Bulwark Takes - Trump Melts Down Over Peeling Paint & Algae in Reflecting Pool | MAGA Mondays

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Will Sommer and Sam Stein went live as they cover the craziest stories from the right wing fever swamp, including Trump threatening people with a 10-year prison sentence over the Reflecting Pool, the false Candace Owens death conspiracy theory, Tulsi Gabbard being controlled by a cult leader, and Greg Bovino's love for Dracula.Head to Superpower.com and use code BULWARKTAKES at checkout for $20 off your membership. Unlock your new health intelligence. 100+ biomarkers. Every year. Detect early signs of 1,000+ conditions. #superpowerpod You can buy Will's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Plan-Conspiracy-Reshaped-America/dp/0063114488/?tag=bulwark08-20

Folks, we're back. It's me, Sam Stein. It's Will, Will Summer. It's Monday. Maga Mondays. What a pleasure to be joined by you every Monday, Will. Thank you for doing this. You know, it kicks the week off, right?

You know, for me, I spend the weekend saving crazy tweets I see from MAGA people. The drama I see in the moments between like taking my kids to see Peppa Pig or whatever. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, sure. Like, this crazy stuff's going down. And so here, this is where I sort of share it with everyone. I unburdened myself. Was it better or worse to do this on Father's Day for you? You know, for me, it's a treat.

It's, you know, in between, you know, yeah, I had a great Father's Day. I hope you did it as well. Happy Father's Day. But the MAGA drama never stops. Yeah. Well, Happy Father's Day to all those who are out there. Just a belated plug. Look, sometimes you forget that it's Father's.

Day and you wake up on Monday and you're like, oh, no, I forgot about my dad again. And he really doesn't love me anymore. And I need to get back in his good graces. Well, there's only one way to do it. And that's a Bullock subscription. So go to Bullock.com slash subscribe for a belated Father's Day gift if you haven't gone yet. There's my plug. All right.

Now, on to the show. We have so much nonsense to sift through. I'll just give a tease up top. We're going to be talking about the reflecting pool to start because Donald Trump is on an absolute kicker right now. And then we're going to talk about Tulsi Gabbard, a bombshell Washington Post piece that she may and likely was under the influence of a spiritual guru from Hawaii, member of the Harry Krishna group, which luckily Will actually is also a member,

so he has some expertise in how this works. Yes, I'm waiting on my talking points from the guru before we proceed with that segment. And then on top of that, we have Candace Owens. Is she alive? Yes, she's alive. But someone said she was dead this weekend and sent Will into a spin. He was beginning to worry that he might not have content for his newsletter and for Macon Mondays. All that and more coming up.

But let's start with the reflecting pool. So, yeah, where to begin, Will? How would you describe how Donald Trump is taking the fact that the pool has a lot of algae and the bottom layer. It's not a paint. It's a layering. Sealant, if you will, seems to be coming undone

as we documented with our own Brennan Hartnett, went down there and saw it, peeling off, poking out of the water. Trump's not handling this particularly well, but how would you describe his mental well-being right now? You know, I would describe the president's reaction to the reflecting pool situation as paranoid,

fetid. The, you know, the atmosphere is heavy at the White House. there's enemies around every corner trying to sabotage the reflecting pool. Yeah, I mean, I just want to be clear. There's no evidence of sabotage. Everyone who's looked at this pretty much has concluded that it was done hastily, that pouring hydrogen peroxide may have been problematic. I've solved one problem, but have created another problem.

People who are experts, and I've actually watched pool experts on YouTube, have been talking about how you got to let the problem. the sealant kind of stay for a while before it can really congeal and they just rushed and got a lot of water in there. And then on top of that, now that it's busted, they are going to have to drain the entirety of the pool it looks like. I mean, that seems to be what Trump's getting at, right? Yeah, I mean, this is a big moment for the pool expert community. I, I too, have been spending a lot more time on pool expert YouTube than I ever expected. But yeah, I mean, you know, it seems as though the idea that, you know, and I think we have a new tweet from the, or a new truth from the

president. Can we put that out? Yeah, let's put that up. You want to read that one? Sure. So he says of the many statues and fountains that we rebuilt, renovated, clean, and fixed. The only one that was vandalized was the reflecting pool, which is being taken care of ASAP. It has been given a 300 foot long gash. Chemicals have been illegally placed in the water and the beautiful new grass field has been destroyed with a gigantic 8647, chemically carved into it, probably inspired by DirtyCop James comate, well, that part's real. And then he says, please remember that there is a 10-year prison sentence for destruction or even attempted destruction of such things, which will be fully enforced.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Okay, so the part that struck me there is the 300-foot-long gash, the idea that someone, I don't know, with like a pike or something, you're kind of like, but for 300 feet, I mean, that's ridiculous. That's a football field. They would just go, and. And no one would notice? Is that like how it happened?

Well, I mean, you know, as you said, it's crazy because this is obviously a very surveilled part of Washington and already a city with a lot of surveillance everywhere. So the idea that, you know, people would, you know, or one person would be able to be in the reflecting pool just like maybe in like a full scuba gear, you know, with like a like an underwater knife just scratching it up. I just don't think it's believable. And yet there are a few people out there in the MAGA universe who are pushing this nonsense. Ezra Cohen, who was an old Trump hand in the foreign policy world, put a tweet out. I don't know if we have it here.

Yeah, people may remember this guy also as Ezra Cohen-Watnick. He was kind of a Cash-Petel running buddy back in the day, back in kind of the first administration. So he says, and this, by the way, I thought he was a little, I didn't think he was quite this crazy previously, but maybe I'm wrong. Very obvious that the reflecting pool was targeted by Saboteurs over the past week. Very obvious. Is it very obvious? And all the pictures are just people like standing around looking at the water. Yeah.

Well, the only time that there's someone in the water is the people who were sent by Trump to clean up the freaking algae in the water. If that's the evidence of saboteurs, then I guess you got to blame Trump for it. He also talked about whether there was nitrogen fertilizer in the reflecting pool. Let's put this up as well if we can. How did the nitrogen fertilizer get into the reflecting pool? Malicious? I don't, has there been nitrogen fertilizer put in there? I thought it was hydrogen peroxide.

There literally was video of people putting hydrogen peroxide. Am I missing something? Was there a nitrogen fertilizer put in there? You know, I think possibly there was like some runoff maybe from the trees or something. Yeah. I mean, you know, as someone said, like, are they going to arrest the sun for like providing the heat that is helping this grow? I mean, there's all these things. I mean, if you've been on in the pool expert YouTube like I have, like, it's,

seems almost like overdetermined, you know, what could cause this algae bloom. I mean, it's so shallow, you're painting the color darker, you know, the bird droppings. If you're using city water, that's already going to come loaded with phosphates. So it seems as though, look, when Antifa started their algae farm, I thought it was a waste of money, but now, you know, it seems like it's come in handy. There are actually people down there protesting in support of algae, which is, bizarre behavior, but they're having fun with it. Have you seen the pro-algae protesters?

Yes, yes. So they're down there. They're having a ball. They're talking about how great the algae is, which is just silly nonsense. It is what it is. But it's driving people mad, obviously, because they think they're rooting for President Trump's failure and embarrassment. And Trump's, you know, we put up one truth.

We don't have to put the others. Trump's talking a lot about, well, you know, I've beautified all of Washington, D.C., all the fountains are working. everything's great except for this one little hiccup with a reflecting pool, but it's not my fault because someone made a huge gash in there.

And I guess he's taking it personally, but frankly, and we've talked a little bit about this, like, I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world what's happening with a reflectant pool. It's like maybe like in the 90s on my list of most important things in the world. But I don't think it's a non-issue. I think like, you know, Trump,

bulldozed all the sort of common procedures. And then he himself held it up as an emblem of how great he is and how savvy a business leader he is. And only he could do what every other president has tried to do since the reflecting pool started. And they rushed it out for the 250th anniversary. And then this happened. And so I don't think it's wrong to say, hey, you made this about you. And now it's failing. It should be about you.

And we actually pulled up, and I forget, I don't think we have the clip. Maybe we can find it while I talk where Trump literally bragged about how the sealant could withstand a knife gashing. And so like, maybe we can pull that up. I posted it if we can get it in a little bit. I got the bulletproof sealant. He did say it. I mean, this is true. He said that they could withstand a knife gashing.

So, like, yeah, if you're going to hold these things up as an example of how great you are and how savvy you are, then you sort of need to, you know, live with the consequences when things go haywire. Among the people who are not taking a particular, Benny Johnson, let's play the clip of him getting really upset about the pro-algae protesters. Are out literally protesting on behalf of the algae. They have team algae shirts. They went and made that we need to cut off all welfare. We have to do more to get.

get rid of NGOs and all welfare. We didn't use to have this problem. These people didn't used to be able to live or eat or pay rent, but now there are and the extra money to go out and make algae's smarter than MAGA protests. Beautiful. He's crestfallen. He can't. But what does welfare have to do with this? I don't understand. Well, you know, Biden put in the pro-algae welfare stipend.

I mean, you know, it is crazy. I mean, you know, to your point about like, you know, look, yes, algae, is it that important in the overall? Maybe not. But I think it's reflective of this the Trump situation. Thank you. It's not reflective perhaps. That's the problem.

Of this kind of like frequent Trump thing we see where he rolls up to something, whether it's Iran, whether it's the reflecting pool. And he says, the last guy. guys were idiots. There's actually an incredibly simple solution here. We don't need the new filtration system. We don't have to worry about the straight-a-hor moves. You know, let's just, we just paint it. Duh, you know, I'm so smart. And then, and unlike these other policy things where it's sometimes a little harder to measure the impact, like, you know it's failing, but it's like, you got to go interview people. These things can be a little, little abstract. Instead, we can say, well, it's green.

I mean, the Guardian had this graphic where they're just measuring the color every day. And then they're like, July 4th, goal color. This is where we want it. Where is it? And it's not there. And so, and you know, the thing we haven't mentioned is now people are getting arrested. They're getting tickets for putting their hands in the water. I mean, yeah, so there was a cyclist and an Olympian cyclist who put his hands in the water and touch the flappy under sealant. And he got arrested. And they're talking and Trump's here talking about 10 years in prison for saboteurs or people who are touching. He's threatening Jonathan Carl, who was down at the, you know, reflecting pool covering this as a, you know, as a reporter. This is bat-shit authoritarian stuff. Now, it's very Nixon final days, you know, that it's just like they're out to get me. You know, they're slashing up my pool. Yeah, do you think that's what's happening is like he's calling up Junine Piro being like,

you have to like make arrests? Is it that crazy? I think so. I mean, or I mean, you know, she can probably sort of interpret that from these truths that she should be making arrests. But, but yeah, I mean, I think there's this clear, it's become like an armed camp down there. I mean, you've got the military, you've got all these like sheriffs from random places. For a freaking pool. Like, it's, again, it's a pool.

Like, what do we, and the amount of money we're going to spend, like trying to prosecute people for touching the water. And then on top of that, for deploying the National Guard and the military to protect the pool. And then on top of that, to clean the pool, and then on top of that to replace the sealant at the bottom of the pool and then to refill the pool. It's like, you know, this thing's, he was bragging about 14 million. and this thing's going to be a constant expenditure. It's unreal. Do you think they're going to end up actually having, like, real arrests? I mean, they've arrested at least one guy.

Oh, sorry, I should have been more clear. Do you think the prosecution sticks? Oh, that's a good question. Are you a lawyer in this? Well, famously, you know, the sandwich throwing guy got off, right? And so it's a little unclear meaning. That was more, that was more obvious, right? Like, he literally did throw a sandwich out of a cop.

Right. And so that makes me think that, you know, I don't think these will, I don't think these'll stick this this algae ain't sticking all right we have the video of trump talking about how you couldn't knife this thing let's play it this will last for at least 50 years and you'll never have a leak it's very well you couldn't if you had a knife i don't want to give anybody ideas if you had a knife you can't even cut it so strong so powerful powerful rubber it is beautiful sealed and i looked at just one of the little pieces that they did to finish. It's like a piece of glass, beautiful

color, beautiful, everything. You could never get anything like that. That makes me think he did us, right? He was kind of like, someone might, for example, stab it. Yeah, he was a very specific about a night. You can get a night, can't cut it. I tried. Didn't he drive over it? He did

drive over it. Yes, he did drive over it and that can't have helped. Imagine if that was the cause of this. There's like weird tire marks that kind of got a little crooked. And then, oops, we had a little hole in there. Shouldn't have done that. Oh, my God. Okay.

I don't want to do too much more reflecting pool because it's too much. It's overwhelming my system. But do you have any final thoughts before we move on to the Tulsi story? I mean, I recommend folks check it out if you can. I mean, in person, I feel like, you know, it's sort of like, can what is ostensibly the most powerful nation in the world do a pool? Can we do a pool? And increasingly, the answer is no.

And so I think it'll prompt a lot of thoughts for you about the direction of America. Yeah, we've been sending our guide on there, Brendan, a couple times. Checking the water. Checking the flappy stuff. I'm a little reluctant to send him back there. I don't want him to get arrested. I think. Folks, if you were out with his picture.

Fine, Brendan. Look, folks, if he does get arrested, we're not hoping for. this at all, obviously. We love Brendan. But if he does, we're going to need the community rally around Brendan, okay? He's just doing journalism, just God, honest journalism. He's here to report the news. All right. The Tulsi story, it is bat shit. I don't even know where to begin. What's like the proper sort of 30,000 foot summary here? And then we can get into some of specifics. Sure. So over the weekend, the Washington Post, John Swain had a story about how Tulsi Gabbard, he basically got a lot of emails suggesting pretty strongly that Tulsi Gabbard throughout her political career has been directed, has been very responsive down to like parroting the exact language or introducing legislation at the request of this guru who leads an alleged cult that Tulsi is a part of.

And how they got the emails is not an insignificant detail here because it was an aid to, this cult, I'm an aide, a member. And it was named to Tulsi, right? That's right. Yeah. But she was also part of this quote unquote cult. And initially she was like, there's nothing there. Tulsi's not really under this guru's influence.

And then, like, later on, basically she was like, no, no, this person is like controlling her. So why did the aid flip? So, yeah, as you said, initially she talked to the reporter and she said, it's all good. And then, you know, Tulsi's her own person. And then she defects, essentially. She claims I think she had concerned about how the cult was, or the group, theological was handling, you know, some abuse allegations. And so she had sort of become disillusioned.

And now the group's called the Science of Identity Foundation, known as SIF. The leader is a guy named Chris Butler. Yes. Kind of a recluse. Basically, no one knows anything about him. He doesn't use email as far as we can tell. he dictates whatever this is the allegations i should say everything's alleged alleged you can just for the lawyers out there we're alleging it's alleged he basically was dictating his notes through

a secretary to tulsie more or less and he'd send these emails like you said where it's just like she needs to sponsor this legislation tomorrow and she needs to come out more forcefully and she needs to you know denounce this and this and this. And then he'd also allegedly instruct members of the SIF to go online and defend Tulsi in the comments section. And it was like the evidence and the reporter was kind of monitoring this was pretty, pretty conclusive that after these directors were issued over email, Tulsi would basically do exactly that. She would introduce legislation. She would put out statements. She would make denunciations, people would get into the comment sections and defend her.

And it was also sort of the kind of the way in which the emails were like harsh. Yeah, I'll see. Like that kind of stood out to me. It was like it was almost like you're, you know, almost treating her like a petulant child that had to have her wrist slapped all the time and telling her she had failed and like she was a disappointment and she was not tough. and she was weak. And you get this weird psychosis in your mind where it's like, oh, my God, it's like kind of

an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship here. That's what stood out to me. Yeah, I mean, it really has like kind of a Scientology feel to it. I mean, you know, what the story is saying is that like the person who is the director of national intelligence, they have a lot of evidence is effectively a puppet of this alleged cult leader. And that is in this very kind of like subservient position is doing whatever this guy says. And so, like, you talked about a couple examples.

At one point, let me read one. This is from the post story. It says, some of the language was harshly critical. This is Jonathan's Wayne writing. One memo I found from January 2015 contained a derisive assessment of a statement Gabbard was to give in response to President Barack Obama's annual just to Congress. Quote, in the first place, nobody gives a shit what you think about his state of the union speech, unless you're going to say something of interest, the memo quoted someone as saying.

You're not even trying. You've become really intellectually lazy. Now, folks, this is like, you know, this is how I write to Will about these first drafts. No, people in the comments, whatever you talk about like me or Edgar like that, they're like, oh, sorry. This is such a toxic workplace. I have, I should tone it down. You're right. In another, Gabbert was described as, quote, chicken shit.

And mealy-mouthed for her comments on a policy proposal. I have not called you mealy-mouthed. I'm not going to say anything by chicken shit. Yes. We'll leave that for the commenters to decipher. I mean, this is a member of Congress. This is not like, you know, I can't, it's unfathomable to think that someone was just sort of being like, you piece of shit.

Get in there. Do something interesting. And she like, took it. Elected official. No, it's crazy. And, you know, you can see how it affects her legislation. for example. So this guy says, you know, you should introduce legislation saying that veterans can get, you know, veteran care without pre-approval from the government. And then she introduces something

along those lines, but doesn't include the pre-approval. So she's already following his directive, mostly. And then he goes essentially like, you idiot, you forgot the pre-approval. And then she resubmissed the legislation with the pre-approval. So you can see, this isn't like a lobbyist. This isn't someone kind of advising her and she sometimes takes the advice. She doesn't. She's doing, like, exactly what this guy says. And the other part here is, um, Trump. Because, you know, Gabbert has this insane career trajectory, right?

So she comes into Congress. She's moderate Democrat, I would say. She's had service overseas. She presents herself as sort of this new breed. And then over time kind of moves left, becomes a Bernie Sanders ally, speaks at the convention in 2016 on behalf of Bernie Sanders.

And then when Trump wins, she's one of the only Democrats, maybe the only Democrat to meet with Trump. And everyone at the time is sort of like, well, this is weird and interesting posturing. Now, of course, there's the horseshoe theory of politics, right? Bernie and Trump are kind of aligned in certain respects, I guess, on economic policy, but not really, you know, sort of just. Anyways, so that's what it's chalked up to. But the piece gives the impression that it was Butler, who was more intrigued by Trump and was the one who kind of pushed her to get into Trump's good graces, which she then does. And obviously then it leads to where we are now, which is she's the head of the, or was the head of the NSA. And there's a Manchurian candidate type feel to it, right?

Like it's like, okay, who is this guy? What are his actual motivations? What do we even know about him? And I will say for the piece, like, we don't find out that much about Butler. Like, not in a way that I was satisfied, right? Like, I want to know more about his worldview. That just might be because we just, he's so secretive that we just don't have anything on him. Yeah, I mean, you can tell, I mean, the Washington Post reporter.

Obviously, they've been working on the story for like almost two years. They go to Hawaii and are trying to interview people. The cops get called on them. You know, there's this very kind of secretive world. If I could offer some speculation about this intelligent, you know, traditionally cults have cultivated strange foreign connections. The LaRushis, for example, ran the followers of Linden LaRouche. They would run weird private intelligence ops. They were in touch with like Francoist Spain, all this weird stuff.

And so when it comes to the director of national intelligence being under the sway of an alleged cult leader, there's also like a foreign aspect to it. It's all very weird. And like suffice to say, it's not something we. want. So your, your theory, this is just a theory, is that there might be a foreign government involved in this? No, I mean, well, you know, who knows what this guy might get up to? I mean, these leaders are often trying to like, you know, ingratiate themselves with like weird rogue foreign elements. And so the idea of, I mean, look, this guy, this alleged cult leader, he hit the alleged cult leader lottery, right? Like, you get with this person who's like seemingly a very

devoted follower of yours to be a member of Congress, that's awesome. And then they're running for president and then they're the DNI. That's, you know, this might be like one of the most successful cults ever. Yeah, no, it there's a lot of questions that it raises, obviously. One is, first of all, Tulsi's people are like sort of being, you know, saying this is anti-Hindu propaganda, but this is not, that's nothing to do with Hinduism. There's also a question about her own father, who is a politician in Hawaii, who appears to be part of this community. And they tried to say, well, you know, the person who was sending those emails was actually a mix of her father and this other guy who was an advisor to her father.

But the evidence really doesn't suggest that. And they even, I think the reporter used chat GPT to like look at the actual language and decipher. And it was fairly conclusive that it was Butler who was sending the messages. But like they don't actually. as far as I could tell in the story, Gabbert's team doesn't like definitively dismiss it.

They just kind of say this is anti-Hinduism. And I've been monitoring the online community and there's plenty of plenty of Gabbard stands out there who love her. And they don't seem to be doing a great job

kind of, I don't know, discrediting this piece. As far as I can tell, unless you've seen some good pushback. I mean, you know, I think the post got this pretty conclusively. I mean, these are kind of, these can be hard stories to understand politically because you have to be like, all right, I got to tell you about this Butler guy. You've never heard of him before. Okay.

And to be frank, even the reporters who attract him don't know all that much about him, you know. But I think, I mean, I think this is pretty strong. You know, I wish she had come out, you know, when she was DNI. I'm sure they. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about it for a second. this is this is like classic sort of backseat driving for for a journalist like it is kind of I mean she was in this post for a year change and they knew this or they pretty much knew this

and maybe they didn't have the goods totally nailed down but like I don't know it's like there's definitely got there must have been some really interesting difficult conversations in the newsroom about what to do with this. Because there is a national security imperative at some point to getting this out into the public. I would be fascinated to know the story behind the story. Well, and I'm sure the people at the post, if anyone's listening, they're like, yes, thank you. It would have been better to get it out that. I'm sure, you know, we raise it, as you said, to point to there probably was something.

Perhaps people wouldn't go on the record. Perhaps they wouldn't share stuff when she was still DNI because they were like scared of some kind of retaliation. Yeah. Just to give people a sense of the goods that they had here. I mean, I don't want to be too critical to post without knowing. In fact, I don't want to be critical to post at all without knowing what went into the decision around timing here. Obviously, I think the preference would have been to get it out beforehand. But sometimes you just don't have it nailed down.

And to give people a sense of the homework that they did, there's one section where they're talking about, because they're analyzing hundreds and hundreds of memos. that were, you know, kind of, were they sent encrypted? I don't know, but they were sent encrypted, but apparently this aid, I assume there was like a password or something, yeah. Right, right. So they got the password, they saw the memos, but the memos themselves were like kind of weird to decipher in some respects.

And then they had to kind of run them against public appearances by Tulsi to get a sense of how often she was just mimicking what was being told to her. And here's what they write. With post colleague Aaron Schaefer, I compared Gabbard's remarks in the, 32 TV interviews between 2014 and 2016 with the talking points memos intended for them. On 24 occasions, this is 24 out of 32, Gabbard used language in the memos almost verbatim. In the eight other instances, Gabbard used different words but promoted some of the same ideas. Then they write, the memos reflected exacting judgment of Gabbard's performances,

the same unnamed speaker who invented about the I thing, to get to that, apparently, apparently she was talking with her eyes too open or something like that. Yes, yes, he hated the eye thing. Yeah, this is exactly. This shows you how insane this person is. Also criticized her for seeming insincere, according to the transcript of those remarks. Quote, it's like she's trying to express something artificially. I don't feel anything from her, this big complaint.

It's more like kind of remembering talking points. So just to get back to the point, they had a lot of stuff to sift through. on the flip side, this was like a year of reporting. And now she's no longer in that post. And it's like, could I use the intel, right? Yes, yes. And I mean, you know, I will say, though, to the post credit, if you imagined how would they prove that Tulsi Gabbard is an empty shell of this

alleged cult leader, they pretty much got it. I mean, you know, it is like using the same language, introducing the legislation, all this stuff that really like, I mean, I think she's dead. to write on it. And I think, you know, should she ever try to have a political career again, I think it's definitely going to come back up. Yeah, this, I, you think, I think this one will definitely that's my expert analysis. Guys, you don't get, you don't get inside like that anywhere else. Imagine running in 2028 as Marker Rubio and J.D. Vance are like, I'm sorry, but are you in a cult, are you under the- Can you talk about the compound?

Can you talk about nine aisles.com? That's the domain name where this email came from. Can you tell us a little bit about who Chris Butler is? I don't think she's going to get by this one, just to be a candid about it. I mentioned the pushback that's out there. There is Megynne who's a big Tulsi-McCabber's strongest soldier. Yes, go ahead. Shissy says, what absolute unpatriotic, vile trash this attack on Tulsi Gabbard is.

They won't cover her release on Fauci or Biolabs, both things that threaten the safety and well-being of the American people, but spend time in space vomiting this washed-up nonsense, anti-Hindu bigoted crap. There's nothing in here that is anti-Hindu. This is about a cult leader, a Herakrishan occult leader, and there's nothing in Megan McCain's statement that disputes, or disputes anything that's listed here. there's some serious accusations here. I actually am curious. I don't think Bill Pulte is going to get to the bottom of this, unfortunately. But the next D&I probably would need to, you know, look into this, I would suspect, right? Like, we kind of want to know if there was some.

Yeah. So we get a probe. Yeah. Yeah. Who's Bill Pulte's cult leader? Who's he in sway to? You know, I don't know. Bill Pulte.

I don't care about this color. I want to know more about whether Tulsi was doing shit at DNI. I mean, was Chris Butler in touch with her watch? who's at DNI, that doesn't come across here. Because all this stuff is from all the memos they got were prior to DNA as far as I can tell, right? Yeah, that's right. You know, I just, the Megan McCain thing is something that has kind of crossed my

radar several times is like, Megan McCain is just like a kamikaze soldier for Tulsi Gap. Why? This is like, I mean, they're friends, but like you would think that I saw someone after Tulsi resigned that like Megan McCain, and someone posted the Marco Rubio meme with Marco Rubio with like the Tulsi like shock of white hair and Megan McCain was like you piece of crap you take this down. It was it was like the pretty inoffensive tweet and she was just like I will destroy you. So you know, I mean, I don't know if Megan McCain knows Chris Butler. I would love to know if they've had any interactions themselves. Oh, you think McCain might be in the hair

Christian cult? I mean, I really have no evidence. You know, I wouldn't, you know, these days, you know. You never know, I guess. Look, uh, I don't know if I want to do this, but I'm going to do it. If you are a member of the SIF, yes, please drop a comment or get in touch with Will. Not me. No, I don't want to have to me. Any members of the SIF in the chat, drop the encryption code.

Yeah. And let's fire up those communicates. Will, have you ever done like serious reporting on cults? I mean, obviously you did Q and on, but like the sort of religious cults? Like, how do you think that? I guess I have a genuine question of you, because you do have a, have experience on Q&N and stuff like that. How do you fall in your, you know, expertise, in your expert opinion, how do you fall into a cult like this? What is, what is like the way that it

happens? Well, you know, let's see. I mean, in Tulsi's case, obviously it seems like she was born into it, essentially, it was raised in it. I mean, that's very common. You know, we see with Scientology, a lot of people are kind of second generation Scientologists. You know, I think often it gets people at a, you know, as you might imagine, in a lost point of their lives or, you know, they have a relative or a friend who brings them in. You know, certainly there are groups like other groups at play these days, like Epok Times, the Falun Gong, from China. It's obviously a big player in the right-wing media ecosystem here.

You know, Scientology obviously is very well represented in Trump world with figures like Grant Cardone, the kind of hustler businessman. And Pambandi, obviously, was very close with Scientology. And so there are, you know, I wonder. If Pambi was close with Scientology? Oh, yeah, because she's from Florida. she's very, very supportive of Scientology. My sense is, and Scientology has a big HQ in Florida.

I believe it appeared at Scientology events. My sense from the true Scientology Watchers is that she's not suspected of being a member, but that she was really supportive of them. And so one wonders was Chris Butler like, my rival cult is gaining too much power? Are they running ops against each other? These are things cults do. Colts compete with other cults?

Sometimes. Really? Okay. How do you get someone out of a cult? You know, this is something I looked into a lot for Q&ON for my book, which obviously is like a not quite officially a cult. And certain ones definitely were read about the baby Q and the Q and the Q&on compound in Arizona. But basically, you know, it's. Who's baby Q? Oh, you haven't read the book, Sam. So the baby Q.

I have not. I just briefly. Q&ON had some characteristics of a cult. But then there was this splinter faction of Qaeda. That definitely was a cult. It was run by a guy named Austin Steinbart, who was like in his mid-20s, who claimed to be Q from the future. He was in communication with himself in the future.

And, you know, about like 20 people moved into a compound with him in Arizona. And there were all these like love affairs. It all ended in a spectacular fashion. I think Austin, if I remember correctly, went to prison. And I went out to visit him and the crew at one point for the book. So it's very of all. of. Okay, but how do you get people out of a cult? It's tough. You know, back in the day, they used to kidnap them.

I don't think you can do that in emo. Oh, yeah, cult-de-products. Kidnap them, get them out? Okay. Yeah, I think that's fallen out of fashion. You know, I think trying to get them interested in anything else, maybe, like, for example, get them interested in running for office, becoming the DNI. Hopefully that'll give them a new interest. It didn't work in this case. Folks, the book is, trust the plan. Yes. It's still relevant. as we can see. And hopefully, I got to say, baby Q, that's one of the best chapters.

So that was a good part to mention. I'm ordering it right now. Actually, there's got to be one I have in my home. I think you sent it to me. I just, I spend too much time reading your shit already. I couldn't do anymore. That's a very fair point. I'm a member of the cult of Full Summer.

Before we leave the segment, I want to just put up a picture of Chris Butler to give you sense of what kind of cult leader we're dealing with. Oh, yes. I don't think I'd follow this guy. I don't think so. but he does look menacing. He looks like a cult leader in like a Colombo episode, right? Like you're visiting the compound.

Well, I think it's the turtle. I mean, obviously it's like an old picture. You know, he's like, well, I don't know, detective. I don't know where that treacherous aid could have gotten off to. Tulsi Gabbard never heard of her. Do you like my turtleneck? Oh, man, this is, honestly, we live in the weirdest fucking times. All right, we got to take a little bit of an ad.

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Use the code bulwark takes. For $20 off your membership, that's code bulwark takes. And after you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about superpower. do us a favor tell them that bulwark takes or bulwark takes maga mondays sent you but tell them bulwark takes that will help you support our show superpower dot com slash bulwark takes all right will a man of superpowers himself i did not see this one on the radar uh but candace owens um is she dead i'm happy to say no she's not but there was a a rumor a Candace death hoax, a Candace death panic over the weekend.

Now, this all started, look, anything can happen in the world of right-wing media conspiracy theorists. And so, essentially over the weekend, this woman named Lily Gaddis, who is a couple rungs, several rungs below Candice, on the right-wing influencer power charts. Now, her claim to fame, she's part of the micro-celebrity community of people who say the N-word, white people. And so Chud the builder. Oh, no, not Chud. You know, people like that. But basically, I think about a year ago, she had a video and she said the N-word and she lost her job over it. And then she became like a right-wing media figure over it.

And people, she's like an attractive young woman. And so, you know, all the Groypers were going crazy. But basically, over the weekend, and can we put up the tweet, the Lily Gattis tweet? There we go. She says, Candice Owens' family reached out to me earlier this morning. It is with deep sadness and sorrow that I'm sharing the passing of my long time friend and political commentator, Candace. But I also can't shake the feeling that this wasn't simply a random tragedy. There are circumstances surrounded Candace's death, especially after Charlie's passing, that raised serious questions.

And I hope the full truth comes to light. I want to respect your family's privacy, so I will refrain from sharing any further details. Please stay posted. So, you know, that seems like something you would post after someone had died. I mean, what are your thoughts on the sim? Yeah, I mean, if someone died and their family did reach out to you saying this person has died, yeah, I guess I don't know, first I wouldn't post, but like that if it did happen, I would take that as confirmation that the person is dead. I can't believe that this is, that you would just put something up like this if it's not true.

It's total wild shit. It's crazy. And this is someone with like a pretty good following on, on. X. I don't have it in front of me, but probably like tens of thousands at least in terms of followers. And I think a lot of people thought, oh, my gosh, Candace died. And like the thing I want to get into here, because she later says, oh, this wasn't me. Someone else had control my account. But there's an important aspect in conspiracy theory culture of like news getting out too soon or like embargoes being like, they believe that everything is kind of prepped and that sometimes it slips out too early. So like with the 2020 election, there would be like a news outlet. was like running a practice of their election software, and they'd inadvertently post, like, Biden wins a week early. And then when Biden did win, people said,

oh, my gosh, you know, this was all staged and the information leaked out early. And so in this case, Candice says, I'm not dead. Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Can we throw up that Candice post? So she says, thank you all for the messages of concern, but I am not dead. If I were, it would be entirely appropriate.

for you to blame Israel. And then she was shrugging emoji. Somewhat relatedly, Charlie Kirk was not concerned. He was going to be killed by a transgendered furry. After a full day of arguing with Zionist, about him abandoned. Okay. So she, she, you know, then basically says... Wait, sorry. Put that back. What is the transgendered furry concern he about?

Well, that's related to the, um, the actual alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk. You know, he had these furry connections. And so she's saying, you know, basically like, you know, Charlie Kirk predicted he would be killed by Israel. And so in this case, Lily Gattis comes out and says, you know what, that wasn't me who posted that. I'll tell you who it was. And folks, oh, yeah, here we go. Okay, the only two people.

We can't read this whole thing. We're not going to read it. We're not going to read it. We're just going to say the only two people who have ever had access to my ex account is the guy who made my YouTube thumbnails, whatever. And Jordan Daly. Now, Jordan Daly, long time false flyer, close false flag, and trio. consumers will remember.

Jordan Daly's guy. Wasn't that long ago? It was last week. You're right. We'll remember. We'll remember all of a week ago. There's deep lore here. Jordan Daly is a new character in our discussions. He's the guy who was the alleged fake secret service agent paling around with Ryan Fornier.

He was also doing some kind of like social media management for right-wing influencers, I guess including Lily Gaddis. And so she's saying Jordan Daly sent this. He's gone wrong. rogue. He's, you know, he's talking to the bulwark about how Ryan Fortier betrayed him and things like that. Now, Jordan says, I'm innocent. I didn't do it. But this is the sort of twisted web that we're dealing with here in terms of this Candace death hoax. Oh, my God. Okay, so I'm just trying to unpack this. The idea here is that Jordan Daley had access to Lily's Twitter account,

wrote a tweet as a sort of ha-ha to like, I don't know, get attention. Stir the pot. Like make a funny that Candace had died, make it heartfelt. And yeah, that's the story. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, in these cases. I don't know. What's the other version? Like, what's the other explanation?

Well, you know, look, this story set the tongues wagging. And so people like Milo Ewanopoulos weighed in. And he said, well, you know, was this a candid to Candace get Lily in on it to stir the pot just get a little Candace clout over the weekend? His theory was, you know, perhaps Lily Gaddis herself did this to just, you know, we're talking about Lily Gaddis a lot more than we did before. So, you know, it's hard to know with these things. But really nothing is off limits in this universe. They'll they'll even sort of fake death hoax about their old buddy. Okay.

Geez, well, this is madness. I'm going to get back to this in one second. I just want to take a moment to let people know that I am monitoring the chat while I'm talking with Will. And for one chatter in particular, who's being a real pain in the ass, major Frank Burns 4007, you're getting removed, buddy. We like our chats to be fun and interactive. You don't have to be a jerk in the chats. Okay?

I can't believe I have to be principling this shit. Get out of here. And people, if you're in the chats, we love you. Just keep it cool, though, okay? Keep it cool. Let's have fun. Let's be adults here. Okay?

Let's have a good experience. And look, for the folks who are in the chats right now saying thank you, this is part of the job. I am trying to monitor the chats while also talking to Will. But let's just keep it cool. Okay. Yeah, Sam's not a, we're working on being a pro streamer, folks. We're looking to get Sam like the lights and the light up keyboard and the multiple monitors

and he can be playing Call of Duty. Like, we're getting there. But, you know. It takes, I'm not, look, I'm not going to say I'm like, you know, I'm not saying it's like a great skill or anything, but it does take some skill to talk to you, pretend like I'm actually listening, which I'm not. And monitor the chats and plug your book and read superpowers. Yes.

And of course, Sam, today we need to plug the book. We got to goose the number. Someone in the chats did say they bought your book. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, there you go. All right. So why did Lily do this?

I don't know. What is the point of this attention-seeking nonsense? I don't know. But it's like these people, do they recognize that they're like kind of freaks and that this is weird behavior? Does anyone ever say, oh, I shouldn't have done that. That was stupid. You know, here's my analysis. After dealing with many of these people, I think they can recognize that one another are

freaks or that they see they see the other person is a freak they themselves are blameless in these interactions but they can say that person is very you know they have a defective personality they're a maniac but they typically there's very little introspection okay fair enough and thank goodness right yeah no it's good for your business it's not good for society though no i just it doesn't it doesn't compute to me that i someone to go on twitter and be like it's with deep sadness after i've talked to her family that so-and-so has died and it's like clearly not true like it doesn't make any sense like why would you do something so stupid and reckless dumb dumbs but hey it's good for business all right last thing i want to talk about is um our guy your favorite presidential candidate uh gregg bovino

uh yes so he and will wrote about this he's kind of teasing that he's going to do a 2028 run and like you know he's also paling around with legit Nazis um And we were kind of talking about, well, is there an appetite for this type of fascism? And I think the answer we kind of settled on was, yeah, there's certainly an appetite for it. And also, Bovino seems to be kind of milking it, right? So here he is over the weekend talking about one of his favorite world leader historical figures. Let's play the video. Hello, folks.

Commander Bovino here. I'm in Romania and behind me is a statue of Vlad Tepe's, otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler, or as in popular fiction, Dracula. Something that Vlad Tepe's did that I find very inspiring is he was the original Border Patrol, if you will, of Romania. He took care of his people. He took care of his people against invaders, whether they were those Turkish Muslim invaders, or anyone else that wanted to do bad things to his people,

he did something about it. Remigration and mass deportations along the same lines. We take care of our people. We care about our people. We love our country. We love our traditions and our culture. It's insane that that's his voice, by the way. Like, hey, guys.

Dracula's my hero. Vlad the Impaler. So that's just, insane shit i just got to be clear about this i'm going to read you a little pbs breakdown of vlad the impaler okay bear with me right now because vlad the impaler uh was a 15th century romanian prince uh the we're going to get to a little trivia in a second uh Vlad Tepe so Vlad the impaler was the original Dracula born to a time of strife between two great powers the Austrian hapsburgs and the Ottoman Turks some Romanians the

15th century prince of Wallachia and Transylvania is still a hero, and apparently to Greg Bovino, too. According to Romanian lore, Vlad was a just man who defended his people from Turkish invaders and German merchants when most surrounding principalities had surrendered to Ottoman rule. Prince insisted that everybody from the nobles to the peasants submit to his rule or face dire consequences. The poor who didn't suffer from one of his draconian and frequently capricious acts loved him for this. Dracula was the honorific given to the Lad Teppes because, like his father before him, he belonged to the Order of the Dragon, dedicated to fighting Turks and heretics.

Later, people called him Dracula, meaning evil. Because the dragon symbolized the devil. A real life fiend, Vlad the Impaler killed between blank and blank people, an unfathom man at the time when murders were done singly and by hand. So, well, if you had to guess how many people Vlad the Impaler killed during his reign, I'm giving you a range. What would the range be? $500 to $1,000 to $100,000 to 100,000 people.

That's crazy. The world population then was not quite that large. That's an unfathomable number of people. This is the dude Greg Bovino's like, yeah, that's my guy. I wish we had known when he was in the administration, again, kind of like Tulsi Gabbard. I wish we had known in the administration that Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula, was a person. hero of his. Yeah, I don't know.

Can you, can you, can you create a campaign platform with, like, Vlad the Impaler as sort of like your symbol of hope? The original border patrol. He's like, I model my border patrol on Dracula. Oh. Okay. You got my vote. You and Tulsi.

We got a guru. That's the ticket. It's Bovino and Tulsi. The question is who's who's on top of it? I think I think I go with Bovina. I don't think Bovina is going to run as anyone's Veep. Tulsi would be the cult. Tulsi will bring the cults and Bovina will bring the fascists.

Okay. Woof. 52 minutes, man. Any last parting thoughts? Oh, we got an announcement. We should tell them. Yes. Yeah.

So Magum Monday will not happen next week because I would be, well. It will happen next week. It will happen just not on Monday. Yeah. Why would you say it's not going to be? be next week and just going to depress a lot of people. Will is, Will is going to his homeland, Aspen, Colorado, where he just spends most of his weekends. Yes, I'll be at the Aspen Ideas Festival. So if you're there, come by and check out the

Bullwark Show. Have they ever had someone associated with so many dumb ideas appear at the Aspen Ideas Festival? You know, I'm presenting the bad ideas. I'll be, I'll be, typically, it's only good ideas, but they thought, well, why not all ideas? It is, the Aspen Ideas Festival. Okay, cool. But we're going to try to make the show up on either a Tuesday or, do we say Tuesday? I think we're aiming for Tuesday, right? I think so.

We're aiming for Tuesday. We're going to try to swap with morning shots live, let them go on Monday. We'll go on MAGA Tuesday. And then finally, just to address a few people in the comment section, someone was asking if I'm okay because I'm coughing a lot. The answer is yes, I had a bagel before we went on air, and I have a little bit of a sesame seed in my throat. But that's it.

I'm fine. And secondly, people are happy about me donning a principal's cap and policing the comments section. I'm going to leave you with my inspiration for this. I don't know if people are into Peloton, but Kendall Tool, that's my inspiration here. So let's play her. And this will be our outro. Thank you, everyone. Band.

Get them banned. We don't do that here. Oh, now I'm pissed. We should do the show on a Peloton. We should just be like, that's me, police in the comments. All right,

everyone, thank you for tuning to Magamundas. We'll see you on Tuesday next Tuesday. Thanks, everyone. Bye.