Tangle - Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Ari and Kmele talk intraparty MAGA beefs, Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales controversies, demons and more.

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

On todays episode of Suspension of the Rules, Isaac, Ari and Kmele talk about the intraparty conflicts that are happening upon the MAGA movement and President Trump pushing their boundaries further. They then get into the controversies with Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales, why demons are suddenly being talked about in the political world and more. Last but not least, a almost very solid grievance section no thanks to Kmele. It's a good one! Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was hosted by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Jon Lall.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up, we talk intra-party MAGA beefs, the Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzalez controversies, and why demons are suddenly being talked about a lot in the political world. Plus, Camille is still terrible at the grievances section. It's a very good episode. You guys will enjoy it. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Suspension the Rules podcast.

I'm your host, Isaac Saul, in my very dark studio. I'm out of sorts right now. gentlemen, but we're going to make it work. How are you guys doing? Nobody's safe. The Pope's not safe. You're not safe. I kind of just love the... I feel safe, but I

definitely don't feel safe getting the question of, are you safe from somebody who looks like they're in a futuristic space? It's like, I made it out of orbit. I'm okay. Are you guys on Earth okay? Because I've escaped and I'm all right. That's the vibe of getting. It's actually very...

It's actually big dodgy, dodgy hostage video. Yeah, it does kind of look like I'm either in the space station or I am in deep, deep trouble. Could be both. Yeah, it could be both. I'm not in our Philadelphia studio today. I'm actually here in the co-working space in my new suburban hometown that I've not done anything to to make a nice studio setup yet. So everybody just look at Camille and Ari is pretty close for this episode. I'm going to remember that.

Let's quote that John. Isaac just called us pretty. We'll just timestamp that. Make sure we get that for posterity. I'm feeling great now. This is going to be a special episode for more than just the reason that I am here in this very odd, peculiar studio space.

I'm going to set a single ground rule for this episode, suspension of the rules today. Okay. We are going to try really hard not to talk about the war in Iran. That's the premise of today's show. What war? We're going to take...

Don't start, Camille. We're going to drag me in a song. We're going to take the topic that has dominated everything and we're going to pluck it out. We can reference it. It'll be impossible not to. It's an element to some of the things we're going to talk about. I hope today we are not...

I'm going to reel us back in any time we start going down the rabbit hole because we're missing a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff going on. It's not the Warnetron. We've covered the Warned Iran relentlessly for the last month. It's been the top of basically every episode. So we're going to try and get out of it for a little bit today. We're going to do British German diplomacy rules.

Just don't look out of the war. Right. And I want to start in that spirit by talking a little bit about the, I guess we could call them the sort of intraparty MAGA conflict. the sort of Trump flame throwing happening, which again, there's some Iran war elements. There are some divides about the war that I think are fueling some of these things.

But Trump is, the president's going a little bit scorched earth. I think maybe the best place to start would be this truth social post. That feels like it came out nine years ago, but I think it was Monday or something. That Trump made about Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly and Candace Evans

and Alex Jones. He called the four of them out explicitly by name. Among other things, he noted that they have in common are low IQs, stupid people. They know it. Their families know it. Everyone else knows it. They don't have what it takes. They never did.

They've all been thrown off television, lost their shows, and aren't even invited on TV anymore because nobody cares about them. They are nut jobs, troublemakers. will say anything necessary for some free and cheap publicity and now they have third-rate podcasts where they get some clicks. I am MAGA, they are not. You know, went after Megan Kelly

called Candace Owens crazy, bankrupt Alex Jones, who said dumb, horrible things about Trump sort of went to bat for the Sandy Hook shooting victim. This is a very, I'm reading just for the record from one single truth social post. It was pretty long. I want to start here because I think this is a really,

actually I think this is really important. I went on to Truth Social and just looked at some of the responses and the comments to Trump's post. And it wasn't received particularly well. I would say a lot of his supporters who are on Truth Social were basically yelling at him that he had kind of lost the plot

and that there was something wrong with him. and why is he throwing all these people under the bus and going to war with these folks? I also found it interesting that he lumped these four people together. I mean, from where I'm sitting, Alex Jones and Candace Owens are very different creatures than Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson.

I think some of the things he said about Alex Jones and Candace Owens, I would agree with and are right, especially about some really gross stuff they do for clicks and traffic, et cetera. I think Megan and Tucker are pretty different. I would describe them both as rather intellectual people who have really smart, incisive commentary

about a lot of really important topics. I never really got that sense from Alex Jones or Candace Owens, to be totally honest. What do you guys make... Let's just start with abroad. What do you guys make of this? What comes to mind when you read this post and sort of think about where the MAGA coalition is right now?

Well, you mentioned, I think you mentioned the Pope earlier, who the president is also feuding with. So there's so many people that he's going at all at once. The interesting thing about this foursome is Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson, I could appreciate why the president might go after them directly and criticize them. Whether or not it's appropriate, I could just see it. He never talks about Candace Holmes. He never talks about Alex Jones.

with good reason. They aren't just kind of marginal figures. They are controversial figures. They openly traffic in conspiracy theory in a way that outpaces anything that one might see from, say, Tucker Carlson, for example, although he does quite a bit of it himself. But to think that these people who are being openly critical of you and sometimes allies of yours, and I think Alex Jones really didn't stray that far from the reservation, so to speak, but that you elevate them all by giving them this kind of amplification through your criticism is perhaps not the best move and not the best move at a time when you're already super vulnerable. I won't name that which shall not be named, but I think we can talk about some of the spillover effects. I mean, people feel

like promises have been broken. People are concerned about the economic implications of that which shall not be named. And you've got lawmakers who are making these ongoing, persistent efforts to try to rein in the president's power against the backdrop of all of that, you see fit to respond to two of your most prominent critics, but also to lump in to other people who, yeah, no one is really expecting you to talk about for better or worse. And now there's a kind of active back and forth. And I think it's spreading. I saw just today Tim Poole similarly denigrating the president for some of his other remarks over the past couple of days. Denegrating is kind. That's tactful.

We always try, R. We use the R word to describe the president of the United States. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's right. I mean, Ari, I guess to put it to you, I'm curious how you're thinking about the fact that Trump decided to pick these four people in particular. Why them? And if there's any kind of rhyme or reason, or it's just a classic, he found out that these four people were saying not nice things about him.

