Bulwark Takes - MAGA’s Far-Right Feud Is Spilling Into Turning Point USA | MAGA Mondays

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Ready to be seen? Check that appointment off your to-do list with Zocdoc ✅ : https://zocdoc.com/ bulwarktakes #sponsoredWill Sommer and Sonny Bunch take on Trump’s escalating war on the press, the TV networks pushing back on his White House ban, and the growing signs that even some longtime allies are getting sick of the chaos. Plus: Trump’s plan to put snipers in his giant D.C. arch, the bizarre MAGA fight over Indian Americans, Turning Point’s James Fishback problem, and the very questionable Lauren Boebert allegations.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Maga Mondays. I am Sunny Bunch. I'm culture editor at the Bullwork. I'm filling in for Andrew Eggert today. He couldn't be here. I think he was disgusted by the topics. He was turned off too much. So I'm sitting in. I'm sitting in with Will. We got it. We got a fun one today. We got a lot of, there's a lot of nonsense going on in the world. But first, something, something very serious. Well, I just want to, I want to highlight the fact that the TV pool has said no to Donald Trump. What's going on there? Yeah, so obviously this kind of kicked off on Friday when Donald Trump said he was going to ban CNN, MS now, and Politico from the White House. And so now, you know, then on Saturday, those reporters showed up to check into the White House to work and they were denied. You know, their cards didn't work or what have you. And so now this all kind of came to a head, I guess, a little further. Because on Monday today, CNN was supposed to have the pool duty. So they were supposed to have the camera that is used by then the four networks.

And then, you know, they were told, or they obviously they couldn't do it because they're banned from the White House. And so now we've seen all the other networks say, fine, there won't be any pool. We're not carrying it. Here we got Brian Stelter, who obviously is CNN man himself. The other major TV networks are standing with CNN by declining to assign a different pool camera. So essentially, so there will be no TV pool. Obviously, the White House can provide their own video. But they're saying, you know, look, you don't get to pick and choose.

You can't say, only the cameraman from Fox News can come. us because they have my best, my most flattering angle. Yeah. I, I just want to read what Donald Trump said in announcing this ban, because he had a very strong point to make here. The White House is not instituting an assault on the free press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the fake news, something that has grown like cancer in our beloved United States of America.

It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. right to our national security. We're going to come back to national security here in a minute. That's his new favorite buzzword. I must be stopped now. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. And I am, it's one of these things where it does feel like he has kind of settled on national security being the reason he can do anything. Yeah, well, and you know, we'll get into the famous sniper's nest at the Trump arch. But yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I, I think you're right. I mean, he clearly is seeing, and it's very ominous.

It's sort of like something a dictator might do is to say, well, I want this. Oh, it's a national security thing. You know, the idea he's basically saying it's our national security, that it's national security issue that MS now, you know, is, you know, reportedly the Wall Street Journal said that Natalie Hart played him like a super cut of MS now anchor saying he's doing a bad job. And that's what prompted him to ban MS now. Well, that's literally dictator stuff, the idea that he's like, you can't be talking bad about me.

I'm the president. That's bad for national security. You know, I did a video about this with Will Salatin over the weekend. And it's striking how even from the initial announcements when he was asked about it in the White House, Trump said, yeah, you know, this is a crackdown on the free press. I mean, he said the free press. So, I mean, he's really like, there's not even like a fig leaf of like, oh, you know, we ran out of office space or like the CNN crews are too noisy. The White House staff can't work, something like that. they're really like obviously just saying like, you know, I don't like what they're saying,

so we got to get them out of here. I just imagine the White House lawyer who spent, you know, several weeks crafting a very finely prepared legal document that could be used to justify this. Because as you say, there are some, there are fig leafs you could use to get around this that don't involve the First Amendment and the federal government saying, we don't like your point of view, so we're going to ban it. And then Trump just comes out and says it. And the guy like throws his hands up in the air like, God, damn, what it was, what have I done? Well, and, you know, one imagines, though, I sort of think this, this one came together pretty quickly, you know, even, I mean, the, the other interesting aspect is how are Republicans responding to this? I mean, I will say, obviously,

we have Fox News, you know, good for them for, you know, standing in solidarity. But, you know, overall, there's this idea of like, well, Joe Biden, they kind of purged, you know, inactive people on the list, and that was aimed at conservatives, you know, Sean Spice was out with that, Benny Johnson was out with that you look at this and this, forgive me, folks, because this gets kind of in the weeds of like the different passes. But it's like, all right, these are people, you know, if you haven't shown up for six months, please prove that you really work for a media outlet. I mean, traditionally the White House has let in all kinds of cranks and wackos, you know, which I think is all for the best, you know, we don't really want the White House to be in the business of saying who's a reporter or not.

