The Bulwark Podcast - Amanda Carpenter: The Worst President Ever

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

From Trump's sacrilegious use of Jesus, to his massively corrupt pardon scheme, and his desire to plaster his name on every federal building and institution, this country has never had such a bad president. The Dems need to plan now how they will do oversight and also keep his loyalists from helping him cheat in the midterms. Plus, Hegseth really doesn't know his Scripture, Trump is turning America's 250th birthday into a party for himself, and RFK has really got a thing about dead animals.Amanda Carpenter joins Tim Miller.show notes Protect Democracy's website ProPublica's reporting on Trump's effort to "take over" the midterms JVL on driving the stake through the heart of Trumpism Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/BULWARK

All right, everybody. Reminder, we are going to Southern California in May, and tickets are on sale Friday for everybody. You have your last chance to get into that pre-sale, if you're a Bullwark Plus member, to get that ticket now before it goes out to the masses. So jump on it at theblerc.com slash events. We are in downtown San Diego May 20th, downtown L.A. May 21st. I do apologize to the bro on the west side who I told we were going to try to do an event over in their direction and, you know, venues and it's over my head, all right, but it didn't

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the ballwork.com slash events. It's going to be a good one. Up next, we got our old buddy Amanda Carpenter. Stick around. Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Couldn't be happier. Welcome back to the show. My former colleague who's now a writer and editor at Protect Democracy. Their substack is if you can keep it. You can go to protectdemocracy.org to learn more.

It's Amanda Carpenter. What's up, girl? Hey, you know, all the things. Always a pleasure to be back. I was having fun following your Coachella adventures. And so, you know, you got to do that. Were you jealous of Carol G while you were parenting? I was saying Carol G. Well, I don't know who Carol G is, so I can't be jealous.

But I'm jealous of the fun it looked like you had. You would like Carol G. You should check it out afterwards. I want to chat here about the vibes with you. I think that we have some serious matters of state and democracy to discuss with you, obviously, and election concerns and corruption. But I'm just kind of wondering, I live in Louisiana, which is Red America, but I'm in New Orleans. I'm in uptown New Orleans.

Like, let's be real. Okay. Like, I'm not around the realest Americans. You're in, like, West Virginia, okay? You're in West Virginia. You're around real, real Americans. And I'm just wondering, like, my senses, anecdotally, like the vibe shift is real. Not that mega people are like, oh, we're Democrats now.

we've gone woke, not that, but just like, people aren't happy. Like with the war, with the crisis gas, with various things that he's up to. Is that, what do you think? Is that wishcasting? Or is the view from West Virginia that the vibe shift is real? Well, it's not election season, but I can tell you that the trucks flying Trump maga flags off the back of them have stopped. I haven't seen any of those in a while.

And I do have yet to meet an enthusiastic supporter of the war. in Iran, like, haven't seen any takers for that. What I do hear people say, they essentially try to make a case for the war that Trump hasn't made. Like, shouldn't we be liberating the people from the terrible dictators and regime change would be good? Like, people are kind of wanting to get on board with that, but that is not explicitly what Trump is saying, of course. So that's just trying to retrofit it. And I don't know anyone who is a fan of $4 gas. So those, those are the ones. seem pretty bad. These things are all interrelated, right? And I think that that is to me, you know, why this has become like a real political problem for Trump and why. Nobody privately

texts me, really, that's doing Republican campaigns anymore. I got a couple hangers on left who still want to talk to me who are Republican campaign operatives. But, you know, it's not like 2017 anymore. But from, you know, friends of friends and reporters and folks that do, like, the sense is that, like, the private concerns among Republican strategists are real. And, And I think it's because, like, you know, it's one thing if you're worried that Trump is just a little too focused on putting his name on shit and the arc to Trump, right? It's kind of like, that can be excused away. That's Trump. He's a megalomaniac.

He puts his name on everything, right? But it's another thing. If it's like he's doing that while things are getting worse for you. And then it's really another thing where he's like he's doing that while things are getting worse for you. And things are getting worse for you because he decided to get into. to a war of choice that you don't really understand the rationale for. And I think that like those three topics like all interlink in a way that is, that it makes him really vulnerable politically.

Yeah. And layered on top of that, what you do see coming from him, especially on social media, which is where a lot of his supporters and everyone gets the news, is so erratic and reckless. I mean, the Easter tweet, the promise to annihilate, you know, the country, I don't know who that sat well with. He's always said crazy stuff, but for some reason now, people are starting to say, what's going on with this? Like, I don't find Mag people

or even, like, you know, Republican people saying this war in Iran is going to be a disaster, but it's more like, what is he doing with like this tone of resignation? And like, it's kind of like settling in, like, maybe this is really going off the rails in a bad way. And my friend's mom who said he might be the Antichrist. I feel like that's on the outer edge of, you know, where three-time Trump voters are. But I do think it's real. You know, if you look at just mega social media, if you looked at his replies on true social, people were very mad about the post.

And again, this doesn't mean they're going to be Democrats. And I think that a lot of them are kind of wishing and hoping and some of them are praying because they do pray to him, like that he's going to like pull a rabbit out of a hat. And like, it's going to all work out. But that doesn't mean that the concerns aren't real. I do take it seriously, largely because Trump is posting images of himself as Jesus. Like, if you are a person of faith, that is going to hit you the wrong way. That is blasphemous on its face.

