It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: A Billion for Trump’s Ballroom Security, RIP Spirit Airlines, Iran Stalemate

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

The gang discuss the hantavirus, a 72 billion dollar reconciliation package for ICE and Border Patrol, elections in Ohio,and court rulings on mail order abortion pills.  Sources: https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2051761247779979301?s=20 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-city-denver-unconstitutional-weapons-bans https://www.tonation-nsn.gov/sacred-site-located-in-cabeza-prieta-national-wildlife-refuge-destroyed-by-border-wall-construction/ https://www.state.gov/releases/bureau-of-political-military-affairs/2026/05/ukraine-joint-direct-attack-munitions-extended-range https://x.com/TedCGoodman/status/2051470245555052557 https://x.com/i/status/2052092791916806265 https://www.ms.now/news/fbi-investigating-leaks-to-journalist-who-wrote-explosive-article-on-kash-patel-sources https://apnews.com/article/cruise-ship-hantavirus-andes-strain-south-africa-cb424510bb0c934c781f6bd42ce2e7c8 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/canarians-worry-arrival-hantavirus-cruise-ship-will-bring-repeat-covid-2026-05-06/ https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/reconciliation_-_senate_judiciary_committee_title.pdf https://punchbowl.news/mdm26a11/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5/5/26%20AM:&utm_term=Punchbowl%20AM%20and%20Active%20Subscribers%20from%20Memberful%20Combined https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2051759811054727212?s=20  https://x.com/SkyNews/status/2051246490786394319?s=20  https://x.com/NotWoofers/status/2051640997482782939?s=20  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2-us-navy-destroyers-transit-strait-of-hormuz-after-dodging-iranian-onslaught/  https://x.com/mercoglianos/status/2051381236950524095?s=20  https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116512555123589170  https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2051798734850101462?s=20  https://x.com/_MartinKelly_/status/2051754245125181778?s=20  https://x.com/Southcom/status/2051723140254843043?s=20  https://x.com/Acyn/status/2051749649279762556?s=20  https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2051759811054727212?s=20  https://x.com/UK_MTO/status/2051749762538389668?s=20 in https://x.com/Reuters/status/2051567572454432996?s=20  https://x.com/Southcom/status/2051709553956266365?s=20  https://www.axios.com/2026/05/06/iran-us-deal-one-page-memo?utm_campaign=mrf-utm_campaign=editorial&utm_source=x&utm_medium=owned_social&mrfcid=2026050669f852024e34c652f4ad78a6  https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2052070088233136553?s=20  https://x.com/Alihashem  https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-01-Fifth-Circuit-Order-Granting-Stay-of-2023-REMS.pdf https://x.com/SecKennedy/status/1973866621245567344?s=20  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fda-is-investigating-the-abortion-pill-mifepristone-despite-decades-of/  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2840361  https://reproductiverights.org/news/5th-circuit-limits-telehealth-provision-of-abortion-pill/  https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/25A1208-Admin-Stay-and-CFR.pdf https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/texas-man-charged-shooting-secret-service-agent-near-washington-monument-national-mall  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/us/politics/washington-monument-shooting-secret-service.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On The Look Back at it podcast. In 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me.

I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle grahammed.

Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to. Listen and learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Also Media. I enjoyed the new Devil Where's Brata movie. It was weirdly relevant. I did not expect Meryl Street to deliver like a monologue about how AI is destroying independent internet writers or comedy writers or whatnot. Any kind of independent internet writer, but I guess that's what we got. So that's good. And thinly veiled Jeff Bezos villain. Finley veiled Jeff Bezos villain, yeah.

Yeah. Well, this isn't our movie review podcast because we don't have one of those because I would be bad at it. This is electile disorder function. Harrison, what are we doing? Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening. Did I ruin your intro? In the White House. No, it's fine.

The crumbling world. And what it means for you, I'm Harrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Robert Evans, James Stout, Mia Wong, and maybe Sophie Lichten. This episode, we are covering the week of April 30th to May 6th. I want to roll things back to just before we recorded, because Sophie brought up the California gubernatorial debate that happened Tuesday night. Gubernatorial Garrison. You got to make it sound silly.

Which I tried watching, as that kind of is my job, only to discover it was not streaming anywhere online and only available. Incredible. the CNN channel on television, like, you know, like actual TV channels, which prompted Sophie to ask the good question, who is this for? Why is, why does this even exist then if only people watching cable can watch it? And then I realize the real reason this exists is to generate short video clips for social media. And that's, I guess, how most people are actually engaging with this debate in contextless, 50-second, that's generous, chunks of time. Yeah.

in which Steyer came off the best, did not come off great, but came off okay. Okay. He came off fine. He had this weird tick where he would ask a question, and when he would respond, it would sound like he was deflecting the question, even when he wasn't.

But the sort of like defensiveness of his framing sounded like he was deflecting a lot of questions that actually he was giving kind of good answers to. Porter was I don't know Sophie can you speak about Porter I I don't Porter I hardly know her I don't have a mic so I'll be really quick

That was pretty good Mm hmm Porter kind of overcompensate snarky remarks But she's only polling like 8 or 10% where it's Hilton and Steyer are both pulling closer to 20 so

also Steve Hilton Ew Yeah short video content Has not been kind to Katie Porter in the last couple of years. It was interesting. Earlier that morning, Katie Porter released an ad

that ended with a joke about her abuse of her staff. It ended with like a reference to a line that she said that was in those articles. And like she had all these background extras laugh at the joke referencing the abuse allegations against her to her staff.

Interesting choice. Crazy move. Who is that for? Who is that for? I mean, you know what it is actually? it's her trying to be like Trump. Like one of the lessons that Trump has taught the political class is that if people come at you for like being corrupt or fucked up or evil or irresponsible, you just kind of barrel right through that. You don't acknowledge it.

You don't like acknowledge any validity in it. And like you you kind of make fun of it. You try to like make it a selling point for yourself. And I don't, I'm not saying she's doing a good job of it, but I think that's what is she's trying to do. I think that's the attention. She's like tough, no nonsense. Yeah. You know.

Yeah. The amount of money being spent on anti-styre attack ads is, judging by the amount of them that get beamed into my home every night now, pretty significant as a resident Californian. I didn't watch the debate because the choices we have make me very angry and upset. And I didn't want to think about that. That's politics. Yeah.

Yeah. James, do you want to start with a few of yours that I see are at the top of the dock here? Yeah, well, let's begin with the biggest news of the week, which is that the White House Twitter account has shared the New Crest for Nice. I got to see this. Oh, yeah, click on that. Oh, good. Thank God.

