Tangle - Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Ari and Kmele talk Texas Senate primary, the missing congressman, and more.

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

Coming up on todays episode of Suspension of the Rules: we go deep on the Texas Senate primary results, the Enhanced Games and the missing congressman nobody is talking about. Last but not least, a very good grievance section where Ari grosses us out a bit... 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 about why my writing sucks and the Texas Senate primary. The missing congressman, nobody's talking about this. A member of Congress is just missing. And then some really disgusting grievances, courtesy of Ari. It's a really good show. Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening. And welcome to the suspension of the rules podcast.

I am your host, Isaac Saul. Sick and disheveled and unshaven. I feel terrible, gentlemen. I'm joined here today by our editor at large, Camille Foster, and managing editor Ari Weissman. I don't think I've introduced either of you for like eight episodes. Is that true? I don't know when I stopped it.

Yeah, I don't know. I think I just stopped saying that part. I don't know why. You just would ask us a huge question and derail us from the start. Yeah, I was really good. It was a nice way of changing subjects so we won't comment on how you feel about your looks. You're doing good. Great, buddy.

Thanks. I feel like I could use some PEDs, gentlemen. I see what you did there. Maybe you like that. Yeah. I wanted to talk about the enhanced games. You know, I thought Ken Paxton winning a Republican primary in Texas was a sign of societal rot. And then I turned on my TV this weekend.

And I saw the enhanced games where performance enhancing drugs are not only allowed but encouraged. and everybody is still terrible. It was, do you guys, you both know about this, really, because. Grudgingly,

I think. Yeah. Well, I know, I know some of the people involved in, in getting it off the ground and funding it actually.

So, some familiarity with it. Wow, some scumbag people are coming to them. That's cool, man. I didn't say, I didn't say I helped or anything.

I just said, I hate this so, much. But I guess I'll give my, you know, layman Simp understanding of what this is. Yeah. Which is a bunch of people who can't compete in the Olympics without doping and are salty about that, created their own kind of division of sport where they just say, everybody's going to cheat or enough people are going to cheat. We should just accept that. We should all cheat together. And we'll create an Olympic style.

event where it's just okay to do PEDs. And then they hosted their inaugural event and no world records were broken. One world record was broken. The 50 meter backstroke, I believe. Yeah, something swimming. That sucks. I miss that. By a person who...

That ruins my old thing, man. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I will confirm this, but by a person who I do not believe was doping. Oh, that might be right. personal best by only a couple hundredths of a second and was wearing an illegal suit based on swimming regulations internationally. So he was cheating in his own way. Yeah.

Yeah. Got it. Yeah. I just, I couldn't believe when I was, I had this Memorial Day trip with friends this weekend. I ended up in the cat skills and lots of very good, wholesome fun hanging around the fire. and kids and all that good stuff. And at some point, post kids going to sleep, dinner, we're like having margaritas, we're talking.

Somebody turns on the TV just to, like, get basketball on or something. NBA playoffs have been incredible. So good. And all of a sudden, there's just like this swimmer who looks like Hulk Hogan. And I'm like, what is this? And they're like, it's the enhanced games. You haven't heard about this. I think you're like a politics reporter.

I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And then I was informed that there is this. pro-cheating, pro-drugs Olympic-style event that got off the ground this weekend. How are you guys feeling about it? It doesn't seem to bother you. Camille's a funder of the event.

No. You're smiling. A ton of like very cold water takes on this. Just like a deluge of cold takes. I think, like first of all, just as a correction, the swimmer who broke his own record, Christian Gok Illuminate,

Gok Illamaya. I'm sorry, I don't. That'll be fine. But I did my best. He broke the 50 meter freestyle. Anyway, I think I take a little bit of issue to saying a bunch of people who couldn't make the Olympics decided to make their own sport. I think it's more both charitable and correct to say the people who put it together said, we want to see what the actual highest limit of human achievement could be. Right.

if we allow like any kind of performance-enhancing drugs to be used and any sort of, I guess, sleek swimwear to be worn. And anybody who can compete under these rules are welcome. And it's not breaking the rules if you don't have rules. So it's not cheating if everyone's doing it. It is the conceit. The thing that I think, the very, very obvious thing for why there are no world records broken here is the incentives don't line up. Like if you imagine if you're in an Olympic level,

athlete for you to say, you know what, I'm training for the Olympics and now it's like two years time. I'm going to derail my training and I'm just going to dope up and do this and put my entire career at risk just so I can get this world record. And yeah, the prize purses were attractive

but of course it's going to whittle down your talent pool. And then second, I think these athletes had like two to four months to prepare for this. And for somebody who's trying to achieve like world record, status for something, that's really not enough time to get yourself around the bend to achieve a

world record. And then many of them are only doping for a couple months. So really what this proved is that doping has less of an effect on good training regimens and top level talent. Huge surprise. Yeah, I know. But like, if you take an Olympic level athlete and make them dope, they will probably succeed to a higher degree. Like, we learned nothing from this and it was extremely uninteresting. Yeah. I mean, I'm at least curious about this sort of thing. There are certainly some performance enhancing drugs that are not just about making you stronger, fetter, faster, but perhaps helping you heal faster.

And that kind of stuff can get you disqualified in many pro sports and another Olympic competition. You know, to the extent stuff like that is being leveraged, that does seem interesting to me. And can that extend someone's career? And yes, as Ari pointed out, expand the peak performance or extend the peak performance of someone who is already super duper top elite athlete in their class who would probably not do something like this for fear of ruining their career or otherwise endangering themselves. I think the other thing to keep in mind is most of the doping that was happening,

this was all ostensibly under the supervision of medical professionals. So they were still trying to do this within some parameters so it's not to have people just completely overdosing. So there are a bunch of different caveats to keep in mind. the future of this league is in jeopardy at this stage show, however, because one, it didn't really deliver the goods, but two, they were already having a difficult time finding partners to help put this stuff on air.

So they mostly had to give access away for free as opposed to do something on paper view. Yeah, I guess I'm a little bit more interested in just briefly, and then we'll move on to some actually more important things. like the moral question at the heart of this. I suppose there's like the free market capitalist mindset that I embody a lot, which is like I don't care, let them try and make this thing work. But but like doesn't it feel a little disgusting or something?

