Bulwark Takes - Kash Patel’s Senate Hearing Takes an Absolutely Wild Turn (w/ George Conway)

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Trump is raging at the Supreme Court after his own appointees helped block his administration’s mail-ballot rules, and George Conway joins Sam Stein to discuss the ruling, Trump’s extraordinary attack on the justices he picked, and what could come next as the midterms approach. Then things take a sharp turn as they watch Kash Patel try to explain one of the strangest—and grossest—FBI controversies you’re ever likely to hear discussed in a Senate hearing.Check your brain and health the way I do. Function provides 160+ lab tests for $1/day and member pricing on advanced imaging. Join at https://functionhealth.com/BULWARKTAKES and use code BULWARKTAKES25 for a $25 credit.

Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing out of the Bork. I'm joined by the great George Conway, who's in the office today. But we don't want to appear in. Yeah, we don't want to appear in the same room. It gets a little too tense. Right. Yeah. George, it's great to have you in. I could feel the energy in the room. We were looking for you last night, buddy. We were trying to get you on for immediate reaction to SCOTUS. But I'm here now. That's what matters. Yeah. So what did you think of the ruling? I thought the ruling was as I expected. I mean, I think I think I I've said this previously in various forms, I think maybe on a bulwark pod that I don't think, I did not think that the mail order, the mail ballot regulation was going to survive the Supreme Court. And I'm pleased to announce that it did not. And the thing that shocked me, though, was that Alito and Thomas dissented.

I am just absolutely. Why did that shock you? Well, it shocks me still because I at least want to believe that there are. rational human beings, even if I disagree with them on the Supreme Court. And I just get to the point now where that's just crazy. Alito's opinion was just crazy. It is so detached from reality on so many different levels. I mean, between that and the birthright citizenship case, I mean, these guys have really lost their minds. Honestly, I really think they've lost their minds. Do you want to summarize what Alito basically said? Alito basically said, oh, oh, we, it,

really was a regulation of mail. It's very much a regulation of mail because that's what it is. And because it's a regulation of mail, Congress gets to do that. But Congress didn't do that here. Justice Alito, it was a regulation. Which is, of course, it's a fantasy to think that this is actually a regulation of the mail. It's a regulation of the mail that's designed to choke off a certain kind of mail that the president doesn't like because it affects his, you know, whether or not he gets impeached. I mean, it's so. transparent what the government did here because these are these are regular there is no documented no clear problem note with mail in ballots it's totally fictitious and then you know here they're enacting it's not about what goes in the mail and whether it's easy to deliver this was a regulation of basically who can vote and it wasn't and that is something that is entrusted to the states absent, absent a congressional statute.

And there was no statute that does that. And using, it's totally, it was total subdivision. Also, I mean, as we, I think I've talked about previously, and I think the declaration of the whistleblower or the statement of the whistleblowers made clear that, you know, these regs were not meant to be complied with. They were meant to be impossible to comply with. So it really was. And Alito's dissent just, who.

pretends that this is a normal, rational thing. Oh, it's just a regulation of mail. It's totally blinkered to reality. And the other thing he did, and there's this concept of the equities that you have to talk about in any litigation, whether it be constitutional, whether it be in the Supreme Court, whether it be district courts, a state court, federal court, when you're asking for an injunction or for relief from an injunction, one of the things you have to show is that the balance of equities lies in the favor of somebody who is seeking the relief in the court at hand. And the balance of equities here, it's like there was no legitimate federal interest here.

And on the other hand, there was the states basically, you know, there was the balance on the other side is the states and people who are voting in these states were likely to face chaos. Yeah. And when it comes to mailbook, there wasn't even a question about the balance of hardships. You know, they don't get relief because they took so much time fighting these things in the court. I was about to get to me. It's sort of like it is the ultimate.

I mean, it's like we live in the era of a narcissistic government by a narcissistic leader surrounded by narcissists. That's the classic narcissistic abuse argument is, you made me do it. You made me do it to you. And Alito is just buying right into that. You caused your own problem by suing about, you know, like, no, no, they have the right to sue. Well, you know, it's kind of funny that you mentioned. I don't want to divert too far away, but it is in the news right now. The Kennedy Center, it makes me think a little bit of the Kennedy Center.

