Chapo Trap House - 740 - Crank About Creeping feat. Ben Terris (6/12/23)

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Today we’re joined by journalist Ben Terris, who’s been sort of shadow-programming the show recently with his pieces on Sean McElwee, Diane Feinstein’s staff, Tommy Tuberville’s advisors and questions about Tim Scott’s virginity. We discuss Trump’s federal indictment over the “boxes hoax,” and the growing feeling that ol’ Donny might possibly maybe finally be kind of fucked. Then we talk to Ben about his new book “The Big Break,” and learn more about all the McElwee-esque DC creeps, weirdos and gamblers he’s come to know investigating the world of post-Trump Washington. You can find Ben’s book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/ben-terris/the-big-break/9781538708057/?lens=twelve

Music Well, I mean, Ben, you do this for a living. I know Felix enjoyed the party, but like, that was like what, four or five years ago now, and I feel like my soul still hasn't recovered from being in the same room and not wearing my finest suicide vest to that party. So kudos to you for weathering the storm for the rest of us here. Yeah, I mean, I'm not exactly a war reporter, but it's come on. You see things way worse than that. Way worse. Well, this is, I guess I should introduce you and the guest for today.

We're talking to a bonafide DC reporter. We're talking to Ben Terrace of the Washington Post about his new book, The Big Break, The Gambler's Party Animals and True Believer is trying to win Washington while America loses its mind. Ben, it's great to have you on the show because you've basically been programming this show for the last couple of months. I feel like half of the articles you talked about have been, you know, your byline, whether it's Sean McElwee, the guy smoking weed in Dianne Finestein's office, the Tommy Tuberville

Food Critic, National Security Aid. It's been a lot of good stuff. And I want to get into your beat, like the DC freak show beat that you cover But we got to talk about the biggest story in politics right now. I'm talking boxes Boxes and boxes and boxes the boxes hoax continues and Donald Trump and and his lawyer Currently facing 37 felony accounts of improperly handling classified documents and lying to the FBI about it. I guess like, I'll begin here.

We on this show for years now have, you know, mind the comedy material out of all of the times people have been promising that this is it for Donald Trump. He's going to jail. The Russian collaboration is real. You know, jail time, the death penalty for Donald Trump, my's going to jail. The Russian collaboration is real. You know, jail time, the death penalty for Donald Trump, my sources say, and as well as had a sort of grudging respect for Donald Trump in the fact that he is basically committed crimes his entire life without any fear of consequence and gotten away with all of them. And he still could wriggle out of this one,

but I got to say, reading the details of this indictment, it really seems like he's fucked on this one. And look, it is a Florida judge that he appointed presiding over this case, but man, the box is thing really does seem to be a new level for him. Well, I mean, it's once again, he's now been indicted twice, no, 200% more than any other president, pretty impressive. And in both cases, what he ended up doing is just something so spectacularly goofy and tiki tacky that it really doesn't impact the office that much. Because you know, you can't have a president of president's face

and consequences for the really criminal shit that being president requires. But it's pretty easy to not just take a bunch of documents and put them in your bathroom. Yeah. So there are like two types of things Trump actually gets in trouble for, right? There's the first category and that's like, you know, we're just going to call that Eastern Europe.

You know, that's doing Russia stuff. Oh, did he meet with Alpha Bank? Oh, there was a meeting in the tower. Oh my God, he had a phone call with Zeldizny and then the translator guy became a hero. And that's like, that's the stuff that he never got purple for it because a, ultimately, who cares? You can probably, as an American, you can do anything. Do you crane or Russia? And no one will know. It's too much to figure out.

There's a whole other alphabet. No one cares. And also, on the legal side, those are generally things that if you do prosecute them, they get into the realm of the regular illegal things the president does. Trump threatening to withhold aid from Ukraine. He does it in a more buffoonish and less subtle way than other presidents.

But ultimately, if you prosecute him for that, then you can't go, hey, we're dangling this IMF loan over your head unless you revoke Assange's asylum, you can't do things like that anymore. But then there are the things that are not generally under the purview of a normal president and are so stupid and clownish. Like the two things he's actually got in trouble for, boxes in January 6th, he's done them more slavently than anyone else. And so yeah. When it comes to the boxes thing, I'm reminded of what you said about drug testing and MMA

is that it's not a drug test, it's an intelligence test. And I'm just like, all the defenses of him are like, well, he's the president. He can declassify any documents he wants and take them anywhere he goes and read them on the toilet. And it's like, well, he didn't. He didn't do those things. And I look, I don't give a shit about national security. I wouldn't prosecute him for this stuff. But the fed certainly do.

They really care about whether you're showing our plans to invade North Korea to a dentist in Mar-a-Lago. And I just, like, I get the impression that he really is in deep shit with this because all of these defenders and the conservative media, I have not heard the term nothing burger even once this week. And they've all moved on to these kind of like existential dilemmas, like, what is the law really? Yeah, yeah. Well, they are making the point. Hillary did it to all these other people did it to and

he's being unfairly singled out. And that is, that's a different move than saying that he didn't do a crime to say, okay, what about these other crimes? But that is, that's a different move than saying that he didn't do a crime to say, okay, well, what about these other crimes? But thing is, you can't go into court with that. It doesn't work. Remember, during the Alex Jones case, when he, when they were telling him, you just were lying about the Sandy Hook and he's like, well, they lied about the rack war. Okay. That's not here in this room. That's not part of this case. Sorry. It's like, yeah, shit's fucked up and room. That's not part of this case. Sorry. It's like, yeah. It shit's fucked up, but not fair.

That's all the fucking cookie crumbles. I've been like, you know, you covered DC. Like, how is this story like working its way through the ecosystem of the DC media? Yeah, I mean, it's all anyone's talking about here. And I think one of the parts that you guys hit on that's true is like what what makes this Different than most scandals in Washington is it's just more hilarious, right? Like it's not just that it's in a bathroom And there's a chandelier and the toilet is like really low to the ground

So it's like a strange situation, but also like he's on tape talking about it And he's like, oh, yeah, I could have declassified this stuff, but I didn't isn't that interesting and it's like yeah It is interesting and it's interesting that you're talking about it and he's like, oh yeah, I could have declassified this stuff, but I didn't. Isn't that interesting? And it's like, yeah, it is interesting. And it's interesting that you're talking about it on tape and that eventually we're all going to hear this. And what are you going to say about that now? I mean, it's hard to call it a nothing burger if he's just making it too funny for everyone to to not pay attention to. I like the, did you see the one where he's literally talking to like a biographer on the record? And he's like, yeah, and I actually, I have illegally obtained documents that I didn't declassify showing the general Miley wanted to invade Iran. They're like right over there. And there's an aid in the background literally going, no.

Isn't Kid Rock somehow involved in this too? Yes, yes. I mean, come on. Like Kid Rock is going to, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, toilet low rider. And I just think it's like, I like to imagine that that started out as a regular toilet, but like the density of the dumps being taken on it, like compressed the porcelain into like a, like, it just lowered it. Not me. Not me.