I don't know. Or am I just because like, and I don't mean to be a purist. Like, you know, I watch the NBA a lot. I'm a huge basketball fan. like everybody in the NBA is taking steroids. I think it's pretty obvious. LeBron James is not doing what he's doing without some help. I'm sorry.

And like, I'm not delusional about that. Do I have evidence for that? Not directly. I'd say I heard some rumors from people who have spent a lot of time around NBA teams. And it's, it seems like it is a kind of known fact that everybody just sort of operates by like dusting under the rug a little bit. They have not had like the Major League Baseball reckoning with that problem yet. So I don't mean to be a total purist. But I'm also just like, I don't want to endorse this with a view or I like,

I wouldn't buy tickets to the event other than maybe to just see the prospect of this freakish-looking swimmer who weighs like 40 pounds more than he should getting in the water. I don't know. Is there any, do you guys feel any kind of ickiness about it? I mean, it does seem. I know what he means. I'll say that. I'm also having a hard time articulating it.

Just because when you try to draw the line, it's immediately really fuzzy. I think that's right. Yeah. I think all of us in some way have had steroids before or taken them. Like corticosterone steroids are some of the most popular things to diet. HGH. Yeah. I mean, if you have like an asthma attack, I've had an asthma attack where steroids are prescribed from it,

I've had like to help me recover from post-op surgeries, like a bresectomy. in my knee, I've had steroids, like, injected to help with, like, stimulate adrenaline to help with the healing process. That's kind of normal, I think. And it becomes a problem when, I don't know, like, when you're taking HGH, when you're doing this regularly, how much is regularly? Like, are you allowed to do this to help an injury? But within a certain number of times before you compete, like, there's so many regulations that sports have gone into a different, in different governing bodies to answer those questions and they do that for a reason. You don't want to give unfair advantages to athletes and you also want to try to protect the long-term health of athletes.

If you're taking HGH all the time, that's going to be really bad for your long-term health, especially to your skeleton. And like there's a reason why there's regulations are in place and just to see people be cavalier and flunk them does feel a little bad. I do also feel a little bit of curiosity and see like, you know, if somebody wants to be so out of line with their priorities that they're willing to throw away their careers and risk their health to see if they can break a world record that will have an asterisk next to it. Sure. I guess I'm curious. But I agree. It's only a curiosity. And I'd rather see people kind of compete within the regulations that were developed for good reason over time. Yeah. I mean, I think I can't find anything to disagree

with in there. It is hard to know where to draw the lines. And the reality is that things that perhaps were considered performance enhancing before maybe aren't. consider performance enhancing very soon. And perhaps other things will move into that criteria, into that territory very soon as well. Ultimately, what you want when you watch sports of any kind is to see people who have dedicated their lives to some craft. And they are performing at the absolute pinnacle of what is achievable.

And doing that with some enhancements, or perhaps doing other things that I might personally not be, willing to do to try and test the limits of my ability. I'm there for it, provided what's happening on screen is not people unduly risking their lives. It's actually one of the problems I have with stuff like UFC, for example. I don't know how many times you can get punched in your face, before something traumatic happens to you. And I'm not really here for snuff. But someone who is doing everything possible to swim as fast as they possibly can, you know, cutting off all manner of things in their personal lives and devoting themselves to this in a way that is almost unhealthy,

I suppose I'm there for that. But I'm aware of the fact, I'm aware of the fact that I'm kind of approaching a line and maybe the way that they marketed this is part of what's making us so queasy. Yeah, I do think that is definitely part of it, is the kind of public, proud framing of the lack of rules and regulations, basically. All right. Well, you know, I wasn't expecting to spend 10 or 15 minutes on the enhanced games, but I'm glad we did. There was a big election yesterday as we recorded this.

A couple big elections. We don't have to ever talk about that sex therapist, crazy anti-Semite again, which I'm super happy about. I hope I never hear her name. I won't even utter it on the show. We spent some time talking about her last week. And I'm glad she lost. Democrats did the mature thing and voted for it. anybody but her. I can't say the same about what happened in the Republican primary, where now

Ken Paxson is the prevailing Republican candidate and is headed for a matchup with James Talariko in the general election. I had the unfortunate experience this morning of writing something that I immediately regretted the moment after it published, which was calling the situation in Texas a lose-lose situation, which our readers and listeners took in many different ways. And I generally have a rule. My dad always used to tell me like the old, you know, Russian proverb about one person telling you you're drunk, you can tell them to screw off. Two people tell you you're drunk, like maybe you go lay down for a minute.

And, you know, when I see a piece of my writing get misinterpreted at scale, it becomes really difficult to blame the audience and not say like maybe my writing wasn't as clear as it should have been. So I definitely own the responsibility of perhaps not formulating my take or my opinion as thoughtfully or clearly as I could have. That being said, I do think it's fairly easy to explain why I viewed the election as a lose-lose. We are in a situation now where if Ken Baxson wins in the general election, we have... have a candidate headed to the Senate who I believe to be comically corrupt and unethical. He just seems like a bad person who does bad things and has done bad things for the entirety of

his existence in public service. There are stories going back to him from his earliest days as a Texas State House member and none of them reflect well on him and he has not carried himself during the campaign in a way that reflects well on him. And yeah, I don't want that person being one of the 100 most powerful people in American government. So I don't want him to win his Senate race. James Tolariko is a lose in a different way, which is that if he wins, I believe he is still to the left of most Texas voters. And he will invite this incredible, enormous way.

of conservative backlash and fear and upset about the fact that he's becoming the Texas senator. Fundamentally, I think his odds are long to win the race because of that fact that most Texas voters just don't share his politics, which also was something I said that got criticized a bunch, and I was kind of surprised by, because I don't think that's a controversial thing to say at all. James Talariko self-identifies as a progressive Democrat. He supports Medicare for all, legalizing marijuana, free college tuition. He's very supportive of the LGBTQ community. All of those things are policy positions that in a state that has voted for Republican presidents going back to 1980,

where Democrats never win statewide elections, where the average voter is conservative, are, you know, there's an incongruence there, obviously. But there's a degree of what's worse here. And I definitely did not mean to imply that sending a corrupt senator is as bad to Congress is as bad as, you know, having a bunch of partisan divisions inflamed by someone like Tala Rico winning. I think both things are bad. And I think we're in a lose-lose. And I think that, you know, whatever happens in November, it's going to be very ugly politically intense. Texas. I don't endorse politics. I don't, excuse me, I don't endorse politicians. Entangle. I never have. I never will. So you're not going to hear me explicitly saying who I hope

wins the election in November. But I thought that in a take where 90% of it was basically talking about how Ken Paxson represented the degradation of our politics and was immoral and corrupt that people could read between the lines about my preference and what happened. But that wasn't really the case and a lot of people took the lose-lose line as equating things, which again, I own as being bad writing, you know, it wasn't the clearest way to communicate what I wrote. I guess it's my editor's fault. I was waiting for it.

