Chapo Trap House - 546 - MyPillow Guy, MyPillow Guy and Me (8/2/21)

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

We start today looking at Democrats’ feckless failure to extend the eviction moratorium. That being a fairly dismal topic, we try to lighten things up with two reading series checking in with how some old friends of the show are handling their new post-election lives in DC.

Hello, hello gang. It's Shapo coming at you once more. It's me, Matt and Felix, as always. Alright, we are back. Let's see, here's the real news of the week. Obviously, the biggest story right now, I mean, I think everything in our current domestic politics is right now existing under the pawl of both, you know, a surge in the Delta variant, but like really more importantly than anything else, the way in which the eviction moratorium has been allowed to like lapse, like, you know, like I said, under the pawl of, you know, a spike in COVID cases that seems like, you know, it seems like we're going back to where we were last year. But, I mean, like just the savagery of the eviction moratorium and like we're just really the idea

that that's run out and now they're going to be like a million people or something who, you know, are going to be out on the streets in like in this context right now, but also it's just the perpetual excuses for why this was allowed to happen. And it involves like, you know, a Supreme Court decision, but they like the White House had a month to deal with this. And like basically, right now, is they're like, oh, we want to extend the eviction moratorium, but we need the CDC to do it. And like right now, Pelosi and like the Democratic leadership are basically asking the CDC to be like, okay, we're the federal regulatory agency that can ask for an extension of the eviction moratorium. It just seems like the classic democratic thing of searching for supposedly

a political sort of bureaucratic sort of technocratic solution. So what is essentially a political problem? I do like the mental image I've gotten, because like Biden and Pelosi have been tossing the hot potato to each other back and forth. And like, have they personally been calling each other? I think they've probably just been like posting at each other. Yeah, I mean, at Speaker of the House, fix this. Yeah, I mean, that's like, yeah, it's so like, Biden's like, hey, we can't do anything. I'm not going to tell the CDC not to do this. And Pelosi's like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to kind of try to do this. But not really. There were like, about a dozen Democrats who basically sunk this thing in the house, seemed like anyone tried all that hard. And

then Pelosi's like, can you do this? And it's like, there's nothing I like more than watching two old people try to fix each other's printer, that they really don't give a shit about. Neither of them give a shit about this. I mean, Biden, I think, doesn't even really know what's happening. And Pelosi just like, doesn't care. No, she said that she just found out about it a day before they were supposed to recess. She's like, oh, shit, we didn't do anything about that. Oh, dang it. Hey, you guys can help us out CDC at CDC at White House at state governments. Somebody do something. Yeah, and then they got and then they can also mutually put it on the states because there's a shit ton of money that was supposed to be appropriate that was sent to the states to go to pay some of this

so that there wouldn't be evictions and none of it has been dispersed. But there's no mechanism to make them disperse it. So it's just sits there that they get to point to that say, well, what, that everyone gets to not be responsible. It's wonderful. Yeah, no, I mean, the same thing that sort of happened with UI and a lot of red states where, you know, they ask Saki about it. And she was like, they have the right to take the money and not disperse it. Just, um, yeah, no, I mean, at this point, if you're talking about how Democrats get fooled and you can look at that, no, they just, they literally don't give a shit. You would only do that if you, for some reason, in some way, you wanted that to happen. Yeah, I mean, because like at bottom with your Republican

or Democrat, like no matter who you vote for, I mean, like the base fact is that like landlords being out of money counts more than people being out of their house. Like, like, like that's what counts. And like everything else is window dressing. I'm just gonna, I just read a little bit from the New York Times as coverage of this. This is a headline eviction freeze set to lapse as Biden housing aid effort lags, just like their coverage of it from the end of the last week. It says here, a nationwide moratorium on residential evictions is set to expire on Saturday after a last minute effort by the Biden administration to win an extension failed, putting hundreds of thousands of tenants at risk of losing shelter, while tens of billions in federal funding intended to pay

back their rent, sit untapped. The expiration was a humbling setback for President Biden, whose team had tries has tried for months to fix a dysfunctional emergency rent relief program to help struggling renters and landlords running out of time and desperate to head off a possible wave of evictions. The White House abruptly shifted course on Thursday, throwing responsibility to Congress and prompting a frenzied and ultimately unsuccessful rescue operation by the Democrats in the House on Friday. I mean, yeah, like, I mean, it's all it's all there like a frenzied at last minute effort, you know, months of stalled negotiations. It's just like this is on them entirely. This is on them entirely. And like, what do you guys make of, you know, I know, I was

like, you know, Corey Bush was like staging a protest on the steps of Congress to get them not to go home on vacation while letting because I mean, like, obviously, the the image of them all going on vacation as soon as this eviction thing kicks in, it's pretty pretty humorous. And, you know, like, you can, you know, you can kick up a stink about it and say, like, you know, we shouldn't be leaving town. Like, this is this is the number one thing we need to take care of. There's what people voted for us or whatever. But like, look, I mean, this is entirely the doing of Democratic leadership in Joe Biden. And like, if you're, I mean, like, I like, if you're voting for Nancy Pelosi to continue her House leadership position, like, I mean, I don't know. I mean, like, obviously,

I, you can appreciate the effort or whatever. But like, I mean, what good is it here? I mean, like, this is it's their fault. They're doing it's not their fault. Like, they did this on purpose. Yeah, they would do you think they would have ever done this for the fucking January 6 Commission, the entire masturbatory affair? No, they just did not care about this. And I, I'm sympathetic to some of the squad, their position here. But it's like, at the end of the day, if you just like, uncritically vote for Pelosi, like, what do you think's gonna happen? She can she gonna learn and grow it to 500 years old? Well, there's no, there's no way, I mean, there is no way to assert meaningful pressure unless you want to do the things that a member of

Congress has already discounted by virtue of being in Congress. Like, because the, the argue about about going hard against Pelosi requires a willingness to accept consequences that people who run for Congress don't want to have happen. Like, and so, and whatever, whatever their decision making matrix is, it's going to be founded in the assumption that, that them being in charge is better than the Republicans being in charge, and that they specifically being in Congress is better than somebody else being there. So as long as there's no pressure, coordinator pressure to, to threaten anyone with the loss of their position and there isn't, then there is nothing really to do. Now, that makes the attempts by, you know,

progressives in Congress to present themselves as a meaningful current, pretty disingenuous. But once again, what else are they supposed to do? Tell you, actually, I'm just another asshole member of Congress with about as much power as any of the other ones. No one wants to hear that because then that it, it underlines the fundamental, the, the powerlessness of everyone within this system. And we have no response to that. No one has a response to that. And, and if you point it out too much, people will just say you're blackpilled, which is it. And the idea of a blackpilled Congress is pretty cool. I think that there should be someone blackpilled in Congress. But the incentive structure of running for Congress does not suggest for the black,

does not, uh, it does not, uh, select for the blackpilled among us. Yeah. We, we only have a gumbo-pilled Congressman. That's the closest thing. None of this matters. Let's make a stew. Yeah, let's go down there. Let's go and get that going. But yeah, no, you saw the same thing with, uh, I don't know if you saw after, you know, everything, Ilan Omar, uh, devoted, you know, for unconditional aid to Israel. And yeah, when people, people sort of justify it, it's like, well, yeah, you know, it's going to pass by overwhelming margins anyway. And if she votes against it, it's another problem. But then, yeah, you go back to the same problem. Okay. So you're at the end of the day, even with every post and every statement and everything you do say that

is unlike something someone in Congress will usually say, it's still going to be, yeah, you, by virtue of being there, you're not going to accept the consequence of not voting for this unconditional aid for, for Israel, even if it was going to pass overwhelmingly. And in, in that event, you know, kind of what is the point of that? I, you know, I'm the, the Nina Turner race, we haven't really covered all that intensely. But yeah, no, I generally hope she wins just like how I generally hope Omar and Etsy and everyone that they stay in Congress. But I don't see a, what's one more of this, what we're doing here? What's one more we're going to do? I honestly, I just wanted to win out of spite at this point. I just want to be the beach on tele brown out of spite.