And for what it's worth, before you answer that question, I will just add, you know, while I might denigrate the worldviews of Candace Owens and Alex Jones and the business model that they deploy in order to gain followers and money. And I do think it's very important that they are being really critical of Trump because I do think they have. have influence in the fringe of the MAGA movement, Alex Jones in particular, I wouldn't underestimate the importance of somebody like him turning on Trump. I think that can move, even if it's a few hundred thousand people across the country, it's a significant shift for folks who, you know, in the past have come to him and believe some of his crazy out there theories and takes.

but, you know, him sort of turning on the king and going into rebel mode, it matters. I think it matters. So I don't know. Are you? Yeah, go ahead. I think I have three kinds of responses to it. The first is the way that we talk about people that we disagree with or even consider outright enemies

is often very different than the way we talk about people that we think are on her side or allies of us in some way or some perceived fight. And I think for most people that's true. So like if me and Camille were on the same side, Camille and I were on the same side about something that felt vitally important to me and Isaac was just like way out there and opposed. I would probably be willing to see Camille as a person and discuss ideas

and have a back and forth and disagree with him on specific points. But I would see Isaac is like a quote, bad person. And anything that comes from there is corrupted and bad. And that's a divide that I think most people have. even the four people we listed, when you listen to Candace Owens and we've mentioned Tim Poole, but Alex Jones, when they are discussing things that they think or believe, they're willing to disagree with people who are similar to them. But usually people who are on the other side are enemies.

Second thing is I think for Trump it's all people. I think you're either on my side, you are with me or you are not. So if there's a criticism, it's less, we're on the same side and we're discussing the ideas we share. It's more, you're criticizing me. So we aren't allies here. And it's not like, it's tough to say that that's one hard and fast rule with him because we've seen him, like, reach across the aisle to Mundani in a way that, like, broke a lot of people's brains and be willing to discuss things with, like, center left people. And as long as they're in line, it's good. As long as no one's outright being confrontational with him.

So the things that he perceives as being too far, it may never be something that we have a good rule for. It's something that's in Trump's head. And the third thing is I keep thinking about this game that I played when I was at a summer camp when I was 15 or 16. And I tried to search for it since they can't find it. But the idea is like everyone has a different role. It's like a small group thing.

It's 10 to 16 people or so. And one person is the Pope and a lot of other people are bishops and other people are just in the Catholic Church and you're trying to accomplish something, I forget what it is. But the Pope has this ultimate power where he can excommunicate you. And if you're excommunicated,

you're out in the wilderness and you have to try to find your way back to having some sort of influence. But if you do that too much as the Pope, if you excommunicate people, your church starts to become too small to wield influence. So you have to be really careful about how you push that nuclear button.

And I think Trump's getting to that line here. I think he's as much as he's, he is beefing with the Pope, he's doing Pope-like things by throwing people out of his church and then trying to form coalitions with the people that he's left. And I think he's starting to whittle into his own

like the solidness of its base in a way that I don't think we've seen before. And he's always been Teflon-Done. He can keep people close. But at some point, there's just not enough base left to stand on. Yeah, I mean, there's an interesting element of this that I used to talk about in this really positive frame

about the sort of Trumpian right, which was they always felt so much more big tent to me than the traditional Republican Party. And I might, you know, the story I'm sure I've told on this podcast probably more than once at this point about, you know, saying something critical about Trump, but having one line in it about how he's a media genius and then complimenting some piece of legislation

that Senator Elizabeth Warren pushed, but not calling her Senator Elizabeth Warren and only calling her Elizabeth Warren on Twitter in the same week. And in response to the Elizabeth Warren post, there's all these liberals, like, it's Senator Elizabeth Warren and it's sexist that you didn't refer to her that way. And then in this post where I'm complimenting her piece of legislation

and then in a post critical about Trump where I had one line about him being, a media genius. There's all these MAGA people like, you get it. Trump's the best. Like, come join us. And for a long time, at least during his first term, I really did feel like that was the vibe. They were obviously after the liberal tears and, you know, it was all about owning the libs and whatever. But if somebody aligned with Trump on one particular position, even if they disagree with him on 99 other things, they would find a welcome. group from the kind of MAGA movement.

That had been my experience in observing them. And I do feel like that's changed in a really dramatic and important way. And, you know, another example who we didn't even mention was Riley Gaines, who just kind of caught astray randomly in some Trump post where he referred to her and then just did his comma,

who, you know, I don't really think much of or don't really like or something like that. comma, and then like kept talking about whatever he was talking about. And I saw her come out and post something in response to, you know, very faith oriented. I don't seek approval from Trump. I seek approval from Jesus Christ and I'm not here for the president. But I'm like, that must have stung. Like it had to.

Like you have dedicated, she's sold so much of her public persona on being part of this coalition. and have the leader of the coalition just randomly say like he didn't like you very much. I imagine hurts and I don't think that burning that kind of goodwill when you're already politically underwater

is particularly smart. So I think it's a pretty significant development. I do think it's a reflection of the fact that he's feeling increasingly isolated that he's pissing people off who he's used to, you know, being very subservient to him and maybe they're not. But it seems like a really genuine problem that the rights having right now.

And I remember in 2019 during the Democratic primaries, the Bernie versus Elizabeth Warren versus Biden versus Kamloi, like that we had so much lefty intra-party fighting. And even when Biden came into office, I felt like pretty. progressives were obsessively critical about him and kind of burned a lot of opportunity that the left had early on in Biden's presidency to accomplish things that they wanted to accomplish because they were so busy squabbling with each other. And I mean, I just, it's hard. Once you're on that train, it's hard to get off it. It's a hard thing to diffuse. And Trump is not going to, clearly, he has no interest in winning these people back over. So I don't know.

I'm very interested to see how it plays out. The midterms are coming up. We're waiting for this. John Cornyn, Ken Paxton, endorsement that very oddly has not come. Trump said over a month ago that it was going to come in a week or two, and we still haven't gotten it. And I just, you know, that's a race where the divide is very real, you know, in an electoral sense.

and I just don't know how long he can hold these groups together. So, yeah, I mean, I guess I'd be interested to hear from you guys on a scale of, you know, one to ten, how important you think this story actually is for conservatives, political prospects. If you're buying that this is real genuine division that's going to fester and maybe impact political performance and how they get stuff done, or if these are just sort of internet, squabbles that four people care about and we're all right here and that's that's really it. I'd love to get a temp check from you too about how you view that. It's a complicated question.

I think the thing where I break right away and think about it is the thing that it's indicative of, this intra-party divide that feels like it's growing, the way that members of the flank are trying to use the tools of power to lever their agendas above others since they have the tools right now. It's natural to create divisions, but the way it's happening seems very, very broad, not just with forward incursions, but also economic policy, domestic policy regarding immigration, that even that, the strongest plank that unites most of these factions, is driving a lot of the center right and the center left who came over,

or even the far left that came over during the election away. So when it gets to this point, I don't think the squabbling themselves is that important. Like maybe I'd give that a two. But the thing that's indicative of, like that larger thing, I think it's like a seven or eight. And maybe that's having my kick and eating it too.