You. Well, you know, there's, there's always talk about, there's always talk about Trump having a gold in toilet. And really, the reality is like, no, it's too chinsy, right? He has like a low, weird, wide toilet. That's the actual reality of of Mar-a-Lago. But then there's that touch of class, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the illuminated sconces.

It's just so nice. And then just a box of cleanx on the fucking sink. I, I, I, I, open box of cleanx. Well, you know, you got to jack off. Everyone has their favorite part of the fucking sink. Just an open box of clean x. Well, you know, you got to jack off. Everyone has their favorite part of the documents bathroom. I like, I think every little part of a room tells a story. That's what, that's something I say on my HGTV show.

And I like, I personally like the shower curtains that were taken out of the closet last taken out in 1985. I like that. I like those because it's like it's in this like country club size compound, but it's the same logic as like a 27 year old living without roommates for the first time. Like oh, I have this extra bathroom. I might as well like put shower curtains here. Maybe a girl's friend will come here, or a girl will find my shower to gross. Or somebody needs to use this one. Or somebody needs to use this one.

And privately read all the documents, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's never a good son when your lawyer is in the indictment too. That's not good. That's not good. Like, you know, 37 pepperonies here, you could probably go to jail for like a thousand years off this

shit. But it does raise the prospect of like a Eugene Debs style presidential run in 2024. I mean, it could happen. I think your lawyer being in the indictment is, it's normally bad for Trump. It's good because it's like, well, then he has to defend you guys, even if you don't pay him. Well, no, he's looking for defend you guys, even if you don't pay him. Well, no, he's looking for a new lawyer right now that can defend him in Florida. Oh, yeah.

No one will cover him. Yes, he's a public defender. He has to get the guy who's, he has to get the guy who's hand is down his pants in that famous picture. Dog, I'm going to jail. But like, I think it's going to just think like, to just think the conservative media has taken a number of different tax on how to metabolize this. But Ben, have you been following any of his perspective rivals in the 2024 presidential

race? How are they trying to talk about this issue of Trump getting indicted again? I think honestly, they're trying not to talk about it as much as they can. It's kind of pathetic, really. There's all this talk about, oh, we need a new form of leadership, we need to move on. I think they try to make the case subtly that, wouldn't you rather have a guy who's not indicted running for president when that be better. But then there's one question that comes up every time and it's like, well, would you support Donald Trump if he was the candidate? And everybody's like, yeah, of course.

And as soon as you say that, like, you're no longer really saying that this is outrageous, you're saying, yeah, it's probably fine. I got to talk about Trump's statement on true social about this. It's just a great post. He says here, the corrupt Biden administration has informed my attorney as I have been indicted, seemingly over the boxes, hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1,850 boxes at the University of Delaware, additional boxes in Chinatown, D.C. with even more boxes at the University of Pennsylvania and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his corvette and which is secured only by a garage door that is

paper thin and open much of the time. Ben, what are the Chinatown boxes? Honestly, I don't even remember. All I can say about that is that's one of the most beautiful things ever written. It's like if I can ever write something as poignant as, you know, that it's like Pete Seagr's little boxes, but for this moment right now, just really beautiful work by the former president there. It's the last sentence where he says, secured by only a garage door that is paper thin and open much of the time. It's poetry.

I think I saw Kevin McCarthy or Jim Jordan or someone on TV this morning being like, well, storing the boxes in a bathroom is better than a garage because a bathroom door has a lock on it. It really is. So every part of it is so little kid. Like starting with like, well, someone else did it and then go like, just arguing semantics over like which room of the house is safer. You, I have to say, I like try to follow all these things. I famously tried to decipher who Nellie and Bruce were.

I like to get into the mind of the conservative psycho who's really into these things. I don't know what the fucking Chinatown boxes or the Corvette thing is. I know a lot of lore and I don't know this. They found some vice president from when he was vice president of documents in his garage, right? They also found some of the pants. I don't know, I don't really know anything about it. Apparently, like they were technically classified, but it's a lot of that shit. Like they put a stamp on classified on almost everything

and it's not them. Oh, the other thing, the university stuff is literally a paper that he donated to a university for like his record. And he's just shit that like was taken without being vetted and brought to his hideaway where how many foreign agents have been like busted going in and out of Mar-a-Lago with like fake IDs and shit.

Well, you know, if you want to check out our plans to attack Iran, just ask you use the bathroom. Speaking of like how the rest of the GOP field is trying to take advantage of it. The candidate bed is right, the candidates themselves are like, it's either like Vivek going, trying to make a cool principled stand where he's like, I would have a better chance if Trump was out, but out of principle, I warn him in, and it's like, if all the other candidates died, you still wouldn't make it. In a kick-row situation, as a chance. Yeah, nothing's affecting your chances. You're not going above 2%.

I saw not the Sanctus, but the Sanctus supporters had a very, as Matt pointed out, a very John Kerry in 2004 supporter online line, which was, I'd'd rather a candidate who leaks sweat then leaks national security secrets g just he feel the net roots pouring off of that uh... referring of course to rondes and this uh... he gave uh... some sort of uh... can't be give a stump speech and a barn in oak loma where there was no air conditioning so it was pretty hot and there and he looked sweat through his white shirt. And yeah, the DeSantis supporters are like,

oh, the other one was like, imagine getting mad at a guy for sweating. And I just, yeah, everyone's mad. That's what they're doing. What they say, they're soaking wet there. They're just shaking their fist at him. And you know, like,

Santhus people always do that with like any weird or fucking off-putting thing DeSantis does. They're like, oh, oh, look how mad you are at a guy shaking hands with his wife. Look out, look how mad you are at Ron DeSantis's cool voice and the awesome faces he makes. The sweaty thing is particularly weird too. Bernie Sanders was the sweatiest person I ever saw on the trail. And it was awesome. It was just like, Oh like, oh, it's a guy who's really working for it. And like the details about how he asked out his hotel rooms at 50 degrees.

He's like, he runs hot. He's like me for real. Yeah. Yeah. And I do, I do commit right with the Santa San the Sweatiness. I mean, as somebody who sweats a lot, but, yeah. Man, just like put a sweat under shirt or something.

You should know at that age and at that point What's gonna happen to you if you go to Iowa with the humidity above a certain level? It might be his most relatable thing though I mean he's not a particularly relatable person I Talked to somebody who wants to flew in an airplane with Ron to Santis all the way to Tel Aviv And he told me that the entire flight to Santis was sitting there David Putty on Seinfeld, no headphones, no book, staring right in front of him.

Oh my, twirling is hair. Twirling is hair for an entire ride to Israel. That's for my even looking down ones. So if that's what you're like on an airplane, being sweaty and I was like, oh look, he's a human being. Oh my God. All right, we need to make sure that that's actually sweat and some other sort of fluid. Yeah.

It's not a, like, oil or something. Yeah. Five million dollars or a seat next to Ron DeSantis on a flight to Tel Aviv. Hard to pick. I mean, he'd be quiet, you know? At least he's nice, quiet, Ryan. And you know, like Ben's here pointed about how like what separates this from other, you know, aborted Trump scandals are still ongoing Trump scandals.