Share that screen, Garrison. Garretchen, you can't have a treat and not share it with everybody. I'm getting it. I've got it. I've got to get it. There we go. Okay. Yeah, that looks like shit.

Yeah. That looks like lazily AI generated garbage. Yeah, if you asked AI to generate a crest for a U.S. law enforcement agency. It's the most basic that could possibly be. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Oh, well.

National Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Nice. Always good when you throw national in front of any acronym. That's never turned out bad. As many people have shared with me, several television shows had already come up. up with the idea of rebranding ICE as nice. I don't think this is going to stop them. Moving on, the DOJ said that it is suing Denver for infringing the Second Amendment. This pertains to their assault weapon ban, which bans a lot of semi-automatic rifles, including

AL-15's interesting kind of precedent for DOJ behavior in that obviously lots of states have assault weapons bans, and previously we have not seen the DOJ intervene against those. There are a few cases about them on the way to Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has shown any particular desire to urgently get to them. Yeah, this has been an interesting thing for a while is that even as the Republican, the right has had control of the Supreme Court for years now, they have shown a distinct unwillingness to visit the matter of like assault weapons and like magazine capacity bans.

Yeah. As well as, because there's definitely been some folks, this is, less popular, but some folks on the pro-gun side who want them to look at, like, state-level restrictions on, like, you have to, like, waiting periods and stuff. And it's just kind of been this detente that's existed where, like, they have not pushed too far in a certain direction to, like, limit what blue states can do with their gun control. And if, if they are, that's an interesting shift. Yeah, it's interesting that this has gone after. It's a civil rights, through the civil rights division, right?

I guess they're using the Heller precedent, right, which was the last time. And it was, Heller wasn't the last time. The previous one was Bruin. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, yeah, Bruin. The Bruin decision, which was the last time that the Supreme Court really made a major change to national firearms rules, right? It's interesting they're going off to Denver and not, like, for instance, California. Well, Denver has a specific, they're specifically banned VAR-15, as opposed to California

doesn't ban any specific guns. They ban features on firearms. So I suspect that would be why is that Denver is going, Colorado's going after this specific firearm that, and the argument that's going to be made is that the AR-15 is the common, most commonly available, like, rifle. Yeah. Like, it's absolutely the equivalent of a musket in its day is the argument that they will be making because I've, Clarence Thomas has made that argument before.

Yeah. So California never tried to ban AR-15s. They just made it a giant pain in the ass to own them, and that's a lot, I think, safer from this sort of attack, although I guess we'll see, you know. Denver's assault weapons ban is not the same as California's, but nor does it ban AR-15s by name. I'm just reading from the Denver Municipal Code,

section 38-130. The categories, or the way it defines, an assault weapon is a semi-automatic centre-fire rifle with a detachable magazine capacity at 21 rounds or higher. That's subsequent legislation after that which further limits magazine capacity in Colorado. All semi-automatic shotguns that can take more than six cartridges and or have a folding stock or a weapon which can be converted into one of those things. So that's actually a pretty It's not the same as a California ban It's interesting to see them picking this one It's also pretty old

At Denver started its assault weapons ban Story, it's been through the courts quite a few times But this begins in 1989 But yeah, it's an interesting sort of area That we'll keep tabs on Yeah, we'll keep tech Because there's a couple big gun things Going in front of the Supreme Court this year

Right? Like earlier in March The court heard arguments on the United States versus Hamani, which was a case about the legality of basically if you're using a drug that is illegal, even if it's like a drug, even if it's marijuana and it's legal at the state level, if it's like federally illegal, you cannot possess own, do anything with guns, right? Yeah. And that's not really constitutional because the Second Amendment, like it or not is like a civil right.

Yeah. And the idea that like you lose a civil right because you're like ingested a substance at some point is like a wildly dangerous and un-anyway, whatever. It's the kind of thing that just, again, courts have refused to sort of take seriously, even though everyone's known, there's very thin precedence. So the fact that the Supreme Court is finally hearing arguments on this is really interesting. This is a case of a guy who had both marijuana and cocaine on him when he got busted. And yeah, so we'll also cover that case. But there's a lot of, going to be a lot of interesting gun stuff happening this year. Not all of it.

it bad because honestly if the Supreme Court were to rule that like, no, you can't say someone can't own a gun just because they smoked pot, I would say that's a net win. But obviously there's a lot of violations of states' rights and whatnot that's going to be, I'm sure, a part of this too. It'll be a messy summer for that. But this is going to be some major stories this year. Yeah, yeah. I think we'll certainly see some movement here. Border War construction crews destroyed an intaglio sacred to the autumn people.

The 7-year-old Las Playa Sintaglio sacred site is irreparably damaged despite being very well recorded and having been identified to construction crews by cultural monitors. Ton Autumn chairman Verlon Jose said, quote, this was a devastating and entirely avoidable loss.

There is nothing more important than our history, which is what makes us who we are as autumn. The site was also an irreparable piece of the United States history. One, none of us can ever get back. The nation's leaders have and will continue to meet with Senior Department of Homeland Security officials to obtain more information and to communicate the nation's absolute insistent so this cannot happen again. And then, finally from me, the United States State Department has approved the sale of JDAMs to Ukraine, which is a significant can increase in their capacity, right?

JDM, if people aren't familiar, it stands for Joint Direct Attack Munition. Think, big bomb. Like, it's a guided bomb. It can either be a bomb that comes guided, or you can change a different munition to make it become guided. These are packages, right? Like, these are kits that you take. So you have, like, a bomb of various sizes, because they can range. And you, like, basically apply this kit to them and it makes it into a guided munition, right?

So you can have whatever kind of explosive package you want and you can convert it into a guided munition that you then drop or throw or whatever via whichever platform you happen to be using. Yeah, these are like aircraft fired, right? Yes. Yes. In these case, they're extended range tail kit. It's not the bomb itself,

but the thing that allows the bomb to be delivered to a target. Right. again, this is a package. You have a bomb that's a dumb explosive, and this is the thing that you put onto it that allows it to be like a smart munition that is targeted. Like it's an air to surface munition.

Generally, they're like a thousand or two thousand pound warheads, I think, for the most part. Yeah, I guess in this case, it would depend on whatever the warhead is, right? But like, there's 500 pound ones. Like, there's a variety of sizes. Obviously, the, uh, Ukrainians have used many of their long-range assets right to attack Russia, inside Russia.