And then you kind of see the other discourse. Like, what is he doing? What is he doing with these social media images? I mean, they are intentional. You have the image of him coming down like Christ. And then, like, there's weird demonic figures at the top. And, like, maybe you should be like, oh, that's conspiracy. But what is that?

what are they doing? What inputs did the staff have to put into chat GPT to get that image? Like, maybe that's worth a FOIA request. I'm kind of, I'm curious, but he is the one who keeps putting out this imagery like, I am a God, worship me. I'm made for this time. And so I don't know how if you're a person of faith, how you can't question that. And maybe it's gone too far to say that he's demon possessed, but maybe that's the off-ramp some people need. You know? Need. I've been there. I think that it's great. If you think that he was demon possessed or that the devil tricked everybody,

awesome. I don't literally believe that. But I bet in a broader sense of the devil's work, I'm with you. And we're aligned. Yeah. I also wouldn't say demon possessed either, but I couldn't tell you where the line is between things are, I would say, are evil. Yeah.

And are demon possessed. Like, I don't know where I am on that spectrum. Right. Okay, although we're tipping over into Tucker territory all of a sudden, a demon bit me in my bed. That's a different story. There's more on this, though, because it wasn't just the one tweet. You know, he takes that tweet down after you'll complain. But then the next day, he posts another post, which it's a picture of Jesus who he recognizes this time.

Jesus is in the same outfit the Trump was wearing than the other one. The American flag is behind Jesus, which is kind of blasphemous its own way. but I do think that most, a lot of American evangelicals have kind of embraced the American Jesus. Yeah, yeah. The flags in West Virginia and, you know, around, I guess, parts of Maryland that I drive through would have God guns Trump against an American flag.

Yeah. So, like, that's not too far enough. I don't think that's going to turn anybody off. But, okay, it's there. Jesus is hugging Trump. And the post says, it's a meme. And the text on the meme is, I was never a very religious man,

but doesn't it seem with all these satanic, demonic, child sacrificing monsters being exposed that I was friends with. God might be playing his Trump card. And then Trump reposted that with the radical left lunatics might not like this, but I think that this is quite right. So like, this is him saying, God chose me, which is not really that far from being Jesus, like that I'm God's chosen one.

And also saying, this will make the radical leftist bet. No, no, that is actually making the evangelical base that you elected you mad, probably more than the radical leftists who have always thought this stuff is crazy. Right. And by the way, and maybe another group that it's making mad

is there's at least some percentage of Trump's base that actually believed QAnon and actually cared about the Epstein files and wanted child sacrificing monsters to be exposed. and Trump's not doing that. They didn't do that. They covered up the Epstein files. They haven't arrested anybody or indicted anybody.

They don't seem to care about it. They seem to care more about blocking information from coming out. So it's like they're not even doing the stated thing. I think he just wants to put images of himself as Christ. Jesus. I think that's the through line here. And then I don't know if you saw what the Iranians are posting back. So there was a, I don't know.

what you call it, a clapback on social media with AI where Jesus comes down from the heavens, slaps Trump in the face, and throws him down into hell. Yeah. So, you know. Iranians got the AI trolling down. Yeah. Well, it used to be bad that they chanted death to America, but now he's slapping our president in the face and throwing him to the gates of hell. So I don't know how. Yeah.

I would like a farce expert to weigh on this. One of our commenters said this to me. I don't know this. And this is, I just want to be very clear here. the Iranian regime is awful. Yes. Everything about them is awful. It's horrible.

I wish for the Iranian people that they had a better regime. I was just kind of interested this as a fact point where somebody posted that in Farsi, like the translation of death to America is really more like fuck America. Yeah. And it's kind of like if I say fuck Trump, I don't mean like literally I want to have sexual intercourse with them. It's just kind of like Trump should go to hell. And even there, when I say that, I don't really believe in hell. So I don't like literally mean that Trump is, you know, it's just more of like an expression of distaste.

Anyway, if you're a farcey, I'm just kind of curious. I would like to do a long read on that. But it's not just Trump also that's like talking about himself as God. And this is a mission from God. The Secretary of Defense was out this morning and had a press conference. And, you know, I don't think you got to look between the lines, too. much on this metaphor, but let's play what Pete Hegseth was saying regarding the critics of Trump and the war and who he compares them to.

The so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report. But their hearts were hardened. Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn't matter, they were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him, how to destroy him. I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees. So, so Trump thinks he's Jesus. The Secretary of War seems to think Trump's Jesus. I mean, again, we're not, we don't have to take the metaphor literally,

but it's like if we the Trump critics are the Pharisees, then that would make Trump Jesus again. No? It's hard for me to analyze Pete Higgs-S-words if it's not on paper because every time I look at him, I'm just like, is every media opportunity a bad attempt at aura farming? You know, like I'm kind of new to this with my son who's almost 13. It's just like everything is like, he looks in the camera and he's got his little

pocket square. Do you notice the American flag pocket square? I do. Yeah. And so then he's just lifting this stuff and apparently making up Bible quotes that he took from Pulp Fiction. I also saw. Oh, we got that coming. We got that coming. Should we just do that now? Let's do them back to back. This is different for the press conference. So the press conference, Hegseth, begins with a monologue about how the assembled media are the Pharisees trying to kill Jesus or trying to condemn Jesus. Yeah. So that would be bad. Yeah. We're the bad. We're the baddies.

The soldiers are the apostles. Like Seth is, I guess, Peter in this analogy. What did he do to deserve this? I mean, good. Just like, honestly, I can rock of the church here. Getting compared to, you know, former drunk weekend talk show co-host. And then he... Secretary of war to you, Tim.