Is that like this is funny, but it's also really easy to understand unlike so much of the other stuff associated with Trump. Like for instance, in this indictment, I'm reading over the time, Sarah says, in one of the most problematic pieces of evidence for Mr. Trump, the indictment or account recounts how according to his lawyer of evidence for Mr. Trump, the indictment or account recounts how, according to his lawyer's words, Mr. Trump and the lawyer discuss what to do with a folder of 38 documents with classified markings.

The lawyer said Mr. Trump made a plucking motion that implied, why don't you take them with you to your hotel room, and if there's anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out. This is like, yeah, this one, there's no left harness in this one. Yeah, so to say.

Well, and there's also, there's two things happening at the same time. One is it's funny and entertaining and easy to understand, and the other is like, the legal stuff is moving, right? Like, there's something that's happening tomorrow. All these scandals that happen while he was president, it was like, oh, how's he going to wriggle out of this one? And the answer was, time would go by, and nothing would happen. But there is a world in which things happen because of all this.

And it's hard to wriggle out of the actual legal proceedings. It's not a possible, but it is harder. Well, that's what I mean by this stuff being an intelligence test. Because if you wanted to like pill for all kinds of secret documents, he probably could have just declassified them and then shown it off to his golf buddies or whatever, but he never fucking did that. And now it seems like he's really fucked. Because as I said, the feds really do care

about showing things like our, all of our missile silos are located to your friends. Yeah, there's a difference between breaking a norm which everybody was always yelling about in the Trump years and breaking the law. And they probably do just would like to get him just off of the board once and for all. I'm sure everybody in Washington to one degree or another, even in the Republican party, would really like it if something happened.

And this is the closest thing because it's a relatively depoliticized process compared to any of the political solutions to Trump. So they could just sort of go like, ah, this is terrible what they're doing to him and just like watch it happen. And be like, ah darn it. Oh, gee, look what they're doing. Oh boy, well, bye.

Yeah, and whoever is the candidate could probably run on it, right? If it's Ron DeSantis, he could probably say, look, we have to fight back against the system that got rid of a candidate I would have loved to run against because he's a real true American and a Patriot blah, look, we have to fight back against the system that got rid of a candidate. I would have loved to run against because, you know, he's a real true American and a Patriot blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

This is the greatest possible thing for like, yeah, like normal, the few normal Republicans out there who like for the past six years have had to, you know, been like, oh, I hate Dove billboard ads. You know, oh, I hate the new multiracial Disney pretending they care about anything besides like tax cuts and blowing up Iranian oil fields. This is, yeah, they get to they get to make hay about this while ideally getting a guy like Clint Blumkin or someone. Well, I mean, I guess the other thing I've seen speculated about as regards getting him out of the presidential race is people are saying like, oh, like the DOJ could just make a deal with Trump to drop these charges in exchange for him dropping out of the presidential race

and like never seeking public office again. But like, how does that work? How is that legal? Like, they can't just do that, can they? I don't know anything about whether that's legal or not. Also, why would he do that? There's so many other things that he could get in trouble for. I mean, it's sort of like, unless he says, I can't be in trouble for anything I've ever done ever. Like it seems like not a great deal.

He would also like not take that deal because like, yeah, A, there's a world of other things. He's now, like the armor has been pier a world of other things. He's now like the armor has been pierced. Like he could get in trouble for like Georgia stuff now. As he said, and also like in his mind, he's assuming and like probably correctly so like the best, the most guaranteed way out of this is for him to be president again. Well, I mean, he's not wrong about that. I don't know. I suppose Joe Biden can make a deal with him to like pardon him for any crime he has done or will done. We'll do ever,

if he gets out of the presidential race, but I don't see Joe Biden doing that either. But yeah, we love the boxes. And you know, people pointed this out, like, but the photo of the boxes in the bathroom is just like such a perfect manifestation of America in 2023. Like it just sums up everything about our government, our culture and the people in charge of it. It's out there with the handsome hamburger party at the White House. Little boxes on the hillside.

Little boxes made of tiki-taki, little boxes made of ticky tacky little boxes, little boxes, little boxes, all the same. There's a green one and a pink one, and a blue one and a yellow one, and they're all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same. Well, Ben, to move on from the boxes now, I would like to talk to you about your book, The Big Break, because you're right in the beginning of the book that you're not the kind of reporter who chases the big story. You're more interested in the side show. And that really is like the DC that you cover.

You cover guys. You cover people and their parties and the weirdos, the flacks, the DC that you cover, you cover guides, you cover, you know, people and their parties and like the weirdos, the flacks, the kiss asses, you cover that part of DC. And like, that's always been the most interesting to me. But like, how does the side show inform the big story? Like, how do you, like, do you get stuff that are like more telling than following these big stories?

Yeah, I mean, weirdly now, the side show characters like are the big story, right? I mean, that's what happened with Trump. It was all these people who were off to the side trying to make it big, being too strange and bizarre to like have any influence became like the inner circle to the president of the United States and could become lobbyists who made tons and tons of money because they had the cell phone number for Trump, all that sort of stuff. So right now it informs like everything, at least in the Republican Party and a lot of these folks have stuck around in Washington and become players.

The reason I got into it originally was because I thought it could inform the main story without being the main story. You could find somebody who was actually entertaining and interesting to be around, right about them and say, like, this person matters because they represent something or this is the direction the country could be going in. And honestly, like Washington has plenty of boring people and I like to find ones that aren't totally boring to write about. Well, the one thing you say is that boring or interesting, everyone in DC pretends to hate DC, but like Secretly says, that's just pure cap. They all love it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, it's a game for a lot of people here, right?

Like, and the better you get at it, you can make more money, you have more influence. It's like a big college, you know, it's like a college campus. Everybody has the same gossip, and is eating the same food, and, you know, trading the same information, and, you know, some people just can't, it's like Van Wilder, is that what that movie was called? Where you just kinda can't grow out of it. I love that. I love that.

I love that. Yeah, you talk about when you're, in the first part of the book, my favorite part, where you go to the Schlapp residents for their Christmas party, you talk about this one Republican functionality who he's sort of like the archetypical functionary under Trump.

And he's always talking about how he wants to get out of DC and he hates it. And you know, none of these people are going anywhere. And I like that detail because it's universal. Like everyone, it doesn't matter who you work for, Chuck Schumer or Trump or fucking whoever. Everyone says that, but it is, it's like the DC equivalent of like saying that you hate fake people. But you still, you're still with the same exact people.

You never cut anyone out, have the same problems, nothing changes for the rest of your life. But those, those back rubs that you get at the Schlapp parties are amazing. I'm sure something is happening behind closed doors that I did not see and did not want to know about. But just think of the show you've all seen in the shining where she's running around freaking out. That's what's going on in the match Schlapp's house. Probably.