But, you know, this idea that this is really in any way the same thing. And by the way, those people weren't banned. They just could, you know, they had to get day passes. And so, right, you know, this idea that like, you know, Joe Biden was out saying, oh, Fox News, you can't come in the White House. It's clearly not the case. Obviously not. All right. So let's, let's move to something a little more salacious, a little more, a little more amusing. Here we go. Lauren Bobert, you know, when the news, the news broke on Friday or, you know, over the weekend about Lauren Bobert has been accused of having an affair with staffers and some of them were ladies. Three sums with Matt Gates.

And three sums with Matt Gates. There's all sorts of stuff going on. The guy was typing with one hand when he put this complaint together. She denies it. Frankly, it doesn't, her denial seems relatively reasonable. Yeah. So this is an unsavory character. Not Lauren Bober, you know, you make it that way well.

But I think this guy's name is David Walker. He runs this pack called American Muckrakers. And this is someone I've had the misfortune of dealing with several times over the years. Basically, I think he initially kind of like maybe had some legitimate dirt on Madison Cawthorne back in the day and kind of helped get him out of office. But since then, he's really zeroed in on Lauren Bobert. And this guy, I have never spoken to someone with less of a connection to the truth. Maybe Jacob Wall. But also in a way that like when I spoke to him,

He didn't like understand what evidence is. Like, he would say like, well, I would say, well, what's your evidence of this? And he would say, well, someone told it to me. And I was like, okay, well, right, who's that person? Oh, I don't really know. Or like, is there a reason this person would be in a position to know this about Lauren Bover? Not really, whatever.

So as you said, he files this complaint. And this is sort of a circular thing because he reports on it and says, oh, there's a complaint been filed by me, you know, like I can't go file a complaint against someone wouldn't say exclusive. And Will says this happened. So there's that aspect. So as you said, I mean, this relies on this idea that Lauren Bobert was having sort of like bisexual romps across D.C., sleeping with her female staffers. I think there was some sort of liaison with Matt Gates.

You know, there's really no reason to believe this is true at all. This, a lot of his evidence is like, well, there are these payoffs. Like you can see these payoffs to her staff. Well, that's also called getting a salary. You know, like to me, like, and maybe, I mean, I think there were some like sort of maybe some legal money or something, but it's like there's no reason we don't know what that was for. There's really no like on background source or anything. I mean, this thing just seems totally fake. Maybe it's real.

I haven't seen any evidence. It's real. We have a Lauren Boehbert clip about this. Hey, journalists. Now that I'm finished with my more important task of the day, I have a few words for you. You all ran a smear and called it news. Some sloppy, desperate, obsessive hack stamps under oath on a fake filing, so you'll write penalty of perjury in the headline. Yeah, that's the whole freaking trick.

It's a scam, and you fell for it. No member of Congress certified in writing that his salacious BS attack was made in good faith. All right. All right. We've got it. So basically, number one, I actually believe the claims more now, having seen her video, because it seems a little chat GPT flavor to it, like you took this. and called at this. But, like, obviously, I think this thing is fake.

She actually ends that video with a little, like, and for those of you asking for if I have any openings at my office, no, I don't. Sort of like people are like, whoa, I want to be a part of this sexy office. So the, so, you know, it's a little funny on her part. But overall, like, I, just to give people a little more backstory on this gentleman, this guy in, I think it was 2022, he claimed that, like, Lauren Bobard had had an abortion and that I think, you know,

it was like these other claims, but it was all, it was verifiably fake. For example, the thing about the abortion, she would have been six months pregnant, like with her son who was born at the time he claimed it happened. So obviously, that couldn't happen. There were, there were just other, like, he had a picture of kind of like, I think it was like a sexy lady that he said was Lauren Bobert. And then it wasn't. And that woman said, well, it's, no, that's a picture of me. I'm not Lauren Bobert. And then I talked to him about it. And he was like, well, maybe she's lying about it. And like, it is Lauren Bobert. I mean, I mean, there's really like no, no reason to believe this guy.