He was, I guess, preaching to the Pentagon Prayer Service. service, but again, they have a prayer service, soldiers can attend. And Hengseth went up and spoke. They fired, Mark Hartling wrote about this a couple weeks ago. They fired the military chaplain. So I guess they've been replaced by Pete Hegseth himself. And he was doing a prayer. And as you mentioned, people who have seen Pulp Fiction might recognize this Bible verse. We'll talk about it the other side. they they call it c-sar 2517 which i think is meant to reflect ezekiel 2517 so the prayer is c-sar 2517 and it reads and pray with me please the path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherd the loss through the valley of darkness for he is truly

his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. Lossed children. And I will strike down upon me with great vengeance and furious anger, those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy One. Oh my God. When I lay my vengeance upon me. And amen. So thank you for joining us this month every month. Thank you for for worshiping with us. We believe in an amen. You notice I knew the words to that Bible verse. And so you'll know that it's not a real Bible verse because I knew the words. Catholics, we don't learn actual Bible verses.

I know it because I've seen the movie Pulp Fiction 150 times. So that, Ezekiel 2517, that's not. Actually, it's a fake Quentin Tarantino. The Bible doesn't say you will know me by my call son. Quentin Tarantino wrote that. And doing a prayer to a movie that is all about drugs and murder. Cussing. A lot of murder.

Cheating. It's just... Drugs. A lot of drugs. A lot of heroin in the movie. And it's just like, let us pray. Is he so fucking stupid that he didn't know? Or do you think it was clever?

What does he think is happening there? He's really dumb. I do suppose that firing the military chaplain makes it easier to create your own verses and your own Bible to go from in which you can be the hero and savior of your own story. So maybe it's like one of these, 3D chess moves that we just fire the guy, we write our own Bible, and we go from there.

And Pulp Fiction, what a great place to start. Yeah, I mean, doing a Pulp Fiction spoof where you turn the military guys into Samuel Jackson would be cringe, but like fine. But this is, it was literally the prayer service. Like, he begins with and we pray. It ends with amen. Like, just on the list of like sacrilegious stuff, it's like, the president is Jesus. the president is Jesus again.

The president has gone, chosen one, and the secretary of war is praying to a fake Bible verse that was written by Quentin Tarantino. I mean, they're really doing as much as they can to be an affront to God

and faithful Americans. Yeah, I feel sorry for the troops there, but I do need more of a crowd reaction shot for the people who realized he was not saying the right verse and them trying to figure out where it might have been from. Because you know they were like, That doesn't sound quite right.

Let me get out my phone. And you will know my name is the bulwark when we lay our vengeance upon the. Amen. I just, I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Just like you're not supposed to choose your favorite children. You're not supposed to choose your favorite sponsors.

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Go to wild-alaskan.com slash bulwark for 35 bucks off your first box of premium wild-cut seafood. That's wild-alaskan.com slash bulwark for 35 bucks off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan company for sponsoring this episode. Pope Leo wait in this morning. Pope Leo is clever. The Bullwark Pope is very clever because I don't know. Do you know what's happening in Cameroon? He posted this with the hashtag Cameroon.

So maybe there's also, I got to just be honest. I don't know. I'm not following the day-to-day of what's happening in Cameroon. I'm doing my best to keep up with what's happening in our government. Maybe a little bit of a sub-tweet. But he posts this, woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain,

dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth. it's pretty on the nose yeah i mean and with all the spats that trump has started with the pope i think it's notable that the pope has never really mentioned trump in these criticisms they just seem to know it's about them so i think they could probably take this one the same way i remember i remember this about the mcane funeral was it the mcane funeral or the hw funeral i think at the mcane funeral people actually mentioned trump at one of them people directly mentioned trump and then at the other one there were just like these kind of odes

to selflessness and service and character. And like, you know, the Trump people went crazy. And they're like, oh, they're attacking Trump at the funeral. I was like, no, that's just a eulogy where you praise somebody for their good character traits. And Trump doesn't have any of them. And so you think it's an attack. But actually just any compliment of someone that speaks about their virtues is necessarily also a critique of Trump because he lacks them.

Yeah. Well, I look forward to J.D. Vance, again, reminding the Pope that he should stick to preaching morality and do a better job at it. Stick to preaching morality. Yeah. Stick to theology. Have you ever heard of the just war theory? I love that.

Mike Johnson also did this. Have you ever heard of the just war theory? And I was like, I have, actually, we did this in Jesuit school. I was like, you know, I think I remember it. I did a little refresher. And it's like, part one of the just war theory. is as you don't attack until you have exhausted every other potential option. Like, it's more complicated than that, but like that's just, you know, the basic element of it.

And it's like, we were doing the negotiation and we had your stupid, corrupt real estate friend and your son-in-law in the meetings. And you just got bored and you knew where the Ayatollah was because they're having an all-hands meeting. And you're like, all right, screw this on the diplomacy. We're going to start bombing. It could not be more of a viable. violation of just the written text of the judge war theory, you couldn't come up with one that is more of violation. I guess Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But I mean, you know, these guys, like, they just, they want to be able to act with impunity and insult the Pope, do whatever they want

in Iran and not be not be critiqued by it. And that's just, it's not how the world works, baby. Sorry, J.D. No. And I do not want to take a moment to pause here and talk about, like, what we're doing in Iran. We are at total war with. I mean, we've gone in with overwhelming force to bomb the crap out of them, even though it hasn't been successful at eliminating, you know, all their retaliatory strikes, which resulted in taking down a couple of our planes. But now we're doing the naval blockade. And then last night, Trump and his, you know, best buddy, Treasury Secretary Besson are talking about how they're going to do the equivalent of an economic bombing. So in my mind, you kind of have land, air, sea, economic, what are we not doing here?

And then at the same time, the Senate had a vote last night about whether we'd want to rein in the war powers. And of course, it fell on party lines except for Rand Paul and Federman who switched. So he just has a blank check. This is unpopular. We are at total war. And they're acting like a bunch of goons online trading Jesus memes. Yeah. Like, can we just like, what is going on here?