But that's the way I see it. Yeah. I mean, that seven or eight feels appropriate. And I agree with pretty much everything you said, Ari. I mean, I would just layer on top of that, just the international circumstance as well. I mean, the tensions, the growing tensions with so many U.S. allies, we're seeing fresh, fresh round of reporting today about the expectations that NATO allies and partners have,

that the United States might not be a part of NATO anymore. And we've been hearing grumblings about this for some time. There seemed to be a kind of getting back together again, like after the Greenland's situation, it kind of cooled. But Trump is amping up the rhetoric there. He's opening fronts with the prime minister of Italy. he's taking shots at pretty much everyone simultaneously and at a time when he could really use some allies, he could really use some friendly reporting and coverage. And one thing that I just thought about as you were talking there, Isaac,

is we've talked a lot about Democrats and how they responded to the president and the degree to which they've been largely quiet in many instances on things where you would expect them to be exceedingly vocal. And here at least they are taking some steps. They've had a third Senate effort that was knocked down today to take away some of the president's unilateral ability to make war. And that effort failed and may not get much reporting. But in some respects, the fact that this kind of inter-party squabbling is happening is perhaps a

greater significance from just kind of narrative standpoint than anything that Democrats might be able to do to try to draw some negative attention towards the president and the administration, which again, it's just been embroiled in scandal. Yeah, they're not the only ones embroiled in scandal, and I don't want to... I didn't want to go too far, so that's why I stopped right there. Yeah.

We'll be right back after this quick break. I think Democrats have had their hands full with their own problems in the last week, which we promised we would get to a little bit. talked about today in the newsletter and the podcast. And I think this is as appropriate as a pivot point as we might get to talk about the Eric Swalwell stuff and Representative Tony Gonzalez, who also resigned on the backs of Swalwell's resignation.

This story is fascinating to me. And I didn't get a chance to talk about it because Will wrote the take today. And we had concurrences from Lindsey Canuth and Audrey Moorhead in the news. newsletter, which I was really happy about. I think there's a really interesting story here about the, I don't want to call it the Me Too Revival, but I don't really know what else to say about it. I think there was a lot of a lot of angst, obviously around how the Jeffrey Epstein files have been handled and the degree to which powerful people have been held accountable for sexual misconduct or allegations of sexual misconduct. And then we just had this fresh person.

and the canon, I mean, to all of a sudden have this guy who was approaching extraordinary levels of power. I mean, Swallow was a favorite in the race to be governor of the most populous state in the country with an economy, whatever, as the stat is always, you know, it's like would be fifth or six among all countries globally. He was close. I mean, he was really months away, I think, from making that a reality. and then we get these stories that just sort of break out quickly, one, then the other, than the other. And I think people were really ready to hold somebody like that accountable for allegations like this.

I like Will, who penned today's piece and talked about it on the podcast earlier, I found, or I should say, penned their piece on Wednesday and talked about on the podcast. I found allegations credible. I mean, sometimes you see some of this stuff pop up and you have a lot of questions and they feel a little, I'm not so sure. The degree to which many of these women were describing really similar incidences

involving alcohol and saying no and blacking out and weird, you know, here's a potential job in politics and I'll help you also add me on Snapchat, wink, wink, just like scummy behavior. Whether it was criminal or not, I have no idea. But I think enough smoke that maybe this guy doesn't seem on the straight and narrow. Also, I have to say, he just gives me the ride. I mean, Swalwell, he is just kind of a scummy political creature.

I watch him on TV and the whole resist thing and the way he talks about Trump and how he frames people on the right. It's just very scummy. I've never particularly trusted what he was selling. And so, you know, just gut instinct there. I mean, that's obviously really subjective. But, yeah, I think there's significance here that this guy who was so close to this really powerful position, I mean, in a matter of 72 hours, basically had his political career ended by allegations, you know, without any real substantiation, just a group of women saying, yes, we all experience.

these things. I'm interested, maybe we can start with you, Camille, kind of how you're viewing this controversy, whether this kind of vigilante justice, if you want to call it that, is good or appropriate. Do we think that this is a sign that people like this are going to be held to this kind of standard,

where if there's four or five, six women coming out and saying these things about you, you're going to be ousted from the main stage? are we back to that reality? Because it feels like we haven't really been there as much in the last few years. Yeah, it feels significant to me, but I don't know if maybe it's just an instance

where there was one really unlikable dude and everybody was happy to say, yeah, he's a scumbag, let's get him out. Yeah, I mean, likable or not, he's certainly a very high-profile Democrat. I mean, I think it's important to bring in the rest of the context when we're evaluating what happened here. Like, Eric Swallow was one of the principal agitators

for the kind of Russia, Russia gate, Russian collusion stuff as that was going on. He was brutally critical of President Trump along similar dimensions to the current scandal he's embroiled in, talking about kind of sexual assault survivors in the context of criticizing the president. But he also had a pretty massive scandal of his own that he somehow managed to survive. like to be embroiled, not just the rumors that credible rumors that had long kind of circulated about Eric Swalwell, stuff that I've certainly heard from people in the past, about him being overly flirtatious and worse, but also the thing with Fang Fang, like a Chinese spy honey trap situation that you seem to be embroiled in while you were in a position of power getting all sorts of insider information

about national security issues, it's astonishing to me that Eric Swalwell managed to survive that and then become the leading candidate for governor of California. I suspect that part of the reason why the recriminations were so swift for him is because there was just not nearly as much patience

for someone who'd already gotten in severe trouble for this, who had a bit of a reputation. And, you know, I think at a minimum, even if we find that the criminal dimensions of this aren't nearly as credible as one suspects. The fact is that you were having intimate relationships with some of your employees. This is just astoundingly poor judgment to say the least. So him getting it kind of makes sense. You know, the other thing, though, is Tony Gonzalez, he's been embroiled in scandal for a while and kind of resisting calls for

his head. So is this a kind of resurgence of Me Too? It feels that way and perhaps because we're seeing multiple incidents at the same time. But also I would have expected this to happen much quicker with Gonzalez. And it didn't. So

yeah, you can connect those dots and actually come to a pretty opposite conclusion I think. Swalwell had rumors about him, allegations that we know now thanks to some pretty solid reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle on CNN date back to 2018, 2019, specifically from one staffer corroborated by other women,

similar stories, which does make it always seem much more believable, just that face value. And these outlets look like they really did their homework and corroborated things on their own before running with the story. But the thing that sunk him wasn't those things and wasn't the Chinese spy hunting pot. It was the refalligation, which goes back to 2014. And the scheme of things is pretty recent. So, of course, you can do some political, like, there's the political calculus of here that's pretty scummy. It's coming out now during the gubernatorial race. Could it have come out sooner?

