Tangle - Suspension of the Rules. - Isaac, Ari and Kmele revisit the ICE shooting in Minneapolis, the Jerome Powell investigation and the intra-party wars on the right.

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

On todays show Isaac, Ari and Kmele revisit the ICE shooting in Minneapolis, MN. Next they talk about whether or not Isaac/Trump have crossed the rubicon on the Jerome Powell investigation. They then have a discussion about the intra-party wars that are happening right now on the right. Last but not least, a very sweet The Airing of Grievances section.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!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 edited and engineered 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, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up, we revisit the shooting in Minneapolis. We talk about whether I slash Trump have crossed the Rubicon on the Jerome Powell investigation, a little bit of Don Road Doctrine, and then some talk about the intra-party wars happening on the right. It's a very good episode that ends with some really sweet stuff in the grievances section. So you've got to stick around until the end. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the evening. suspension of the rules podcast. I don't even know how to introduce ourselves and the news this week.

It feels like whatever direction I go, somebody will say, why aren't you talking about this? That's not the biggest story. Us bombing Iran potentially is not bigger than us stealing Greenland. This Supreme Court ruling on trans rights and being banned for women's sports is not as important as what's happening in some Supreme Court case about search and seizures. There's so much news. We are drinking from the fire hose perpetually.

My head's spinning. But I have two brilliant men here. Yes, I'm also drinking. Ari just showed a drink. I did pour myself a bourbon before this show because... Drinking from Steinz and frosted glasses and every manner of thing, including fire hose. I did not know we were drinking.

Camille. I just... I just thought, you know, know what, I earned this. We're having a late recording. Camille's got a beautiful water. Careful, Camille Foster. I'm here with... Yeah, Camille Fosser, our editor at large, and Ari Weitzman, our managing editor. I wish we were in person for this one because there's a lot to cover, but alas, we'll have to do one more remote. I think we need to start with the story I didn't even mention, which is what's

happening in Minnesota right now. Last week, as we got on this show, things were a little different. I was in Texas. I think, Camille, were you in Connecticut or New York? Maybe you're in, okay, you're in New York. So you guys were where you were. I was in West Texas. We had just come on to record, I mean, literally hours, not even hours after news had broke about the shooting. So we were doing a lot of speculation. We've talked a bit on the podcast about what's happened since. I think a few things were set on the show that aged fairly well. I mean, from my perspective, at least one was that I did not feel like the shooting of Renee Good was particularly justified.

We didn't even have her name. We weren't even able to name this woman when we recorded this last. But I felt very uncomfortable with the use of force that we saw. Camille, you suggested we were going to see a surge of ice or National Guard troops in Minnesota, which should now happen. Oh, really? Oh, thanks. All right, well, I thought it was you, but I'll take credit for that. Now has happened.

You know, I think I saw a thousand more troops being sent or a thousand more agents being sent to Minnesota. We've seen protests. We've seen the backlash. Yeah, there's been a huge ramp up of enforcement. I mean, every time I go to the homepage of Star Tribune or log on to X or go on YouTube, I mean, there's a new video in Minnesota of some. very testy altercation, whether it's American citizens or illegal immigrants or people whose status is unknown, being confronted, arrested, questioned in physical confrontations with ICE. It feels like things are getting very, very, very tense. I think maybe to start as like

a table set, I'd be curious here from YouTube, a week ago, we sat here on the show recording based on some video angles we had seen, some limited information we had about this confrontation. I'm curious over the last week how your views maybe have evolved if they have. What about your first impressions you feel like maybe have changed around the shooting? I'd just be curious to hear you reflect on where you stand now and if there's any contrast with where you stood a week ago. And Ari, maybe we could start with you.

Sure. Yeah, you know more about where I've stood on this a week ago since we spend a lot of time discussing the take and reader question and our coverage in general every morning. But I'd been reviewing these videos and trying to see things that were different than what my first read was. And I don't see a lot that has changed my impression. If anything, and this was part of what we answered in a reader question. If anything, the thing that I have evolved in my position on just regarding Renee Goods, specifically, it's that the second ICE vehicle that arrives at the scene where a couple of agents get out of the truck and one of them starts barking, get out of the fucking car and moves to pull the handle open,

that he instigated a lot more of the events that were set in the motion than ended with the other officer shooting her than it seemed at first. It looked like it was a tense exchange. It looked like the officer who ended up shooting. Good was filming because something had happened prior to that that felt escalatory intense. And he was distracted by being involved with an argument with Good's partner as she was attempting to get into the truck. Then that agent got out, started barking orders, looked like she got spooked and tried to flee as the officer was distracted by his prior conversation and passed in front of the truck or hit her SUV seemingly without really knowing what was happening.

and then reacted in a way that was, it looked like it was a little panicky. That was a little bit more of a, now it's a little bit more of a complex, fuller idea of what I thought happened, but certainly does not at all look like good was intentionally attempting to run him over. Certainly does not look like a terrorist attack, the way that the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem said initially before we saw the video. If anything, you can see,

more of what we thought at the time, which was, I could see an argument in court if and when this gets to court where the officer argues that he had a reasonable fear for his safety and he reacted in self-defense. I've learned a little bit more since then that that defense is going to be flawed because his action goes against guidelines for how to respond to people who are threatening with their vehicle, not in their vehicle, but with their vehicle. Guidelines for law enforcement, those situations, do. advise that you move, and he was in the process of moving. So I have a hard time seeing an argument that leads to his acquittal that says this defense was necessary for his protection. That said,

I know that there's a lot of leniency given to the reaction people have in those situations of, okay, there's a reasonable fear, a reasonable person could have been afraid for their safety, and this action was defensive. I could see that leading to his acquittal, but I'm less convinced now that it will, if, if, and when that goes to trial. There are other videos around Minnesota that we've seen that, you know, are about other issues. Certainly all looks like it's been getting more tense in the days since this event and not less.

Camille? Yeah, I mean, a lot of that sounds pretty consistent with my read of things. Ari, I did, at the time we talked, I hadn't seen the video either. I think I confessed to you guys. I don't know if I did during the podcast. that I've seen a lot of these, and they're often really hard to watch. And this was certainly very difficult to watch. But I have gotten through it a couple of times. I was even watching it again today and saw some things in there that I hadn't seen before. Her partner saying at the

moment that you hear an officer say, get out of the car, drive, drive, it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. And that's when the car, she kind of turns the wheels, which again, turning the wheel away from the officer certainly does make it very difficult for me to believe that she was trying to hurt the officer. But fleeing the scene, not a great idea when law enforcement is telling you to get out of the car. You want to stay there and continue to argue your case and insist that this is a bad idea for them to pull you out of the car. That's fine. Running away, not a good idea. And I think something I heard one of my comrades on the Fifth Column say recently actually is, you know, this is a complicated situation. And it is entirely possible and reasonable. And in this case, I think very appropriate

to have multiple ideas in your head at the same time. That in general, you don't want to be in a position where you're impeding law enforcement. You don't want to be in a position where you're fleeing from law enforcement. And you want to be really thoughtful when you're interacting with them in a combative way. And at the same time, there is a lot, a lot, a lot that I have to say critically about the ICE agents. I mean, you're a government official. You're first, obligation and duty is to make certain that when you leave that circumstance, everyone is good. And certainly you want to look out for and protect yourself. But there are so many questions here about the officer's conduct and really about the administration of this entire agency and department.

The fact that ICE has managed to add what it sounds like, the administration suggests that ICE has gone up to 20-odd thousand employees, and that number is almost certainly in but they've hired, not employees, but people that they've hired to kind of put out on the street is astonishing, like a nearly doubling of your team. And you went about doing that by severely lowering your standards, going from months and months of months to training to a degree of training that could better be stated in days or weeks. 47 days. These are people who are out on the streets who don't understand the law, who don't understand procedure and practice, and who, as you said, Ari, they were the ones in that context,

at least from the footage that we have available, who seemed to be escalating the situation, making it more and more intense. And that is a choice. You don't have to respond in kind if you're a law enforcement officer and someone's being belligerent to you necessarily. And trying to calm the situation is something that I've yet to see in any of these videos ICE officers doing. And unfortunately, in the aftermath, while we've seen all of these protests, we're also seeing a lot more of these videos of citizens having confrontations with ICE officers. And in many instances, they are perhaps even more reluctant to give their credentials. And I mean, not even reluctant, defiant when asked for their credentials.

You only get informed that they're a citizen once you've got them in handcuffs. And at that point, they know that you're at a pretty substantial disadvantage as the ICE officer. So there's a lot of complicated things here. But one thing we did mention as well, Isaac, talking about things that age pretty well. I remember talking about actually paying attention to investigations here. And one of the most, I think, frustrating aspects of this is initially the state and the federal government were supposed to be cooperating on this investigation. And almost immediately, the federal government decided, nah, we're not going to share any of that information with you.

We're not sharing any details of our investigation. And at the same time that they're doing that almost immediately, Kristy Noem, the vice president of the United States, various other federal officials are out there. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security even releases a video on social media, all stating explicitly. This was a terrorist attack. This was a completely justified shooting.

what happened to the investigation? How is it possible that in less than eight hours, less than 18, less than 24, less than 36, you can fully investigate complex circumstance like this and reach a conclusion about whether or not something nefarious to place here or at a minimum, even if we're not focused on placing blame, something that might have something to do with procedures and protocols, where there might be reforms that could ensure that when a non-violent, and I think that is fair to say at this stage, but again, the investigation isn't completed, but when an unarmed civilian has an encounter with law enforcement and dies as a result of that encounter, something is wrong,

and we need to understand what that is so we can fix the problem. Yeah, I mean, not only did the contours of the investigation change, but they seem to be blocking these state officials out completely. And now we've seen Minnesota prosecutors who are resigning in protest about how the investigations are taking place, which is fairly alarming to me. I mean, this is not a new thing. I mean, I don't want to, it's a little tangential.