And I also, I would say, like, Lauren Boer, a little unfair to the press. I think what, was it like Newsweek or something? I don't think any real outlet, you know, pick this up. Yeah, I, it's, the whole thing is ridiculous. I just want to go back to some. You mentioned a ranking of reality detachment figure, Jacob Wohl, maybe at the top of the list. We got to get a pyramid of reality detachment from you at some point.

Just like, who's at the apex of the reality. detachment go all the way down. That would be, I think that would be a fun. That would be a fun piece. All right. Let's go. What do you make of this? What do you make of this, Sunny? Do you believe these allegations? On the one hand, we've all seen the video of Lauren Bobert at the Beetlejuice show, right? Yes. So there's, there, there, we are primed to accept that she would do something scandalous and salacious. You know, it's funny. I talked to somebody who worked on that production on my, Bullwark-Cost-Haw. And it was a, that's a, you know, that, that, that kind of primes the pump, so to speak,

for like, we'll, we'll give this the benefit of the doubt. But, you know, you lay out pretty clearly that this guy seems like he's full of crap and, and has been for some time. Yeah, I mean, the other thing about this guy's backstory is he, after these, I believe, Lauren Boward abortion claims, she said, well, this guy's making it up. And then he sued her for defamation saying, you defame me by saying I was making it up. But I think that kind of all got bogged down. But like the, this guy like, he's a, he's not a credible source, folks. So I know, I know this was getting a little traction

on, on Lib Twitter. I know we were all excited. I certainly read the affidavit as like, you know, maybe this guy finally got got something real, but I would say not the case. All right. Well, that's too bad. Let's go on to the next thing. James Fishback, doing a TPUSA event at Ole Miss. is what is the deal here? What is going on? And why are people upset about this? Because this is, there's some interesting TPUSA pushback on this. Yeah. So James Fishback, you know, folks may remember him from getting 6% in the Florida gubernatorial primary as a Republican. He's kind of the Graper King. Basically, we've been wondering, what's James Fishback going to do next? Is it over for him? He's 1.5. I think that's, I think it's, I'm a couple hundred thousand short there. He's a 1.5 million

in debt. He's about to have a new baby. He's a colorful character. Is he going to run for president? I'm kidding. But maybe. I don't know. Who knows? Now, we're seeing Fishback kind of make his grab at being a national figure. He was at the Republican convention. I saw video. We don't have it, but I saw some compelling video that suggested he was kicked out of the backstage area at one point, or he was kind of lurking, that I think it was a convention. He's linking up with Steve Bannes. He's linking up with Steve Bannes. He's been on to see Bannon was saying, oh, you know, James Fishback. Everyone loves him at the convention. And then now we see that, so Turning Point has this thing called like the pick up the mic tour.

And this is obviously, it's like, you know, after Charlie Kirk was shot, you know, we're going to pick up the mic. And so the, they have all these influencers. They have these kind of characters, people, you know, we discussed here on Maga Monday who do this stuff. And then some people who are like anti-fishback people, which is very credible position to have as far. as I'm concerned. They noticed that Fishback was doing it, I believe you said, Ole Miss, was doing one of this pick up the mic thing. And people said, well, wait a minute. You know, James Fishback is extremely racist. He's very tight with Nick Fuentes. You know, why is TPSA sanctioning this guy? And so I think we maybe have some critics. Yeah. So this lady's name

Jamie Michelle. And, you know, to give you a little background on her, she's the founder of Gays Against Groomers, which was like a real, you know, anti-trans. anti-gay teachers thing. And she says, this will be the end of my support for TPSA moving forward if this event actually takes place. So the fishback was endorsed by Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes was Charlie Kirk's mortal enemy in life, which is true. And so she says, this is shameful to see.

So there was this big pushback among people who are like this anti-Grooper contingent. Obviously, a lot of this, oh, we have another guy, John William Sherrod, who's like a right-wing columnist. He says, unacceptable, and he kind of tweets at some TPSA people. The Groypers will come for TPSA piece by piece if you let them. And I'll tell you what, that guy is right on. That is true. The Groyper's are quite eager to infiltrate TPSA, as we're seeing with James Fischbach. He actually, someone said me, he had actually done another college event before this, but this is the one that kind of got the attention. Now, the turning point response is that, you know, these chapters kind of operate independently of TPSA. You know,

who's to say, you know, what they do. I think that's kind of BS, right? I mean, I think if Turning Point USA chapter was like, we got to bring Hassan Piker, we love his ideas so much. You know, I think Turning Point would obviously step in there. You know, I think they've exercised more control over the chapters after the famous diaper incident. Do you recall this, Sonny?

