The Bulwark Podcast - Alan Cumming and Robert Garcia: The Traitors Running Our Government

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

For more than 10 years, Trump has been showing us how skilled he is at sowing division and riling people up. Alan sees the kind of tribal mentality that Trump has fostered on his own reality show, "The Traitors," where contestants make incredibly stupid decisions because they don't want to deviate from the pack. The actor takes the opportunity to urge people to vote, protest, and stay vigilant in the face of the Republicans' campaigns of hate against immigrants and trans people. (And that includes Vance's dumb, dated gay jokes.) Plus: Rep. Garcia of the House Oversight Committee is preparing to get the gavel in January. He's already teed up new Epstein legislation, and he's planning to end the cover-up of 3 million Epstein documents, many of which have to do with Donald Trump. Also on the target list: the Trump family's business deals and the donors to the ballroom.Alan Cumming and Rep. Robert Garcia join Tim Miller for the weekend pod.show notes: "The Traitors" on NBC Alan's show, "Tip Toe," on Starz October Surprise: The Bulwark is 30% off Upcoming Bulwark LIVE show in Atlanta on Oct. 20 The Bulwark’s campaign to help the Haitian community of Springfield The Bulwark store

Bullark Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. We got a double header for you today in segment two. It's a special treat. Alan Cumming, Tony Award-winning actor, host of the Traders on NBC. This is an all-year-old visit on the program. But first, he's the Democrat charged with rooting out the traders in our government, ranking member of the Oversight Committee. It's Robert Garcia. What's up, man? Hey, man. Good to see you. It's good to see you coming at us live from Long Beach. I want to spend most of the time on oversight plans for next year. But before you, you know, get the gavel, we've got a few items of business here the next three weeks, making sure the Democrats win in the midterms. The economics state of play seems to be working in y'all's favor. We have news this week.

Inflation ticked up. PPI, which is usually kind of a precursor to future inflation, had the biggest jump since 2022. Trump's solution to that is handing out some free money to people, which I think is inflationary. I'm not an economist. And trying to do a deal with Putin. What's your feeling on kind of how things stand as far as the cost of? a living economy part of the election is concerned. I mean, well, first, I mean, the economy is pretty fucked. I mean, there's no question like people are struggling. You hear that every single day.

No one is feeling like things are getting better. Gas prices here in my home state are over six bucks a gallon. They're worse if you are driving diesel in Iowa or in the Midwest. And groceries, rent, mortgage, I think everyone is struggling on all these things. They're not feeling like things are going to get better anytime soon. I'm hearing that all across. I'm not just here in my home state, but wherever we're traveling. And so I think three weeks out until the election, I think there is definitely a desire for big change, for big movement, for things to get better.

So that's why I think Democrats are going to do really well. Donald Trump has done nothing, but make things worse. A war nobody wants. Gas prices out of control. Corruption everywhere you turn. Republicans can't stand up to them. And so I think we should feel bullish, but run through the tape. I mean, there's a lot of work to do in the next three weeks, but I'm feeling pretty good.

Yeah, obviously the biggest contributor to all this is the Iran War of Choice. To me, it seems like there's some signs that they're planning escalation. There have been some reports that they're, you know, presenting Trump with the idea of using the Moab, the mother of all bombs. I don't know if they figured out what they plan on bombing yet, but they're looking at using that. I noticed that Mark Levine and some of the Iran Hawks are being nice to him again, which, you usually happens when he's calling around and, you know, looking at options. So, I mean, I'm wondering what your thought is on that. I mean, obviously, there'll be kind of like a lame duck period after the election, but it seems to me like all signs are pointing towards escalation rather than de-escalation.

What do you see? Yeah, I mean, I think unfortunately that's true. I think that that's kind of what is kind of being discussed around with a lot of members of Congress talking to some of my colleagues, particularly on the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs side, they're very concerned that Trump has really kind of this schizophrenic policy agenda in Iran. We have no idea what we're doing. One day, it looks like he wants to wind things down and can't even call it a war. The next day he's ramping it up. Right now, it's looking like he's getting pushed

and there's interest to try to ramp up whatever he's trying to accomplish there, which we're not even sure what that is, which I think is a bad policy, obviously. We have right now no clear mission. Pete Hecksaff, who supposedly is trying to lead us there, can't even get the numbers right about how many service members that we've actually lost. They've lied to the public and to the media about that. They continue to reverse their position. We're losing American service members.

Their lives and their families, families are being impacted by that. And then beyond that, we're seeing what the costs are to the American public. Nobody wants us there. We've got to wind this thing down and get out. And some type of escalation with no clear purpose is not the approach. What do you got the next three weeks? You're out on the trail? Are you campaigning for other house members?

Or are you just getting the subpoenas ready? Well, I mean, both. I mean, look, we've been doing stuff with, particularly in California. We've been just in an event with Randy Villegas. Next few days we'll be with Marnie Van Wulpert, who's in the San Diego area. There is plenty to do here in California. Of course, we're helping other candidates across the country. but we've got five big seats here in my home state.

And so there's a lot of ground to cover. If we really flip these five seats here in California, I think our chances for the majority are going to be strengthened pretty dramatically. What's the most stretchy of the five? I like to push people to support the biggest challenges. The two seats that for us, like we kind of have to win, this Daryl Issa seat, the Martin Ivan Wilpert seat out in the kind of northern San Diego area for us is a critical C. If we win that C, we're going to be in great shape. But we'll have won all of our other seats.

Because we have to defend Derek Tran, who is in Orange County. We have to defend Adam Grave in the Central Valley. I think we'll defend those two seats. And then the other seats, we're looking really strong on it. And so Randy Villegas, Marnie, we can win those two seats. We're going to get our five seats that we're targeted here in California. I haven't had a chance to listen to your stump when you're out there. The vice president was in Texas. His closing message about James Tala Rico seems to be that he's a gay furry who likes to look at trans children's porn. J.D. Vance is an idiot and obviously a liar. And what's crazy about Tala Rico is they just don't know how to attack the guy. And the guy is so talented.

I was watching his recent appearance here on CNN. The guy is so talented. And he speaks to middle of the country. He speaks to people, obviously, that are religious. and they're just throwing whatever they can against the wall because they see that he actually has a shot of winning this. And they're obviously a candidate is their worst standard of candidate in the country. But if James Herald Rigo can win Texas,

I think the amount of investment and commitment to the state that will come from his win is going to be pretty transformational for the party. And I think it would also be just a good sign that, like, he's gay, doesn't work as a campaign message. You know, that would be refreshing. That would be a refreshing development. given so of what we've seen the last few years. All right, let's talk about some oversight stuff, what you guys have planned,

what you're working on right now. We're taping this on Thursday afternoon because I'm flying to our live tour in South Carolina tomorrow, just before we began taping you and Elizabeth Warren dropped an Epstein Wall Street Act, which is going to look into,

you know, the banks that Epstein was using. Why don't you talk about that and why you think that is a potential fruitful area to mine? Yeah, so I've been meeting with Senator Warren on this. We just kind of have been, laying out some plans for the next Congress around the banks. And obviously, if we're able to win the Senate also, having her being able to lead that effort in the Senate would be incredible.