The thing about Washington is like, yeah, everybody is pretending that it is terrible all the time. Look, I moved to Washington 12 years ago. I promised my wife we'd only be here for one year. It was like, we're not going to stick around. It's going to be awful. I'll just do it. I got a job.

I was out of college. But we stick around for 12 years partly because it doesn't all suck. Parts of it do. I wouldn't want to go to Sean McElwie Poker Knights for fun, but if you can like get outside of what they call the bubble, there are like, there's artists here, there's music venues, there's bars, there's restaurants, like there are people who don't just care about the industry.

And it's a really nice place to live. And so all these people who say, Washington sucks and I gotta get out of here, like they're just not creative enough. They're the ones that suck, figure out a way to make it work for you, you know? I love that all the people that say that,

like complain about how like awful and fake it is, they're all people who like either work for like, a conservative thing, tank called like the, you know, the Windows Silver Project. That's just funded by 150 year old pedophile or like, have been working for Adam, Chef, for 45 years. And it's like, yeah, of course it sucks for you. Look at everyone you know and everything you do.

And lots of job suck. I mean, you know, having a nine to five job anywhere sucks and you can talk about how it sucks, but what matters is like, what do you do? Otherwise, I mean, how are you, you know, having a nine to five job anywhere sucks, and you can talk about how it sucks, but what matters is like, what do you do otherwise? I mean, how are you, you know, how do you spend your time? I mean, if it Washington is what you make out of it, right? And I really do think that like, there's good shit here and people just need to find it.

Although Hogan Gidley is the guy you're talking about, I'm wondering around this party saying if you wanted to get out of here. Look, if you want to get out of here, get out of here. I don't mind. I hope that the people who like it here, or who are, you know, I would like find a way to like it here. But if the Hogan Gidley is of the world,

or the Hogan's Gidley, get out of here. Well, in terms of how the side show informs the big story, or how the DC social scene sort of provides a more telling portrait of the contemporary Democrat and Republican party than what you might otherwise read. Your book begins with sort of portraits of two competing parties. And the first of which sort of sums up the democratic side of the equation here. It was sort of was it like a AOC was at the party, but basically the party was being held by the granddaughter of a man named H. L. Hunt. Could you describe who H. L. Hunt is? Yeah, H. L. Hunt was reported to be the richest man in the world when he

died. An oil tycoon from Texas. Really weird, dude. Like, just a strange guy. He would like crawl around the office and tell people he was a crank about creeping. I don't even know what that means, but he would do that. Like, he would crawl around the office on all fours and just grab people by the ankle and go, crank your creep here. Yeah, he's just saying, I'm a crank about creeping. I'll never know what it means.

I hope I never see anybody cranking about creeping in my life, but it's stuck in my head forever. And maybe stuck in your head forever. And, and maybe stuck in in your head forever. And he was this kind of like right wing populist type who helped fund the John Burke society and love Joseph McCarthy and, you know, whatever, the Nixon, he was one of these guys. And his granddaughter, Leah Hunt Hendrix,

who is very wealthy because of her family, is sort of like the opposite. She is a progressive fundraiser who got her start on Occupy Wall Street. It was like dubbed Occupy's Ares. And she moved into a big house in Logan Circle, Washington and uses it to host fundraisers and parties and salons and figure out a way to like, you know, bring in a lot of money for the progressive causes and progressive candidates. What are my favorite things about HL Hunt? And you know, this in the book is my favorite type of guy.

He has a secret, or he had a secret family. What is his? Two? Yeah, two. He had three families in total at the same time, I believe, and two of them were secret were secret You could get away with so much before the internet if you were a guy You said you could marry a woman in the next town over and he did yeah, he did I think two of these women lived like five miles from each other and never knew was I've imagined though

The granddaughter is not from one of the secret families. She's from the main house. No, she is from one of the secret families that became a not-secret family. So, it was a very recognized bastard. When the first wife died, the second family was like, oh, you can move from your tiny little house into the mansion that was designed, I believe, to look just like George Washington's Mount Vernon, but there was one difference, and the difference was, it was a little bit bigger.

So they moved into a bigger version of Mount Vernon and got to live this life. But also, he was a terrible guy and just a lovely person to live with, but the house was bigger. And they could, you know, kind of live this life of wealth and in Dallas. Oh, man. I miss when, when like the 10 richest guys in the world were just crackheads. They were just like that. They had sacred families. And

we're like, you know, you, you, you have to get under the blanket and play creepy crawlers with me. And this is what the family, the family, it's like this real American family too. I mean, there's 12 kids or something. And they like kind of all went on to do big things because I had all family too. I mean, there's 12 kids or something and they like kind of all went on to do big things because I had all this money. I mean, some of them went on to own the Kansas City chiefs and, you know, make and lose billions of dollars

in the silver industry. They became kind of this American, you know, you could basically have a succession kind of show about them for sure. Yeah. Now every, now every billionaire family is just they live in the same like just antiseptic house and they're all trying to live forever by drinking juice. It really went downhill. Well, they probably have bunkers in like New Zealand or whatever in case the

apocalypse comes. But you know, other than that, they're just living very boring lives. Yeah. Well, in terms of just the, uh, the overall atmosphere at the, uh, the hunt grand daughter party, uh, the detail that stuck out to me was that, uh, she has a little white dog that she named Malcolm X. Yeah. Yeah. It's really honoring him. Yeah, I'm sure he would love that to have some, uh, some, uh, some rich white lady named her dog after him. I mean, what a welcome tribute.

Malcolm, my grandfather was the most racist man in America. And he was rumored, he was rumored to have been part of the MLK assassination, right? So you go from that to a dog named Malcolm. Yeah, it was a little bit of a radical chic moment, for sure. Yeah, but like, how would you contrast just the vibe check at the Leia Hunt party versus the Schlapp residents? Like, the official Christmas party of conservative Washington DC.

Yeah, it was weird, right? Because Democrats were like technically, you know, in charge of everything at the moment. They, you know, they should have been having like this rock as party at the White House. They had Congress. You know, everything was like in their hands. It was, it probably should have been, you know, fun. But instead, everybody was like worried about what was going to happen next. It was like, oh, the darkness is about to come. We're about to lose these seats. We're about to lose the house, Trump or something like him is about to come back. And then in the

Shlap House, which should have been, you know, despondent because it was post January 6th, their party was out of power. Instead, they were all just like, oh yeah, we're about to come back. They all felt good. It felt like they were at a stockbrokers convention where they had all bought this stock at a low price and they all felt like it was gonna skyrocket

and they were gonna make a bunch of money. I mean, match slap during the Trump years. The sky was a, you know, George Bush establishment Republican before Trump, he became a Trump loyalist, made so much money as a lobbyist that the house that this party was in was the largest house on mansion drive.