So Trump's obviously, there's a court case going on. And it's like, well, Trump is now, they put a brief together. I'm curious for your thoughts on this where they're like, basically like, we will, Trump is prepared to repair the Kennedy Center and give all this money for repairing. The board just wants to vote on these things. And there's 10 things that will have, you can pick one of these 10 options of things that can be chiseled into the side of the Kennedy Center. They have to all acknowledge that Trump's generosity allowed for.

Right. And he's portraying himself. And this is, no, again. Well, let me just get to it because. Yeah, go ahead. It's because Trump fucked the Kennedy Center. Like, there's no money going to the Kennedy Center because Trump fucked the Kennedy Center. Right.

I'm going to rescue. I'm going to rescue the Kennedy Center from the bankruptcy that I created. And it's sort of like this new and bad thing. It's like, oh, yeah, you fought me on this. Right. Of course they fought you. Right. Anyways, yeah.

No, no. It's classic. It's called Darvo, right? That's what, that's what people who treat, who deal with, therapists who deal with narcissistic abuse talk about. It's called deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. Okay. Darvo. And it's, and that's what he, that's what they do with everything.

It's your fault. You cause the bankruptcy by not, you know, by not giving in to me. And you, you, you cause this. problem with the lack of time for the states to comply with this postal regulation because you sued. And that's, it's, it's really kind of, it's actually quite sick and it's psychologically perverse. But here we are. Well, this message is brought to by function. So September is World Alzheimer's Month. And it got me thinking about something I probably should have thought about sooner, which is my brain health.

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having more information about what's happening inside my body so I can make more informed decisions. Check your brain health the way I do. Function provides 160 plus lab tests for $1 a day and member pricing on advanced imaging. Join at functionhealth.com slash bulwark takes and use code bulwark takes 25 for a $25 credit. Sir Trump obviously didn't take this lightly.

I was waiting all night for his post. He didn't come, but this morning it did come. It is a treatise. We'll put it up on the screen. I'm not going to read all of it. I do a dramatic reading. I love dramatic reading. It would take like five minutes.

All right. I'll do something. No, no, that's all right. All right. I get you. Anyways, the Supreme Court has really let our country down. Certain justices are petrified of these crazed in the prey of Democrats and are totally unable to show the courage necessary to save our America.

The horrible decision goes into the tariff decision, the birthright citizen decision. He then talks a bit about the three that he appointed. He doesn't name them, but we're talking about Cody Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh joined the majority, but he basically said he would have allowed it if there was more time. He writes Trump, these are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court. They are merely a shell of their original selves, a court that is costing the United States trillion of dollars or shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won't be easily possible to the country to ever recover or heal it leads me the question i have two questions to one is the spruce

court justice is right like and i'm kind of curious what you think they feel about it but at some point is trump self-aware that all these people he always interviews and he screens for jobs and that he hires they always let him down does he ever think that maybe he's the problem he's just screening wrong and he's doing a poor job high not no he he never makes it he can only be let down again it's the narcissism. He can only be let down. It's not his fault. Nothing is ever his fault. You know, that it's everybody is doing things to stifle him and to hurt him. But George, so George, you've talked to these people you worked in this world. Like, Descodes, the clerks, the judges, they see this obviously. Like, how does this sit with that? Look, I, I don't know because I don't

think we've ever seen anything as insane as the attacks of the President of the United States on on the Supreme Court, including, you know, these members of the court who Trump appointed and said, great. I have to, my hats off are, I have to give my hats off to Justice's Gorsuch and Barrett and Kavanaugh for voting the right way. I mean, I think Kavanaugh would have ultimately gone the right way on the merits, even though he said, you know, he was making one argument that he said, maybe, maybe I might accept that. But I think, you know, I think fundamentally those three want to get things right. I think they're wrong a lot of the times, particularly in recent, in the last couple of years. I think they are wrong in their approach to the emergency docket, or as my friend Steve Vlattuck calls it, the shadow