So it's another big reason why ideally we win book houses. And just as a personal item, I'm happy you're working with her on this because the other thing I saw from her this week is she's concerned about the hot sauce market consolidating with Franks and Chalula. I don't know. That's just not at the top of my concerns list. So I think this is really spot on for me. So you just keep on kind of working with her.

Absolutely. And the banks are key to obviously unraveling all the Epstein lies and the cover-up is the financials, right? Who did Epstein pay? Why did they pay them? What did the banks know? Apparently there's some type of cover-up happened at some of these large institutions with some of these players as well. And so, yeah, we're going to get to the bottom of that and she'll be a great partner on the Epstein stuff. What is your sense, like, what more is doable on the Epstein front? You know, like, what could you guys do in the majority that you were blocked? from, you know, this last round. I mean, there's a lot. I mean, let's just start at the top. Number one, there's three million plus documents of the DOJ that we've never seen. Half of the EBCN files, including what we believe are some of the most salacious stuff, has never been released by the DOJ or Todd Blanche.

And so our ability to pressure, to pass laws, to get other folks in front of committees, to actually have public hearings, there have been zero public hearings in oversight or judiciary or anywhere on the EFSI investigation. We've had to bring those issues up, but as far as the public hearings where we can bring in witnesses to testify, there have been none. And so our ability to actually bring in witnesses also on the deposition side, most of the witnesses, Republicans have brought in, they refuse to put them under oath. And so we have no witnesses that were under oath. We have no actual real public hearings. We have three million of the documents that have not been presented. So there's a lot of work to do. And many of these documents also have to do with

For example, Donald Trump and things that he was mentioned in, FBI interviews. And so all that is information and documents that we've got to get, which will help, obviously, dramatically if we're in the majority. I just sort of think about this also on the cover-up side of things. I mean, there were a decent number of career public employees that were enlisted into this cover-up, right? You know, at some level, I may not have realized they were part of it, right? Because they were doing redactions, you know, or reviewing the documents.

Have you thought about that at all? Like, what is one of the possibilities for kind of like talking to the people that were part of this review, either DOJ, FBI elsewhere? And I mean, that's a big part of it, to be honest. We have talked to folks that are good, you know, civil servants in some cases. There's a lot of lawyers and civil servants out there that have participated in a lot of redactions that know what actually are in the files. And so one of the reasons why I'm confident that the full truth is going to get out is, because enough people have seen enough that that information is going to get out. And I think a lot of people are frustrated that so many of the documents have not yet been released by the DOJ.

And so I am confident that that information, particularly some of the info that we get through whistleblowers or through interviews with survivors, is eventually going to come out. And we know of information that survivors have shared with us that we have yet to see in the files. since we are certainly interested in seeing what those documents say when the full batches are actually released. And it's crazy that Todd Blanche, who led the Epstein Files cover-up, is not released in the remaining files. So that's something that we're going to have to get much more aggressive on, including going to the courts. As you probably know, when you're in the minority, you can't go to court on behalf of the House, and that's very different in the majority. I want to move on to the Washington Post story from earlier today about the donors to the ballroom.

The washaas got access to a list of the donors, included previously undisclosed contributors who had benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts, in one case a pardon for a family member. In the pardon case, this was the daughter of Julio Herrera Valentini, an international banker who in 2022 was indicted on bribery charges for financing the campaign of Puerto Rico's then governor in exchange for the removal of a regulator investigating his bank.

So he was bribing the Puerto Rico. governor to try to get a regulator off his back, got indicted, jailed, and now he's bribing our president to get the pardon that he got. Yeah. I mean, look, I think, first, anyone that was involved and have been involved with any of the corruption, particularly this ballroom issue is really interesting to see that through the full list. We've actually already said we're going to investigate. We've already been looking at the ballroom, and it's not just been our committee, but others as well in the Congress. And if you're paying millions and millions of dollars, especially if you're also looking for a pardon and you're donating to Trump's ballroom, that's exactly the type of corruption

that oversight is going to be looking at. And I think that you look at the long list, particularly some of the tech companies that are involved, I think it's crazy that so many of these American companies have essentially become ATMs or whatever project Donald Trump's in wanting to do, particularly those that I think the American public has been strongly against, like the ballroom and others. The ballroom still, we have no real reason as to why that was done. The reasons in front of the court were shoddy, the national security reasons, what he's doing is destroying an American treasure and a monument to the people. And it's really, I think, sad and unfortunate that so many companies have bought into that,

especially those that include people are trying to get part in this. Yeah, and going back to the Silicon Valley, folks, one caught my eye in particular. Salesforce CEO, Mark Benioff. He'd been a big supporter of Democrats up until recently. He took a very abrupt turn, I would notice. Salesforce has had gotten significant growth in the government context. contracting business that they've been doing. He, I guess, was with Trump at a business summit in Japan while there, Trump thanked him for putting him on the cover of Time magazine. Beniof about

time. In the following day, Beniof committed one million to the ballroom. According to the list, it had not been previously reported. He asked that it remained anonymous. Earlier this week, he posted about how he was renaming his AI force, SI force. I don't know, man. Like, this doesn't seem to be on the up and up to me. No, and it's very much bending the meat to whatever Donald Trump wants. And he, he, He's not the only one, by the way, that started calling it SI and basically doing whatever Donald Trump asks these tech guys to do. It's pretty clear that the tech industry, much and most of the tech industry, and particularly these guys are leading these enormous companies that are benefiting, of course, from the government. And they're doing whatever Donald Trump wants.

You're visiting them at the Oval Office. They're bringing them gifts. And I think it's so sad that the independence of these companies has now really been washed away. I mean, these guys are saying they want their donations to be anonymous. But of course, now we know who's actually giving this money. And so I think more and more is going to come out where they promised anything, what conversations are being had, what are they being promised for these donations? I think all that's got to be investigated.