And so they moved into a very large house on a street, in the mansion neighborhood. In the mansion neighborhood. Yeah, I mean, if you can have the largest house on mansion drive, like it's hard to keep up with those particular Joneses. You know, you know, that it's a 10,000 square foot house. That's so many square feet. That's that's too many squares. You can slap your brains out with that much space. But I think what you say about like the overall feeling of these parties is very

telling of just the sort of, it was an actual party atmosphere at the Schlapp's house. And now did the Leia party, this happened around the same time, right? Yeah, yeah, they were just like a day of party. Yeah. So I gotta ask, at the Schlapp party, you had this lady like cough on you and be like, I have COVID. But at the Leia Hunt party, were these DC liberals, are they masking indoors? They were not masking indoors. But there was a lot of, a lot of michigas about it, a lot of talk.

It was like right as I think Omekron had just broken or whatever, and there was a lot of discussion about, is this okay that we're doing this? And then everybody would go up on the roof and, see, they can't have fun. They're there can generatively incapable of having a good time. I have a fun is they're having fun. Yeah, it's like you're it's insane.

It's like you're already breaking the rule like, you know, what the fuck? We're going to be slap house. We're going to be slap house. The ox told you got to feel bad about it. Like that makes you gives you permission to be there. And it makes you feel like a better person. Yeah, no, at the slap house, you could go into the, you could go into the wine seller and they had like, you know, the original covids that you could go sniff.

It was like, oh, this is a vintage covid here. You want Delta or you want Omicron? We got to, you can mix them together. Can I get a bump of that Omicron real quick? I'm telling you, but yeah, but like, okay, like the slaps, mercy and mat are really, they're wonderful characters in your book. And I have a few sections here. Okay, the Brock Alini incident with you in match lab, that was one of the funniest.

That was great. This is one of the funniest like restaurant scenes that I've come across in like actual like reporting. But like, could you describe the, the broccolini, the lemma that you faced with match lap and a piece of your restaurant. So I mean, the thing about this book that I hope makes it work is that like, it's sort of VP in a way, right? Where I hope it's funny, I hope you have a good time

reading it, but also at the end you're like, man, that was fucked up. Like this is a dark, dark stuff is happening, but at least we're having fun getting through it and like it doesn't feel like a chore. And spending time with Matt Schlapp was that way. It was a chore for me, but I hope like it at least, you know, make him seem like somebody to laugh at maybe in the book. And this scene happens at a cigar club that he And this scene happens at a cigar club that he belongs to. We go have lunch. You guys love cigar clubs. It's their weird cigar clubs.

Is there a favorite there? It was a weird cigar club. Like nobody was smoking cigars. It was really lightly lit. It was like, it was the one that just put the idea of cigar. Yeah, it's like, it's like, maybe there was a hint of a cigar smell to the place, but I'm not even sure.

And he was a regular there and didn't want to look at the menu and has this long back and forth with the waiter about what to get. And he really did not want Brock Alene to come with his food because he hated Brock Alene for whatever reason. It must be some some family tragedy there that I don't know about. But he really didn't want Brock Alene to come. He also asked at one point if the lettuce in his salad would be cooked and the waiter didn't know what that was about because it was obviously no. Who the fuck cooked the lettuce?

Yeah, it was strange thing. It was a non-cooked salad. I'm not. I'm not. One of those hot salads. One of those hot hot salads. Ultimately, Broccoli and he did come, which was amazing for me to see. And he was upset about it and asked the waiter if like, what the guy who owns this place have owned a Brockelini farm or something. And I'm just there like, this is people are going to have a, if you want to understand Matt Schlapp in his like particulars, right? He likes the creature comforts of Washington.

He likes the cigar club. He likes what he likes, he likes, you know, I think I described him as basically looking like if there was a football team called the Washington lobbyists, he would be the mascot. Like he just is the embodiment of Washington. And so watching him have this back and forth about, you know, Brock Alini and Cook's salad was like, okay, this explains this guy pretty well. You uh, that um, right towards the end of that, uh, the Brock and Lini saga, it contains a very haunting line, which is one of the cigar patrons approach slap. It said, I saw you on gut felt last night.

I said, uh, torturous. Serious and proper names. Look, I said, I'm not quite a war-course partner, but like sometimes I get close. Oh, God. Did you ever have to, how many full episodes have gut-selled have you watched? I've never seen it actually.

I've just seen the clips that sometimes show up on my four-u page on Twitter, and I'm like, this is not for me. I don't know who it's for. It's a insane show. Yeah, I've never seen it. But also in the Brock Alini back and forth, it's just like, his quizzing the waiter on things

that aren't on the menu or on the menu. And when we have the part and get shorty, where they explain that the Danny DeVito character, like celebs always have to order off the menu and they come in with some ridiculous thing. Like, oh, I'd like an omelet without the eggs or something like that. But like, like the waiter says, oh, we have a chicken millenase,

and he goes, what's that? And it goes, it's a lightly breaded cutlet. And he goes, what's it served with? Arugula onions and tomatoes. And then it's said, Matt scrunched up his face like a frustrated toddler. Is this guy, I mean, he's like attendees and fries kind of dude. Yeah, I couldn't believe he didn't know what chicken millenies. Like that's like, this is how you lose a mansion drive.

Yeah, the chicken millenies is like, that is on the menu at every type of restaurant. He's eaten that for like, presumably his entire life. Like, this is a guy who only goes to like, you know, a nationally recognized stake chain like palms or riffs criss. Yeah, for sure. You'd think you would recognize it, but no, he's just unfamiliar with all the non-stake items. Maybe he's a man of the people.

In a certain way, yes. Do you remember when Trump was first elected? A lot of these DC weirdos decided to go to stake houses in DC in order to stake well done and with a side of ketchup as like a way to demonstrate that there were of the people and like, you know, they weren't like these snooty elites looking down their nose at ordering a well done stake and dunking it in ketchup. Yeah, it was like the mega hat order of Ruth's Chris. There's another really great, there's some more great detail about Shlath here. I'm just

going to read from the book here. It says here, Matt has been known to appreciate Washington's creature comforts. He was the person in the family who decorated their home in office, leaving through fancy catalogs at work, pause, pause. We'll leave that on set, but it goes on to say on a number of occasions, Matt tweeted complaints about having to be on a year long waiting list to get his preferred brand of dishwasher. That's got to be an amazing dishwasher. I mean, what does it do? You can put a full cooked turkey in the dishwasher and it just disappears on the cyclist over it. I could see that as like a match lab afternoon activity. Sometimes I like putting entire meals in there

and walking through the window. I look, have you ever seen a meatloaf evaporate? It also says, he also took party planning seriously, curating the guest list and making sure everything was laid out just so. Once he had yelled at subordinates because he got to he thought the crab cakes at some event looked too small, went on a platter near some jumbo-sized cookies, but at his Christmas party the cookies were all the right size and he was all smiles. That's good. I like a story with a happy ending. And Tereslow, those are talking about like DC, home, and garden.

The contrast between the Schlapp residents and Frank Lunds' house is like one of the funnier details in the book because, okay, we got match lab. He's on a year-long waiting list to get the right dishwasher. Now let's go to Frank Lunds where it says, we were standing in the backyard of Frank's home. A property he had long ago decorated with the zeal of a child who had looked into a large sum of money. He filled his kitchen cabinets with shoe boxes full of baseball cards.