docket. The two justices who are really have, you know, I really think they've kind of lost their minds and they are detached from reality, are Alito and Thomas. And then Thomas, you have the whole corruption issue. I mean, basically what he did there, taking all that grift was, was, was, borderline criminal. I do think at least seven of the nine justices are acting in good faith. They may get things wrong a lot. And they have, on the other hand, they've done a lot of, they've, they've done a lot of the things that we would want them to do. I mean, the birthright citizenship was one. They stood up in a couple of key cases. A tariffs, they stood up, they did the right thing. Tariffs. They, the Alien Enemies Act cases, a couple of those. They really

slap down the the the administration i mean they have not done i think as well as the district courts have um and and the district judges of both you know including trump appointees to the district courts um but you know i think by and large they're acting in good faith even if some of they're not really completely up to the moment what the times in the write up and had another article about you know well this is obviously a huge setback for trump but the idea that this is the end of his election interference is falling. People shouldn't get complacent about it. And obviously that's true.

I'm wondering, did you, first of all, what do you think is going to happen between now in the election? But also, did you see Judge Ludig's piece about how January 3rd is actually the real big day? Yeah, I mean, you know, you know how I feel about Judge Ludig. He's, he's right. This is a big test for democracy. And I do think that we have not seen their full arsenal. yet of what they're going to try to do. I mean, they'll think of something. And even if it's just

encouraging state officials to do the wrong thing when it comes to certification of elections, I think there's, you know, there's plenty of room for mischief. You know, I think it's going to be hard from what I've been hearing from experts on congressional procedures. It's going to be hard for Speaker Johnson to screw this up. But, you know, I won't put, would have passed them to try. And I think I think one of the things that they are going to try to do, and they try to do it, I think, with this mail-in-ballot USPS regulation, is to create chaos. Chaos works in their favor. If there's chaos and uncertainty, then they have an excuse to create more chaos and uncertainty,

and they'll always lie about it and blame the people they don't like, the Democrats and the courts. And, you know, he's going to become more and more desperate as time goes on. I think one of the things I've always thought about this whole era, after thinking that it wasn't going to last that long in 2017, 2018, I thought this can't possibly go on. But I became disabused of that several years ago, and thinking it's always going to get worse before it gets better. And it's still going to get worse because he's going to become more desperate. He's also becoming more and more deranged and more is losing touch with reality. and, you know, you know, batting down the hatches.

Yeah, no, no doubt. And he's not the only one. There's a big, there's a couple hearings today on the Hill involving members of the inner circle and cabinet. One of them is Cash Patel. Oh, he's the goat. He's the goat, you think? Yeah. Greatest of all time.

Yeah. I know what goat means, but you think, are you just, are you saying the greatest all-time FBI director or the greatest of all-time Trump figure? The greatest of all-time Trump FBI director. He had to all that. Okay, fair enough. He's really bad. I will just say, Trump had some, to your point,

Trump put out some bleat about, bleat, yes. About some Butler, the Butler assassination attempt where he basically said, he floated the idea of it just basically being a democratic plot. He wrote, everybody knows that crooked Joe Biden's FBI, I didn't do what they should have,

with respect to the lunatic who shot me in Butler. By the time I got to the office on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone. New info was just found, exclamation point. Why wasn't it seen long ago? He then goes on, dirty cop. Christopher Ray should pay a price for the way he handled the assassination attempt. You appoint to Christopher, again, everyone always fails this guy.

He needs to be better at hiring a parent. No, he's terrible. He's terrible. All these bad people that he turns on and, you know. All right. So back to Patel. Palatel's on the Hill today, and I needed to get your take on this, even though it really has nothing to do with the,

the law, but it's like, it's like it's illegal news. It's because it's illegal. It probably is illegal. And we probably shouldn't be talking about it. Even in Louisiana may be illegal. No, it's not. It's perfectly legal in Louisiana. There's an extended discourse about beastiality. Basically, the FBI is relaxed standards for hire. Beastiality. So the FBI is relaxed standards for hiring. Did you say beastiality? Beastiality. So let's play the first clip. Are you going to move me to comment on this? Oh, no. I knew this is where this is going.

Here we go. What about the bestiality? Same thing, because the regs wrote it up in a fashion before I arrive that addressed prostitution, beastiality, and trafficking. They were there before I got there. Tell me what it said before. It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it. Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminal.

side of what, the bestiality? Yes. So you disqualified the animal? Well, I don't think we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify. I understand. I'm trying to understand why you did this. Why did you? I have to give

Senator Kennedy credit there. A little credit there. And we don't take, they don't take to the bestiality in Louisiana. And, you know, he is an animal lover. the right kind of animal lover, not the wrong kind that Cash Patel is now trying to let into the FBI.