Can you say, like, government contractors can't give anonymous donations to the president of the United States? Like, that's, I'm right about that, right? There are some loopholes in the law about those that are actually getting federal contracts. And we actually need to close because if you, you are gaining contracts from the government, you should not be allowed then to be involved with donations. And quite frankly, you shouldn't be involved, be allowed to be involved in massive campaign donations as well. So all of that has got to be legislated the right way. And hopefully

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Let's talk about this kind of broader strategy. There's just so much corruption happening. There's so many stories. And you have like the ambassador Greece asking for a $100,000 wire to pay her credit card bill just out today. The guy running the Kennedy Center and Trump's old lawyer have a beef over $5 million that disappeared allegedly. But then you have all the kids. Like where do you even start? How do you determine, you know, where to, you know, where to.

to spend your time and energy, assuming you guys took the gavel in January? Look, I think first at the center of what we do and at the top of the list has to be the Trump crime family. Anything to do with Donald Trump, the crypto schemes, Jared Kushner, trying to buy private islands, two billion from the Saudis, basically leading diplomacy but yet not a government employee. The red wedding, hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, from Russian oligarchs to Don Jr.'s wedding, the sitting on boards that are getting contracts from the Pentagon. The list goes on and on.

You mentioned former Ambassador Gullifold. I mean, Kimberly Gopher was Don Jr's fiance. I mean, they were together for a very long time. She is part of the Trump family, and she's asking for $100,000 to pay up credit card bill from a Trump donor, a MAGA donor. And so this goes on and on. You reference the Kennedy Center. You're talking about Richard Grinnell, someone that you and I both know a little little bit about who apparently you don't know him that well. I think God I don't know him that well. He likes to be in the mix and be involved.

So accusations, he's very good. He likes to smear people. He likes to smear people. But apparently there's, you know, he is now beefing because he was supposed to deposit some money and that never got deposited. And there's all of this back and forth now

about where that money is. And so I think Mr. Grunell should be honest with the American people as to where that money actually is. And so all of this corruption has to be looked at. Where we're going to start is with the Trump family. I think that is to me the most important piece. And then you just reference this. If you are an American corporation and you've been in bed with the Trumps, if you are involved in corruption, if you are getting promises for contracts, if you are assisting Don Jr. and all these other, and Jared Custer

and all these other folks in the corruption, then you're also going to be investigated. We're going to be asking some pretty tough questions. And so I think that is where you start as it relates to the Trump family. Look, there's going to be more investigations on DHS and ICE, certainly on Jeffrey Epstein, but broadly speaking, there's going to be a lot of work to do in the first few months. So, like, do I get to see Jared in front of the committee in January, or is it going to take a little while? Obviously, we'd love to have Jared in front of the committee in January. But I think as far as what the first hearing is and what the first kind of few weeks are going to look like, it's all being developed right now.

There are a couple of things. I'm curious how you're kind of think, what you're thinking about it. First is, like, it's the different layers of the way that there are. going to try to stone while you guys. At the very first, there's just like this question of how you get access to their communications. I mean, by law, a government business is public and should be done, you know, on public emails. We went through this very famously with then Secretary of State Clinton and had many, many, many, many hearings about the fact that she had had an email server that was off government and so it wasn't responsive to FOIA. As best as I can tell, these guys do all of their business on signal, you know, on private apps and private servers. Like, how are you going to

force them to comply with laws with regards to open records, et cetera, so you can get access to what they're doing when it comes to government business? I mean, first, obviously, you know, whatever we can actually get a hold of, we're going to work to get, whether that's through the courts, whether that is through subpoena. We have to be prepared that Todd Blanche, particularly that the DOJ has a very warped view of what actually is considered executive privilege. He's actually trying to expand the idea of what is privileged information so that we can't access those documents. There is a ton of information that they have been hiding from committees and essentially saying

that they have privilege over which they don't. So that's going to be decided in the courts. And so we're still in that process. But beyond that, they are also communicating extensively with American business and private companies. and nonprofits and other organizations that don't have the same level of executive privilege to claim that we also are going to get information from. And so if you've been in business with the Trumps, you're communicating information out, that is an area we're going to be very aggressive in gaining

that information. And then, of course, trying to recover as much as possible. And then, of course, you have some cases like Pete Hegseth and others where, I mean, there's signal chains have actually become public because in some cases these guys are idiots. And so we're going to try to get as much information from them as possible, including information from whistleblowers. Yeah, let's just use Jared as an example. Like, we know from reporting Jared communicates with NBS via signal. MBS is paying Jared money. Jared is the lead negotiator for us in multiple wars.

What do you do with that? Like, how do you go about, you know, trying to compel, you know, Jared to share documents when he's doing it on disappearing apps and he's like pretending like he's not really even a government employee? So I think when it comes to Jared Custer, one is we're going to do everything we can. Obviously, you get to get him, the associates, those involved in affinity partners, and anyone that's working with Jared on the record in the committee and in any kind of testimony. I mean, we've got to make every effort possible, including if we've got to go through a process through the courts.

I mean, that's number one. Number two, if you look at affinity partners or other, Jared isn't working in a silo. He has employees. He works with other people in his organization. There are folks that he is giving direction to have communication. So we have to be obviously as creative, obviously legal in the way that we're doing our work. But we've got to be creative and also understanding what the network looks like and trying to get as much information from the network as possible. And it's not a perfect science, but it is an approach that we're going to take as well.

Do you have a big enough staff for this? I mean, I wish we had two to three times the biggest staff. But we have an incredible team that is growing. and it'll grow in the majority. One of the reasons why it's important for us to win in November is that in the majority, the staff of your committee increases pretty dramatically. So I'm sure we could find you some pro bono lawyers. I'm sure we have some lawyers listening who'd be excited to contribute some pro bono services

to this effort just because they're patriots, just because they love their country, you know? Absolutely. And we've had those offers and we're going to be taking up a lot of those offers in the months ahead for sure. I'm talking about immigration. You mentioned it really quick. Two things. One, there's a story with your colleague, Congresswoman Oma. her home was raided.

