difficult to, like, get into these people's minds, like, on an emotional level, like how they process any of this stuff. Just seems like I wouldn't be able to do it, you know. But you might be right. You might be right.

There's no deficit of shame. We're the worst. We're not the best expleters of the minds, the minds and worries of Trump world. Well, don't tell them that. That's how we make our bread and butter, you know. Good for it. No, no. Good in some ways, not so good in others.

perhaps least qualified to specifically comment on how acceptable or unacceptable Don Jr. would find it for Kimberly Guilfoyle to become just sort of a permanent sort of poolside fixture at Marilago. But anyway, none of that matters quite so much as the fact that, yes, she is now going to be, apparently, out of government. Trump has called for her resignation. So I guess there are some bridges that some figures in Trump world that can be a bridge too far, whether it's, whether it's, you know, specific dollar amounts or probably just specific levels of, of shameless behavior sort of written down and caught on, caught to be recorded by the later. One more minute on this before we get to the New Brass, Secretary, which I was just thinking about

others who have been dumped like Kristy Knoem. Trump seems to dislike it when people in his world are grifting in ways that he hasn't personally approved or maybe he doesn't personally get a cut of, right? And so the Nome Lewandowski thing was, was bad, not because of the, the money obviously or because of the actual behavior, but because somehow that was not sanctioned by him and then it was causing some bad press. So I think that's the case here, too, right? It's the unsanctioned Griff that he gets a little annoyed at. I guess that's very consistent with being a mob boss, right? You're fine with your own people getting stuff, but you don't like these outsiders coming in and taking a cut, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's true. And I mean, it is just kind of amazing how much of the stuff,

like there's a lot of these deals going on all around Trump all the time because there's so much opportunity for for grift and for graft. But so much of it, of the core of what has been happening, has been channeled through his family and then these families of people who are very close to him. You know, it's like his sons and the Wittkoff sons are kind of the two main ones. And then obviously, you know, Trump and Steve Wittkoff being involved in all that stuff as well. And Steve Wittkoff being one of Trump's main sort of outside ambassadorial figures doing these deals all around the world. I mean, it really is just staggering stuff. And it is, I mean, again, the split screen, it's, it's, you, you don't, what's the, what's the right way to put this?

You can understand how a person like Kimberly Guilfoyle could let her guard down and could be like, this is just what the world's like. We're just, we're just out here, you know, live in large because we get to, because we're the Trump's baby. And like, everybody has to, we're the Trump's and we're the United States of America and you have to give us what we want because otherwise we're going to squish you. And that's just sort of the M.O. But you have to have it under your own power. You have to. have it under the authorization of the president or you're going to get out over your skis, as you just mentioned, Bill. Christy Noem found that out. And now Kimberly Guilfoyle has found that out as well.

Let's talk, though, a little bit more about Katie Zachariah. She's the new White House press secretary. She replaces Carolyn Levitt, who, you know, retired at the end of, I guess I don't really remember how long it's been a month or two ago now after a lengthy maternity leave. I mean, she's barely been around at the White House in 2026, but was obviously, a fixture there all last year. Retired to spend more time with her family. Katie Zachariah, I would not call it a really auspicious debut for her. And look, it's a really hard job. I do not mean to discount this. It's like an insane job, actually. In a lot of ways, Carolyn Lovett was very good at

it. She kind of made it look easy, just being up there and always hitting her marks and never really getting ruffled. I mean, from the very moment Katie Zachariah takes the stage, she knows she's only going to call on a couple friendly outlets. And yet she's already like plainly very nervous. It's her big break. So let's just do a couple clips of her real quick so people can get kind of a taste of it. Here is her opening statement when she very first got up on stage. I am so honored to work for President Trump and the American people as the new White House press secretary. I want to thank President Trump for his trust that he has placed in me. I have wanted to work for him for a very long time.