Previously, this has been something the United States had kind of drawn a line at that seems to no longer be the case. This will obviously also be a massive contract right there. The principal contractor here is going to be Boeing, who are located in St. Louis, and the estimated total cost is about a third of a billion dollars. So 373 million, to be exact. there's been like a big push in a couple of different states to increase munition production, and it has been very uneven in terms of how it's worked so far. They've encountered a lot of issues scaling up production to the level they need.

I'm not convinced in our ability to actually like meet this at the time frame being proposed, but we'll see. I've caught, we've been talking, I've been reporting on that a couple of times so far this year. Yeah. The munition shortage and our issues in scaling up production, I'll probably do something later this year, like a more detailed look at like what the pitfalls have been. But it's actually surprisingly hard just because they say we're putting this much money into, you know, creating these facilities or encouraging the production to scale up. It's not necessarily

that easy to actually do that. Of course, the State Department says there will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale. I don't see why there would. Yeah. That's what they're going to say. These are standoff munitions. The U.S. military is not short on them for our purposes, but like the shit that we're getting cleaned out on primarily is, is not, like this is not the main thing. I mean, we're definitely being stretched, but this is not the main thing. It's, it's, uh, sidewinders. It's like our cruise missiles and it's our, our interceptor missiles are like the big things

that we're, we're straining on right now. Speaking of on May 1st, President Trump, quote unquote, joked. That's how most people are referring to this, joked that we will be, quote, unquote, taking over. Cuba almost immediately. Great. After finishing with Iran, he has made previous comments to this effect

the past few months. His joke was that Abraham Lincoln would stop on the way back from Iran, right? And park off 100 yards off the coast of Cuba, and they would immediately surrender. Just kind of knock that out. Yeah, I mean, we're going to get onto this, but this is not the only thing

pointing towards Cuba right now. I have trouble knowing how this is going to go. Because obviously, like, Venezuela was the best case scenario for them. Like, Maduro was not personally popular. And he had a, like, the apparatus below him was more than happy to just kind of, like, everyone move up a step and be nicer to the U.S. on paper. Like, whereas Iran, that's certainly not how anything has worked out because you had this whole state has been built for the last 60 years to endure casualties without, like,

losing operational capacity or its ability to resist. Cuba's not really quite like either government, and I don't know what's going to happen. You know, on one hand, it is a country that's exhausted by decades of sanctions and exhausted by, you know, what has become after Venezuela since they're no longer sending fuel to Cuba, like their fuel crisis is just devastating. I don't know. Maybe it is a case where the government would capitulate fairly quickly. And then you just kind of have the.

okay, what happens now? Question, like the humanitarian issue, which I'm sure would be very. I'm sure you'd get a lot of, like, grifters getting flooded there by the Trump administration. It would not be a positive situation. Or, you know, is this a thing where there would be, even as exhausted as people are, immediate and, like,

vicious resistance to any attempt by the U.S. to assert its will politically over there. I have no idea. And the other thing is that their military, it's more where, when Israel is at than where, And we're around and sysa. Right. They get outdated.

Sure. And defunded. It was the Cuban military that we were fighting in Venezuela to an extent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

That said, like, it's also at the point at which those carrier groups are trying to do that in Cuba, they'll have been on almost twice as long as they're normally supposed to be out. And who knows, like, what does done in Iran look like? What's that going to mean? Yeah, like that war is not ending any time. sued. So, like, I mean, maybe he just tries to do it at the same time, but like, it's... Yeah. I don't know. We're stuck in the mutual blockade right now, so... Impossible to know what he's going to do or what will happen as a result of it, other than I don't

expect any of it's going to go very well. Nope, it's going to be a nightmare. In some sadder news, on Sunday, America's mayor, Rudy Giuliani was sent to the hospital in critical condition. Giuliani is obviously a friend of the pod. We had... on a few years ago to discuss sending weapons to Ukraine. We would love to have him back to discuss this recent sale. But unfortunately, Giuliani developed pneumonia after coming back from a trip to Paris and was put on a ventilator this weekend. It's always the young ones. Now, thankfully, he's been since we've taken off the ventilator. And spokesman Ted Goodman, who I do not like very much, announced that Giuliani's condition has stabilized and he is now breathing on his own. Last time we

interacted with Goodman. It was specifically him pulling Giuliani away from us. He sure was? After speaking with him for about 20 minutes. So I really don't care for Goodman personally. But I mean, if Giuliani ever wants to discuss weapons sales to Ukraine on the show again, I'm sure we would love to have him. Yeah. You know, Gare, I saved a little vial of the spittle that flew off of his mouth when he and I were discussing weapon sales to Ukraine back at the RNC. And I, keep it on me every day. And I'm holding it now and I'm, I'm just thinking of you, Rudy. I'm just pulling for you, man. I'm pulling for you. We'll probably go on an ad break now.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter, Idell help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me.

Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open to change. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open.

Since you guys are middle aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me! I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My mother-in-law spent years sabotaging our relationship until karma made her pay for it. Wait a minute, Dakota. How bad did it get? Well, it got bad enough that her son-in-law had to eventually arrest her himself. She moved in for two weeks, lasted for five. She left nail clippings in the bathtub, candy stuck to the furniture,

And then she pressed her ear against the bedroom door and burst in screaming. She did not burst in while they were. She did. They kicked her out and paid for her hotel. And they thought, it's finally over. Days later, she called her son-in-law at work, claiming that his partner had been in some kind of freak accident and had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. He called every hospital in the city, and his partner was making coffee the entire time. She faked a medical emergency just to test whether or not he loved her son?

Yeah. And she sat in the hospital parking lot, waiting for him to see if he was. show up. When that didn't work, she walked into the son-in-loss police station and filed a kidnapping report against him. She filed a kidnapping report against him in his own police station. And spoilers, karma's going to show up in the best way possible. So if you want to hear how this story ends, search OK story time on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking.

What the hell does George Bush got to do a little kill? Well, you can find out on The Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so you all know.

I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. so I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah.

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we are back. Robert has just failed to execute a Simpsons-themed audio bit. I know. I wanted to play you Krusty the clown saying the hantavirus, because we're talking about the hantavirus. Well, that's good enough. There, you're your impression I think services.

There we go. Did that work? It's beautiful. I'm still sad. Eight people are suspected, at least eight people are suspected to be infected with a hauntavirus strain. Five confirmed. Capable of human to human transmission. And this is stemming from an outbreak on a cruise ship. We got to do something about the cruise ships. Yeah. Yeah. Now, they're disease factories, first off. Like, everyone knows this happens in cruise ships, which is what we shouldn't have them.