I guess they're looking into immigration forms filled out by her father, her late father, decades ago. They're trying to build a case for denaturalization and deportation. This is just obvious, like, political targeting and abuse. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. No, first of all, I mean, it's dangerous. I mean, the fact that the president is going into his opposition, I mean, members of Congress, members of his opposing party, and going into their homes, ransacking their homes,

taking their phones, taking, God knows what other information, to try to target her, I think the effort, I think what you said is exactly right, to try to somehow take away her citizenship, because of people work her father filled out when she was a child is completely ridiculous. And so this is the kind of thing that Donald Trump has done, and he continues to escalate. It's weaponizing the government, the DOJ, in this case, Homeland Security, to go after his targets, to go after the people that he perceives are his enemies. And in this case, this is clearly a violation of the law. And so this is obviously going to be litigated, but it's also quite, it's scary. If you're, if you're Ilhan Omar's family and your campaign,

these agents come in early in the morning to take all this stuff. I mean, he's a sick man who is just obsessed with going after his enemies. And so obviously we stand by, by Ohan, and this is a complete attempt to go after his enemies. And so we've got to push back on it. We've got to be vocal and loud about it. If you guys are working on corruption, who is working on oversight of what's happening with ICE. And obviously, we don't know what's happening in a lot of these detention centers. I mean, there's so many cases. There's one in particular I've been talking about, which involves a professor at Los Angeles Pierce College. It's not so far from your district. Merriam Thomas Seby. She has a teenage boy who is in Dilley Detention Center because Marco Rubio

stripped them of their green card status because of what the boy's grandmother did in 1979. Yeah. It's a totally outrageous affront. But there are tons of examples about as I've been emailing with Murray and from inside Dilley and the stories she tells are just horrifying. What's the oversight look like when it comes to ICE and cases like that? So obviously from the Oversight Committee perspective, DHS and ICE is going to be one of our major investigative lanes. And so it's not just the horrors that are happening at Dilley or here in California at Adolanto or numerous other detention centers across the country, but it's a connection of those who are profiting from deporting folks, those that are profiting from.

locking people up. The reality is that there are four or five major groups, companies, people that are benefiting enormously financially from every single person that goes to a detention center. There are incentivized. The government, as well as those that are profiting, are incentivized by sending more people to detention. And that is the inhumanity of actually going on right now. These people are basically a profit for those that are building these centers, buying these centers, or buying them now from the government. In some cases, the government is giving some of these companies huge payouts. And that's because Donald Trump chose to increase the budget for ICE and detention

essentially 10 times what it was. I mean, ICE is the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country now. It's larger than the FBI. And that was not the case before the last couple of years. And so what we want to get to the bottom two is who was involved in building this structure. When you have folks like Kristi Noem or Koi Lewandowski, who there's a A lot of reporting were involved in essentially some pay-to-play-play-type schemes and building some of this process. That's where oversight comes in.

We're going to, I don't care if you're not in the government anymore, just because Christian Ome is not the secretary anymore, or Lewandowski is not around, we are still going to get to the bottom of what actually happened. While at the same time, the Homeland Security Committee and others are going to be very much focused on what's actually happening inside these attention centers right now. Yeah, got it. Can you even get into, like, the detention centers in California? You can't. I mean, I think they have tried to stop. But like you mentioned Dilley. I mean, there are members of Congress have gone on, they've gone into, including myself. We've worked to get into detention centers all across the country. It feels like they're making as as hard as possible, though. Of course. And to preventing people that have access to some of these

stories. Okay. Really quick, two more things. Chief of Staff News, Politico had a story today. Donald Trump might be unhappy with Susie. Someone needs to be the fall person. If the midterms go poorly, possible replacement's named by Politico today, where Stephen Miller the Yankees president, Randy Levine. I'm not really a big baseball man, but I guess I'm rooting against the Yankees now. Kevin McCarthy's lobbying for the job again. Kevin, your guy.

Kevin wants the job. In all these stories, it's always like, you know, somebody on background saying, you know who'd be really good, Kevin. Kevin would be really good. I'm sure that's Kevin McCarthy on background saying that. It's pretty concerning to even have Stephen Miller. I like the power.

It's just crazy. He shouldn't be in charge of anything, quite frankly. But, I mean, Stephen Miller may be the most dangerous person in the White House as it relates to the, you know, human rights and people that are suffering across this country. And the idea that he would become the chief of staff, I think, is frightening and crazy. Obviously, Kevin McCarthy failed speaker. I mean, the guy couldn't hold his caucus together. I'm not sure how he can manage agencies or do anything. But, I mean, he loved kissing Donald Trump's ass.

And so it wouldn't surprise me for McCarthy to want to be in that role and basically just do whatever Donald Trump tells him. not push back, then the knee, go out and follow his orders. That would not surprise me. You got to take small joys in this world. And Kevin McCarthy lobbying and leaking to become a Donald Trump flunky and then getting passed over is one of my small joys. All right, we've got Alan coming up next. The Traders.

Do you watch the traders? You have time to watch the trade? I do, actually. I haven't watched the current season, but I've watched all the other seasons before this current one that obviously I know is the first like non-selebrity stuff. How good are you at it? So this is what I wanted to bring this up because when you want, I watch it for the first time over the weekend. I was never, I'm not a huge reality TV guy. And I was like, man, my

biggest takeaway was people are way worse at identifying traders than they think they are. And, and like your job now is to snuff people out. So, so, you know, as a consumer of the show, how good do you think you are on it? You know, it's funny you say this because I've seen, you know, all the other prior seasons. And I think it's actually a show that I'd do pretty good at. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think you've got to, you know, you got to be able to hold your card state, got to, you know, build good relationships. snuff out who the bad guys are. And so it's a, it's a show. Hopefully, I think it'd pretty okay yet. All right. Well, great. If you do your job the next two years,

because you're not going to be allowed to sleep. You've got a lot of subpoenas, a lot of work. In 2029, I'll put in a good word for you with Alan coming. Tell Alan, I'd like to be on the next season. Okay. Yeah, we'll put you on 2029. All right. That's Congressman Robert Garcia. Appreciate it very much. We'll be standing in close touch as things before on all this. All right. Thanks, man. And now a message for our sponsor of the Reading Room. As of this week, Todd Blanche has officially been Trump's Attorney General for over a month,

and the full Epstein files still aren't public. Instead of waiting on the government to stop its cover-up, the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room has printed out three and a half million pages the DOJ has released and built a free traveling exhibit that puts the files on display. At the museum, you can actually walk through to see the scale of the released files, the timeline of Trump and Epstein's relationship, and a tribute to the survivors.

It's open now for 20 plus stops. So it's a perfect sponsor to have for this episode with Robert Garcia, who has been fighting the good fight to get these files released when we're talking to him about how we might be able to support the mission of the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room by getting more files out in the months to come. You won't be surprised to hear that moving 17,000 pounds of evidence and the bookshelves needed to hold it across the country ain't cheap. And the reading room runs entirely on donation. So this is something you want more people to see. You can learn more and chip in to fund the tour at Trump Epstein readingroom.com slash bulwark or check out our Morningshots newsletter. Welcome back. He's the Tony Award winning actor, Immigrant, and host of The Traders. You might have seen him there. It's Alan Cumming. What's happening? Welcome to the Borg Daily.

Thank you very much. I love immigrant being my second billing in my introduction. Well, this is why it's your second billing. My producer received the following pitch from a friend. Alan Cumming is a naturalized citizen in America. He wants to join some political conversations about U.S. politics. And I saw that and I was like, why would you want to do that? What would possibly be the rationale for that for you? Which part, being a citizen or joining having a conversation? Both.