He'd installed a riverboat gambler pinball machine in the basement. He'd placed a life-size mannequin of the terminator by his back door, and there by the deep end of the peanut-shaped swimming pool, the way by way of the big boy restaurant The iconic mascot of a portly child trampently hosting a hamburger above his head There was a Ronald McDonald to Frank said sighing, but it's gone. That's another one of those like really like Existentially despairing questions haunting I once had a Ronald McDonald, but it's gone now

What so Frank let's ask this like someone took it. It's hard times, hard times. I like the idea of like someone like seeing his house like a burglar and being like, oh, I bet this guy is tons of shit. And he gets in there and it just all like, it's the worst arcade machines you've ever seen. It's like a, it's an arcade machine called like get Gary Hart to the White House. That's something a great arcade machine. I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm gonna keep his in this. The pinball machine. I'm like just tables of like fucking John Anderson campaign memorabilia and he's like, oh, what the fuck? And the Ronald McDonald's that just the only thing he recognizes. He's like, I guess I'll take this. Or maybe like his crypto investments all went, hits up and so he hit needed some cash and so he went to a pawn shop with a giant Ronald McDonald's Well you get I guess it Ronald McDonald. That's like a fun investment

But your future your your equity should mostly be in the grimace statue. Yeah You gotta well grow on the right now by the way, and if you got a four-armed a grimace by the way That's gonna be like the upside down airplane, Stan. But, but you're right, I mean, like Frank Lundz's house really does sound like how I would decorate a home if I was 13 or not currently in a relationship. It's basically how it ought my house to be right now. But like Frank Lundz is a character,

because like, the slapsaps we were living in the slap era now whereas like lunch seems a guy who star has like very much face like a normed Desmond figure walking around his like Terminator mannequins being like the politics used to be big it's the politicians who got small. Yeah, but the problem is like he doesn't recognize or at least he doesn't vocalize how big of a part he was in that, right? Like, he didn't get to, we didn't just get to this moment in time without people paving the way.

I mean, he worked with Newt Gingrich on the contract with America or for America or whatever. He helped Rudy Giuliani get elected the first time. I mean, like, these are, these are the steps that get you to Donald Trump. And then he claims, oh, Donald Trump is the worst thing that's ever happened to the world. He's so bad it almost killed me. He said he had a stroke because of Donald Trump. And it's like, yeah, it's Trump's fault. Yeah, but he tried to work.

He also tried to work with Trump. I mean, he went to the White House. He wrote on Air Force One, he tried to get Trump to stop saying, build the wall because it was too political. He wanted to say, build the barrier. And was too political. He wanted to say build the barrier. And I think Trump laughed that. Trump laughed that I'm so hard that he was so offended he would never work Trump again.

Barrier? Yeah, I mean, that is that was right to laugh at him for that. It's ridiculous. Yeah, that is it. That is like a plot device in a DC cinematic universe film. Well, he was so offended by being laughed at that. That he never worked for him again, I guess. But, you know he he claims to the reason I was at this house is he was starting to move out It was like wow this is a part of my life that I'm done with I used to have parties here

People used to care to visit me here. I used to want to be a part of this and he he wasn't really moving out He was moving out of that one Virginia house, but he has a penthouse in DC that he lives in. He knocked down four penthouse units to make one giant penthouse unit. He lives there sometimes, at least he has lived there in the past with Kevin McCarthy, who is, you know, just his, not just his Kevin.

So he's also the Trumps, Kevin, right? Yeah. And he says he's so sick from Trump that he needs medicine, but he's afraid to inject himself. He says sometimes Kevin McCarthy will take the needle and inject them. It's like, this dude's not removing himself from Washington.

He's still very much a part of it. What happened to him? What's the, what's the, what's the, you know, once I'm done with this period of my life where Kevin McCarthy gives me medicine every day. Yeah, I know.. I'm getting back to the the the the pure the love of the game the thing that I got started in which is gathering a group of 20 Americans who have all been struck by lightning in a manner that it's their fault to nasty them what words here. Well, Kevin and Frank get to do the polling I mean what happens in Kevin

McCarthy starts dating Sasha Gregg well they still get to their push bowl I think Kevin McCarthy and Frank Luntz is like it's sort of the mere universe version of Sean McElwee and David Chor's hot boy summer yeah same type of thing by the way, that's just a side. What was the physical sensation that a company being in the room when you heard the phrase uttered, David Shore and I are going to have a hot boy summer? I basically melted it. It was like, well, this is something I will never forget. Um. And I had no follow up questions. One more one more line of like pure existential despair from the Frank Loneschap. There it's it's you said he was moving out of his giant penthouse and he says here, I'm finding all this shit from ages ago.

Frank said picking up an ast tray from the Hollywood brown derby, a long lost Tinsel Town Hunt. One of the greatest restaurants of all time, he said. Oh my God. Okay, so moving on from Frank Lundz, here's a very important question. And like, you know, out of all the DC reporters, you have been the guy on this beat and the American people deserve an answer to it. Has presidential candidate Tim Scott gotten laid yet?

Great question. I believe that his official answer is yes. But when I asked him, I mean, just for for the backstory here I asked him this like 12 years ago when I first profiled them Because he was a new member of Congress. He was probably 40 something but I had found these archival Articles from when he was a 30-year-old Town councilman in Charleston, South Carolina and he would go to schools and talk about Abstinence he was like, I've never been married. I'm 30 years old.

I'm never gonna have sex until I'm married. It's really important. And when I saw those articles, I was like, oh, fuck, I'm gonna have to ask this guy. This is gonna be super awkward. I literally, I called my dad. And I was like, is it okay to ask a congressman if he's a virgin? And he was like, well, if he's in the public record, talking about it, if it's part of how he, it's like,man if he's a virgin?

And he's like, well, if he's in the public record, talking about it, if it's part of how he, it's like, yeah, there's a good reason to ask him about it. So I wrote this whole script, you know, I was like, I can't just go in there and be like, hey, congressman, when was the last time he got laid? So I had to like write this thing down. I like, oh, in my research, I found this and I found that.

And I was just wondering, is that a virtue that you still adhere to today? Which felt like a, you know, that's a very artfully worth- It's a good question. It's a good question. He wants to make policy around fucking abortion. Right, and so, yeah, it's legitimately a fair question.

So I felt like it was a good question. The answer was the weirdest answer I'd ever heard. He said, I'm not talking about my sex life with Ben Terris or anyone else. And then he stood up for behind his desk and he said, I have to go potty. And then he said, oh my god. He's a dog bastard. He's a man who may or may not have ever had sex. He definitely did not have children.

There is no reason to use the word potty. And I remember I looked over at the comms director who was sitting across me and he gave me one of those like Jim Halperin shrugs like. Yeah, I guess. I guess the boss just said potty. That was him signaling. He's like, whether I've had sex or not, I'm still one of the weirdest and most off-putting people you've ever met. Well, he came back after that.

