Tangle - Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Ari and Kmele mourn Dolly Parton and then get into Iowa's interesting candidate for governor, Darline Graham, Jesse Watters and more.

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

Coming up on today's episode of Suspension of the Rules, Isaac, Ari and Kmele mourn the loss of the great Dolly Parton. They then chat about the very interesting candidate for governor in Iowa, Darline Graham officially winning the South Carolina primary, and then a good guy of the week featuring Jesse Watters? Last but not least, our grievances. It's a good one!Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up! Click HERE to get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership.All about Flock cameras.A few months ago, you may not have heard of them at all. Now, Flock cameras are everywhere — especially in Northern Virginia, where Associate Producer Aidan Gorman lives. In our latest YouTube video, Aidan takes a trip around his neighborhood and talks with law enforcement to investigate the reach and presence of Flock cameras.Check it out here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was hosted by Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Jon Lall.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up, morning, Dolly Parton, a very interesting candidate for governor in Iowa. We talk about Darlene Graham actually winning the Republican Senate primary in South Carolina. A good guy of the week segment on Jesse Waters, maybe, and then some very good grievances. It's a great episode. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Suspension of the Rules podcast, a politics talk show where you try and turn the temperature down and have some reasonable dialogue, agree to disagree, talk about how stupid each other are all at the same time. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. While the temperatures turned down, of course. Yeah, here with my good friends, Ari Weissman, Tangle Managing Editor and our editor-at-large,

Camille Foster. Gentlemen, flags, half-mass right now. We're mourning the loss of the great, the singular, Dolly Parton. The news hit the Slack channel. in a very ungracious way. I'm not going to name names, but I found out this heartbreaking news with one blip of a slack message that just said, Dolly Parton dead yesterday,

which I did not like, did not appreciate the ungraciousness of that. But it's gotten me thinking, we had a day yesterday where President Donald Trump announced the death of Dolly Parton, announced a week-long honoring of her extraordinary life,

said basically what I would say of her, which is she's one of one. There will never be anybody like her. There never has been. There never will be again. And then in the same two-minute time span, you've got the DSA posting, tweets, honoring Dolly Parton, the Democratic Party, Republican Democratic politicians from across the political spectrum, pop culture icons from, you know, Eminem to basically every actor I follow on Twitter. Kim Jong-un as well. Kim Jong-in. Yeah, I saw the North Korea.

Speaking of legendary actors, you know. Yeah, yeah. It just, it got me thinking, I don't know, is there another person as universally beloved is this? Was there another living person as universally beloved as this? Is there anybody who holds a candle to her, who else could die? in August 2026 and receive this kind of reception?

I honestly don't know. Tim Curry. No. Somebody would find something negative to say. Well, we'll find out. I don't know. Poor guy. I'm also universally beloved, though probably not to the same degree as Dolly Parton's being received.

Yeah, that's true. But this is like... Are there no major entertainment scandals involving Dolly Parton ever? I mean, I can't think of anything, but... I don't know. If there are, I refer to. to learn about them. That's my position. I think that's the right.

We won't sully her reputation the day after she, her death is an ass. And if I don't know about them at this point, she's been alive for 80 years. I don't care to learn about them anytime soon. And like, I, you know, I listen to her music. I follow her stuff a bit. The work, you know, the work that she does outside of her being an incredible country singer artist is so uniformly loved. the children's library, all the philanthropic stuff,

just somebody who like exuded love. And it really, that is actually what I've been thinking about the last 24 hours is like what was the formula for her that worked? And it's actually remarkable how simple it was. It's like she cared a ton about children and making kids lives good. And she was really positive and just like poured love on people no matter what. never negative or nasty. She was self-deprecating,

but also very honest about who she was and forthright about who she was. I don't know. It really is, for me, at least, I definitely can't think of any politicians who'd receive this kind of reception, I think because of the nature of their work. And from an entertainment celebrity status,

it does really feel like maybe the end of some sort of non-partisan monoculture love. existence that nobody else is ever going to really have. So it feels worth acknowledging just on the merits of who she was as an artist, but also in the context of the show and what we do at Tangle. It's like, yeah, I, I've never seen, it's the nicest thing the president has ever said about anybody who's died, period, full stop. Like, I've never seen him in a tweet or a truth social or whatever.

eulogize somebody that way. I mean, it was actually rather nice, and it was like he said the thing that you're supposed to say. I'll read it really quick into the record before we move on. Very sad to report that Dolly Parton, one of the greatest country singers and far beyond ever, has just passed away. This is a true loss for millions of people.

There's never been anyone like her and never will. In her honor, I'm lowering the American flag throughout the United States for one week period beginning tonight at 6 p.m. Rest in peace, Dally, the world loves you. President Donald J. Trump. That's as good as it gets for our president.

Our current president. Yeah, good post. Full stop. Any thoughts? I'm just looking forward to as we try to learn lessons about how to have broad-based appeal, Isaac's turn to country music trying to end up on pardon

for the Tangle brand. I'm excited to see that first solo album. But yes, a hard person's footsteps the following for sure, and a person who exuded grace in ways that are, it's really, really easy to overlook how difficult grace and kindness can be. But when you're that consistent with it throughout your life, it's nothing but enviable. That's all I'll say.

And I didn't know her work incredibly well. I mean, it's impossible to evade Dolly Parton because she was a huge part of the culture and had been for as long as I've been alive, both because of her music and the occasional acting and I guess she was as famous for her her ageless appearance as she was for her music and her conduct. But she does, as you were pointing out, Isaac,

seemed to be the sort of person who very deliberately chose to be apolitical. I'm remembering a Fox News headline about her refusing to choose sides in politics despite how divided the country had become. And I think the point that you raise is, really interesting. Like who are the major celebrities, superstars, who have avoided becoming explicitly political

without feeling the kind of intense pressure that often comes along with celebrity these days where people expect you to have a perspective on everything. And the kind of deftness that is required to be able to evade getting involved in the political maelstrom while being in the public eye is a sort of sophistication that most celebrities don't seem to have.

Yeah, and I think most interesting is just that she did it without an inkling of cowardice. It wasn't like she was dodging something. She just kind of lived her values really openly and forthrightly and was like, this is who I am. You can read between the lines, and I don't really have anything to say about the rest of it, which is an honorable way to do it, in my opinion.