Yeah, you pick. I became a citizen so I could vote in America. So I guess that's, you know, it's a sort of the chicken and the egg. I had a green card for many years. only thing you can't do with a green card is vote. And so I just thought, as I'm, you know, shooting my mouth off a lot about what I feel about American life and society and the society that I became part of. I wanted to actively take part of it at the ballot box, too, so I became a citizen. But right now I want to talk about it because I feel, you know, this is, every,

election is important, but it feels like this one is incredibly important. Yeah, I mean, the other The reason I gave immigrant second billing is because it's just something that I'm so focused on. And to me, I think, you know, gets a little bit short shrift in the conversation about all the various outrages by the administration. And I mean, you said that you're on a green card for a while. We have people that are green card holders now we're holding in camps because of the whim of the Secretary of State. And, you know, obviously you're kind of in a world where you know, a lot of people that are, you know, trying to come in and out of American society. Like that in particular, you know, is, is to me maybe the most depressing and outrageous part of Trump 2.0, the way we've made the lives of immigrants here so miserable and made it so hard for people who are trying to come here to enrich our country. That's like impossible to do so now.

And what's your kind of experience in that world? Well, even before Trump 2.0, I mean, the sort of demonization of immigrants, of the word immigrant and of immigration itself. I did a show actually, a sort of concert show called Legal Immigrant that was about my experience of being an immigrant in America. As a privileged white man, if I felt the change and the sort of the chill in the time that I had lived in America against immigrants, I imagine what it must be like to be a person of color or a Muslim or a trans person, you know, immigrant. So I'm really fascinated by that.

and one of the things I said in that show was that I said I feel that if you are anti-immigration you're really saying you're anti-American because the whole notion of America I mean we know it was built by immigrants that's a phrase it's blended about but actually is built on an idea of bringing people from

all over the world to kind of come here and make this new, do this grand new experiment I feel that has been so lost and there's this kind of reclaiming of a myth that, you know, white people only started America. I feel like, you know, everyone actually is an immigrant in America unless you're Native American and an indigenous person.

So to me, it's been this very upsetting, but incredibly clever rewriting of history about what America is. And I just think it's when people are angry, it's a thing that, you know, various dictators and various regimes always use, you know, immigration is sort of the lowest hanging fruit alongside queer people and trans people. That's always what is used initially to, we can point our fingers and everybody who's in a, who feels dispossessed and hard done by can point their fingers at somebody else to blame for their situation. And that is exactly what's happened

over the last decade, at least in America. Yeah. I mean, the vice president here, particular is trying to take that definition that you laid out and just create a whole different story. I mean, like, the point that you made, one way that they talk about it is like, is by saying that America is not a creedal nation, like J.D. Vance gave a big speech about this during the campaign where he talks about like if you believe that America is just anybody who has freedom in their heart and wants to come here, then the whole world could be American. And that definition is too broad and that we need to narrow it. And so that's kind of their high-minded,

Winnie the Poon tuxedo way to try to get their nativism and hate in, you know, through polite society. Yes. I mean, I'm really bored of actually trying to talk around and make excuses for just blatant racism and huge swathes of the population being encouraged to use hateful rhetoric

against anyone who's different to them. It feels utterly un-American to me. I still feel we're not being angry enough and we're not calling it out enough. I mean, it's exhausting, of course, because so much happens every single day, but it really is galling that in 2026, this is still happening, this idea of this regime,

being able to rewrite history after even after all the last few years. I can't believe it's actually, happening. It's embarrassing, actually. That's what I think is really, it's embarrassing above all else. I'm embarrassed. That's true. I don't know. The wrong people probably are embarrassed, though, maybe. Well, it's so interesting. I think I was thinking about this today, like, you know, like with that new press secretary lady, that clearly a lot of people who voted for Trump are intelligent, educated people. They're not all, you know, you can't just say, oh, they're

just dopes. There are obviously millions and millions of people who voted for him. Maybe they don't, maybe hopefully they don't still support him, maybe they

have, like, it spills to me, you know, from afar, I'm in Europe right now, that the tide is turning, that you see more people speaking out against him, that it's not quite so

blanket in its denial of anything but adulation for him. But there's such a lot of people who are intelligent and clever and for whatever reason, they're choosing to support this person. But they can't not be embarrassed. They can't not, if you have a power of analysis and intelligence,

know that the world is just thinking, what a disgrace and how, and they're laughing and terrified, of course, as well. But like the me press lady, just laughing at the ineptitude. How can you not be embarrassed about that? Just someone who stands up there who is, and this is not just some high school debating society

or some little, you know, town in the middle of nowhere where someone's standing up to talk about current affairs. This is the presidency of the United States as representative, fumbling over their words. And it's just embarrassing. I am embarrassed and I don't even, and even if I supported or agreed with the insane thing she was saying, I think I would still be embarrassed

that that was the person who was representing me. What you raise there, it's one of the things I wanted to ask you about, about obviously some of these people were smart people that supported this. They can't all be morons. And I will admit, I was not like a watcher of the traders. You know, I have a daily podcast here. I'm doing my best out there. I'm not really a big reality show person, but I binged it over the weekend just for kicks. And then you kind of sucked me in.

I have to admit, you did suck me in. But my takeaway, which is maybe the obvious takeaway, which is the conceit of the show, is like, people are not. not as good at identifying liars as they think they are. Right? Yes. Like, one of the things that is revealed from the show is that it's easier to pull over the wool over people's eyes, even smart people. Like, you have people who are lawyers, doctors.

It's easier to pull the wool over their eyes than you think it is. And I wanted to pick your brain about whether that experience gave you a little bit different view over how easy it was for the demagoguery to happen in politics. I think the difference is that in a show like the traitors, you know, that there are liars there. You're looking for liars. And so in a political regime that you support,

you don't think there's going to be a liar because you've supported them and you voted for them. So it's kind of a big difference. But I think what's interesting to me about the show, really I find fascinating, is that it is, you know,

especially in the most recent one, which is with real people, the one that's on right now, the ordinary Americans, it is sort of a kind of a, America in a microcosm, it is about, you know, clearly there were some people on that show who were voted for Trump, some of the contestants, the players. I feel that what is really interesting is about how each series kind of sort of plays out in terms of what is happening in the country. And this one, the way this present one comes out, the one that's on NBC right now, is it's a very fascinating and,

a brilliant ending for what I hope America can be I feel like also though you know one of the things that is interesting me is that what is bringing people together right now on TV is this show about murder and

treachery in a safe sort of way we know that you know you can be evil you can save all these things you can say you want to kill people in a very safe sort of way but it's done in a form in a show that is incredibly theatrical, is incredibly camp. It's very queer. I am very queer in it. I am many times in it, kind of in a dressing in a non-binary way. I am a middle-aged queer man. And people

are loving the theatricality, the calmness and the queerness of this show. And that I think is really fascinating and heartening to me that at a time when queerness and otherness is so vilified by the government that the public are watching in droves as something that is essentially a very queer type of entertainment. That kind of leads to another thing I want to pick your brain about because I, you know, there's a way to look at this that's a little polyana or whatever. And so I don't know, probably, you know, some people might roll their eyes at this notion. But like the other side, Trump has used kind of reality.