We don't know exactly how this went down. We know at least five people are confirmed to have gotten the Hanta virus. Like they've done, and another three are suspected. Confirmed testing. Three people are dead. Yes. And I think another couple are in serious conditions still. Yes.

It's not known how they got it. It's possible that some of them were human-to-human transmission. Argentine officials believe that a Dutch couple contracted the virus while birdwatching at a landfill where they may have been exposed to rat poop before boarding the cruise ship. What a series. Haunted virus has been a problem in Argentina for the past year. This has been a known problem. Oh, yeah. Some human to human cases, there's multiple strains there. Now, so far, three people are suspected to have died from the virus while three others have been evacuated to Europe. from the cruise ship for treatment.

To be clear, it's not, because this is what I'd read, it's a strain that can be transmitted human to human. But they don't know how everyone who got it got it. Like, they don't know that everyone who got it was human to human or that they didn't all just get exposed to the same droppings. But it's the Andean strain that can transfer human to human. It's a problem, but probably it'll be fine, right, Garrison?

Well, the World Health Organization's top epidemic expert Maria Van Kerkhov has cautioned, quote, this is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease. Most people will never be exposed to this, unquote. And Reuters included a statement from the World Health Organization in their reporting. They say that the risk to the public remains low and that the variant detected among passengers can be spread between humans only through close prolong. longed contact, unquote. Now, there is contact tracing currently in effect by officials in South Africa and Switzerland specifically who are tracking a few people that departed the ship. Many others are still on the ship, which is set to land either at Spain or some of the Canary Islands around Spain

in a few days. That's what we know. That's what we know so far. Sure. Yeah. It's, this is changing like literally by the hour. So it's possible by the time you listen to this, there'll be a whole bunch of more information about what's happened. But that is the current situation as of Wednesday afternoon. Yeah, and I think we can also say definitively that if you want to avoid

the haunt of virus, like the number one step you can take is not getting on a plague ship. Yeah. Or hanging out on a landfill. Landfill to cruise ship is a series. Yeah, like, we can we have the technology to avoid this. Speaking of rat poop, on Wednesday, MS Now, my favorite outlet, reported that the FBI is investigating leaks to the Atlantic journalist who published that story about Cash Patel's drinking habits and absences from his job, a story that the FBI is previously called false, but now is launching a criminal leak investigation into these investigations typically focus on leaking class-hide information.

which does not appear to be a factor in this Atlantic article. Patel is also suing the Atlantic for defamation for like $250 million. And now through this investigation, the FBI may be able to seize the journalist's digital records. The FBI is denied, though, that this investigation exists. And a few hours ago, the Atlantic journalist published a follow-up story, which we should mention, that cash retail has been giving away customized whiskey flasks like bottles full of whiskey

it's good it's Woodford Reserve is what it is it's a Woodford Reserve yeah he's got his own bottle of Woodford Reserve yeah he's getting he's getting what Costco has yeah he's getting like a thoroughly mediocre like middling bourbon with his name on it which is definitely something

an alcoholic doesn't have definitely a normal non-alcoholic thing to do is to have like a $30 bottle of bourbon with your name on it that you hand out to strangers at work. That's the thing alcoholics don't do. Yeah, it's not great. This is not a great revelation.

This investigation, if real, very, very dangerous, right? It's really, really bad thing to happen, to have this clearly, like, personally motivated weaponization of the FBI against a journalist going through social media records, databases, digital records. Very worrying,

but also Cash Patel funny. But yeah, Cash Patel is this fascinating, like, well, this is certainly a legal, incredibly dangerous thing to have the FBI director doing, and like, what a ridiculous man.

What's just a fundamentally ridiculous guy? I don't know what else to say. Meanwhile, in the broad world of things falling apart. Spirit Airlines has fallen. It is effectively no more. RAP. Pouring one out, specifically a personalized bottle of Woodford Reserve is what I'm pulling for Spirit Airlines.

So Spirit Airlines, I mean, has been in financial trouble for a bit, but it has now filed for bankruptcy. It has grounded all of its planes and fired everyone. So it is gone. And it is gone very, very suddenly? This is not something that was you know, like there had been long-going negotiations, not long-going, but there had been negotiations with the Trump administration to try to arrange a bailout,

but they just kind of woke up one morning and sent everyone a letter that said you're fired and canceled all the planes, which left a whole bunch of people stranded. Not ideal. Yeah, and this is a real catastrophe for a lot of people because there are a bunch of

routes that Spirit was doing that there just isn't really coverage of for anything else. And it's also One of the few of these sort of these bunch of airlines are getting just hammered by the increase in fuel prices. For people who don't know aviation stuff, as much as airplane companies complain about like the cost of labor as they like horrifically exploit flight attendants, the actual most expensive part of flying is fuel. And as fuel prices have skyrocketed, specifically jet fuel prices have skyrocketed, that is taking an absolutely enormous hit out of the bottom line of these companies and companies that were sort of just barely. getting along and operated on low margins are getting hit really badly. And this is something that's not just a spirit airlines thing. This is happening to airlines across the world. It's particularly

intense in South and East Asia right now where a huge number of their airlines are operating in this kind of like, they call it like emergency management where they've like significantly reduced the amount of flights that they're doing. The cases like Korean Air, their their routes from, you know, for example, like sold in New York are operating on 200% price increases. This has been going on for a while. Spirit is the first big American one to just go out completely.

There are reports that Trump personally really wanted to save Spirit Airlines for kind of weird personal reasons. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. But, I mean, it's Spirit also, a part of, like, why it has fallen apart is that it's been a victim of its own success. Like, Spirit introduced to the airline industry, the idea of, like, no, everyone should be paying for a bag and for a drink for every single thing. We should financialize every single aspect of the airline, of the flying process that we can.

And as a result, like, they stopped being particularly cheap. they stopped working any different from any of the other airlines. So there was not really much of a reason to go with spirit as opposed to any of the slightly nicer airlines anymore. You know, like this. I mean, I'm not surprised that they are falling. Definitely like the fuel strike is what has been the death blow to them. But they've been, they've been in trouble for a little while. Yeah. And because like we've known that they've been in trouble, the Trump administration negotiations, apparently the stumbling block was that the U.S. plan was to give them like $500 million, but it would involve buying most of their stock.