I guess he had, you know, sitting around all his documents in the bathroom and he had a thought about, you know, how he was going to answer the question. And he said, basically, I haven't been as good about it as I would have liked. I just wish we all had more patience. And I said, okay, well, if you're going to still go to schools, would you still talk about it? And he said, well, I'd still talk about it, but I probably wouldn't talk about my own story. And I was like, all right, this is a way of saying, yeah, I got late, but I'm also not going to use those words. I don't need it in the paper. How old this Tim Scott now? He's like nearly 50, right? Yeah, no, I mean, he's 70s. He's old. Yeah, no, he's okay. Fuck. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's that's patients. That's that's a hell of a

lot of patients. It is. They should have made him like stand up in the Senate and had like the Sargent and arms like record it after he had sex. They should have been like, he's no longer a virgin. I mean, there's like a, after Trump, there's all this talk like, okay, well, we need to, you know, safeguard democracy. We should have a law that says you have to release your tax releases if you're going to run for president. You should also under oath have to answer if you've ever had sex. Why not? Just make it part of the presidential process. I think he should say, all right, you got me. I just wanted to sound cool.

I still haven't had sex, but if I'm elected president, I promise to lose my virginity in the Lincoln bedroom. That would be good. That would be good. That's a good answer. I think, yeah, I like your idea of sexual disclosures for candidates.

And I also think that not all of them, because like not everyone the candidate has had sex for, because like, I mean, a lot of these guys are 80, you know, you're going to have a lot of people that died a long time ago. But like the last eight, let's say, the one paragraph of you of the candidate. See, I think the candidate should have to, like, appear in, every time the appear in public, I think she'd have to be wearing a t-shirt with her body count on it. That's officially verified by the FBI. Yeah. Like Joe Biden, what is he ran through? You don't know. Joe is definitely ran through. Yeah. Well, and you had another charming story about politicians

going to the bathroom in front of you when John Tester whipped out his dick and took a leak and he wouldn't have been like a tomato field or something. And then his comms guy had given you the gym from the office look and was like, can the senators, can the senators penis be off the record? So let me ask you, how was it? How was this penis? Yeah. I'm not here to describe it. All I can say is when I heard Can the Senators penis please be off the record? I was like, how can I make that the title to a book someday?

Is that a thriller set in DC called Can the Senators penis please be off the record? Yes, please. John Tester, they really should have like run him at some point because it's just like that, like the fact that he's just outside and he's like, this is a perfectly good place to do this. He's not wrong.

He's not wrong, dude. You know, he showed me the, he's the grinder that he still has, meet slicer grinder, I don't even know. Oh, then he cut off his three fingers. And it's the same one that he had that cut him off when he was like a kid. You think you'd get rid of that thing,

but he's like, nah, it's fine, it still works. That shows he doesn't hold grudges. That's not grudges. Yeah, the meat cutter is just doing its job. Yeah, it cuts the meat. Yeah. Another character you come across in the book is a man named Robert Stryk.

Is that how you pronounce his name? Stryk, yeah, Robert Stryk. Robert Stryk, Robert Stryk has sort of a beef with you. Could you talk about who Robert Stryk is and why he became so mad at you? Yeah, well, I can't exactly say why he came so mad at me because I don't really know, but he's a lobbyist who for years did a fine job as a lobbyist,

like never really made a lot of money. And eventually got his ass handed to him, losing all his clients and he moved out West and he started working on a vineyard and eventually he owned a vineyard in Oregon. He ran for the mayor of a small Napa Valley town at one point, just a weird kind of itinerant guy who was a low- level Trump volunteer in Oregon who made connections to kind of the whole team. And when Trump won, he was all of a sudden in position to just make more money than almost anybody

and it started by celebrating in Washington four days after Trump was elected and a dog comes and sniffes his crotch and he's like, what the fuck's going on here? He pushes away the dog, a woman comes after, and says, oh, I'm so sorry about that. Turns out this woman worked for the New Zealand embassy and was having a tough time connecting New Zealand with the new president, right?

When Trump won, everyone thought it was gonna be Hillary. Nobody knew how to do their job. Nobody knew how to be a lobbyist in the Trump years. And he was in position to say, oh, you wanna talk to, you wanna get your boss to talk to Trump? I can make that happen. And he did. He just found, oh, you want to talk to, you want to get your boss to talk to Trump? I can make that happen. And he did. He just found a cell phone number, got New Zealand talking

to the new president, the president of the elected the United States. And he was just often running, just making zillions of dollars, working often for foreign countries, sometimes unscrupulous, you know, countries. When I was spending time with him in the Biden years, he was trying to get a contract with the Buttebella Russian dictator right as war was breaking out in Ukraine

It was like he was that kind of a guy and the reason I wanted to spend time with him is because he Represented how the Trump era worked for a lot of people just new strange characters coming in with all sorts of power and influence That could never have gotten it before but I wanted to know what happened to a guy like that when Spiden came and did the rules revert back to normal or was he able to, you know, keep making it work for him. We can't let you go without talking about Big Sean McElwee and his sort of bad lieutenant like streak of gambling on political races. You have a pretty good roundup of, at least the most comprehensive of any journalist, a roundup of the bets that Sean McElwe placed on the midterm elections. How did he do all things that had been done?

Everything I saw, he did not do well. It was very strange for me. This was a world I did not know at all. I didn't know Sean before I started reporting this book. He started inviting me to his happy hours and his poker nights, knowing that I was writing about him. And he would just brag about his bets at the table. And I was like, does he care that I'm writing this down? And he did care, but he wanted me to be writing it all down because he felt so cool about it.

He felt like, oh, this is proof that I'm good at what I do and putting my money where my mouth is blah, blah, blah. And by the end of the year, right before the election, he like ran through all of his bets with me and it was like Democrats losing like this many seats and even Federman losing. He just had all these bets and he was working for Federman. And pretty much every bet that he showed me, he lost. But he also said, he said he told you at a bakery that he had over $20,000 put into predicted. And you say that like, this is like, you know, I mean, I'm sure Sean's making money,

but like if it doesn't go his way, this will like make or break his year. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a, it's a lot of money. The thing about him is I think he was making a ton of money because not only did he have this data for progress job which paid him $180,000 a year and he would brag about how he was one of the least paid executive directors in Washington, he was trying to show like, look, I do this for the good of the cause,

but then he was also doing a ton of consulting for Gabe Beckman-Freet, obviously, Sam Beckman-Fried's brother and his organization guarding against pandemics. And I think he was making hundreds of thousands of dollars. I know he was making hundreds of thousands of dollars, a year just consulting for them. And so he probably could afford to lose the $20,000

and then just make up for it with another contract with the bankman's freed until that money also disappeared. Having insider information like that and betting and then still losing, that's just, he's essentially Pete Rose. Yeah, and he even admit to betting on his own games. I mean, that's the thing. Sean was like, yes, I'm doing this

and I'm betting on my own class. The second time I ever met him, I think, or second time I've won one of his poker nights, he was bragging about how he had bet against Nina Turner's congressional campaign. And he said that he had been working for the Super PAC so he knew that she was going to lose. And it's like, dude, I'm right here. I'm writing this like that.