show tropes and skills to advance his more nefarious agenda, right? And I do feel like, as a result, we've kind of had a reality showification of our politics. And I think that there have been a lot of times the Democrats and those of us fighting against them have not been as good at adapting to that world. And I do wonder, like, from your experience that you're just laying out, of kind of like getting some queer themes into a mass market, a mass market, show, like whether you think that there are lessons there for Democrats as they look ahead to 28, et cetera, to maybe use some of the powers for good, if you will. But I think it's good to remember that there's a group of people who are the minority

who are blaming minorities and the lowest hanging fruit for their problems. And, you know, moving over to trans people in sport or immigrants or these things that become big issues only as smoke screens for what else is going on. The president has been mentioned, I can't remember the number, the percentage of times more in the Epstein files than there are actually trans athletes playing in competition. Ridiculous things like that. So there's just huge inverse ratio to how important something is versus how the government wants us to look away from what really is important. I think, though, that's heartening to remember that.

is the case. People aren't really that bothered, I think. We're being kind of fired up to bother. But I think the thing that's really more scary and dangerous is the pack mentality and the sort of the Lord of the Flies thing that happens in the traitors and indeed in our culture. When we all get riled up by each other and we all follow along and we want to belong. We want to be part of a tribe. I mean, it's easier to sort of go along with what we're being told than, and sort of maybe analyze for ourselves and have our own opinion about it. That's what to me is dangerous. And that's what I find really galling when I'm working on the show is how what insanely

stupid decisions people make on it because they are in this sort of pack mentality. And that's something is still very prevalent, incredibly prevalent and incredibly dangerous in our society. More prevalent now. I mean, you see it just in the online discourse. And this is like something that is not limited to just, I mean, obviously you see this on the mega right, but do you see this across the board? Totally. Yeah, how easy it is for people to want to go along with, I mean, like you watched on

the show like some stupid theory that's like obviously like wrong or, you know, a fake piece of information that someone think the shared that they think is true and then people go along with it. I mean, we saw this with the Tallorego thing this week, for example. Yeah. You know, it's your algorithm. It's funny. This show I've gone on stars right now called Tiptoe is really terrifying.

and distressing about various things. But one of the things is about the role of social media and how we, you know, we get into that algorithm bubble and we only get more information about the thing that was wrong in the first place or the prejudice that is dangerous in the first place. And it just fires and fuels us.

And that is, that's what I feel is really scary to me. It's just how do we get out of that? How it's, it's difficult and it's expensive and it's time-consuming to actually find the truth sometimes and it's easier to just let to live in the algorithm bubble and just to be guided by

and sadly, you know, guided by kind of people who have nefarious ends. And also don't want to get out of power. That's the other thing. I think this is, you know, the thing about American politics has always really stymied me and frustrated me and I just can't stand it.

There's only two parties. It's a sport. It's not really. It's just about, it's either our team or your team. You're with us are you against us. You don't want to give anything to the other team. You don't want to admit the right in any way. And you desperately want to hang on to the bottle. Your team is winning and you want to keep winning.

And I think that's what I think people in America don't realize that there's no other democracy in the world. And it is barely a democracy right now. But, you know, it is a democracy-ish. But there's no democracy in the world that only has two parties except America. Everyone, even in Scotland, you know, like Scotland, which has something like six million people or something. the entire country has about at least seven parties in its parliament, different parties

that are all part of a coalition. You know, the idea that it's just this binary is, well, you just see the results. It just becomes a team of sport and nobody, everyone's shouting at each other from different mountains and we're never going to get anything really changed. Well, it's going to help for our team to win this time, so you have a few things changed. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. I want to go back to the queer themes and stuff that you're talking about because it is,

I was going back and I was deeply in the closet myself in 1998. So I had blinders on that prevented me from seeing this. I just learned this today as I was reading about you that you came out on the cover of Out magazine that year, 1998. And I'm kind of just wondering, I mean, A, that took a lot of courage. And it takes courage to speak out now about Trump because a lot of people are scared they're going to get targeted. particularly people that, you know, have immigration questions. It's kind of got to be hard to imagine. Like here we are 28 years after that.

And it does feel like there was kind of a straight line of progress from your cover in 1998 through about eight years ago. And that stuff is slipping away a bit. I'm kind of wondering your perspective on that. Yeah, clearly, such a terrible. I mean, people are going back into the closet. You hear things like that happening. and there's obviously threats to our rights

are happening all the time. But trans people especially, though, I feel like it's just so awful the way that trans people... One of the things I think that the marriage equality movement got right and why it happened was to basically just sort of talk the language that people understand in America, which is commerce, and basically gay marriages, gay people spend a lot of money on their weddings. And so once that started in all the different states slowly,

Nobody complained because they were making a fortune. And I feel like, you know, what is so tragic is that trans people don't really contribute that much to the economy. And I feel I can't help but think that that is why they are even more targeted and they're being so vilified right now. It's just, I'm just horrified by the lack of humanity and kindness that is so inherent in this anti-trans crusade. It's absolutely horrible. But I feel every queer movement, and there's many around the world, you're always teetering on the brink of disaster and rights being pulled back. And we just have to be completely vigilant.

And I think it's just a question of even in America, you still have many rights that you didn't use to have. But they are under threat. And it's not just about the legality of them, but it's more about the rhetoric and the idea that all this violence, again, it's just something that tiptoe is very much. dealing with. The way that violent rhetoric, anti-gay, anti-immigrant rhetoric is being so normalized and the way that we are inured to these, to the way that people are being talked about in such

a dehumanizing way, that is going to take a long, long, long time to change and to get back to a sort of kind, fair, just America, even more than any rights that might be, have been repealed. Yeah, especially when you have the vice president will be the reprimand, we'll be the Republican frontrunner probably in 2008. He was doing some 1998 style gay jokes this week on the campaign trail. He was in Texas and he

shouts of a guy in the crowd. I love you too, sir. In a totally platonic way, to be clear, I'm the vice president, not James Tala Rico, which is not that great of a gay joke. I wouldn't say. I mean, you know they're running scared when you're making jokes like that. I mean, I think

he's amazing. I'm really fascinated by Texas. in terms of the way that it's sort of, I don't know, has Texas ever been in recent times Democrat? Anne Richards was the last state-line Texas. Yeah, she's a governor. She's a governor of the early 90s, yes. It's been quite a while. Right.