I do not. You're going to have to fill me in on the diaper incident. If you say TPUSA and diaper incident in the same sentence, I'm going to want to know what happened. So this was, I don't have like, six years ago. I think actually Caitlin Clark, or Kate was sorry, Caitlin Ben, God, Caitlin Clark, forgive me, forgive me. Caitlin Clark, T-P-E-A-U-S-A diaper incident. This just got much more. This is, yeah, forgive me,

folks. Caitlin Bennett, you know, the gun girl, she was involved with this, but basically, this was like six years ago, maybe seven, but like this campus, I think at University of Missouri, they, this campus chapter, they, like, dressed up like babies in diapers because they were supposed to be like liberal snowflakes. instead it's just a picture of conservative students in diapers with the binkie and what have you uh and you know people started calling it toilet paper USA and all this kind of stuff it was a debacle uh and so i i suspect after that i think turning point was like you know we're going to have a little tighter control uh kately bennett quit turning point over that incident it was like a lot of drama

so the idea that these these are like who's to say you know we we have no control over this particularly when it has that kind of Charlie Kirk branding to pick up the mic thing, I find pretty unbelievable. Fishback was definitely at the convention, and it was interesting. So I was at the midterm convention, you know, here in Dallas. And there's obviously the main stage where all the speakers are talking. And then there are like official press lines and gaggles and stuff. And sometimes you would see like a Mark Wayne Mullen or somebody wandering around with like a full contingent of bodyguards, you know, taking pictures, you know,

taking selfies. But then you would have what I, what I, what I kind of think of as like the, the weird hangers-on of the MAGA world. So one of them was Fishback. Fishback was there. And he was just kind of like standing around. And young, exclusively young men, like in their, their like early 20s, maybe late teens would walk up. And they were all drinking beers. And they would come and take pictures with him. And it was just like, oh, this is, this is like, this is weirdly pathetic in a way that's different. from the way the rest of this thing is weirdly pathetic. Like, compared to Scott Pressler, who was also there and had like a long,

he was doing a similar, like, kind of just, I'm here and I'm going to hang out and take pictures. But there were like a long, there was a long line of people who wanted to take pictures with Scott Pressler. A lot of, like, young ladies really wanted to take their picture with Scott Presler. It was just, it was, it was very interesting contrast between the two. They want the hair care tips. Yes, I mean, I'm glad you shared that, Sunny.

But since you talked about, I mean, just to. for folks who don't know. Scott Pressler is the gigantic man who has like very long hair and his whole thing is the voter registration and he's like, I'm going to mobilize the Amish to take back America and stuff like this. And he

famously, I think it was the South Dakota convention a couple months back. I think we covered here on Maga Monday that John Thune's cronies allegedly prevented him from going to the Republican meeting place there. But yeah, it's The whole fishback thing is very strange to me.

I just don't understand his appeal on any... Well, it's because you're not a racist lunatic, sonny. Yeah. I mean, or a, like, you know, extremely disaffected young Groyper or Groypet, you know. The other thing I would say about fishback is I'm not sure if this is part of his campus tour, of another thing he's doing, but he's kind of like just showing up on campuses and, like, debating students. I saw one video and the caption was like, bro, I was just trying to go to class.

And then Fishback has like a team of, you know, students around him. And he's like, you know, this is the Groyper way. So he's out there. You know, it's an interesting thing. I mean, he's obviously got a little more clout than your average right-wing influencer because you got so much attention in this governor's race. But people say to me all the time, oh, I wish I could, I had no scruples. I could become a right-wing influencer and get rich.

But it's actually not always that easy. And so we'll have to, you know, chart Fishback here. He's linked up with Steve Bann and I think that'll probably work out well for him. Yeah. Where do you think fishback falls on the pyramid of reality detachment? Is he toward the middle? I would say he's pretty high up on the reality detachment. I mean, you know, having looked at his emails where he would be like, you know, he got fired from this hedge fund and then he would kind of like, or he resigned before he was fired. And then he had all these schemes where he had this like college crony and he'd be like, you need to pose as a aggrieved investor and contact the Wall Street Journal. Like it was very like woolly in in that way. Okay. Fair enough. All right.