And the rest of the airline industry was like absolutely not. We're not doing a bailout for just one company instead of an industry wide one. And so they started putting pressure. And then Trump was apparently looking at like using the Defense Production Act for this, but the Department of Defense finally found a Defense Production Act thing that Trump wants to do that they were like absolutely not. Like we are simply not doing national security. Like we finally found,

I've been talking about this in tariff episodes for a long time where we've been looking for the limit of the president's ability to go, this is the national security concern. And apparently the limit is buying Spirit Airlines. That's funny because it is a time when the U.S. is flying a lot of stuff around the world. Like the airlift to Iran has been bonkers. Yeah. It would have been fun to see.

The one kind of final note I want to talk about is that there's been a lot of blaming of this from the administration. And, you know, there's even been some of this in places like Salon where there's been a lot of blame on the Biden administration's antitrust unit because in 2022, there had been an attempt by Spirit Airlines to like merge with JetBlue, which is like a slightly nicer airline. There's a lot of people going, oh, well, they wouldn't have gone out of business if they'd been allowed to you the merger. the Biden administration antitrust people were like this is obviously a competition issue

and that's maybe kind of true but it's also like it's not clear to me that like a jet blue spirit airline wouldn't also be

in really bad shape right now yeah totally I think the thing about competition right is that sometimes you go out of business and I know this is something that like

business people absolutely despise and like pro monotonical people absolutely despise but like in theory if you are a supporter of the free market, that means sometimes the firms go under.

And they're all very mad about this. We especially airlines. Lots of airlines die out. That's why Madman, you know, like look at all the dead airlines and madmen. It's not an unheard of thing. It's a difficult business. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's like why you've gotten the degree of monopoly you already have in the airline industry is that these companies sort of bought up the carcasses and, like, you know, did all of these very monopolistic versions. Now you just have this thing where, like, yeah, flying absolutely sucks because it's all just these, like, oh, God, there's some economics term for it that I'm forgetting right now, but it's all of these sets of monopolies that have, like, divided up the country into their own basically personal fiefdoms. And yeah, that sucks. And it's why, it's why being on an airplane sucks shit.

And opposing monopolies is not the reason that we're here. It's the main reason that we are here right now with Spirit Airlines dead is that the, it's the, the main reason that we are here right now with Spirit Airlines dead is that the, president of the United States unilaterally decided he was going to fight a war against Iran. Yeah. I guess technically bilaterally because Bibi decided to. Israelis, but like, you know, the president of the United, like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the airline is gone. Yeah.

But that's, that's, that's, like the main thing. That's why it's gone, like, now in this way. Yeah. Somebody needs to Photoshop, like, Spirit Airlines in heaven with, uh, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Uh, just like, holding. hands together. Two beautiful souls lost too early. He's getting on one final

final flight. Yeah. See you later, space cowboy. In other wonderful news, we are pivoting from spirits to ghosts and we are pivoting to a very interesting piece of

reporting from CNN who has obtained polling data. That suggests that that The president's new ballroom, which has expended significant political capital from an assassination attempt to attempt to get built, is polling in terms of, quote, Americans who support or believe in new White House ballroom is polling at 28% which is lower than the percentage of Americans who believe in ghosts and 1% lower than the percentage of Americans who believe in telepathy? Americans love believing in ghosts. Yeah. We do.

We do love believe it in ghosts. Well, ghosting at 39% I was expecting. Usually it's higher than that. It could also be support ghosts, right? Like, that could be throwing people off. The phrasing is unclear. And when I say believe in the ballroom, like, do they believe it exists? Like, this is an odd.

I have a lot of questions of the methodology. I'm a White House denier. Part of the frustration here is, I think, because this presentation is coming from noted enemy of the podcast, Harry Eaton, CNN's discount version of Steve Kornacki, who is a noted, noted Kalshi supporter. Yeah. I do not like this man, and I think he manipulates data for entertainment. Yeah.

No, he is, he's not good. It is also worth noting, though, that, like, the opposition to the ballroom is also, like, it's about 28%. Like, everyone hates it. It's somehow, it's lower than his approval rating, which, astonishing because subpoena rating is like getting lower through the 30s and threatening to go below 30%

and somehow the ballroom rating is worse. It's just astonishing. Yeah, I do want to talk to the people who still like him, but they really hate that ballroom. They really hate the people that support the war on Iran, but draw the line at the ballroom is a really disturbing character to me.

It's like, well no, it's it's the converted never-Trump Republican Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know if I agree with that entirely, but yeah. Speaking of that ballroom, the Senate GOP has released a 72 billion reconciliation package to fund ICE and Border Patrol after their funding was removed from the long fought after DHS funding package, which finally passed last week. Yay. The Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee each released, proposed bills. And this package can pass the Senate with a simple majority rather than 60 votes. There's also a small provision here for the ballroom, which I'll get to. But let's start with

talking about the other funding. These bills appropriate over $22.5 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection until September 30th, 2029 for hiring, paying, training, equipping agents, and necessary support staff, plus other necessary expenses for mission. support operations and maintenance. I'll draw attention to an extra $3.5 billion allotted for, quote, procurement and integration of new non-intrusive inspection equipment, unquote, which they specify as AI tools to combat drug smuggling at ports of entry. Yeah, they've been on that one for a while.

I'm guessing it will be their continued facial recognition or pattern recognition. stuff. That's listed also in addition to this AI drug detection inspection tool, because they also have this $3.5 billion going towards, quote, upgrades and procurement of border surveillance technologies and the deployment of technology relating to the biometric entry and exit system, unquote. $38 billion is appropriated for ICE for, quote, hiring, paying, training, and equipping personnel, including officers, agents, investigators, attorneys, and support staff to carry out immigration enforcement activities, unquote. This funding also covers transportation costs, information technology, facility and fleet

maintenance, and expanding coordination with local and state officials. Both the DHS and the DOJ, each get a few extra billion for various uses in these bills, but at the end of the judiciary bill, it allocates $1 billion of taxpayer dollars for security enhancements to the new White House Ballroom. This money would go to Secret Service, quote, for the purposes of security adjustments and upgrades, including within the perimeter fence of the White House compound, including above ground and below ground security features, unquote.

Trump has touted the ballroom as being entirely funded by private donors, originally costing 200 million but ballooning to 400 million this year, which means that these security funds are greater than the total previously estimated cost of construction. What $1 billion versus $400 million? Now, these security funds do have a stated limitation. Quote, none of the funds made available under this section may be used for non-security elements of the East Wing modernization project, which is what they call the ballroom.