That's my cue. Yeah, I think an important, like, detail about this is the lose-lose line in particular was something that you wrote in to. to edit a bullet point at the top of the take, which is usually where we try to summarize what the author's position is in a way that both gets at, like, the meat of the position, as well as creates a little bit of forward momentum

so that people want to read more about what that is. So the line initially was, like, I'm worried about, I don't remember what it was, but it was something like I'm worried about the state of politics in Texas, and Isaac wanted to specify that he's, like, worried about either way. and that in terms of that being the first line that you read as a bullet point, it flattened the comparison right off the top,

which made it so any reading from there became viewed through a lens of equivocation or, sorry, equalization between these two things, which wasn't what was intended. I think from an ending standpoint, we put a lot of attention into what goes into the writing of the take and the bullets are something that sometimes will like, go over and go, okay, that's the way the author wants to phrase it, that's fine. It's the bullet. It's not to take itself. Then we'll probably be changing our attitude towards the way we do

that. But like, that's a little bit of inside baseball. I think the more important thing is we probably should have been a little bit more defensive. And we were somewhat defensive about an earlier version of this draft where the line where you expounded on what you're worried about for Texas politics of Tala RICO wins was a little less defined. and we got it more defined, and we're like, okay, I think that's probably enough and we want to move on. The fact that it still remained fuzzy, and the bullet kind of queued people in a negative direction made it so together. It created like a bad outcome that was right for misinterpretation, and that's something we'll probably want to be more defensive about in the future. So that's the editor's corner, I guess, and I'll back away slowly and let you guys continue.

We'll be right back after this quick break. I mean, I guess, like, to pick some of that conversation up and some of the stuff we talked about, I do think it's interesting now looking forward the option that sits before Texas voters and what they might do about it. My personal position that I've adopted is I will never predict or buy into a Democrat winning in Texas until it happens in a statewide election. It's just we just do this every year. Beto, you know, Ted Cruz is so insufferable.

Somebody's going to beat him, da-da-da-da, over and over again. And I could talk myself into this. I really could. James Talleyco, I think, you know, this is the other thing, well, this is the other thing that frustrating me about some of the commentary is like,

I literally wrote a whole piece about our return to decency and stood up James Tala Rico as like a positive example. of that because I do think he's running a fundamentally decent campaign. So I support his approach to politics. I hope we get more of that. And he can be a role model for that, regardless of his actual political position, it's just the way he carries himself.

So I think that is a formula that could work. He's offering a big tent. I've talked to conservatives like David French we had on the show, who straight up said basically that he would consider voting for Tala Rico if he was a Texas voter, despite the fact he disagrees with him on basically every political issue because part of his calculus

as a voter is like he wants people in office who are decent, who he can trust, and he knows that Ken Paxson is corrupt and immoral, and so he won't vote for him. Trump's support among Latinos has completely collapsed. Axios had a new poll out today, or maybe they're summarizing somebody's poll, but I was reading something on Axios about

one in, I believe it's one in three Latino voters now say that they regret their vote for Trump in areas in like South Texas and the Southwest generally, but South Texas specifically, Hispanic support for Trump is collapsing. The border wall stuff is invigorating people down there who are having their homes stolen via Eminem domain. And, you know, all the, all the, kind of land grabs and destruction of nature that's happening down there. I've written about it, my own personal experience and having family and friends down there in West Texas.

That stuff is going to drive people out to the polls. The economy, the economic sentiment is very poor, however you feel about how the economy is actually doing. Americans feel badly about it. The war in Iran, I mean, you can go down the list. I could talk myself into it. James Taurogo could do this. and then I'm just like

he's a progressive running in Texas and he's going to lose to the guy with an R next to his name. I don't know. Do you guys have a sense of I guess how much time you want to spend entertaining this idea

or do you just feel like this is almost a Paxon shoe in and it's not worth really debating? I think there's a question here. I think and I'll borrow some of the structure you're using here and some of the terminology you used in a recent Friday edition, which is that there's a lot of different spectrums through which you can view political candidates and politicians. One of which is like left right, but then, of course, that has fragmentations, depending on the issue that you look at it on, like cultural issues, economic, normally, power of the state, separation of powers, things that like there's a spectrum for left right.

generally, like we kind of see when we have two candidates, Tala Rico, and Paxton, then we can see what the spectrum is politically. And you can just have that as like your X axis. And then on your Y axis, you can think about personal differences. So we can use decency and decency, palatable or not moral or immoral, however you want to phrase it. Tala Rikos just plays better on the personal level for reasons that you lay. out. So you can think about it as like, okay, there's a decent, indecent political. And in that, on those axes, there's like four quadrants. Ideally, as a voter, if you're right-leaning or left-leading,

you want to vote for the person that's on your side politically and also is decent. But you get into quandaries when you have to say, is it better for me to vote for the person who shares my politics or to vote for the person that I think is probably has more moral character. And that actually is a very difficult decision. And just imagine, put yourself in a Texas voters position. If you are voting, showing up to the polls to elect one of 100 seats in the Senate

in this very partisanly divided culture that we're in right now, are you going to say, I'm going to punch the ticket for the guy who disagrees with me on everything? that I think is super important because I really don't trust him. I think he's a cheat. That's actually a really tough question to answer for yourself because maybe you do think there's more benefit to cost there writ large.