I don't want to, like, get off on its side too much. But this is probably the fifth or sixth time that we've seen, like, state-level attorney generals or prosecutors, whatever, resign in protest of actions that the Trump administration has taken as an attempt at sort of creating some five alarm fire, which I don't think has been as effective as maybe they hoped, but it's happening and we should probably pay some close attention to it. And one detail about that resignation that I found particularly frustrating. I want to use, actually I'll use a stronger word, disturbing, is that it was because they were

initiating an investigation into the spouse of the woman who was murdered. And I did it again. This is at least the third time where I've been publicly discussing this story and I've used the word murder. When I mean to say kill and it is because it is an emotional story and I'm a human being and I acknowledge as much, I want to wait to use that word until or if it becomes appropriate here because I don't know. So the woman who died, imagine that circumstance.

You lose your spouse and suddenly discover, and you're there to witness it happen. And you soon discover that you are now a subject of an investigation, kind of tangential to that. It's unimaginable. So to see the resignations, again, as you mentioned, Isaac, because we have seen this a few times, is just deeply frustrating, deeply frustrated. The lack of remorse, too, just to add to that, like a lot of the commentary that I hear not just from the administration, but from editorials that are professing to have the viewpoint that this was preventable. But most of the impetus is on the woman who got shot rather than the law enforcement officers who were charged with maintaining order in the situation. It's just that, you know, there's this FAAFO kind of like fuck around and find out, like attitude towards.

Yeah. hey, don't get in our way and we won't have any problems. And I think even if that's your conclusion, it cannot be your lead. We have to pause and say, whatever happened here, we need to understand it so we can prevent it from happening again because this was a tragedy. And I think that lack of just moderate posture, I'm not surprised by it. We have to not be following the way this administration hands. It's PR at this point to be surprised by it. But it is, it's sort of a new depth of discomfort with that posture that this incident's bringing out for me.

Can I direct a question that you guys related to this? It's something we've talked about before in the context of how public officials are dealing with one another. It is certainly the case that the Trump administration in flooding the area with additional ICE officers, and kind of ramping up their own narrative efforts to say, not only did we do the right thing here, we're going to get tougher. Local officials, like Mayor Fry,

have made a point of coming out and speaking in a really defiant way. And, I mean, you know, get the F out of here was the message immediately after this happened. I don't think I've seen nearly as many, examples of elected officials urging calm, even while condemning the actions of the Trump administration. I know some of that has been sad, but the emotions are at such a fever pitch. And at some point in the past, I remember as having a conversation about the responsibility and obligation of elected officials, Democrats in particular, who are in opposition to the Trump

administration, perhaps trying to find ways to build bridges and cultivate more productive relationships with the administration, even perhaps at the expense of taking the opportunity to really bang the drum hard. And I don't know how I feel about it in this circumstance, but I do wonder about the fact that there are other cities and there have been reports about the new mayor of New York and the president of the United States texting frequently.

And I'm here in New York now, and New York hasn't seen the sort of ice operations that we've seen in a number of other places. Do either of you think that in a circumstance like this, there is perhaps just in the, with the aspiration of getting a better outcome, a responsibility on the part of, you know, the opponents of the president,

critics of this administration, broadly speaking, to try and take a more collaborative tact even in a moment like this in order to perhaps achieve a better result. I know you've been silent here for a while, Isaac, but do you mind if I answer that real quick before throwing to you? Please, yeah. Okay.

I think my sort of posture here is that I think opposition does not have to look like direct confrontation a lot of the time. We've got suspension of the rules on video now, and I've got like shelves set up, and behind my left shoulder is a little picture. sure of Mr. Miyagi. And there's something that Mr. Miyagi says to Danielson, which was try not to fight, but if fight win.

And I think the try not to fight ethos is like just gone. I really admire, and I wrote about this in a take a month ago, the Portland style of protest of just make it look like a farce, make everybody feel ridiculous for participating. It doesn't have to be, you want to fight, we will beat you. That tends to make situations worse. and I'm not trying to say the protesters are the ones who own the responsibility for things getting out of control. They have some agency here, though.

And something you can do is protest in ways that make the situation like you are going to make your opposition known, but you aren't going to do it in a way that makes the thing you are opposing feel threatened. You can do it in a way that makes the thing you are opposing fuel of various range of emotions. And one of the things that the people in Portland, and shoes with their costumes and outlandish nature is often embarrassment.

And I think that can be really effective. But that's just, I wanted to try to get that out. So thank you, Isaac. I'm sure you've got a lot to say. No, I mean, I appreciate that approach. I mean, I guess, Camille, the thing that's hard for me is like, it's easy to say if you're the mayor of one of these towns, come to the Trump administration with an idea of reconciliation

or an idea of turning the temperature down. I think it's a different ballgame when somebody gets killed who's a citizen of the town these people who you are supposed to be protecting and creating a safe environment for as a public leader. And then the Trump administration at the same time

is saying, yeah, we're going door to door with ICE agents asking people doing citizen checks. You know, I mean, I want there to be people to turn the temperature down. But I've also thought a little bit about this question, independent of you asking it, of if I were an elected official, you know, how would I navigate a situation like this

where I don't want the Trump administration to be taking the actions they're taking in my backyard. And I think Zohraamandani's tack is smart. I mean, from what I understand about it, being on the outside of what I've done, I've heard a little bit off the record from some friends who are, you know, kind of circling the, his administration is like, he is genuinely playing the Trump game of better friend than foe and we'll work it out when the head's butt, you know. But at the same time, I have, me personally, I have a very, what I used to think was a conservative impulse. Maybe it's more a libertarian impulse of like a distrust of the government and a distrust of agents of the government and distrust of police of the government baseline.

So when I see the vice president of the United States saying openly, yeah, we're going door to door looking for people who were going to arrest and deport. And I imagine how I would feel, look, I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There's a lot of people who are here illegally. I know for a fact. If I were open my door one day and three mass ice agents carrying guns were like, hey, are there any non-citizens living in this house? I'd be like, get the fuck off my front porch. I mean, really?

That is my inclination. It's just like, do you have a warrant? what, like, what's the statutory, you know, I'm, I would be one of those, like, douchebags who gets films it and it's like, I know USC code, you know, I don't really know them by heart. But, like, that is, that is, that is one of those douchebags. Yeah, yeah, I aspire to be one of those douchebags. That is like my, that's like my, that's like my, that's like the heart for me. It's just like, you don't get to knock on my door without good reason because you guys are

doing citizen checks up and down the block. That is not how it works in this country. I'm sorry, get lost. So when I see Jacob Frye doing that, I'm a little bit nodding my head. I mean, I disagree with him on a lot of stuff. It's a very progressive mayor, but I'm just, you know, like, I get it.

And I used to think that that was this sort of conservative, libertarian principle, which it just, what's happening now feels so incompatible with a small government, destructive government, general aesthetic, and disposition, and yet it's being fully embraced because the bad guys are the immigrants and the liberals and whatever, and so we're going to go get them. So, yeah, I wish there was a simple way to do that, but I also think these people have a responsibility to say, actually, we get to control what happens

at the state level, at the municipal level. We get to decide what federal agents are coming in and out when we haven't requested them, or at least we have some agency over how they're conducting themselves. and so I appreciate the local leaders doing that. But yeah, I agree. I mean, it's a really, it's a big, you know, it's very circular because you don't do that. And then they, you become confrontational and then it gets worse, obviously. And I just don't know that I would have the self-control or composure to take that tack if I were the mayor of Minneapolis right now. And I don't know that it's morally the right thing for him to do either to sort of back down.

and try and play nice. I think the line in the sand is probably smart to draw. Or even how effective it would be, because asking about building bridges, it's tough to build bridges when the bridge you build is a one-way street. Sure, sure. And I totally get that. And I think some of it is just the function of the way that the president does

his negotiations. And I suspect we'll talk about some foreign policy things in a little bit. But a lot of that is the kind of much worse could happen. Let's make a deal. And it's important to remember the context here. This didn't happen in a vacuum. There was a build-up to this. This is why Governor Wals ends up

and mired in political scandal that perhaps ends his career. Then you have ice kind of surging into the area following a viral video that makes it seem as though every daycare center in the area is being run by criminals who actually don't have any kids in them. That's the context.

that led up to all of this. So there were many, many days in weeks even where one could have imagined reaching out and saying, let's have a conversation here. If, for example, you're willing to say, hey, I can imagine that there are a couple of people who have both criminal records and are here illegally, would you perhaps like some assistance in identifying those people so that we can avoid going house to house and doing some of these other performative things that we've seen happen at other places. We would love to have it happen in a coordinated, calm, peaceable way. Maybe that is an opportunity here that some people on the left of center should take advantage of. It seems like some immigration enforcement is broadly popular politically, which one would

imagine would benefit the president, but his numbers are cratering precisely because he's not going about this in a terribly sophisticated way. I just want really quick. I just want to say something. Because it's important to clarify my, like, get the F off my porch, posher. I have friends, family members, like people whom I love dearly who are law enforcement officers of various kinds. I'm not somebody who has like a, you know, all cops are bastards disposition. That is not the perspective I'm coming from.