Very different than Republicans by sneakers, too, that's famous line attributed to Michael Jordan. I don't know if he actually said. Yeah, well, the Dolly Parton line that I love speaking of her ageless looks was that it's, I think she said, it's expensive to look this cheap, which is just so perfect. Yeah, hilarious, self-deprecating, true, very, very much embodies her spirits. So, RIP, Dolly Parton, I'll be blasted in some country. tunes of hers the next few days for sure. Speaking of broad-based appeal and appeal generally, we are now wrapping up the midterm elections, which involves a lot of people trying to do

what Dolly Barton does, which is win over the hearts of folks who are otherwise maybe predisposed not to like them. And there's been some really interesting stuff going on. I mean, on this show in particular, obviously we've talked a bit about the DSA and the Trump endorsed far-right figures battling the Republican establishment. There's been a lot of hand-to-hand combat happening inside both parties recently. And we had some more developments this week. And I think one of the more interesting storylines that actually a tango listener got me keen to is what's happening in Iowa, where Democrat Rob Sand is running against Republican Zach Lane.

And I was turned on to the story of Rob San by a tent. angle reader who sent me this Atlantic article and just said, this is a really interesting story. And there's a really interesting thing that's happening inside Iowa right now that if you're not paying close attention to you, you should be. And that sort of sent me down the Rob San rabbit hole. And he is the Democratic candidate for governor this year. And he's trying to win the gubernatorial race in a state that has become decidedly read over the last few election cycles. And he's doing it in a really interesting way. I mean, he seems very, very focused

on just kind of the technocratic functioning of governance and what he wants government to look like. He's on this anti-corruption platform really explicitly, which I think has helped him target. A lot of Republicans on the other side of the aisle, but also some of the folks in his own party. He's totally resistant to the pressures of the establishment. end of the progressive left, I would say, at the same time.

This Atlantic piece did a great job of sort of painting the picture of how he's been navigating some of these really hot button moments in our politics recently. So I'll just read from it briefly to set the table here. He is not, for example, easily drawn into culture war debates or bandwagon slogans. Early in his campaign, when a radio host asked him whether biological males should be allowed to play in women's sports, Sand answered succinctly, No. In January after federal officers killed Renee Good and Alex Prattie in Minneapolis, Sand did not join in the calls to abolish ICE. He's taken some of the cultural issues that dog Democrats in

Red States off the table, Adam Jettelson, the founder of the center left think tank searchlight told me. The progressive left, as you might imagine, is not wild about San. Some were disgusted that the Democrat did not release a statement denouncing ICE after Good and Preddy's deaths. Others see San's comments on trans athletes as a betrayal of the LGBTQ community. community. Still, most seem to find the state auditor tolerable. He's a happy warrior for nonpartisan technocratic efficiency and anti-corruption. Adam Green, the co-founder of Progressive Change Campaign Committee, told me, San might slap that on a billboard. Just this week, San sat down for an interview with Politico. He was asked, would you want Joe Biden here campaigning for you? He said,

no, and then actually asked the interviewer, could he even do that right now? Which I thought was a little little off color. Sounds like that. Yeah. How about Kamala Harris? He responded, again, no thanks. Let's move on.

We need some new leadership. It's an interesting thing. So he's doing very well in the polls. This Atlantic article portrayals a state of Iowa where you cannot throw a rock without hitting somebody who, you know, knows him or has spoken to him or is aware of some of the work he's done in Iowa,

government. Camille, you have met the man. I guess we'll turn to you first. I mean, I'm curious what you think about his prospects in this race and also kind of what he brings to the table generally as a politician, because it does seem like in this moment a fairly unique tack that he's taking. Yeah, I think Rob, I've known him for a few years now. We've attended, I go to a lot of conferences with fancy people. Rob had been at one of these conferences, and I think we've probably been to the same conference like four times now. I like Rob. I think he's very interesting. He has this big personality that really fills up a room. In addition to him just having this almost awkward earnestness, but it's endearing when it comes to talking about politics and when

it comes to talking about his work as an auditor. And certainly when it comes to advocating for his issues, I think part of the reason why he doesn't get drawn into the culture war stuff is because he is so determined to try and convince you that what we need is rank choice voting and term limits and that if we could have these things, we would actually be able to profoundly improve our politics, that we need open primaries. And he could go on at length about those issues. And I think, again, another kind of dimension of what I find to be somewhat kind of awkwardness in other social settings, something that becomes a real asset in political context and certainly in media interviews, that let's move on. It's not just the let's move on from those people, it's let's move on

from that question. He says it in a really direct way, in a direct way that you wouldn't really expect from most people, let alone someone who's running for office. And I think, again, it can be really endearing. It comes across as particularly authentic. And I think all those things are real assets for him. You don't usually see people attack the Democratic Party not from the progressive left, but I do think you kind of should. There's no bigger target in the world you can get cheap points off of than the Democratic Party. I think being a card-carrying bona fide member of the Democratic Party means that you've criticized the Democratic Party. That's part of doing the job effectively. And the criticisms that he has about past leadership, about whether or not they are

representing true reform and electoral reform specifically, because of the incumbency bias feels genuine and authentic. But again, we've struggled with usages of those terms here consistently with politicians. So I'm not going to pretend to be the expert on him. Camille, you've got infinite more experience with the man than I do. But I do think that it is an interesting race to watch. If for no other reason, then name me another state where you can say the auditor is going to fancy conferences with Camille. that seems like a special kind of auditor to me.

When I was reading this Atlantic article about him, I was struck by these comments that Liz Smith, who worked with people who judged made, she's a political strategist, and also the pollster Adam Carlson. Liz Smith said, national Democrats, you know, they like what they see, and that sand is doing the opposite of what almost every other politician is doing. Adam Carlson, this pollster, said,

you know, you're used to seeing kind of loud progressives who are anti-establishment, or you're used to seeing these sort of corporate moderates. But Sand is doing, quote, a third thing, which I found really interesting as a framework to talk about him. And the more that I kind of get into his politics, the more I kind of sense that. I mean, he's not accepting the status quo. There is this anti-establishment. This system is broken. He's really into election reform. He talks a lot about how corrupt the current system. is. But then, you know, as I read out at the top, he refuses to take the bait on some of the culture war type issues, but also even things like immigration. You know, he's not going to condemn

ICE. He's not going to release these statements. He has this sort of closeness to some of the more moderate positions that other Democrats who are establishment Democrats might have. And then all the while, he is presenting himself to his audience, his islands, as this like Jesus-loving technocrat, auditor, smart. There's like a dorkiness almost in a way to his entire political aesthetic. That, like you said, Camille, I actually find endearing when I watch some of these clips. I was also struck having written a lot about this return to decency that I'm hoping for in our political system and that I think is going to come.

I think we are as a country becoming more and more exhausted with the loud, fire-breathing blowhards and people are going to want a decency politics that is kind of a response to that. So you can imagine my interest when I saw this clip that I'm about to play of an address that he was giving at one of his events. So I'm just going to share this really quick and curious to get your guys' reactions to it. We've only talked about my opponent just a little bit, and I think that that's a good thing. There is one thing, though, that I want you to understand about him more than anything else. It's more important for you to remember this over the next two and a half months than any other one thing that you remember about him. So here it is.