And maybe you don't. Maybe you think this person I can't trust them, therefore why would I expect them to vote in any way with their conscience? And then you punch the bar the other way. It is a tough decision, honestly. And if you can imagine what that candidate looks like for your own proclivity is somebody who shares most of your politics, but is a broad and scandal, it's tough to say what you'd do. And I think it is actually a good question to pose right now,

given the state of corruption that we've written about in Tango before in the Trump administration that we've seen, how you want to play it as a voter in that situation, because I could see it going either way more than ever, but I'm of your mind that I'd probably say it's going, going to be a red Texas until it isn't. And it's worth debating, but I think ultimately it's still going to go red. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to accept the consensus perspective on this with respect to what's likely to happen in Texas, given that it's Texas. I don't love horse race politics all that much. I do find very interesting, however, this dynamic, which you talked about last week as well, President Trump weighing in these races, essentially pushing what he wants and prioritizing that

above what is obviously better for the party from the standpoint of actually being able to govern. He has made a situation that should have been an even more obvious situation where it's just beneficial for Republicans, one that is a heck of a lot more suspect. And at a minimum, he has created yet another enemy in the Senate of it. And it's not just Cornyn.

It's the many, many Republicans in leadership who have been pressing the president for months now to weigh in on this race, to make things simpler for them, given that they had a very slim majority in Congress. And it is interesting, a president who has at some point been applauded for being kind of politically adept and really knowledgeable in understanding what people are interested in

and after, once again, making a decision to punish a perceived enemy, or someone who is at least not perceived to be sufficiently loyal, and to essentially reward someone for their loyalty to him. And in this particular case, rewarding someone, who has exceptionally high negatives. I am trying to imagine, and I don't know if you guys can, a more strange situation where the president of the United States waits until the last minute and then finally endorses a guy

who has a specter of corruption, not even a specter. He was impeached by a Republican Congress in Texas. He's had his own employees who worked alongside him, leadership within his own office who've blown the whistle on him for corruption. And he's got a really messy divorce playing out. And there's almost certainly going to be details about that divorce that will be in the press because it was kind of sealed up, not so much anymore. His own wife is not endorsing him.

Like all of this, it doesn't look particularly good. And Donald Trump says, you know what? That's my guy. It just does not seem like great judgment from the president. And if you're a Democrat, even if you lose this particular race, you probably have to be saying yourself, gosh, I mean, great. They want more madness on their side. They want more infighting.

And it just, it seems like a very strange choice given that I just do not expect things to get easier for Republicans. Going into the summer and the fall, prices are going to continue to go up in many instances are already seeing rumbles of economic tumult in the stock market. which the president cares a great deal about and will definitely drive the news cycle. And the foreign policy situation hasn't gotten any less messy

in recent days. So this is a very strange decision in certain respects, but perhaps not so strange for Donald Trump given what he's done over the course of the House couple of weeks. Yeah, I mean, I think... Isaac, you were challenged on that recently, whether or not Trump was the person to blame for this.

Yeah, I, yeah, a spectator, a writer from the last American spectator named Scott McKay, um, wrote a pretty critical piece about some stuff that I put out, you know, but basically blaming Trump for blowing up the Senate majority. And, um, I actually,

I emailed him and invited him to come on the show. So I'm hoping to have him stop by at some point, um, because I love when people are willing to disagree publicly in a respectful way, which he did it. It was a thoughtful piece. And he raised some good points. I think primarily that it's not Trump doing this.

It's the voters. and it's silly to blame Trump. And the reality is Republican primary voters. Well, here's the case he made that I thought was compelling. John Cornyn, the biggest tension he had with Trump is that he refused to blow up the filibuster. And in March, late March, Cornyn finally basically folded and said that he published this thing in New York Post

saying that he would blow up the filibuster in order to pass the Save America Act, this voting election act that would force voter ID and proof of citizenship in order to vote. And Scott's argument was basically Ken Paxson is saying that the Senate should do this, that he'll drop out of the race if the Senate actually gets this legislation across the finish line and proves that this, you know, that they would do this and could actually do this. And Cornyn and Senate leadership had an opportunity. to respond to Trump's pushes to blow up the filibuster and get this legislation passed

before the primary runoff. And they didn't do it. And so Trump endorsed Paxton. And basically, you know, the voters following through on Trump's call here is a sign that they're more aligned with Trump, which I totally buy that Republican primary voters in Texas care less about the institutional norm of the filibuster than they, do about passing a voter ID bill, I think that's 100% true. And so, yeah, of course, Trump is driving turnout and he's, you know, he's thubbing the scales in Paxon's favor. But the degree to which

voters are expressing themselves in this primary election and making it clear that they prefer Paxton's approach to Cornyn, it's not like some astroturf manufactured thing. It's, it's there. It exists. And Trump's only putting some accelerant on it. And I think that's a fair reframing of the argument that I was putting forward where, you know, Trump is kind of blowing up the Senate majority for the next five or six months. And, you know, it could be true. On some level. I mean, ultimately, though, the president is deciding that is a loss that he's unwilling to sustain.

And he's unwilling to try other mechanisms to try and secure the other things that are important to him. and he didn't have to weigh in in this race at all. He could have stayed on the sidelines. He put his thumb on the scale. He wanted to create the, he knew that it would help create a great deal of dissatisfaction and acrimony within his own caucus. And to the extent that's what he's willing to do in his party, that that's his choice. And I think that choice does sit with him, even if the voters are generally aligned with

the specific goals that he's going for and are happy to support this president. he is choosing this particular battle. He is choosing to essentially create enemies within his own party as opposed to doing the difficult work of trying to work within the party to try and achieve certain outcomes without alienating people. But again, this is a kind of challenge to him as a sort of politician and as a dealmaker in some respects, which is interesting given that's the thing he's supposed to be particularly good at.

Yeah, I mean, I do think there's a contradiction in a lot of this, which is the brand Trump has sold is he's the ultimate dealmaker. He's the ultimate negotiator. And we're witnessing, you know, what's happening in Iran. And now we're on the second presidential term where, you know, Trump has basically failed to get any meaningful legislation across the finish line aside from huge tax cuts, which he had the 2017 tax cuts. which had the 2017 tax cuts and then the one big beautiful bill act, which was basically a massive tax package. You know, things like immigration reform, things like election reform, these like much larger, more difficult, the infrastructure bill, which Biden ultimately did after Trump couldn't. I mean, there are a lot of pretty objective measures for, you know, how a all-time negotiator might bring together different parties and get them to settle on an agreement. and push forward something that is broadly representative of his agenda.