If Pete Rose had to email the rest of the big red machine and be like, hey guys, I know it looks bad. And then Jill Morgan gets back unforgivable. But yeah, he says, I think Fetterman is fucked. That was one of the last things he says to you. Yeah, the Fetterman team did not like that. Well, Ben, we've been talking about a lot of these characters in your book. And this is your beat.

One of our favorite things is we love different kinds of guys. And most credit are friend Brian Quimby, who has a podcast now called Guys about the different, different, very species of the male of the human race and their interests and how that becomes a certain personality type. Do you have a favorite stock DC character or guy?

I mean, it could be like an archetype or an individual specific person. Who's your favorite kind of DC weirdo? Yeah, I mean, honestly, Sean was the most interesting and amusing to cover because he just made it very easy. I mean, the job can be hard sometimes because so many people in Washington try to be buttoned up and they try to seem really smart and they probably sit down with their PR team and they say, I can say this and I can't say that. And, you know, it's important to break through on those people and figure out who they really are because you don't only want to be covering

the people who are desperate for it, but man, there's something that's just so great about a guy who'll say every single thing that comes into his head, especially when half those things are completely idiotic. Yeah, I, um, it's been very interesting to say the least to see Sean McElwee become this national figure in the past two years because he wasn't say, especially under oath or with a gun to my head, that I was part of that scene he had in New York at Blue and Gold. But I was always aware of him. We were all aware of him. He was a guy that everyone knew. was clear that he had sort of like, you know, climber characteristics, so to say. And, you know, I saw him like work his way up, like, bringing Kristen Gillibrand to that bar he was always at. But just like, not only watch him become a national figure, but a reviled one has been fascinating.

Like, the gambling thing is probably the dumbest fucking way I've ever seen anyone like destroy their own career and this stuff Well, you know, it was so avoidable. What part of what made him such a good character too is like it was unclear Exactly what his motivation was right? You know you think the people in Washington like to give him credit for a long time because he created something right most people in Washington Who are blowhards are just blowhards they go on TV theirundits, they say whatever the hell they want, they're wrong all the time. It doesn't matter. He built an organization, give him credit for it, people who used data for progress, thought it was a good tool and their tool belt. That's an accomplishment. My favorite interview in the whole book was talking to Sean's ex-girlfriend, who was

kind of gently devastating about him, which was like, she wasn't trying to turn the knife, which is what made it seem so brutal to me, where she told me that, first of all, she said on one of their first dates, they were hanging out together in bed, and he put on a Spotify playlist that was not music, but it was Ted Kennedy's eulogy for his brother. And that was like... We talked about that. That was like his music. And so, you know, and when, and her point was like, she could never tell, and she was with him for seven years, could never tell whether he put that on or he did what he did because

he wanted to do good, like, you know, ripple of hope stuff, you know, make one small change that can make big change later. Or if all he cared about was having somebody read a eulogy like that for him at some point, you know, after he died. Like that, that was his tension. And I just find that tension very interesting in Washington because people do, a lot of people do come here to do good. But then they also kind of get caught up in like the bullshit of it all and don't know whether they're doing good for the sake of it anymore or doing good because you know they want to go to a White House party or anything else. Yeah it's very hard and like

some would say fruitless or impossible to like get inside someone's head or their heart. But with Sean like I would have to guess that at some point, there was like, maybe, maybe not entirely, but like some incline, some desire to affect things positively, even if that wasn't his primary goal. But it's, I don't know, you see people slowly morph. That's not a case of someone slowly morphing or getting involved in the bullshit. That's the case of someone instantly getting involved with all the bullshit. Yeah, I mean, it kind of feels like, yeah, you start off with some idea of an idealistic career. And then you realize very quickly that there is this, that you are going to have to give up any hope of is this that you are going to have to give up any hope of feeling in a day-to-day sense of accomplishment if you want to succeed, you know, if you want to make money and to satisfy

the personal ambitious part of that desire to do good. And so once those part, and it's like, okay, I got it, I guess I have to make a deal with the devil. Realizing just how, like, how amoral the whole thing is, I can see it just like breaking your brain and be like, oh, I can do anything. Oh, it turns out, do what thou wilt, she'll be the whole of the law. Fuck.

Yeah. I think that's like, there's always like, I don't know, there's always a fork in the road for like anyone who gives a shit about politics on any level, right? And for like normal people, for just like, you know, if you're on the level of just like voting and canvassing or anything, for most people, that's like, how do you reckon with losing, you know?

For a lot of people who got into politics with Bernie in 2016 or Bernie in 2020, that proved to be too much for them. Like the, the, the, the trauma of like losing wants about caring about something wants and losing made them so crazy that they, you know, now they're like, you know, fuck Shakespeare. He's a liar. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm religious now. But for someone who works in it, you either are like, all right, this is grinding awful and I can easily lose myself, but maybe I can affect something or maybe I'll deal with it in the way that Sean did.

It's like, do I want to keep my soul or do I want that dishwasher that match slap us? And you know, I was saying, it'll, it'll, it'll melt to Turkey. Yeah. I want it, I want the dishwasher. I want to go to the, I want to get slapped up when I go to do you say it. I think the, the best thing you could be, like just for your own sanity and, and well-being would be to be this one Republican guy who I love. You guys may know who I'm talking about. He's the guy with long hair who's like the Republican super-cantars. Oh, the persistent sky. The persistent sky. Yeah, the worst assistant sky, yeah.

He's like the happiest fucking guy in all of politics. I love him. He just, he's like this Johnny Apple seed, but he's like using a roundup instead of seeds. He goes to all these states to organize Republicans and then they just eat shit. Yeah. He's, he's fucking awesome. He's such a positive person. He's like the probably only guy in America who's like, no, I am directly a fan of Kevin McCarthy. I will, I think Kevin McCarthy is awesome and a great speaker. He's the only happy guy. Everyone else, you know, who's to say?

Well, if I had hair like that, I'd be happy. I think I Charlie Kirk tweeted the other day is like we need a million more Scott Pressler So I agreed agreed He seems like he's having reasons. I just like him. I mean Charlie Kirk doesn't seem like he's having fun at all He seems like you miserable every second of his life. Well, he's legally prohibited from smiling. They said he can't do that anymore. It's too gross. All right, Ben. I think we'll leave it there for today. But I want to thank you for coming on the show today. And the book is the big break. Thank you for the book. And thank you for really programming our show for the last couple of months. Yeah, well Thanks so much for talking about it really it's it's great to hear the content getting out in the world and making some people laugh. I appreciate that Cheers

All right, we'll talk to you soon bye bye. Thank you Drink And they drink, they're more teeny dry, and they all have pretty children, And the children go to school, and the children go to summer camp, And then do the university, and they all get put in boxes, And they all come out the same. And the boys go into business, and marry and raise a family, and they all get put in bucks.