He's a human being. Politics is oftentimes pretty stupid. I think that we can acknowledge that me and my opponent are human beings and that everyone who runs for office should be willing to do that because it's important. All right. Now, I still think that I'm the better choice, and I'll tell you why,

but I'm not going to do it without asking you first to keep in mind that this is a debate between two human beings. We don't need to demonize people, and we don't need to lie about them either. I haven't, I mean, I haven't really heard anybody talk quite like that since John McCain. The John McCain, Barack Obama, seeing in at the town hall. I mean, and when I watched this, given the amount of attention this guy is getting, I got to admit, I felt my heart just patter a little bit.

It's just, you know, I just, I thought, I mean, I was like, ah, this is it. I've been talking about this guy, somebody who leads with this kind of mentality, and doing it in a way that feels authentic, that's believable, they're walking the walk. And I don't know, I really like this. And I watched this video, and I immediately was just like, oh, yes, this is like, these are the kinds of things that I want to start seeing the canaries in the coal mine

that people are recognizing a return to decency isn't just good for the country, but it also might be really good politics. And even if they're doing it for cynical reasons, I'll take it. But yeah, I'm curious how that messaging lands with you guys. So I think the thing that I was thinking of first was a comparison between somebody that I really don't even have to bring up here. Maybe it's better to keep his name out of our mouths. But if you remember when Graham Platner was getting first viral for his candidacy in Maine,

and he was like, oh, he's this authentic blue-collar guy. He's humanizing his competition. and he's refusing to demonize people who voted for Trump. I think if you watch that clip, because I remember watching it at the time thinking, he's not really saying anything here. He's kind of saying empty stuff while holding the coffee cup. But this does seem like an actual statement

that's indicative of an ethos and a point of view. And also is coming from a position where he's gained a lot of followers or appreciators in the state. That Atlantic piece was very interesting, just reading about people who joined him on a bike ride because they're excited to go on a bike ride with the state auditor. I mean, it's just stuff that it does seem like it's coming from it.

Like, it's growing a different soil than what we've seen with other canaanists that have tried to do it. And I don't want to start, like, praising this person without really knowing what he's going to do during his campaign, or if he ends up succeeding, which he very well may not, in Iowa. It's going to be a hard state for a Democrat to win no matter what tack you're taking. But it's an approach that does show the hopeful thermostatic return that you've talked about, Isaac, away from a demonistic or demonizing, rather, politics that paints the other side in the scariest terms possible.

This, like, social media, spike your cortisol rage machine, get you to stay locked in on what we're doing method of politics to a more soothing, like, look, put this ice pack on, everything's going to be all right. If we just talk to each other, let's tackle the hard problems like humans and adults, that that's the kind of tone, whatever the policy is that I think a lot of people are wanting to return to, at least a lot of people on this call, probably 100% of this three-person sample. And if that's something that he ends up following through on, then it is a very exciting thing, but very early still.

Yeah, I think the fact that he just tends to focus on policy and policy specifics, And he focuses his considerable intellectual energies on figuring out how to sell his policy objectives and projects to you. And he's not wasting a lot of bandwidth, kind of hitting these particular notes that you expect from a Democratic candidate. Or if we were to flip it, a Republican candidate. I think Republicans can be prisoners to culture war issues as well. And some Democrats essentially combat their party's obsession with certain cultural war issues by kind of moving in the other direction and being obsessive about those things. And for Rob, he tends to focus on the specific issues.

I mean, you take something like data centers which have become this massive issue across the country, even there, it's not talking about moratoriums all the time. There are concrete proposals with respect to the kind of regulations that he thinks would be compatible with protecting the citizens' objectives while also permitting some of these things to be built. All right. We bring up like Graham Platner and data centers just to keep it.

Nice and non-controversial for you. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about maybe the anti-Rob Sand, a politician who seems to be good at kind of winning over nobody. Well. We'll be right back. We'll be right back after this quick break.

All right. Welcome back to the show. We are in election season now. Officially it's late August. We have an election coming up. up in November. And one man who is not running for election, but nevertheless is drawing quite a bit of attention right now is Pennsylvania Senator John Federman, the Democrat. And I read an article that just astounded me this week on John Federman in the New York Times, which is basically a

breakdown of how his support among Republicans and Democrats has changed. since he entered office. For those of you who are watching on YouTube, we'll throw this graph up on the screen. But for the folks who are just listening, I'll try to explain what it looks like. Imagine that there is a blue line and a red line representing Democrats and Republicans and John Federman's approval rating in Pennsylvania. And the blue line is starting kind of up top and towards the top left of the graph at 74%. And the red line is starting, is sort of starting bottom left of the graph in 20, 24 at 20%. And then the graph is literally an X. It is just an X on the screen. It is Republican support plummeting for him and Democratic support skyrocketing for him. And you can see this, his favorables and unfavorables.

And you can see this going in opposite directions on the chart for Democrats and Republicans. if you overlaid them with each other, it would make lots of exes. It is mind-boggling to look at, but the actual numbers here are that he had a 74% favorable rating in 2024 among Democrats and a 20% unfavorable rating. He now has a 63% unfavorable rating among Democrats and a 22% favorable rating. And for Republicans, he started out with a 64% unfavorable rating and a 25% favorable rating and now has a 73% favorable rating among Republicans and a 21% unfavorable rating.

Just to put this in context, Mr. Federman's regular critiques of Democrats have made him so popular among Republicans, the New York Times reported in his home state that they now view him more warmly than Pennsylvania's Republican Senator, David McCormick, according to a new poll from the New York Times. So John Federman, the Democrat, has more favorable polling than the Republican senator in Pennsylvania, his Republican counterpart.

What do you guys make of this? I mean, what does it mean? Federman now, I was caveat all of this by just saying John Federman has remained a reliable vote for Democrats. I mean, he's casting ballots with Democrats on basically every issue. He said that he would never switch parties. been consistent that the Republican Party does not stand for what he stands for. And yet, he seems to be much more well liked by Republican voters than Democratic voters. I, as far as U.S. senators go, maybe even U.S. House representatives, definitely presidents.

This is about as big of an anomaly as I can think of. I don't know of any other situation where polling looked like this, where someone with a D next to their name was more liked by people with ours next to their name than vice versa. Do you guys have anything that comes to mind? I mean, I'm curious how you process this or what you think is driving it, aside from maybe just the Israel-Gazas stuff, which I feel like must be at the heart of it. It's definitely at the heart of it, right? Yeah, I certainly think that that's the case.

But I think, you know, to further underscore just how strange all of this is, I mean, back in 2022 when he was actually running for Senate, I mean, his health scare, not even health scare, him's his stroke and his recovery from the stroke actually made him a huge target for Republicans. At the time, there were so many people talking about how he was unfit to serve. The same people who are praising him now, who have kind of pushed their allegiance in his direction, were extraordinarily loud and unified in their insistence that he wasn't fit to serve at all.

And Democrats were in lockstep behind him. He enjoyed a tremendous amount of support coming in. So it makes the whole situation all the more strange. And I think, interestingly, the contrast with Sands is important in a lot of different ways. But one way that I think it's similar is that there are particular issues that he's locked in on. I don't think it is the sort of just kind of naked, empty criticism of your party in the way that the other people would. There are particular issues he's animated by. It just so happens that this issue, Israel, foreign policy issues, have become the most kind of volatile issue in democratic politics right now.

And he has not backed away from it at all. Instead, he's kind of doubled down. on his positions. It's one of those things where if you were just to put it on paper and say, why are Democrats turning on Federman and say it's just because of Israel and foreign policy votes, the Iran War Powers vote, which was honestly largely ceremonial as well as Israel votes and just statements about it, you'd say that seems like an overreaction. But it's a little more than that.

I think he's a very interesting. figure in politics. He doesn't just oppose the democratic turn of support away from Israel or support towards the Palestinian cause. He's been outright antagonistic towards that movement within the Democratic Party and not shy about it to the point where he's inviting a response from across the aisle. He's also confirmed or voted to confirm Senate nominees from Donald Trump that the rest of the party hasn't, which indicates sort of like a let's be realistic, Christy Noem was appointed, or he voted to confirm Christy Noem as well as Pam Bondi, who, like, I think if you're Federman, you're thinking, I don't want to hold up other votes. I think these are reasonable nominations given the alternatives that there are.

And like, that kind of makes sense. But you have to ask, what's he playing at? Is he trying to make a play across the Iowa, also trying to keep some centrist stems? because he's really not being subtle about his push away from the progressive wing of the party, and his background's so strange. He won the primary in Pennsylvania for that Senate race over a candidate who was representing what was my district at the time in the north suburbs of Pittsburgh, who was Connor Lamb, because he seemed to be too buttoned up.

He was like a war vet and somebody who walked the Democratic Party line establishment on a lot of stuff. And if we're honest, Democrats kind of want to vote for the tall dude who wore hoodies and shorts and who like wasn't polite and always being impolite to them. And that's like, you know, I don't want to reference Graham Plantner twice, but I'm going to. There's a spotty record with Dem saying we want a very gruff, masculine-looking man to represent our interests. Like maybe they shouldn't look at a person's record in history before they just go for gender performance. But I digress. I'll just say that it, I don't know.

know how much farther he's going to change. I think what we have right now is who we're going to have, which is a person who's supportive of Israel, who's not going to be moved when the progressive wing of the party moves to a different issue. And we'll see what that does for him in the Senate. I think we're probably likely to see him vote with Democrats more often than with Republicans on things that matter outside foreign policy. That's doing. So the favorabilities are very interesting that, you know, the people in different parties are really well. waiting for in policy right now. I don't know how that's going to change because I think Federman's probably not going to. It's pretty remarkable to me when you think about the story arc

here. I mean, Camille mentioned one element of it, which is this debate about whether he, after this stroke he had, whether he was capable of serving, which really turned into this kind of disabilities debate, a lot of progressive criticism of the right for, you know, like shaming, and making it seem as if somebody in a wheelchair couldn't do the job, and there was like all these sort of bad faith arguments happening back and forth. And at that time, when Federman was sort of having this meteoric political rise, it wasn't just that he was the hoodie shorts guy from a small town and big, rough, gruff, bald dude.

He was also endorsed by Bernie Sanders. he was hammering progressive talking points. I mean, he was coming into office with this kind of like working class, poor representation, Medicare for all. I mean, these were the kinds of things that he was, the populism of the left.

And I think still is. Well, kind of, except that the populism of the left now is very much on the anti-Israel side. It's very much, you know, fighting fire with fire with Donald Trump and, you know, throwing the rule look out and he's not going to play by the rules. Why would we? I mean, that is sort of the spirit of it. And I think a lot of lefty populists feel like the guy they were sold is not the guy that they've

gotten in the Senate. And I don't think they're, I don't think they're wrong to feel that way, to be totally honest. But it's, that part of the story arc to me is, is equally fascinating. And I mean, Camilla, you brought up the stroke debate and his health concerns. I am interested now. I mean, this is tangential to the conversation I was planning to have, but I have to scratch this itch. Four years later, how do we feel about that argument? I mean, at the time, I would say I was somebody who was pretty receptive to people saying,

I don't know if this guy is capable to serve. I was watching him go on TV with, you know, the prompter in front of him that was translating so he could read because his brain was having trouble processing verbal cues and stuff. And I was thinking like, yeah, this seems workable, but I also don't think it's unreasonable for somebody to look at him and look at how he's functioning and think. I don't know if this person should be sitting in the U.S. Senate. Now he's served for four years and his term has been controversial for reason. that have nothing to do with that at all. It's become all about the way his stances have evolved. But it seems like maybe it hasn't actually been that big of an impediment for him to serve.

I mean, he had the brief period where he talked about, you know, going into like a deep depression. I think he was even hospitalized at one point. Yeah. I don't know how related that was. The stroke stuff, it seemed like maybe a little bit. But, you know, I guess I wonder how we would talk about. the fitness for office for him now four years later. Yeah, I was certainly with you at the time.

It was very skeptical, had very serious questions about whether or not he could actually serve, was surprised that his medical team and his family were actually on board with him continuing to run in the condition that he was in. And, I mean, we can go back and look at the footage. It's there. Not just stumbling over his words, not just having difficulty trying to find his words at times seeming to not even know where he was. It was quite bad. There was a kind of a really determined effort to keep him away from the cameras. And I think all of that was, I don't think

we can kind of look at where things are today and look back at those debates and color things in a useful way. I think the reality is the questions were totally appropriate at the time. and I'm grateful that he has recovered, but it certainly wasn't guaranteed. And there is the question of whether or not the arduousness of continuing to run for office and then serving in office while undergoing all of this and trying to recover, does that necessarily help you? It seems like the sort of thing that probably runs the risk of setting you back. It's fortunate that he seems to be much better than he was. And I think it just clearly is. but it's not obvious that you'd get an outcome like that.

Right. And I think just to echo that there's a, what you would call this as outcome bias, that things ended up working out for Federman in this case, but the risks were extremely relevant at the time. He couldn't campaign when he was having a stroke. So you weren't sure how he was going to act if he won the election and then was in the Senate.

Once he was there, he was hospitalized with depression, which I think is common. for people after strokes. But for Democrats, I think that's a reasonable risk to be concerned about, especially at the time. This is one of the things that we forget. Midway through Joe Biden's term, with Senator Feinstein out, the Democratic majority essentially went down to zero. They had no governing ability in the Senate without Feinstein or Federman there, which if there

were to be any really pivotal vote that they needed a majority on at the time, then we would have been saying, oh, that was definitely a huge risk Democrats took riding this guy into the Senate and probably was something that was a liability they should have taken more seriously. It was still a liability. And that doesn't mean it was irrelevant to ask those questions at the time. It's unfair that Federman suffered a strip, but it wasn't unfair to ask whether or not it would be impacting him in Congress. At this point, it does look like he's made a really substantial recovery. and he's acting effectively in office,

even when they force him to wear a suit and tie, poor guy. But, I mean, I don't know. That's only when Nets and Yahoo visits, don't forget. Sir, yes, sir. But, I mean, I don't, I think it's maybe, as much as I said, I think it was fair at the time while he was unable to campaign to ask questions about how he'd be impacted by the stroke. I do wonder how fair it is to ask now

whether or not he's been impacted. I think probably, you know, if you can't see it, I don't see it. So I want to like pass aspersions or cast aspersions saying I think he's being impacted. I think it's far more likely that he's the same guy that ran for office. Just he didn't run on Israel or foreign policy. He ran on economic issues. And I don't think his voting records changed. I'll repeat again, I think this is something progressive's changed on.

But I don't know. Do you think that it, like does it color the way you look back at it at all, Isaac? No, I don't think it colors the way I look back on. I mean, my general perception is I probably overestimated how debilitating whatever he was going through is going to be in the context of how big the staff is and how easy it is to sort of fall into the background even among the Senate with 100 other members there. And, you know, if John Federman has a bad week, do I notice? Not really. No. Like the people who dominate the headlines, dominate the headlines, and I don't have a tab on all 100 senators at all times.

And I think even the U.S. press score doesn't, you know. So it's easier, I think, to exist on the up and down roller coaster that it seems like he's been on than maybe I suspected. I'm sure there's a lot of things we don't know in terms of the way he's voted or how he's made decisions that maybe are alarming or maybe there's a staff member who has a bunch of power

and coerces him in a suit, you know, some positions or whatever. We don't know, I don't, but I don't have any evidence of that. Like, hypothetically, that was the kind of stuff I worried about, but I haven't seen or heard any evidence of that. And so it makes me a little less worried about it. One last piece of Senate

news before we get on to a video that we're all going to watch and enjoy and laugh at together, is that Darlene Graham won her primary yesterday, and we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon. And we've talked about her a good bit on the show. I've made my case. I've made my feelings quite clear, I think, at this point. But it's official now. It was actually a pretty close race. She won 52% of the vote and the runoff.

So she will be the Republican nominee for Senate in South Carolina, which means she will be the next Republican senator, barring one of the biggest political upsets in American history. Just curious how you guys are feeling. Just a temp, just a temp check, you know? Are you guys still good with it? We all still were okay now. We've seen her have a couple debates.

It was all hypothetical. But Darlene Graham will now be serving a six-year term. probably U.S. Senate. Definitely. I mean, there's no need to wait for an election that is going to be an absolute bloodbath. Yeah, I don't know. Just interested in how you guys are feeling, I guess. I think for me, like my, I'm surprised that my reaction remains somewhat nonplussed. I think because when I think about what I expect senators to do right now, the engage and inform, I forget what the exact wording is, but the way that they're meant to respond to the executive branch

and be a deliberative body that's exemplary filled with thought leaders. Is that the Senate that we have? Has that been the Senate that we have? I think Darling Graham's job is to like pull the red lover, and that's what she's being sent to Capitol Hill to do, and I think she'll do it. And the thing that she's doing poorly is campaigning. And a lot of the time we vote for people to go to Washington,

because they're polished speakers. But if we want somebody to show up and vote for the things that their constituents want, I actually think she'll probably do it. And as far as responding to crises, that's the thing that I'd be most concerned of. But to be honest, she's kind of a regular person

and regular people can respond to crises pretty well. A lot of the people in that city are kind of sociopathic. There has to be something a little interesting with you. I mean, I don't want to say they all are because I don't believe that. But there's something different with your brain chemistry to want to subject yourself to a full campaign

in order to run for a national office or a federal level office and then to stay there and then be in the spotlight for that long. And I don't know. I'm still kind of optimistic about how she'll perform even as I'm like face palming along to the things that she says on the campaign trail. She's far from, she's like as polished as,

like a child rolling in the mud when it comes to talking about these things that she gets asked about. But I don't think that's going to mean that she's going to perform poorly as a senator either. These things she gets asked about being U.S. policy. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay. Look, I think it is substantively different than, you know, an elected official who's been in office for, you know, six or seven years, who goes and is at a foreign policy conference and is stammering through every response,

cannot actually respond to just basic questions about U.S. foreign policy. And someone who is drafted into service, everyone understands that that is the circumstance and is openly acknowledging their limitations as a potential lawmaker. The thing to ask in a circumstance like this is not so much what are her various defects, but what is it that voters are seeing that they're casting a ballot for? And it could very well be that Donald Trump said you should vote for her, so that's who they're casting their vote for. And I suspect there are some people who are doing that. And they knew what brother. Or for her brother and just kind of out of loyalty. But I also suspect that there are people who kind of see this in a different sort of way that she is, as Ari said, just kind of a normal everyday person in some respects. And if there does appear to be a little bit more candor and a little less polish in a way that's endearing, perhaps a la some of the other candidates that we've talked about here today, I think that that is a real factor that is not just something I'm comfortable with.

It's probably a good thing if voters are actually looking for some of that kind of authenticity, something that is a little less kind of predictable and normal in our politics without being kind of corrosive, I think. And I don't know that I see her selection or appointment and perhaps eventual election as something that's actually corrosive in our politics. I do, again, understand your concerns, Isaac. I would agree that her aptitude on certain issues not quite up to standard. It's not been demonstrable. But it's entirely possible that she becomes the kind of person that you'd want to see in office.

And also the case that lots and lots of people who are much better talkers are absolutely objectionable. human beings who shouldn't be anywhere near power. That's a fair case to make. And look, I will adopt my posture that I've adopted recently on this show, which is America is a great big experiment. And just as, you know, if New Yorkers want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on government-run grocery stores, and I don't have to pay for it, I'm here to watch. and see what happens, and I'll be very curious.

If South Carolina wants the little sister of Lindsay Graham to be their U.S. Senator for six years because she's Lindsey Graham's little sister, and Donald Trump said so, I'm here for it, and I'm excited to see what she does, and I'll be watching. I have some suspicions that she'll be a source of a lot of content on this podcast over the next six years, but, you know, it remains to be seen.

And to your point, I will say my initial impressions of her are still true, which is she does seem like a very good, nice, kind person. And maybe that's the most you can ask for out of a U.S. Senator. So that's an argument well made. All right, we're going to take one more break. When we come back, potential good guy of the week candidate, maybe, but also just a really funny clip that we got to talk about. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, welcome back to the show. We have a segment on this show that I love to do called Good Guy of the Week. And I don't want to start a trend from handing out Good Guy of the Week awards to people who are like doing exceedingly horrible things for a really long time and then do a slightly good thing.

And I say, hey, good guy of the week. It lowered their standards to the point where they can roll over the bar. Yeah, yeah. I got some blowback for my Laura Lumer, Good Guy of the Week. I still think it was well earned. she did something very interesting. She changed her mind publicly about an issue that was going to cost her some support

and political clout. And I thought that was fascinating. I don't regret it, but I understand the blowback. Jesse Waters, Fox News host, he is emblematic of many of the reasons that I've started this political project called Tangle News. He is bombastic, sensational.

He's intentionally antagonistic. antagonistic. He just tries to be a dick on TV, basically. And he's incredibly good at it. He is very good at it. He loves triggering the libs. He likes being offensive and provocative. And his show is not news, in my opinion. It is entertainment. I've heard from people... I think that's what Fox News would say, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In court, especially. I've heard from people who have, you know, met him personally. I don't know, Jesse. I'd love to come on your show and talk shop if by any chance this comes across your desk, because I have lots of thoughts about what you're doing.

But I've heard he's actually a pretty fun guy to hang out with nice dude and some people's TV personalities are different from the real life. Caviot, caveat, caveat, caveat. Jesse Waters was talking about all the John Oswald, Natalie Harp stuff that we discussed last week on the show. And he did something I thought was very admirable. He just came out and said, I'm not going to criticize. John also for this because Donald Trump says 10 things a day that are way worse and more offensive than this,

and I'm not going to like pretend to clutch my pearls about it. And I was like, oh, nice, honest, appreciate that. Then Jesse Waters this week had on Abdul Al-Said, the Michigan Senate candidate who just won his Democratic primary on his show in the primetime slot, giving earned media to a Democratic Senate candidate who's considered persona non-grada among the, the right. And that alone, I thought, was an interesting choice. The tenor of the interview was even more interesting to me. The two seem like buddy, buddy. I mean, Jesse was being combative. He had some tough questions. He put out the political landmines. But they were laughing. They were jiving. Bill O'Reilly meets John Stewart. It kind of felt like... Yeah. They were both smiling the whole time. And then after the show, Jesse went on The Five, which is another show that he,

is on and he said, I like the guy. I don't think he's the right politician for Michigan, but I like the guy. He's not a stiff. He's not like your normal corporate politician. He has a thing that I understand why people are drawn to it, which I thought was really fascinating, not what I was expecting to hear from him. He didn't do the big, like, Islam scare thing, whatever that we see on Fox News sometimes. He just interviewed the guy. He asked them questions. And I thought it was pretty interesting. And actually, the interview itself, I found valuable in some ways. It veered off into some absurdity, which I'm about to show you.

But I generally thought that it was a valuable piece of content. So good guy of the week, Jesse Waters, admittedly because the bar was low sometimes. But I think he earned it this week. And with that long-winded introduction, I'm going to play a clip from their interview that I would like to get your guys' reaction. action too. The government shouldn't tell you what kind of health care you should have. I just think the government shouldn't tell you

what kind of health care you should have. And if you're a minor, you want to try on kids. Now, if you disagree with that, if you disagree with that, if you disagree that health care decisions need to be made by a doctor and their parents and a patient,

then I just think we agree to disagree. But, you know, you want to put government inside a... So, Abdul, you're a doctor, right? I am. So you think it's okay for a parent to slash his kids? Stingling off, you think that's okay?

I mean, do you, so do you really want to have this conversation? Are you circumcised? Yeah, yeah, but I mean, that's a personal question. Okay, doctor. You probably should want to move on. You probably should want to move on. Is circumcision different than castration? I think it's a problem.

It's a problem that you think that you get to decide what happens between a parent, a doctor, and a patient. And I'm just saying that, yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid's So if you really want to bring that up, you can. I just think you guys are really selective about how you want to talk about these things. Abdul, Michigan's not going for that. That is sick stuff. All right. Can we please not use the words thingling or dingling?

Yeah, it's not do that. We'll set that channels for ourselves. TMI about Jesse Waters aside. Here's my question about this interaction. And there was many much more substantive things. And I know on the surface this is like salacious crap. And this wasn't indicative of how the whole interview went. There's a lot more kind of high-minded stuff.

But what struck me about this moment is that Elsaid was navigating what is probably one of the worst issues for Democrats right now. And that's why Jesse Waters brought this issue, you know, like trans minor surgeries and something like kind of the progressive wing in the Democratic Party. and even many Democratic establishment politicians are trying to navigate an attackful, respectful way to the trans community without scaring off a bunch of Republican voters. And I guess I'm just curious how you think El Sajed did in this interaction.

I mean, watching that as a viewer, do you think that, you know, bringing up the circumcision, focusing on choice between parents, doctors, patients, kids? Does that message land? you know, Jesse ends that part of the interview by saying Michigan's not going for that. This is crazy stuff, man. Like, it's wacky. And I watched it and thought, well, like, I don't agree with Elsaad's comparison between, you know,

gender transition surgery and circumcision. But I think the point he's getting across, which is like you make decisions about your body and consult with your doctor that are adjacent to the kinds of decisions being made here, is well taken. And yeah, I'm curious to hear your guys' reactions to this kind of funny, but also serious and maybe semi-important back and forth. I think Elsie is very fortunate that he wasn't having a conversation with a more capable interlocutor. I think that certainly the circumcision being equated with gender transition surgeries is ridiculous. I mean, male and female circumcision alone. I mean, you could have actually tried to draw that comparison.

And that would have been a more interesting question. Is he also willing to endorse female genital mutilation? I don't know. It could just be a choice that families are making together or on behalf of their children. I think a lot of Americans would have issues with that. But, yeah. Yeah, I agree. Like, I think the analogy, awful.

I think I can't remember who it was. And I want to attribute it to somebody falsely. but I saw a tweet response to the comment by O'Said here that said, oh, so interesting, you support the headings, or you don't support the headings, but you've had your tonsils removed. And it's just like not a great comparison to make. And then also, right, like it's not something that people are making when they're three days old autonomously.

So what is actually the point that you believe that you're driving home here? But I do think up until that point, I think the analogy was in poor service of his argument, which was that he wants to see these decisions be made between doctors and patients and in cases of minors, doctors and parents. And I think that's a consistent and fairly successful message. It's ancient history now, but we remember the midterms under Biden were mostly a referendum on abortion

and that kind of message was a winning message for years ago and I expect that it will continue to be a winning message even though the subject matter is a little different here. We're not talking about abortion, we're talking about gender affirming surgery for minors, I still think that's something that's a good response and that's a good policy position to articulate

that I think we'll find purchase. Yeah, I think like my most positive read on this, is this is probably an issue that'll be the hardest for Elsaid to navigate. Even though it's so unbelievably irrelevant, I mean, it's just worth saying. I'll say it. I mean, it's relevant to voters, but in the real grand scheme of things, the fact that we're even talking about it or that it comes up on a Fox News interview is still kind of astounding to me.

Like there are a probably less than 100 number of gender transition surgeries that have happened in the state of Michigan in the last year. I don't know what the actual number is. I mean, my minors, it's certainly very small. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I would be surprised if that number were more than 100. And the entire world sort of like, the political world, revolves a little bit around how politicians like LSAID can navigate a question like that when he's focused a lot of his platform and his campaign on these sort of more kitchen

table issues. And I just, you know, I had sort of two simultaneous reactions. One was like, Jesse is asking a question that nobody should care about. And I can't believe you get 20 minutes with this guy and you spent, you waste one, one of those minutes on this question feels like a huge way. On becoming of the Tangle Good Guy of the Week, really. Yeah, unbecoming of the Tango good guy of the week. And then my second reaction was sort of what you guys said, which is like, this is a bad analogy.

And like, I don't think it was in good service to his point. I think the arguments that you hammer politically are parents, kids, doctors, they get their choice and the government shouldn't be able to intercede and mess that up. And that's an argument I'm very sympathetic to. I think it's a lot of argument more libertarian, right-leaning people might be sympathetic to, a lot of independence might be sympathetic to. And he was kind of hammering that point. And then all of a sudden he just like sort of took this stray on circumcision, which like I'm sure impacts, you know, 50% of the male voters at least that he has. So I thought it was a little bit of a blunder. But an interesting interaction.

action nonetheless. Jesse Waters said on the five when he was sort of saying how likeable he was that El Cid had had a couple bad days of media, which I thought was interesting. I mean, it seems like he's getting the limelight now. I saw that he was kind of running away from some questions about Green New Deal and past comments he had had. But I watched this whole interview and my impression that I had a few weeks ago when he won the primary and we talked about on the show, which was like, this guy is dangerous politically, and I think he's going to do really well and probably win this Michigan Senate race. I think it holds. I mean, that is the least friendly environment that he's probably going to find himself in between now and November. And at the end of it,

the guy on the other side of the camera is saying how likable he is, even though he's not sure he's right if he's the right guy from Michigan. If you're the LSAID comms team and you're watching Jesse Waters talk like that the next day, I think you're pretty happy with now. things went, honestly. Yeah. I would say again, though, a more capable, more capable interviewer would have just done a heck of a lot. It would have been more interesting to watch. I mean, honestly, even the conversation about, you know, families and doctors and them making choices together, well, sir, how does that actually work with the policies that you prefer? I mean, Medicare for all, you would like the government to be involved in all health care decisions. And insurers have to

make decisions about the things that they're willing to pay for and not willing to pay for. And not willing to pay for. You are turning a personal family issue into even more of a governmental issue. How do you square that circle? That's a real question that he actually has to contend with. And it's what makes this a political football. And if there are real moral questions bound up in this, certainly voters are going to have concerns about it. I mean, it is a meaningful deviation from the norms that most people are familiar with. And it is an issue that for some people on the left is all important. They feel like their humanity is under attack. It makes sense that there's a debate about this. Makes sense that there'll be questions asked about it. The real issue is,

do you have quality responses to those questions? And El Saeed, for all of the kind of good things that can be said about him as a campaigner, doesn't have very good answers to those questions that he ought to have known he was going to be asked about. So he's good in some ways. In other ways a little less, a little less, though. And I think Camille and I are on different sides of the health care insurance, like policy reform, ideological spectrum here. So I think I will say that it is a different thing to talk about how the government's involved with funding and managing health care versus decisions once you're in the room with the doctor. Maybe that feels parsimonious to you, but I think that's distinct

enough to draw a line and say he's not being hypocritical for it. I want to hear you say more about that, but perhaps not now. Perhaps in Maine over a beer. Gentlemen, we're a little over an hour here, and I don't want to be too long-winded, but I think I'll wrap by saying maybe it's time for an email to Abdul Al-Said's press team, a little invite on suspension of the rules. I'd like to get this guy in the room and chat with him a bit because I think he's running a super interesting campaign.

And I agree with you, Camille. I don't think he sat down across from some great interviewers quite yet. We're going to have to find one. Yeah, not on this show, but somewhere. We'll discover it. All right, fellas. We had a little bit of tariff talk we wanted to get to, but I think we're going to have to table it for next week

and perhaps play the music and get into our grievances for this evening. John Lull, from the undergrounds of paternity leave, you can play the music. The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. All right, Camille, why don't you start us off with some grievances this week? Yeah, well, I just got some unfortunate news, almost, what, 20 minutes before we started recording, that my car, which threw a notification at me as I just got back to Calais.

California, packing up all this stuff and getting ready to leave, was planning to put the car on a trailer to take it to our new home state of Connecticut. And it turns out that for the second time in maybe just over a year, rodents have gotten inside of my vehicle and are once again eating what I believe are these soy-based electrical cables on the underside. Wait, that's a big detail to me. Soy-based. I'm going to talk about that. Yeah. cables that connect the drive train to the battery of my electric car. And yeah, it's super frustrating to discover that this time I won't be on the hook for, you know,

tens of thousands of dollars, which thankfully I had insurance, took care of. It sounds like it's just a couple thousand dollars, but it's still not fun, still no good. And it makes me wonder why car manufacturers aren't doing more to me. mitigate against this horrible thing that apparently lots and lots of people are dealing with where rats and presumably other kinds of critters are getting into people's cars, eating them, and costing them thousands and thousands of dollars, which I suppose that is an expense for me, but it's also an opportunity for the car dealers who get to repair these cars and replace these cables with the same vulnerable and enticing cables.

I don't like that. Maybe you can lend some material from the tinfoil hat you're wearing to insulate your cables here. Soy based. Are they not? Do you say more about that? This is what has been explained to me by people who are in the industry. This is not me wearing a journalist hat. this is me simply laundering things that I've heard, that part of the reason why the cables are vulnerable isn't only because the battery is warm and the underside of the car becomes this place where the rodents are attracted,

but that the cables themselves, the fibrous materials used to compose them, include some sort of soy-based materials, and that is part of the reason why the cables are an attractive thing for these rodents to eat. Perhaps that's untrue. I would be happy to be happy

discover it, whatever the case is, they have been attractive to rodents and vulnerable to rodents. And both of those seem like things that they probably ought to be doing something about. Oh, my. That's what? I'm sorry. Yeah, tough, tough break, man. I want to feel bad for you, but I want to. Yeah, it's hard. Dispositionally opposed to it. Dispositionally opposed to feeling bad for you. Sorry, buddy. You'll figure it out, man. Your electric car, your fancy electric car from Tesla or whatever, it's all, it'll be okay. I've never had the...

I've never had the rat infestation, but I've heard tall tales of it from many of friends who have left trucks or cars parked in one place for, you know, more than a week. And the warmth of the inside of a vehicle apparently is a very very important. nice place for rodents to gather and nest. So I don't wish it upon anybody, especially not you. What's the solution? You just bring it in and it gets all rewired and then you're good to go. You pay them thousands of dollars. They do the rewiring. The last time, though, they did the rewiring. I was driving the car on the 101 and the weird countdown clock began and it nearly shut off while driving and they needed to do additional work. So there's the problems they can identify.

and the problems that will subsequently emerge. I don't, never love a countdown clock on a combustible anything. It is bizarre. Yeah, bizarre. All right, Ari, what do you have for us? Yeah, I'm kind of going to be dusting off a bit of a classic for myself, which is just that, oh boy, I'm at that place where, like, I'm trying to say this exactly right, and I should just, like, rip the Band-Aid.

These chickens are challenging me that we have, and it's making me feel like I'm racist. And I can explain. We have 15 chickens. They've come in different varieties. We have white ones. We have red ones. We have red and white speckled ones. We have black ones.

And the ones that are black feathered are very... Careful. Careful. They're very clever. And they're challenging. Oh. They're escape artists, and they are keeping us on our toes in a way that I was not prepared for. They do this thing where, like, we have our coop set up in a way that is impossible to describe without, like, a diagram.

And it just suffice to say that we access it through a garden, which is fenced off and the coop's within the garden. And there's, like, part of the run that's exterior to the garden, but they can't get out of it. But when you open the gate into the garden through the fence, they are, able to jump from the coop to the open gate and then escape and they figure that out and are now like running that playbook. And like we're just going to feed and service the chickens and then just like one of these black feathered chickens and it's always one of the black feathered chickens is escaping. And it's making me feel like I'm profiling. But I'm like it is they're there's something different about them. And they're challenging to us. But yeah. And it makes it makes me want to like,

like, well, how do I describe this to my neighbors now who come me under the chicken? Well, they got out again, which ones? It's the blacks. What do you mean by they? What do you mean by they? What do you mean those chickens? Yeah, I know. It's very uncomfortable.

You didn't call them clean and articulate. All of our chickens are clean. But the insults to injury is we have a herning dog and she does fucking nothing. She's useless. I would say that she's like non-plused by the chickens, but it's not even that. I think she reacts to them in the same way that you might react to a shrub, which is to say it's in her vision and she avoids it

but she just doesn't interact at all. Like a chicken escape. I'm like, Callie, round it up. It's like, what you want? And she like walks around it towards me. Like, do you have do your food for me? I'm like, do your thing? Use your instincts. Like, bark at the bird and make it come back here. It's like, great. Thanks. Thanks for nothing, buddy.

The shepherd and the Australian shepherd is long gone in her, man. It's mostly one in mental. I've seen her like round up cattle in her early years as a youngster. And I think she's put that out to pastures at this school. I think if you had gotten her some chickens when she was like six months year old, she'd be a pro by now. But, yeah, she'll be a lot of time.

13 years later, yeah, it's a little different ballgame. She only wants to corral a charismatic megafauna, do cows. Yeah. Do cows fit? I don't know. I mean, we're looking into pasturing cows again here. We've got like this really nice, large meadow. It used to be done.

this land, it would be really cool to have the charismatic makafana come back. Aren't rats eating your vehicles? This doesn't be any... It gets too cold up here, I think. Maybe Cali will only round up the white chickens and it runs in front lane. If that happens, I won't even tell you guys about it. It's just turning into a Chris Rock skit. Yeah.

All right. We'll move on before we get to too much trouble. We got white chickens. All right, my grievance this week is fairly straightforward. I have deformity in my heel that's destroying my quality of life. I have what's called Haglin's deformity. I don't you guys heard of this. It's pretty common, apparently. Harle Hagelin, famous Pittsburgh Penguins Stanley Cup champion.

Is that maybe who it's named after? I have no idea. I had, I found me. out a couple years ago when I had a partial tear of my Achilles, and I went into like an orthopedic surgeon and they did x-rays and they looked at my feet and they said, oh, you have this thing called Haglinds, and Formy makes you like a little bit more predisposed this. It's basically like on the back of my heel, there's kind of like a bony, it's like just a little bit bony outgrowth instead of being flat. It's kind of like a bump.

And I guess it's super common, but it sucks because. basically every pair of shoes that I buy, I wear out the little back part. Just like in like three months. So I get this, I just recently got this great pair of shoes I really like. I've been wearing them all the time. And then I put them on yesterday in the morning. And just like the moment I put them on,

I felt that sort of like rough sensation on the back of my heel when I slid them on and was like, God damn it's happened again. I've just, like, worn through these that are, like, already in whatever is under the cloth of the shoe. I have this horrible Achilles tendonosis that I can't beat, which is, you know, recurring tenonitis, whatever, I went to a PT. And he was like, yeah, you've got this heel deformed. I was like, ah, the heel deformity, here we go again. And he just tried to explain to me how this thing makes it worse and da-da-da-da.

So, yeah, I'm feeling deformed currently. And there's nothing I can really do. do about it. All I want is a pair of shoes that will last me more than three months or for the pain in my right Achilles to go away while I'm playing basketball. Either of those two things I would take. It doesn't have to be both, one or the other. And now I'm paying PT to help figure it out. And it's burning through my wallet. It sucks. And Haglin's deformity. That's my grievance this week. Let me help by distracting you a little bit by making you annoyed at me and say you could call it your Ike Killies heel.

All right. That's it for the show. It's been great. Seeing you guys, as always, really excellent. Right until the last minute, it was a real... When it got legendary, you know, I'm in that now, and I'm just embracing it. Oh, my... Yeah.

All right, gentlemen, we got to get out of here. It was good to see you both, and we'll catch you guys next week. You're welcome. Later. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Wohl. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas.

Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.