But I really have not seen enough here. Well, it says, I mean, there's, you have to be willing to blow it all up and at least your own career. But then the reason they don't do that is because that wouldn't matter either. Yeah, I guess. Okay. You said you, you made the right votes and you spoke truth to power and you're gone and you've been replaced by somebody else. Did any of it matter? Does anyone remember it? No. So if you've spent your whole life like thinking this shit matters and then you get there and you get to actually in your mind be in a position to influence things, any small variation from the worst possible outcome that you can take credit for in your own mind is going to justify your position to yourself. Yeah, no, they don't need to threaten you with

the heart attack gun or anything. You just being there, that's enough. You just become part of it. I just want to read here. This is the, this is Jen Sackies. This is the official White House statement on the, the Biden Harris administration eviction prevention efforts begins here for nearly 11 months. The CDC's eviction moratorium has served as a critical backstop to prevent hard press renters and their families who lost jobs or income due to the COVID-19 pandemic from being evicted for non-payment of rent. The moratorium prevented hundreds of thousands of Americans from experiencing the heartbreak, homelessness and health risks that too often emanate from evictions, particularly during a pandemic. The administration considered it a prudent public health decision when the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended the eviction moratorium until July 31st. Given the recent spread of the Delta variant, blah, blah, blah, goes on here. In light of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court's ruling, the president calls on Congress to extend the eviction moratorium to protect such vulnerable renters and their families without delay. In addition, he has asked the U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs to extend their respective eviction moratorium through the end of early, at the end of September, which will provide continued protection for households living in federally insured single family properties. I mean, the Supreme Court ruling she's talking about was on, I believe,

issued June 29th. And this is a month went by before they put out a statement being like, oh, wait, we need to do something about this. Congress needs to do something about that. And the statement was issued like a day before they all went on vacation for the summer. So, I mean, what does that tell you? I mean, it's not a priority. If you are not only is it not a priority, it's against the interests of people who have more influence in the Democratic Party than renters do, like owners. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, keep in mind, even just this eviction protection is it's not even that you get free rent. You know, that's how much it's been bargained down. It's like, okay, you don't,

we can't evict you during this time, but you're going to owe all this fucking. Yeah. I mean, so the like great left policy becomes like, all right, you're five figures more in debt. Yeah. It's like, yeah. So, I mean, like shit, I mean, like if you're in that position, like you better hope this fucking COVID shit just keeps going on because it's the only thing preventing you from getting hit with a bill that like, you know, you're making what like $13 an hour. I mean, Brian was talking about this the other day, just like imagining like, yeah, like, you've either lost your job or making like in $12, $13 an hour and then you're going to get hit with eight months back rent. Like how do you pay it? You can't. And then you're just what like,

the sheriff's department just kicks your ass out into like the viral stew of contemporary America. Yeah. I mean, on the plus side, a lot of these cops who have been refusing to get vaccinated are being required to get vaccinated so that they can carry out the evictions without, without becoming super spreaders. So that's good at least. No, I mean, you, you see this all the time where they're just in general, the policy that is for the poorest people, it gets without most people even noticing it gets moved along in such a way that, you know, suddenly when you, when you are a someone who believes themselves to be very into homeless rights and dignity for homeless people, your position is now suddenly not, we have the money and the space and the resources and even

the existing buildings. Now these people, it's no, they should be allowed to sleep on the bench outside and eat garbage. We shouldn't change that. This shit's all getting moved along without you really noticing because who, who, who can? Yeah. And if you're, and if you're a renter, like as Matt, as you said, like if you rent, like you, like in America, like if you rent, like you don't exist, like you're, like you don't, like you're not, you're not a concern for anyone who is in office. American policy, American to the degree that there's any popular influence on American policy domestically, it has been dictated by specifically not, not a middle class in some sort of amorphous sense, but specifically the home owning class of Americans. Ever since ever,

ever since this, the Reagan, the deal was we're cutting off any upward distribution through wages anymore, wages are staying flat. But if you've got to 1980 and you have a house and you, or you can afford to get a house, then you have this guaranteed government subsidized investment instrument for life. Congratulations. You're now part of your, you're a little mini capitalist too. And those are the people who stayed on board the, the electoral train and are able to actually dictate terms to get a little bit of recognition from government while everyone else is slowly emissary. So if you've been, if you've been fucking renting, you just don't exist. To hear people talk about landlords too, you know, the, the justification people always bring up is

like, Oh, well, most people own, you know, one little shitty building, you know, they're not making all this much money off of this, but why is this the outside of like, you know, incredibly large financial concerns or, you know, Tesla or something or any of the other super massive things that we just have to keep afloat because the economy or the American economy is just a billion people running different big games on each other and it can't stop. Why is owning a house? Why is that supposed to be a completely riskless investment? Why is being even a small landlord? Why is that supposed to be the one investment you have no fucking risk on? You're, you are selling rent at a fucking premium in a country where people make less and less money.

Do you think you should have no risk for that? Why are you, why are you entitled? You're not any more entitled to that paying off and making you some nice middle class living any more than anyone is entitled to a fucking media career. I don't give a shit. You put all your wealth into that. Boo fucking who? I mean, oh, you got to sell the house. Oh no. You have to sell your, your, the golden goose. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sell it to fucking, sell it to fucking Blackrock. You don't give a shit. Sell it to fucking Blackrock. Put it all into Herbalife or NLE Choppa's Herb Company. Just lose it all and then cry about it later. I don't fucking give a shit. I'm not crying fucking tears for you if that's your job. Oh, I only own one fucking unit. Who fucking cares? And also,

it would be, it would be easier to swallow if any of these people actually built the properties that they're charged to have a massive passive income stream as a result of. And also, like, I mean, like in terms of the like the home ownership thing, if you guys notice this spate of articles that are just like, you know, well, if you look at the data here, millennials are not going to be like their parents in terms of like ever owning a home. And that's okay. That's okay. Like it's just, you know, and it's like, look, I mean, in a vacuum, yeah, that is okay. Not everyone needs to own a fucking house. But like as we just laid out, if we live in a country in which if you don't own a home or if you don't own property in one way or another, you don't fucking count.

And you also don't have any, the most important thing I think is that you have no security for the future. Because nobody, people don't have really any retirement savings. Most people don't. What they have, if they have a home, is they have that home equity. And if you don't have that, like good luck, you're just going to get older and older. You're going to be able to command less and less in the marketplace for your labor, but you're still going to have to keep a roof over your head that is not going to be one that you own, that is not like an appreciated asset that in a pinch you could sell and live off of. You've got nothing. And yeah. And like as you said, like it's the primary way in which like generational wealth is built and passed on. It's like

basically the only way that that happens for any like any normal person in America. And Felix, to your point about like BlackRock, that thing about how they're buying up like virtually every available single-family home in America, like they're just buying all of this property, this one gigantic fund. And I think it's because like that they see the same data that everyone else does. And they're just like, okay, well, this is going to be the new popper class for the future. And like what was formerly like middle-class homeowners is now going to be this new, like since like that's no longer available, like yeah, they're just going to be debtors to BlackRock. They're going to own all the property. And like they're going, it's this new

like, you know, like a pauperization of just like, you know, like being at the whim of not just like a fucking like some landlord who's just like, you know, so happy that they're like, I work so hard to own this one thing that I inherited from my parents and now I get to charge rent on. You're talking about BlackRock now being the landlord for virtually everyone who wants to have a family in this country. And then like, of course, subjecting them to the same, you know, whims of like eviction and things like that and all the instability that comes along with it. And again, like it's also hard to take like the official government line about like, you know, believe science and how serious the COVID pandemic and the Delta variant are when they're willing to just toss a million

people out onto the street in the middle of it. Yeah. Everyone, I don't want to get into this again, but I mean, everyone does have a, every individual has a thing with COVID. If you're, you know, mad at people for, you know, not wearing a mask on a transit system, you're probably going to a bar or a restaurant where you're wearing your mask for a combined three seconds and then sitting at your table and taking it off. If you're not doing that, you're doing something. Everyone's doing something. It doesn't matter if polls say that, you know, oh, 60% of people would be fine with mask mandates back. It'll be like it was before the vaccine where everyone makes little fucking exceptions for themselves because that's how people are. They

don't think the thing they do is as bad as anyone else. But the granddaddy of it all is the Democratic Party. If you really did give a shit about this, you would be doing your best not to create three million new homeless people and trying to fucking house the existing people who are just living and dying at an agony on the street every fucking day. I mean, the, the official policy for this is that there's just a group of people that you're supposed to see because it's a warning for you not to quit your job, not to ask for too much because you could end up like those people you see dying every day. And if you're aware of that good, just do what everyone else does and pretend you don't see them while you walk by. Keep your fucking airpods in. But like, you know, with regards to

the Democratic Party, I mean, they do this because they know that they will face no consequence whatsoever for doing it. Like, it's the same old thing who you're going to vote for. And I I'm just bringing this up in context of, I don't know, like, do you guys see that article this week about how Democratic insiders are really worried because Kamala Harris's approval rating is under water? And they're like, they're very concerned because like, oh, God, like, you know, what, what if we can't give Joe Biden enough Adrena Chrome to drag them across the line in 2024? And then, you know, like all the backlash to it were people like, oh, I see, I see Putin's minions are at work spreading them the lie that Kamala Harris is unpopular. But you know

what, like, if you're a Democratic Party insider, and you know, Kamala is what you're betting on, and you see polls being like, oh, she's not very popular or whatever, why like, why even be concerned over it? Haven't you already proven that like, like Democratic voters will vote for anyone you give them? Like, why be concerned about this? I mean, like, if she's running against a Republican, like you think you think you think like the same people aren't going to fall in line? I mean, Joe Biden is the fucking president. And if they lose, then you just can't fundraise off of the terrible Republicans doing the stuff that you would do also, but that they get to take the blame for with your voters. Yeah, no, it is a heads I win tells you lose situation. Yeah, yeah, any,

any panic presupposes they really care if they lose, which yeah, we've determined they don't. It will be I am I'm split on this because like I do want Joe to run again. I had a great time when he was running. It was really funny. I don't see any way in which it doesn't get funnier. You know, your brain doesn't improve from that four years. It just he's not going to get better. We don't it's rare to see him for a reason. But I mean, Kamala running would be pretty fucking good. It would be pretty hilarious. She has just any like any like one who isn't just totally like on board with the whole Democratic program. The only way they could describe Kamala is the weirdest woman at your job. Well, I mean, a weirdest person in blank is like a pretty good template for

gaining power in America, as we've seen over and over again. So there's two types of that. I mean, there's weird like Macron or Trump is or even Biden is and then there's weird just like, it's a person you know, who you would jump out a window to not be in a one on one conversation. With and that's really the elevator with just come up with the weird fucking laughter. Yeah, no, she's just she has a terrible vibe. She has a terrible vibe and you just can't change that. I'm sorry. Her campaign would feature the most slow motion footage of her walking. It's like that would be every ad. It would be every ad would just be her walking in the portico. What's Kamala doing if she's not walking with purpose in the White House? Do not come. Just

think of the eviction thing. I mean, because I know we saw a friend Brian was tweeting about it and like, like his whole thing was just like, I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna forget who was president when the eviction moratorium was allowed to lapse and now there should you and like, I mean, what he was saying about it was just like, it's hard to even really take on or even imagine like the pain that we're talking about here, like the pain of like being kicked out of your home because you lost your job because you don't have any income because of this fucking pandemic. And then the same government that's like, it's not like, oh, the government created the pandemic, but like the conditions necessary to deal with the pandemic have like led to a lot of people

being out of work. And then like, if you don't have a job, like you don't have a fucking house for most people, you don't have a roof over your head. What like, what do you what do you do with with the pain, like that kind of indifference to that level of pain? I don't know. I mean, but like, I mean, he was, he was saying like, you know, possibly, I mean, it's, it's not like, you know, this is going to counteract it. But I mean, possibly like some sort of 24 hour live streams to raise money for some sort of eviction fund. I mean, like, it's a preliminary process of planning it. But like, I think that's something that, you know, would be a good, would be a good event to do. Because I mean, it's just like, I can't think of anything else that like, is more important

right now in terms of spending money. And what, you know, if you had money to donate or whatever, it's just it, you know, if there's, if there's a fund or something to keep people housed at this moment, or just keep keep them from being evicted, like a big rent fund or something, I would be interested in looking into that. And if there's anything we can do to raise money for that, I think I like another big like twitchethon would be would be a good thing to just I mean, like, yeah, because I mean, like I said, it's impossible to like, to hold all of this yourself or whatever. But I mean, I just got to do something. I don't know. Yeah, we are now we're totally down to ride with Brian on that. I'll be there all 24 hours if need be watching man cow videos.

All right. Well, moving on from eviction, I got a I got two reading series today that are profiles of two characters, two personalities that we featured on the show before, definitely favorites of ours. And these are two profiles of two men. And it's just sort of like a peek in on what their lives are like now, post election. And the first one we're going to talk about is Mike Lindell, obviously, the my pillow genius. And the second is a chase and bootage edge, you know, like just two two guys who are friends of ours. We've been, you know, characters on the show. And there are two very funny profiles of just like, like I said, a keyhole glimpse into what's going on with them now. What do they have to what's their life like. So beginning with Mike

Lindell. This is a profile of him by someone probably even dumber than he is. And I'm referring to Ann Applebaum in the Atlantic. The headline is the my pillow guy really could destroy democracy. So that's not a very good democracy. Yeah, that's like, yeah, and you're working with a real clunker at this. Yeah, just have at it, Mike. Seriously, we saw his movie. He's just like looking at fucking flat like flash animation slideshows that are like a computer connected from China to Wisconsin and going wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. What? Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. If that destroys your democracy, you should have been throwing it out like 20 years ago at that fucking point. Jesus. So this in the time I spent with Mike Lindell, I came to learn he is affable, devout, philanthropic,

and a clear threat to the nation. Well, and you had you had your chance. My pillow guy now. And you had your chance. This was like meeting Sarah Connor in the 80s. Okay. When you blew it. All right. Yeah, you should have fucking given him the fucking breaking bad rice and poisoning. What you fucked up. If you believe this, if you believe this to sincerely as Ann Applebaum does, how could you just take him to dinner and write an article about it? I mean, I don't even think Ann Applebaum with like a year of planning could do this guy did the most crack in Minnesota history. And it did nothing to it just made him smarter as we saw from his movie. I mean, like, yeah, what would Ann Applebaum do? You put crack in his

food so he relapses. He's going to do the same stuff. Yeah, only even more intensely and more powerfully. If you put an entire fucking vial of rice in like his, you know, whatever, whatever the hell he's they went to a Uighur restaurant like in his like kebabs or stuff like, you know, he would just face it. He's immune to all poison now. If you do that much crack. So the profile begins. When you contemplate the end of democracy in America, what kind of person do you think will bring it about? Maybe you picture a sinister billionaire in a bespoke suit slipping brown envelopes to politicians. Maybe your nightmare is a rogue general hijacking the nuclear football. Maybe you think of a jackbooted thug leading a horde of men in white sheets all carrying

burning crosses. Here is probably what you don't imagine. An affable self-made midwesterner, one of those goofy businessmen who makes his own infomercials, a recovered crack addict, no less, who laughs good naturedly when jokes are made at his expense, a man who will talk to anyone willing to listen, and to many who aren't, a philanthropist, a good boss, a patriot, or so he says, who may be willing, who may be well, well, who may well be doing more damage to American democracy than anyone since Jefferson Davis. I have to say that that is exactly who I would imagine. A crackhead pillow salesman is who would bring this fucking country down. Of course it is. Those are, that's like half the guys that were trying to do the business plot. Yeah. Or like the

Mike Lindell's of their day, who were like, formerly like addicted to turpentine. They're just huffing varnish and trying to send a telegram to Smedley Butler. Yeah. It says, who may well be doing more damage to American democracy than anyone since Jefferson Davis. I mean, God, how quickly we've forgotten Trump, you know? I mean, usually he would be getting those kinds of big boy comparisons to J.D. I feel like liberal media is like Dragon Ball Z. It's like, no, yeah. This is the greatest, scariest enemy of all time, the Tea Party. They're going to, oh no, it's even more, it's even stronger. It's Kid Boo. It's Donald Trump.

Do we have a, his power levels are double that of Donald Trump. It's Mike Lindell. Oh no, yo, go float in the middle of the air and just fucking squint as hard as you can and try to remember a fucking malt stand from 1948. It's like when they spend 130 episodes fighting Frieza, because he's like the most powerful enemy ever. And then it's just like, oh, Frieza's back and Trunks kills him in like 10 seconds. You're like, what the fuck? Yeah. Frieza or Sel would get washed by Kid Boo. And then I don't know what happened in the series after that. There's probably like a new like space bug that could fucking destroy Kid Boo and like blink of an eye and Goku has to like become a new type of ape. I don't know. I mean, maybe Joe Biden, Joe Biden really has to like,

you really have to just stop giving him medication and he will literally behave like a howler monkey. And that's how he beats Mike Lindell. So it says here, I met Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, in the recording studio that occupies the basement of Steve Bannon's stately Capitol Hill Townhouse, a few blocks from the Supreme Court. The same Supreme Court that will, according to Lindell, decide nine to zero in favor of reinstating Donald Trump to be president sometime in August or possibly September. Wait, man, he's moving into September now? Okay. Yeah. He's once again pushing the back. No, this is the perfect cokehead thing of big things coming. So it goes on for a bit. It says, like it's talking about the group of people who is sort of

featured on the Lindell podcast, including Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, Garland, a guy named Garland Favoritino, Favorito, Garland Favorito, Willis, Garland Favorito, Willis at Tree Killer 35, Sonny Borella, Jack Psibeck, and of course Lindell. These are all guests on the Bannon Lindell podcast project. But it says, even in this group, Lindell stands out. Not only is he presumably much richer than Garland Favorito and Willis Tree Killer 35, he is willing to spend money on the cause. MyPillow has been an important advertiser on Fox News, so much so that even Trump noticed Lindell. That guy is on TV more than I am, but has since widened its net. MyPillow spent tens of thousands of dollars advertising on Newsmax just in the week following the January

6th attack on the Capitol. And now Lindell is spending on more than just advertising. Last January, on the 9th, he says carefully, placing the date after the 6th, a group of still unidentified concerned citizens brought him some computer data. These were allegedly packet captures, intercepted data proving that the Chinese Communist Party altered electoral results in all 50 states. I love imagining that's real and at the highest levels of the CPC in a bunker 30 stories under Beijing, they're like, you idiot, you let Mike Lindell find the packets. This plan that's been in motion for like three decades, they're like, this is all hinged on Mike Lindell not finding out. That's why Lindell has spent money, a lot of it, tens of millions, he told me, quote, validating

the packets. It's why he is planning to spend a lot more. Starting on August 10th, he is holding a three-day symposium in Sioux Falls because he admires South Dakota's gun-toting governor, Kristi Noem, where the validators, whoever they may be, will present the results publicly. So this is, I mean, shit, I finally know what to do for my birthday. I'm going to Packet Fest in South Dakota. I'm like, Packet Fest is like, it is burning man for guys whose daughters won't talk to them anymore. That is like, dude, if you're 57 and you wear a pullover windbreaker and you call like a sexy red-haired 40-year-old red and get slapped, if you're still getting slapped and like drinks thrown in your face in 2021 as like a middle-aged man, that's fucking Lala. That's

Coachella. Wacky though it seems, for a businessman who invests so much in a conspiracy theory, there are important historical precedents. Think of Olaf Oshberg, the Swedish banker who helped finance the Bolshevik Revolution, allegedly melting down the bars of gold that Lenin's comrades stole in train robberies and reselling them unmarked on European exchanges. Or Henry Ford, whose infamous anti-Semitic track, The International Jew, was rightly read in Nazi Germany, including by Hitler himself. Plenty of successful wealthy people think that their knowledge of production technology or private equity gives them clairvoyant insight into politics. But Oshberg, Ford, and Lindell represent the extreme edge of that phenomenon. Their business

success gives them the confidence to promote malevolent conspiracy theories and the means to reach wide audiences. It's funny she uses that example and not the example of literally every other rich person in American history who uses their wealth to subvert our democracy and also promote outlandish, idiotic conspiracy theories to that end. Those are beliefs that Anne Alpelbaum shares. That's the difference. No, it sounds like she could just as easily be describing fucking Bill Broder, but that's a good guy. You can mock Lindell, dismiss him, or call him a crack head, but none of this will seem particularly funny when we truly have an illegitimate president in the White House and a total breakdown of law and order. No, it's going to be hilarious.

It's going to be fucking hysterical. It's going to be so funny. I can't know. I want to be executed by Mike Lindell. I want him, I want to like, just like they made him like a plasma sword. They spent $10 billion inventing this sword from Halo that he can hold. And I'm executed for like talking to China or some bullshit. And he's just like, I'm sorry, I have to do this to you, but you are sentenced to death. May you find peace in heaven. I'll be laughing until my head just rolls down the Capitol steps. I can't be like, it's the best way you could imagine. Like you got to die anyway. You wouldn't want that to be your end. Come on. No, we all got to go. I want to be killed by the Arbiter's Plasma Sword by Mike Lindell. Yes, absolutely. I mean, they say

that your brain retains like 30 seconds of consciousness after being neatly severed from your spine. So I'm just imagining like my, I'm rolling into a basket. And like the last thing I hear as I fade to black is like, Mike Lindell is like Owen Wilson style. Wow. He really went rolling. Wow. Look at that. We should play boxing with these. He just shouldn't have messed with the packets. All you have to do is not touch the packets. Lindell had agreed to have lunch with me after the taping, but where to go? I didn't think it would be much fun to take someone inclined to shout about rigged voting machines and fake COVID-19 cures to a crowded bistro on Capitol Hill. Why wouldn't that, wait, why wouldn't that be fun? And what the fuck is wrong with you? That sounds

like the funniest thing. You're writing a profile here. Let's get some pop. Let's get some juice going on here. Even though I'm interviewing like the one of the funniest people in America, I like don't want this article to be that interesting. I would like, if I like had to hang out with Mike Lindell, yeah, I'm going to like French Laundry or one of those restaurants where you pay $200 for Seafoam. I want to, I want his fucking, I want his dumbass to just like take out a bag of bugles and start dipping it in the tasting menu food and being like, you know, there's been a Chinese guy holding his breath in the Potomac since 1976. I mean, like, yeah, dude, you're fucking, you're selling me on this because Lindell is famously

worried about Chinese communist influence. I thought I would, he would like to pay homage to the victims of Chinese oppression. I booked a Uyghur restaurant. Why would you think he would want it? Why would you, did you really think that and, and Applebee's, what are you thinking? What the fuck are you, because Mike Lindell's like so patriotic, I thought he'd want to see, you know, fuck, I thought he'd want to see the Manchurian candidate with me. What are you talking about? You didn't know what any of this shit is. You're giving him like Uyghur food is actually amazing, but it's like this guy has not, he hasn't had anything that doesn't have a bread crumb shell on it in 35 years. So the fuck are you talking about? You should have taken him to the

restaurant from Tim and Eric's billion dollar movie where every utensil is a piece of bread. Everything is in a bread bowl and every meal has bread in it. Dude, you should have taken Michael and Della Bossburger. He probably could fix that restaurant. Come on, guys, it's been 45 minutes. Where's my Bossburger? This proved a mistake. For one thing, the restaurant, the excellent Dolan Uyghur in DC's Cleveland Park neighborhood, was not at all close to Bannon's townhouse. Getting there required a long and rather uncomfortable drive in Lindell's rented black SUV. He talked to me about packet captures the whole way, one hand on the steering wheel. I love it. She's just like, it's hard not to feel like she's like bragging. It's like,

oh yeah, it was terrible. I got to ride in Mike Lindell's car for an hour while he talked about packets. He was blasting sex packets by digital underground. I also like it was like the restaurant was a long way from Bannon's townhouse and also Mike made several unscheduled stops to quote meet with a guy on the way. Returning strangely energized from each clandestine encounter. The best thing about driving with him is probably he probably fucking whips it. Every crazy middle age guy who's rich for a stupid reason, I don't know if it's a part of their brain that thinks they can't die or part of their brain that wants to be punished, but they will drive a 12,000 ton SUV and just try as hard as they can to roll it. Just flip it every time. But you know what?

Every guy like that. I've ever met his shit. Hey, nice to meet you. And then they're just, they're trying to just burst all of you into a fucking fireball outside of a tunnel. But you know what? They're like, if you're Mike Lindell, though, is it irrational to believe that you can't die? Yeah. Might be immortal. God has favored him. Not only are you not going to, uh, not only are you not going to go to jail or have any real consequences for being a decades long crack user, you're going to get to be a pillow magnate who hangs out with the president. Uh, it says here, um, uh, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding up a phone showing Google maps. He's using, he's holding his fucking phone, looking at Google maps while

driving an SUV with one hand. My man. I love how he does everything because he is Mr. Perfect. He's good. He's white Gucci man. He's Mr. Perfect. He's East Atlanta. He's East Chanhass at Santa. Once he got there, he didn't much like the food. He picked at his chicken kebabs and didn't touch his spicy fried green beans. More to the point, he didn't understand why we were there. He had never heard of the Uyghurs. I told him, I told them they were Muslims who are being persecuted by Chinese communists. He said, good. Yeah. No, he said, Oh, he said like Christians. Yes, I said like Christians. I think he might have just been asking that question. Like, is a Muslim a Christian? Like this, no, all this guy talks and cares about is like fucking, you know, affirmation

of the day calendars. How to sell pillows and crack. He is not a worldly man. Don't let the packet intelligence fool you. He kept talking with me in the restaurant, a kind of stream of consciousness account of the packet captures his mistreatment at the hands of the media and the better business bureau. I've been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party and the better business bureau of America. They're in league with one another to say that my pillows aren't good. I says here, the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines and the wonders of Oleanderan, a supplement, he says, he and everyone else at my pillow takes. It says he is 100% guaranteed to prevent COVID-19. Is this the goat dewormer that all these people are taking now? Yeah. Inverteine or whatever

the fuck it is. I don't know if it's exactly that one, but I did see a photo of something from like a tractor supply store. They were like warning, despite some media accounts, like this is not okay to take if you're not a fucking cow. They're not a goat. Do not take this goat-worming, this parasite fucking poison to cure or prevent COVID-19 infection. On all of these points, he is utterly impervious to any argument of any kind. Oh, wow. And you were going to fucking, you were going to out-argue the guy who smoked so much crack, his dealers cut him off. You will never win an argument against the fucking cokehead like that. They're unbeatable. I asked him what, if hypothetically on August 10th, it turns out that other experts disagree with his experts and

declare that his data don't mean what he thinks his data mean. This, he told me was impossible. It couldn't happen. I don't have to worry about that. Do you understand? Do you understand? I've been attacked. I have 2,500 employees and I've been attacked every day. Do I look like a stupid person that I'm just doing this for my health? I have better things to do. These guys brought me to this and I owe it to the United States to all, whether it's a Democrat or Republican, whoever it is to bring this forward to our country. I don't have to answer that question because it's not going to happen. This is non-subjective evidence. It's packets. I love that. I have better things to do. You absolutely do not.

None of these rich assholes have better things to do, which is why they do this, because they're fucking bored and restless. Lindell is quite convinced, for example, that not only did China steal the election, but there is a communist agenda in this country more broadly. I asked him what that meant. Communist, he told me, take away your right to free speech. You just told me they are doing it to these people. He meant the Uyghurs. I've experienced it firsthand more than anyone in this country. The government had taken his freedom away, put him in a reeducation camp. I don't see anyone arresting you, I said. He became annoyed. Okay, I'm not talking about the government, he said. I'm talking about social media. Why did

they attack me? Why did bots and trolls attack all of my vendor? I was the number one selling product of every outlet in the United States, every one, every single one, all of them dropped like flies. You know why? Because bots and troll groups were hired. They were hired to attack. Well, now I've done investigations. They've come out of a building in China. Oh, wow. He sounds like such a raving lunatic. This is exactly what Ann Applebaum believes about Russia. You're the same person. You're just not as cool as him. You don't fucking whip the Escalade. It goes on for a long time. That was the funniest part. At the end here, it says,

not too long after that, I suddenly found I couldn't take any more of this calculated ranting. This is so peevish because Ann only chose to profile him precisely so that something like this would happen. He gave her what she was asking for and she was just like, I simply couldn't take any more of his antics. Well, yeah, now that you've got what you came for, you can pay your check and leave, Ann. He goes, I can hear the moment on the recording when I suddenly said, okay, enough and switched off the device. Although he ate almost nothing. I wonder why his appetite is so peckish. It's weird. He barely had anything to eat or drink, but he went to the bathroom like four times before the appetizers got there. I'm just not

hungry. Wow. These green beans are too spicy. The bottom of his nose has to look like a tomato. You've kept in your cabinet for a month. I just have to believe that like his septum is just like a little, like a matchbook that he folded up and stuck in there. I hope he doesn't hear this because like, I want to be friends with him. Oh yeah. I mean, when he becomes God Emperor, I would very much like to be one of his, one of his court gestures. He's going to be Napoleon. Like that's our Nepal. You know how like that's our monkey paws thing is how we're always like, Oh, we needed like a Napoleon to like make it so there aren't as many states and like, unfuck up everything. Well, be careful what you wish for. We got, we have a Napoleon. He's from

Chanhasset, which is our Carisca. Yeah. And it's like, what? What? Carisca? Carisca? That's close enough. That's impressive. That's close enough. Napoleon got there to his, his combination of will and ability and the beauty part of America at the end of its decadent era age is that all you need is the will provided for you by our good friends in Columbia. The will and the thing the will makes you do the, the, you know, little will that you put in a little, little bag and maybe has a tiny logo on it. You take out with a spoon to spend like $20 million on ads. So the president sees you and is like, he's nice to me. I'm going to put him in charge of the army. Although he ate almost nothing. Lindell insisted on grabbing the check like any well-mannered Minnesotan would.

In the interest of investigative research, I later bought a my pillow. Conclusion, it's a lot like other pillows. So perhaps that makes us even. When we walked outside, I thought I might say something dramatic, something cutting, something like, you realize you were destroying our country, but I didn't. He is our country after all, or one face of our country, hyper-optimistic and overconfident, ignorant of history and fond of myths, firm in the belief that we alone are the exceptional nation and we alone have access to exceptional truths. Safe in his absolute certainty, he got into his black SUV and drove away. I mean, I just love that last, that last paragraph coming, especially from Ann Applebaum, because it's just like, what exactly does she

disagree with him about again? Just, it's just Trump and COVID basically. Yeah, we're not the exceptional nation that gets to do whatever we want. That's not like the basis of her entire fucking ethos. China instead of Russia, that's the only other thing. Yeah, just swap out Russia with China, and that's exactly Ann Apple. She wrote a whole fucking book about this. The book she just published, it just came out. The first chapter of it, the opening scene is like a party she had like five years ago in Hungary, where she was just like, yeah, half of the guests now there, they were invited to my party are now all open fascists. Weird. How'd that happen to them? They used to be my friends. Weird. How did they turn into this in the interceding years?

How did that happen so surprisingly and dramatically? This is a great article for that reason, not for the reasons that she intended. She definitely, she intends for it to be like, oh, what a scary guy, but it's like, no, you have two Mike Lindell's inside of you, one of them's Ann Applebaum. That's it, man. You can get Mike Lindell or you can get the boring Mike Lindell, but they essentially believe the exact same shit. What is it, oh, like a confident and like believes that America is special and like will always have, that's literally the speeches that Joe Biden gives. Yeah. We're number one, baby. Yeah. We have a unique destiny. Ann Applebaum, you got to put me on.

All right. So moving, moving to the other side of the world, the other side of the aisle rather, that this is the profile of a Jason Buttigieg, I talked about, that's in the Washington post. The headline is, in official Washington, Jason Buttigieg is a stranger in a very strange land. Now, before I get into this article, I mean, like, when I read this, I think the context in which you have to understand this article is, is how absolutely in danger Jason Buttigieg is right now. And I mean, like his life and physical safety, because like, he is getting ready to get, he like, they are going to trade him in any second now because he has fulfilled his usefulness and he may get that Havana syndrome pretty soon. Because like, I mean, the way this article is

framed is they're getting ready to cash this guy out because they got nothing to do with him. And, you know, Pete is about to be on to the next thing. Yeah. No, this is like, you know, however you want to put it, he does on his way back to his home planet. He, his plane gets shot down over the South China Sea, whatever you want to say. They're about to kill off this character. This is, the writers have, you know, I mean, they got nothing for him to do in season two. So Jason, so there's, hence this article here. So like that, listen to this first paragraph. The first sentence, rather, Jason Buttigieg put on a few pounds during quarantine. Jesus, imagine, this is your profile in the Washington Post. And the first sentence is just

like, look at this fatty. Can you believe this lazy pig gained a few pounds during quarantine? Chaston's disgusting cold white belly flipped over his belt. His posture is worse than I remember. Jason Buttigieg put on a few pounds during quarantine. So in April with the pandemic restrictions easing and two doses of vaccine safely in his arm, he set about looking for a gym to join in the city where he had relocated after his husband, Pete, became the secretary of transportation. He found one on Capitol Hill that seemed nice enough, he says, until one of the gym's personal trainers approached him and explained that he had also worked as a lobbyist and that his boss would be upset if he didn't take the opportunity to ask Jason to pass along

some information to the secretary. It was like, well, we can't go here. I can't go to the lobbyist gym. Jason recalls during a recent interview, rolling his eyes beneath his signature owl-framed glasses. He'd been warned before Buttigieg's move to Washington, a friend gave them a critical piece of advice about life in the Capitol. Work is play, and play is work. It seems like when they were moving to Washington, Pete probably did the Mitt Romney thing. He was probably bunting Chaston to the roof of his car. Liz Smith got the right shotgun and was like, Chaston's fine up there. He likes it. He always sticks his head out the window during drives. Yeah, he'd been warned. I mean, God, they should have given him a much more serious warning about

this fucking. The warning should have been like, yeah, and like nine months later, at the entire readership of the city and national newspaper, the city you moved into, will just be like, breaking Dateline, Washington, D.C. First husband of trans-rejection surgery, let himself go. Ugly pig spotted a gym. Chaston was not allowed on the couch because he got into a box of frango chocolates. Yeah, that's going to be the heart attack gun thing. Someone left the Valentine's Day package out, and Chaston got into it, and he had to get taken to the vet. Six months in, the former first man of South Bend, Indiana, can't believe how true it is. Like anytime you're just relaxing, you're working, he says, especially on the hill. Cocktails, dinners, drinks. Everyone

says, no work tonight. Then two minutes go by and they're talking about a pipeline, you know, a bill or a package. The secretary's husband is in particularly interested in talking pipelines and packages all night. He wants the dish about the HBO comedy Hacks, alas, he seldom sees an opening. I mean, god damn it. What the fuck is wrong with people in D.C.? Hacks is a wonderful show. He just wants to do bands and they won't let him. Yeah. The secretary goes as such as life in Washington for Chasen, who finds himself in the deep end of an education and what it means to be the husband of a powerful political figure in a town of grippers, grinners, and wonks. I mean, a powerful political figure. I mean, that's Treasury Secretary. Transportation. Transportation

is that is the fucking booby prize. Transportation is like they gave him that so Joe could make him say all the most unpopular ideas, but he was like, what was the fucking dumb shit? He wanted to raise the gas tax significantly. Wasn't that there was also like a mileage? Yeah. No, it was just every bad idea. I mean, Joe's still got some tricks. It's like how he sent Kamala down to the border. He's going to make Pete do all the ideas. It's like, oh, everyone with a pickup truck has to buy a Prius. Chasen 32 was the breakout star of Pete's 2020 presidential campaign. The middle school drama teacher was a novelty. Well, yeah, now in D.C., that novelty is worn off and they have absolutely no reason to pay attention to him. Like I said, if I was chasing,

I'd be very concerned about what this augurs here as your novelty runs out in D.C. or your utility to the powerful position of Secretary of Transportation, Wayne's, not because he was the man married to an openly gay presidential candidate, but because he was young, a savvy and self-effacing user of social media, enthusiastic about pop culture in a way that didn't feel strained or strategic. That didn't feel that way at all. Oh, no. It didn't feel like every time he tweeted, there was a gun in the back of his head. I never got that feeling. In Washington, Chasen is more a fish out of water than he was on the campaign. He remains bewildered by many of Washington's social moors. Example, the Buddha judges recently received a dinner invitation

that came with two notes on what to expect. Super casual, no work. The host even mentioned that there would be bike parking, presumably because Pete Buttigieg often cycles to work. Chasen wavered, having rarely seen his definition of casual on display at social events in D.C., but he eventually pulled on chinos in a polo shirt. I was like, I swear to God, if we show up and everyone is in suits and dresses, he says, and we showed up and everyone was in suits and dresses. I mean, fuck me, man. This sucks. I want a relationship where I can wear sweatpants and he gets me pizza. On a Friday morning in June, Chasen sits at a windowside table at Canopy at the Wharf, entertaining his visiting mother-in-law over breakfast until Pete could

get out of work. It's the start of D.C.'s highly celebratory pride weekend, but he is not enmeshed enough with the city's nongovernment circles to take part. Oh, there's a parade this weekend, he replies when asked about his pride plans. It's very hard to make a friend when everybody wants something from your husband, he says, or they're expecting him to do something. It makes interactions feel inauthentic a lot. You just have to always have your guard up. I mean, I do feel bad for him because it seems like he's really lonely. It seems like he doesn't know what to do with the social mores of D.C. and it's just like, oh, you don't want to play the game? Well, we're cashing you out, Chasen. Yeah, no. He unlikely recipient of my sympathy.

For sure. For sure. You know what I mean? You're right. He was, I guess, in some ways, the breakout star of the Buttigieg campaign. He was a big asset to the campaign and there was all of these, as we said, these very forced, awkward, all his social media stuff and just like, oh, I'm just like a quirky, normal, cute guy and I'm so caught off guard by all the celebrity of my husband and things like that. That was useful for a time, but now it's a liability. Now it's just like, now it's like he's showing up. He's showing up to casual parties wearing a polo shirt. He's wearing a polo shirt and she knows it's signatures. What a fucking leroob. Everyone made fun of little baby for wearing a polo shirt when he met Kamala. You didn't

learn from that, Chasen. I don't know what he can do after this, but I hope they set him free. I hope they really do set him to the pop-up state because this is not like, dude, once he got in there and saw that they were posting all those badass slow-motion walking videos, he's like, oh, it's not Chasen o'clock anymore. No more time for like self-effacing selfies and stuff that's like, hey, if you think you're doing bad in quarantine, you're doing effin' awesome. No, none of that. It's walking. It's America's back. It's, you know, it's all the evil shit. We're doing all the evil shit. We're walking every day. We're getting our steps in. Get off the couch, you stupid pussy. That's what they're saying to him. While Pete seems to know exactly

what he's doing here, Chasen is less certain. He remains somewhat stranded on an elevated, ill-defined pedestal on the dais of official Washington. He has paid nothing, has no title, and feels alternately in demand and ineffectual. I mean, imagine if this was your relationship getting talked about this way in a national newspaper. He has no title. He doesn't get paid. All he does is charge his phone and lie. Doesn't know how to cook. Got fatter. Sucks. It's not funny. He's no longer hot. Oscar party sucks. This is like, this is like if Trump wrote this article. This is so, like, it's like, I heard Chaston is doing very bad. He put on a few. He showed up to the big party in a polo shirt. Chaston, why are you wearing chinos? Do you

think it's 2014? He says, so he says he's paid nothing, has no title. I mean, it's like, he's like, like it's like Victorian England and he's an orphan who's been just sold to some fucking rich baron. This reminds me so much of Entropic Thunder when they're interviewing Ben Stiller and they're like, your last five movies have bombed all your friends say that you're worse than ever. If you need this one to succeed or it's over. It's going to be like Haley Jill Osmond and AI. They're just going to drive him out to the fucking forest and just kick him out of the car. We got to do a Chaston rescue off. We have to do Operation and Tebi for Chaston. Yes, Chaston. I would love to. I mean, if you want to talk about fucking hacks, I'm with it.

Have you seen White Lotus, Chaston? Oh man, dude, that show is my new favorite. Chaston, there's a show, I think, or there's a movie I think you would love. It was also about a man who was held in confinement. But he, unlike you, unfortunately, became stronger by doing it. You see, every time he went into confinement, he did more and more karate until he was the toughest man in the prison. And then he was able to take on, well, I don't want to spoil it for you. The movie's called A Vengement. We've seen it and we think you can pick up a lot from it. Throughout all of this, he has held to a tight personal refrain. What you're doing is important, even when what you're doing isn't exactly clear. I mean, God, this is just getting

more and more depressing here. This is very bleak to think about. We're going to take those out, the maximum, Chaston says, pulling at the thigh area of a new pair of suit pants two weeks later as he returns to examine himself in a three-way mirror at a Nordstrom in Arlington. He bought the grayest green suit on winter clearance, but never bothered to have it tailored. Now the tailor has bad news. The slim cut pants can't be made much wider. The bitchiness, all these details about his suit pants don't fit anymore because he did get the tailor. Oh, we got to get some elastic in those. Well, the Don Pacino waistband there, Jason. I mean, it's just like, I'm just imagining, are there other fitter guys who are more connected and good at DC

socializing that are in Pete Buttigieg's orbit right now? Because it's just like, just Jason, man. It's my heart goes out for you. He says, well, hopefully I get smaller, Jason Klipps. I'll do my best not to sit down. He never owned a suit until he started dating Pete. Never dated one. Then Pete ran for president, so Jason spent a year living in them. I mean, it's just like, if you're in a relationship and you feel kind of like eclipsed by the other person and then you're looking in a mirror in Nostrum and they're like, sorry, this potato sack doesn't fit you anymore. Would you like this? Would you like a cape? Sir, we will pay you not to disgrace Jose Bank with your book and Jason got disrespected out of men's warehouse. This is like, he's the

most disrespected man in America. This is tragic. You're not going to like the way you look. I guarantee you. Speaking of, okay, this is about Buttigieg here. It says the 39 year old Harvard grad former McKinsey consultant and Navy reservist has so much excess ambition that in addition running the U.S. Department of Transportation, he is also training to compete in a half Ironman triathlon this fall. He wakes for a 6 a.m. swim session most weekday mornings and stacks his weekends with long runs, bike rides, and workshops on open water swimming. So like, he's basically engineered a schedule in which he never has to talk to or see Jason ever. He's doing a full-time job and then he spends every waking minute training to do an Ironman competition while his

husband's getting doughy. I mean, I can relate. It says one day, Jason was riding a bike alongside Pete on a 10 mile run for moral support. Afterward, while Pete paced in circles catching his breath, a young man approached the couple with a smartphone and questioned the secretary about his position on China. That was just Mike Lindell, actually. They think this is just like a homeless guy bothering him. What do you know about the packets? Pete handled the ambush with impressive equanimity, according to his husband, wording off the man with a book recommendation. Jason is a drama kid at heart, but Washington is a different kind of theater. The show never stops and you don't always know when you're on stage and on whose terms. When your life becomes the center

for other people's criticisms and commentary all the time, why stay, he says. It's why I love him very much. He continues talking about Pete. He's so committed to the job. You can tell he's happy and you can tell he cares, but sometimes it's like, well, it feels like you're built for this. It feels like you can handle this. Sometimes I'm like, I'm done. I'm taking a break. I can't be everything for everybody all the time. I mean, this has got Splitsville written all over it. I hate to see it. Bro, he's going to get fucking dumped on Zoom. I hate this. It feels so bad. We're going to get Jason. Jason, we're going to get you your revenge body. I famously, I put on about 40 pounds during quarantine. I've lost almost all of it. You can come to the gym

with me. I'm like, I don't know if you heard Jason. I'm on one of, I'm on a famous dry spell. I need you to help me to help you. I am going to get your cum gutters back. You are going to get me. You're going to like tell a woman, Hey, he doesn't, he didn't say all that bad stuff. He's actually very nice. Jason, don't listen to Felix. Come with me. I will get you fatter than you ever thought you possibly could be. I'm going to make you into a God. It's just a God of size, a size King. Jason, don't listen to Matt. We can do both. We can make you just the roundest power lifter. Yes, there we go. That's the perfect synthesis. We're going to make you into a power lifter and build is going to show you who can annihilate the fucking stacks. Yeah. And you

Jason, we know what your deal is. You're probably like, damn, I love editing the modern family wikia. Will is going to get you. No more of that bullshit. Will is going to get you like cultured. You're going to be more cultured than Pete. Like, no, you're, we're taking under our wing. Yeah. No, seriously. Straight eye for the queer guy. You can have fun again. You can live in a fucking, you can live in a place where everyone isn't a grinner and a gripper who fucking, we have to wear dumb ass clothes to go to bad food restaurants and talk to the shittiest people on the planet. Dude, Jason, Felix will make you fit. Matt will make you fat. Matt will make you accept getting around. You come over to my house. We're watching. We're watching white lotus. We're

watching Mare of East town. We're watching hacks. We're fucking, we're talking to all your favorite shows. We're like, you know, I'm not going to, we're not talking about lobbying. I'll never, I'll never train for a fucking iron man. I'll never make you go on a bike ride or even to the farmer's market. We're watching TV. We're having a TV party over at my house. Jason, you can smoke weed. No one gives a fuck. You can have a fun time. Jason, yeah. No, there's like, there's no suits in this world. All of us wear stuff in the Showtime Billions collection, black button-up shirts, Donna Karen for men jeans that are very flattering, make everyone feel like Damien Lewis. We know. And you think, you think you have to be out there

and like explain your exchange like niceties with people do small talk that's really about like some fucking car bill or some bullshit. No, people yell at us every time we leave our house. We're constantly yelling back and forth with people across from sidewalks. We're hated every time we leave. So you don't have to do anything. You just yell back. Like you, like, I just, I want, I mean, this is so going against type like reading this, I feel really bad for him and I just want him to have fun again. I want to do this. I want him to like live with us. I guess bedroom like fucking. It says here that, well, I mean, they may, he may be looking for a place because listen to this, the Buddha judge themselves

moved into an 800 square foot one bedroom apartment near Eastern Market. We couldn't afford the one bedroom plus then Jason says they chose the high end building because of its location and the security it offered. The couple has faced threats and even a break in back in South Bend rent for currently available two bedrooms started $5,650 though Jason says they got their one bedroom for closer to 3000 by locking in a long lease that gave them two months rent free. We're doing fine for ourselves and yet the city is almost unaffordable. He adds while driving their Subaru out back up I 395 which tells you how extremely unaffordable it is for many people. The transportation secretary salary is $222,400 a year. The couple sold their home in South Bend earlier this year knowing they

couldn't keep up the old Victorian from afar but they didn't leave the Midwest behind entirely pursuing a home on Lake Michigan and Traverse City, Michigan where Jason grew up and where his parents still live. He likes to escape there where he can, when he can, to hang drywall with his dad, surround himself with old friends, people who remind me of me. Jason, I think if Jason spent enough time with us we would remind him of him as well. Yeah absolutely. I mean if he wants to hang out with other Midwestern, I have tons of Midwest simpleton friends as in all of them. His ambition is just living his life in a very wonderful way. I don't know many people like that says Charlotte Clymer, a writer and activist who became friends with Jason during the presidential

campaign. He's just himself. He doesn't try to mold himself into what he thinks people want. It's not even that he resists it but he says the best person he can be is himself. Okay Jason, again as part of this package deal no more fake friends like Charlotte Clymer because I mean this person was probably feeding. I guarantee you Charlotte Clymer was feeding stuff to the Washington Post for this profile about like you know 100%. Asking him about when he had to get his pants blown out a second time by the tailor. No fucking way. No fucking way. Yeah no this is a snake. I would never talk to the nudes about you unless it was positive. God listen to this next section. I need a job Jason says flatly. No you don't. You really don't need a job. Don't worry about it.

But like that's the thing you can't do that in Washington DC. You really can't do that. Yeah that's true because like there's no way for you to relate to other people and it's just like like all these psychos are only fixated on their dumbass jobs in the swamp. Namely he wants a job that will pose no risk to his husband's career while also allowing him to remain true to his passions and personality. Stepping away from teaching middle school drama has been one of the his biggest sacrifices says Nev says Nev, Jason's friend since college. He loves to play. He loves theater and improv. Nev says bringing that to younger kids it was an outlet for him. He feels he can't go back at least not now not at a K through 12 level. How could he be honest and present

and present in the work of teaching young people? He wonders knowing that a disgruntled parent could make news by airing their grievances. I mean man how intensive a drama teacher are you? That's a risk. Man dude he's like yeah he's like the fucking who's the guy in Kill Bill? The fucking instructor guy? Oh Pi May. Yeah he's the Pi May of drama teacher. Yes I think we found his problem. Closing out the profile here it says uh after the mall Jason is thinking about Pete. It's their third wedding anniversary. During a quick target stop he spots a hot pink gift bag with a close with a close-up of a dog that resembles Buddy. Their one-eyed puggle. It reads you're a pugtastic. OMG Jason says that's it that's the one. He slips it into a wobbly wheeled cart

confident it will make Pete smile. This is great. No it won't. Do you think that dog did not they're leaving shit out. That dog did not start out with one eye when they got it. The only thing they would make Pete smile is if they put that dog in the fucking compressor from the end of Terminator. Poor fucking Jason is like seeing LOL cats in 2021. It's like oh my god this is so cool. He is not long for this world. Damn. It says Pete has something planned for the night although he's keeping the details a surprise. The secretary did give Jason one hint. Don't wear anything too dressy so he won't. Jason Buttigieg knows there's one Washington insider who won't lead him astray. It's a mock execution. You need a fucking job you piece of shit. Don't wear anything too dressy

for our third anniversary. I'm just gonna like you know we're just gonna like order some takeout and I got you an Amazon gift card. By the way I can't stay up too late. I gotta be up at five a.m. to run 10 miles before I go to work. We gotta save. Save Jason. That's the project. That's the goal. That's harrowing. That's harrowing. I don't know how but I like really do feel like awful for him. It's amazing. I gotta say reading through the lines there I mean it does not seem like a relationship with like I would not invest in the future of this you know what I mean. I'm shorting this stock right now but there's a life after it. You know what I'm saying? There's a fun good life for like an enthusiastic high school drama teacher to like just have fun rediscover

himself and be around cool normal people who will talk to him about HBO comedy series. Yeah three men you know who have their own podcast ages 19 me to I don't know could save your life. You don't know. And no just give us give us a call. We want to help. Do you remember when Ben Moro was talking about canvassing in Iowa? And he like swayed a Pete voter because she was like yeah I was gonna vote for Pete but I then I saw that Chaston's like gained weight and lost hair. I think this is too much for him. He's too sweet for this. This was like an early 2020 late 2019. I mean it just seems like they used all of the kind sort of like nice high school teacher energy that he had on that campaign and they just like drained it out of him like sap out of a tree.

And just like Liz Smith just like you know just used her alchemy to just yeah like uh to hollow him and now that they got the thing that they wanted it's just like all those qualities are not only not useful anymore but like an active detriment to like everything. And like that's what I find so sad about it. Yeah well you know our line's always open. I will always answer my door for Chaston. Yeah hit up our line. We got loud. It just so it's so fucked like it's like Chaston has the personality of like one of the men who live in stars hollow. And Pete has like the evil the exact evil personality not as smart but like definitely the same like level of evil as George H. W. Bush. Like that was not gonna lie. That was never gonna

last. He's like this guy like works in the kitchen at Lorela's hotel and Pete is like the antagonist in the dead. Yes he's Jackson. Yeah and Pete is just there like in the basement like living in a small box like the guy from Profit. Oh my god it's fucking Profit. That show rocked. Yeah the guy the Profit for people who don't know Profit was a network TV show that was on Fox in the 90s and it was about a guy who was abused by his dad and made to sleep in a box by this like super conglomerate and his like it caused him to like work his way up the ladder in the company as an adult and kill everyone in the company. Yeah TV used to be awesome dude. Maybe a rule. That's one of the things we're gonna watch with Chaston actually. We're gonna be watching

Profit reruns on. Yeah well just gonna be just remind you of anyone Chaston. Yeah yeah yeah no yeah. Chaston season five of billions restarting in September. Come on we're gonna have a billions party. We're gonna have a billions party. We're gonna have a billions party. Chaston is invited. Yes 100%. No one wants anything from you. No one wants to expect anything from you. You can dress like shit. You can look like shit. You'll look better than I do. You know so you're ahead of the curve already buddy. Come on. Chaston I will let you in on all my weight cutting and weight gaining secrets. I can't wait to show you what I've learned in my life. All right then I think that uh that does it for today's episode. Until next time fellows. Bye bye. Bye bye.

Let's watch TV and have a couple of brews.