I'm probably closer to that than you in all honesty. Yeah. And I'm not that. But I'm not that either. And my, like as a general approach to immigration, I think immigration enforcement is really important. And I've, the one core thing that Donald Trump has always stood for about reducing illegal immigration in our country, I broadly support because I think if there's order in the system, the right people are going to get in, the right asylum seekers are going to get in, and the wrong people are going to get caught in the system and get deported. And that's good for everybody. It's good for the migrants.

is good for us. Like, taking all of that into account, you know, I saw somebody post a video today, a right-wing account, posts a video today of this is how CNN covered Obama's deportations 10 years ago. Look how positive all the deportations, how positive the coverage of the deportations are. And then it's the seven-minute video that I watched of these ICE agents conducting really responsible, targeted immigration enforcement efforts where they're, they're arresting people who are here illegally and have committed serious crimes, or they're going to workplaces and they're arresting people illegally,

but they're not doing it like masked up, guns drawn, aggressive. They're going in and talking to employers and they're trying to keep the situation calm and quiet. And I'm like, no, the positive coverage here is a product of the conduct of the ICE officers. Because again, to your point, Camille, many Americans support immigration enforcement. what they don't support is seeing American citizens getting dragged out of their car by their hair because they refuse to hand over their papers, quote unquote. They don't support door-to-door citizen checks. They don't support seeing people who are here illegally being tossed in a chokeholds or having guns pointed on them

and then dragged into unmarked cars by mass agents and driven off into the night. That's not the kind of thing we support as Americans, generally speaking. So, you know, I mean, this is Trump's bed politically. he's made, he's going to have to lay in it now. I don't think this is, I think it's a very winning issue for him that's turning into a losing issue. And I'm happy that a lot of people are upset about it because I don't think it's right. And I think people like me who are more independent, politically minded, or closer to the middle should be speaking out in harsh terms about this. Because if you grant this kind of power to the government, if you say this is okay,

if you say this kind of enforcement is okay, then it's going to be your issue next. It's going to be AOC, 2028 with FBI agents confiscating everybody's assault weapons because, you know, they pass the law, they nuke the filibuster and pass an assault weapons ban in the Senate. Like, I'm sorry, just like, that is the door you're opening, and it is a perfectly reasonable analogy to some of the basic rights that are being violated right now by ICE agents. And if you're not ready or prepared for that, then you shouldn't accept this. I mean, it's just, it's baseline. and we shouldn't.

And I think there's ways that we can even ask, is this doing the thing we want it to be doing? If you are somebody who wants to see more immigration enforcement, more deportations as many as we can, Trump's got a long way to go to catch Obama. And there's a reason why he was able to set those numbers, which is he didn't invite confrontation about that. And I think that's something to keep in mind

about how to be effective, especially as a leader of a country as large and multifaceted as ours, even as like a leader of a city or a state or any kind of official or any kind of leader. It's that you can pick battles that you can win. But imagine that there's like 50 points on the board. And there's 50 points that you could win in any confrontation you might have with somebody. And you can choose to cooperate with somebody and lose 10 of them and get 40. And you each get 40 and you walk away with a tie and you've got 40 points from it.

And maybe in this situation, the analogies like Trump wants to do some cooperation. with the mayor of Minneapolis. And he may end up getting a thousand immigrants that were there illegally, that can go through the court systems efficiently without confrontation and get processed. And that never makes the headlines. Or you can fight them. And you can leave that confrontation where you've won it 25, 23.

And instead of getting those thousand immigrants, you're getting 200. And maybe there's some collateral damage. But you are in the papers winning that conference. You didn't do the job as well as maybe you could have through other tactics, but you picked an enemy when you didn't need to, and then you beat that enemy. Like, does make no mistake. Trump is kind of winning this power struggle. He's the head of the executive branch of the federal government.

If he's going to pick a power struggle, he's got the upper hand. But I genuinely don't think that it's the right tactic to accomplish the objective, if the objective is trying to efficiently and quickly, get people who are adjudicatable as illegally residents of the United States out of the country. It just doesn't seem like the right tactic to me. We'll be right back after this quick break. Okay, I have one more thing on the Minnesota stuff and then I want to move on. This tweet caught my eye, and I'm curious to get your guy's take on it.

CBS News about five hours ago published a report, a breaking news report, that the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on January 7th in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered quote-unquote internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials, briefed on his medical condition. I would just, I would say skeptical is how I would describe my reaction to that. I mean, first of all, hold on. First of all, the video of the contact does not even remotely seem close to causing what I think internal bleeding.

I mean, if they want to call internal bleeding, like any kind of bruising, maybe they get away. But like internal bleeding, as it's commonly understood, which is damage, colloquially damage to the organs, like a normie like me, I'm not a doctor, damage to something inside your body. Why are these people on background? There are two U.S. officials, quote-unquote, on background commenting on his medical condition. There's no medical records of this. He went to the hospital, so presumably there would be some medical records we could see about this that CBS did not obtain in their report. Chrissy Noem said that he went to the hospital but was released on the same day and was recovering from his injury is fine. The agent was walking around totally fine after the fact.

and we obviously know there's been some ownership changes at CBS that maybe are impacting the potential bias of the news outlet. I don't want to go quite that far, but that's something I think worth injecting into a report like this. This just seems a little off to me. And I tweeted something about this. I said, like, guys, I'm very skeptical. One of the most liked response was,

if you've ever been injured in a tense situation, you know about this thing called adrenaline, but you libs are softies, so you'll just have to try to imagine it. Which, yeah, sure, I've never been hurt before. I've never had an injury that brought injury. That's definitely my story. You know me for sure.

I know what adrenaline feels like. I know what it feels like that was serious injury, and that's not, I'm not judging this guy just based on the fact that he walked away from the car. I'm judging based on what the video showed and what we know about a injury. hospital stay. This seems like a very odd news report to me. I'd be curious to hear your guys read before we move on because I saw that and I thought, did he have internal bleeding? I mean,

I'm a little, I don't quite know about that. Yeah, and I kind of have the same idea of like, if he did, was it a bruise? And is that what we're talking about? Because maybe, but come on. Yeah, my baby had internal bleeding from taking a spill while he was trying to walk yesterday also. Oh, jeez. Come on. I know, listen, I suspect this is bogus or exaggerated, and it is definitely suspicious that people are on background giving you information that is clearly beneficial to the administration. This is exactly the sort of thing that they would announce themselves,

and perhaps they felt that this would work better for them if they didn't have a presser just to make this statement, and maybe it's something that happened and they just didn't say it at the time and it's enhancing the narrative now. I don't know that it impugns the credibility of a media organization to actually report this and to say explicitly,

we got this from officials on background. I think to any thinking person, it's kind of obvious what's going on here. This is what they've been doing all along. It is kind of pro-government, propaganda. Some might say copaganda. I didn't say that. But we can, you know, we can acknowledge it. And none of the facts that we've already talked about here change. Nothing. Literally nothing changes because he has a bruise on his leg related to this particular

incident. Yeah. I maybe, look, I will make, I make a pledge that if some evidence comes out that shows that this officer suffered serious injuries, I will humbly. eat crow on this pod live. I will eat crow and I will be very much less sarcastic. They're not even claiming he had a serious injury, so you wouldn't have to eat crow. Yeah, it's a little much.

All right, well, there's a lot of news out there outside of Minneapolis. We have two other stories that I definitely want to get to. One is this Jerome Powell stuff and some of the reaction to my writing about it, both internally and externally, and then just the Don Roe Doctrine update. I mean, as we sit here, my Slack is pinging with updates from Iran and Greenland and people tracking fighter jets in the Middle East

and what's about to happen next. So we definitely got to talk a little bit about that. But I want to start with the Jerome Powell stuff. We covered this in the podcast this week. And the newsletter. And the newsletter, yeah. And there was, I would say I staked out a position that was much less ambiguous, much less, quote unquote, moderate, maybe some would say much less balance.

I thought it was pretty straight down the road, straight down the middle perspective on what was happening about this story, which is to say, I said explicitly, this is a political prosecution. Trump, the DOJ is clearly, doing this to appease Trump, to apply pressure on Powell. It's hard to articulate exactly what they want the outcome to be. Maybe him leaving and early, maybe him lowering interest rates, maybe just impugn his character. So when they replace him in a few months, they can do it in this spectacular fashion where they bring in somebody who's totally different than the bad guy, Jerome Powell.

Whatever it is, it strikes me that they're not being subtle about this anymore. Some Republicans in Congress, thankfully, seem to be quite uncomfortable by the announcement of this prosecution happening and the whatever it is that Powell received. I think he said he was subpoenaed. But there was kind of this debate internally at Tangle about whether I had sort of crossed a rubicon on Trump, whether the take that I had written felt different in a meaningful way because. I was explicitly saying, look, this is, it's very obvious what Trump is doing. I was not curring any favor or giving much space to the few counter arguments that existed out there. Most conservative news outlets also editorial boards, opinion writers also expressed some

consternation and criticism about this. And it got me thinking just about where we are a year into this, a year into Trump 2.0. And so I thought it opened the discussion here because I wanted to. want to hear from you guys too about kind of, you know, we're coming up on January 20th, my son's birthday and inauguration day, so one year since Trump. And I think it's worth just starting to kind revisit where we were a year ago, bring it into the present, and talk a little bit about how we're viewing the sum total of the Trump administration. And I will just plant my stake in the ground by saying this about the Jerome Powell investigation and also,

what's transpired over the last 12 months. I came into Trump 1.0 with a very open mind. I was skeptical of him and critical of him on the campaign trail because of a lot of things that he said on the campaign trail, whether it was things like the Hollywood Access tape

or the way he was criticizing Hillary Clinton in a way that felt really out of bounds and gross and whatever and the promises about the wall and the demonization of immigrants that I'd not appreciate. But I also saw a lot of things from Trump in 1.0 that I really liked. I mean, he was after the donor class.

He was after the Washington, D.C. swamp, which exists. He was after the deep state, though he hadn't really named you yet. He was critical of the media in a way that many criticisms I shared. I mean, the tangle is the product of a shared view of the media landscape in a lot of ways that Trump had, which is that there's a lot of liberals who are journalists and they're not shy about their views and they express them in underhanded ways. And I talked about this last week that I felt like maybe I never really forgave Donald Trump for January 6th. And I just like never got over that event in a way where I viewed him, not as a legitimate president. He's a legitimate president.

But I always view him as being a little bit out of bounds, a little bit. Like his legacy will be tarnish and scarred in a way that I think is basically irredeemable, not for the events of the day of January 6th, but for rejecting the election results and everything that happened before and after it. So to say I came into the Trump 2.0 open-minded, I don't think he's totally earnest or honest. I didn't, really. I came in skeptical of who he was, what he was going to do, and how much he had learned from the first time, and given the fact that he rejected the result, of the 2020 election, like, how would he navigate that as a now president? What did that say about how he was going to navigate the presidency now? But I had some optimism, and I expressed

some optimism and some open-mindedness, which was Trump could be good on the economy. He could be good on China. We had a really big immigration problem. I did not expect him to be, you know, level headed about how he would conduct these enforcement. In fact, all this ice stuff, everything we're talking about, I'd been talking about since before the election this year, last year, oh God, two years ago now, 2024.

Since before that election, in the days after it, the mass deportation effort was always the thing I put an asterisk next to as this is the most dangerous thing because it will create events like Renee Good. But

even in my imagination, about how vengeful he would be, how spiteful he would be, how focus on his previous enemies he would be, the degree to which he would, you know, degrade the independence of the Department of Justice, the corruption, I mean, just the, like the profiteering off the presidency, which, by the way, he just did a sit-down interview at the New York Times. They confronted him about this. He said literally to the New York Times in an interview, I mean, I'm summarizing, but he basically said, I tried to separate the family business in the first term and nobody gave me credit for it,

so I just don't care anymore. I mean, it basically just said that. I just, we're just going to do our thing and like we got no credit for what we did the first time, so why would I... So yeah, Jared Kushner can go do his Saudi deals and he's my son-in-law and we're all going to make a bunch of money and whatever.

We're going to have our crypto thing. Who cares? What are you going to do, stop us? And nobody's doing anything. And it's, you know, I mean, the pardoning of the white-collar criminals I mean, the stuff that he's done, I think, I imagine that it could be like this. But I didn't go into it.

You know, you can go read my writing from when I came back from paternity leave in February and March. You can read my writing from November, December, January. I was not making hard assumptions about Trump. I left a lot of room. You know, I created a huge driveway for him to pass through on a road to success and integrity and prosperity for our nation. And he didn't do it. I mean, he hasn't done it. We're a year in. Things could change. I don't think they're going to, but things could change. But he hasn't done it. This first year has been about as bad as I could have imagined it from my perspective.

So that is where I'm at. If that's a Rubicon cross, maybe it is. The Jerome Powell thing definitely sent me a little bit where it's like, it's just so, it's beyond, it's beyond obvious. It's, it's, you know, I said it about Trump's Powell's statement. He released a statement. Every word of it was true. This is an effort to intimidate me into doing something with the interest rates and our monetary policy that the data does not tell me I should do. The administration is trying to pressure me. And nobody's even denying it.

It's the White House sort of, I mean, briefly, it was like Trump had nothing to do with this. And now we have Republican senators who are like, maybe Powell should strike a deal and step down and we'll drop the charges. Like, uh, okay, that sounds like you started an investigation to get him to leave early. So yeah, I'm not feeling good. That is where I'm at genuinely. And to all the Trump supporters who are listening to this, I know there are many of you. I appreciate you.

I love you. I'm not judging you or your character, your intentions. You're here. You're welcome. I want you here. But also, I think you're. guy is a little bit at sea right now. Check your guy.

Come, yeah, whose man is this is kind of what I'm... Is where I'm at right now. Somebody come get this guy because he is being a little unhinged. And we're a year in and that's where I'm at, to be honest. There's maybe one or two beats in there

that I might push you on a little bit. All right. Let's just, let's limit it to one for right now. The, you did a little bit of decorating, I hope, on the New York Times, the quote in the New York Times article. He didn't say, you know, we didn't get any credit, so who cares? We're just going to make as much money as we can. He didn't say that part, right?

He said, I'll look this up directly. Okay. I haven't read this yet, but that would be an extraordinary, extraordinary claim. I'll tell you. Sometimes getting him credit for his candor in moments where he probably shouldn't be so I am candid. And that would be a moment where I give him some credit. I'm not saying that the corruption isn't there. It is there. It's palpable. But I don't know if he's been that brazen. I'll tell you exactly what happened. I read part of the transcript of his interview and not read the

whole thing. And then I listened to New York Times Daily episode, which was like 45 minutes, where they're playing clips of the interview. And I will concede this. The portion that I'm quoting from was a reporter, I believe it was Tyler Pager at the New York Times, whom I actually know Tyler, and he's a fantastic reporter. He's a level trustworthy guy. He's an honest dude. He's a friend. So I'm putting credence. I believe he was the one he was talking. And he sort of summarized how Trump answered a question. And he, in the podcast, quoted Trump is basically effectively saying, you know, we did this thing in the first term and nobody gave us credit for it. And I don't know if he said, and now we don't care or now whatever, but the implication

was very clear that this time, they're not really concerning themselves with the separation of these issues with like the presidency being separated from the business, from the family business. And by the way, like, that's self-evident. I mean, they have, no, the conduct is consistent with that. Yeah. The conduct is consistent with that. They haven't even. They haven't even paid lip service to it. I mean, they're not, you know, they stand up this crypto scheme. Maybe Trump gives his classic. I have nothing to do.

I don't know anything about that. But also, I know we made $500 billion last month or whatever. You know, it's like, he sort of says, like, I know nothing about that. And then he starts bragging about how much money they've made. And it's like, well, you just said you didn't know anything about it. But, like, you know, they're not even doing that part. I mean, Jared Kushner, Ivanka, Eric, Don Jr., they're actually pretty low-key. People aren't really talking about it compared to the first term.

Don Jr., though, I mean, the executive club is pretty brazen. And going to speak at crypto conferences and stuff like that, I mean, you weren't getting invited unless you were the president's son. So they've been pretty brazen too. Maybe a little less so with Kushner, who at least is leveraging his business relationships for other beneficial purposes. But yeah, no, I don't think you're wrong. I don't think you're off the reservation. And I think it's entirely possible to be fair to Trump and to still be exceedingly critical

in the places where he is failing. And I do think you have flagged a number of places where he is failing pretty profoundly. And the lawfare has been pretty astounding. And I do think that going after Powell, and of course denying it initially, but the president is still publicly attacking him while this is taking place is uniquely alarming on account of how unprecedented it is,

but also because it is the continuation of a pattern where they continue to use the Justice Department, even if they're not successfully prosecuting people to intimidate and antagonize the adversaries of the administration. Sometimes it's score settling, but we just saw the FBI today raid Washington Post journalist's home. This was not like, we'd called you and we tried to get some information. No, she had information from a source that was apparently confidential and their move, and it seems their first move, was to raid her home. We know that the federal government has a not so great track record of interfering with journalists doing journalism. But this is, again, not good. And this is Trump's Justice Department that is responsible.

for all of this. And it is very much worth flagging. And I don't know, Isaac, I'm kind of with you. I think I too have perhaps crossed something of a Rubicon. And I feel all of that. And I also feel that I kind of have to redouble my effort to try to be, not so much like find the places to justify what the Trump administration is doing, but try to look in an impartial way at what's happening and give as fair in accounting as I can. You know, if I'm going to try to also do the pushback on that too, because I, like, we're kind of feigning off each other here. I think we come into these conversations with a lot of the same reads on the situations. I know we ingest the same media, which is to say as much

as we can and seek out different perspectives and try to weigh it against their own thoughts. I know Camille, you and I have sort of ideological differences about how we see the government's role in solving different problems. But we haven't been able to talk about things about like, how should the government do tax reform and solve health care? That feels like an ancient memory of those things being like top of the pile for. Yeah, no one's working on those problems anymore. No one cares. Yeah, they're gone. And like that's, I mean, even this reaction that I'm having, I'm like, yeah, I mean, this is not great.

but if I'm going to try to do the thing where I'm offering the adversarial view to that, which is sort of my gut reaction, it's that maybe this is not an issue really with Trump that we're talking about, but it's an issue with the structures that allow the presidency to have this much authority. Because defining it as Trump's Justice Department is something that we would say about Biden's Justice Department or Obama's, or yada, yada, long line back, however we might want to go.

Maybe to a point where we wouldn't say that about, like, H.W. Bush or Clinton, because it feels like they didn't exert pressure in a way that the current brand of presidents are, especially this occupant of the Oval Office. But the constraint that we've relied on for that power from the president has been internal to the president. And if there's an issue, that we might have, we could say, you know, the electorate wanted to put somebody into office who was very outspoken about they are going to do whatever they can to advance the goals of their party and the party on the other side that was opposing them was going to be a hurdle,

not a collaborator. And that was the person that the electorate decided they wanted to be in the office. So if that's what the popular will pushed for, then maybe there's a structural change that's at play. and we're talking about the wrong issue. I agree with that. I think you're right to point it out. I don't know if I agree with it. No, well, I do agree with it. I think it's possible that Trump can be uniquely corrupt in some respects

and uniquely prone to take advantage of the apparatus of government in order to punish his enemies. And he could be doing that in real. response to things that were done to him. Perhaps all of those things can be fair and true. And it can also be the case that structurally, we actually do have a problem. The imperial presidency is a reality. And if we're not careful about the people who occupy the office, they're going to take advantage of all of the defects in our system that makes it possible for these kinds of things to happen, in which case, paying close attention to the fact that the system is a huge part of the

problem. And even if Donald Trump goes away and there is a peaceful transfer of power at the end of his term, let's say even the Democrats win, you may like that outcome. But the possibility of further abuses of power now that these norms have been completely disrupted, sure. Yeah, that's a possibility. And it's something to absolutely keep in mind to the extent you're upset about this, in which case, focusing too much of your attention and your fire on Donald Trump narrowly and not the structural conditions that allow this to happen and that have allowed the problem to worsen over time is a huge mistake. I want to just settle the record here on the stuff about the business.

I just put up the New York Times transcript. I'll read too. You guys tell me, tell me if you think this is a, I give a fair interpretation. Tyler Pager, I was, I'm, I'm, must have been right. He was the one asking the question. He said, Mr. President, President, another difference between your first term and your second term. In your first term, your family agreed not to conduct business abroad. President Trump says, right. Tyler says, now it's doing so all over the world. Why the reversal? President Trump. Well, because I got no

credit in the first term. I don't have to agree to that. And in the first term, we did nothing. That's not true, by the way. We were just, and my kids were asked to do business all over the place. they run it now. I have a great company, one of the greatest companies, and I think it's one of the, in terms of the beautiful assets, great assets, great property. I was really good at real estate. He's just half sentences. Maybe I was better at real estate than I am at politics. But my kids, I didn't let them do anything because to me, it's the highest calling. You're the president of the United States. I got nothing but criticized. As an example, I don't accept my pay. I didn't accept my pay. It's a lot of money. Two million dollars over a four-year period. I didn't do it the first time. I never had. David, Tanger says, we wrote about it. Katie says, Katie Rogers says, you did. We wrote about how you donated your salary. Tyler says, we wrote about it. President Trump said, well, I donated. I donated my first term salary. I donated my second term salary. They tell him you got credit for donating. And then Trump says, I haven't seen that credit. And then she says, Katie Rogers says, do you not feel like you got enough? And that's why you reverse course. And he said, I didn't do deals. I could have done so many deals

and I didn't do deals. And Tyler says, well, why are you doing the deals now? And he says, because I found out that nobody cared. I'm allowed to. You know, George Washington, when he was president, did you know this? And his equivalent of the White House, it was a little before the White House. He had two desks. He had a business desk and he had a president desk and he did both.

It's okay to do that. I just didn't think, I didn't want to do that and I personally still don't do it. But I let my kids, you know, do business. I prohibited them from doing business in my first term. I got absolutely no credit for it. I didn't have to do that. And it's really unfair to them. They're business people just also.

I saw the things that went on with Biden. It was so ridiculous when I looked at the corruption and all the things. You know, I have a very honest family. But I said, why wouldn't I let them do things and let them do things and let them live their lives? Now, these are honest, very honorable people. I think that's about as straightforward as it gets, in my opinion. I think, no, Camille, I characterize that pretty well. I think he wasn't saying we're going to engage in open corruption because no one cares and no one gave me credit.

He did say, look, they're going to do business abroad. At some point, he gets a little sloppy in there. And he does say, I'm doing the deals. I'm doing the deals. Like he says personally, I'm doing the deals. And look, maybe that was a Freudian slip. I wish, and this is, hey, I know you're friendly with Tyler there. I wish they would have followed up.

I'm sorry, Mr. President. Moment ago you said you're doing the deals. Are you personally engaged in these business transactions? That is an opportunity for a follow-up, and I wish they'd asked it. But beyond that, if he's saying, look, I'm not putting handcuffs on my children, they're allowed to do things, then so be it, the one complicating factor with my presumption there that maybe he had a slip is he said, George Washington had two deaths. He had a president desk and a business desk.

I'm sorry. So again, that is the moment when you follow up. I'm sorry, I just want to be clear, Mr. President. Do you have a business desk and a presidential desk? Is that what you're saying? First of all, I think that's what he's saying. Second of all, I mean, I think the actual, to me, the corruption is the kids get to run the Trump family.

business, they're striking all these deals abroad that we know about that are public. I mean, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, I mean, we'll see about the rest of the Middle East, but definitely Israel, Ireland, you know, you go down the list of some of these European countries where they're building hotels or whatever. while we are doing diplomatic relations with them, even if we're to assume that there's never with pro quo happening there, I think that alone, that appearance of corruption

is enough for me to be like, this is, I mean, grotesque in a way that we haven't ever really seen before from anybody. And that's without even getting into the crypto stuff. So what he's saying here is not, oh, I don't, I mean, he could have just sat there and said, well, my kids do this stuff and I have nothing to do with it and we just let them act independently. Instead, what he said is I tried to do that the first time and nobody cared, nobody gave me credit for it. So this time, whatever. Like, we're all, I mean, that is as close to an admission as you're going to get in my opinion.

I don't really know. I'm being very legalistic about this, I think. I don't even dispute most of what you're saying. saying. There's not really much of an argument here. All right. Well, we can move on. I'm just like, I'm frustrated about the invocation of George Washington.

The person who was offered the presidency as like the first king of America because he controlled the army and then walked away into private life after the Revolutionary War. Potentially the best model of self-control and the denial of personal authority we've ever seen in our country as the again. example of why he's allowed to do what he wants in the office. A person whose business dealings was like running a plantation, not like a real estate multinational company. It's, it is as poor an analogy that's designed to annoy me as possible. So I kind of just had to, I had to react a little bit to that because I'm going to forego the joke about who was

working on those plantations. Sorry, I'm just not going to make it. I'm not saying he was the, he was a perfect dude. I hear he has some dental issues too But that's fine Yeah a lot of tooth decay But he could throw it really far This just came to me Because I'm thinking about how

We every week we talk about how we just can't help But circle around Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump He's doing it again And we're his puppets and we're there And feels like every story revolves around him In some meaningful way Can you think of a single

This is a pop question Pop quiz. Can you think of a single Democrat who has done something newsworthy in the last week since we had our show and can you tell me what it was? Is Mike Tomlin a Democrat? Yeah, Mike Tomlin

stepped down from the Pittsburgh Steelers coaching job. Seriously. Much like George. I have one in mind that I think I could offer literally, and I do this for a job. Can either of you come up with one thing a Democrat has done in the last week that was newsworthy or, like, demanded your attention even for 10 minutes.

I mean, do we, are we talking about, like, national, like, someone, member of Congress? I'll take anything. Aside from, I mean, I guess you could do. Mayor Adams, it sounds like he stole something like $3 million in a crypto scam. He's not an elected official anymore, but he's only been out of office for like a week. So, yeah, that's pretty bad. but no one really cares, it seems. I mean, I was going to go to another New York mayor and say, Maldani, as well as I think AOC came out to reject the we support Hamas here a chance.

That's a thing that I saw on the news. Yeah, they did make news for a good reason. I thought it was a bad reason is what we're looking for. But yeah. No, no, I'm not looking, I'm good or bad. I'm saying literally, I guess the point of the exercise is that it feels to be like Trump is dominating the attention. economy so hard that I have literally a hard time thinking about a single thing a Democrat has done

in the last week, and that must be bad for them in some way. Sounds bad. The Mondani AOC one is a good one. Eric Adams is not good pub, though many Democrats probably wouldn't associate with him. He also was recorded. I don't know if you saw the video of him, Camille, coming off an airplane in Dallas, where he's like telling some woman that he's like, she's like, are you going to punch me in the face?

And he says, you're about to find out, I'm from Brooklyn. I'm not the mayor anymore. I'm sorry? I lived in Brooklyn for a little while. I never saw a man punch a woman in the face, especially in that. Yeah. Okay, sir. Yeah, okay, sir.

Yeah. Mine was going to be, was going to be Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro giving a tongue lashing to J.D. Vance. He released some, he was in an interview and sort of went off about what a coward J.D. Vance was for justifying the ice shooting. and that I saw a bunch of people sharing out on X, maybe because I'm in Pennsylvania and that's my algorithm. But yeah, that doesn't seem great for them.

And maybe we're to blame in part because we talk a lot about Trump, but he's very good at what he does, dominating the news. All right, we have a couple more topics we have to get to. I wanted to talk a little bit of the Don Roe Doction stuff. I'm going to say this to you guys. I'm happy to hear anything you guys would like to enjoy. into this conversation. To me, this feels like such a moving target.

It's almost worthless to talk about right now. That's a terrible preface for a segment. As you say that, tweet from Russell. Like Russell, our internal news broadcaster, share something in our Slack channel that says Iranian authorities order the nationwide shutdown of the country's airspace. So yeah, very much a moving target. Yeah, very much a moving target.

There were some reports from some of these, like, independent intel analysts. like open source intelligence, that there were U.S. fighter jets being seen and popping up on radars on the border of Iraq and Iran. There is a lot of chatter about a potential strike in Iran. It is Wednesday at 5.30 p.m. as we record this, so I do not feel useful in discussing it. The Greenland stuff is a little bit slower pace and is another sort of... is a piece of us dominating the Western Hemisphere. We have public officials now from Greenland saying that they're going to work with the United States

to try and find some sort of resolution, some out. I'd be curious. I mean, I don't know if you guys have anything to add to that in terms of where we are right now. To me, it has always felt like the Greenland military force stuff feels exaggerated and they kind of stick while the obvious outcome here is that we put a bunch of money. We buy, not necessarily, quote unquote, buy Greenland, like purchase it, but we invest a bunch of money in some military base and we take some kind of maybe territorial ownership that gives us a really big presence there that's designed to deter Russian China.

But have you guys seen anything that feels like solid enough for us to talk about now, knowing that there will be maybe like a 24-hour gap before this episode gets published? I mean, a strike in the Middle East seems, it's hard to believe that it won't happen at this point. But it hasn't happened yet. Hard to believe that won't happen. I will say that I was a little more dismissed. I think I told you this, guys yesterday when we had our reproduction call, I was a little less, because I'd done CNN right before we had our call or did our recording last week.

And at the time, I was still like, come on, why are we talking about military action? He's not going to do anything in Greenland. And a week later, I'm kind of like, well, you know, maybe? Maybe. He could? I don't know. They keep insisting.

And initially at the time, he hadn't really made any threats. There were all kinds of weird, conflicting statements. one of which was from the press secretary, Stephen Miller, had said, come on, Jake, I'm not going to dignify this military stuff with a response. The statements out of the White House and from Trump himself on truth social have increasingly intensified to the point where it's, we can't compromise on this.

We have to have Greenland. If we don't have Greenland, China and Russia are going to have Greenland. Of course, if China and Russia were to deploy troops to the area, let alone, like, actually land on Greenland, I think that is going to trigger NATO right away, right? Like, Greenland is not party. So you think maybe the just... Denmark would.

Maybe. So I just... Maybe we'll be at war with NATO in six months. That'd be awesome. Stop it. Don't even show. That's our show for this. All right.

And we'll see you guys next week. Yeah. Or not. Coming out of the media, it sounds like things are a lot more calm. So, yeah, no, I think what is interesting, though, especially if in Iran, if there is no strike, and if it does turn out that the statements that we've seen out of the Iranians is consistent with the facts that they're no longer gunning down protesters and they're not going to hold these public executions, perhaps the Internet even comes back on. If Trump is able to get a win without firing a shot here, because there is the credible threat of force from the United States

because of what he has been doing over the course of, again, barely a year in office, projecting power abroad in these really targeted, focused ways without boots on the ground, getting, achieving pretty meaningful results, it seems, so far, the situation in Venezuela has not completely degraded. In fact, it seems like they do have some meaningful influence with what's left of the Maduro regime. That is a story. It's impossible for me to believe that we would be having

even this kind of conversation, if not for the overall effectiveness of the Israeli military campaign and severely degrading the ability of Iran to make trouble in the country. region. And I suspect that's probably given some confidence to the protesters. It's almost certainly not the only thing. I mean, this began with a kind of currency crisis and has metastasized or bloomed, however you want to cast that. But yeah, I do think that there's something to be said for this

administration's track record on foreign policy in terms of achieving results in places where one might have been skeptical of their ability to achieve results. I'm not suggesting it's all been successful. I think it's entirely still possible for them to do too much and get into a bit of trouble. But again, I think credit where it's due. They do seem to be able to project power abroad, and the fact that the president is a little bit crazy

actually seems to get some results. Yeah, I mean, I think earlier this year, or last year, late last year, late last year, I guess, I sort of wrote something about how the U.S. was struggling to basically dislodge the Houthis from some of their attacks on these ships in the Red Sea. And, you know, at the time, I had this thought in my head of, like, wow, we spend so much money on the military and we can't even deal with these like rabble-rouser pirates, basically. and now I'm sitting here, you know, six months later. And my overarching sentiment is definitely confidence. Like, oh, we are actually really, really capable still and all that money that we dump it in the military

is actually useful in the sense that if our backs against the wall or if we're deciding to be the aggressor, like is the case here, that we are really, really capable. and say whatever you will about like the America First Agenda and that sort of, you know, colonialist Western perspective, I would rather be living in a country that is that than not. So I feel grateful for that in a sense in terms of like my own security and the security of the place that I live and, you know, whatever.

But it's, yeah, I mean, it's remarkable to think about what the Trump administration has done in some ways. And to the degree that I believe that they could level some kind of strike or carry out an operation in Iran that would dislodge the regime, I am certainly not going to doubt that after what we've seen over the last few months. And to contrast that with what our perception of Russia was versus what we saw in reality when they launched this war in Ukraine and how inept they were and how incapable they were of overthrowing a country that they were supposed to be so militarily dominant against, it is encouraging in that very dark, violent sense

that we are capable in this way. And it feels hard to dispute at this point. There's like so much that's still in play that I don't want to add more to what you guys are saying. I think it is hard to dispute, so I'm not going to dispute any of what you laid out there. Isaac or what you laid out, Camille, I think it's very possible that there's a threat of force. It is tough to say that that isn't a feature instead of a bug and that that's being leveraged

in any potential negotiation that's to come. The only thing that I want to say is just that that's all to come still at this point. So as much as I think that the option should be open and on the table, I'm just going to avoid commenting further until we actually see some wheels and motion. that create changes to, like, the way the premier of Greenland's posture themselves or what Denmark's saying, what the EU saying, or even, for that matter, Putin or she, because they're absent of this other than in the White House's own framing of the situation. And until such a time as there's movement, then I think this all remains speculation.

Reasonable speculation for sure, but still a ways off. And maybe the ways off is like a day or two, but still in the future. We'll be right back after this quick break. Yeah, who knows what happens by the time this podcast comes out. Well, we do have some last little solid ground to walk on before we wrap up here, which is I just want to spend a few minutes here talking about some of the conservative, infighting, flame wars that have been going on. I mean, this has been a story that I think's been unraveling since Trump really got elected.

and was taken to a whole new degree after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And we haven't given it a ton of attention on this show. I mean, we talked a lot about the Charlie Kirk stuff. But the kind of Fisher that's happening, and when I say on the right, I mean, I'm talking about Mago World. You know, it used to be we talked about establishment Republicans, like the Reaganites versus the Trumpers.

And the Reaganites are gone. Like they have been boulders, and it is a MAGA world now in the Republican Party and among conservatives. And now we're seeing a fissure and a crack there that I find particularly interesting. There's a lot of implication for the future in terms of who wrestles the power and who becomes the dominant voices. I think if I had to put some big personalities on each side of it, the household names, It's, you know, it's sort of becoming this kind of like Ben Shapiro, almost Fox News type opinion columnist versus the sort of Tucker Carlson, Candice Owens, and now even maybe a little bit of Megan Kelly. There's just this, they're all Trump supporters, but they're on different sides of a few important issues. one of them seems to be Israel,

which seems to be a key component of this from where I'm sitting, is that there are some people who believe very strong in the United States' allieship of Israel and some people who don't. Camille, I mean, you've touched some of this by virtue of just being on various podcasts and interviewing people

who I think have come out on different sides of this sort of dispute. I'd be curious, like, how you would describe or maybe characterize the dividing lines here and the sort of warring factions. Because for me, it's a little bit hard to wrap my head around sometimes. And I'm interested in how you think about it, how you're seeing it. Yeah. Well, I do think that there is a difference between Tucker Carlson of Megan Kelly and Candace Owens. And Tucker is exceedingly.

controversial these days and is not welcome in many, many, many circles. But Candace Owens wasn't at the major turning points event where you had kind of these dueling talks from various conservatives who were essentially taking the stage and they weren't spending nearly as much time savaging the left as you might expect. They were savaging each other in many instances. And by name in a bunch of instances, and in other cases, in other cases, a little bit of bit more subtly, but there was a tremendous amount of one, I suppose you could describe it as friendly fire, but a number of people just are not friends anymore. And it's interesting that

even the kind of community of people like at the bulwark, the dispatch, it's hard to even say, are they conservative at this point? Do they share a tent with the people who essentially have made their peace with MAGA? I think Ben Shapiro is someone who was openly critical of the Trump administration for a very long time, or of Trump in general for a very long time, found a way to come around. And I think has still conducted himself in a pretty respectable way. But he's in the tent.

But it's not clear that, I mean, Goldberg, Hayes, they're not. And that's a very different sort of circumstance than just a couple of years ago when the weekly standard was still in print. And I suppose we have covered this because we talked to Charles Cook about this not too long ago. And I suspect part of the reason you're asking this question is because there has been not so much any news because there really hasn't been any news about it, but a little bit of tumult because I have done Benkelly's show in the past and was often a guest as a member of the fifth column and we would kind of appear there collectively. and I don't know that that's the sort of thing that would actually happen any longer.

I'm still perfectly willing to have conversations with Megan because I think it's important. I think Megan, like Tucker Carlson, quite frankly, is a media personality and a kind of, I guess, a political actor as well because she does show up at campaign events, go on stage with the candidate, and stump for said candidate, believes,

and has said on me. any occasions that she has a side and that in general tries to avoid criticizing her own side unless I guess they're involved in a very intense conflict. Those are the realities of circumstance right now. And yeah, I think you have to be willing to, if you're in these spaces journalistically, have conversations about the things that you agree upon and the things that you don't agree upon. And the medium is going to matter a great deal. I think the conversation I might have with someone like Megan or even a Ben Shapiro on their own platforms are going to be very different than the conversations I might have if we were to say, host one of them here for an interview.

They can't really dictate the pace, dictate the pace of the conversations. And given the current landscape, there might be more of a reason to prefer one of those things over the other and to prioritize that over the other. And I think that there are. a lot of important questions to ask about Israel, various other kind of dividing lines. And there have been a lot, a lot of questions, particularly where Tucker is concerned, but certainly much more so with Candace Owens about anti-Semitism. And I mentioned Candace in the latter context, because Candice has been openly conspiratorial in a unique, unique way that has made her absolutely radioactive to much of MagaWorld.

and much of conservatism, but at the same time has also enjoyed a prominence that she had not previously had, where her podcast for a little while anyways was one of the most important in the country. I think it's easy to overstate what that means. It's one media outlet against a landscape of different media outlets who altogether in aggregate

eclipse whatever influence she might have individually, but it's not trivial. The fact that someone like Nick Fuentes is a name that most people know now, I don't think it's trivial. And I don't think it's really equivalent to the way that we would have known the name of, gosh, and his name is escaping me at the moment. But like the white nationalist who was kind of prominent. Richard Spencer.

Richard Spencer in 2016. There was a lot of talk about Richard Spencer there. And I said repeatedly that I thought, the media was doing itself a disservice by overstating the degree to which he had kind of any meaningful influence in Maga World. I don't think you can say the same thing about Nick Fuentes. I don't think he has any direct influence on J.D. Vance and the president of the United States, but there have been a number of very strange stories in recent weeks about bizarre messages and slogans that end up on the podium at a White House event.

or at a homeland event. And where did that come from? What is that about? Is it not similar to what we saw at Heritage when shortly after Nick Fuentes sits down with Tucker Carlson, there's a really huge scandal there because the President of Heritage comes out and gives a speech preempting criticism of Tucker Carlson

and insisting, we won't cancel Tucker Carlson. And again, using some phrases, that perhaps have a little bit of purchase in a particular in the Goyper community, it's all fairly unsettling and created a great deal of consternation for that institution, was a huge embarrassment to the leadership there, and caused a bit of a purge there. So Republicans do have a really substantial problem right now, kind of keeping it together, keeping everyone underneath the same tent. and there's been a really meaningful uptake

in the kind of influence and visibility of some of the more fringe elements of the party. All of that said, as you mentioned earlier, Isaac, on the left, the left is pretty quiet. But for a while, it was the case that a lot of the fringe elements of that party were very prominent, very visible, surprisingly influential. I'm not drawing an equivalence between them

and insisting that one is as bad as the other. I am saying, however, that in general, as our politics has become more decentralized, as our conversations have moved online more substantially, that a lot more of the kind of fringe elements of the parties tend to get a much larger voice, which is precisely why we saw AOC have to come out this week and say, for anyone who was confused about this matter,

it's one thing to be openly critical of Israel. It is one thing to be skeptical of Zionism writ large. It is quite another thing to hold a demonstration and to cheer for Hamas explicitly. And to the extent that has to happen, that is a noteworthy development in the country. And it suggests that we really haven't purged ourselves of the kind of extremist elements in both parties. and this is a matter that deserves a fair amount of attention. I think if I were going to inject one other element into this, it would just be... And I really do genuinely mean this as like to add some grace to this is... I feel like there's just a group of people who watch their friend get murdered on a live stream.

And they are... I mean, all the people in... involved in this, had this close friendship with this, with Charlie Kirk, who was very clearly a hugely influential people, influential person, not just on the people who were his mentors and older than him who felt like they watched this superstar of the party Bloom, but also on the people who were his age and younger than him. I mean, people who have been listening to this show for a few months were here and heard my reaction to it. I mean, I didn't even know the guy. I had this parisocial relationship with him, but there was

something about it that was so awful that, like, the murder was so horrific to see and the context of it was so awful in terms of just like who he was and what he was trying to do and the moment for the country and how tense everything was. And I just don't think there's enough talked about where, you know, Megan Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Candice Owens, Tucker Carlson, All these people who had this really, I have not seen a single one of them, like, take a day. I mean, Megan was live streaming when it happened, when it was like his death was confirmed.

I watched her break down. She was with Glenn Beck, I think. You know, Candace has been just posting through it the whole way. Same with Tucker. And I don't know, man. Like, there's just, it is, it is like, there is a psychological element of it in that respect that I don't think is just this human element of it that I don't. think that's talked about quite enough that I feel like these people went through something really traumatic and are just kind of, you know, grasping at various meanings for it. And in the process

of doing that, a lot of bad blood is being created. But it's certainly meaningful for the party at large. And I think a big part of it is going to be this Israel question in whether that's something MAGA or the Trump Republican Party is in support of and in allyship with is being pro-Israel or not. And there's a lot of disagreement there right now for sure. And it seems like so much of it is still centered on the current ownership and direction of Turning Point USA. And this is something where I feel like I'm reaching a bit here because I listen to Tucker and I listen to Ben Shapiro and to Megan Kelly. And I think I'm, I can sort of understand their POVs and I get the sense that Isaac gets about this is a person that we knew

personally. And this is a tragedy that is hard to process. And I think I also have an understanding pre the Charlie Kirk shooting of what their politics are slash were and their points of view and how they go about talking to people who agree and disagree with them. This is just me asking for help, maybe from you guys. I do not understand Candace Owens. I honestly don't. I've tried to listen to her and it's really hard. Maybe this is my personal failing.

It's really tough for me to get through listening to her speak. She seems to be openly inviting confrontation and almost willfully misunderstanding things. and she has one of the most popular podcasts in the country. And I, this is like, we cover the news all the time. And we talk about, that's what we do. And we talk about different perspectives and try to put them in context and understand each other. And what different people think. And one of my touchstones that I always come back to is people do what makes sense to them.

Everybody is trying to just make sense of things altogether. And I can always, in some way, I can't meet every person exactly where they are. but I can take steps. I don't get her. And I need help. Yeah. No, I want to be careful about this, or at least thoughtful about how I say this.

I try to be thoughtful about most things, but I want to be particularly thoughtful here. I suspect you guys remember when Tucker Carlson was still at Fox News, he did an interview with Kanye West. And the interview initially it's released and it's edited and it airs. And Tucker Carlson comes on immediately after and says, This isn't a guy who's crazy. He's fine.

I don't know why they're calling him crazy. He's saying a lot of reasonable stuff. A couple of days go by and some tape leaks. And it's Kanye West saying vehemently anti-Semitic stuff. And Tucker has never explained why he cut that stuff out of the interview. Now, we could speculate about what his motives are. But you didn't only cut it out of the interview and then air the sanitized interview,

which some journalists might go about doing that. I don't think it's a low integrity move. It's very different to cut it all out and then to say, he's fine. He is totally normal. At the time, the reason that I was perturbed by that move isn't just because I'm a fan of Kanye West music or anything like that.

It's because this is a man who's clearly unwell. Something is wrong. And you took the opportunity to interview him and you could have just trashed that interview. You didn't have to air it. Or you could have aired it totally and given some context for it. But this seems like a man who was in need of help.

And when I see Candace, she seems actually deranged. And I don't mean that as an insult. I think a lot of people have kind of taken shots at her. She seems like she is in some sort of distress. I don't know that someone... And maybe she's also a grifter. I have no idea.

But I don't know how you get to McCrone's... wife, President McCrone's wife, is actually a man and she's involved in an assassination plot with the Israelis to take out Charlie Kirk because he no longer likes the Israelis. Oh, it goes all the way up to the top. And there are members of the American intelligence community who are doing their very best to hide all of this. How could you possibly know that this is going to have an audience? And to the extent that you knew that and you figured that out, I give up. I surrender. You know far more than I do about how people's brains work and how the media works. And to the extent she's successful,

I think it's because it's a freak show. And maybe there's a lot of people who've had their brains broken. What you're saying is you can't make sense of what she's doing through the lens of an intentional opportunism. You can make sense of it more through the lens of some kind of personal crisis. In the last couple of days, I try not to track it too carefully, but I do pay some attention because this is what we do. I've seen Candace Owen talking about numerology and her dreams.

That's different. Tucker has talked about being attacked by demons. He's talked about UFOs and how they're absolutely real now. But I've also watched him be eminently coherent and offer rather useful analysis of Trump foreign policy today. He still, and importantly, he also still gets invited over to the White House for extremely high-profile events. His show is him talking to the president of the United States, giving him explicit advice on what the right things to do are if you want to be remembered by history. He has a point of view. He's trying to impose it on the country. He's trying to influence elected officials.

he is a close personal friend of J.D. Vance and actually helped get him the job. We would not be doing our jobs if we weren't paying attention to Tucker Carlson and having conversations with Tucker Carlson to the extent the opportunity is there to try and understand his worldview and where he is out of line to challenge it and ask tough questions. So I think that's kind of the important dividing line. I wouldn't say the same thing about Candace Owens. I don't imagine her getting an invite to the White House anytime soon. I think it's a very different sort of thing to try to.

understand what's happening there. Are there also kind of anti-Semitic sentiments there? With Candace Owens, it's explicit. She's not hiding anything with Tucker Carlson. I think there's a bigger question mark there. But the question mark is in bright red and bold. Yeah. I mean, I generally agree with that assessment of Candice.

I mean, I watch some of, you know, like I watched her interview with Piers Morgan where she says something, and then two minutes later, he quotes the thing she just says, and she says, I've never said that. He says, you just said it. And then they run the,

and it's like, he just repeats. And it's, I mean, she doesn't, yeah. And I don't mean it, like you said, Camille, it's not in a disparaging way. I mean, it's sad, I think, but like, and I don't mean to be condescending even because I know she's coherent enough to think something like that would be kind of saying,

but like she doesn't seem well. there's something is not quite right there and there are a lot of imaginations happening and yeah the dream stuff I mean a lot of the evidence about Charlie Kirk's assassination in Israel I mean was literally stuff she was saying that Charlie came to her in a dream and told her and then she's going out and saying this on her show

and then people are smashing the donate button to her as she's talking about this like it's crazy I mean it's what is that what is that response Yeah, I know. Well, I think we should start a live stream where people can give us money while we're talking. That's not. I don't know why we don't do it. I mean, maybe then I'd be able to say, like, oh, I understand this behavior.

I'm doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I don't want to draw a complete and total equivalence. And I don't want to insult anyone's sensibilities. But I've absolutely seen examples of a similar sort of extremist ideology on the, political left in different manifestations. And I hesitate to give what feels like a concrete example to me.

And maybe I'll develop it a little more and we'll do it another time because we're already kind of at time. The equivalence is already tough also. So tough to come up on the fly. Yeah. But I do. Yeah. I just think we, the compassion is the correct note to strike, I think, Isaac.

I've known a lot of these people kind of personally. Megan Kelly, for example, has always been personally friendly to me in a number of different ways. I've always liked her as a person in general. She's always been someone who is willing to have a serious conversation about the places where we disagree. And I hope that continues to be the case. But absolutely, as someone who's kind of known her when Charlie died, one of the first thoughts I've had is this is a woman with a family. And if there is a list of people. who are targets, she's on that list. And that's, it's awful. And I have to imagine that that kind of

does something to you. And it's not something that I think she and I have really talked about. But I do think that it's like worth thinking about. We're thinking about people who are, in fact, political actors. And one thing that I think would be beneficial, because in a number of instances, these people are only talking to each other when microphones are present in high stakes context where there are thousands and hundreds of thousands and even millions of people watching, touch grass is good advice. And I think a lot more people would be well served

by just taking that advice. Yeah. All right. Well, we've been at it for a while, as you guys said, it's over an hour and a half. And we've got a few minutes to go because we've got to get into our grievances

for the week and wrap up here. So, John, you can play the music, my man. The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. All right. I'm going to just grab the mic and kick us off because I have a travel story for my grievance this week. I didn't tell you guys this. I actually could have done this last week because it happened on the way out to West Texas.

But I had a short layover in Dallas. I'm going to bring it to the present day at the end. So stick with me. I had a short layover in Dallas, and about 50 minutes, I flew from Philadelphia to Dallas, and then you go fly from Dallas to Midland and then drive a few hours to where my property is at there. It's a hike. It's a full day thing. And on the way out, we're taking off, everything's on time, whatever. We're on the runway, and there is a snow squall in Philadelphia at 5 a.m. Just like, it was awesome. Like, just this is an incredible. incredible snow squall, like wind, not like a blizzard.

I can't really describe it, but this kind of light snow just comes in and blast the airport and shuts everything down for five minutes. And as a result of the snow squall, the plane has to get de-iced. So we get in line with the plane to get de-ice. And remember, I have this 50-minute layover in Dallas. So I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to miss the layover or whatever. And the de-icing process takes like 35 minutes. So I'm like, okay, I had 50 minutes.

Now I have 15 minutes. I'm flying in a Dallas, which is a huge airport. I'm never going to make this connection. So I start looking at how to change my flight on the American Airlines app. I changed my flight. I talked to an agent. They're like, yeah, you're not going to make that. You should change it.

I switched my flight to an El Paso flight because there was no real good flight leaving to go to Midland the rest of the day. Plane takes off, whatever. We're with the baby. It's my wife and I. And then like two hours into the flight, I check. And instead of landing with 15 minutes to spare now, we're landing with like 24 minutes to spare. And I'm like, all right, we're making up some time.

Maybe I can make this flight. And then it's like 31 minutes to spare. And as a flight goes on, there's like 30 minutes left in the flight. And now I'm back to like a 37 minute layover or something. And I'm like, oh my God, I might be able to do this. So I'd go back on the American Airlines app, talk to the agent, and tell my situation. I'm like, can I get back on the original flight

that I switched from the flight I had? They're like, yeah, you can, but the seats aren't together anymore. So you have to split up with your wife and one of you have to take the baby, whatever. I'm like, all right, that's fine. So much choice. Yeah, I'm like, I'll take the baby, whatever.

I want to make this flight. So we do that. After a very, very long period of time, the age, like right as we're landing, I'm about to lose internet connection, the agent tells me they confirm on the app, we switch you back to the original flight, we land. And then our plane, after landing, not kidding, taxis for 20 minutes.

Like, it feels as if we are doing circles around the airport. And I'm like, this is the longest taxi I've ever been on. I'm going insane. So I'm like, should we change the flight back? We just gave up the seats on the other fight. We're freaking out, we're like, no, let's just stick with this fight and make a run for it. Long story short, we get off the plane. There's 18 minutes or 16 minutes.

or something like that. We have to get to a different terminal. We run. We take the sky length, train, whatever, at Dallas Airport. And as we're making our last run for it, I'm holding Omri, we're running, we're going up an escalator, and I fall and eat shit. And I, like, bite it. And I'm like, I'm holding the baby.

So I am like, I'm like completely sacrifice myself to keep the baby up as I feel myself losing my balance. Good job. And I just, yeah. Yeah, good job, Dad. I destroyed my knee. My knee hits the edge of one of those escalator stairs. That's, like, really sharp.

Yeah. So I'm like, ah, like, my knee's killing me. And then we, like, I gimp it to the train or to the terminal. There's a guy driving by one of those cars in the airport. So I'm like, hey, yeah, yeah, flag him down. He puts us on. And as we're driving to get to the gate, this guy comes and save me. I'm just like, I feel like my pants are, like, sticking to my leg.

and I'm like, that is not good. Yeah, so the good news is we made the flight, incredible, like two minutes to spare. We actually get on the plane. We make the original flight, original rental car, all this stuff. We get to our house in time for dinner. The bad news is that was like two weeks ago now and my knee is still completely fucked. So that's my grievance for the week is that I'm gimping around still two weeks later with this like, I don't really know what the injury is, kind of weirdly swollen, but I'm always.

old and heal slower now. I went to try and play basketball this weekend. Didn't feel quite right. And it's all because I fell in an escalator because I changed flights multiple times. So good news made the flight grievance, knees destroyed from Escalator in Dallas, Texas. And I can't believe I haven't healed yet. It feels terrible to be in your 30s. Though I know I'm done by many standards. No, no stitches. I, well, you know, I didn't check it out until I finished my four. hour drive to get to my house because I thought I don't want to know what's going on down there. And then I unstuck my pants. And yeah, I had a big cut on my kneecap. And it's basically just a scab and bruised and swollen. But I survived. You know, I want to, this is something I wanted to start doing last week. So this is a perfect segue to it. I want to share something from the Tangle subreddit where people place their own grievances every week. The top grievance this week for

a Tangle Redditor is also escalator related, which was why on earth do people stop at the top of escalators? Why do they think that's the most appropriate place to dig in their purse for a lipstick, check their phone for messages that they've come in since they hopped on or put on their hat and gloves? All activities that can be done while walking, mind you. I'm guessing I see this at least once a week, and I'm surprised I've never seen a serious accident.

Yeah. That's the opposite, I think, of your situation, of loafing at the top of an escalator. I was flying, dude. I was moving as fast as you can move on an escalator. Yeah. That is a really good grievance. I don't want to just export mine to Reddit, though I share that. I may have used it before, even, but a grievance that I guess I have is like, I guess it's a little bit of cabin fever now.

We're two weeks post-dog surgery, so we are confined ourselves to just the living room area of our couch where we spend most of our time and sleep. so we can be with a dog and make sure she's not moving around too much. The medical advice for this period is that she should be crated and she should be constrained. And she just gets so pathetic and sad. So we have her instead in like a 10 by 10 foot rugged area between our couches. And, you know, I haven't been out in our woods in like two weeks. Not really.

I guess I've skied a little bit. So caveat that. This grievance is falling apart, quick. I mean, we're used to, we, you've waxed rhapsodic last week about the joys of rural living. And we've sort of structured our livelihood, or not our livelihood, but our lives and our patterns around. Just like getting to go outside a lot. Walks, like our hikes every day in the woods around where we live or cross-country skiing. And like, we haven't gotten to do any of that.

To the extent that Katie and I have been out in the last two weeks, it's been individually. And we've gone for, like, little jaunts and all of the tradeoffs that you get from living a rural lifestyle, you start to feel without any of the benefits. So it's been two weeks of just, like, sitting around, looks really beautiful outside. There's a lot of snow. It looks great. The skis are right there. But it's going to sit around because I've got to be on dog duty right now.

How much longer do you have in the dog prison? Yeah, it's warm in the dog prison, thankfully. But a couple weeks. She's starting to limp around a little bit and be more mobile. But we're not out of the woods for sure. I was thinking about it. You know what I was thinking about, actually? And I actually want to develop this some more.

I'm back to doing video content on a regular basis. and I think more and more about wardrobe. And I realize that at the age of 45 now, and I know I look great for 45, and some of you are surprised to discover that I'm 45. I was about to say that that wasn't inorganic at all. No, I mean, come on. But I realized that I'd actually fallen into a habit

where all of my clothes look exactly the same. I have an oversuit that I wear pretty much every day, but I own three of them. and I do have a couple of different colors, but it looks like I'm wearing the same thing all the time. And I wonder, like, is that okay? Is it fine that I'm in my like Steve Jobs Zuckerberg phase with slightly different color variations?

And I find that I'm also just like off trend. Apparently pants are getting larger again. And I used to care a great deal about that sort of thing, about fashion and sartorial stuff. And I do. It's just that I found a uniform that seems to work well for me. And I don't want to abandon it. And I also don't want to have to worry about people thinking,

didn't I see him wearing that yesterday? Yes, you did. Because it's what I like to wear. Leave me alone. Be you king. I think you have by far the best style of anybody on this podcast, Camille. So you can rest your laurels on that. I'm not going to fight you on that point.

No. I think it's a slam. I mean, Ari is just completely out of the sea. When you have to decide on one thing, it's easy. I've long since. Great shirts. I gave a box. I hope of you.

Yeah. My wife dressed me and she does your best, but my alteration is really real and whatever she created. Pass the buck. Damn. I, it's not a past, it's sort of like I put something on and I come down in the kitchen. She says, you're wearing that? Not anymore. Not after that comment.

I can't leave the house now. Tell me what to do. I don't know what to do. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, that's my life. Wow, Phoebe's come up twice in really negative light in the last two weeks. That's not negative. It sounds like she's loving you.

She loves me. Yeah. I will say briefly, because I think I told you, Isaac, I haven't told you, all right, my wife, she tries to listen to the things that I do, not always. But she listened to the podcast we did last week. And she sends me this text and then calls me and just like, I loved it. It was so good. Camille. And she's sick of hearing me talk. I talk to her all the time. We've been married for 20 plus

years. So she knows all the things that I'm likely to say and is apparently bored by them. But she really enjoyed me in conversation with the two of you. So that's something. That's nice. Sounds like she's complimenting us then. That may be so. Stay away from my wife. Good point, Arrey. Yeah. I don't know how I didn't think of that earlier. She said explicitly, it's the best version of you. And I said, really? Is that right? That's great. I love that. I don't know.

Maybe too high compliment for you, too. But, yes, she likes that. We bring out the best in you, and we'll have a show right there. All right, fellas, it was good hanging. We did nearly a full two hours. That's all-time good for us. Hopefully people stay till the end because it got so nice. I'll see you guys next week.

And hopefully we don't have a new war to talk about when we blog on this time, Wednesday. Kinetic military action, Isaac. Yeah, correct. Yeah, sorry. and hopefully you don't have new kinetic military action next week. All right, peace. Bye. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul,

and our executive producer is John Wolfe. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback 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 retangle.com.