So that was just the start. It continued going. Kennedy is perplexed because Patel basically seems to be saying that we didn't want to hurt the victims of beastiality by not letting them apply to the FBI for positions. And then everyone's like, wait a second. The victims of bestiality are the animals. And then Patel's like, well, we got these service dogs, but that's not exactly what he meant. Let's play the second clip. Why would you even get into beastiality?

Excuse me. We are not in to be sound like a lot of these individuals. I know you're not, but you changed, you changed. But I'm trying to explain it. Hang on. You change the qualifications and mentioned bestiality. Oh, I'm glad to know that the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is not into beastiality.

That is, I'm much reassured there about that. Oh, my God. It keeps going. Let's play clip three. All right. If Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human, don't you think he ought to be qualified, disqualified? If he voluntarily did it, sure, if he was trafficked into it. Okay.

How do you involuntarily do it? In a lot of these cases, when human traffickers, who are some of the worst individuals on planet Earth, they don't just traffic you for prostitution. They traffic you for degrading acts of all kind, and they force you into that type of. of conduct and some of these individuals would go on to be law enforcement officers who qualified to be law enforcement officers and later applied to the FBI. I mean this didn't initially, these changes didn't start with you, did they? No. Somebody came to you and recommended?

Yeah. Yeah. And when you saw bestiality, I said this with respect. The person who recommended it, why did you just say what planet did you parachute in from? from. Why do I want to leave with my initial? Why do I want to leave with my chin and get into bestiality? That was my initial response, Senator. But they then explained to me and showed me

cases in which people were forced into it and had applied to the FBI. And so I thought they should be considered. It's not an automatic disqualification. That's all. Okay. All right. I think I understand. But you're not telling us today that if a human being had sex with an animal that they can still be an FBI agent. No. Are you? No. They can't be, can't.

They cannot. In fact, they ought to be in jail, right? They all are. Except the ones that you're getting better being hired by the FBI, right? I'm sorry, I'm very confused by this. I guess there's a universe of people who were trafficked into sex acts and forced to have sex acts with animals who now want to be FBI agents. And this is apparently a problem for the FBI because it can't get a,

enough people, which I think is the problem for the FBI. That is the problem. We don't want to work for the FBI. We see this a problem at the Justice Department where they're actually paying people to take jobs that here to four had been coveted and people were willing to take huge pay cuts from their boring legal jobs in the private sector to play cops and robbers and enforce the law and serve their country. Now, they can't find these people.

And I guess it's true of FBI agents as well. I mean, I saw this. I did a dangerous thing. I did a little research before coming on here, and I saw that the FBI director, he said in July, the agency was, quote, losing too many qualified candidates to the rigors of requirements from yesterday year. What is rigorous about not having sex with animals? I guess, and I'm kind of with Senator Kennedy here. I think there's occasions where Kennedy just his antenna perks up. Every now and then, he'll be like, wait a second. Yeah, what is he said?

Good old, good old Bayou Common Sense. This does make sense. It don't make no sense. I mean, I get it. You want, you know, if some German Shepherd got abused, you know, that dog, if that dog can be trained to sniff out the bad guys, we want to hire him at the FBI. But I don't get, I don't get about, you know, agents. I mean, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where we're at.

You imagine if, imagine if, imagine if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, it's. if this had happened during the Biden administration. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Like this would have been Fox on Fox News for a month. But that happens every day. Yesterday, Sleepy Joe now loves, you know, I mean, loves dogs.

Oh my gosh. But yesterday was the great example of this, too, where that story came out about Don Jr.'s wedding, being bankrupted by Putin's stooge. Yes. It's like, like, we went, Fox went nuts on barisma for years. Oh, absolutely. All right, George.

Thanks for doing this, buddy. I appreciate you coming in. Loved it. I hope that the audience found this moving. I don't know. The puns. We're going to have to work on these puns. I'll bark.

Okay. This is George Conway. I'm Sam Stein. Subscribe to the feed. Subscribe to the bulwark. Great content like this. Peace. We'll never have anything like this.

Never again.