Yeah, probably. And we'll never really know why. Like, this is a person who wanted to come forward with their story. Probably, like, there's a psychological element that we can't really judge and put, like, any sort of criticism towards. But it also has the political calculus of lining up with Gonzalez's resignation. So the only reason that he resigned was that Swawa was resigning. And the only reason he was resigning was that there was a credible rape allegation. So what that tells me is we're okay with everything.

But when there's a credible allegation rate, then it's like, oh, okay, that's the line, actually. So I would say that the Me Too movement is not back because we waited a long time to get to that point. And I think it's one of the things we should learn. And I think we, a lot of people here, and I know Will wrote about this in his take today on Wednesday, was that criminal consequences are different from career and social consequences. If there's going to be stories like this that come out, you are not required to meet a bar of criminality in order to hold somebody accountable professionally. Where that line is, is negotiable.

And it varies. And like we have to be somewhat okay with the fact that that's the case. And, you know, maybe we'll get it wrong sometimes. And in this case, I think we got it wrong far too late. But the line that everyone's starting to coalesce on now that we're like, okay, this is one of the things we've gotten is just consent. And that's important, but I think it's pretty distant. And if we were in the thrall of a Me Too movement, this would have happened long, long ago to Swallow and Gonzalez. They would have been out on their asses right away.

But I think maybe it's a healthy sign of us being able to enforce some lines. but I read it kind of pessimistically that like it took a lot in order for us to get here and I wish it hadn't. Yeah, I'm always interested in the timing of this stuff. I mean, I think it's a really easy kind of, it's really easy to pull the trigger on a criticism like, oh, he was about to be anointed as the Democratic candidate in California. And obviously the allegations come out now. And this is, you know, a political hit job. And I do think there's another way to frame that, which is to me just as likely, which is there's an accuser sitting around thinking, you know, this guy who victimized me is two steps away from becoming California governor. And I have this opportunity to do something about it. And that's really it. And I think that's a reasonable thought to have as somebody who maybe had an interaction with somebody like this, you know. There are all manner of people that I've had. negative interactions with that I've never shared publicly because I'm like, they don't matter.

But if they suddenly really matter, then those interactions had more significance, I might share them publicly. You know, I mean, I think that's a reasonable position to take. Yeah. I mean, one dimension of this that is interesting. I mean, California, obviously, very consequential state for Democrats. Who profits from this is an important question to navigate? I mean, it was a crowded field. He seemed to be ahead.

but could we imagine that any of his Democratic opponents were particularly thinking, oh, this is the way I gain an advantage in this race? It doesn't really seem that way. And for Republicans, California is not in play. At the moment, the field is sufficiently crowded that one could perhaps imagine Steve Hilton maybe winning that race. But even if he did, they would recall him. They would recall him in a matter of months because that is how things work in California.

I don't think you want to get there, though. And I think like the way that there is a windgate here for Republicans is that the field was so crowded that it was feasible that both Republicans would have advanced out of the top two primary that they have, which is, you know, wasn't likely and was getting less likely as the days went on. But you could easily flip it and say, who profits is just the DNC writ large. And they're like, we got to find something on one of these people. What do we have?

We got to thin the field a little bit somehow. And again, I'm not saying that that happened. I don't think that happened. But if we're looking at who benefits here, you could easily flip it and say the Democrats in general benefit by thinning the field, period. Yeah. And maybe having someone better than Swalwell as governor of California. Right. I should say to where I'm sitting down with Steve Hilton after we record this podcast this week to interview him about his gubernatorial race.

So I'm interested to see how he's kind of positioning himself with Californians. I agree, Camille, in this environment, there is close to zero chance that he's going to be able to win, especially with the Trump endorsement, given how unpopular Trump is right now. Maybe there is a hypothetical future, even near future environment where there's a really popular Republican president or just had a really unpopular Democratic president or governor in California and then a Republican rises to the top. But right now, that feels really unlikely to me. I forgot Schwarzenegger and Reagan. But yeah, I'm interested to hear how that conversation goes, because I agree with you, and I'm sure he'll raise those points.

Yeah, and I know Steve a little bit. Not particularly well. I do think Republicans play a really important role in California politics, even from the minority. And interestingly, to the extent he can become more prominent and become a bigger voice for certain kinds of reforms, like they need to put more pressure on the Democrats. The one-party monopoly in California has hurt the state. But I suspect you'll cover some of that ground with Steve. Yeah, we definitely will.

And, you know, I know this story has really revolved around Swalwell and the implications for the California governor's race, understandably. So Tom Steyer now seems to be the new odds-on favorite, which I find shocking after watching his presidential race. But maybe he's going to mention the clips with. juvenile. Like that's the thing that I keep seeing. Yeah, those are old, but they are good and worth at Google if you haven't seen them.

Tom Steyer dancing on stage with a rapper. But maybe he is sort of this kind of even keeled, bland, little bit boring, corporatey, old, tall, white guy that California needs that voters want. That's just sort of normal. And I don't know. I have no idea where this primary is going to end up now. I don't think anybody really does. It feels like a total jump ball to me.

We have some polling, but I don't think it's nearly enough. And I think the electorate's divided enough that the race could land anywhere. All of this, I was just teeing up to say the Tony Gonzalez stuff is also really important and interesting. And nobody seems to be focusing on it now because Swalwell's just in the media. And he spent so much time in the media that his story is dominating. But Gonzalez is the representative for the district in the Big Ben region where I have my home, where this huge border wall fight has been happening. And he's just been totally sidelined in MIA since all these allegations came out. People down there have been desperately wanting him to get in the ring and fight for them.

And they really haven't had a representative. And now, on the same day that Swallow resigns, he decides to step down. which feels like an obvious backdoor deal to me between Democrats and Republicans to not sort of pull the quote unquote nuclear option on each other and do some expulsion. I guess I'm wondering for you guys, does that feel like an amicable, acceptable end to this story? Or does something about that feel slimy and off to you? I'm a little bit torn just to show my cards. I mean, I would say my initial instinct was, wait, like, they just made a deal.