But it's so exciting that it was like with Beto O'Rourke kind of the last time. You know, it's so fascinating that's becoming a state that is, I mean, I'm so heartened actually by things like that. and by things like Democratic Socialist candidates doing so well. I'm so full of hope and about Mamdani in New York and the way that he has shown and he has promised things and delivered them and he's made the idea the word socialism not so scary to people. And I am heartened by things like that. And even heartened that the Vice President is trying to make gay jokes

because he's threatened by Tarika. I'm asking you to put on your kind of traitors contesting glasses here, but maybe a little projection from him. And it just does kind of remind me of some of the bullies that asked me to jerk off with them and then also made fun of me at the same time, a little bit. Oh, I'm just getting such terrible visuals about Dave DeVance. I mean, I think it's too easy to sort of say, you know, make it about me thinks they doth protest too much when people do that.

I mean, I don't really care. That to me is not important. I don't care either. I just, he's a little fake, I guess, is my point. I don't know. There's just a lot of projection for fake people. Look, I mean, I was in the closet for a while. I used to be fake and lie, and I blossomed into my full self, which is nice.

But I'm a podcaster. He's the vice president. And he kind of reminds me of my closeted self a bit. Oh, interesting. He's changed his name three times. He lies a lot. He's changing his religion. I mean, he was sort of, it was sort of,

closeted in terms of the way he wrote about his life. And yeah, I think it was so interesting. I remember last, when he was first came on the scene, there was like a, I heard a podcast, but a friend of it who was trans and about how he has sort of. Kind of falling out with them. Like, yeah, he was nice to them and now,

and now it gets meaner and meaner. Right. So people evolve, but sometimes in a bad way. And I think that's clearly what has happened with him. But I mean, yeah, He's obviously a very insecure person in terms of his identity, but I don't know whether that extends to his sexuality, and I really don't want to think about it. Sure.

Thank you. Yeah. That's fair. That's fine. I guess my point is that he, you know, as a viewer, as a non-contestant of the traders, as a viewer, you can, you feel, it's one of the fun things about watching is that you feel like you know who the people are that are lying, you know, the traders, you know, once you can see the signs in them.

You can see the ways in which they act fake. And it's very clear to you as a viewer. And I just feel like J.D. Vance, like, he's very clearly a traitor, I guess is what I'm saying. Like, it's very clear that he's full of shit. You know, that's my only... I'll agree with that. Yeah. It's very clear to me that he's full of shit.

Yeah. We have some other gays in this administration. It's pretty, I don't know, this is another thing I'm embarrassed about. Think of embarrassment as a gay American that we, you know, I would have thought that our first gay treasury secretary would have put a better foot forward than Scott Bessent. But I don't know. What do you make with that character? Again, embarrassing. Just like, what is going on?

Do you think they think that that's, you know, appointing people who are so ill-equipped to do their jobs? Is anyone embarrassed? Does anyone sort of think, are these the best people? Do you think they really think that? Scott Besson doesn't seem embarrassed. He seems very proud of himself. No, he doesn't even embarrassed. He is like a classic stuff shirt, you know?

I meant like the sort of the. you know, intelligent, educated Trump voters. Yeah. Like the folks around them. I guess,

I don't think so. I think that they've decided, here's my putting them on the couch for you. I think that when Trump won, the smart, if you will, Republican types who were not with them at the beginning,

decided that he had some secret magic sauce that allowed us being the Republicans, them to win twice and that maybe they should take after more like him. And it's kind of funny that he makes the people that they hate like you, so upset, you know, and they enjoy, they revel in it.

And so I think that while it's not exactly their style, I think that they've come to really like it, you know, that they get to have, like, bring out their bad wolf. And they like that everybody is so exasperated by how clownish it is. Like, I think that that's what's happened. That's my psychoanalysis.

It's the team sport thing again. It's the other team are sore losers, or it's nice to sort of, it's like they're taunting. They love taunting us with even more tawdry and vile sort of people or ideas. I mean, it is truly disappointing that people can turn a blind eye to so much terrible stuff. The other thing that I think Trump has working for him, that sometimes people make him laugh, I think that this is the advantage maybe we have with Trump versus J.D. Vance. Vance is so dour. And with Trump, you had him, I don't know if you saw this week,

he was talking about John Hustad's ass and how great it looks. He's this guy running for Senate. And there's the campiness to him. Yeah. He was talking about Ohio Senate candidate's ass and how sculpted it was. Wow. I mean, he talks about people's bodies a lot. I think it's really interesting.

He talks about them. I mean, I think, I don't know. I'm also intrigued about, you know, where do we all stand now on his mental health and his health in general? I mean, like, how is he doing? I mean, I'm not in America right now. I know, I've been for a little while. I obviously read the news and things, but how does he seem?

Yep. Still bruises on the hand and the legs look weird. Things like that. I mean, if you watch old videos of him versus now, it's pretty notable the decline. I mean, it just is. It happens to everybody. Yeah. Like the 2016 rally videos versus now.

Like, he is significantly slower. Yeah. And his mental acumen. Yeah. Not great. Never great. And so you're kind of going down from a low baseline. It's not funny because terrible, terrible thing.

People are being murdered on the streets of America because of him. And yet it's also two things can happen at the same time. That is happening. It is utterly embarrassing. But it's also hilarious. It's hilarious. I mean, he was talking about taking out, telling Iran to take out Los Angeles in San Francisco last week. Was that just last week?

hard to tell times a flat circle but yeah it was recently I have such a difficult sort of relationship with time that I sometimes say to my assistant why is that person not responded to me about that and she went you wrote to them this morning and I think oh I thought that was weeks ago and I feel that's maybe a bit of a product of having lived in America during Trump times

because there's just your sort of bombarded with so much shit and kind of insanity that you just can't obviously you're exhausted and and inured by it, but also you just have no concept of what happened when and what new things. I mean, I think this new lady, this new press lady, I mean, I do feel that's a new low in terms of you don't like the casting there? You don't think that that's believable?

No, it's totally believable for what, if I was, if I was casting a film about the new press secretary for the Trump administration, she would be, she would have, be absolutely the top of the list. No, I think the casting is great. I thought it was maybe a little much. I thought maybe you'd watch the first screening and come back and be like, can we dial back the dits level just a little bit? The makeup's too much.