There's no even semblance of a just war theory. we don't know what the objectives are. It's hurting people. And now this morning, the Wall Street Journal was reporting that we're going to be sending troops in there. Essentially, I think, as an act of intimidation to try to get a deal. But this is similar to what we did in Venezuela, right? We had all the ships in the sea, we're threatening action. And still, Maduro was dancing in the streets, mocking us until we went in there and kidnapped him.

And, you know, I guess that went okay, fingers crossed. it's not going to work at this region in the world is just not going to work. The other thing that's not going to work this has been one of his bleats that he that has gotten ignored because of all of the secularists ones

but he posted this chokehold Iran could run out of oil storage with Trump blockade wrecking havoc with its economy and I just had to laugh at that one because it's like so this is the new strategy we're going to ruin our own economy until Iran cries uncle

it's like do you understand how supply and demand Do you understand that supply and demand works? If you put a chokehold on the supply of Iranian oil to hurt their economy, what happens? Okay? The people they sell oil to, like the Chinese and others, aren't going to have as much supply. So what are they going to do? They are going to turn to either our oil or Russian oil or oil out of the Persian Gulf. But the Strait of Hormuz is closed.

And so there's less of that. And so that means that there are shortages. And that means that the Chinese will pay more. And when the Chinese pay more, guess who else pays more? Fucking people with the Trump flag in West Virginia also pay more because there's not two different prices. The price that gets sent to Beijing is the same in the barrel of oil. And so if you do a chokehold on Iran to prevent their supply of oil for coming out,

yeah, it's going to hurt their economy, but it's going to make ours even worse. Like, what? I understand that he didn't read Adam Smith, but this is not, like, what do you think? you don't who do you think is going to cry uncle first the people paying six bucks of gas in America or Iran who has a complete stranglehold on their population because it's an autocratic regime there's not really a question there sorry no no I I got to commend you because I think you've really been on it in a leading way saying this is going to get bad but let me tell you how it could also get worse right Trump still has not given up on his tariff policies we got a temporary

reprieved because Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional, but they've been working behind the scenes at Treasury to try to go around the Supreme Court ruling. And so I think we're going to be getting a new round of tariff threats or actual policies in June or July. So you can look forward to that as well. Yeah, I think he's too big of a coward to actually do the worst tariffs, which is to put him on China. You can already see that. He can have wants she to be his friend. He's not actually a China Hawk, but it could get worse. Let's go to the democracy stuff. You guys had a big. report last month the executive override report i want to talk about that there's a big republic a piece on how trump's trying to take over the elections i was on nicole's show earlier this week uh with mara gay and i just

i kind of want to start here because she said something that jvielis said and others that i think is legit but i just think there are a couple different ways to look at it and and the take was basically i'm getting concerned because all the things we've just been talking about for the first 25 minutes that Trump is not acting like somebody that actually cares about elections, right? He's not being responsive to poll numbers in the way that he was in the first term. A little bit with the markets. He's not going from time to time. But like, he's acting like somebody who doesn't care.

And, you know, the thing that she expressed is that concerns her because they're planning to cheat. Right. Like, that's the logical next thought there. I offered like some gentle pushback to that, which is like, okay. But another way to look at that is that actually Trump doesn't care about them at terms. because he doesn't have a legislative agenda and he doesn't actually care about Congress and he doesn't care about anybody of himself.

Or another way to look at it is something that Sarah's talked about and you've talked about, like maybe not that he's trying to stay in power forever, but he's trying to, that he has legacy on his mind and he's going to do the Board of Peace and whatever. And so why does he care about middle-like things like the midterms?

I think that those are all like legitimate and they're not, they're a little bit overlapping. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive. But I'm just wondering, before you get into kind of the details to what we think they're planning, like how,

how high you assess the risk are for the elections and like whether you think he really cares about cheating in them. Well, I'm going to point you to two things that happened over the past few months that I think point to the biggest set for the midterms and 2028 while also keeping all that stuff that you mentioned in the background that I do think he's more concerned with legacy building and all that stuff as a possible off ramp. But you absolutely cannot ignore these two things. Number one is the executive order that he issued essentially trying to outlaw mail-in ballots.

I mean, this is the election takeover where he says, you know, wants to nationalize elections. The White House has absolutely no role in these elections. But they are very set on trying to constrain, disqualify, and make rules around mail and ballots and voter rolls so that they can determine who can vote, right? Like, go read that executive order. and then a lot of the reporting we've seen bear out, you see that these things happening with DHS and DOJ, that is essentially Trump loyalists trying to carry out the mechanics of that order.

They haven't been super successful, but there are little task forces inside the government. They're very much intent on trying to do that. So that is like on the front end of elections, trying to interfere with the process. Then you have to look at the raid that was attempted in Fulton County. I think it's kind of good that we got to see that happen in the light of day now because I think it'll be central to how they try to challenge ballots in 2026. And so the point of failure that happened there that we have people preparing for and trying to do education around is essentially that the DOJ and FBI created this search warrant that was based on all kinds of recycled debunk lies in order to get in the fault and comment.

when Tulsi Gabbard went down there and they got the ballots. The point of failure was that the federal magistrate judge that accepted that, that green-lighted, that warrant should have stopped the process there. There is a tradition where these judges give deference to the FBI in DOJ that, frankly, it's undeserved. It was undeserved after 2020 when you saw about how they lied about the election. It's undeserved now because if that warrant would have had the scrutiny, it deserved, it deserved. it would not have been accepted.