But what qualifies as security or non-security elements here is not clear. Like, is bulletproof glass or reinforced walls? a security element? Does paying contractors to make adjustments or enhancements to the building count as security elements? We don't know because this is a lot of money and this again comes after

the Trump administration's deployment of the attempted assassination at the White House dinner to further the development of the ballroom. And now this bill includes extra funding for it in the wake of that and

it's unclear how exactly that money would be used if passed. Hey, Garrison, my dear friend, you were thinking way too small in terms of what, like, the president just tried to use, just tried to use the Defense Production Act to buy an airline so he could, like, run it, right? Like, they're going to be like, yeah, I had to, like, put this gold, this gold lace on, like, this column is actually bullet deflecting. It's going to be, like, that kind of shit.

Like, that's just, like, the way this entire administration has operated. a lot of the construction could have security elements. Yeah. Well, this is already something that's been discussed at length in the National Trust of Historical Preservation lawsuit against the construction, right? Yes. Essentially, the Trump administration has argued

that the project, in and of itself, is an indivisible thing. The project is a security project, and you can't break out the security from the ball, Yes. And the judge has so far not agreed to that, right? But the Trump administration has argued that like the below ground hospital room, security infrastructure, bomb shelter, etc. And the above ground party having room are like all one big security project. It should be one secured zone. Yeah. And that like you cannot because because the, in this case, the discussion is about the injunction, right, which paused construction. Yeah. So then. saying we can't do the security construction only. We have to do all the construction because it's a contiguous hole. So like that seems like it's relevant to this.

Yeah, we will keep, keep checking in on these reconciliation bills as they, as they move through Congress. But first, we will go on this ad break and then discuss Iran and some of the Tuesday elections. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy. guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David

Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from

Harvard, uh, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yardt. They're open to change. Do you have a name suggestion?

We're open. Since you guys are middle aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Huber me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Imagine an Olympics where Dave. Doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

My mother-in-law spent years sabotaging our relationship until karma made her pay for it. Wait a minute, Dakota. How bad did it get? Well, it got bad enough that her son-in-law had to eventually arrest her himself. She moved in for two weeks, lasted for five. She left nail clippings in the bathtub, candy stuck to the furniture, and then she pressed her ear against the bedroom door and burst in screaming. She did not burst in while they were...

She did. They kicked her out and paid for her hotel, and they thought, it's finally over. Days later, she called her son and she called her son. Law at work claiming that his partner had been in some kind of freak accident and had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. He called every hospital in the city and his partner was making coffee the entire time. She faked a medical emergency just to test whether or not he loved her son? Yeah. And she sat in the hospital parking lot waiting for him to see if he would show up.

When that didn't work, she walked into the son-in-law's police station and filed a kidnapping report against him. She filed a kidnapping report against him in his own police station. And spoilers, karma's going to show up in the best way possible. So if you want to hear how this story ends, search OK story time on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim?

Well, you can find out on the Look Back at a podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack.

So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are back. Back in the Strait of Hormuz, a place where we spend a lot of time these last few weeks. Yep. So I guess I just try and take this in kind of chronological order because it's probably the best way to explain it. Iran has launched cruise missiles and drones at United States ships in the Strait of Hormuz. For a while there, Iranian news sources were claiming that they had hit or turned around U.S. vessels. This does not appear to be true. St. Comps certainly denied it, although some news networks did run with this,

apparently based on what the Iranian government-aligned media were claiming. It seems that two United States destroyers did transit the strait, and they did receive very of types of incoming fire from small boats, from missiles and from drones. Following that, a Maersk vessel sailed through the strait. The Alliance Fairfax is the United States flagged vessel and it receives assistance from the US military. And then the motor tanker anthem of Crowley Maritime also sailed through. Trump has called this assistance, quote, Project Freedom.

True thing. For the good of Iran, the Middle East and the United States, we have told these countries, that we will guide their ships safely out of these restricted waterways so that they can freely and ably get on with their business. Again, these are ships from areas of the world that are not in any way involved with that which is currently taking place in the Middle East. I have told my representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their ships and crews safely out the strait. Exactly what this meant was unclear when the president first truiced it, but what I've seen reported now is that the United States provides them on safe routes

and then provided in at least two cases security detachment to go on board the ships. Despite this, a UKMTO still has reports of attacks, and on Tuesday night it reported that one vessel had been hit. And so it does not seem that there has been like a universal ability to allow vessels to move through the strait. The United States also claims to have sunk seven small Iranian vessels in the street. Let's hear from Marco Rubio, where he's explaining a little bit about why the U.S. is doing this. And we're going to do it as a favor to the world. Understand this. This is a favor to the world because it's their ships that are stranded.

It's their fuel supplies that are stranded. By the way, it's their humanitarian aid destined for different countries in the world that's stranded in the Persian Gulf right now. It's the fertilizer that they need for their food and crops that's stranded in the not our fertilizer, their fertilizer. So we want to be helpful, and that's why the president stepped forward, because we're the only ones that can, frankly, we're the only ones that can. So the United States, they're wanting to be helpful, help the world with their humanitarian aid.

On Tuesday, the president then truth, based on the request of Pakistan and other countries, a tremendous military success that we have had during the campaign against the country of Iran, and additionally, the fact that great progress has been made toward a complete and final agreement with representatives of Iran, we have mutually agreed that while the blockade will remain in place and will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom, the movement of ships with Strait of Formoos,

will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the agreement can be finalized and signed. So that was the 24-hour duration of Project Freedom. Rest in peace. Then this morning, the President Ruth, quote, assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is perhaps a, a big assumption, the already legendary epic fury will be at an end. If they don't agree,

the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before, President Donald J. Trump. The parties, according to Axios, not an outlet known for its accurate reporting, appear to be closing in on a 14-point deal. The reporting suggests that Iran has committed to a moratorium of 15 to 20 years on uranium. in Richmond, the United States would then lift sanctions and release frozen Iranian funds, which is a massive concession, and both sides would lift restrictions on passage through the straightforward moves. However, hours after this was reported, a United States aircraft shut the rudder out of an Iranian motor tanker called the Hazna. They say they warned the ship,

which was headed towards Iranian ports. It was empty at the time. It was heading towards Iranian ports, right? Then we saw reporting from Al Jazeera reporter Ali Hashem that instructions have been sent to boats crossing the street. These instructions include, quote, priority of payment Iran's national currency, issuance of guarantees in Iranian banks. Three of a country caused damage to Iran in the recent war. It must first pay the damages before obtaining a passage permit. Countries that have sanctioned Iran or blocked Iran's money are not allowed passage. For the correct title, Persian Gulf must have written on all documents, five, noncompliance with the above result in seizure, and a fine of 20% of the cargo value. So it is chaos in the Strait of Hormuz,

right? Like, we have at once Trump saying the US will escort ships through and then pausing the escorting of ships through, and then the Iranians shooting at a commercial ship, and then the United States shooting at an Iranian ship, the Iranians asking for money, this time not in cryptocurrency and the United States saying that we are about to reach a peace agreement. This, of course, provides a lot of certainty which markets love, and I'm sure this will result in the gas price not being nearly $7 a gallon here pretty soon. I also want to briefly talk about suicide dolphins. In a press conference, Iranian suicide dolphins were raised.