I mean, I just, but it's just, it's beyond, you know, we've gone to all these emotions. I don't know. And the funny way, I think I'm coming at the other side, just kind of like kind of laughing as well as being furious. I think that's, you know, it's like, in the same way there's just this duality

this binary of American politics there's also a binary in how you have to be able to survive and exist because you've got to be able to still have some sort of sense of finding it funny and ridiculous and absurd

as well at the same time as being terrified. Yes, that's exactly what I go for on the show every day so thank you. You're right on theme for us. You're welcome. I just have a couple of Scots things for you

then I'll let you go, why haven't you guys kicked him out yet? He's got the golf course there. You know, there's the picture Natalie's like running, following him on the golf cart, while he's on the course. Why haven't you guys nationalized that course or something, you know? That's the thing, I suppose, because we are a democracy and we don't do things at that. I mean, we do nationalize things, but we don't, you know, you can't just take something that you don't like and change it.

Maybe eminent domain, you know, I don't know, turn it into some windmills or something. Well, that's, I mean, he, it's so fascinating. His fury about the windmills, his golf course in Aberdeen, Aberdeen shirt looks on. to the North Sea and there's loads of windmill farms on there. He's furious about that. But the thing I think about, you know, Trump in Scotland is that when he first came, when he was first running for president, and I was a visit, you know, it was all about building the wall, was all happening on that time.

There was a mariachi band playing outside his golf course when he arrived. And there's a very, very famous thing. It was a comedian called Jamie Godley, who's sadly no longer with us. But she, there's a very famous photograph. of a policeman, she was on the golf course in Aberdeenshire, where he was going, and she was holding up a picture, an old lady holding up a sign which says, Trump is a C word, which is something we use very,

a lot more frequently in Scotland than you do in America, but see you next Tuesday. It was written, Trump is a C year next Tuesday. I'm not going to say it. And there's a policeman kind of coming towards or sort of like, oh, ma'am, you know, you can't really do that. And it became such a huge thing, it's such a huge thing about the spirit of Scotland

that this old lady is holding a sign saying that. on his golf course. And at the BAFTA Award, and she was this comedian, this woman. I'd met her. And at the BAFTA, Scottish BAFTA awards that year, my mom was making some award. And I saw this lady.

And the first of all, I didn't recognize it because she was all kind of, you know, she looked like Farrah Fawcett, her, Janie, her hair was all thingyed. She looked gorgeous. And I was like, oh, my dad, I didn't recognize you. And my mom was like, oh, my mom, this is, this is Jenny, you know, you know her. And mom went, no, who, who?

And I went, no, who, who? And I went, oh, yes, of course. Like that. Oh, I said it. Bullshit. Sorry. We got it. That's okay.

I was hoping you'd do it. You guys also have some more creative insults like, you know, in those signs I remember. When I had Alistair Campbell on a couple months ago from This is Politics UK, I asked him for some like, you know, UK insults of Trumps that are creative. And he offered for me, sleek it wazok, which I still don't really know what that is. Sleeket. Sleek it means like slimy. What is the second word, wazok? Wazak.

Or wazak. Oh, yeah. Slik at Wazok. Yeah, like just dick. Dick, Dickhead. It was a really good one. So I remember when he came one time and it said, it was said, I think this was in London. It was a sign and said, Donald, we all think you're a bail end.

A bell end. And I think that's a bit. Do you know what that means? Yes, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. So that's a good one. I like, I like that. Yeah, we're really good at insults, I think, in Scotland.

Do you have any other ones you want to try on me? About Trump. Or JD. I can't think any, you know, some. the ones that I would be able to say. But I just wanted to also talk about Hent Trump. You know, it's kind of awful. His mom was Scottish.

His mom was from the Isle of Lewis. He's half Scottish. It's your fault. It's partly our fault. Yeah. Although she's the one who said it, you know, she said some really damning things about him. And obviously was a good judge of character because she said the things she said about her son are really incredible actually if you have read that.

Right. But that's something about the Scottish spirit though. I don't like your little, if you're a little warmer. Like, she'd she been a little warmer to her son and loved him a little more. maybe he would have been able to kind of flower into, like, his true purpose. I think he was kind of meant to be, like, the owner of a Broadway theater. I think you would have felt much more gratified. I mean, though, his dad wasn't exactly a good role model.

I think you can't really blame it all on the Scottish mom. I think it's, you know, you look at the racist father who is, you know, chucking people of color out of their houses and, you know, I think, yeah, yeah, it's just sort of a confluence of many things that created him. And obviously, I love that book about that his niece. Was it his niece? Our cousin wrote, and who's a therapist and talked about, you know, his various personality disorders. Fascinating.

It is a big stain on Scotland that I think that, you know, that his mom was from Lewis. We've just got to live with it. We have bigger fish to fry, but it's pretty damning for us. We do. All right. We got the midterms coming up. I appreciate you wanting to engage on this. Is there anything else you want to pop off on?

anything I didn't talk to you about, that you've got, you know, kind of rattling around the old brain? I guess it's just like how important it is to try and have hope about the democratic system. They are so relying on us being exhausted and being frustrated and feeling it's worthless to fight and to vote and to protest. And I feel like this is the last ditch attempt we have to. They're running scared, obviously. but just try and find some more reserves of energy

to fight and to encourage people to vote. I'm really heartened by young people actually and how much young people are engaged. But I feel it's more people of older people are so sort of bored about, you know, if things haven't got any better before now, why should we bust their asses to do it now? I think we've got to try and galvanise people.

Yeah, that's what I think. And I would just encourage people. There's a really good thing they did here in Scotland. It was about, you know, if you vote and you really feel passionate about this, call 10 more people today and ask them to do it. I think that's a really good sort of way to go about it. I love it. He's host of the traders that sound coming.

I agree with all of that 100%. There's new programs out at 8 o'clock on Thursdays on NBC. He teased earlier in the show that there's a really wonderful ending to the program. So, you know, it's not too late to get in now. It is amazing. Yeah, I cannot wait. I cannot wait. It's brutal, but it's brilliant.

When does it end right around the midter? It must. When's the final episode? I'm not sure. I mean, I don't know how many of you had. We've had five. Five. And how many weeks till the midterms?

Three. Oh, well, it's not going to, it don't be. It won't be. But whatever, it will be a balm or else it will be a galvanizing running term. and then we'll have something to look forward to for dessert. Wonderful ending to the traders. Alan, coming, thank you so much for the time. Going on the bulwark.

We'll see you again soon. All right, brother? Thanks, Tim. Yeah, take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper,

associate producer, Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeChico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.