And so we kind of know that's going to be the playbook for challenging results after the election because thankfully our elections are so decentralized and state local officials are in charge. The FBI can't just go storming in there. But, you know, if they produce a warrant that's faulty, that's the choke point that needs to be stopped. And so those are the two things that we're looking at extremely closely. How does that get addressed, just more aggressive legal challenges? And I don't understand how you address it on the front end, I guess. I understand on the back end.

Yeah, I think on the front end is going to require a lot of discussion and talk about, like, this is how they're trying to erroneously disqualify ballots. These are all the allies that they tried in the previous election because they're just recycling the same stuff. I mean, this is sort of the good thing is that they don't have any new ideas. They just keep going back to this well of 2020 because the denialism. exhausted a lot of failed ideas in 2020. You know, they tried a lot of things. But because the election denialism has been so institutionalized in the federal government,

they don't have anything else to go on right now. And so we sort of know the body of evidence and putting in quotes that they'll try to manufacture to get in there again. But also trying to disqualify and throw sand in the gears the mail-in ballot process is something people need to be very honed in on. I just don't understand, like, functionally, what might actually happen with the mail-in-dodds. I understand the strategy of, we're seating the ground that these are corrupt and in states and localities where we have people in charge of elections, you know, when there are challenges or recounts, you know, they're going to be very loose with throwing out mail-in ballots if there is any possible rationale for it. Like, I understand that part of the strategy.

But, like, the stopping mail-in-balloting altogether part of the strategy, I just don't, like, I don't see how that's going to work. I mean, maybe in an individual state, they might do that. And I guess there's some red states with their big Senate races. But, like, time is ticking on that. I don't know. Is your concern more the former? If they contaminate the idea of mail-in-balloting, then in the post-election, process, there will be monkey business that prevents some of the ballots from being counted.

Like, that is more of the concern than actually, like, changing the rules on the front end. I think they would very much like to change the rules on the front end, and that'll be contested in courts. And they very much would like to create a voter file of who is allowed to vote with the mail and ballot. Like, there's all these ideas kicking around. I don't think they will be successful. But the framework that we approach the election with about how they're trying to do this and why falls into three buckets. Number one, they're going to try to deceive voters about the voting process, primarily about mail and ballots so that people think that they are fraudulent and there are problems in the system. So once they have to introduce that election lie, they will use

it to try to disrupt the process, whether that's trying to change the voting process or, you know, throw out mail and ballots. And this is all for the purpose of denying results that they don't like. So it's kind of like 3D framework, deceive, disrupt, deny. And you can see how the various lies that they tell fits into that process. And, you know, they don't have to be successful and convincing people about the election lies to disrupt the process in a way that can break it. I mean, just introducing the idea and getting a warrant to go in and get these ballots, like they've already disrupted like some things in the system. And so the thing is, it's just really stay focused on it. Most of it's going to be fine. But we, we, we, we, We know the playbook, and that's what it is. You mentioned this kind of the staffing of the federal government side of this. And so in this ProPublica piece, which we'll link in the show notes, if you want to read the whole thing, it was headline inside Trump's effort to take over the midterm elections.

They mentioned a couple of things. One, how he's gutted or dismantled every electoral guardrail for 2020. Sisa is one example. That's what our boy Chris Krebs was running in 2020 to protect from cyber attacks. Trump got mad because Chris Krebs was saying, no, like we actually did a really good job of preventing cyber attacks in this election and all of your theories are cockamamie me. And so rather than like putting a hack in charge of that, he just dismantled it altogether, just gutted it. There are a bunch of other agencies that work on election safety that he's gutted. And then simultaneously to that, ProPublica found 75 people across a bunch of these agencies who were doing election work that were either fired or left their job.

and they've been replaced by just 24 appointees, and all of them either work to reverse the 2020 results or are associates of people that did. Yeah, I mean, essentially, since Donald Trump came into office a second time, it has been a condition of employment that you had to go along with the 2020 election lies. And so, I mean, all of these people have pretty much self-selected. But on the bright side, the failures that you've seen

from Trump officials in going after, you know, people like James Coney, et cetera, like they're not able to do it. So yes, the Trump administration did purge a lot of these election people and people that were guardrails and holding the line, but they have also backfilled it with people who are just not very effective. I mean, why is Pam Bondi gone? Pam Bondi is gone because she was unable, not unwilling, she was unable to go after Trump's political opponents as he wish. I'm not like searching for a silver lining, but it's right there. Yeah.

The people they are putting in can't do the job, and we should be grateful for that. I think this stuff's important. I think that, you know, you never know, like, and particularly if you end up now in the Senate, where it ends up being in one state, like, I think the Senate now is more of an interesting battleground than the House. Let's say Democrats hold all their challenge seats like Georgia and Michigan. They pick up North Carolina. They pick up Maine.

They pick up, let's say, Ohio. with Sherrod Brown, and then you get either Alaska or Iowa or Florida or Texas. Like, those are all places run by election denial Republicans. In the Senate, it'll be important on whether Trump can get any confirmations through. I mean, maybe he'll decide if he stops doing that. But again, the Senate is in that sense a more important check than the House. And so maybe they do decide they try to rig just one of those states. Right.

Like, and it's like, okay, well, we control Iowa, Alaska, you know, root and brain. Florida, I don't know, maybe Ron DeSanctimonious won't want to go along with Trump after all the main things that he said about him. But Texas, certainly would, Greg Abbott. And one of those races ends up being close. You know, they end up being less than 1%. They end up being in a place where throwing out some of these ballots, challenging these ballots, not counting certain ballots, means the difference between the Senate majority and not. Like, I think that is a very realistic scenario that's different than some of the catastrophizing I sometimes hear from our friends or like, elections are over.