I'm looking forward to working with each of you as well, especially as we are in the middle of the midterm blitz with energy and excitement, never seen before in the history of midterms, thanks to President Trump. Pretty good start, Bill. What do you think? Yeah, that's what I think about when I think about these midterms as I watch the Republicans pulling funding for some Republican incumbents and Trump flying all over

the country to try to save Republican senators in deep red states, you know, that there's never just been this energy and excitement, and it's all due to President Trump. I guess that's a correct statement in some level, right? Yeah, yeah. No, it is. It's all due to President Trump. No, you're totally right. I don't know. I mean, I think right off the bat, I mean, there's a couple things on display. It is another one of these blonde women that President Trump likes to surround himself with. I guess that's fine. These are the people he likes to put forward as his spokespeople. He thinks that they do well on TV. It is very, very clear that, like, the main thing about this woman is that she is obsessed with Donald Trump, right? I mean, she has, she idolizes him

personally in a way that maybe Carolyn Levitt did, but Carolyn Levitt never really led with, right? That was not like the first thing you thought of when she was up there talking. I mean, like, her face comes alive when she talks about how, you know, grateful she is. She's wanted to work for Donald Trump for a really long time. I just don't think that's necessarily a very helpful quality in a press secretary. I mean, it's a helpful quality in getting applications to be press secretary, to be press secretary. And Katie Zachariah, by the way, worked very hard for this. She strategized how to, you know, line up her TV appearances on these second tier Trump cable networks when she suspected Trump might be watching. And she, and it worked. You know, she caught Trump's eye. He started asking about her.

And like in that sense, she played this very strategically and landed the plane. But now she's there. She has this job as this spokesperson. And like, is that going to be helpful to the Trump message to have this sort of, I don't know, glassy-eyed, not very communicative or like helpful or quick on her feet person up there who's just sort of like doing the North Korea propaganda? Again, like at a level that even Carolyn Levitt wasn't really doing. And like, I don't know, like, I just think she's going to be worse at this job. Let's do a couple more clips here because, again, she only got friendly questions, but she still never felt, there never seemed like she was comfortable.

Let's just do this question she got from Peter Ducey, if we can do this quick. Again, nice, friendly Fox News question for Katie Zachariah on her first day. Thanks, Katie. Yes. Nice to meet you. You're starting as White House Press Secretary three weeks before a midterm cycle that President Trump himself says will be very tough for Republicans. Is your job just to speak about White House matters or is it to make things less tough for Republicans in the midterms?

Well, Peter, I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply, and expand upon President Trump's incredible agenda for the American people. And what I hope to do in this position is to take that into an official capacity and only build on, only amplify and only multiply. to the extent possible, all of the wins he's making for Americans. For Americans to understand how much has changed in this brief period of time, what he's been able to accomplish, my goal is to be able to communicate that in complete tandem with the president, as he is his own best spokesperson, and will absolutely be leading the way with that. And I want to ask you a policy question.

Has the U.S. stopped sharing intel with Ukraine? to get back to you on that. I don't know. She just doesn't seem like she's ready for the job. Am I judging her too harshly? Am I wrong about this, Bill? No, you're right. I mean, there is a lot of nervous this on the first day.

So I don't know if it matters, honestly, that we, you know, but yes, it was not a sterling performance. I was thinking what you were talking earlier about people who just have an adulatory attitude, you might say to President Trump, which he seems to like, especially if they're honestly attractive younger blonde women. But I guess the other most famous. one now is there is already already there is Natalie Harp, right? So there are two of them. It would be interesting to see who gets more time on Air Force One to chat with the president

and amplify and magnify and magnify and whatever the other adjunct verbs were there. President Trump's incomparable messages and achievements for the American people. Yeah, let's just do one more here. Just a little bit of a Freudian slip from Katie that we got, just for fun just on the way out here idea of not spending evenings with my kid is kids are is completely unacceptable so my president or excuse me my husband uh that's a that's a that's a good one my husband is out here so a little bit of a my president i'm sorry i actually meant my husband that was a question about work life balance if you were wondering why she was talking about that in the first place but again i mean just that's the job qualification that she has is this sort of

adulation for her boss for the commander-in-chief. Not really what you actually want in a press secretary necessarily, but that's her main qualification here. Right. Well, we'll see how she does. And, yeah, I mean, I don't think it will matter, honestly, in the next three weeks. I'd be pretty amazed if any voters change their mind one way or the other, except, well, just the general sense of the second term being so much more extreme in so many ways

in the first term, God knows, and policy and other things. things, rhetoric, but just in sort of the quality, honestly, of the people around Trump. I mean, Hope Hicks, I guess, was the kind of, she wasn't, like, press secretary, was she, but she was something, communications director or whatever. I can't remember what her title was. She was important, I mean, and she really did spend a lot of time with Trump. And she wasn't, you know, she had her own, I mean, she wasn't great from my point of view in any way, but a little more of a grown-up who, I don't know, maybe she occasionally could

tell Trump things he didn't want to hear, or in any case wasn't totally, you know, just I don't know what even the right adjective is, but anyway, totally taken away, captured by, captivated by Trump. So people like her are gone and now it's, and now Levitt's gone and now we have Zachariah. So. All right. All right. Yes.