Here's the question being asked. Can you kind of clarify these reports of kamikaze dolphins that we've heard about? I haven't heard the kamikaze dolphin thing. It's like sharks with laser beams, right? No, it's not. And then if you could play Hegss's response as well. And I can't confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they don't, ultimately.

Well, it's good we're ultimate on that. Yep. So Hexas is pretty definitive on it, Ryan. having kamikaze dolphins. It did seem kind of weird that people reporting on this weren't aware the United States has had a marine mammal program for, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like, you can see them in San Diego.

Yep. Yeah. They are not, to my knowledge, like, used in a kamikaze capacity. No. Mainly because it's just cheaper to do that with drones. The U.S. military did briefly experiment with bats, which turned out to be a terrible idea because the bats would just fly back to you. The boomerang bat.

This nearly wiped out a huge portion of U.S. Central Command and it. Yeah. Great stuff. Yeah, it doesn't, I mean, I'm pretty sure that Iran doesn't have suicide dolphins either, but people are asking that. Again, it is just cheaper. Unaliving dolphins. Oh, my God. Yeah, sure.

One way dolphins will be how we refer to them if they were munitions, but it just doesn't. Is it a suicide dolphin if you're pressing the button? So, like, are you just blowing up a dolphin? No, it's not. It's a murder dolphin. Yeah, it's really unfair to the dolphin. It's not a kamikaze dolphin either. It hasn't made that commitment.

It's just a dolphin. It's a homicide dolphin. Let's be clear. I can't believe that those reporters would mess up such a basic fact. Yeah, well, yeah, there people on the suicide dolphin beat really need to get back to journalism 101. Shocked. All right. Talking about the ocean, Marco Rubio has visited Southcom and posed for a photo with General Francis L. Donovan in front of what is very obviously a large map of Cuba.

Hell yeah. I think what you meant to say is DJ Mark Rubio, but continue. Yeah. The map is titled Cuba reference map. That's not good. Yeah, like in terms of like subtle signaling. That's not good. Rubio also claimed at a press conference that Operation Epic Fury was over.

The Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation. I'm not going to, you know, we're not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace. what the president would prefer is a deal. He would prefer to sit down, work out a memorandum of understanding for future negotiations that touches on all the key topics that have to be addressed, a full opening of the straits so the world can get back to normal,

and he preferred that that be negotiated through the route that Steve and Jared have been working and that all of us have been supporting. That's the route he prefers. That is so far not the route that Iran has chosen. And so the result has been that the United States has to do something about the fact that we're the only nation on earth that can do anything to open up a lane within the Straits of Hormuz to get product and to rescue. these people that are trapped in there.

And that's what we're undergoing now. So, let's see. The end of Operation Epic Fury and the beginning of the United States, doing something to open up a lane in the straight of all moods. Operation is unclear. Yeah. The goals of which are unclear. But apparently the first one succeeded.

So congrats to all the Epic Fury people listening. Operation, it's going great. things are really good. And we're just minutes away from figuring out what we're doing next. Really thrilled for when we invade Cuba and it's like eporation bacon, awesome sauce. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Like epic bacon is easy. Oh, boy. Before we close, there's a few shorter things that we should mention. Let's first by turning to, as Vivek Ramoswamy has said, not the best state in the nation. Ohio.

Which Not the best state in the nation Which for some reason Refekrabiswamy Is the GOP candidate for governor As of Tuesday He has deep connections to Ohio Where he's lived for how long

Garrison? I'm sure just long enough to be on the ballot Like a few days Like a week or two Yeah It's a good state I can't say it's the best state Incredible stuff

High praise High accurate praise We will be following this because if Vivek loses to the Democrat, that would be an interesting indicator, not just of support for Trump and Maga, but also how annoying Vivek Ramoswamy is. But Robert, there's someone that you would like to briefly mention as well. Yes. So in addition to Vivek doing so well last night, another candidate who did pretty well is Brian Poindexter. Brian is running for, well, was running and won the Democratic primary for the Ohio 7th District seat. And he will be running against the Republican incumbent in that district, a guy named Max Miller, who initially ran for and won his way into Congress in 2022.

He was a former aide of President Trump and a bit of a sleazeback. if I'm going to be honest with you, if I'm going to talk about this guy. I mean, first off, he's, he's like definitely a nepo baby. His grandfather was Samuel H. Miller, who was the former co-chair emeritus of Forest City Realty Trust, which was acquired in this big real estate deal in 2018 for $6.8 billion. So he is like a kid who came from a family with a shitload of real estate money and wound up working in the Trump White House and then got. into Congress, where he has a 14% lifetime voting score from the AFL-CIO.

When he was initially running for Congress, and he was asked, because I found a fun interview with him where he was asked to give like his elevator pitch. And I just have to read, this was Max Miller's elevator pitch for why he should be in Congress. So with my background in the Marine Corps in the infantry and six years on the reserve side and the work and working for Senator Rubio, in my time in the White House, I've been in these meetings with the president, and other cabinet secretaries. And the reason why I'm running for office is because of what I saw, what I was there.

We send people to Washington, D.C. to represent our values. And for the most part, what we see is regular Americans as they don't. They're so out of touch with reality. And for the most part, these individuals only go there to benefit their own way of life. And they lose sight of everyone that they were sent there to protect.

And I saw that throughout the four years that I was in Washington, D.C., in the White House. And it was extremely eye-opening. And that's why I'm running to be the Republican representative. You are asked. Okay. What's your elevator pitch?

Why should you be in office? That's an amazingly incoherent bit of babble. So he was asked like, what do you think you're the right guy? And he was like, well, I've been in North Korea. I've been in Iraq, bouncing between al-Assad and Erbil. I was in Afghanistan negotiating with foreign delegations on behalf of the president. And I've been in the pressure cooker. And again, he was like a Trump aide.