And it's like, I don't know. And you saw it in Hungary that that's like not the case. So you can overcome cheating. It doesn't mean that cheating is a problem. You shouldn't be vigilant about it, but you can overcome cheating. But I think that the Senate scenario where it comes down to one red state,

I think, is one to really have our eye on right now. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I mean, what we saw in previous elections, too, you know, there's a laser focus on Maricopa County. There's a laser focus on Fulton County. The laser focus on Antrim County. So there always is going to be an opportunity where we can put a spotlight on what is happening in that locality.

And that's super helpful because, you know, to steal an election, whether it's a national election or something like a Senate race, et cetera, because of our decentralized system, you need a lot of accomplices. Right. Like a lot. The chain of command is quite long. And so it is sort of dire that we have so many election denialists in places of power in places like the red state.

But I don't think there's enough of them to steal an election once public pressure and scrutiny is put on them. And Georgia was an example of that in 2020. Yeah. When Brian Kemp stood up. My yes and to it is the more concerning, you know, less catastrophic end of democracy thing to be learned about is like you need fewer accomplices to steal the election in Alaska. Right? You need like the governor and, you know, you need fewer accomplices to steal the election in one. state where you control everything.

I'm wondering, as far as the other pushback stuff, if there's anything else, you guys are doing at PD you want to talk about or just looking at the Democrats now assuming, let's just talk about the House, assuming at minimum they take back control of the House, like what are some important things they can do to look ahead to 2028? Yeah, well, I am interested. You know, there were some stories earlier this week about how the Democrats are creating an anti-corruption task force, which great.

Then I looked into the stories and it was like, we'll come up with ideas later. Like we will have a message about corruption, et cetera. And so there will have to be accountability if we're ever in our position to do it, right? Like we saw what happened in Hungary with the opposition coming in and really putting their teeth into it,

not letting people go. But what does that look like in America is very much an open question. And I'm sort of, I am of the mind. We can do brainstorming about what comes later, but what are we saying now? In order to have an anti-corruption message, you have to actually hone in on stuff. And I see so much talk about, well, the Trump family is just making all this money. Can we get a little bit more granular about why that's happening? Because guess what? Like,

the Trump kids can go make all the money they want, but is the vector of official action where they're abusing office that leads to personal profit, where I don't see the Democrats or anybody else really honing in on. Can we get granular about? how they're manipulating markets through official action to their personal benefit. When it comes to prediction markets, when it comes to cryptocurrency, that's the stuff that I think could be extremely powerful, especially as we go into a worsening economy this summer with higher gas prices. But I don't see that.

And I still see this sort of like wormy consultant brain where it says, like, we just have to tie corruption to affordability. Well, like, okay, yes, but what the hell? are you talking about? Can you get a little bit more specific? Because to me, it's very clear that they're manipulating markets for personal and political benefit, right? Like, we all see this happening, but I need people to clearly connect the dots. And then the other big corruption thing, which I have always been animated about, and I think is super powerful politically and also the right thing to talk about is the pardon abuse. Earlier this week, he was talking to AIDS about how he is open to

pardoning anyone within 200 feet of the Oval Office just as a blanket thing and get out of jail free card at the end of his term, which on the other hand, I was like, oh, great, he's going to leave. That's great. But the pardon abuse is out of control. There is essentially a lobbying business in Washington where people are making money on both ends of it. And I think that's been happening out in the open for a long time. And when it comes to presidential debates and things coming up in 2028, you know, it's kind of crazy to talk about a constitutional amendment, but why not? Why are we not talking about a constitutional

amendment to constrain the pardon power? If J.D. Vance or Mark or Rubio is going to be the next guy in line, have them sit on stage and defend these corruptive pardons for the January 6 rioters, for all, you know, the fraudsters, for anyone else that he's going to give it to. And they could just say, you know what, I actually support a constitutional amendment to limit the pardon power because I would take it away for myself because he can never be abused again. What is J.D. Vance going to say to that? A lot there, and I agree with the focus on it. In some ways, I think the messaging part is maybe the easiest because it's just like,

they're getting rich while you're getting poorer. And you just need a couple of examples, like a couple of data points to back that up. So that's there. To me, it's like the two elements that are more challenging is like the structural stuff. He mentioned the pardons. I want to put a pen in that for a second because JVL wrote a try out about that this week and kind of what more of a long-term solution is. But then in the meantime, what the oversight looks like on the corruption, how you demonstrate the examples to people.

And I had maybe a week ago or so now, Suha Sub-Romanium on, who is on oversight. Robert Garcia we've had on, who's on oversight. And I've talked to both of them, and they're serious about it. I suggested them off the record, which is now on the record, I guess. All of my conversations are basically on the record. I just want to warn you, if you guys are talking to me now, I'm a YOLO person. I don't go on background anymore. If you have a secret,

I better be a real big secret if you're going to share it with me. In this case, this wasn't a secret. This is me talking, and now I'm repeating it in public. And I was like, you should maybe talk to like Traigality or somebody because there hasn't really been a good example of a Democrat oversight. Like the January 6th committee was very strong about a specific thing. But it was a little bit of a different animal than this type of oversight. And if you look back at Benghazi and the Clinton email,

And look at how Republicans did that to maximize their political benefit. Like, Democrats need to be very serious about coming up with a plan for that right now. And, like, thinking about it. And the corruption tax force is fine. But it's like, okay, where are we going to focus? Right. Like, it's such a huge ocean of possibilities. And obviously the Epstein thing is going to be part of that.