And I don't really think Trump has done that as president. And I do agree that it's a shame this is the lever they're deciding to pull, rather than finding a way to make a bill tolerable to seven Democratic senators, they're going to blow the whole thing up. Because at some point, somebody's going to blow up the filibuster. I mean, it's happening incrementally now. But it seems, unfortunately, like we're destined for that. and there aren't enough people holding line.

Now we have Ken Paxon potentially coming in for John Cornyn, so we're one fewer in that sense. It's, yeah, I think, like, what I found fair about the criticism is just the voters have the agency here ultimately. Sure. They are the ones pushing the button. And we shouldn't overlook the fact that Trump can nudge them and try and move them and orchestrate these sorts of challenges.

But if we believe in our Democratic citizens, system, then we believe that these voters are expressing their will, you know, and they are. And I think that is true. I think it seems plausible and obvious to me that Republican primary voters prefer Ken Paxson's approach to John Cornyn right now in Texas. I think that's a bad sign for our politics, but it's hard to deny after watching those results come in last night. I did want to just briefly touch on one other election that happened in Texas, which is that

Representative Al Green lost his primary race, which is a massive defeat for anybody who has to watch the State of the Union address every year. He is core to the experience, the cane, the signs, the disruptions. He's made it his mission since Trump. has been in office both at the end of his first term and the beginning of his second to disrupt things a little bit. So we can pour one out for Al Green, who's leaving Congress. Are we not expecting a runoff there or was this the runoff? This was the runoff. Yeah, this was the runoff. Yeah, he was an 11-term congressman defeated in the runoff by 38-year-old Christian Menofy, who I don't know

defeated by Republican redistricting, actually. Yeah, that too. It is a, it is a loss at the entertainment level. I'm unsure how much he contributed on the legislative level. I feel like he sort of embodied a spirit of Texas voters, Texas Democrats, that was widely liked. I mean, you don't get elected 11 times. being liked by your constituents.

But I don't know off the top of my head many legislative achievements that he's sort of been at the center of or co-sponsored, et cetera. But I don't know. Any other parting thoughts about Al Green before we move off the Texas primary? It's cool to see younger representatives in Congress. This is, like you, I don't know a lot about Christian Menofi, other than he's under 40. He was a lawyer and he is an incumbent in his own district or was. before the election. And if you're a person who has been professing concerns about the aging Congress,

then that is one of the many spectrums of analysis you can choose. And if you look at this result from that lens, then no matter what, whether Christian Menophe ends up winning his general election or not, Congress is going to get younger. So if that's a thing that you're in support of, guess what's happening? I was going a little bit out on a limb about Al Green's legislative track record just based on my instincts about him and my sort of base knowledge of following politics. Dovetrack says that only four bills he sponsored were enacted into law over his entire career in 11 terms. 11's a lot of terms. Yeah, I think I guess I got that part right.

All right. Well, pour one out for Al Green. While we're on members of Congress and, you know, maybe stories that I find particularly insane, there is a story that we have not talked about, not a little bit, that I am becoming increasingly obsessed with. And it's the story of a missing representative in Congress. Now, I don't want to exaggerate. I'll try and keep my wits about me because I love this story so much. I don't want to get carried away.

But Thomas Keene, who is a New Jersey Republican, who actually serves in the district without, I don't like giving away where I am or where I live. But I'll just say I live in very close proximity to the district that Thomas Keene serves in Congress. He has just been missing for a few months. Now, we sort of know where he is. he's allegedly having some sort of health issue

that's kept him out of the public spotlight. But, you know, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he's spoken to him intermittently, recently said he hadn't spoken to him for a few weeks, hadn't heard from him. Political reporters have been staking at his house. They don't see him. Neighbors in the neighborhood he lives said they haven't seen him for months.

His wife got approached by a reporter from the news outlet notice who basically said, where's your husband, what's going on? and she offered no comment, and a friend kind of ushered her away from the scene. So this guy is legit MIA at a time when Republicans in Congress have an extremely narrow majority. So he hasn't voted on anything for, I think, what's now two or three months.

And I want to be sensitive to it, because he's saying that he's having health issues and we don't actually know what the issue is. And maybe these are really serious sensitive health issues of some kind that, he doesn't feel are necessary to disclose publicly. I will say, despite the fact he hasn't voted for anything in months, he has given no public comments or public appearances.

He has not, you know, popped his head up for a press conference to say, I'm here, I'm okay, everything's good. He has still been trading stocks, which, you know, if I was just his PR comms guy, would maybe be like, just pump the brakes on that for a little. little bit. This headline from Forbes, Representative Thomas Keene, still trading stocks amid months-long absence from Congress. It's not a great headline to have to navigate if you're on his comms team. It has not been photographed in public in weeks. No public sightings have been reported. Canceled several planned appearances, including a special event at the Morris County Chamber of Commerce

breakfast, but signed off on five stock trades between April 14th and May 17th, according to a document obtained by notice. That's the second time in two months. He's filed a congressional stock disclosure form while missing more than 100 votes since he last voted in Congress on March 5th. So gentlemen, thoughts and or theories about where Representative Thomas Keene is, what's going on? And like, how many questions can we ask while being respectful and appropriate? Because I don't know. If this were my representative, I would probably want more details than we have. Yeah, like, it's tough to come up with theories.

I don't know if I want to do that. But the way that I would think about it is if I were a person who, if I were undergoing some medical issue, if I were sick, and I knew that was happening, it is still incumbent upon me to at some point notify my workplace. and that could mean like my significant other or emergency contact will like tell Isaac in this case Ari's out of commission he's going to be out of it and then there'll be a conversation and then Isaac will calm that and say he's out I vouch for it like don't worry if something happens

where Ari is missing for three weeks like there's a reason but if you don't do that if I just don't show up at work at Tangle for like four days and people are like what the hell what happen. And I come back later and like, no, I was sick. I'm still going to be gone. And then I'm gone, but I'm healthy enough to sign off on stock trades. Then that's just, that's bad. I don't know how else to say it. Like, you still have to make sure you give that communication to somebody or somebody on your behalf needs to do that because like, that's just not the way that you deal with those hiccups as a verb. Hickup might be too soft a term. We don't know what's happening. been any disruption.