Speaking of detachment from reality, let us talk about the Kennedy Center here. Because there's been a series of, like there continues to be Kennedy Center drama. And this is one of the things I find most telling about this iteration of the Trump administration. Because like if you go back to Trump one, there was really no drama around the Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center operated basically as it always has. He was not that involved. He actually mostly stayed away from it. He didn't go to events.

He didn't want to get yelled at by, you know, the Libs winning the awards at the Kennedy Center honors. So he just stayed away. But he's been very involved this time around. He made himself chairman. He has been, you know, trying to, trying to, you know, shut it down. He wants his name on it. What is going on with the Kennedy Center? And why does it have the ugliest art that has ever been installed anywhere in the halls of the Kennedy Center?

There we go. Oh, my gosh. Of all time. Yes. tremendous tremendous this is this is I guess they put these up a few months ago but it's getting a lot of traction today because you know folks can see in particular the rfk junior um you know it's sort of a i guess like a bronze relief um and it is it's so weird to have you know you've got you got the lincoln memorial you got donald trump ronald regan those people at least are presidents right

and then like do we need an rfk junior play this is truly haunting like we got a melting like we got a melting RFK Jr. We made a brass relief of him. The Elon one. I guess that's the explanation. Yeah, he's the worst Kennedy somehow. The Elon one is even better. Look at the Elon.

It's honestly like something out of a Kronenberg or a Lynch movie. It is like a terrifying visage of horror. It looks like Elon Musk stuck his finger in a light socket and just like got zapped. I mean, it is. And then

They have like a Rocky Balboa quote. I mean, this is, there's no, like, theme to it. It's just, and, you know, actually, you know, the other art news is that New York Times had this article, you know, about kind of the Trump management of the Kennedy Center where they were going to get rid of all this art that was donated by foreign nations, you know, in honor of Kennedy. And instead, they were going to replace it with art from Trump donors, you know, suggested by Trump cronies. And this is what we would be dealing with here. The Rocky one in many ways is even crazier to me because it's just like, you know, yeah, let's get a quote from a movie. It's not even Sylvester Stallone, who is, of course, you know, well, he's a Kennedy Center Honorary, theoretically. It's it's, it's, it's, it's, like, we're going to get the quote from Rocky Balboa.

And you mentioned, you mentioned the New York Times reports that the artist who did this is believed to be Trish Dugan, who is a major Trump donor. She did not respond to comment. The center did not respond to comment. So who knows if that's if that's a case. But it is, you said there's no theme to these. And there is a theme. It's Trump sycophant dipshits. Like I like, like, Martin Jr., Elon, like that whole, it's just the worst.

Crapola from Trump and Trump donors, yes. Just gold. And gold. The gold everywhere. You know, there's another bit in this New York Times story where apparently they remodeled the bathrooms in the presidential suites. at the Kennedy Center to get rid of some fixtures, put in gold fixtures, because, you know, President Trump doesn't ever want to not be surrounded by gold.

You know, in terms of the plaques, there's one more thing I could add here, which is there's this guy named Garav, and I'm going to, I don't know his last name, it's very complex, but basically, it was this guy who allegedly was posing as a CIA agent. The Wall Street Journal had a great story about him a few years ago, but basically he was like cutting deals. And, you know, he, if you believe the people suing him, he was like a big-time fraudster. And yet, in order to ingratiate himself with Trump people, he donated some money to the Kennedy Center. So there's a plaque that's like essentially thank you to the alleged CIA fraudster.

The Atlantic mentioned this and they're kind of like inside the Kennedy Center thing. So let's say it's an unsavory crew. All right. Well, okay, we'll we'll be back with Magamundi here in a second. Some of Trump's longest supporting allies are fed up with his nonsense. But first, we got a quick message from our sponsor. Let's go to that real quick. This message is sponsored by Zok doc.

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My wife was in the other room and kind of nodding somberly. It really resonated with her. So there's someone in the audience who liked it, you know, among others. So yes, so what's our, yes, after you, Sunny. Well, so some Trump allies are finally tired of. his nonsense. He got he got spanked by Pat Boone. Pat Boone is like, hey, Mr. President, come on, man. Yeah, I mean, this is something that strikes me as, you know, we're in this kind of like bunker mentality in the administration. The polls have gotten so bad. The war is not ending, whatever.