But the family has got to be part of it, the crypto business. You know, what else? Where can you go? And one thing Sue Haas brought up is, like, you know, they're worried about, well, I don't think that the administration's going to play ball with us on documents or stuff. And it's like, okay, well, then who might? Well, private businesses will have to. You know, so go to the businesses that are doing deals with the Trump families.

Maybe that's the place to start because those guys are going to be worried about the Democrats being in charge next time. They have to respond to subpoenas. They're not going to have the president backstopping, you know, their decision to duck a subpoena. Like, getting serious about that right now, I think is really important. You know, one thing I would like to see. more discussion of in a very clear and focused way that I think is absolutely open corruption, that you don't need subpoenas to prove. And that's the fact that he's slapping his name on

everything that he possibly can in Washington and beyond. Here's why it matters. Yes, it's a vanity project. Yes, it's what Trump does in his private business with the Trump towers and all that to me, the way I view it, he is seizing public property as personal branding opportunities. The American people did not ask for Donald Trump to put his name on the Institute of Peace. They did not ask to put his name on the Kennedy Center. Do you realize that he's going to be putting his name on our money? Oh, yeah. Next month is a part of the-

Yeah, America 250, which essentially, the way I see it, the America 250 celebration is turning out to be a giant party that Trump is throwing for himself. I was thinking maybe he put his name on the money because he figured people would burn it and then that would create some deflation. But I don't know that he's got any. The way the value of the dollar is going, it might be kind of a symbolic thing. But it's not just on the currency, which, you know, traditionally we have, the Treasury Secretary has their signature on it. But now Trump is going to put his name on our money. That's after the Trump coin. That's after if you buy a National Park Pass right now,

Donald Trump is there with George Washington, the Ark de Trump that we talked about earlier, Trump RX, in which people have to, or he would like people, to go get prescription, life-saving drugs, their website named after him. The Trump accounts, there was another, a battleship class

that is apparently going to have a special 47 designation after Trump. I mean, there is a very long list of things that presidents don't traditionally put their name on that somehow because he thinks it's his property, he's putting his name on it. And so I think that's a form of corruption because you didn't earn any of this. Nobody asked for it. And there's a huge economic benefit. Like it's, you know, I do think there's an authoritarian angle as well is that when his

name is on everything over giant banners at the Justice Department, he makes his name and image inescapable, right? like he is sort of in charge of all this in a way like if you just go to apply for your Trump baby account or whatever it is like you kind of have to engage in this transaction with Trump and so I think there's a lot to that it also feels on American I agree I think that it feels an American I mean it also which is why it can resonate because it you know reminds me of when I was younger like the first time I visited like a foreign country, you know, in Latin America or somewhere where they have, like, you land at the airport.

And it's like the big posters of El Presente or everywhere. And you're just like, this feels wrong. This isn't right. Like, this isn't how we do things. And I've got to tell you, the Trump banner over the Department of Justice, I know everybody has seen it. But I was with my kids over spring break and we were doing the museum thing. And we just happened to cut across that way. And we walked under it.

And it was such an eerie thing. Because I had seen the pictures of it. I knew it was there. It's just how sometimes you're in a place. You're like, oh, we're right there. It's like, oh, I'm right here in the corner of this thing. And there's tourists walking by. I made a point of loudly saying, that's, you know, that's supposed to be there,

like loudly explaining to my kids why it was wrong so the other people around could hear as well. But it was just such. I love that grassroots propaganda work there. The people just going by might catch a little bit of it. Even though I knew it was going to be. there. And I had seen pictures of it. Being under it was such a disgusting feeling. Yeah. And so I... It's like we're tearing that fucking thing down. Let's run them down. That's one of the first things we're doing in 2029. J.B.L. wrote about this this week.

And we'll have many, many, many podcasts to come on this. So I'll just give you a chance to do your quick penny response. And then, you know, we can go longer on it later. But the article's really important. It's about how to drive a stake through the heart of Trumpism. And he was talking about Maggar and what we've seen already in Hungary. and how they're doing both reform and accountability. And he lays out a bunch of stuff. And the accountability stuff is mostly about the will to do it, like having the political will to say,

hey, we're going to go after these people that broke the law. And then the reform stuff is harder because there are a lot of rules that limited and the Supreme Court is going to be hostile to, you know, big structural changes. And so he kind of like lists out, like, what are some things that are legal and allowable by the current letter of the law, the Supreme Court wouldn't stop. And then he talks about getting into the filibuster, maybe expanding the Supreme Court, statehood for D.C. prohibitions on things like Schedule F. And so I assume kind of in your NGO world, like this stuff is already being talked about and worked through.

I'm just kind of wondering what you think. Yes, absolutely. People are starting to think about what reform would look like post-Trump. Maybe it's because of just my communications background. But I think it's largely because of how I see Trump positioning himself. post-presidency. You mentioned earlier that you sort of think like he has an eye towards legacy building, which I think is absolutely right. They're already talking about the Trump Library, which I view is a good sign because it means that he is leaving office. The Board of

Peace, where he is the lifetime self-appointed chairman, that says that he wants to have a presence for the rest of his days. And so there has to be some kind of counterbalance. It can't just be that Trump leaves office and he gets his golden parachute. If you believe, as I do, that he is the worst president that America has ever had, we need to start talking about him like that and having the reasons why. So that if we are lucky enough that he leaves office, we have a clear understanding of why he's gone and why everything he did was so bad and requires such a sustained rebuilding. effort that makes people more trusting of our democracy.

And I do think, you know, this needless, reckless war that he's leading us into will be a big part of that. But just the way that he treats people has to be part of the larger theme because that's what powers so many of these other terrible policies, what it comes to the schedule of purchase, et cetera, just the indecency in which he has approached this prestigious. just job and the way that he's tarnished our image. And so, you know, I think people should think about talking about Trump openly as the worst president ever as we send him his goodbye.