Professionally, people rely on you, and you have a responsibility to at least communicate that. So at that very basic level, it's not good. And as employers, for anybody who is in his district, like you're his employer, in a sense, like he reports to you. I think it's fair to ask for answers. We'll be right back after this quick break. I guess my question or point,

maybe. Again, want to be sensitive. Don't want to get out too far over my skis where we find out what's going on in a few weeks and I look like an asshole. But what kind of health issue is the sort of thing you're not willing to disclose with constituents when you haven't been to Congress in almost three months? I mean, you know, I can think of all the common stuff that surgery, recovery, and cancer and, you know, all manner of diagnoses we hear about members of Congress where they come out and tell us that all are in this sort of, quote, unquote, health issues bucket. He made some comment, like, his doctors expect him to make a full recovery. And I'm just like, from what?

Like, what to tell us what's going on? I won't name them, but a member on our team had his theory was that perhaps the member was in rehab. of some kind and maybe, you know, dealing with some sorts of like substance abuse issues. Again, that's total conjecture. There's no, but like that's a theory that would make sense, where if it came out in a few months that he comes out and says, you know, I was inpatient rehab dealing with like addiction of some kind or whatever and we didn't want to disclose it publicly. I get that.

I think that's something you should have to disclose publicly to your constituents or that you should. But yeah, it's just weird. It's very off. By the way, I did learn while reading about this story that Frederico Wilson, a Democrat from Florida, who's 83 years old, had also been missing from Congress since April 17th. She hadn't showed up to Washington for a vote in weeks. She released a statement after Forbes and a bunch of other news outlets were like, hey, we're doing this story about members of Congress that don't show up for work. Where have you been?

that she had surgery on her left eye and couldn't fly because of it. She's 83. She was elected in 2010 and ran uncontested in her most recent primary. But, you know, I think there's some, like, there's some stuff to talk about the gerontocracy in there. But at least it's just a straightforward, hey, I had this surgery on my eye and I can't fly right now. Like, that makes sense to me.

I have different concerns, but sure. This is just very, very odd. And I don't know. I mean, Camille, maybe I'll put it really direct to you. Do you think it's okay for a member of Congress to say, this is a private matter and I'm not disclosing what's going on? Or should we be able to demand that regardless of what the issue is, a person in this position has to disclose it to the public?

If it is a medical issue involving you personally, I don't think there can be any sort of actual privacy in that regard. I think you can resign from office if you want to maintain your privacy. But to the extent you're still on the job and hell, you can trade your stocks, but you're still cashing checks. This isn't okay. It's not okay not to show up for work. It's not okay to be completely secretive about what's going on here.

I think you're correct. If it was, say, substance abuse or something along those lines, absolutely he'd have a responsibility and obligation. I think morally to disclose that. And certainly the party ought to support that position as well. But unless it's, say, a member of your family who you're supporting through illness or something like that, I think their privacy is relevant. But you knew what you were getting into when you ran for office.

This is public office. The public, your constituents are your employers. You have an obligation to them. When you're not showing up for work, when you're not taking votes, when you're not accountable to the press to answer questions, tough questions about what's going on with you. Again, this is an abdication of. your responsibilities. And it's the foremost duty, I think, that you have to your constituents to just show up for work. So, yeah, I think it's inexcusable. And I don't think there's any question

that's inappropriate to ask in this regard, since we do know that it is about him and it's about his recovery. And he needs to be transparent. And he needs to do it now. I agree with Camille. Yeah, I think my instinct is to agree. And I guess I'm just trying to stress test that instinct a little bit. Yeah. Like, again. What could it be? Like, I guess that would make sense.

This is the hard thing is I'm trying to use my imagination and imagine what I'm trying to use my imagination to imagine. I'm a professional speaker. This is your flu game, Isaac. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

In two months, we find a, out what this is and what the story is, what's a scenario where I'm listening back to this podcast and kind of cringing a little bit about my approach or our conversation. And I really can't think of anything. Yeah. I mean, even, you know, the stuff that's the worst case scenario, and again, I don't think I've said this yet. So I should say, I hope he's okay. I hope like, you know, health-wise, whatever, I hope it makes full recovery. But like, if there's a John Federman type situation here, maybe he had a stroke or something and he doesn't want to be seen publicly because he doesn't look right or he can't, you know, he's having trouble articulating words. And, I mean, that would be a big thing to know, you know, like John Federman having that health crisis before an election was a national front page story.

Obviously, different senator in Pennsylvania, whatever. But still, like, we had endless debate about that and whether he was. fit or qualified for office. And by the way, I think John Federman's term in office has invited more and more questions about, you know, who he is, what team he's really on, whether he's fit for the job, how his recovery is going. I mean, there have been all manner of stories about him being a recluse in the Senate and disappearing for days on end and et cetera, et cetera.

So I don't know. There's like a, there's just a lot of baggage here for me as somebody who watches these kinds of stories unfold. and yeah, I just can't imagine a world where I find out what this is and I think, I was wrong to ask any questions. So I don't know. I'm confounded, but I don't know of a situation like this before. I haven't really ever heard of a story quite like this.

Well, you've certainly seen congresspersons who kind of disappear, stop showing up for work, who have medical issues and try to be extremely private about them. But I do think, I keep thinking about Ben, Sass while we're having this conversation. And it's very different. He's a former Congressperson, but this is a former congressperson who has been very public while going through one of the most difficult medical situations imaginable. For his own reasons, he has his personal motives for doing that.

And I think they're generally laudable. And I've appreciated pretty much everything I've seen Ben Sass do in recent months. And, you know, when you see someone kind of handling their difficult situation, with kind of that sort of grace and seriousness. I think the public has the capacity to be awful and terrible, but also to be really understanding. And I have a difficult time imagining that anyone would hear that. And not anyone, there will certainly be people who try to gain some partisan advantage here.