Like he's like followed around and meetings where more important people were making decisions. Like that was this. He was like a coffee boy. Yeah. The pressure cooker. Again, walking around with the president, not making any decisions. He was like a diet Coke boy more than anything. And like those were bad negotiations.

Yes. Yes. This interviewer fighting gets him to pin down and like, what is the issue you most want to deal with? And he's like top issue, hands down is inflation and the economy. And like he talks about how like there's $67 billion worth of credit card debt that Americans are. And that's his top issue.

So what does he do? once he's in power. First off, none of the bills that he co-sponsored in his first year in Congress had anything to do. All I made it through is like the first year and a half, but none of those had anything to do with credit card bills, inflation, or the economy. And the main bill that he is like, can attach his name to that he co-authored was the Full House Act to end unfair taxation of gambling losses. So not a great guy. So anyway, well, what I'm, While I'm going through this interview, there's a moment here where the interviewer's like, hey, so your girlfriend recently made some allegations against you?

How did we see that one coming? So here's what Taylor Poplars, that's the journalist here, says. Your ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Grisham, who also worked in the Trump White House with you, she has alleged some pretty serious things related to you, that you've slapped her, pushed her, threw a dog toy at her, cheated on her, and I know you've denied all that. You filed a lawsuit at one point. Do you still deny all that? His response was, to be clear, we're handling this in litigation, and her motion to dismiss

was denied, so the case will be heard. Now, so we've already won our first battle in that hurdle. And to be clear, she herself has never articulated the allegations. It was all hearsay by second and third party sources. Anyway, that's not the only scandal this guy has on his record. I just briefly looked into him, and I found not only those allegations from this former staffer that he had become violent in the White House and that the president was aware of that and was like, that's kind of fucked up.

Like, he and the president on Melania, we're both saw him become violent and we're like, Oh, God. Oh, wow. That's kind of fucked up. Yeah. But didn't actually do anything. Like, it's really messed up. Like, the allegations here, at least really messed up.

Yeah. That's not the only person who has made allegations against him. He, in his like, messy divorce, his ex-wife has alleged that he has gotten violent with her. He has countered and said that she got violent with him. him, but then his representatives had to admit that their client fabricated testimony and court documents in order to obtain a protection order against his ex-wife. So this dude is a real piece of shit. Like Max Miller, bonafide trash person. And currently, he's up by about five

points in this election in Ohio 7 against Poindexter. So it's very unclear how are things going to actually go, but I, just looking at how sleazy this guy is and how soft his actual base of organic support seems to be, this is one where I kind of suspect maybe once you actually get a decent candidate. And Pointexter really seems to be, like, he's a guy who spent his, pretty much his entire year as like a union metal worker and is a reasonably good campaigner. He's been a five-term councilman in Brook Park, Ohio. Like, he's, he's someone who like, this isn't a dilett. in politics, but also has like a real light. I don't know.

I could see this being something that like maybe the Democrats are actually able to flip here. If Poindexter proves to be as good at campaigning in like an open election as he was in the primary, I'm kind of bullish about him. Anyway, it's something to watch. Yeah. Last big story. As a part of the ongoing lawsuit Louisiana v. FDA on May 1st, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary ban on the remote prescription.

and mailed delivery of the abortion pill Mithopristone. Last October, Louisiana brought this case against the FDA for a Biden-era regulation allowing telehealth prescription and mail order access to the drug, which Louisiana claimed was unsafe and facilitated illegal abortions in the state. A district court had previously agreed that Louisiana was likely to win its challenge, but it did not grant the state's requested stay on the regulation. In fact, the lower court put the entire case on hold because last year, RFK Jr. announced an FDA review of Mithopristone and its quote-unquote reported adverse effects, with RFK Jr. specifically mentioning in his announcement that, quote, the Biden administration removed Mitha Pristone's in-person dispensing rule without studying the safety risks, unquote. Despite the case being put on hold due to the FDA's review, Louisiana appealed the lower court's decision to decline a stay on mail order, Mitha Pristone, and last week, the Fifth Circuit ruled in the state's favor, temporarily reinstating this in-person dispensing requirement while the case continues.

But then, on May 4th, the Supreme Court restored remote prescription and mail order access to Mitha Pristone by blocking the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. but this stay by the Supreme Court is only in effect until Monday, May 11th. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will consider responses from both parties and then issue a subsequent ruling. The majority of abortions in the United States are now administered through abortion medication like Mythopristone, and according to a study published in 2025, one quarter of abortions are now done through telehealth services, double the rate from before the overturning of Dobbs. Other Republican states like Texas and Missouri, are also engaged in other efforts to restrict access to

the Prostone nationwide. Yeah. We'll keep up on this as the Supreme Court issues a more definitive ruling in the near future. The last thing I want to mention very ever so briefly, big news in Marx land. Biggest update in Marxism in a while. Oh, boy. Oh, good. New Marxism just dropped? On Monday, the Secret Service shot a 45-year-old

man from Texas named Michael Marks, spelled the same way. Yeah, dear it. Who was allegedly concealed carrying a Sig P-65. A P-365? Okay. P-365. Well, between the White House and Washington Monument, Sikh Reservists say they tried to approach the man after noticing the imprint of a gun.

The man then fled and allegedly fired towards the agents who returned fire, wounding Mr. Marks. While in the ambulance, he allegedly said, quote, fuck the White House and kill me, kill me, kill me, unquote. Oh dear. A 15-year-old was also shot during this incident, and at first, Secret Service claimed that the armed man shot the kid. But they later reneged that claim, though after Marx was charged, U.S. attorney Janine Piro repeated this claim, saying that he, quote, shot an innocent bystander who was simply crossing. the street with his family, unquote. After the shooting, Chris McDonnell

a congressional affairs official with Secret Service told Congress that there's no indication that the man was targeting anyone inside the executive complex, writing, quote, President Trump was not in any danger. So we don't actually know what happened here. Like, was this just some weirdo conceal

carrying? Presumably illegally, right? Illegally, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just because he's does that? Or was he did he have, was he trying to commit? This doesn't make much sense right now. Yeah.

No, it's unclear what his intention was at this point. But then after being shot by Secret Service, that's when he expressed, fuck the White House, kill me, kill me, kill me. But there's no indication he was targeting any elected official. Sure. But did allegedly shoot at Secret Service as they tried to approach and chase him. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway. Cool. I mean, it's bad, but you know. Yeah. That's it for us here. Add it could happen here. Yeah. We reported the news. Great. Put a trans scroll on your couch.

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