That I feel like even, you know, Trump allies are starting to be like, I'm sick of this guy. We saw last week the, the congresswoman from Miami who said, you know, you got to cut it out with the immigration. And then this one didn't get a ton of attention, but I think as sort of like a like a point of like how poorly Trump is doing this Pat Boone video, the idea that Pat Boone is like, I need to issue a statement, you know, let's play a little clip. Tired. And I'm worried that many of us haven't prayed enough for you because I think you're wearing out and you're feeling the pressure and expressing yourself in ways that are not becoming to you. They're not presidential.

so may I recommend something very highly that you be quiet. He got him. And then Pat Boone goes on to say he's kind of like, you're talking about yourself too much. Oh, and by the way, also just be nicer to women, please. You know, he has all these things. I mean, I think it was striking to me. It sort of is like if you're too drunk at a party or, you know,

someone takes you aside and says, this is our fault. We haven't been praying for you. enough. I think you're tired. You know, it's probably just, you should just be quiet now. So, Sonny, what's your take on the Pat Boone situation? The Pat Boone situation is that it's very funny to have Pat Boone saying to Donald Trump, shut up. Just shut up for a minute. He's doing a kind of very grandfatherly thing. Frankly, a good thing for the country, probably a good thing for Donald Trump, too. He tends to get himself in a little trouble when he just starts rambling all the time. I don't think he's going to listen.

Yeah, I mean, I can imagine in the White House saying, like, you know, Susie Wilde saying, like, sir, we've lost Pat Boone. You know, and you can't ban him from the White House, you know, unlike, I guess you could. But, you know, it's a little harder to get back at Pat Boone. A couple other examples. And, you know, we'll segue into this maybe the superior intelligence thing. But basically Matt Walsh saying, why is Trump tweeting about these things? Matt Walsh at the Daily Wire.

Yeah. So, you know, to touch on this. So Trump has been doing this thing, you know, where he's saying, you know, He's saying we have to change the branding of artificial intelligence. He's clearly heavily invested in it himself. He thinks it's propping up the economy. And so he says, you know, we've got to make people like this stuff more. And so, you know, the Trump first, he says, you know, he had three ideas.

Should we call it supreme intelligence, superior intelligence, or extreme intelligence? You know, far more elegant and accurate description of this phenomena would be superior intelligence or extreme intelligence or supreme intelligence. So he had this poll, and then, you know, if we go back to the Matt Walsh tweet there, Matt Walsh says, you know, artificial is already the correct word. Basically he says, why the hell is the president focused on this? Now, this was striking to me because it's crazy. Do you think people will like it more if we call it superior intelligence?

If we call it, we should call it the job destroyer or like the humans are obsolete thing. You know, obviously people won't like this. But the Matt Walsh thing is interested in me. It's more complaining. And then talk radio host, Steve Deese, sort of a rambling clip that's not worth playing. But he had this thing where he was just like, you know, why is Trump doing so badly?

Why are gas prices so high? Why can't we get out of this war? And he basically said, we need to get ready for a shallacking in November. So I think we're just seeing more and more people complaining about Trump getting sick of him. I think that's about right. And I think everybody, it's interesting that this is also very specifically coming from the folks who were, you know, no new wars, right?

Matt Walsh, like, no new wars. Why are we doing new wars? Here we are in a war in Iran. There's enormous gas price spikes. The country does feel like it is kind of spiraling out of control. And what is Trump focused on? Trump's focused on the Kennedy Center, getting his name on the Kennedy Center, very specifically. He's focused on this triumphful arch, which.

again, we'll come to you in a second. He is focused on things that don't matter. He's focused on things that don't matter to his supporters and to the country at large, even as things spiral out of control. And I feel like that is something that his folks are noticing. And they're certainly seeing in the polls. The polls are at this point cratering. Yeah, I mean, I think people are getting that sense of like, why are we doing such a

poor job with this. The reason I wanted to bring up these Trump posts is because they just had me cracking up. Like the idea that this is what he's focused on. Yeah. And so let's talk about the arc to triumph or what have you, sniper nest. So this one, you know, if folks ever played the game, Command and Conquer Red Alert, or Red Alert 2, I think, you know, this was a game where you could fortify landmarks. and you could, you know, they get strung out with, with barbed wire.