But the fever swamps are being stimulated anyways by the conspicuous silence. It seems that you would be well. served by taking this on head on, talking openly about what the issue is. And to the extent, it's something that is perhaps suffered by any number of other people. You could perhaps even raise awareness about this issue on their behalf. There are so many reasons why candor is just a better way to handle this if it is a legitimate kind of personal medical emergency. And there are so many reasons why people are appropriately raising eyebrows at the weird silence surrounding this. Yeah, impromptu, good guy of the week nomination for Ben Sass. I mean, what an unbelievable

force of nature for all things good. That guy has been watching him sort of stare down death with total calmness and confidence and also unbelievable amounts of humility and good news. nature. I've been devouring pretty much anything that he's put out there. And I just saw his daughter wrote a beautiful piece in the free press about what it was like being raised by him and growing up in their house, which was really interesting. I highly recommend it. Just as a quick point of order, I did just do a brief historical search and pulled up a couple articles about the Thomas Keen situation. And it does not appear anything like this has ever happened before. There have been members. Members of Congress who have disappeared for weeks or months at a time, i.e. not showed up for work,

but they've always been transparent about what was going on and what the timeline was for them coming back. The dynamic here where he's not disclosing what's happening is without precedent based on some of the articles that I'm looking at right now. So it's the duration that makes it so unusual here too. Yeah, it's not like a week where they were gone and come back and, you know, their nose looks a little different, but we don't know why they weren't. Yeah, it's not that kind of thing. It's a little more, a little more far-reaching and important. But Farmerman, honestly, is maybe the closest comp. He was hospitalized for depression for several weeks and wasn't immediately transparent about what happened. But I think while, you didn't like stand up and say I'm leaving for to go get my depression treated, I don't think. I think it was after he was in the hospital that they started to come out with some statements about it. And again, he used that as a moment

to just sort of give himself over to the grace of the public and say, I'm battling my demons and it actually went over fairly well, if I remember correctly. So, all right, well, listen, we're coming up on an hour here and I want to make sure

that we save some time for my personal favorite part of the show. Last week, our grievances section set off a hole. I mean, lots of talk about nature, animals, birds, dogs. I felt like all week in our Tangled Team Slack, we've been talking about stuff. Ari just bought a gun. He said he's going to shoot out birds in his backyard. I did not say that. It's just very difficult to find the bird so the gun wouldn't be effective. Yeah, it's the chemical weapons he's going to use. Yeah. Yeah, Will Kayback suggested just a flamethrower would solve it if you don't know exactly

precisely where they are. All right. John, play the music, and we'll get into our grievances a bit here. The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. I've actually got one this week, so. All right. Camille, you've got one this week. Why don't you lead us off, my friend? Well, we've started talking sports.

You've mentioned the NBA playoffs and how exceptional they've been this year. And they really, really have been, with the exception of some really awful play from some of the teams in the East, particularly the 76ers, just super disappointing all around. Cavs also not great. But OKC and Spurs, watching that series has been great. Watching last night was really good. One thing I am very frustrated by, however,

is all of the shade being shown, thrown in SGA. Yes, he has flopped. There's lots of flopping that happens in the NBA. But I think people are severely discounting just how good he is. I mean, he's an exceptionally talented play. A lot of the reason why he gets those calls is because he is charging to the basket reliably getting punished while doing it,

having a very difficult time doing it in this series. And I just, I hate to see, the underdog sports has this meme game that they've made, which is a version of operation, that game where you use the little tweezers and you go in and try to pick out the bone and don't want to set off the alarm bell. And you do this, it's called unethical sports.

And I just think he is, he and the entire team, honestly, are being castigated for being these like serial cheaters when they are so obviously among one of the most talented teams ever assemble the job like Sam Presti is doing with that squad is pretty unbelievable and full disclosure I know Sam a little bit and like him but it's it's really cool to watch and I think the NBA is making a great product and it's really unfortunate that that SGA is being so awfully treated

he's a multi-millionaire I get it most people aren't weeping for him, but we respect people who really, really, really put in the work and try to get their craft right. So I'm annoyed by that, but I am heartened by just how great the basketball is and really looking forward to watching the Knicks lose to OKC. And this is a newly adopted perspective because Knicks fans are insufferable, Isaac Saul, insufferable. Oh, my God. All right. Well, congratulations, Camille. You've just cemented one of the worst takes of all the time of articulating. I had to make that turts. I had to make the turts.

It was effortless. No, from top to bottom, I mean, you couldn't be more wrong. SGA's a cheater. He's horrible to watch. OKC is one of the most. I look at Chet Holmgren and I am disgusted. I feel disgust. Just looking at him.

It makes my stomach turn over. Their entire team, they're like the stormtroopers of the modern NBA. Everything about them is loathsome. Evil and fine. Yes. Yeah. And SGA falls on 10% of the shots that he takes over the course of the season, according to a very rigorous analysis done, which is ridiculous, unbelievable, grade A level flopping. So, yeah, plus he's from Canada.

We can't have him dominate NBA basketball. I mean, everything about this is wrong. Oh, my gosh. But you know what? This is a space where you're allowed to share your views. And I appreciate that you brought that. And I can't wait to watch the Knicks obliterate that. Joyous.

I can say as a control group, it was fun for me to watch the NBA playoffs last year. Basketball isn't like professional sport in Pittsburgh, so I didn't grow up with it. And I don't have a good internal feeling of like, what's over the line and what a foul is and what isn't, never played as a kid, really. So watching last year was like kind of fun to follow the Pacers

because you could know just as somebody who watches sports but not follows basketball closely, that they were a bonkers team. That was like goofy and funny. and they're winning through the power of friendship. And I can't even watch this year. Like, it's just there's stoppages. I don't really see what the in-game is

other than, like, pump fakes to draw fouls. I'm like, I just don't care enough. Sorry. Pump fakes to draw fouls. Yeah, that reminds me of SGA. Stop. Stop. Yeah, no, but, Ari, I will say,

probably one of the most quintessentially Pittsburgh things that you've ever said on this show is I didn't really have an NBA team, so I gloved onto the Indiana pieces. That is just like, could not be more on brand. Hey, they're yellow. Some Yinzer from Pittsburgh. Oh, the McConnell.