I, I'm sorry about this. I would talk about this all day. This is the inside baseball thing that I am probably most captivated by or most sucker for, just as I cover the White House and like I, the intricacies of all this really are interesting to me. But we can put a pin in it. So suddenly, suddenly I'll be doing even, you know, I'll be doing the bulk. We share morning shots pretty evenly, but suddenly it'll be four, four and a half days a week for me. And Andrew, it's all right, too busy.

You got to be covering the White House. Exactly. Got to be at the briefing there. I can't really bother writing anything. Yeah, yeah. That'll be great. Our producers are razzing me behind the scenes because we've already been talking about Katie Zachariah for longer than Katie Zachariah herself talked this morning. So I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. We'll turn the corner. We'll do no more on Katie Zachariah for now. But just, you know, just you wait. I'm sure we'll have plenty more later. Yes, obviously, I don't think it really matters to the midterms. I'm just thinking more in terms of, you know, functioning of this White House going forward. It's a pretty important job, press secretary.

So we'll see how she does. But that's enough about her for now. Welcome to the area, Katie, you know, happy first day of work. Let's talk about the big guy. Should we talk about the big guy now? We meant to do this off the top before we got distracted by that Kimberly Gilfoyle news and had to kind of reorient the show around it. But we were going to talk about Trump's rally last night in Youngstown, Ohio.

Trump's second rally in Ohio in just about a week, by the way. I mean, I went to Ohio last weekend, caught a Trump rally, went to the funeral of that Haitian kid, Pierre DeMas Bell, who killed himself after his temporary protective status was revoked. And that was like eight days ago. You know, I got sick on that trip and I'm still kind of sick now and here Donald Trump is back in Ohio. So I guess he really cares about Ohio, really cares about playing defense in Ohio this time around. I did a video last night with Sam right after the rally. You can watch that if you want to on YouTube and Substack.

We talked about a lot of it. But we really wanted to focus in on this show on just a couple of the really ugly bits, specifically about a couple of these. I mean, he's really just where he's going after minorities, going after minority communities in Ohio, going after minority congresspeople and congressional hopefuls. But again, I mean, I just mentioned that funeral that I went to last week. He did a horrible riff at that rally about the community and the Haitian community in Springfield.

He did another one of those last night in Youngstown. So let's just listen to that real quick here. Idelic place. All of a sudden, they dropped 35,000 people in from Haiti and it didn't work out too well. Remember during the debate, I said some of the things I were doing. I was right. Turned out I was right. I won't get into the exact.

Remember that? I was right. And they're getting their town back. They're getting their town back. That was done by Sleepy Joe Biden in his group. Yeah. So what he's shouting out there, obviously, is his famous debate line where he slandered the Haitians in Springfield by saying they're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats saying that these people were, you know, abducting household pets from the poor put upon white people of Springfield and, you know, grilling them up to eat in their, in their savage third world way.

I mean, it's just, it was never true. It's not true now. He's saying that it's true now, but the, they're really glorying in the sadism, and the racism of it all. It's still striking all this time later. No, it is. And you know, you were there at the rally 10 days ago.

I was out the week before for the bulwark event in Dayton, which was, we raised a lot of money, which I'm pleased that we were able to do for the Haitian support center in Springfield. Before the rally, I guess Jim Swift and Tim and I and Sam Stein and Sarah Rogers all went to Springfield and spent two or three hours there in the afternoon. Obviously limits what you can learn in a few hours. It's a small city. So we actually got around a lot, talk to people there, talk to volunteers who are bringing food, canned goods and so forth,

to the Haitians who had lost their jobs, but they'd lost TPS, couldn't, we're working and we're paying taxes and we're law-abiding, but now can't work. So they're, and they can't leave their house because they're worried that they'll be picked up by ice. And so these volunteers to their credit are bringing them food, but that's a hell of a situation that the Trump administration has created there. And I just would say there's not a single human being. Maybe there's one, I don't know, in Springfield, who thinks that the town was not doing well.

And the Haitians helped, were beginning to reinvigorate it. It was still, you know, it's still a small town that was once in a more prosperous, more flourishing industrial area in the Dayton area. But nonetheless, they were causing no harm to anyone, basically. And no one there thought they were. And the mayor in Springfield didn't think they were. And the governor of Ohio, both of them were Republicans, didn't think they were. So it's the gratuitous cruelty and idiocy of it that strikes you.

And really, but the horribleness of it also that strikes you when you actually are in Springfield. Trump, of course, has never been to Springfield. He doesn't maybe like to see too up close. I mean, he's kind of a say this, but maybe he doesn't really like seeing it too up close. So it's easier to enjoy it from a distance and from behind. to podium. It's like when they beat up someone in a rally. And I think you wrote about that this morning, maybe. And, you know, he doesn't, he likes it sort of, but as long as he doesn't have to get too close to it. Anyway, he's never been to Springfield. I have what's happened there. It's

terrible. Yeah, yeah. That was another fixture of, again, just this rally last night, by the way, which, again, we talked about on the video, and I did write about a little bit in morning shots. There was a protester who was assaulted. I mean, a protester stood up with a shirt about releasing the Epstein files, a woman. and a man in the row in front of her just grabbed her and punched her and pushed her down and pulled her hair. I mean, it was quite violent. I mean, it's just, and nobody was stopping him. And the security came or the police came and they ejected the protester, but, you know, he was not charged. She wasn't taken into custody or anything like this. So, so yeah, I mean, it's just,

it's really ugly stuff out there. The other, it is not true that these Trump rallies are just one long sort of festivist of grievances against one ethnic group. after another. There's other stuff too, but like last night was a little bit like that. I mean, he had this, this long bit about the Haitians. And then he had another long jag about the Somali community up in Minnesota, which, which let's play that clip here too, because there's, because that's been back in the news. What's happening in the once great state of Minnesota, what a mess they have done. Somalia, wonderful, wonderful. And that Elon, somebody who was I don't know what they're doing with it, but I can tell you this.

She's a disaster. She comes in from a country without laws, without police, without military, all they do is shoot each other. And she comes into our country, and she says, I have a constitutional right. She's got a constitutional right. She's telling us about the constitution. And she comes from one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet. They came over here. They had nothing.

They came from a government that doesn't exist. They come from a part of the world that only knows how to kill each other. All they do is kill each other in the streets. Then they come into the United States of America and they tell us how to run our country. We're not going to stand for it. They drive up taxes. They drive up health care costs, insurance costs, child care costs, and they cheat on everything.

It's a disaster. And we're not going to stand for it. This is kind of a long-running, you know, Trump says this. about Elon Omar, who obviously is a very progressive member of the House. She's an antagonist of the president. He says some version of this line about her, not infrequently, where he is like, you know, she comes from this place that isn't even a country in the third world. And then she comes here and demands constitutional rights. She's an American citizen. You know, she emigrated here when she was a child. She's a citizen. She couldn't be in the House of Representatives if she were

not a citizen. But there's particular salience to this now, because just this week, there was a federal raid on Elon Omar's home. A person familiar with the investigation said it's related to alleged immigration fraud, per the Trump administration. And part of the probe concerns the Somali-born lawmakers' immigration paperwork filled out by her late father when she was a child. So, I mean, there's just the plain ugliness, right, of the rhetoric. And then there's the fact that the actual gears and cogs of government are being put

into action to turn that really ugly rhetoric. into actual political suppression and legal suppression. I mean, you've been talking to people about this bill. Where do, I mean, is there anything to this? Or is this just naked, I mean, what it appears to be is just sort of naked political retribution against Elon Omar here. No, it certainly seems to be that. I mean, even if I don't know if her father falsified papers to help get her in or something

like that, literally 30 years ago, she's been living here, went to school and college here, obviously got herself elected to Congress from here. What, now they have to have a pre-dawn raid at her house? What, incidentally, these raids on houses are supposed to be when there are documents there there might be destroyed. That's really the reason you do that, right? Otherwise, you just call up and say, would like you to come in and answer questions. I don't believe she has documents for 30 years ago that are, that her, she's been hiding away

her house in D.C., which she's probably been living in just for a few years. The whole thing's ludicrous. It's just, it's just what's depressing about it. I was, I guess, two things. One about the raid. It was depressing is that they got the government, you know, they are controlling the levers of power enough to get people to do this kind of thing. And I don't blame some, I guess, you know, agent somewhere who is told this is go, you're doing this raid. This is your order.

But on the other hand, it is DHS. So they're probably, some of them are probably happy to do it. But again, the degree to which they are using the actual levers of government power to go after enemies is not new, but it's particularly kind of appalling, member of Congress. used to be in 60 days before. There's so many reasons why this is so inappropriate. So that's bad. I would say also on his rhetoric, I was struck, I hadn't really focused until you showed that clip.

I mean, you say in the newsletter how just how bad it is. And I guess I assume it was, but it really is terrible in this sense. It's not even in this case about alleged things that they're, that the Somali immigrants are doing in Minnesota. I guess that's alluded too quickly. It's about where they come from. But, you know,

I listened to it. I thought, you know, my grandparents came from a very unpleasant part of the world where there was a lot of disorder and it was a horrible government. And they were fleeing that. Since when is it an attack on immigrants where they come from? It's almost the opposite in the America tradition, right? They come from pretty bad places. That's why they come here. Some of them come, you know, from good places and they just want even more opportunities. But it would be like the Irish in the 1930s and 40s, because, you know, it was horrible over in Ireland. There was a famine. and there was you know the people were desperate to get out i mean it's it's really so for him it's all about i suppose race i mean what else is really what we really talking about here and the fact it's africa i guess and that she's a muslim and a lot of this some of the some of her fellow many i guess were a fellow Somali immigrants at least are are moslems um but it's it's it's unbelievable for it to me to make that to really go after the place of origin though it's really it shows how nakedly racist and bigoted it is. Maybe we should attack the Trumps for coming from Germany. They didn't have such a great first half of the 20th century over there, you know? So, but I mean, no one even thinks of that.

It's ridiculous. You know, they came here to their credit, I suppose, and decided to live here as opposed to staying in Germany in the 1920s, whatever his ancestors came over. But anyway, it's not even worth getting into all this. The whole point is you don't get judged by where you're from. You get judged by what you do here. And she, quote, she's insisting on a constitution. for rights out if she's insisting on anything she's just trying to she got herself elected to congress and she's speaking her mind i'm not a big fan of her you know politically but uh and she's so i don't know what she's doing she's she's being a member of congress right yeah yeah well let me read her statement she tweeted this out um after the news of the rage she said i'm okay make no mistake this is an

attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement for 10 years trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns this is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation, I will not be silenced. And look, we all know why he's going after Elon Omar. She's a political opponent. She's a minority. She's easy for him to demonize across a whole bunch of different axes all at once, and he does them all at once.

It's a maximalist kind of attack, as always with Trump. Same reason why he's going after Somalis in Minnesota. And, like, there was a whole chunk of that clip that we didn't play where he is sort of like enumerating grievances. So he's talking about like specific instances of, of like gang violence or a specific terror attack that was recently thwarted by a radicalized Somali, Imam, I believe he said, things like this. So it's not like, it's not purely sort of nation of origin stuff. I should just clarify just because we didn't have that in that clip. But, but that's the, that's the gist of it, right? I mean, it's, it's the, they come into America. They tell us how to run our country. We're not going to stand for it. I should also point out there's a specific conspiracy theory. He did not really allude to it. But it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

load bearing here, which is that it is already the case that people who come into our country until they become citizens, until they become naturalized U.S. citizens through a pretty arduous process, even if they're here, they're not allowed to vote, right? I mean, they aren't allowed to tell us how to run our country, right, until they're citizens. But this is another sort of big component piece of maga mythology is that you have illegal immigrants coming in and just voting all over the place rampantly and just throwing elections to Democrats left and right. So that is another reason why his base can hear this and not immediately be like, wait, what are you talking about? Like, what do you mean come in and tell us how to run our

country? Because they think they do. They think that's how it works. So all these things just kind of, they feed into one another, right? They create this orivorous of badness and and grievance and anger and it doesn't go anyplace good. But it's not working either. So I guess that's the one good thing. there's not really any indication that any of this is really landing with the public. It still jins up a MAGA rally to the extent that that's good for anything, but not as many people seem to be coming to those. And certainly not as many people who would never come to those, but might theoretically vote for Trump under some circumstances.

It doesn't seem like that group is being swayed very much either. So I guess that's the silver lining to all this bill. It's like the rallies are as ugly as ever or uglier than ever, but it really does seem like they are achieving less and less of a real political purpose other than to salve Trump's own ego than they really ever have in his decade in politics. Yeah, but of course, I mean, the dark cloud over the silver lining, and you're obviously right about that, the silver lining is the mass deportation goes on. And, I mean, obviously it resulted in killings in Minneapolis and now elsewhere.

And it seems to have accelerated, if anything, under Ballet and recent weeks. in months, actually, and spread, and so we're shot in New York. And so in that respect, we do have sort of two things happening at once, the public fleeing from, I think, Trump and Trumpism to some degree, to a pretty considerable degree, more than the elites, as I keep pointing out. But on the other hand, the policies not being moderated, if anything, maybe getting a little, as we see with this, pre-drawn raid on Elon, on a member of Congress's home, getting more more extreme. I'm thinking of that. I come back to that. There have been times when FBI has

raided, I think, the office of a member of Congress once or twice when there was cash and so much refrigerator. They had pretty good evidence of a crime there, I believe. It doesn't happen very often for a member of Congress. Certainly not a pre-drawn raid on their house. That's pure theatrical, performative bigotry, but also dangerous in additional sense to the normal bigotry, if I can say, because she's a member of Congress. There should be a certain, you know, kind of deference to someone who's a member of an equal branch of the government in terms of, you know, what, what, how one treats that person. And there's, of course, none of that here. Yeah, Republicans in the Senate.

I mean, this has been one of their big hobby horses all year is the way that even just like phone records of theirs were swept up in Jack Smith's investigation of one of the most heinous crimes. That's been committed. And they've been on the war path about how Jack Smith would have the audacity to access, you know, the phone records of sitting lawmakers because he is wanting to know which people Donald Trump was trying while he was trying to steal an election, trying to pressure to help him steal that election. And again, that has been the subject of hearing after hearing and just aggrieved speech after a grieved speech from Senator Chuck Grassley and a bunch of his colleagues. They, I don't know, I haven't heard any of these people complain about the Ilhan Omar raid. I haven't looked either. So maybe they have.

Maybe they've been consistent about this. And I shouldn't say they haven't when I don't know that they haven't, but I kind of suspect that they have not. I don't know, Bill. Anything else on Ilhan Omar in this raid or are we good for the time being? No, let's see what happens. Let's see what, you know, what the alleged even offenses and what just, they have. I think there will be, obviously, there'll be court cases on all this and so forth. But again, I just come back to their willingness to use the levers of government, even when it seems

unpopular for them to do so, even when it's three weeks before an election, there is this Department of Justice guidance, you don't do stuff this, any of that in political implications 60 days before an election. So there's no urgency here, incidentally. She wasn't destroying any records that we know of. She wasn't, you know, committing crimes. She was busy campaigning. I take it back in, back in Minnesota, presumably. getting yourself reelected. And so it's the pure politicization or weaponization of the instruments of government, I think, you know, is genuinely alarming. Yeah, yeah.

Well, we'll leave it there for now. You mentioned a minute ago that we're just three weeks away from the election. I just keep forgetting. Like, I mean, again, part of it's that I was basically sick all of last week. And so time has lost even more meaning for me than usual. But, like, it's really coming up. We're on the home stretch here. Let me do one piece of bookkeeping here because,

not only are we three weeks away from the election, we are only one week now, away from our live show in Atlanta, the Bullwork live show at the Eastern in Atlanta. I'm going to be there. Bill's going to be there. Sam, JVL, Sarah, Tim, General Mark Hurtling will all be at the Eastern. We're trying to sell the last few tickets to this show.

I'm starting to feel inferior. Bill's starting to feel inferior. I don't know whether that's true. I'm speculating at this point, but I sure am because these other shows on our tour, they're all sold out. You all want to go see, you know, Will Summer and Catherine Rampel, but you don't want to come see Bill and me in Atlanta? Come on.

This can't stand. This aggression cannot stand. So go to the pollwork.com slash events and snap up those last few tickets for our Atlanta show. We'd appreciate that. I know I personally would appreciate that. I love these events. I'd love to see you there. We can leave at that, at that, Bill.

I mean, it's crazy stuff. It's crazy stuff. It's bad stuff happening in the world. It's going to be a bit of a reckoning on it in three weeks. and that'll be interesting to see. So we're all, we're all keeping a very close eye on that. We'll be here, I guess, three more times before that election. And thank you, Bill, for coming on for the show, as always.

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