You could have soldiers, you know, in the windows. Now, Trump's kind of trying to do a similar thing here in D.C. So he says, I have agreed to convert at the request of the Pentagon. I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch, planned since the Civil War era, all right, into a top grade military complex slash triumphal arch to house store and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus snipers on both the roof and plaza areas,

and additionally have and hold large, large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage. So this had me, like, obviously we've been dealing with this Trump situation for like 11 years now. But I just, I was just cracking up because like, what a madman? What's your take, Sonny? Well, the, I don't know how to respond to Donald Trump being like, we need a triumphal arch in Washington, D.C., so I can put a sniper nest in it. That sounds insane.

it sounds insane on just a bunch of different levels. But as you were saying earlier, as we were discussing before, this does sound like the sort of thing where I want a military compound with sites on everybody in the capital so I can see, I don't even know, people approaching to invade? Like, what is this hope to stop? It's also just a hazard. You sent us that picture of the flight paths that this thing is in. I'm like, I, you know, I fly into DCA every time I fly into D.C. Reagan National there.

That is, I feel like there have been enough problems recently there that we don't need to add potentially more with a giant arch in the middle of the flight path of all these airplanes. You know, it's in such a random spot, too. Like, this isn't an area. It's not like the mall or the White House where you might want some overhead coverage. It's like, it's just grass, you know, and cars. and the street. And so the idea of like we need to be, you know, sniping, you know, it's like, is Virginia going to secede or do we not know something that we think we're going to have to be

holding people off at the bridge? It's, it just had me laughing because, you know, he wants that, that arch. And as we said earlier, you know, he just loves this national security excuse. Yeah. And the national security angle of this is kind of his, it's like how, for a while he was just hitting the tariff button on everything like I will do tariffs tariff tariff now he's hitting the national security button like I have to do this this is the only thing the president has supreme control over so I guess everything is a national security threat I the Kennedy center the Kennedy center he this is what he should do you should just say the Kennedy center has to be redone as a military installation we can put sams on the roof and we can you know make it make it safe

and if if not for national security we're going to have to tear it down down and start over again. Yeah, it's crazy. It also is just so funny, the idea of being like, all right, we're just going to be storing a lot of weaponry here. And let's make sure I announce it publicly, just so you guys know, there's a lot of good weapons you could get if you get up in the tower. It's, what a mess.

But yes, I just had me cracking up. All right. One last thing here. Why has the GOP gone to war with Indian immigrants? What is the deal here? Yeah, I mean, this is in look. I mean, this is very hot where you are in Dallas. You know, this, we, I think I think this relates obviously to this,

the Beau-French tweet that kind of really kicked this off. But there's been this long simmering antipathy by the past two or three years to Indian, South Asian immigrants on the right that I think is relatively new. That basically, I think a lot of it is like anger over H-1B visas. I think you have these kind of like unemployed software engineers. The various aspects, I think there's probably like some weird TikTok algorithm scheming from China. You know, I couldn't prove it. But like, I think there's a lot of stuff going on here that's kind of whipping up this anti-Indian hate.

And so obviously, I believe two weekends ago, we saw Beau French, who's running for Texas Railroad Commissioner, tweet, you know, look at all these Indian guys at this UT game. Oh, oh, how awful. And so since then, we're seeing these Indian American Republicans kind of grapple and various weird ways with the fact that they're in this party that increasingly is hostile to them. We even saw the Department of Education over the weekend tweet this thing about like make Americans, you know, universities great again with kind of a picture that looked like a UT game with the implication of like, you know, let's make them white or something. I mean, it was kind of a muddled message. But certainly if I was the Department of Education, it's not something I would want to bring up.

So we look at this Harmi Dillon. Harvey Dillon, obviously, is the head of the Civil Rights Division at DOJ. He's very hardcore Republican. She's basically refashioned the Civil Rights Division to be about, like, weird white grievances. There was like an oboist or a clarinetist white guy who didn't get a position at like the Rhode Island Symphony or something. And then she was like, I'm looking into this case, is anti-white discrimination. So she says, you know, happy weekend, a good job to all. Yes, even the people who call me a paperwork American.

So this is a new term popularized by right-wing people like Oren McIntyre that you, you know, Heritage Americans are real Americans who can count there, you know, you look at the Civil War Registry and you can look up your last name. Whereas paperwork Americans, they say are people who are not real Americans because you are an immigrant. So she says, who post racist nonsense for clicks, who don't know history, Godla, whatever. So basically, she then goes on to talk about, you know, getting these racist messages because she is, of Indian origin. One part about this that cracked me up was, a guy who cracked me up, I don't know,

threw me into a pit of despair, what's the difference? Is that there was this woman named Megan Basham, who's like a very evangelical writer, very conservative. And she said, oh, Harmeet, how awful. Then someone dug up tweets where she was calling, you know, Hindus devil worshippers and all this stuff. And then she kind of went on a thing where she's like, well, yeah, I can say I love, you know, people shouldn't be racist to Harmeet while thinking that, you know, Indian people,

worship the devil. So there's a lot of like weird, weird stuff going on. I believe the phrase was monkey demon. Monkey demons. Yes. Yes. So the, there are two, there are two kind of separate interesting things here that are, that are related. One is that, you know, J.D. Vance is married to a woman of India, Indian descent, Usha Vance. But then there's also the Brandon Gill of it all. Explain, explain what's going on here and how and how, um, He and his father-in-law have responded to Hassan Pikers' criticism of him. Yeah, so Brandon Gill, Congressman, he's married to conservative columnist Dinesh D'Suzza's daughter, and they have some kids. And so Brandon Gill, and forgive me, folks, we're really going to get into the racial aspect of it here.

So Brandon Gill, I think, is a white guy. And so he is basically, you know, he's on this kind of like, you know, as the right turns, against Indian people. You know, Hassan Piker said, well, look, man, like, your wife is Indian. You know, so Hassan Piker says, your wife is Indian. And Brandon Gill says, my wife is an American, born in America to American citizens. She deeply loves our nation and its culture. You, on the other hand, were born to foreign invaders.

By the way, I looked this up and Hassan Piper was born, I think, in New Jersey. Like, he's definitely, he was born in America. And, you know, and so then he goes off on this third world, you know, whatever, and says Hassan electrocutes his dog. So there's this weird, like, you know, I'm, yes, you know, my family is related, you know, or I'm married to an Indian American woman, but like we're white enough or like, you know, whatever these weird distinctions are. Let's throw out that Dinesh D'Suza tweet. This one got a lot of attention. So basically he responds to this as a Sonspiker thing. And he says, she's Christian born in America and her mom is white.

Care to show us a picture of your family? So he's like, look, my daughter's half white, man. Like, it's just these weird, like, haplogroup skull measuring things that people are getting into to sort of justify, you know, yeah, I'm part of the party that hates, you know, Indian immigrants. But, you know, my daughter, you know, she's only half Indian. So it's really like, it's all good. It's a very, it's very weird and very sad. And, you know, the irony of all this is that there is a pretty strong contingent of conservative Indians. that I can't imagine what they're thinking watching this.

I couldn't imagine wanting to be a party that was doing this to, you know, people who look like me. I think it's really bleak. You know, and, you know, you mentioned the J.D. Vance, Usha Vance thing here, which is kind of like, you know, an issue that recurs because, you know, all these racist, these grapers, they want to love J.D. Vance. He's married to this Indian American woman. You know, John Doyle at the Blaze had one of the stranger takes. This is a white guy. you know, given that we're talking about everyone's race,

as it plays into this discussion. And he sort of said, well, yeah, you know, you can, you know, you know, it's sort of like the colonizer's, you know, benefit. You can take a non-white woman, you know, but I mean, it's crazy stuff. This is a, this is a guy who works for the blaze, Glenn Beck's, you know, outlet that is sort of like, well, you know, back in colonial days, we got to do it. So, you know, now we can do it.

I mean, it's, it's, this is, this is the level of the discourse on the right this weekend. High-toned, as always. High-toned, as always. All right, I think that's about everything on this Maga Monday, unless there's anything else you have for us, Will? No, you know, I don't think so. We'll be back on Monday with Sam Stein. He's off today for Yom Kippur, but, you know, he'll, I think he's storing up the takes for us. You know, he'll have some wacky ideas, as always. And yeah, I mean, thank you everyone for joining us here on Maga Monday. And as a reminder, make sure you sign up for a subscription. Go to Bullwork Plus, sign up,

supports independent media. We're not worried about the White House kicking us out of the White House. We're just doing our thing over here and telling the truth and bringing you Maga Monday along with everything else. So go sign up for a membership. Make sure you hit like and subscribe and all that good stuff. And we will see you next week. Sam will be back next week. Hopefully his mic works a little better than mine.

Thanks, everyone.