Bulwark Takes - The Bulwark Invades Canada (or Is It the Other Way Around?)

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

The Bulwark hit Toronto for a sold-out live show — with Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, and Sam Stein on stage. From Trump’s bizarre digs at Canada and the Comey indictment, to Canadian trivia disaste...rs, rowdy crowds, and a truly questionable blunt rotation, it was a night of laughs and politics on both sides of the border.  Bulwark Live in DC (10/8) and NYC (10/11) with Sarah, Tim and JVL are on sale now! https://TheBulwark.com/events

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everybody, Tim Miller from the Bullwark here. We were live in Toronto. That's how you say it, Toronto, Canada on Friday night. It was rowdy. It was fun. And it was great. The people of Canada obviously have given a pretty skeptical glance to us Americans these days. Their elbows up for the Americans, as they say, ready for a little brawl.
Starting point is 00:00:23 And it wasn't true for us. They're arms open for the Bullwark. They know we're one of the good ones. We're the ones trying to patch things up, you know, trying to keep the liberal, small, liberal alliance alive between our two great countries. And it was a delight to be there. We discussed some about the Canada, U.S. relationship, of course. We discussed some of the big news.
Starting point is 00:00:46 The Jim Comey indictment had happened before we went on and, you know, a bunch of the other fucking parade of horribles we've had over the last few weeks. Because it was a Friday night, we also did some games. was a rendition of the national anthem you might enjoy. We did some Canadian trivia. I want. There's some jokes. There's some laughs, jovial.
Starting point is 00:01:09 You know, the Canadians aren't as humorless as unbi-eyed as you may have heard. They're actually quite wonderful. And couldn't have enjoyed it more. And so I hope that we'll have a chance to get back there soon. I was there with my colleague, Sarah Longwell. Stick around for her, create a core at the end of the event, as well as Sam Stein, who has been welcomed into the bosom of Canada, even though he teased them a little bit, causing some consternation earlier this year.
Starting point is 00:01:36 So Sam Stein, Sarah Longwell, me, live in Canada, covering the news, having some fun. It's going to be an enjoyable watch. Stick around for that. We'll be coming to a city near you soon. Go to the borg.com slash events to see what our schedule is. And we'll talk to you later. Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Starting point is 00:01:57 Hello! Hi! Hi! Hey! How are you, Canada? Amazing. Guys, thank you for being here. We're so excited to be here.
Starting point is 00:02:17 So is this woman wearing a Gavin Newsom's shirt, right in the front road, just to troll me. Just to troll me. Where's changing out? Where is JBL? You know, it's not a long story, actually. JVL was two chicken shit to cross the border. Because he genuinely thinks that they're not gonna let a couple of podcasters back into the United States.
Starting point is 00:02:45 And look, I understand, guys, shit is weird and bad. Okay, where I am, somebody told me in the, we did like a little VIP thing in the beginning, and so people were coming up and taking pictures. And one woman was like, yeah, you're not rooted in reality, Sarah. You're just, your optimism, whatever. And I was like, nice to meet you, ma'am. I thought all Canadians were nice. No? But I get it. Sometimes I can be more optimistic than people like, but GVL thinks that we still, we like no longer have freedom of movement, which I think is like bleaker than we need
Starting point is 00:03:23 to be at the moment. I don't think we have to be that bad. But But he is sad that he's not, actually, I'm lying, he's not sad. He, people, he takes, so I do a lot of live shows that JVL, and before a show, he takes two Xanax. And so at live shows, he's barely himself. And he lets people touch him, and he gets kind of sweaty and glassy-eyed. So yeah, but it's okay because we have Sam Stein with us tonight. I think it's funny you guys are all clapping because as best I understand, all that Sam
Starting point is 00:04:04 has done is insult Canada and the Mounties, and I think you guys should give him a hard time. But it is his first live show, actually. So you love Sam? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's fine.
Starting point is 00:04:22 People have their choices. I just had to stand next to Tim while all of you fanned out over him. That was cool. Thank you, thank you. I'm not, whatever, I'm not thirsty, I'm not fishing, I'm just saying. There's a whole thing with Tim. Here's the thing I want to say just before we get started, which is this is our first show not in the United States.
Starting point is 00:04:46 And, yeah, it's cool. And I got to say, we didn't even know how many Canadian fans we had. We were like, well, look, we should go to Canada because we're all going to need to live there someday. And we should scope it out. We should just check in and see what's happening. And so we were like, well, we'll get like a, you know, 450-person venue. It'll be great. And we put it online.
Starting point is 00:05:12 We're going to go, sells out in 24 hours. And we were like, oh, no. Oh no. Oh no. And so we had to add a second show. So tomorrow, another like 350 people are coming for a Q&A brunch thing that we added just because we didn't want to leave any Canadian behind because we need you guys. We need you guys. So I just wanted to thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for supporting the bulwark. Thank you for not giving up on the United States. We know. Oh, I'm sorry. Have you given up? Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 00:05:54 Okay. We'll talk about it. We'll talk. It's all right. Here's the thing, though, just to kick it off, we do have a special treat, a special performance. And so I would like to invite to the stage to sing the Canadian National Anthem, Tim Miller.
Starting point is 00:06:09 Yeah. What up. Stand up. Stand up, stand up. When the Quebec Nordiques moved to Colorado, my dad got us season tickets for a couple of years, so I think I've got this right. We're going for memory.
Starting point is 00:06:29 All right, you ready? I might need you to help me a little bit. Three, two, one. Oh, Canada, our home and native land. True patriot love. in all thy sons command with glowing hearts we see thee rise a true north strong and free from far and wide oh Canada we stand on guard for thee. God's keep our land, glorious and free.
Starting point is 00:07:26 Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for God. All right. Fuck you, Donald Trump, it's showtime. I'm gonna put on my Canadian tuxedo. I'll be right back. Guys, it's Sam Stein! Hey!
Starting point is 00:08:11 Did you see we all wore our Canadian tuxedos? Yeah, Sam, you look great. I'm sorry for not being JVL. Are we doing the U.S. anthem now or now? Do you know all the words to the U.S. anthem? I do. I'm not going to sing it, then. I have a question that maybe somebody can answer
Starting point is 00:08:35 while Tim's sitting down. Why is it that you guys know so much about our politics when the average American... Because we are the alpha. Yeah. Is that why? Don't say that. That's an odd note to start on, Tim.
Starting point is 00:08:53 All right, I'm going to be the MC tonight. These two are going to do a lot of the talking. Thank God. And then, towards the end, we're going to do some questions. But there's a lot going on in the news. It's a little dark. Before we even got here in between boarding the plane, the plane in arriving here.
Starting point is 00:09:16 A few things happened. I'm just going to go through them. These are real things that happen. The craziest one was a prominent conservative site today published in editorial. I don't know if you guys read The Daily Caller, probably not. But published an editorial explicitly calling for violence. Did you see that one?
Starting point is 00:09:34 Yeah, I did. OK, that was dark. Do you know him? Do you know Jeff Ingersoll? I do. Really? Yeah. No, what's he look like?
Starting point is 00:09:41 What's his physiognomy? me. Hold on. I'm going to get through some other ones. There was a measles outbreak in Arizona and Utah. Not good. ICE detained a superintendent of Iowa's largest public school district. Epstein documents came out showing a potential meeting with Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, and the possibility that Elon Musk visited Epstein Island. And then I'm just going to go through three Trump ones because they're so good. Trump demanded an immediate investigation into the U.N. Into the U.N. escalator situation?
Starting point is 00:10:25 Are you an escalator, truth there? Tim was actually responsible for that one. The subway man and the escalator person. This is a good one. Don Trump put up a post today telling pregnant women, and not to take Tylenol for their kids and saying, don't get the hepatitis B shot until you're 12. Not just against
Starting point is 00:10:43 medical advice, he also misspelled hepatitis. And this one just went under the radar, but it was kind of random. He called for the declassification of the records surrounding Amelia Earhart. Not sure why that... That's interesting. Those are not the records I want disclassified. Yeah, I know. Wrong records, Donald. Was Amelia a lesbian? Was she one of yours?
Starting point is 00:11:04 I don't think so. I think she was married to a man, but like most lesbians. And, like, you think that because she did a great thing. Well played. All right. We joke. Lindberg, not one of ours. Just in case you're wondering.
Starting point is 00:11:25 So we joke, we try to have fun with the headlines, and you need to because you can't get through the day without it. But serious stuff is obviously happening. The big stuff, of course, has to do with James Comey. And what's going on. with the charges against him. Obviously, I've talked to a lot of people that are like, this is a Rubicon moment.
Starting point is 00:11:44 And I gotta be honest, I feel like we crossed the Rubicon prior to this moment, I don't know. But is it a Rubicon? A lot of Rubicon. I've crossed that Rubicon about 12 times in the past three months. But Sarah, is this like a definitionally different moment than prior Trump scandals?
Starting point is 00:12:02 I'm not sure that I think it's that different. I mean, I think it's consistent. And this is one of the different. of the things about Trump that, you know, there's a lot of things he's doing that people think, well, I didn't think he was going to do that. But this is the kind of thing we were all like, no, he told us he was going to do this. Like, by name, we knew he was going to go after people like James Comey. I think what's interesting about the Comey thing is that Trump does have kind of a reptilian sense for who doesn't have a constituency. Like, he miscalculated with
Starting point is 00:12:34 Jimmy Kimmel, right? Because a lot of people are like, wait, I look. I love that guy. No, I don't watch late night anymore, but I see him on the internet, and I like him. Whereas James Comey, because... Bolton. Huh? Bolton.
Starting point is 00:12:47 Right? He rated Bolton's house. Everyone loves John Bolton, yes. He does, he tends to pick... Now, I'll admit, I like James Comey. His kid played basketball at Kenyon. I do, too. Yeah, he's a nice guy, guys.
Starting point is 00:13:00 I'm sorry. I wanted to not like him. No. I had to interview him for the podcast. I was like, I don't want to interview James Comey. And the producer's like, why? And I was like, because I have to be mean to him. And I just, I don't want to be mean to him, you know?
Starting point is 00:13:11 Like, the poor guy, he's like a little puppy. He tried his best. He's like six, eight. He made a bad mistake. He is so tall. He's like a baby giraffe. You're right. He's like a baby giraffe, you know?
Starting point is 00:13:22 Anyway. Yeah, so he's not a bad guy. But because I'm not sure there is any single human being that you could point to to say maybe they had a role in helping to elect Donald Trump, He doesn't have a lot of friends on the left. And because he's been very anti-Trump since the moment he left the FBI or was fired by the FBI, if you remember, James Comey was the first thing that Trump did that everybody went like, wait a minute, that's not a thing that happens in America.
Starting point is 00:13:52 You don't just fire the FBI director out of nowhere. It seems so quaint and innocent. But that was a big deal. But the right doesn't like him either. And so he doesn't have like a Jimmy Kimmel army to come rescue him, and Trump knows it. So I'm just sorry, but you all have to like James Comey now. And you all have to defend him. I'm in the market for a Shepard Ferry-style James Comey poster for the house.
Starting point is 00:14:18 Yeah, no, man. And it's funny when you think about that. I remember I was when Trump fired Comey the first time. I was at like a work, you know, Happy Hour or whatever. And like people's phones started going off. And everybody was like, oh, fuck. Like, this is bad. And it's like, that was bad.
Starting point is 00:14:32 And he replaced him with Chris Ray. It was like a totally normal, competent person that you would want to have at the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And like, here we are now, and it's like Cash Patel is running it. It's like a January 6th children's book author that looks like he should be playing Grand Theft Auto like in a fucking crack apartment in Miami is like running the FBI now. So that's not great.
Starting point is 00:14:58 And it's like the gap between that. It's hard for people to wrap your head. like the gap between the first term type of corruption and what he was doing and what he's doing now is like really, really wide. And like, and the danger is wide for that degree. The other thing about this is, you know, the other thing that's happened in the interim
Starting point is 00:15:14 was that the Merrick Garland DOJ went after Trump and, you know, Peter Navarro and a couple of others. And so on the- So Hunter Biden, but yeah. Yeah, on the right, they have that fig leaf. Like you see them saying that, like, this isn't a Rubicon moment. Like Peter Navarro got, you know, arrested by the Trump or indict.
Starting point is 00:15:32 by the DOJ during the Biden era. It's like, well, Peter Navarro did crimes. So there is the turnabout his fair play element to this. But the thing is that, like, Trump has been out there being like, no, arrest James Comey because he's a bad guy. He's worse than Democrats. He's a political foe. And so he's being very overt about it.
Starting point is 00:15:50 And he goes so far as to fire somebody that he appointed because he wouldn't prosecute Comey to replace him with this woman who has no prosecution experience who would. And so in that sense, it really is like a category difference. It's not just that she has no prosecution experience. She was his literal lawyer, right? I mean, and I think that gets to something that's troubling more for me about this, is that, you know, when he fired Come up the first time and he replaced him with Ray, you know, you at least had some sort of confidence
Starting point is 00:16:18 that there were people in the FBI, in the DOJ, who had at least, you know, hold back the worst impulses. And in fact, Jeff Sessions, you know, recused himself and we had the whole special, geez, jeez. Jeff Sessions and Mike Pence. My hero. We are in a dark spot. If only we had sessions.
Starting point is 00:16:41 Now we have like Pam Bondi and you're like, well, she's not going to do anything about this. And obviously, Kash Patel's not going to do anything about this. And Lindsay Halligan is filing these insane indictments, which is, I don't know if you guys saw the indictment. It was two pages. It was ridiculous. There were two twos. There were two twos, two second charges. One of the charges was thrown out.
Starting point is 00:17:03 But you mentioned something else that actually, I think, is an important part here, which is Trump's basically live tweeting all this. Yeah. And that's both bad, but also in a way could be the undoing of the prosecution. Right? You can't, well, you'd like to think you can't have a president weighing in on every twist in turn and essentially ruining the case for the prosecution, right? Yeah, but that is not, sometimes we tend to think about these in terms of normal politics. Okay, and like normal, James Comey's going to go to jail.
Starting point is 00:17:34 That's not what he wants. He just wants to fuck with Comey's life, right? This is about just, like, I'm mad at these guys, and now I have all the power, and I'm going to just mess with people's livelihoods. And so he's not, it doesn't matter to him if there's a conviction. It matters to him if they're raked over the coals, made to be embarrassed, having their livelihood. Because people don't even, I think sometimes it went under the radar. Comey got audited.
Starting point is 00:18:02 Like, they were, and back in the first term, like, they did go after some of these guys just to mess with them. And like, that's all this is. It's an, Trump felt embarrassed by having to go to those, go up in front of judges,
Starting point is 00:18:16 and now he wants to do it to these people. What did Kinsiger tell you? It was intimidation. Is that what he said? Yeah, but I, the thing, I like talking to Adam about this stuff because it's hard to, like, you know,
Starting point is 00:18:28 it's hard to, explain. Like, at the same, like, these things are simultaneously scary and clownish, right? Like, at the same time, this is unprecedented and against the rule of law and against the democratic system, and, like, we should be really upset about it. And also, like, they are big babies. Like, they're extremely thin-skinned, and it isn't really working, right? Like, it hasn't actually worked yet. And so, like, you need to kind of live, like, in that gray area and live in those realities and, like, be both outraged about it, but also mock them. I mean, like, yeah, they're trying to fuck with James Come back.
Starting point is 00:18:59 he's life. I'm actually more offended about what they're doing to his daughter. Like, they fired his daughter from the government for no reason. She did nothing. All she did was go and put sex predators behind jail, behind bars. So you'd think that the QAnon crowd had before that. And like, she's the only one out there getting convictions of sex criminals. She gets fired because her last name's Comey. It's fucking outrageous. And, but at the same time, like, I don't know, man. Like, it isn't, it's not Putin. I mean, Jim, I don't think Jim Comey is shaking in his boots over there. Like, none of these guys are going to jail yet. They've got to go to grand juries
Starting point is 00:19:33 and they've got, like, the fucking Keystone cops filing these indictments. And there's, there is something that, like, you shouldn't let the, like, you can both be outraged and mocked them at the same time. I suppose. I suppose, but I'm not willing to concede that we can
Starting point is 00:19:49 I mean, I don't think you're saying we can live with this. But I think it's fucking bad. Like, it's bad that they're doing this. I think Comey will have the resources to defend himself, sure. But it is an intimidation tactic. And basically it sends a message to anyone else who is willing to push back against Trump. Don't do it. And it doesn't take much to imagine a scenario down the line closer to the midterm elections where the target isn't James Comey, but it's some trumped-up bullshit
Starting point is 00:20:15 charge against the Democrat on the ballot somewhere that they don't want to win. And they just do this. I think that's right. I do think that's right. Here's the thing that though, and look, there's not that much to be hopeful about. But, But I do... This seems to be a reoccurring theme here. I do think that Comey is one of the... It's an emotional decision by Trump, but I think it's a bad one. Because James Comey's going to have great lawyers.
Starting point is 00:20:42 He's not going to get him. Comey's going to be defiant. He already is being defiant. He's quoting his daughter. And here's the thing is, right now, one of the reasons that in America thinks are so terrible and they're so different from the first go-round is not just who's in the administration, but how our institutions are responding to it, right? So when you watch everybody cave, that, where people can be intimidated,
Starting point is 00:21:07 if you're ABC, you're a big company and you just pay them off, you're like, yeah, yeah, no, sorry, yeah, no, we shouldn't have used the word rape. We should have said sexual assault are bad. We'll pay you $16 million for it. That is demoralizing. Watching James Comey fight and win, I think is going to be good, ultimately. Let's pick up on that. Because you referenced Kimmel.
Starting point is 00:21:34 And today, two other news stories, Sinclair and Nexstar both announced that they were going to put Kimmel back on. Cucks. They got cucked. Cubs. Cable cucks, yes. Ciclair got cucks. C-M. There's something.
Starting point is 00:21:57 I think there's a real lesson here. And it goes kind of unnoticed and maybe unremarked upon because we're just shoveling through the shit. But when there is a popular pushback, he has folded. And there are other cases. I mean, look, we'll see what happens with Chicago. But the military was supposed to be in Chicago by now. They are not, right? At least I'm not aware.
Starting point is 00:22:20 There was also something that went very under the radar today. Video of this DHS agent. Did you see this one? Slam some woman, this poor mother. or wife, just trying to figure out what's going on with her husband who was detained. This guy slammed her to the ground. For the first time I can remember, DHS was like,
Starting point is 00:22:36 oops, we're sorry. And that's because there's a popular outcry against it. And it does give you a modicum of hope, a little tiny parcel of hope, that maybe that's the way to get past this. No. Tim's not convinced. No, I'm just fucking with you.
Starting point is 00:22:54 Yeah, no, yes. I mean, yes, El Salvador is the other example, right? right right right there are supposed to be hundreds of people in el salvador prison and there's zero right now from america at least and uh that was because of legal pushback political pushback you know so like he can be slowed i guess that's what i'd like to at the kinzinger says he gets this all the time because i think he's like on the um you know who might get sent to el salvador scale like kinsinger's like a little bit in front of me so it's kind of like he got part he got a pardon man you did not you're a little in front of him. As long as you're still hanging out, like, I feel like I'm good. If you,
Starting point is 00:23:31 if you disappear, I'm going to start looking at Uruguay. Um, but, uh, you know, right. Like, his point is like, no, fuck these guys. Like, bring, like, let's see, let's actually see it. I mean, like, there are people that have legitimate reasons to be concerned, obviously, like migrants and people who aren't traveling to our country anymore, like you people. Um, and, you know, trans folks. Um, just come to New Orleans. All right, nobody, nowhere else. Okay, carve us out. It's French. There are a lot of Acadians down there. So, like, that part, like, is, you know, like,
Starting point is 00:24:03 there are a lot of regular folks that are going to get fucked. But I do think, like, the targeting of political elites has been pretty ham-handed so far. I think it sucks for James Comey, and it sucks for people that work in the government big time. But, like, the political prisoners are going down. I don't know. Let's fucking see it, I guess.
Starting point is 00:24:21 Or are you saying they should be arresting the people who stole the election away from Trump? I was saying that. You noticed none of them. I was watching you in the Uber on the way over here and I was saying to Sam I was like, Tim's making a good point this is actually a good point. Yeah,
Starting point is 00:24:36 it's interesting. And it's the biggest crime in history. They stole the 2020 election from our great president. I know, I can't believe. And they now have the DOJ and the FBI director. And my point to Sarah was, why are you giving Trump ideas? Well, there's nobody to arrest to it. It wasn't stolen, Sam.
Starting point is 00:24:52 What's the idea? Yeah, fair enough. But this is going to escalate, right? I mean, we just, I don't, there's no, First of all, Trump has said... Bolton's getting indicted any day, for starters. For sure. Where does this go, Sarah? Like, what's...
Starting point is 00:25:03 The lawfare stuff? I mean, he's going to keep doing it, although I do think... Like, he's picked a couple of ones where the public support might not be there immediately, but where the cases are deeply weak. Right.
Starting point is 00:25:18 And so, I mean, I love... Tish James has two mortgages. It's like, what you're going for? It's like, big, scary, you know, Victor Orban over here is going after Tish James over her beach house. Also, she didn't do it. She didn't do it. She's innocent of it. And so, like, these guys are going to get off. But Bill Pultz family did do it.
Starting point is 00:25:37 The guy who accused her, his own family member, did the same exact crime. That's right. And so, to me, we have got to normalize the pushing back and Trump losing, because that is where then other people will find their spines. And that's why we're here in Canada, unlike Jay. I'm going to, if anybody, if one of you has one of those attitude teas about fuck Trump, I might wear that going back through Customs in Philly or wherever I'm going Charlotte. Tim's like, if I get held up at customs, I will be so much more famous. I am daring them to come get me. I dare you to hold me up. I've got a lot of lawyer friends. You put me in one of those rooms.
Starting point is 00:26:22 Just got put it on YouTube. Monetize it. The bulwark live from the border. I want to close up this section by talking sort of what Tim was getting at, which is like, there are things that matter more materially, I think, than Comey. The Ice Raids, I think, is a great example. And I was talking to a friend of mine. He follows his stuff. He works with immigrant communities in LA. We're talking about Comey.
Starting point is 00:26:46 He was like, look, I know it matters deeply. But the people who I work with, they don't know who the hell James Comey is. But they are sure as hell scared of the fact that their communities have. people in masks, raiding their stores, going into their communities, arresting people, detaining people. That's the stuff that they pay attention to. So I do wonder, like, from a political, just strictly political standpoint, like, does this matter, the Comey stuff?
Starting point is 00:27:10 Do Democrats take this and run with it? Or is it just something that we care about because we're super hyper, you know, into the news? So it matters to me in this sort of weird layer of talkers. So the thing about right now, watching a bunch of sort of censors, to write or not even center right, but like people who want to be MAGA, but they're also watching it being like, ooh, I have a law degree. This is no good. You can't, you shouldn't really
Starting point is 00:27:37 shouldn't do this. I do think the more of these that pile up, like it starts to erode people's ability who care about their credibility, right? And this is why, look, it's a sick way to think about things or a sick way to talk about things, but it is a real phenomenon. there was a reason that after Charlie Kirk was murdered, they rushed to say, this was the left. And it was because they wanted a narrative dominant position in a way to go on offense, right? Because they've been on the back foot. They're on the back foot on the economy. They've been on the back foot on Epstein. And so they are trying to drive media cycles so that they feel like they have something they can be morally outraged about.
Starting point is 00:28:20 And so when this stuff happens and those people are like, actually this is indefensible, it chips away over time at sort of the respectable rights ability to defend these things. I hope that's right. I don't know if that's true, though. I've got a different answer. I think it matters, I don't think it really matters at all politically. I think that it does matter substantively not just about the legal part, but like, again, like Comey's son-in-law left.
Starting point is 00:28:50 There's all these people you don't know that are leaving the administration, right? Good or bad. I'm torn on that one. Yeah. And the FBI, you're seeing lots of people leaving. And that's true at DOJ. And I think like these types of things are like you fucking fire somebody like just like with under no pretense other than you want to do a political prosecution on your opponent. I think I assume has other people who are working in the Department of Justice being like, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:29:20 I'll do it. I think I could get a few. I could get some more money in the private sector. Right? Like, you know, and so I think that that has like some real potential like medium tail negative effects that are kind of hard to predict, like particularly on the law enforcement side. So I think that is like the significance. I don't really think that the Jim Comey thing will have like a lot of deep political significance. Unfortunately, I would like for it too. Sure. All right. We're going to switch tone and focus a little bit. Oh, great. Back a couple months ago, I did a YouTube video with this man. who's about to come on. And we were talking about Canadian tariffs. And I may have laughed a little bit too much about the situation.
Starting point is 00:30:04 And my laugh may have come off as dismissive. And I want to just say, I'm deeply sorry. And I love you. Underlying this whole thing was this idea that we don't know jack shit about your country and we're embarrassed about it. So we're going to invite that same man, Bullwark editor, adopted son of Canada, Martin Wendell Jones, to come on stage, and he's going to quiz us on Canadian trivia.
Starting point is 00:30:33 So welcome Martin Wendell Jones. Thank you, Sam. Okay. Getting very competitive. Real quick, before we start, we've just heard a lot about politics. I want to say something very briefly about history, if you'll humor me. I'm not only a citizen of the United States and permanent resident of Canada, also a Dutch citizen.
Starting point is 00:30:56 My grandfather, my opa, fought in the Dutch resistance during World War II. He was an arsonist. I cheer for the arson party. It's good. He was an arsonist. He specialized in setting fire to Nazi collaborators' outbuildings. Hell yeah!
Starting point is 00:31:13 He was questioned by the Gestapo. And when his home was liberated, who was it, who did it? Canadian soldiers. So it is an honor to me personally to be able to permanently live in a country that has a history of fighting fascism in a very literal way. So with that, let's learn a little bit more about this great country and see... I'm going to have to see the facts on that. I'm pretty sure it was the Yankees that saved all of Europe. But we'll just...
Starting point is 00:31:51 Finally, Tim's less popular in Canada than me. You see what I have to deal with here. That's right. This is a game called you, Ottawa, no. I'm going to ask you a series of questions about Canada. You can all collaborate on your answers. No pressure. We'll keep this really simple.
Starting point is 00:32:16 Can we ask the audience? No. There are some questions you are not going to want to ask. audience. We'll see why in just a few minutes. So we'll keep this really simple. We'll just get started here. Everyone knows America became a country in 1776. What year did Canada officially become a country? Please don't let me down. 1815. 1935. You're all five. 17. 17. Okay, the answer is 1867.
Starting point is 00:32:50 Oh, fuck. Wow, that's really late. So as a quick follow-up, we have... Price is Right Style, 100. As a quick follow-up, of course, we have Independence Day in the United States. In Canada, we have Canada Day. What month is Canada Day?
Starting point is 00:33:06 Wait, hold on. Are you talking Canada or civic holiday? Sam is asking this because he sees my time-off requests. Canada Day. We are talking about Canada Day. July. Very good. I was going to say June. I was in the right ballpark.
Starting point is 00:33:24 Price is right, rules, bitch. 1-1-0. What is the national animal of Canada? Beaver! Beaver! No, no! That was supposed to be mine! That was supposed to be yours.
Starting point is 00:33:40 It is yours. We'll give it to you. 11-1. So, the $1 coin here in Canada is called... called a... But why is it called a loony? Because of your beady little eyes.
Starting point is 00:34:00 Louie? Looney. Oh, a loony. Why is the $1 coin called a loony? Looney tunes. Why the fuck would I know this? Am I gonna look stupid if I... Why?
Starting point is 00:34:16 I don't know. It has a loon on it, the actual bird, something. What is a loon? Why is the dime called a dime? I don't know. So, bonus question, what is a $2 coin called? A tooney! Yes! Yes!
Starting point is 00:34:32 Did you know that or did you guess that? You know, I knew there was a word toony, and it made sense in context. What a great country. The United States and Canada share a lot of holidays. What month is Canadian Thanksgiving? November. Now, Canadian Thanksgiving is in October. I was one month off.
Starting point is 00:34:57 You guys booed that? Come on. Fair enough. Who is the Canadian Pocahontas? Do you guys have one of those? Canadian Thanksgiving? Yeah, like, what's the Thanksgiving story here? It's just harvest.
Starting point is 00:35:19 It's not related to the native. Moving on. Excuse me. It's kind of a touchy subject here right now. Actually, I don't think we should be bringing up the native. Anyway, moving on, moving on, moving on. Canada is officially a bilingual country. French.
Starting point is 00:35:32 What percentage of the overall Canadian population is fluent in both English and French? I know that you have a dumb rule that your prime minister has to be able to speak both Canadian and French, which is silly. Canadian and French. French. And that's a perfect slip because it should be English. Just embrace the English. I don't know, probably what, 30%? I'm gonna go higher.
Starting point is 00:35:58 I'm gonna go with 60. I'm gonna go, I think it's 18%. Hey, that's correct. I thought higher of you people. I thought higher of you people, my mistake. I looked up Canadian facts right before we went on. That's how I knew about the Beavers. Here's a Canadian fact for you.
Starting point is 00:36:18 for you. If you walk into a Tim Hortons and you order one medium regular coffee and one medium double double, what have you ordered? It's kind of like a sausage and cheese biscuit. They got good
Starting point is 00:36:38 donuts there. Is it donuts? Do you smash two donuts together here? Is that a thing? That sounds good. The double, double. That sounds amazing, yeah. Sounds like something we'd eat in America, actually. A regular coffee is one cream and one sugar,
Starting point is 00:36:55 and a double double is two creams and two sugars. Oh. What? I think I got that one. Name one CFL football team. Oh. This is Saskatchewan. The Calgary, the Calgary.
Starting point is 00:37:12 There's a roadrunners. Wait, is this, is this, is this soccer or football? Football. Which one did Flutty play for? Right, I know, but is it the one you kick or the one you throw? Throw. American football.
Starting point is 00:37:25 The Calgary Flames. The Saskatchewan. I'm kidding. I know that's hockey. Jeez. There's a Saskatchewan something. Are there any women's teams? Would you like to know the teams?
Starting point is 00:37:37 Yeah, sure. The teams are the Hamilton Tiber Cats, the Montreal Alouettes, the Ottawa Red Blacks, the Toronto Argonauts. Oh, fuck, I should have had the Argonauts. Shout out to my wife. Uncle Gordon, who played for them. Shut up.
Starting point is 00:37:50 B.C. Lions, the Calgary, Stan Peters. Oh, San Peter. The Edmonton Elks, the Saskatchewan Rough Riders, and the Winnipeg. Roadrunners, Ruff riders. I was close. I was close. I was close.
Starting point is 00:38:02 Which one was Flutian? Which one was Flutian? All right, here's one that I think Tim specifically will love. Well, great. Which of the following movies did not premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival? Here are the four movies, the Princess Bride, Boogie Nights, the Shawshank Redemption, or Black Swan. I'd say Shawshank, probably.
Starting point is 00:38:28 I would have gone Shawshank, too. But that's so random. Who would know that? Black Swan would definitely have been here. Feels like Boogie Nights would be here, too. I don't know. All of these films premiered at TIP, except Black Swan, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:38:46 All right. Weird question. The crowd didn't even know that. Yeah, no. Here's a question that everyone here is definitely going to know. In July 1989, Nirvana served as the opening act at a show in Madison, Wisconsin, for what legendary Canadian rock... The tragically hip. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:06 I feel like I have a commanding lead at this point, but let's keep going. Before it entered bankruptcy protection earlier this year, the Hudson's Bay Company was known as the oldest continuously operating corporation in North America. In what century was it founded? The 17th. The 18th. The 19th. The 17th.
Starting point is 00:39:29 Ah, damn. You just picked the earliest century. What the hell is going on with Tim? I have a sports question. All right. What percentage of active roster NHO. players for the 2024, 2025 season were from Canada. Probably like 57.
Starting point is 00:39:50 40. I don't know. 41%. 41%. Yeah, we got all the fucking Ruski's in there now. Yeah, I was going to say, the Finns, the Russians. Which Canadian writer described in the award citation as a master of the short story won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2013.
Starting point is 00:40:13 That would? No. Oh. Is George Saunders from Canada? No? See one of yours? Lucy Maud Montgomery. Alice Monroe.
Starting point is 00:40:23 Oh, that's a good one. Never heard her. Toronto. She is wonderful. Two more. Two more. How many more do you got there? This is like...
Starting point is 00:40:35 I got a few. Toronto is home to the largest museum in the world dedicated to what? Shoes. That's right. Wow, Sam. Wow. That was a tough one. The Bata Shoe Museum's permanent collection contains over 13,000 shoes.
Starting point is 00:40:54 And some of them are as old as 4,500 years. Oh. Cool. Pretty good. I can see why it's such a big tourist destination. I can't believe I've never been before. Last one. Choose your best.
Starting point is 00:41:09 Okay, no, we're going to jump down here. Okay. What did Trump accuse Canada of doing to the White House during 2018 call with your dough? Burning it? That's correct. It was the British, though. I know. Trump's not the brightest guy.
Starting point is 00:41:24 A quick follow-up. Who won the War of 18-12? I'm just kidding. Don't answer that. Don't answer that. Do not answer that. Ladies and gentlemen, Martin. One last.
Starting point is 00:41:33 One last. Okay. One last question. Alex Rebecca. Toronto Blue Jays. Toronto Blue Jays are heading to the place. playoffs. They last won the World Series. 1993.
Starting point is 00:41:48 I got it. I got it. I got it. Joe Carter. Joe Carter. Game six, Mitch Williams. Well, congratulations, everyone. Ladies gentlemen, Marlon Wendell Jones. Good job, Martin. Who can name more in 1993, Toronto Blue Jays?
Starting point is 00:42:06 I don't want to do this anymore. Guys could just sit around, name in 1990 sports figures. That's for later. That is the most I've ever heard Martin talk. He's funny. He's hilarious. All right. I'm feeling pretty good after that victory.
Starting point is 00:42:23 I don't know if I need another. We're going back to the news. We're going to do a little bit of kind of a game type thing here. Another game. I picked 10 actual news items that happened in the past month, all of which are very, degrees of horrible. And I've asked, they know these items, I'm asking them
Starting point is 00:42:48 to give me what they think are the worst. And you guys can tell us if we got it right or not. But I'm going to read them out loud, so bear with me for a second. Number one, Tom Holman took a $50,000 bribe, delivered
Starting point is 00:43:04 in a Kava bag. And I'd say, we got a couple of presents from the audience, and I love presents. So in the future, if or if you want to come to the Baton A show tomorrow. I'll accept more presents. Nobody offered me a single fucking dollar, though. Like this, I don't take a cash prize.
Starting point is 00:43:20 Somebody gave us gummies, though, and I love that lady. There she is, your hero. I love you. Thank you. All right. Two, Trump, we talked about this one. Trump fired a U.S. attorney, Stalled his own lawyer to bring charges against James Comey. Don't need to linger on that one. Three, the FCC blatantly pressured.
Starting point is 00:43:42 a major network to throw a comedian off the air. Four, RFK Jr. decided to host a press conference saying Tylenol causes autism. Five, RFK fired the CDC director because she wouldn't preemptively sign off on his vaccine quackery. Six, the Epstein estate produced a letter from Trump to Jeffrey Epstein showing Trump writing love poems and signing his name in the pubic region.
Starting point is 00:44:05 Seven, military leaders were purged and now have been summoned for a cryptic meeting with Pete Heggseth. Eight, Trump sent the guard. into D.C., pledged to send the military into Memphis. Nine, TikTok was placed in the hands of maga-loving billionaires. Ten, Stephen Miller was appointed head of the administration's efforts to combat domestic terrorism, a day after declaring Democrats a domestic terrorist organization.
Starting point is 00:44:27 And 11. This is another one. Katie Miller describes Stephen Miller as a sexual matador. Which one of those is most horrifying? Eleven. Eleven. No. All right. In all seriousness, 10 stories, one month, any of those in normal times would have been shocking. But this is our lives. Of those, which one did you find the most horrifying? Let's start with Tim. I'm sorry. I just like the Stephen Miller image.
Starting point is 00:44:59 That sound you're hearing is millions of American women turning into lesbians. My dick has receded into my stomach. Okay, I guess I'll probably zag here because I think the most ominous one is, well, both of the last two. I think that the TikTok thing is, I don't even, so I guess I'm going against my own behavior here because I didn't even mention it on the podcast today. I've talked about how much this other stuff, but like just over the medium term, I mean, the degree to which TikTok has a hold on the youth of America as far as an information device, is like pretty alarming to me. Having now, like Trump, like, handing out goodies. The buddies, like, not even included in that
Starting point is 00:45:50 is, there's the corruption element of it, too. They essentially said TikTok is worth like 14 billion, which is like less than Snapchat. It's crazy. Like all these rich, conservative billionaires are gonna make a shit ton of money on this. They have control over the algorithm. You now combine it with Zuck having Facebook,
Starting point is 00:46:09 Musk having X, Barry Weiss taking over CBS and CNN maybe, Fox News, Newsmax, you know, Kirk, like, the degree to which the right is going to control the media space and the social media space is just, it's really kind of hard to wrap your head around, and it's a huge, it's a sea change from five years ago. And Trump won in 2016 with having a lot of these institutions against him, really. You know, I mean, like there was some Russian stuff. happening on Facebook. But all of that stuff is on the edges. Like most of the tech CEOs, they weren't like progressive heroes or anything, but like we're basically hostile to Trump. Like most of the media networks are like basically hostile to Trump. So now like he'll be in a position going into 26, 27 where he has like him and his allies have control over almost all of them. And so I find that to be quite, quite alarming. And it relates to the Stephen Miller stuff because it allows for cover for that. The sexual mattid? No, not the sexual madador. But like the targeting of
Starting point is 00:47:10 domestic foes. Like, when we were talking earlier about how I want to, like, the James Comey stuff is both scary and offensive, but also mockable, right? Because he has the resources, to your point. Like, he's going to have lawyers, he's going to have a team, and they'll have media folks behind him, like, to fight this, right? Like, if they start, like, treating, you know, left-wing activist organizations as, like, domestic terrorist groups, and, like, they start bringing down the power of the Justice Department and the fucking masked thugs, like going after people in the streets, like that stuff starts to get really, really dark. So I don't know.
Starting point is 00:47:49 I mean, there's a lot of bad stuff there, but I just like projecting out those are the two things that have me the most alarmed. It's also the corruption. I don't like the corruption either. Well, the corruption is the through line through all of those. Sarah, go ahead. Well, we should have talked about this beforehand because if I had realized you were going to say that I would have picked a different one.
Starting point is 00:48:11 No, no, that's okay. You can say yes and. Yes, and. The FCC, the TikTok thing was also, yeah, not FCC. The TikTok thing was also mine, but I guess it is for a slightly different reason. I think that there are the things that Trump is doing now that are going to be very scary, but they are going to be sort of contained to Trump. And we have to push back against them and we have to fight against them.
Starting point is 00:48:38 the thing about the takeover of the media companies is it's about the future. And one of the things, I don't know if you guys listen to the pods, we did talk about this a little bit, but when Elon Musk, it's very difficult. I know that we're in the political prognostication business, but it's very difficult to predict the future. And sometimes when you're looking at the things that are right in front of you, for example, when Elon bought Twitter, we all thought, what a dumb move.
Starting point is 00:49:04 Like, just from a value standpoint, from a business standpoint, He overpaid for it. He immediately trashed the value. And we were like, what is he doing? But of course, it became clear in 2024 what he was doing. He controlled a massive information stream. More importantly, he controlled the algorithm. And I want to, the thing about, and when Tim says CBS,
Starting point is 00:49:28 Larry Ellison, the Ellison takeover of CBS and then now Time Warner, these are the-Tac-Tac-K-Tac. Right, the same people. And they are going to work that algorithm. So the thing that's changing about the news, the number one thing is that people used to be news seekers. All of you in this audience go looking for reliable information. Young people, yeah, good, good job. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:49:54 That's how you found the board. Way to go, news seekers. No, but this is actually, this is a really important distinction about the future. Now people are just news like imbibers, receivers, right? It just comes to them. algorithmically, they are going to control the full suite of what is being shown to people. And they can, like, Elon, you can see it when something, right? Elon was doing a thing after the Charlie Kirk murder where he made sure that anybody who's,
Starting point is 00:50:24 anybody on the left who said something really insensitive or celebrated to the death, that that got ramped up to make sure everybody could see it. And we were about to live in the world where Trump and all of his allies control all the information that the news receivers are getting. There's a reason that young people are now leaning right in a world where it has been axiomatic for so long that young people lean left. That's not happening anymore. And so for me, in terms of the dominance of Trump and Trump-like people going forward, there is nothing scarier than the way Trump is making sure that all of his friends now control the information stream.
Starting point is 00:51:02 I also think the TikTok thing, do you have something on TikTok? I was just, I was just, I was just, going to add one element to this. I actually had a different thing that scared me, but I think the other element that doesn't get enough attention almost is that these people who control the major media outlets all have business before the government. So it's not like they can wake up with the, you know, conscious and say, ah, you know what, I'm just going to actually not tinker with that algorithm, because Trump's going to hold it over them. I mean, that is, I think, really what's driving so much of this. When Jeff Bezos pulled his... endorsement in the Washington Post surely in the back of his head it's because he
Starting point is 00:51:42 has billions it's not trillions of dollars at stake and he wants to be on the good side of Trump I don't think it's in the back of his head it's in the front yeah and it's just it's very rare that we have media consolidation at this stage the idea that the idea that Allison is going to control a major broadcasting network the biggest social media company in the world on top of a few other media entities in CNN is shocking. And it's deeply troubling.
Starting point is 00:52:10 And I think the other thing that makes me anxious is that it's hard to find a way around it, right? I mean, what we're building is great. I love what we're building, and everyone should go and subscribe if you haven't and tell everyone to subscribe.
Starting point is 00:52:22 I'm pretty sure we got it. Yeah, I think you're already there. But how do you get around what is essentially like five different firehouses? It's hard to actually see a way. Yeah. The tech to, I mean, at some level,
Starting point is 00:52:35 like, I do think that there's opportunities. I mean, I think that, like, this is where my used to be a Republican part does come in a little bit about, like, there's not just three channels, right? Like, the market, you know, people, you can go out and find a market and go out and find an audience. Like, we're doing that. Other people are doing that.
Starting point is 00:52:51 And so, I don't, like, it's not so bleak. But, like... But can you? If they can, if they're putting their stamp on, you know, your ability to do that? Well, I think it might be, who knows? Like, it might be tough on TikTok, for example. But Zuckerberg is not, like, so much in the tank for them that he's, like, drop... So, you know, there's
Starting point is 00:53:07 Instagram, there's YouTube, like at this point. It's alarming. The TikTok thing for me, the tough part is, and I don't know, it was just such a political pickle for the Democrats. Because it's like, they're not, they're not even fighting it now, and you kind of can't fight it. I don't even want them to, right? Like, you go out there
Starting point is 00:53:23 and you're like, no, TikTok shouldn't exist, and then people get really, then it's not going to work, for starters, then people are going to get mad at you for doing that. So it's like. It's just ridiculous. This was Donald Trump's original idea that Joe Biden then picked up. that Congress then passed, that the Supreme Court then affirmed,
Starting point is 00:53:40 and then Trump saved the company, and it looks like a... With an executive order. I know, so, like, that's the part about it. Like, it's totally against the rule of law. It's totally, like, insane that they're able to do it that way. It's like the anti-schoolhouse rock. But it's also, like, what do you do about it, right? I mean, I guess you go, you go try to compete in other places and build other companies,
Starting point is 00:54:01 but it's like a real fucking pickle. It's bad. Let me, so my numbers were different than yours, but... Okay, great. Can I guess what yours was? You know what my name is? It was about RFK. Just because your mommy is an OBGYN, doesn't mean you have to be so narrowly focused on the health of our babies.
Starting point is 00:54:21 Someone has to be, Tim. I think telling people that Tylenol is going to cause autism and then taking away vaccines is bad. I don't know. Have there been any measles outbreaks up here? Yeah, you got anything? Yeah, we're getting means up where? Don't worry, we brought it with us. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:54:41 Out west, Calgary, Alberta, Ontario. Yeah, it makes sense. Which brings me to... The Mennonites catching strays. Wait, let's talk about the Tylenol thing for a second. Because the problem is not. I thought you were supposed to put Tylenol between your legs. That was the Foster Freezing.
Starting point is 00:54:59 That's what they told us in like middle school about how... No, I heard that about, it was birth control pills. Like the way to his bird control is put them between your knees and hold them there. Yeah, I got it. Okay. It's like my high school gym teacher told us that. Cool story. On the quick aside, on the issue of my mother, since you brought it up, she...
Starting point is 00:55:20 I love your mother. She taught the sex ed class at my school. Do you realize how embarrassing that is? That was horrifying. It was like eighth grade, and I'm sitting there. I'm just like, oh, my God, get me away. Did you guys watch sexy movies together?
Starting point is 00:55:37 I don't want to relive this. Go ahead, Sarah. Not like sexy movies. I don't know. Why would they watch sexy movies together? Everybody have that trauma together we're like at the movie theater and there's one sex scene
Starting point is 00:55:48 but you're like there with your mother and you're like, oh my God. For me, it was Jarhead. What? Jake Gyllenhaal does a very, there's a very aggressive masturbation scene in Jarhead and Jake Gyllenhaal is going after it and he's handsome.
Starting point is 00:56:03 And I'm there with my mother and father as a closeted teenager. I'm going, this is horrible. But maybe it would have been better if a mother like Dr. Fine who had talked me sex ed, maybe it would have been more comfortable. It's so funny. I have so many stories here, but I can't tell any of them. The difference between gay men and lesbians is really funny because mine is like, the sexual tension in fried green tomatoes
Starting point is 00:56:26 was so between, like, I've seen Jarhead a bunch of times and I don't even remember the masturbation scene. I might pull it up back at the hotel room. Okay. I had a point about Tylenol. Get to it, please, quickly. What were you talking about? RFK Jr.
Starting point is 00:56:48 Here's the thing. Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam read the hepatitis thing that Trump tweeted out today in like all caps. I don't know whether or not Tylenol has any, relation to autism. Actually, when we discussed it on the show, just hold on a second. What we don't want to do is be in a position where, based on who is giving us the information, right, we are polarized against scientific information. However, what we do know about Donald Trump is he is neither a doctor nor a smart person. Same with RFK. And so this is something that people are interested in
Starting point is 00:57:31 figuring out like why it's happening. And so for them to, the reason that they did it was because they promised they would. And so like the level of irresponsibility, it's not us saying we know what does or does not cause anything. The geriatric sperm. You just like that, I, you just like that one. He's right.
Starting point is 00:57:54 Old man's sperm is more likely to cause autism than Tylenol. It's true. Dr. Fine said so. Sure. We're still researching. That's fine, but the entire, the, I just, to me, the idea that the President of the United States is out there tweeting these things
Starting point is 00:58:13 when parents have real, like, feelings about this, the way that they're putting this on mothers, like it is, it is like the one of the cruelest things I have seen them do. Oh, it's incredibly cruel. And irresponsible. What killed me about the press conference with RFK, about Tylenol, in addition to how ridiculous it was,
Starting point is 00:58:35 and how unscientific it was, and how Trump had to insert himself, like, he should never have been there, is I couldn't help but imagine the mother who had just given birth and had taken Tylenol at the worst parts of her pregnancy when she was in pain and feverish, and then was told by the President of the United States, you might have just given you kid autism, for no reason whatsoever. That is cruel. That is psychologically cruel.
Starting point is 00:58:58 I got a text message from somebody I know and love who's got a seven-month-old who they put on a Tylenol drip when she was just giving birth, spiking a fever, because that's what they do. And like, the level of panic that people are feeling right now by this. Like, sometimes it's, we laugh because he can't spell
Starting point is 00:59:14 hepatitis, but like, it is causing real damage to people. Or pronounce the Cetaminophan. We got to move the show along quickly, but before we exit this segment, we're going to do a game that I've done with Tim multiple times, but I've never actually done with Sarah, which is, who's the most pernicious
Starting point is 00:59:30 cabinet member, based on all this, you know my choice. It remains RFK Jr. I think I know Tim's choice. Still Pan Bondi? I'm switching. You're switching. You're coming to my side? No. Who is it? It's your turn. I didn't know that this was coming, and I didn't think about it.
Starting point is 00:59:52 You know, it's been such a competitive category. You know, and my rankings, I had a little gimmick that I was doing for a while. Twitter, I should re-up it, where I was, like, doing, like, the grade rankings of all of the Trump cabinet members, and I kept just giving Doug Bergam A, and then, like, B, C, D, we're all empty, and then I was just, like, F, minus, F, minus. Doug's doing fine. Yeah. It turns out Doug actually has some corruption issues, too, which isn't surprising.
Starting point is 01:00:20 But I think I have to be with Christie Nome right now. Ooh. Okay. And this is the first reveal of that. This is her first time in the poll position in the rankings. Yeah, this is down the stretch they come. I don't know. Did you read Ben Terrace's profile?
Starting point is 01:00:37 It's pretty good. It is, I mean, and the fact that she's having an affair with Corey Lewandowski, who had the worst breath that I've ever encountered in my life in a spin room in South Carolina in 2016, he got right up in my face and kind of hip checked me. And I almost fell down, not from the hip check, because of his breath was so rancid. he's a really unappealing human and so they're having he's apparently running DHS
Starting point is 01:01:04 like you did mention the one example of the guy they fired today but there's just no accountability they're hiring all these people they're hiring all the ICE agents they're doing it totally irresponsibly like the amount of just damage and pain being done in the country by DHS right now
Starting point is 01:01:18 I think outstrips the damage that other folks are doing I mean the RFK could pass her again for sure that Pam Bondi is in the competitive set It's real close. Luckily, Pete Hegseth, we kind of just rolled over his little meeting today, or Monday. It sounds like he's just going to give like a, like a, what was the movie where Bill Paul? Independence Day? Sounds like you're just going to give like an Independence Day speech to the generals and then give them a challenge coin or something or give him like a branded. A cash coin.
Starting point is 01:01:47 Yeah, a branded quarter zip, you know, that says war fighters on it. So he hasn't done enough damage yet to be in there. So I'm going Nome, Bondi, and RFK. Okay, what about you? Nutlick. We do love Howard Nutlick. How can you not love Howard? We do love Howard Nutlick.
Starting point is 01:02:08 Yeah, he is clownish. Clownish, but not totally damaging. Okay, so I've sat here and tried to think who is in the cabinet, so I'm going through them all in my head. So let's just take them one by one a little bit. I don't know if I can name all the cabinet members, But we've got Hegeseth who, I would say the apex of his effort was when he did a war thing on Signal, right?
Starting point is 01:02:34 Like, I know that's not in your month thing because that was just a couple months ago. You know what wasn't in your month thing that happened this month is Hegset is just drone striking random boats in the Caribbean. Yeah, I totally forgot about that. So Hegset's committing war crimes and then often including random people on Signal and he's talking about it.
Starting point is 01:02:52 Sure. Okay. Also, he does his pull-ups the wrong way. I get a lot of emails about how he does his pull-ups the wrong way. Marco Rubio, who's supposed to be the normal one, now has many jobs, but is shutting them all down, spends a lot of time with dictators, and does a lot of time covering for Trump's worst things
Starting point is 01:03:14 by putting a normy sheen on it. So that's bad. Can we pause on Rubio for a second? Yeah. We've got a minute, right? We've got nowhere to be. we're doing okay are you guys
Starting point is 01:03:23 are having a good time we're doing good at all right let's go it is just because we're out of the you know because like
Starting point is 01:03:31 Rubio at some level has some jurisdiction over you know cross-border relationship between here and our friends in the north and it was kind of interesting
Starting point is 01:03:39 I was emailing this guy or I was interviewing this guy from the Daily Caller yesterday for YouTube and he was unhappy with a segment Sam and I did where we ruthlessly mocked
Starting point is 01:03:50 his media outlets and he went wanted a chance or he bought it. And so I gave him a chance. It was interesting. He pulled, like, he kind of conceded on a couple of points. But one of them, like, that he was very easy, quick to concede on was the Rubio green card stuff, like, around the free speed.
Starting point is 01:04:05 Like, I do feel like he doesn't get enough attention for this. It is so pernicious, like, this idea that, like, you might, your green card, you know, like, that you might not get that if you had, like, criticized Israel or, like, done a mean tweet about Charles. Charlie Kirk. Yeah. Like, it is, it's very un-American. It's very against free speech.
Starting point is 01:04:26 It's very against everything that Rubio ever was for. So if you lump with that, like, assault on essentially the freedom to travel in the country and have whatever political views you have with the total shuddering of USAID, I think I've convinced myself, Rubio might be on my top three. Who are you going to knock off? It's tough. Oh, man. You think about that.
Starting point is 01:04:56 You keep going. Okay, so, well, Rubio, I thought, deserved at least some consideration. I'm glad you brought him up. And his ears are just unbelievably big right now. It's like inhuman how big it's like jumbo. Every time you see Marco Rubio, he's like sallow and sweaty,
Starting point is 01:05:11 and he looks like his soul has just left his body. But he's also small. And, yeah. So I actually, because I was a Rubio person at one point, Yeah, couldn't have been me. Because he was a Jeb person, because this is... Why'd you say? Please clap for Jeff.
Starting point is 01:05:31 Please clap, yeah. Thank you. He deserves it. Jeb deserves that. He did his best up there. Okay, but then let's talk about cash for half a second. Not in the cabinet. Not cabinet. He would have been in my top three. Yeah, easy pick, but not cabinet. Sorry.
Starting point is 01:05:48 Yeah. Moving on. If you lump him in with Bondi. Yeah. As a tag team duo. It's not a package deal. No one, Tulsi. Where is, no, she used to be your top. Tulsi was on my top for a while.
Starting point is 01:05:59 Yeah, she's, I think she's drifted. Okay. Well, here's going to be my pick. She didn't fire a lot of our top intelligence officials, but okay, yeah. Scott Besson, anti-gay, homophobia. Scott Besson is gay and keeps punching people. You're being anti-gay and keeps punching people. You're going to be the anti-gay person by picking him.
Starting point is 01:06:21 but go ahead. Stop interrupting her to him. Yeah. No, no, no. My... I want her answer. My answer is the vice president. Oh.
Starting point is 01:06:37 I hadn't even thought about that. He fucking sucks. The vice president... So I was going to go through the cabinet and just talk about all of the insane things that they've done. Because I think sometimes one of the trouble with the Trump administration... is that they do so many outrageous things,
Starting point is 01:06:54 and they are muscling through it this time. Hegsteth should have been gone over the signal thing. Bondi should have been gone over the Epstein files. Her people came for her, and she's still there. Car, I know, is not in the cabinet, but, like, these people, you know, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Like, each one of them has done something
Starting point is 01:07:14 that should have gotten them fired, but he's not firing people this time. But the worst person in the cabinet is J.D. Vance. Do you want to expand on why? I mean, A, because... Have you ever hated anyone more than you hate J.D. Pants? And, you know, part of it is... And it's, like, not even close for me.
Starting point is 01:07:35 I've spent a lot of time I just kind of sat alone one night, and I was like, I keep making this statement that he is... I've never felt more disdain for anyone in my life than J.D. Vance. And I was, like, going back to childhood. And I was like, what about the guys that bullied me? Like, what about... the people that were mean to my mom, you know, and I, like, thought about it and tried to feel
Starting point is 01:07:55 how I felt about them. Nobody comes close. What is it, what is it about him that draws this? There's two things. There's two things. And it's a little bit, one of the reasons I was talking about Rubio is there's nothing worse than the people who we know. J.D. Vance was one of us. He was a never-trumper who saw Trump clearly, said he was Hitler. Like, the only member of Trump's cabinet. No, sorry. Everybody who's like, you can't call Trump Hitler, that's incendiary, you're inciting violence. I'm like, the only person
Starting point is 01:08:27 to call Trump Hitler is his vice president. No, RFK Jr. too. RFK Jr., right. That was like a very good Twitter correction. But that's not just that. We should be honest, there's some people on Blue Sky calling him Hitler as well. Whatever. Don't go there. Don't bring Blue Sky into this.
Starting point is 01:08:46 But the reason that I am most worried about J.D. Vance is that, that J.D. Vance is going to run for president. He's going to run in Trump's legacy, and he is up close learning every bad lesson. And the reason that you think you hate him, here's the thing, the reason that American politics, we can't get a handle on it, and we can't figure out how to push back, is because it's too chronically online, and so it doesn't feel real, right? It doesn't feel like a serious thing up there.
Starting point is 01:09:13 Yesterday he called John Favro, just our podcasting friend. He got on Twitter and called him a dip shit. right he just like gets in the mix as the vice president of the united states nobody has ever lowered that office more nobody has ever he went after zolensky and told him hey have you ever said thank you like you can make all the couch jokes you want but it's almost not funny because jd vance is a breath away from the presidency and he sucks so hard and is doing nothing but propping trump up It's also just, it's fucking, it's just so fucking fake. He's just such a smarmy, fake, condescending piece of shit.
Starting point is 01:10:01 Like, Donald Trump, obviously, like, does fake stuff, he doesn't believe. But, like, kind of like you're getting his id most of the time, you know? Like, J.D. Vance is a performative prick. And there's, like, there's nothing worse than being a fucking performative. prick. Like, right? It's like, he's like, I'm pretending like, I am a total sociopathic asshole because I think that is what I need to do to get power, and I find it so fucking appalling.
Starting point is 01:10:34 And also his face, I don't like, I don't like his haircut, really. I don't mind the eye shadow. I don't like his haircut. I don't like his hair cut. I didn't like his book. I didn't like the movie. it's also that's also fake he's had three names and two or three religions and his book was all like I got to Yale and I didn't know where the fork went
Starting point is 01:10:57 it's like nobody knows where the fucking fork went okay I didn't become you don't become a Nazi because you don't know where the fork went at the fucking formal party at Yale okay I fucking hate Jady Vance so much so do I win that game or Honestly, I would rather... We're going to go to a game a second.
Starting point is 01:11:19 I'm just going to add my two cents on JD. They're kind of serious. I'm taking a contrary view. No, no, no, yeah. I love JD. On a very serious note, anyone who could admittedly lie about a Haitian...
Starting point is 01:11:34 A disparage and endangered Haitian community eating cats. And then admit that he did it so that you can get the media to focus on it, to do that. in service of some political aim, says something about you. And I think that summarizes J.D. Vance.
Starting point is 01:11:51 We are going to actually lighten the mood a little bit. Lighten. Tim. I'm feeling light. You're feeling light. Tim has a game. I'm going to let Tim introduce his game. We kind of do this on Saturday night around the house,
Starting point is 01:12:04 me and my husband. You do? Yeah. You sit around. You take it. No, no. Well, we do this next game, too. But we also do, like, let's just do a quick eight-minute hate on J.D. Vance.
Starting point is 01:12:13 Like, it's been a long week. Can we just get it off? Tyler, you go first. Eight minutes. Sharp eight, Tyler. All right. Did we come up with a name for this game? I don't know.
Starting point is 01:12:24 I like to do, when I'm doing interviews, I like to ask people what their dream blunt rotation is. And so, since we were given some weed gummies behind the stage, I thought we'd have a draft with what our Canadian blunt rotation would be. If we just got to hang out after this, sorry, it wouldn't be with you guys. It would be with our dream people. And so we'll have a draft.
Starting point is 01:12:43 At the end, you can decide. group you want to get high with starting first Sarah who's your first choice Katie Lang horrible choice Sam who's your first choice Seth Rogan easily Seth's real good no I'm taking Bieber you Justin Bieber obviously what kind of high you gonna get whatever he's into so we don't even get so we don't get to like tell stories at all about why we chose who we chose, we're just going fast. We got...
Starting point is 01:13:18 You can if you want. I would just say, I'll just say... I would like to sit down with Katie Lang and tell her about the time my mom just gave me a Katie Lang CD and was like, here. I think you need to hear this. That's a lovely story. Yeah, all right.
Starting point is 01:13:39 Okay, my second one. Megan follows. They don't even know who that is. I want to see a show of hands of people who know who that is. Who is that? What do they do? And of Green Gables, my most formative work. Is that a lesbian show? No.
Starting point is 01:14:06 Okay. I'm taking Michael Sarah. Basically, Megan follows. I want the guy who runs the shoe music. No, I have no desire I get high with that guy. SGA. I want to talk ball. Ooh, shy Gilgis Alexander. Okay.
Starting point is 01:14:28 Well, you're going to lose, I think. Who's your final choice for your blunt rotation? Margaret Atwood. See, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Sarah's going to win, but that's because you guys don't really know. Don't understand what a real blunt rotation is. The last person you want in a blunt rotation
Starting point is 01:14:48 is Margaret Atwood. Okay, literally the last person. The point is to get high and ask people questions. I want to be like, what's it like to know that your fictional work became a documentary? Sounds like a thrilling conversation. Also, if I wasn't here to name these blunt rotations, it would just be a bunch of dudes
Starting point is 01:15:06 talking about sports. A lot of people love Anne of Green Gables. Disgible. Katie Perry count yet? No, okay. I was going to go with Neil Young. Shania Twain. Neil Young.
Starting point is 01:15:25 Deal Young's a good choice. I was trying to go for an entire twink plunt rotation, but I couldn't think of any other ones besides Michael Serra and Justin Bieber. So I have to take Mike Myers as my final one. And we're going to discuss so I married an
Starting point is 01:15:39 Axeberger. Okay, so there you go. Who do you want to get high with after the show? cheer for Sarah. This is rigged. I want you to remember that my blunt rotation has Justin Bieber in it. Cheer for me if you want to hang out with me.
Starting point is 01:16:00 And Sam? Nobody. Okay. Sarah wins. You guys are fucking lame. You want to get high with Margaret Atwood and talk about female sex slavery? Megan Fellows.
Starting point is 01:16:15 Live is too. short to get high with Margaret Atwood. Okay, and I'm not upset because she didn't come tonight. We did invite her. What have been great to have. He did invite her. I would love to have Margaret Atwood on the podcast, but we're going to do it sober. And, you know, it's different at the fun times.
Starting point is 01:16:33 Do we have more politics to do? We have one last segment, which is we got some questions submitted from audience members. We're going to pose a few of them. All right. Rapid fire style? Well, they don't lend them. themselves to rapid fire, to be honest. We can try.
Starting point is 01:16:49 We're going to go through... We've got a lot of email questions about the authoritarian moment. Have you gotten... Yeah, we got one about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race. We're going to skip that one. Sorry, Judy. You know what we haven't talked about before you get to Q&A? Do you have any thoughts on
Starting point is 01:17:04 Mark Carney, how he's been doing? What do you start? I feel like Mark... I'm trying to decide if Emmanuel McCrone or Mark Carney is the most bulwarky world leader. You guys think Carney. I think probably Carney, he's just such a globalist, you know, kind of me at lib. Did you guys see his closing ad?
Starting point is 01:17:26 Do you remember this at all? I was in it. And do you know why I was in it? It's not because he was like, look at this cool chick. It was like, he was like, we don't want to be like these Americans. And it was me going like this to Scott Jennings on CNN. Anything we can do to help, Mr. Carney. Are we worried a little bit that he's kind of wussing out?
Starting point is 01:17:54 No, we're feeling good. You don't want to turn up the pain a little more on the Yankees? No, we're happy. Okay, good. I'm not sure. At a guttural level, I want you to tax us. Okay, like at a deep level. But I think probably that strategic considerations might be different.
Starting point is 01:18:09 Are you aware of the phenomenon called maple washing? I'm not. Are you aware of maple washing? It's kind of a greenwashing, I guess, but Canadian washing? What, you have like a... It's U.S. goods coming into Canada, but the people selling them are presenting them as Canadian products. Oh, death penalty for those people. The other great news story that I discovered in my 10 minutes of research prior to the show was that the U.S. ambassador to Canada...
Starting point is 01:18:42 Hold on, hold on. Come on. Can you name, how many people can name the ambassador? I guess they're so wild. Who's your ambassador to us? Who? Helman? She's really knocking it out of the park.
Starting point is 01:19:02 She's doing great. Are them, they? So Pete Hoekstra apparently said he was disappointed to find out that there isn't more MAGA in Canada. We also invited Pete to come out here tonight and he declined as well him he did he's not in my blunt rotation um all right let's take some audience questions okay all right michael uh writes about the kimmel situation um did the c suite in this instance believe trump spin that he's a popular mandate and that's why they underestimated the public backlash
Starting point is 01:19:36 it's a crazy brand decision to cave to this administration it seems wildly ignorant of public opinion I think that's basically kind of what you were getting at or no? Okay. This is tough to say. Like, Donald Trump absolutely does not have a popular mandate by the vote, right? So he didn't, okay, I know, yeah, clap, clap, clap, good, good, good. Anyway, here's the thing. Trump did win the culture in America by more than he won the vote.
Starting point is 01:20:09 Like, there were a bunch of things that America, that Americans are really frustrated by. They are frustrated by our border situation. They are frustrating. The straws. What? The straws. You guys, paper straws.
Starting point is 01:20:23 Every time they make a paper straw, a Republican gets born, okay? I'm telling you. I'm supposed to drink a chocolate shake out of this thing? It's awful. That is an affront to my freedoms. Yeah. I get it.
Starting point is 01:20:36 I mean, I'm not going to fascism over it, but they have a point on the straws. No, it's true. It's important to note. And there's a lot of people who voted for Kamala Harris because they're like, yeah, this guy is no good. But like, we've got to stop with the insert DEI, insert woke, insert political correctness. There is a real thing happening in America and a lot of it is because of COVID. And in the post-COVID world where people are like, that went too far.
Starting point is 01:21:02 And look, we can have a conversation all day long about who was president in 2020 during COVID. Who was that? I think it was Trump. It is the most misunderstood thing in America who was president at different times. You guys, there's this call-in show. You got called out for that recently. Did you see that?
Starting point is 01:21:19 One of my fans, you were like, because we make this joke about how people can't remember who was president in 2020, and then you did the thing on the next level, you were like, on January 6th, 2020. Oops.
Starting point is 01:21:30 The fans were like, Sarah, it was 2021. Oh. Donald Trump was still president in 2020. Right. It's okay. That's all right. We all forget.
Starting point is 01:21:39 It's tough. It's tough. It was a long time ago. Anyway, wait, what was the question? We're going to go to the next question. From Debbie. No, no, no, no. That's about Trump winning the culture, and that's why the fucking suits folded. The suits are still trying to navigate it.
Starting point is 01:21:54 That's right. It is not like the first time where everybody's like Trump is a historical accident. The second time everybody knew everything. Why is he so unpopular? The popularity then, I'm kind of curious about that. Because, yeah, I agree with you on the culture. cultural stuff and yet you look at these polls and he's at 42, 43, that's it. Here's the
Starting point is 01:22:14 thing. Nobody fucking believes them. The polls. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like that's just, again, I'm not saying they shouldn't believe them, but like if you're trying to understand behavior, like the question is trying to understand behavior, Trump's polls are bad. Yeah, but you why are the CEOs folding to them? They don't buy it. Let me push back a tiny bit you, because you've been
Starting point is 01:22:30 covering the stuff about those podcast bros who have basically been like, I didn't sign up for this. And they were great, they were like at the front, they're at the vanguard, of the cultural shift, I would like you. And now they seem to be retreating a little bit, like Theo Vaughn, you know, it seems uncomfortable with this.
Starting point is 01:22:46 Yeah, but the suits, I think, I think the suits are pretty comfortable right now. They're very comfortable, yeah. The oligarchy is feeling pretty good. And the suits, they don't love the tariffs, but he's been talking on them, and then they've been bribing him. And so, like, I think as far as Trump's constituencies
Starting point is 01:23:00 are concerned, like the, you know, magabase that hates the woke stuff, the people that are nativists that want the immigrants out, and like the corporate rich guys are probably the happiest right now. I think that's probably part of this. Sorry?
Starting point is 01:23:13 What about it? What about it? Yeah, I mean, but this is sort of the point, right? Like, I do think that they, people believe in America now, and I believe this too, listening to voters. America is still a center-right country. And I also think that the linear spectrum of, like, right and left is starting to become more and more meaningless.
Starting point is 01:23:35 But there is a blowback, a pushback, a backlash, whatever you want to call it. in the United States to basically everything that happened from 2020 on, including when Trump was president, that it goes for Black Lives Matter, it goes for COVID, and we are still living in it. And I think that every one of these media companies has decided that the future is on the center right. And like, that is a real thing that's happening right now.
Starting point is 01:24:01 And one of the things that I'm going to start doing more and more as mad as I think it's going to make people at me is that there's a hopium out there, this idea that like, well, Trump is unpopular, is at 44%. People are seeing in the demographic information that they're like, yeah, I don't want him to deport criminals, but I want the border closed. And like, yeah, I don't want them to be like crazy on like putting the National Guard in the streets,
Starting point is 01:24:23 but we do want something done about crime. And Democrats are going to have to figure out how to navigate that, and it's going to be, and it's the reason that Democrats can't find their footing right now because for a long time in 2020, they thought, oh, okay, well, if we're, you know, left on this stuff, it'll work, and that's where our base is,
Starting point is 01:24:42 but it is not where the majority of Americans are, and there's a reshuffling going on that people are trying to find their way through. But also, these guys are such fucking reactive. Wusses. It's like literally the same people that put end racism in the end zone on the football field, like did a 10-minute
Starting point is 01:24:59 ode to Charlie Kirk this time. Like, these guys are just totally reactive to what's happening, and in the same way they overstepped in the past, they're overreaching this time, and there will be a backlash to the person. backlash, of course. I agree with that. That's Sarah being optimistic, the people tell me I'm delusional. Like, I think there's going to be a backlash.
Starting point is 01:25:14 But I also, I just also think it's really important people understand why this is happening. All right, I want to get to two more. One is, Tim, you take this one. From Debbie, why are the America first idiots bailing out Argentina? Why are the American first idiots paying up
Starting point is 01:25:32 Argentina? I mean, I guess like the answer to that is like the obvious Occam's raised answer to that is, like, Trump just wants people to be nice to him, like, honestly. And, like, Malay, yeah. Like, Malay sucked up to him. And so he's like, whatever, I'm going to be nice to this guy because he sucked up to me. It is crazy, though, that there's not more backlash to it.
Starting point is 01:25:52 And it's, like, an outrageous policy. Like, we're going to do a $20 billion bridge loan to Argentina while we're, like, shutting down aid to the poorest people in the world. Like, it's an insane policy. It's great. on the merits. It's also insane politics. It's crazy because Malay came to America, brought a fucking chainsaw with them,
Starting point is 01:26:14 handed it to Elon Musk and said, go cut your government. And we did it. And now we're bailing out his government with our money. What the fuck? And we're still paying all the people Elon Musk fired because he did it illegally. And trying to get them to come back to work. It's not logical. Wait, hold on. The reason that we're bailing them out is because they don't want his project to fail because the American right feels connected to that project. 100%. I think that's the answer.
Starting point is 01:26:41 Oh, sorry. You don't think it's Donald Trump got sucked out to it? I think that's probably it too. But I do think that they feel like they staked something on that political project. And if it fails, that's a problem for them. Right. Yeah. All right.
Starting point is 01:26:55 Last question. Gerard Polis, during our interview with him, said he wanted Huffier Malay to be in his blunt circle. And that's the only worst answer I've heard than Margaret Atwood. I love Jared Polis but wasn't a great blunt circle answer he would be terrible in a blunt circle
Starting point is 01:27:09 yeah we do have a little bit as much as I love my moderates some of them are doing some very weird things to express their moderation like you do not under any circumstances
Starting point is 01:27:21 have to hand it to RFK Jr if you're the Democratic governor of Colorado I'm sorry sometimes I got a soft spot for people let me off let me go you're kidding the gay gamer for, yeah, where does your
Starting point is 01:27:34 soft spot come from? He's doing a great job as governor. All right. Last question. Last question. I don't think he's a future as a podcast test. It's covered. It's okay. Last question from Virginia. Sarah, you're going to take this one. Is it fun? No.
Starting point is 01:27:46 Can we have a fun one? Can we have two more? There are no fun ones in here. No one submitted a single fun question? No. I guess there's one that's kind of funny. Let's go with this one, then we'll do the funny one, is. From Virginia. Dems shot each other enough.
Starting point is 01:28:04 I get that Kamala Harris' book just came out, but good Lord! exclamation point. Stop criticizing everyone who might shoulder some blame over the 2024 loss. It's been done and done and done and done and done again. No, Virginia. No. I will not. I will not. Like, have we not learned anything?
Starting point is 01:28:21 Did we not live through 2024? If your lesson from 2024 was we shouldn't, we should not talk about bad things that the Democrats are doing. We should just be quiet and just cheer for every Democrat no matter what they're doing, then I don't know what to tell you. I think that you've gone insane. I think politics has made you insane. Like, the lesson we learned from 2024 is that more Democrats should have been like, why are we doing this crazy thing renominating somebody that every single person and every focus group and every poll tells
Starting point is 01:28:56 us they don't want us to nominate? So maybe we should have been doing that in 2024. Have you read the full book yet or not? I don't do I have to? I have to because you're trying to get her on the pod. It's one of the burdens of being a podcast toast. I don't really know why she's writing the book and I'm hoping to ask her about it. The book's a little while to come out there and just
Starting point is 01:29:15 rehash his stuff, I got to say. Do you have anything to ask? I mean, it was a question for me, so I'm going to... Was it? It was. It was. That's okay. Sometimes when women's names get said that it's like well over my head. Like, what
Starting point is 01:29:31 Virginia, Sarah, Lauren, Rebecca. What's your name again? I'm like, Tim, do you like, do you like this shirt? And he'll be like, I can't see you. I don't even like wear. I don't see girls or women. I apologize. So anyway, actually, I think differently from Tim,
Starting point is 01:29:51 I do think, I think the reason that Democrats continue to shoot at each other is that they don't have an answer for what it means to move forward. And I think they've got to get that answer because I do want them to move forward. I think it's very important to learn the lessons of 2024, but, like, the time to solve that is kind of now, and then to figure out where do we want to go. You know, JBL had a really good newsletter the other day about, like, where's our project 2029?
Starting point is 01:30:15 And I actually don't think Democrats, well, let's not, remember, Project 2025 was, like, not a popular thing, and Trump ran away from it. And I don't know. So JVL's not here. Don't need to clap. I'm here. But I'm here. Okay. But broadly.
Starting point is 01:30:31 the idea of, hey, we're a political party that has a direction, has a stance, knows where we're going, knows to what we stand for, and we can explain it to you or articulate it to you. You're like, yeah, it's about time you guys did that. We're all waiting. What is it? And instead, they're going to continue to shoot at each other
Starting point is 01:30:50 until somebody's got an answer. And so I think it's very important they figure out an answer so that they can stop shooting at each other. This is a good point. And I think there's a lot to actually merit on about what that project should be, and I think we should discuss this tomorrow. Honestly, there's a lot to go on here.
Starting point is 01:31:06 There's a big debate happening in the Democratic Party. Come tomorrow. All right, by seconds. Can I do another thing? And another thing about why. We should all... It's cool.
Starting point is 01:31:16 Let's all criticize each other and talk about it and figure out what the best thing to do is we don't have to do exactly what I want. We don't have to do it. Sarah wants. We surely shouldn't do whatever Sarah wants.
Starting point is 01:31:24 We don't need centrist neo-liberalism. I'm sorry. What would you call your brand of Politics. Exactly the same as your... Just a little chiller about it. But, like, I get this thing sometimes for Libs that don't, like, actually watch Republican stuff, like, or Fox or anything, and you shouldn't, by the way.
Starting point is 01:31:44 I do that to punish myself. They're, like, the Republicans don't do this. Like, they stand in line, and they have an echo chamber, and they all say exactly the same thing. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, Donald Trump ran against the most popular governor, Republican governor in the country, and called him Meatball Ron. Called him Ron De Sanctimonious.
Starting point is 01:32:06 And, like, he made fun of all their, like, half his cabinet, he's made fun of their faces. Like, he made fun of how they looked. He called Jeb. Like, that is not true. That's not true. Like, they fucking fight it out. And Donald Trump won because he won people over.
Starting point is 01:32:20 And, by the way, he won running against the Republican Party. Yep. He won running against the establishment because people didn't like the Republican establishment. And so if the Democratic establishment can't get their shit together over the next year or two, you know who's going to win
Starting point is 01:32:36 the Democratic nomination in 2028? Somebody who's running against them. There's somebody who is calling them all week and somebody is saying that they've failed people. And so we shouldn't, and maybe that's good, by the way. Maybe that's okay. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:32:49 God willing, we have real fucking elections in 2028 and we can have somebody that does that and galvanizes people and has a plan for 2029. And that's good and okay. And we should all encourage that and shouldn't be so sensitive about it. It's nice. I'm into that. I'll debate
Starting point is 01:33:04 it out. Hell yeah. I agree that. All right. This is the closest we get to a fun question. All right. This is from Corrin. Are you in the crowd? Corrin. What up? Do you want to come up here and read it yourself? Come on, corn.
Starting point is 01:33:21 Or is it a boy? Is Corinne a boy's name? Corn. Corn is a male name. Get up here, Corrin. Final question. There's this guy. All right, come here. Final question. Hi. You have to read the one that was on the paper though, okay?
Starting point is 01:33:34 You don't have to read all of it. I was so thrilled. There you go. Okay. Okay. Where are you from? Oh, yes, okay. Where are you from?
Starting point is 01:33:44 Oh, I'm from Toronto. Right here in Toronto. Right here. And I'm at your show tonight. And my question is I'm going down to celebrate Thanksgiving with family in San Francisco. In October. In November. They don't, yeah, we're going in November and, uh, but I'm a Canadian, so my question is,
Starting point is 01:34:04 should I buy a burner phone to cross the board? Thank you, sir. Hey, everyone, clap for your job. Like, what's your job? I was a high school teacher, but now I'm retired. Congratulations. I, um... Give it up for Corinne.
Starting point is 01:34:22 Thank you, Corinne. What's the answer? I've got some great... First of all, your legs, look great. Second of all, I don't know that retired high school teachers are what they're targeting at the border.
Starting point is 01:34:38 So I don't think you need... Depends what's on that phone. Can I see her for you page? Can I take a peek at your Instagram Reels page? I want to see what kind of material you're looking at before I weigh in. I mean, I think you're okay.
Starting point is 01:34:52 Yeah, you'll be all right, man. You'll be okay. I think you're all right. You know, our little fun tip, learned from an attorney is maybe you turn your phone off before you go through so they you know they can't compel you to go through it here's my thing i think you're fine man but we're in a fucking dark that's why it's not a funny question we're in a dark place like people have to have the conversation like we really are and i don't you know my my bestie that lives four blocks from
Starting point is 01:35:16 me um his wife's from spain god god lover she got uh she's citizen now just recently like right before trump came back in she kind of gone through the process like her parents come in and out a lot, right, to come see the grandkids, to come visit, and, like, they're worried. Like, you know, they're Spanish, they're worried about being targeted, you know, racially, and, you know, they're worried, like, they're old, you don't, you know,
Starting point is 01:35:43 like, dealing with the hassle and stress of being detained. And, like, she asked me about this, and I was like, I can't tell you that that's not a legitimate worry. Like, I don't think that your mother, your abuela is gonna end up in Saccotte, in El Salvador, but like, It is a real thing that people have to worry about coming to America now.
Starting point is 01:36:03 That's a legit worry. I think you can enjoy your Thanksgiving. But I do think it really, it sucks that it's our reality. And this is what Donald Trump has signed us up for it. And that's why we wanted to come to Canada to be in solidarity with you guys. That's a great note to end the Q&A. We're going to turn to Sarah now for our closing remarks. but before we do, I want to just say
Starting point is 01:36:29 thank you guys. You were awesome. Appreciate it. Aren't we so lucky to have Sam? How great is Sam? My girl. My girl right there, yes. We could not run a real fucking business without Sam. I just let you tell you that.
Starting point is 01:36:51 Say, what did you say? I said we could not run a real media company without Sam. We hired Sam and it was one of the best things that we ever did. One of the best things I ever, that ever happened to me, honestly. And actually, I'll start my closing by telling you a little bit about how Sam came to us. Because it's only been two years, maybe, not even. I came in July 1st of 2004, so a year in three months.
Starting point is 01:37:14 A year in three months. Feels like longer. But, you know, when Sam came, he came and sat down and Tim is like, you know, Sam Stein keeps saying he wants to come work here. And I was like, really? And when Sam and I sat down, he was like, I see what you guys are doing. I see that you're building a community more than you're building an audience. And I see that you guys want to be this, you know, sort of like fearless, scrappy thing. And I was like, this guy gets us.
Starting point is 01:37:44 And, yeah, you should come work here. And, you know, the thing about the bulwark is that, like, we didn't, it just sort of happened. We didn't start a media company so we could sell it to somebody, like a lot of these guys do. We started it because the weekly standard got shut down because it was insufficiently pro-Trump, and a bunch of us were really upset about what was happening to the country. And as we've grown and as we've gotten bigger and as we've built this community, the thing that we hear over and over again is you keep us sane. And we heard that tonight.
Starting point is 01:38:30 But the thing is, like, you guys keep us sane, right? Like, part of what happens when the world feels like it's upside down and the reality that you've lived with goes away, like the only way that you can, like, orient yourself morally, ethically, intellectually, is by looking back and forth with people that you receive. and people you trust to say, you see the sky is blue, right? It's blue for you too. And like that was part of what happened when Sam came to us.
Starting point is 01:39:04 He's like, I see what you're doing, I see who you are. Like, I want to do this too. Which has really been our litmus test for people who join us. Like you're watching us grow. And it is people coming to us and saying, like, I see what you guys are doing and I want to be a part of it. Because everybody else right now, they don't see what's happening. They don't see what time is.
Starting point is 01:39:21 They're going through the motions like the world is still normal. world is still normal. And so, you know, the thing about authoritarian, and I do close all the shows the same way because it's a real thing where they are trying to exhaust us with the constant scandal, the constant corruption, the constant offense. It is meant to put us on our back foot. It is meant to make us tired. It is meant to make us feel like there's no way to push back against it.
Starting point is 01:39:51 It's too much. It's changing too fast. can't do anything about it. But of course, we can do something about it. And what the Jimmy Kimmel thing shows us is that when you push back, they cave. Like the point, the thing about Donald Trump is that he is a weak person.
Starting point is 01:40:07 Elon Musk is a weak person. These are weak and broken men who, for some reason, because of their weakness and their brokenness, have found each other and have found a way to make themselves feel big and strong. And the worst thing we can do is let them. Right? And so, like, I love JVL with all my heart. He is one of my best friends, for real, for real.
Starting point is 01:40:28 But he should have come. I don't mean to shit on him, but he should have come because we should never let them make us afraid. We should be together and we should show up and we should keep pushing back and we should keep saying it's wrong and we should never for one second. And when people say, Sarah, you're too optimistic
Starting point is 01:40:48 to the point of delusion, all I'm saying is Do not give up. Do not let the darkness swallow you. Do not make it so that you say, well, things are too bad that I can't do anything about it. Because that's how they win. I promise you. Don't go to medieval times.
Starting point is 01:41:10 And I just want to say, when we come and do things like this, it makes us so happy. We love to see you guys. We love to be with you. love to hear from you. And I just, we came because we felt all the love from Canada coming our way when this stuff happened. And we just really appreciate you guys. Tell all your friends about the bulwark. Help us build a big community. And we will keep coming back and we will keep
Starting point is 01:41:39 showing up and we will keep doing the things that we're doing. Thank you so much, Toronto. Thank you, Toronto. Thank you, Toronto.

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