Clearly, Democratic leadership, Republican leadership came together. Like, let's just get them both out at once. We'll each surrender and sacrificial lamb to the public, bye-bye. But then I was like, that's actually, it saved us a lot of time and distraction and votes. And, you know, I sort of made people. with it pretty quickly. I'm like, actually, yeah, I think maybe I would rather Congress not spend weeks and months litigating this stuff publicly and it divides both the parties and everybody gets on their sides and maybe Swawa has some defenders or Gonzalez has some defenders. And,

you know, they're just like, we're not going to waste our time with this. Let's just get them both out of here. I'm interested if you guys had those thoughts or felt maybe like there was something up with this sort of arrangement. I think it sucks. Like, yeah, it's good that they're out. And I think it's good that it didn't take a lot of time to do it. But it really should have just been allegations come out. The party leadership's like, you're done. Like just from the leadership, these are safe districts.

You don't need these guys. Like, if you talk to, if you're in the house leadership for the minority or majority, if you take the time to talk to one of the accusers and see how these claims look, I mean, that can't happen with Gonzalez, tragically. and he was accused and I think admitted to having an affair with a woman who killed herself afterwards and like that's tragic

staffer, yeah. That should be enough. It really, it just should be enough and it sucks that it's not. Ultimately, the end result is good, that they're out and it's good in a way that we have this message of we're even having the conversation about the virulence of Me Too

and how much power that accusers could hold. I think that's a good thing. But if I'm taking a step back and looking at how much they do hold, I'm going to remember that it's going to require good deal more leverage than it did in say 2016 or 2017 in order to produce that result. I don't think that's great. But if you care about getting these people out of leadership, that's a lesson to learn.

And it's not as though there aren't kind of other serious ethics situations in Congress right now. You've got a congressional representative, credibly accused of stealing tons and tons of female money to buy jewelry. And she's still there, which is extraordinary. This is DC. That's how it works. It certainly doesn't surprise me. I don't expect them to be particularly ethical in all of the ways that they operate.

But I am curious, Isaac, since you know the area, like Democrats have managed to be competitive in some places that people did not expect. How safe is the Gonzalesi? Do you suspect that that might have been part of the reason why conservatives weren't willing to kind of cut date here and force him out earlier? Yeah, I think it's less safe than people think. And I do think the border wall is going to have a huge impact on special elections or, you know, any kind of out of midterm season elections that happen down there. Now, I'm blanking on his first name right now. I think soon to be Representative Herrera, who is this pretty interesting character, kind of a gun nut, right-winger, super maga in some sense.

That was sort of how he was pegged and framed in the media. He's the likely successor. I think he's going to end up filling the seat. He has come out and criticized the Trump administration over the war in Iran and also made a really, really big fuss about not bringing a wall down at Big Ben because it wasn't needed, despite the fact that he has some pretty staunch MAGA-aligned views on immigration. So I, from where I'm sitting, my perspective is that this is an issue that is a big enough deal in South Texas that it could galvanize voters. South Texas also has been moving to the left for a long time, you know, a long time, 10 years.

I think Trump's first sort of swarries in the border wall wars down there had a really negative impact on his perception. There's also a lot of Hispanics in South Texas and Hispanics all across the country. We're watching their favorables with Trump go down. So I can see a world where we see some gains for Democrats that are pretty notable in areas like the Big Ben region in South Texas in this district that Contales has. I don't know that we'll see seats that were previously red start to flip. There's already some blue parts of the border in Texas that traditionally are areas, districts won by Democrats. But, you know, building a big huge wall in the most untouched, pristine parts of the country

is actually not a very popular thing. And we've seen it in places like Arizona where a lot of sort of country ranch cowboy types who have experienced the wall going up in their backyards have turned on the president. And the eminent domain stuff, I would say in Texas is also supremely unpopular. They kind of don't tread on the attitude that is typical of a lot of people in the Texas conservative mold. It informs the way people see a story like the Trump administration is stealing, I mean, whatever. They're using eminent domain to take.

I guess I shouldn't say stealing. The ranch owned land. Uh-huh. You know, and my family's on the front lines of this. I mean, I have a cousin who has a 380-acre ranch in Presidio, Texas. You got a letter from the federal government telling her that they were going to build a border wall on her property. And she could either take X amount of dollars or they will use eminent domain to take it.

And she's lawyering up with an eminent domain lawyer. And the game is basically how long can we fight it and hold them off until they come here. And that story, I think, will resonate with a lot of, you know, cowboys and Texas types, Texas right-wing types who don't think it's great that the federal government can roll up to your ranch and say, this is mine now. And, you know, again, the degree to which that impacts. future elections in South Texas, I think, will just be dependent on how much that story kind of percolates and penetrates the public's mind, how much the Iran war continues to dominate the news. The thing we're not talking about continues to dominate the news. But it's not, nothing in politics is permanent. So I don't view this seat as super safe,

you know, bright, ruby red, I think it's a red seat and it could change if Trump continues on the path that he's on. So we'll see how that plays out. I'd be willing, I mean, this is your area and you know it better, but I'd be willing to make a friendly wager with you on that, just based on the numbers

alone. Like, even seating that, I think you could argue that the last election was a little bit, like that was a good election for Trump, a lot of good turnout. So you have to discount all the numbers. a lot, but still, the election where Gonzalez, that Gonzalez's last won in 2024,

he won by 26 points. So I don't really think that there's going to be enough to chip away at 26 points of a lead. It's like 80,000 votes that he won by pretty much in a region where less than 200,000 people voted. So, like, sure, like, you will see shifts, but I think it'd be really tough for me to see in a two-year span that margin slipped away entirely. I'll, I'll retort with just this excerpt from the New York Times, which I'll just quoted here. In Texas, a special election would ordinarily be set by Mr. Greg Abbott,

the governor for the next regular election date, which is November. But Abbott also has the power to order an emergency special election before then. Whether he would do so was front of mind for party activists and candidates running for Mr. Gonzalez's district, which stretches from San Antonio at El Paso.

Some Democrats on Tuesday appeared eager for Mr. Abbott to go forward with an emergency special election, buoyed by recent election wins around the country, including in Republican areas of Texas. Abbott is really in a box, said Matt Angle, the director of the Lone Star Project, which supports Democratic candidates in Texas. If he calls his special promptly as he should,

then Democrats have an excellent chance to pick that seat up. So the district, which was redrawn before that last election, to favor Republicans, is typically not in place. And I'll certainly concede that. And I think if it ends up being a November election, there is a good chance that Herrera wins and a Democrat doesn't. But with all this border wall stuff going on,

if there's a special election between now and then, and it happens faster than that in the midst of this war, while Democrats are really energized and we don't have a new story, that kind of pushes some of this other stuff out. I just wouldn't say it's a no chance. So no thanks on the wager. I'll keep my money. But I think Abbott waiting for this election to happen in November,

if that is the path he takes, kind of tells you what, you know, that says everything, in my view, which is he's not confident enough to just fill the seat immediately at a time when Republicans very much need one, two, three, four more people in the house. So conversely, like a fast election would imply probably the T-leaves are looking the other way. I'm sorry. Camillo, I know that you've got something cute up here. Well, no.

I mean, one, I'm just thinking about our sponsor, Polly Market, who, you know, would be disappointed. We're not gambling. But I'm actually, I mean, I think this is an interesting conversation. I don't have a kind of firm opinion on this, but as certainly when you talk about the local issues there that are close to the ground that have implications for the party, I think that's a little different than the cumulative.

kind of controversy and scandal and awfulness that the Trump administration is having to navigate with respect to the way it's perceived by the party, by voters who selected him and trusted him, maybe that's sufficient, a sufficient kind of amplifying factor to actually turn a race like that in that particular district, more so than anywhere else. But I think I totally get your point, Ari, those local races have tended to be quite a bit different

than what's happening nationally. And what you actually need to have happen is a competitive Democrat to show up who has a credible message that is actually going to resonate with conservatives who, in many instances, didn't vote for Donald Trump because they loved him. They voted for him because they were sick of Democrats.

They didn't like what they were selling and they wanted something utterly different. They wanted to repudiate them. And I think that's just the really important dynamic to bear in mind here at the moment. It doesn't really seem like anyone has a particularly great sales pitch electorally. And that's, I think, going to be a persistent issue

that both parties are going to need to try to figure out. Yeah, I'm not the last guy continues to be the most compelling pitch that many of these members of Congress have and presidents, for that matter. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right. I want to quickly pivot into something

that I have been so anxious to talk about. This is maybe a new good segment that we're going to run called Good Guy of the Week. I presume John will come up with some fancy music for this. So, John, you could play the Good Guy of the Week music. Do we have that? Nothing too angelic. Yeah, nothing too angelic. All right.

I just, before we say it, I just want to preface this by just saying, we publish so much political content. We publish a newsletter on a podcast every day. We have six days a week we're putting stuff out. And we haven't talked about this story yet. So we get 10 or 15 minutes on the show. Unload and enjoy ourselves a little bit. The good guy of the week this week nominated and voted for by me

is whoever the staffer was, the anonymous staffer, who got Trump to take down the Pope tweet. Or the Jesus Christ. No, the doctor treat. Yeah, the Jesus Christ posts where Trump appears to be, not appears, there's no reason to qualify this. Trump is Jesus and he's healing somebody and there's a demon in the background and all sorts of bizarre stuff happening. It's an odd thing. We can talk about that forensically.

There's an interesting theory about it, but that's probably a footnote in the story, if we're honest. Okay. I don't know. I was just going up the slack. I was going off the slack message that Audrey Moore had sent, who is my resident Christian theological expert, who seemed to have identified which demon in particular it might be. I think she was right.

I think she might have been right. But let's not do it. It's not getting to the demons of it all. The vice president is talking about demons. He assures us that you were going to get there. We'll have a demon pod eventually. No, the demon pod's happening. today. We're talking about it. But I want to get there slowly. First, Trump, post himself as Jesus

in the same week that he attacked the Pope as being soft on crime, which is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. So good guy of the week is somebody got Trump to take this down. We don't know who. I very much presume it wasn't. I have a hard time imagining the president, finding the post, scrolling back on truth social, clicking it and deleting it. But we'll start with the explanation, which was the president telling the press that he did not think the post was him as Jesus Christ, he thought that he was a doctor.

And then there's a theory online that maybe it was, he was told to say that the photo was a doctored photo because Caroline Levitt said that later and then he got his wires crossed and just said he was a doctor. But I mean, he's Jesus healing somebody. You could see if you're Trump, maybe that's...

What? I don't know if you guys... I have so many thoughts and questions. I will say, well, I find this an extraordinarily funny episode because it is just one of these... It's so silly and absurd and ridiculous, and I just can't believe it's real and the fodder. It is a quite offensive thing to do

for many Catholics and Christians. and it offended a lot of people. They're, kudos to many people on the Christian right and the Catholic right came out and were like, there's no excuse for this. Trump should take this down. I mean, I saw some defenders, but I would say they were very much in the minority

and they were getting kind of ratioed and dogpiled for trying to defend it. So he managed to piss a lot of people off who were typically, I think, excusing some of the excesses of his behavior. Yeah, I can't believe it. When I saw it, I thought, that's not real. He didn't actually post that.

And that's the second time that's happened recently. The first was the Iran, praise be to Allah, tweet. It's just incredible. So, I don't know. Is he okay? Are we okay? Thoughts, feelings, impressions. Isn't it?

At a certain point, it's tough to just laugh it off anymore, right? It is so weird and funny that my brain is just like, wow, I can't even think about how that happened. How the president goes through the mechanics of scrolling, oh, that's a funny meme. Let me just, oh, look, I'm Jesus. I'm going to kind of share the photo, but it's edited a little bit. It's a little different than the original one that was posted. So somehow do that and then post it and go, that's good. I think that's a good thing.

That'll really work for me. And then have to respond to that. It's imagining that actually is hard. So my brain rejects it and all I can do is laugh. But I mean, it's pretty, it's really bad, Camille. I think it's really bad. So I've gone back and forth about whether or not I believe that he believed that he was being depicted as a doctor in that image.

I'm not sure. And to the extent I have doubt, it's not because I'm giving him credit here. It's because I know that his aptitude, biblical scholar, it's not particularly great. You remember that famous clip of him with Mark Halper, and asking him, what's your favorite Bible verse? Well, are you a New Testament guy or an Old Testament guy? And his responses to both questions were not particularly good.

One, I don't want to talk about my favorite Bible verse. Two, which Old Testament guy, New Testament guy? Both. Just both. Like, you sound like a kid who didn't do your homework. Is it entirely possible that you saw a picture of a man with glowing hands wearing a white robe with a red sash and thought, oh, obviously a doctor? Maybe. I don't know. Maybe he was going too fast.

I'm not sure. That's so cool. And I would say that with respect to the image, as I understand it, this is something that was painted by someone or created by an artist, and they decided to post it, and they made some changes to it. We know that when you use AI to modify images, the changes are not always narrow. I think that the kind of demon component of it is a bit strange, but I do think it is interesting because it's not just a, oh, I'm definitely just repost this. but we're going to transform this in some way. We'll alter it because we think it's so good. We really want this to get out there.

Yeah, they're not great at this. They're not making great decisions, especially at a time when, again, I'm not going to mention the conflict, but I will say that Iran seems to have some really high quality, like meme operatives. So I'll just leave it at that. We need to step our game up.

How do we square it? I don't know how to square it. Well, I'll, again, give you one potential explanation that seems to be percolating, which is Trump is possessed currently. I've heard this. Yeah. This is, look, as a-

This really is demon pod this week. Yeah. Yeah. As a Jew, I feel very distant, I would just say from this lens, this worldview, that these sort of demonic forces are at play in our politics. in our country, it's not something that is really talked about at all in Judaism. And so it's very foreign to me. And I really want to be respectful and not mock it,

even though my faith background makes me feel like there's absurdity here. But it's fascinating to watch some of this because the response has been quite sincere from some people. Actually, the comedian Matt Ruby, who writes this newsletter I like, called Roob's Letter. He did a whole post about this titled The Demons Made Me Do It. And Marjorie Taylor Green,

I'm just going to give a quick list, said, it's more than blasphemy. It's an anti-Christ spirit that Trump is embodying. Alex Jones said, I will now stand against this new Trump who by the day becomes more demonic, more twisted, and more sick.

Tim Poole said Trump is demonic and a mad king. I should have seen it sooner. He apologized to, his audience. Peter Thiel, who's been talking a ton about the Antichrist, did not wade into this particular issue, but he's sort of of the like who sees these forces. Tucker Carlson, who very famously claimed that he was physically mauled by a demon in his sleep on a night where he was sleeping with his dogs in the bed, I said, there's no logical way to understand what we're seeing

now in temporal terms. You just can't. These are not political divides. There are four And then finally, Joel Webbin, who, you know, is a pastor, he said, I genuinely believe Trump is currently demon-possessed, period. Full sentence, full stop. You put that up on X this week. Again, this is very foreign stuff for me. And Camille, you have more of a sort of Christian upbringing. Maybe you can speak to some of this or the framework that brings this about. I find it odd and a little bit alarming that this is the explanation that it's seemingly a significant portion of people are kind of moving towards is that Trump is under some sort of spell that he has been, you know, he's like a demonically embodied somehow. I don't really know. I don't really understand it and I don't really know how to speak to it. But it's all over my feed and I'm seeing it from people who I otherwise.

believed to be, not all of them, but some of them, like very, very serious thinkers who often separate their faith from their political writing. And it's a trend that's picking up, is there's some sort of possession, demonic force. What are you guys' thoughts, feelings about that? Does it mean? Camille, if you're not going to jump and I'll jump in. I can, I can take it in some modern Well, no bait. Now it makes me want to make Camille talk about it. I'll comment afterwards.

Please, Ari, proceed. You're holding back, but... Maybe I have something to hide. Oh. I'm going to steal a man demons here for a second. So, yeah, the demon theory, anyway. I think throughout time, things have happened that exceed our ability

to describe them in the modern scientific consensus that we have of those times. And we invent names to refer to the things that lie outside that scientific consensus. Some of those names are often alien, ghost. Sometimes they're demons. Sometimes they're angel. Leprocon fairy. The list goes on.

But demons are very popular one. And I think a lot of people experience things that are tough to just wash away that can sometimes feel like having messages that are of the light and sometimes feel like you're having experiences that are of the darkness. And those things can happen, especially in states when you're kind of quasi-sleeping or susceptible to it. And the theory that I understand about some of these dark forces in theory, we're talking abstractly, is that when you're in moments in your life of particular stress, you can be approached by demons, and if we call them that, and that if you are not willing or

able to push them away. And if you're weak enough to give consent to them, they can have some power over your decision-making in mind. So I don't think it's necessarily something you have to believe in a Christian framework. I think it's something that you can believe in like a general occultist framework. And if there's, I think, like, I can access that point of view for why somebody would say that. I don't agree. That's what's happening to the president. But I don't have all the facts either. So I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand. actually. So if we're doing like tin man, stheo man, I'd give the demon theory a too. I'm not dismissing it. Wow. Okay. Well, I am metaphysically promiscuous and I like all sorts of strange

ideas and will entertain them seriously. But I also have very high standard when it comes to just evidence. And I think there is a very clear, straightforward explanation for what on earth is going on with President Trump. And it is that he just doesn't have a tremendous amount of self-control. And particularly with his posts on truth social, he will post almost anything. Most of the time it seems like he's barely looking. Sometimes it seems like there are things that are amusing to him. I think the kind of praise be to Allah thing on Easter.

It's just, I mean, it's just, it is an extraordinarily, extraordinarily strange and bizarre set of circumstances that we find ourselves in. the way in which messaging is happening in our national politics is very strange. But I also find it deeply strange that people are openly speculating about the role of demons in our political project. I don't think those people just started.

No, you said they just started? I said, I don't think they did. I think these are a lot of people talking about demons consistently. But I think it's like ramped up recently. I mean, when Tucker came out and started talking about his demonic attack. It struck everyone's ear as quite strange because who was doing that as a kind of national

political commentator who at the time wasn't quite mainstream, but at least it just come off of his stint at Fox. But he also started his show, his new show, talking about UFOs are absolutely real. Now we know also their demons.

It's very strange that all of this has become a fairly normal and now regular component of our political discourse. And that actually, Ari, makes me a little bit inclined to what you were laying out there, which I'm somewhat surprised to have to acknowledge that in a time of stress, of profound uncertainty, a lot of people are leaning into their faith traditions and perhaps even manufacturing new faith traditions for themselves. And we are talking openly about a great many conspiratorial things. And demonology is just one of them. And,

again, whether or not it's true, it does seem to be a symptom of something. I want to hear more about what happened to Tucker, too. Like, genuinely, I do. I'm very curious. I'm serious. There's an easily accessible interview that you can look up on YouTube if you want to hear him talk about it. He's told the story publicly a couple of times. So I encourage you to check it out.

A lot of spooky jump cuts, too. Yeah. All right. Well, just to get back to it, I just want to reiterate, good guy of the week, whoever convinced Trump to delete that post, you did the right thing. I'm glad it was taken down. You hopefully mended some fences between Trump and the religious right and also took it out of the news for a little bit

until we talked about it here on the show. That's it for our good guy of the week segment. And we're over an hour here, gentlemen. So I think it's time to get into some grievances, which I know John has music for because we have to complain about our lives before we leave this show. It's therapeutic for us. It's part of what brings us together.

John, a little grievances music, please. The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. All right. I've won house-related one, but if anybody's feeling antsy, I'm happy to see the floor. Do you gentlemen. I'll go. Homeownership, hard sucks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I, we had some outlets in the house that didn't work. So we did the thing normal people do. We looked up an electrician. I found some company on Google that seemed that have really good ratings, and I called them. They came. And it was the first mistake I think I made was it was those truck electricians, you know, that come and like the advertisements for their companies all over the van.

And it's a crew of them and they have uniforms. And in retrospect, I should have just found. some local guy who's got like a five-gallon bucket and some pliers and a disregard for safety rules. That was the guy I needed. But whatever. These guys came. They spent three or four hours in the house looking at five or six outlets that weren't working. A few in the kitchen, one outside, one in the basement.

And the guy was doing a diagnostic thing. He couldn't figure it out while he was there. He replaced one outlet that was working with a new, whatever it's called the GDFI, like the waterproof outlet that the light goes on and off. And, you know, so we're like, all right, that sucked. That was a lot of time. We stayed home for this. Nothing got fixed.

He said his boss was going to come out and look at it. Whatever. His boss came out and looked at a similar thing, did a big diagnostic thing, said he figured out what was wrong with the outlets. And he was going to send his crew back out to fix them. And he wouldn't charge me for anything because they only charge when they figure stuff out and resolve it. So the first guy's hours were off the books and his time was off the books, but he would charge me for the guys who came and fixed this stuff. And I was like, okay, great. That seems really fair. Appreciate you doing business. I was just getting skeptical or whatever. So he sends his crew out and it's these three guys who are presumably electricians. They work on the house. They're in our house for, I mean, literally six hours. It was a day that I was in the office on a Friday. And my wife was home.

and off from work, and she had a friend visiting. And so she really wanted to go out with a friend and show her the town. But she had to stay home while the guys were there working on the house for what we thought was going to be like an hour. And it turned into this literal full six or seven hour full day thing. So she couldn't leave home. So she's mad at me, annoyed that I wasn't there deal with this thing. I scheduled.

These guys go around the house. They have the five outlets they're supposed to fix. They fix two of the five outlets. And then as they're wrapping up, they ask us about this porch light where in order to get the porch light on, I have to flip it on then off and on again. And they go to examine the porch light and in the process of examining it, make it completely dysfunctional where we can't get it on at all with any kind of tricking the light switch. And then are like, that porch light isn't quite right. We're going to have to quote you for that. And you'll probably need to get that repaired too.

And then pack up their things and leave and then send me a $700 bill. And I just can't understand how fixing two out of five outlets and breaking one porch light qualifies as a $700 cost. And I now don't trust electricians. They're officially on my shit list. And every week of homeownership is a new fun adventure like this, which I do find genuinely stimulating. But this one annoyed me enough that I knew exactly how I was going to talk about today for my grievance. And it is electricians who can't fix outlets and then ask me for lots of money and make me feel like a bad person for being upset about it. So that's what's happening in my life.

Do you think you're going to find maybe an electrician through this podcast? New Jersey is a densely populated state. Perhaps somebody can speak to you and say, oh, no, don't paint them all in a broad brush. Isaac, my buddy, he's a gallon bucket, five-gallon bucket pliers guy. He'll come and do you, right. If you know a good honest electrician in New Jersey, send me an email. Will W-I-L-L-L-Reedtangle.com? It's the one.

And with some recommendations. And I'll say I have a garage with no electricity, a detached garage that I'm going to be turning into my at-home studio. Big job. Lots of money there. And I need an electrician. I help me get it across the finish line. So I'm open. I'm all years.

I would love if that happened. Thank you, all right? That was a good prompt. Yeah. It's a button I can't really impress too much here. Though I will say like one time I complained about not being able to move up into my current house because it was too muddy and there's no four-wheel drive rental vehicles in Vermont. And like one person who lived 10 minutes away was like, I've got a truck, I can help. That was amazing. So you still listen, you're still a man.

I think like to transition to my grievance, it'll be short. I'm at like 3% human battery right now. I'm clutching on for dear life. I had the Tdap booster yesterday. And then this morning, I forgot that I had it. I think it was going on kind of like normal, but I could feel myself mentally fraying a little bit. Like I think Isaac may be detected.

I had a little bit less patience than normal. And then by like one o'clock, I was like, I feel like I'm in molasses. I feel so cold and slow and sore and oh, right, that happened. And I'm just like, it's dragging. It's a normal thing. happens to people when you have a booster shot. So it's not like the end of the world, but I'm feeling it. I'm fighting. And when this podcast is over, I'm lying down. Don't worry, man. That's just the microchip embedding itself in your brain. As long as it's not

like a demon, I'm good. I can deal with the tech. I wonder if I can cheat on this one. And I've cheated a bunch. I will, I will, here's my grievance. It still bothers me to know end that so many people managed to get basic facts about vitally important stories wrong and still managed to believe so many insane things that the reporting just doesn't even support. And sometimes it's journalists making errors. Oftentimes it's the readers that are making errors. So that generally bothers me. And I've certainly been bothered by that this past week and in the weeks before.

But if you happen to live... in Los Angeles, and you have a high schooler. There is a program at Harvard Westlake this summer. It's called The Search for Truth in a Digital World, and it is being organized by some very good friends of mine and some actually some Tangle subscribers. And there is an opportunity for your high schooler to participate in this internship between June 15th and July 2nd this summer.

We're just doing solicitations. Just grievance solicitation. This is not a paid ad. We're hiring. This is not a paid ad. These are some folks that I know who are piloting a new program. It doesn't cost you anything, but not participating in this, if you have the opportunity to, would be absolutely abysmal and abominable,

especially for your young person who you want to be an astute observer. of the news and politics, don't you, please? You went about as... You did like an Artemis 2 orbit to get there, and I respect the hustle. I feel to grade it. You're on thin ice now. My face is going to be next to that.

Like, don't let your child die in the media if you look at Los Angeles, send them to Camille. Like, look at these three people supporting me. Your assignment for this week is to spend your whole week looking for opportunities to be aggrieved by the world. Something to be miserable about. Just live in negativity for the next week until you find it. It's really hard. Get your hands around it.

It's really hard. It's really hard. I will say. The demons may be coming for me next. To end on a nice note. That's what I'll say. I'll tend on a nice note. I had a moment with Phoebe today. We were driving.

We picked up our son from her mom's house and we were driving through like the sunny, green, beautiful suburbs. And she just looked me and said, you have a really nice life. I said, we really do. We really do. There it is. I got to wash that feeling off of the podcast.

No, I was just kidding. Life's good. And I appreciate your stubborn positivity, though you suck at this segment. I too. You're horrific at it. But it's great. It's like almost a new bit we have now. So, all right, that's it for the show.

Thank you guys for tuning in. And we'll see you next week where I'm sure we'll have to talk about the Iran War for the whole time. I hope you enjoy a brief. respite from that. I'll see you gentlemen soon. Have a good one. Don't let the happen man in. Bye. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Lowe. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead,

Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website. at retangle.com.