He was a, his dad is the quintessential yinzer. Oh, my God. That was so great watching those interviews. Really good. All right. Well, I'll jump in with my grievance for the week, which I feel like I'm, there's like, there's starting to be like a bucket. There's like sometimes some family, some father stuff.

There's, you know, house things. there's like local politics and then animal stuff. And I think this one probably is like in the in the house local politics realm. I learned this week that there is no service in the township that I live in to come pick up the mowed grass that you have. So like, you know, common and other places where I live where like you mow your lawn, you take it, you dump it into like a disposed. biodegradable bag or cardboard bag or something. You leave it out on the side of the road at some point, you know, maybe once a month or a couple times a week or whatever.

There's like a company that comes by and picks it up and gets rid of it. In my township, they want you as like an ethical environmental practice, which I support ethical environmental practices. They want you to mow your lawn and leave the clippings on the ground and not collect the grass. And I have to say, as a brand. new homeowner, that is not how I envision the long-knowing experience is just leaving clumps of gross wet grass on the ground that I then have to walk through, that stains my shoes, that prevents me from lying down comfortably in the grass with no blanket without ruining my clothes,

that my kid is going to then track into the house as a rambunctious 16-month-old. All of a sudden, I'm like, oh, my God, I am like the classic suburban Karen. you know, whatever. Just like, I had this thing that feels so small and minor in the grand scheme of things, but I'm like, there's no way I'm doing the grass clipping style mowing. I didn't look up whether it actually helps the environment or what the biodegradable, whatever is, because I don't want to know. I don't want to know.

I don't want to feel guilty about the fact that I want to mow the lawn and I want it to be cleanly mowed and ripe for barefoot. you know, gallivanting when I'm done. That's what I want. That's the point. And like the clean, nice, I worked my whole life for this middle class dream to own a house and mow the lawn and and have it look nice and clean when I'm done.

And now I find out that it's not possible without stacking all these bags in my backyard. So anyway, I looked it up and I found out I can haul the grass to another township and they have a yard where you can dump it legally, which I will now incur that inconvenience to have my clean limo. on for the foreseeable future. So that's my new plan and my events for the week. It's pretty good to just let the flipping fall for sure. Like, if you don't want to, if you want to pick them up in a bag,

you can use that as mulching in the garden. Like, that's essentially what it is. You're using the biomaterial to feed the organisms where they are. Maybe I'll just, I'm just going to start a grass file. That's what I'll do. Is that a good compromise? I'll take one corner of the yard, start a grass pile and let it just sit there and decompose.

Just a mountain of multing grass in your yard. You can mulch. You can mulch. You can mulch. You can take wood chips and mix it in with grass. You garden, so you can use that to mulch up your garden bed. Okay. Okay.

All right. I'll explore that. Does that still count as a grievance if now you have this exciting new project? I think our grievances are sometimes solution-oriented. We've decided. We like it when people offer solutions to our grievances. I will take, hey, If you have ideas about what to do with pounds,

hundreds of pounds of mowed grass, email Will, W-I-L-L-R-R-Tangle.com, and tell them what you think we should do. Give them the subject line, what to do with grass. Yes, Will at reetangle.com. He will read that. All right, all right, take us home, man. Yeah, I think in the spirit of following up from last week,

I want to identify that there is a serial tweeter in our backyard. I can move on from this grievance, but I know who it is. It's a single organism. It's a red-eyed voreo. It is a bird that traveled here without papers from South America. I'm going to leave it at that. It makes a ruckus all day. Now I've learned that it's bird call is said, at least allowed to, in a human translation,

where am I, where am I? Here I am. I'm here. I'm here. Here I am. Where am I? I'm here. And it's 5 a.m. until 5 p.m., he's singing his song. Or she, I'm not certain. And, yeah, move away, red-eyed vareo. But that's just to complete the circle. Wait, didn't you say also that this was a detail that I found hilarious, that this bird specifically has been voted, like most annoying bird in the North America or something? In New England, yeah. That's awesome. It's been called, like, the preacher of the treetops. And I saw one ornithologist say, whoever said, that must not have a very high opinion of preachers. I do have a specific grievance for this week, though.

I mostly just wanted to close the loop on that, which is another summer-related grievance, and at the intersection of summer and nature and personal body issues, is I have this patch of dry skin on my right island, which doesn't bother me most of the time. except for when I'm working out and I sweat, which happens more often in the summer.

So then the sweat runs, and it gets like, it kind of goes past your eyes like normal, but any dried sweat that gets in here in the eyelid immediately just like chafes, and then I get little cuts on my eyelid. And then my eyelid cuts sting any time I sweat from there on for like a week until the cut can heal.

So, like, I've been sweating. It's awesome. This shouldn't be so gross. It seems really gross. But I also want to talk about my finishing. It's just anything that's like close to your face is really tough to ignore. I've been really proactive this summer. I had a plan.

I got this tube, this little tube of, I feel ridiculous, but it is specifically eyelid moisturizers, specifically for eyelids. And I've been applying it, I'd say like five to six times a day, just trying to keep the eyelid from getting dry so the sweat doesn't fall and then shave. then I get these little cuts. It's been working, but it feels really tenuous, and I'm not certain how to deal long-term with this issue,

or if it will ever get better. And I kind of feel like I'm not a unique person. I think somebody out there has had the same situation before. I don't think so. I think it was out to you, and I'm curious what solutions you found. I mean, there's eyelid and moisturizer as a product. So someone else is dealing with this. I am shocked.

No, that sounds like a fake product. just uniquely disgusting and a you problem. I think you're completely on an island there. I cannot wait to read all of the emails from people with similar issues in the inbox, W-I-L-L-Reedangle.com. That's the best place to reach us. It'll be interesting to see what solutions

other people have come up with. Or your Borreo problems. Specifically, any really gross skin conditions, if you want to take pictures of them and send them to Will at reetangle.com, you can do that. We'll be sure to talk about that. Our top man will be on it.

Yeah. All right. Gentlemen, a pleasure as always. And I'll see you guys next week. See you later. We'll see you. Bye. Our executive editor and founder is me.

Isaac Saul and our executive producer is John Wolk. 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 editor's Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Panuth, 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 reTangling.com.