Yeah, there are no monuments to Andrew Johnson. I can just start a discourse about whether he's worse than Andrew Johnson or not. You can kind of have a back and forth. Yeah, let's have that debate. Sure. Yeah. Speaking of indecency. Two of one thing is really quick. One, this, I just, I can't let this go by.

Tulsi Gabbard referred the whistleblower. whose complaint led to Trump's first impeachment over the Ukraine call, as well as the Inspector General who deemed that complaint credible to the Trump Justice Department for criminal prosecution. To me, this is so both pathetic and disgusting at the same time. It's like Tulsi Gabbard knows that she's out of vogue with Trump, that Trump is not happy, that she is not a team player on the Iran war.

or at least fully on board with it. And so in order to get into his good graces, she is going to go try to ruin the lives of two people who are just trying to do their job, who are public servants. I mean, talk about indecency. It is terrible. On the other hand,

they've been so unsuccessful about going after all the promised political appointments. The way I read this story is like, well, they're working their way down the line. I view this in tandem with the story that Harmeet Dylan is going after poor Cassidy Hutchinson. Like, how far down the line are you guys going?

Absolutely. It's terrible. Those people are suffering through undeserved harassment. But they're pretty desperate to bring Trump back a little scalp. And the other bright spot was that, you know, Trump was talking about treason against the Democratic senators who talked about how the military shouldn't obey illegal orders, which seems prescient now.

with the threat and annihilation of Iran. Yeah. He hasn't been successful, intimidated them either. If anything, he made that military community stronger. There was lots of generals that came out with different kind of amici in support of Senator Kelly. So there are some good things that happen amid the terrible. It's true. They're going to fail.

And yet, Harmi, Dylan, and Tulsi should still be totally ashamed of themselves for what they're trying to do to people who are just doing the right thing. Okay. Final and decent topic. I'm not really sure what there is to say about this, but it wouldn't be the Bullock podcast if I didn't mention it. In November 11th of 2001, in a diary entry, our Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy,

described driving down the highway with his wife and kids in a minivan, like a typical suburban father, when he spotted a dead raccoon and pulled over his car. He writes this, I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684, cutting the penis out of a roadkill wrecked, Raccoon thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be. My kids waited patiently in the car.

I had to read that sentence a couple of times because I was like, who's weird? Bobby was grabbing a roadkill raccoon dick. And what was going through his mind was like, my cousins are getting a little strange. And it's like maybe it might be time to look inside. Maybe some, I don't know, reflecting on your interior life and might be. So our health and human services secretary has a thing for dead animals, right? Straight up. So there's this raccoon story, which by the way, this is one of my pet peeves.

If I had like lots of money to do PSAs, I would do one about how people shouldn't pull over on the side of the road to do stuff because it's so extremely dangerous when other cars are whizzing by. And the fact that you pulled your family over to go find a raccoon penis, which you knew. where it was, you knew what you were after. Like, what did you store it in? What did you put it in? Do you have a specimen cup that you carry around with you? I highly doubt it. But, like, he had the whale thing, right? The bloody penis is now in the car with your children.

Yeah. Where do you put it? Do you make them hold it? Other cars are whizzing by on the highway. Yeah. So you have this thing. You take it back to the car and then they go on vacation? Where does he put it?

In the fridge at the Airbnb? There's no Airbnb user. But this is lined up with his... It's two months after 9-11. So... But he has a dead animal thing. We've talked about this. Yeah, the bear.

The bear. The whale that he beheaded and put in top the car. I mean, these are some fun road trips with RFK. And then I don't... Do you remember this when his cousin, Carolyn Kennedy? I had to go back and look at this. She was trying to stop his Senate confirmation. and she talked about how he was grinding up baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his falcons.

And then she, I wrote this down, she had a connection. It's no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because Bobby himself is a predator. So that was her take on it. Can we get a take on the raccoon penis? I hate to bother her. I'm standing in front of my park car cutting the penis out of of a roadkilled raccoon thinking about how weird some of my family members of turned out to be. What a sentence.

So some of his defenders say he's always been interested in animals and that's why he picks up the roadkill. But those two things don't go together. Yeah. Usually if you like animals, you don't medilate them after they're done. Yeah. I think. Well, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to think that, you know, the type of person that would. pull over on the side of the road to deal with a raccoon penis would also be the type of person

that would oversee policies that would bring measles back. It does seem like there's kind of some unsanitary. Does seem like there's a vector for disease there, huh? Yeah, it does seem like a vector. I hope his kids are okay. Amanda, Carver, you have any runs coming up? Do you have anything else? Anything you want to share with the people?

No, I'm doing a 10K in Winchester for the Apple Blossom Fest coming up. I don't know how that's going to go, but it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Apple Apple blossom girl It's a huge deal out here Everyone wears pink and green And you say happy bloom to each other

It's the bloom So it's a lot of fun Well happy early bloom to you And to the listeners We'll be back tomorrow Maybe it's slightly late My daughter's got to play She's Romeo

Which is great She's thrilled to be Romeo Some of her other Some of her other girlfriends weren't as thrilled about like getting, you know, certain roles, but she's thrilled to be Romeo. So I'm going to be watching that in the morning, taping the pot a little late. But it'll be out. It'll be out on Friday.

So no worries. We have the weekend pod for you. It's going to be a good one. Thanks, Amanda. Thanks. Everybody else, we'll see you back here tomorrow. Peace. Stay away from the raccoon penises.

Ugh. The Borg podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anzley Skipper And with video editing by Katie Lutz And Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown.