The Bulwark Podcast - Bakari Sellers: The Danger of RFK Jr.

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

The injecting-bleach president is getting some super-strong pseudoscientific information to scare mothers and blame them for autism while conveniently ignoring the role geriatric sperm may play in neurodivergence. Meanwhile, Kimmel may be coming back, but confusion remains about why his show was pulled to begin with—given the jokes by Trump, his son, and other high-profile people made about the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi. Plus, the strength of Dems out in the field vs the leadership in DC, and how overly focusing on race and identity in this majority-white country can make everybody focus on it. Bakari Sellers joins Tim Miller. show notes Tim and Sam on the Tylenol briefing Bakari's book, "The Moment" Jesse Jackson's 1984 convention speech CNN on the Clinton Lincoln Bedroom scandal Bulwark Live in DC (10/8) with special guest Rep. Sarah McBride On sale now at TheBulwark.com/events. NEW show added to Toronto schedule: Bulwark Live Q&A Matinee show on Saturday, September 27 —tickets are on sale now, here. As always: Watch, listen, hit the like button or leave a comment. We want to hear from you.

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back. It's been a minute. He's a CNN political analyst and attorney. He's wrote a bunch of books. The latest one was The moment, thoughts on the race reckoning that wasn't and how we all can move forward now. That's a heavy question.

It's Baccari Sellers. How you doing, man? I'm doing well. It's always good to be with you. I hope you're doing well. Man, in my little life here, you know, my family, New Orleans, life is good. Outside of my, the bulwark is good. Outside of my bubble, that's out of my control, man. That's not as good. I'm not as good. I'm going to be in New Orleans. I'm coming down to help out one of my good friends, Helena Marina. Be the next mayor. Oh, you're helping out Helena. You named Dr. You named Dr. the last time on this podcast. I got my man Royce Duplessis is also in the race. state center.

Yeah, good guy. Yeah. We've got two good candidates for mayor down here. Either one of them will be a big upgrade over our current mayor who just gave up on the job. A fun woman, great. I mean, if I want to go down to Frenchman Street, have a couple of drinks and like get low with somebody, like Mayor Cantrell is towards the top of the list. But like the mayor, the mayoring job of mayor kind of, I felt like she got kind of bored with

that. Mayor is a tough job. Mayor is a very tough job. And it's even tougher in a city like New Orleans. But Helena is going to be good. So I'm supporting her. I'm going to come down there, and particularly on election night, try to celebrate that race with her. All right.

Well, holler at me. We'll see in person, hopefully. Let's get to the news. I guess we got to start with, I was thinking about this because it's such a competitive category. But I think that the press conference of the White House yesterday was actually the craziest press conference we've had in the first nine months of the administration. A lot of competitive, you know, a lot of potential nominees there. I mean, the press conferences, Zelensky was maybe the most offensive to me, the most maddening. But just like pure like Vipish, the most VEPish press conference we've had, I think it was yesterday.

It was Donald Trump and RFK Jr. and some others making some announcements about what they've discovered or they think they've discovered about autism. They are pinning the blame on Tylenol. And I want to play one clip in particular that just shows you how seriously Donald Trump took the kind of research on this topic before the press conference came out. Effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians at the use of, Ascid, well, let's see how we say that. Acetaminifin. Acetaminopin. Is that okay?

Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol. Got no faith in medicine. Acetaminopin. There you go. You'd think that if your whole press conference was about how we found this one ingredient that is causing autism that you would have like, I don't know, said it once before. But that's not how our president rolls.

Not at all. And I think that, you know, part of the inherent danger of this administration has been the danger around RFK. And, you know, RFK, his pseudoscience, is kind of lack of common sense, his past life, his life experiences. To sum it up, he's just a wow boy. And I'm not sure that that's someone you want in that position of power that they're in where they govern the health of millions of Americans, particularly our youngest and most vulnerable. Tylenol came on a scene about 1955 thereabout. Somebody will correct me on that, I'm sure. And autism was discovered in, you know, the 19 teens. So I'm, you know, I

I'm interested if there are any notable legitimate studies about this correlation between the two. But I do think that if you look at other things which cause serious deaths in this country, particularly those amongst youth, let's have a discussion about gun vise.

And, you know, what are causing those guns or childhood suicides or teenage suicides to be specific? I just, I find this and the triumvirate, for lack of a better term, of RFK, Donald Trump and Dr. Oz is, I want to laugh at it, but it's inherently scary to have those three kind of over-hour medical devices in this country. I like that you pretended like you didn't know the year there. In 1955, I googled it. You had it right. You nailed it right on that. No false modesty on the board podcast. I do wonder, you mentioned that RFK is real danger here. Do you have to take any responsibility for that? I do get told a lot by commenters from time to time that I own all of this, even though I've been against Trump for 10 years, you know, because of my past, my Republican past. But so by that, say, by the kind of transitive property, like, do you take any ownership over RFK, you know, trying to get rid of the vaccine schedule? No, we traded that, that Kennedy along. time ago.

They're Kennedys we want. Most of them we want, Joey. I don't know. You guys are both Democratic trial attorneys, though, you know? You got, there's something there. Yeah. You ever sign a brief with him? I've never, I don't think so.

Jesus, let me pull that up and look and see. I did not. I have never written around with a bear in my trunk. I've never. Beheaded away? Never done heroin, hair on as it's called. I haven't had any insects or parasites. eating my brain or anything like that.

I just think that we've lived a different lifestyle. Yeah, never did heroin either. Scared of needles. Thank God. One of the great gifts the Lord gave me was fear of needles. To your point about that, the studies here, just for the interest of public information, Yale School of Public Health has said that frequent or prolonged use of acetaminopin has been associated with some disorders.

But researchers have found no proof that it causes autism. There was a recent Harvard study that found a slightly increased chance of autism for women who took down all right pregnant. But Harvard School of Public Health Dean said it was possibly a causal relationship. relationship and more study was needed. There have been other studies that have shown some other things with even more association that they didn't mention the press conference. One, I just want to throw out there for you. There's a study that shows that old sperm causes autism. We've got a lot of older men having babies with younger women recently and that that geriatric sperm might not, you know,

might not be the healthiest. I'm not saying that. But I do think it's interesting that RFK and Donald Trump, of all people, didn't, didn't choose. that, you know, out of all the studies out there in the literature, that wasn't the one that they identified, I think. Well, I mean, your producers didn't do a great job because of the simple fact that I'm not qualified to talk about this. I'm on year seven of my sperm no longer working. So, congrats.

And I'm like beyond the reversal. God, that's got to be a level of freedom seven years of now and it doesn't work. Listen, you go put your, go put your legs up in the stirrups every now and then, those cold stirrups on your ankles. I brought my wife in and they carterized it so you had the smell of it but you know

I am not qualified to talk on this topic because I went in I went and did my duty a few years ago. Next time I'll start quiz and I'll guess on whether they've gotten sniffed before I started picking up topics. One of the kind of I guess related just in the sense of where their mind

as these men Trump and RFK one of the other things that came out again, this press conference was supposed to be about their alleged reveal, which we're joking about it, but it's also like scary and fucking actually cruel and mean. When I was thinking about press conferences, though, we forgot the one that he was sitting across from the, I forget which president of the African country it was. Oh, yeah, South Africa. Was it South Africa?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. He just insulted the hell out of him while they were sitting there. Yeah, he started blaming his people for like a murder. Correct. Murdering white folk. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so, but yeah, so that goes up there with Zelensky, but please continue.

Yeah, now, I was just saying, like, it is, it's fucking cruel. Like, the mother, I can imagine if you have a kid with autism and, like, you love in that kid and you want to make sure you did everything right, and then you got the president up there being like, well, it was your fault, Ma. You couldn't deal with the pain of pregnancy. You took a Tylen. It's just, it's sick. Like, you know, not that these guys ever actually think about anything like that, but

in addition to the irresponsibility, there's like a level of cruelty to it that is. Yeah, and the question was asking, you know, what? should what should pregnant mothers do? And I mean, he was like, tough it out. Yeah. Like, dude, like, you're one of the weakest men we know physically. I mean, I don't understand. Women giving birth is probably the strongest exercise of the human being that you'll ever have.

I mean, that is just some, I mean, they literally get an inch near death. Like, I know, you know the story of my wife. She nearly died in childbirth. She lost seven units of blood when she was birthing the twins. And so it's fascinating and to have, you know, these kind of old, old geriatric men up there, you know, telling women, again what they can and can't do with their bodies is beyond fascinating. They're soft hands. I always want to – we'll do this just for the YouTube. I like to give this to the YouTube viewers once every kind of quarter, which is Trump getting scared of the eagle.

That's one of my favorite little videos. He just – he's like, that he's going to get – he's going to get bit by the beak. Anyway, one other thing on this, he went down a couple of other side try. obviously, and I'm not going to play all the audio. I did something with Sam Stein yesterday. Folks don't listen to that. But, you know, talking about the MMR vaccine. He's talking about all this other stuff.

Trump also started riffing on the Hep B vaccine. And he says this. He goes, Hep B is a sexually transmitted disease. So there's no reason to give that back to the baby. Maybe we start giving it to the girls when they're 12. Now, there are a couple problems with that. Number one, the reason you give a baby the vaccine is in case the mother has have me, and you're protecting the baby from the mother.

Not that number two is in his construct, he's like, you know, when we need to start giving it to the girls as an STD vaccine is at the age of 12, you know, given all the Epstein chatter, I felt like that was an interesting year to choose, 12. Yeah, no, between that and the New York Times story today on Elon Musk father. That's just horrifying story, to be honest, the Elon Musk father's story. I had to stop reading it. It was so gross. Yeah, I, you know, in the work that I do sometimes and in between, I don't really, it just, it kind of, it freaks me out, to say the least.

But there are some untoward things that that White House should probably stay away from. And all of this is a distraction from releasing actual files. I mean, I thought that you're a good friend, Cash Patel was going to, for day one, he and Pam Bondi were going to, weren't you, weren't you at the White House holding up the notebook? They didn't give you one of the notebooks. No, I wasn't one of the influencers they gave that that binder too. Yeah, no, that was D.C. Drano, I think, and the lives of TikTok lady. It's not really my elk. They don't hang out with you.

Okay. Yeah, no. Well, anyway, they should release where Trump has mentioned in the Epstein files. And I guess I'm not saying that this is evidence per se, but it is noteworthy that Trump thinks that 12 would be the age that girls should start getting vaccines for sexually transmitted disease. You know the funny part about it is I missed that completely. covering Trump, and I don't want to say that, because when I say covering people mistake that for journalism, and I'm not, I have a huge respect for journalists. I get paid for my opinion.

But even giving commentary during the era of Trump, I think I forgot how just stupid this shit all is. Like, you're drinking out of a fire hose just like every day. I mean, I didn't even catch that part of the, you were so dumbfounded by the sentence he said before. Oh, could you? And the whole press conference was crazy. Yeah.

I mean, like, there was one, there was too much water in the vaccines, the babies can't take it. And it was just totally, it was insane. It's like, it was a total, it was like Cliff Clavin from Cheers. We're going to, I'm going to do, you know, elder millennial reference. That's probably, you probably Gen X, even, you know, just at the end of the bar, but it's just he's the president. And he just starts popping out. He's like, hey, did you guys know? You know, my old lady told me that you can't give the vaccine to the kids because of the water.

There's too much water in the syringe. And then he quoted yesterday. He also went down a path, oh, where he was talking about the, Amish community, and he was quoting, like, Theo Vaughn's podcast. I don't know. Yeah, right. And I was just like, about how the Amish don't get autism. I was like, what?

Like, I don't think that's right. What world are we living in? And I'm pretty certain. That's not right. But like, what world are we living in? And I love Theo Vaughn, by the way. I want to go on his show one day. Same.

I feel partially responsible for this because I've got a mutual buddy with Theo. Shout out to him. He's a listener. And I sent him a text and I was like, you know, I watched the Amish kid podcast that Theo did. Folks aren't don't know what we're talking about here. Theo Vaughn as like one of these bro podcasters and he usually has hilarious now you you have to be willing. He usually has on comedians and stuff and then sometimes he says weird stuff on and he had this Amish kid on he started asking him like what was life like as an Amish kid and it was like really

funny. I said this my friend. I was like send this to Theo and tell him I want more of this fewer interviews where he talks to J.D. Vance right? Because like this man is not equipped to interview J.D. Vance right? Because he'll like ask him a question and J.D. will just lie through his fucking teeth and like Theo doesn't know enough to push back. It was just fine. God love him. him. I was like, he's very well equipped to ask an Amish kid whether they've got ADHD in Pennsylvania. I was like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's his wheelhouse. Like, let's keep in there. And that's true. That would be the president's wheelhouse too, not telling women what to do during pregnancy, you know. You'd also don't expect that podcast to be picked up and

being asked and quoted in a presidential press conference on a very, very landmark issue, such as autism and Tylenon. You don't. But here's, this is, this is the fucking real world that we're in. All right. Everybody. time for a little life talk. I'd like giving out life advice, you know. I've been asking for people to ask me for life advice questions for the FYPod mailbag segment. You can email Bullwark Podcasts atbork.com if you need some life advice for me. But as for today, I'm going to give you some life insurance talk. Thanks to our sponsor, select quote, you might already have life insurance, but do you know how much you're paying for it and how much you're being covered? Odds are you

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We got a moment yesterday where free speech was alive and well. Bob Iger actually nutted up for once, a little better late than never, I guess, and said he's going to bring Jimmy back on the air. That's great. He's going to be on air tonight, folks who are interested in that. What has happened since then has been a little more discouraging,

and I think that there's some things that have happened this morning that are going to really be where the rubber meets are out in this issue. So Sinclair said last night that they're preempting Jimmy Kimball now unless he donates to Turning Point USA. This is bad and ridiculous, but we've been living in this world where Sinclair does like Local News, Fox, for quite a while now, and that's a real problem. Next, though, we have this next star, which is the biggest of the ABC affiliates. They just said right before we started taping that they are also going to continue to preempt the show and their 28 ABC affiliates, pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering. I'm not

I'm going to read their bullshit statement. So, like, here's the thing. Next Star wants to be able to merge with Tegna and have, you know, a market share that's bigger than what's allowed currently by other rules. So they need the FCC to approve it. And so what we have here is, like, a straight free speech issue where Jimmy is going to still be silenced on, if you had Sinclair Plus Nextar, about 60 of the ABC affiliates. So there's a free speech issue there.

57, I think. Yeah, but there's also, on top of that, just this straight corruption issue that we we're seeing across this Trump administration, you know, where these guys are like bullying companies to do what they want if they're going to get what, you know, if they are going to get theirs from the government. So I don't know. What do you make of all this? So yeah, I mean, I think that there's always with Donald Trump, one of the things that we oftentimes don't see the forest for the trees. Because as much as we want to see the hate and the cruelty, we oftentimes miss the business motive that is behind a lot of the decisions that he makes.

Most of them are for some, you know, purely profit. You know, the $100,000 card that they're selling now. I mean, just those type of H-1B visas. It would make Terry McCullough proud. That was a long joke from a while. That's not a joke. Yeah, we're a long way from the fucking Lincoln bedroom. The Lincoln bedroom scandal, which I was a Republican.

I was a child then, actually, so whatever, which I was against at the time. Like, I thought it makes it that much better, but they're donating this to the DNC, right? They're donated to the political organization. Like the Trump's kids, like it's Trump's kids and Trump's family and Wickhouse's like and Tom Homan's own himself. Like these guys are like just taking straight cash bribes like it's a third world banana republic. It is a category difference a little bit from the Lincoln bedroom. Huge. Huge. So anyway, so I think the first thing is you have to look at the business motive. You have to look at Brandon Carr being a little bit out of his depth. But, you know, I would still bet dollars to donate us today that he approves that

merger because of the actions of Next Star. And so that's first. The second thing is you had this issue of free speech. And, you know, five years ago, Democrats were going down this path where people were getting canceled because of their ignorance. And I, you know, I kind of hated that. I mean, I don't think you can foster good dialogue or teach people anything if you're canceling them because of simply things they don't know or the ignorant statements they make. But now you are having the total inverse of that, and Republicans are taking pride. Megan Kelly, you know, she sends out, I think you got into it with her yesterday, didn't you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, look at that. I'm to blame. It's one of my people killed Charlie, I guess, because we're both white and thank trans people. Kind of sort of, though. Y'all do have a similar look. You think so? Yeah, I need to go look at the stairway picture. I mean, he's a lot younger than me. So I am keeping it, I am keeping it tight. You are, I mean, you're, and then you are doing that. Are you doing Botox?

Oh, no. No, man, this is natural. This is unnatural. This is on natural. This is on natural. Drinking water and mining a business. You know, I've got a couple friends who are Botox, uh, practitioners. What do you say?

If you're selling both slanging, I got to call the old slang and Botox, my life's enough on that, not for me, yeah. So anyway, free speech being under attack. And the last thing is, you know, Jimmy Kimmel, I thought that, you know, I'm not sure what he said that was so offensive. I've missed that. I've listened to the entire kind of rant, and I missed the part where people took offense. I mean, I've said this before on CNN. I'm concerned where we lost the nuance that we can say that we abhor in any type of political violence and assassinations, and you feel bad for Erica Kirk. I was listening to CDJakes yesterday,

and you feel bad for his kids. And we've gotten away. from actually having that kind of heartbeat where you understand that he was a husband and a father. But you can also in the same, you know, sentence be very critical about the way that he talked about black people or the very critical about the way that he talked about trans folk or the racism or bigotry or, you know, all of those things that were more than just innuendo or thoughts if you go back and listen to a show. And it's funny because you have this kind of generic framework tweets. I don't know if you've seen them circulate where they're like, I said, for hours and watched all the Charlie Curse videos and he was not racist or big. And it's like

everybody's retweeting the same thing. I just think as a country, we, he was a complicated individual and we have to be able to have complex and complicated thoughts as we talk about folk and you just don't sanitize them because they die. Yeah, I agree with that. And the Jimmy thing, like, it was technically not true, but like, okay, like number one, he's a comedian. Lots of people said technically not true things. Going out and correcting it would have been totally fine, saying If you're whatever, TPSA or whatever, J.D. Vance or the president wanted to be like, Jimmy said this joke, you know, it's not like the president's been above live tweeting TV and he loves doing that. He could have just done that. That'd be totally appropriate in the discourse, you know. And those guys said way crazier than Kimmel said. I mean, J.D. Vance was like there was a secret cabal of people that funded the assassination. I mean, like, that's a direct quote. That was essentially what he said. And this comment was way crazier than what Kimmel said. And not only that, but, you know, for me, I'm like old enough to. remember, like, the list of Fox News hosts that repeatedly lied about the election. I mean,

they sent text messages out saying one thing and came on TV and repeatedly lied. Or Paul Pelosi, or you could go down the list. I mean, Donald Trump Jr. had a picture of underwear and a hammer after Paul Pelosi was nearly murdered in his home. Sick. Sick. So I don't, you know, I just think that the conversations we're having right now. I just, I probably shouldn't feel like this, but I just throw up my hand sometimes and just say, I don't know. I get frustrated. I did peers yesterday. Why the fuck did you do that? Here's why. I'm about to tell you why.

Because I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to. And I say no most of the time. But for this exact reason you said, I was like, I feel like people have been insane in the last week and a half. And they don't broke any of nuance that you, what you're talking about. And I knew that what he wanted was to have one of these shows where they're liberals that are like, Charlie Kirk is a transphobe and like what you put out in the world, you get bad. and all this kind of stuff, which I just feel very uncomfortable with. I'm fine with saying what you just said. Like, we should be honest about his views.

And he was against gay adoption. It doesn't think my family should exist. So I don't like, don't love Charlie Kirk's ideology. But like, you know, I mean, like some of the, some of the, you know what they wanted. They wanted that like kind of some version of he deserved it versus the, you know, the folks on the other side being like all the liberals are murderers and they want them dead. And the left has gone crazy. And the left is responsible for this.

And I just, like, I felt like there's value to put out into the world right now. Actually, no. Like, there are a lot of bad pundits out there and a lot of people out there that give shitty views and say things that are overwrought or hyperbole or false. And none of them are responsible for this. Like, we can't be in this place, man. We have to be able to live in a world where we debate and fight. And you deal with people that sometimes are bad faith and you do so in the public square.

And you don't get to a place where, like, people start to say, okay, well, your words are responsible for that assassination. Because then we go down to a really dark place, man, because there are a lot of bad words out there. We've got a lot of guns in this country. And I don't think you want to live in a country where people start to take that seriously. And so anyway, that's why I went on and did it. Probably in vain. But, like, I mean, it's peers.

You're never going to change him. Yeah. And he's just a, you know, kind of weird cat. But no, they're all weird. No doubt. Probably in vain. But I just was like, I don't know, man. Somebody's got it.

I don't know. I felt compelled to get that out into the world. I'm glad you did it. I mean, I looked at the interview he did with my good friend, Don Lim the other day. And I was just like... I couldn't even watch most of that. I also turned that on.

I was like, this is too much to care. It just went off the fucking rails. Yeah, I don't watch. I can't... I'm going to... We're giving him too much time. I did that for his audience, not for mine. I'm sorry, folks.

You should have fast-forwarded through all that. Hey, everybody. You've probably heard me mention that the bulwark is headed back on the road this fall, but we've got some big updates that I want you to hear. First, most importantly, we are adding a show in Toronto. I told you Canadians. I was doing my best to make it happen. I'm so thrilled by the response we've had from our Canadian friends

and wanted to make sure if you wanted to be able to come, you could. So we added a matinee, a brunch show, whatever you want to call it, maybe a drag brunch. Don't tell J.D. Vance the next day. No promises on drag queens there. but, you know, maybe the spirit of the drag brunch. And so that will be Saturday, the 27th. Go to the Bullwark.com slash events to get all the details

and to get your tickets for that encore show in Toronto. Also, New York, that's going to sell out here any minute. So if you want to see us in New York on October 11th, get your tickets ASAP. There's still a bunch of tickets left for D.C. on October 8th, but we've got some exciting guest announcements coming soon. So if you're interested in coming to D.C., get on that as well. All of information available at the bulwark.com slash events. It's me, Sarah, and Sam up in Toronto. Me, Sarah, and JVL and some of our

other bulwark friends and a special guest in Washington, D.C. Look forward to seeing you all out on the road. We'll catch you soon. Get those tickets now. I want to get to Democrat stuff, but just two other things really quick on this administration. The Homan thing, and we've been talking about corruption a little bit, but I want you to put your legal hat on in addition to your politics hat on and guy took 50 grand in a kava bag press secretary yesterday goes out and says he never took it that that's a that's a smear then i was interesting to note that tom homan then went on laura ingram last night and when she asked him about it he never said he didn't take it no he said he didn't do anything illegal

he didn't do anything illegal which to me is an admission but you hear about this more than i do what do you think one i love kava kava's a fucking great restaurant a little slap bowl yeah yeah i'd love it I absolutely love it. I mean, and I just, you know, I think that that's indicative of the neighborhood they were in where this guy decided to pay. I also have a hard and fast... Because kavas aren't everywhere. So this deal didn't go down in the hood, okay? I'm just deducing all the things.

So they got any kovas in the Rio Grande Valley? I'm sorry. I don't know if I need to be smearing our good friends in McAllen. I don't know if kovas did it down there yet, that. I have a rule against taking $50,000 in cash, like, in a bag or a plastic bag or anything. Like, those goes just, I mean, you know, checks, you know, that's a lot cleaner than getting $50,000 in a bag of cash. Yeah.

The other thing is, I'm not sure he did anything illegal. Really? I think it's very, very, very untoward and, yeah, very untoward and unethical. Let me pushbacking about this lawyer. Did he file it on his taxes, the $50,000? Now, see, that, now, that is a question that we don't have any information or facts on, but that would be his most glaring liability in terms of, you know, some type of perpetrating some type of fraud or anything. He wasn't in a position. He was, he wasn't in a position to

actually ensure or give someone a job. Saying that I can help you get a job, blah, blah, blah, is one thing. But I'm not sure that in itself. Like in theory, if it wasn't a sting, you can't criminalize stupidity, right? Like, if somebody wanted to give him 50 grand and the hopes that he would help them down the line, like that's not illegal until it happens. In fact, I'm going to COVID today to see if there's anybody in there's offering. But I just, and I have a hard time With him, I watched that, was it, Lori Ingram interview? I watched that Lori Ingram interview yesterday, and it's indicative of the entire administration. They just, they have this kind of thumb their nose at the system. Ethics and rules don't apply. Okay, even if it was a legal, Department of Justice ain't going to hold me accountable. Like, I'm out here, I'm out here rounding up all the brown folk. Like, that's what I'm doing. And they don't like that I'm doing that. And I'm like, that has nothing to do with the fact that you have no ethics. Right. And so I'm interested to hear it. If there was a sting, there has to be a DOJ or FBI agent who was involved in it. I'm interested to hear the tapes or hear from that officer about what happened and provide more context.

Right now, I don't think he did anything illegal. I think it's unethical as hell. And I do like Calvin. All right, Baccari, let's look at the Democrats. Biggest picture, what has you worried about the state of the party? You know, what's keeping you up at night when you think about where the Democrats are right now? What's got you sleeping with one eye open? Leadership, or lack thereof.

Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries, they, they, don't provide me any ease in believing that the future of the party is strong. Now, I will tell you that the kind of 180 to that is like Brandon Scott, the mayor of Baltimore, Andre Dickens, the mayor of Atlanta, Frank Scott, the mayor of Little Rock, Randall Woffin, the mayor of Birmingham, my good friend Helena Moreno, who's on city council, running from mayor down there. We have a bench of people who are doing great work, whether or not you're talking about improving literacy rates in these cities or reducing Brandon Scott, Baltimore, Baltimore has the lowest

crime rate that they've had since 1970. He's reduced their violent crime by 50%. I mean, I just think that they're platforms that these individuals need to be on, their messages that they need to be putting out. And the other side is you have people, like whenever there's an issue, you have Akeem Jeffries putting out eight paragraphs on Twitter. Don't nobody will have time to read all that. I don't want to read that. What keeps you? one eye open at night is, is just the lack of leadership in Washington that we're displaying. Just coming from the administration side of it, like, I don't know, man, the speed at which they have, like, acted on a lot of this stuff, I think, has been pretty noteworthy to me, right?

Like, there's nothing they've done that's like, oh, I'm surprised that they did that, right? But, like, the speed at which they've kind of dismantled a lot of institutions and, you know, neutralized checks on their power, like, that worries me. And I just, I wonder kind of putting the Democrats aside for a sec, like, will there even be time to, like, fight that back? You know what I mean? Like, how do you kind of look at that? Like, when you think about, let's say, how can Jeffers got his shit together and the Democrats went back the house. It's like, what worries you about what the administration is doing?

I still think what went back the house, but you, I've been thinking about this analogy a lot. Donald Trump, the bull in the China shop, is a very real analogy. And I think it has a lot to do with what you just said. because when you have a bull in a China shop, until that bull either runs out the shop or whatever, that China is forever broken, right? Donald Trump has forever altered the very foundation of this country. He has shook democracy at its core, and I don't think people take that seriously enough, particularly my friends on the center right and far right.

And so I, though, understand political waves a lot like you do. And so I honestly think he only has about another 13, 14 months of effectiveness. Hopium Bikari is back. I'm so excited about this. We're able to get to talk about this a little bit more. But keep going. Yeah, I think that after the midterms, there will be individuals like J.D. Vance who will find ways to, you know, separate himself from Trump on certain issues.

You'll have people who are running for re-election who are going to separate themselves from Donald Trump on certain issues. and you're going to have it. I mean, right now, people just say it's fans versus Rubio, but you and I both know it's going to be at least 10 people in that primary. I think my girl Megan Kelly might be running. I don't understand what else would explain her behavior. Tucker, one of those podcast guys is going to be running. The only person who puts more pros out around serious issues than Akeem Jeffries is Megan Kelly.

Like, I was like, I can't get into a Twitter fight with Megan Kelly because I'm not going to sit. I don't have time to read, you know. I can't read all that. I can't read all of that in response. I love that. I love Hopi and Bacari. That's great. Our audience could use that.

The pushback to that is, what if their power grab is not related to the political waves and the political kind of back and forth, right? Like, what if they lose in the midterms in the house and, like, decide not to seat people and just decide that they're going to start, you know, dismantling the government even more? And, right, like, a lot of fucking damage could be done by 2028, even if they are politically weak, if they don't. if they act with impunity, if they act like they don't care about that. I mean, I still believe in the courts to a certain extent. That's qualifying to a certain extent. What we learned after 2016 and Donald Trump, and it also taught us that this country has a very, very short memory,

is that people wanted after four years of Donald Trump or whatever it was. They were really thirsting for it after two and a half. Three, people wanted some sense of sanity, which is what Joe Biden projected. I'm talking about 2020 Joe Biden. Yeah, sure. And he projected that sense. of sanity. And I think people are going to be grasping for that again very soon because the chaos at which we are moving. And people see the grift. I think people really see the grift. I mean,

people are taken aback sometimes by the fireworks and the gold cards and the displays and the UFC fight on the front lawn. I mean, what is the White House becoming? And I think that there's going to be some, the greater majority of our country just wants to be able to have days where we forget who the hell the president is. All right, now we get to the juicy stuff. Your girl, our girl, the VP, Kamala, she's out there. She's got a book. She was out there last night.

She's on Maddow. What do you think about this? It's kind of a quasi-burn book. It's kind of a soft burn book that she's doing a little bit on 107 days. I just think that she is telling her truth and she doesn't have too many fucks to give. And I'm with it. I mean, I spoke to her last week about it. And she's deeply concerned about the future of the country.

She does not like to lose. She also realized that she was tired. And she'd been in politics for a very long period of time, climbing that ladder, DA elections, attorney general elections, United States, Senate elections, you know, running for vice president, president of the United States. And she went through this process and she was disappointed with people. I mean, I think that it's fair to say that the disappointment she had with the Obama's was palpable. If you read the book and look at the difference in the response between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, you'll see that there's frustration there. And the most damning of which is your buddy. Which buddy?

Gavin Newsom. That's my buddy? He's been on every podcast in the world except by you're welcome on the show, Gavin. Now, I was on the Kamala side of this whole fight, as you remember. But I do think you just respect to give him. It was pretty baller for Gavin to apparently text her hiking when she called him to get his endorsement officially. And then they never spoke again, the rest of the campaign. I was like, that's kind of an alpha move, even though.

If you know, Gavin, that makes sense. In the context of the time, I would have appreciated everybody being on board for trying to stop fascism. But, you know, just as a literary device, it's an interesting story. And I have a unique relationship with governors hiking being from South Carolina. Oh, yeah, that's true. You know, my governor went on the Appalachian Trail and never came back. So, you know, I understand that Gavin was hiking. I got in trouble for saying this a while ago, but it's funny because it became true when

the book was written. But I said that, you know, they gave her, her portfolio was trash when she got elected. Voting rights and immigration, two things that we know that we didn't have enough votes to pass. You know Mansion and Cinema weren't voting for those things. And so it just gave her and she talked about the handcuffs that people like Anita Dunn and General Miley and Valerie Biden-Owens put on her when she was vice president of the United States. States. And I just, you know, it's her truth. I think Democrats, I think there are two books. I think the Democrats need to learn from Jake's book. And I think Democrats need to learn from one of the book. I'm here for the Biden talk, because I think it is deserved. And I wish you would have

said it during the campaign, to be honest, because I probably would have helped her to get a little distance and everything that she said about Biden was true. I guess I just like don't, and I hope to others just ask her. I guess I just don't understand like what the point is about some of the other stuff. You know what I mean? Like there isn't a lot of precedent for a book like this. Right? Like this, usually this kind of material about like, oh, why did the VP pick so-and-so over so-and-so for VP? That's usually the kind of thing that would come out in John Heilman's book. You know what I mean? Not like the principal.

Not from her. Yes. Yeah. And so it's like it is different to have like the principal out there just, you know, like, shooting a lot of daggers around all over the place. And I guess I'm just wondering why. Like, what do you think is the reason? Like, why? I mean, I don't think she has any fucks to give.

And I think that people still don't really know her. I mean, she's been so, whether or not she put herself in a box or her consultants or people around or put her in a box, when you get beat, there is a certain, I mean, we didn't win any swing states. There's a certain freedom to get in your ass kick, right? I mean, that just comes with it. There's another version of this, though, that could be like, all right, you do a little bit of talk about the real story with the Biden thing and the switch, which is, which is needed. And then the rest of this is about fighting, is about getting up off the mat.

Like, you can imagine a traditional politician book. Maybe we don't want a traditional politician. edition book, but, like, it's worth kind of thinking through that exercise, right? Like, you can imagine that book, and that's not this, really. Yeah, that's not what this is, really. I mean, I think that, I mean, there's no space for, uh, what's my friend, the, uh, Alan and what they write the presidential books all the time. John Allen and Amy Ponce. Yeah, correct. There's no space for that book, because this is the definitive, like, this is it. She, she's telling you everything. She's telling you about the interviews they have for vice president. She's telling you how,

It's a question that everybody has. It's a question that I have on a daily basis about Pete Buttigieg, right? I love Pete. Pete. Pete's one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. I think Pete would be one of the best presidents this country's ever seen. The question is looming. Will America vote for a gay man with beautiful kids? And as soon as the debate is over and he kisses his husband, what's the response? I mean, and that for me is an unfortunate reality of where we are as a country, but one that I'm hoping that, Pete's willing to take a swing at the fences and say that the country is better than that and we're better than that. But those are conversations that people are having or Josh Shapiro, how he couldn't really be a number two. But how about, I hear all that. And again, I don't begrudge her writing that or having that conversation. But there's like, the more relevant part of the conversation is, like, what could she

have done to have won? Right? Like, what would you, what would she have done different to have one? Maybe, well, I don't know, why can I think that's a short chapter because I don't think there's much. I don't think there's anything. Come on. I don't think any Democrat. I don't think any Democrat. I think that economic headwinds were too strong. That's crazy. You don't believe there was any possible way a Democrat could have beaten Donald Trump with his indictments and his weaknesses. I think he had a great deal of weaknesses, but I think the country was in a place

where we, where Democrats for far too long had put their head in the sand on issues like inflation and immigration and crime, issues that although the numbers may have been, because as soon as somebody says something about immigration or crime, we would put out a statistic. or crime chart. Well, then there's your answer. Why couldn't, the Democrat's going to run somebody who didn't have

all the baggage on immigration and inflation and crime. That would have been another. That could have been something to do. That's just an idea while we're spitballing. I know it's your show, but let me ask you one question. What name one Democrat that could have won.

And by the way, just understand, I think your viewers, your listeners know this and your viewers. Like, this didn't happen in a vacuum. Like individuals in power around the world got to be. Well, she didn't get killed. I mean, it was not that far away. So, like, look,

I start to think about, you look at this, and I asked Pete this question when he was on. I was like, you get in a DeLorean, what would you do different? And it was all nibbling around the edges. And I guess my point is like, I don't know, given the stakes, right? Like, if you did something totally crazy, like, do you think Kamala and Cuban would have won? Do you think that Cuban could have softened the bros enough? I think maybe, I would listen to that.

Do you think that, like, if you did the swing state thing with Shapiro and Whitmer, they would have done better? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. Maybe not. No. But, like, I think it's just worth talking through all that stuff. If Kamala had, like, hard distanced herself from him on a couple of things, might that have helped?

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if that would have been enough. I mean, she didn't get killed, correct. I just don't think that with the economic climate, not just here, but throughout the world, I think the political headwinds were against us. I do think that there's some interesting thing. Merrick Garland could have indicted Donald Trump a little earlier. Now, that would have actually, if Merrick Garland would have done his job. Running against Ron to Sanctomonius probably would have been easier.

much easier. I mean, she beats him going away. But by the way, is he going to run for president? I guess I forgot. It depends on how his wife does in the governor's race. But I just think that Mark Cuban is an interesting person. I will tell you that I will tell you that anybody, they didn't really ask me, but I told them that Tim Walls was my fourth choice of those listed for vice president. Number one was Mark Kelly. Number two was Pete Buttigieg. And number three was Josh Shapiro. Yeah, I don't know if the VP would have really matter. I guess my point is like Cuban would have just shaking things up. And this is not even really a particular endorsement of Cuban. When he was on, we disagree on a bunch of stuff. My point is like, I don't know,

sometimes I think that there's a failure of imagination. People get into this rut. So here's another example. That's one of my list of things I wanted to ask you about on the failure of imagination question. How did, how does the Democrat win in South Carolina again? Like the Democrats in order to be able to actually govern need to be able to win in places besides the 25 states that Joe Biden won. How do they do it? What would be a way to do it? So are you asking about like South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, or are you asking, like, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia? So those are different. I'm not asking around North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, because Joe Biden won those states.

Well, not North Carolina. I'm asking about South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, or Iowa, Ohio, Texas. Democrats have to win in some of these places. And, like, I don't think that there's a lot of creative thinking. I guess this is my point of critique of the Kamala thing. There's not a lot of creative thinking about, like, there's a lot of people being like, well, what do you expect, man? This is just a nature.

It's a polarized time in the economy. And I'm like, we're going in, we're running headlong into fascism here. Can we try some off-the-wall ideas? I agree with you. There is an NC action, I believe, is North Carolina. Damn, I can't think of the name of it. But they started with about $8,000 donors. And what it is is it's an organization that has separate C-3s and C-4s.

One of them has consistently updated photo roles. The others do outreach, et cetera. They provide grants. But what they really have done in North Carolina is go outside of those. Research Triangle, Charlotte, etc. And they've gone into those communities, those rural communities day in and day out, knocking on doors,

informing voters. And although you said something that I find to be, like we have to think outside the box, sometimes the fucking box is like where we need to be and we need to get back to those. Start doing the box stuff first. We got to start doing those fundamentals again. In South Carolina,

we have so many voters who have fallen off roles, who've been disinterested. You know, we had an amazing opportunity with Jamie Harrison, and when he raised $110 million or something like that. And I'm not sure it was a headwinner. Just burned it. I saw it just thrown it in the Atlantic Ocean.

Jamie did what he could do in that race. But there are some things that we can look back on it. I think he would too in some hindsight and say that there is some infrastructure building and party building that we can do a better job of. In South Carolina, though, we have to start by doing things like running people for dog catcher, city council, state house. in states like South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, you just have primaries, right? And people run unopposed for statehouse seats all the time.

I mean, it makes no sense. They run unopposed for local city councils. And we have to do a better job, a candidate recruitment, all of those things. It takes money and resources, but if you give me $5 million in South Carolina, we may not win the state. But instead of getting beat, you know, 6039, you're now in a, you know, 52, 46 times. have a place and that means that you can have some you can have changes in the legislature etc this is my problem with james harrison thing it's not i think against him personally this is an indictment of like the consultant culture is just like in everybody in the culture is like

nobody wants to shit talk each other you know this was a problem with the biden thing so this is what where i did the one thing i disagree with the common law and i thought the obama position was fine it was like we're in unprecedented time so let's play it out maybe there's a stronger candidate than you probably not it'll probably be you but like why are we why can't we have a little bit of healthy disagreement because when you don't have healthy disagreement it leads to things like spending $100 million in South Carolina and have it go nothing. I mean, like, what was the point of that money? Like, I don't want to, you know, sometimes there's just like a culture of like, well,

what else were you going to do? I don't know, something else besides spending on TV ads and losing by 20 points. You could have used it. My concern of criticism is about, yeah, like long, like when you look back at it, what, what was created in the long term to benefit? Yeah, and so that that's the concern that we have. And that's the same concern. we have with, you know, the billion dollars that Kamala raised. I think that's, I think your

criticism is fair, more than fair. I mean, it doesn't take a lot here in South Carolina, but it does take something. Well, last thing I just spoke about in South Carolina, what about, and maybe this is hopeless. I had Manchin on last week, some listeners didn't like it. What, like, should South Carolina try to, like, find some, I don't know, some good old boy that, like, loves guns? I was talking about this now. I mean, I, we, you know, I have a good friend Jermaine Johnson running for governor here. Yeah. But, you know, I don't know.

I mean, if he runs against Nancy Mace, I mean, there are chances. Do you think Nancy Oates is mentally well? Like, do you think that she is mentally healthy? I know Nancy very well. I know. That's why I'm asking. Do you think she's gotten? I don't think that Nancy is the same person that she was four, six, eight years ago.

But I will tell you that I think she's mentally fine. You do? Yeah. You don't think she needs help? Like, if outside of the context of politics, if you guys were just friends, would you ask her if she might need to consider therapy? I think she definitely needs therapy. I think most of y'all need therapy, though.

I mean, I'm in therapy for the y'all motherfuckers who don't go to therapy. That's what I'm in therapy. So, yeah, the answer is. I'm sorry. Okay, fair enough. Jermaine Johnson. Your point is if it's a tough race. It's a tough race.

I mean, and to your credit, a good white male businessman. I don't even know. How about a black male business? The whiteness would help, sure. A sheriff's, but like, a black sheriff that also, like, thinks the gun rights are really important and isn't like, has maybe some second thoughts about trans kids and sports. I don't, like, those aren't my positions. I'm just trying to, like, come up with what, how do you model a person that wins there, you know?

Yeah, I mean, that would be, that would be fascinating. Yeah, nobody's trying. Yeah, that would be fascinating, but that's, this still is South Carolina. Right. And Nancy's, and literally Nancy's going to have people who don't vote for because she's a woman. I mean, we still have, we still have voters like that. She probably is going to be your next governor of South Carolina, though. Oh, my God.

Okay. All right. Has she come on your show yet? Have you sent out your invitation to come on the show? Nancy, you're always welcome on the show. I'd love to hear from you. I got Wes Donahue, waiting in the wings. We'll do kind of like a thing where we spring your old staffers on you,

on the show, kind of Jerry Springer style. All right, final topic. I will watch that. As mentioned at the top, thoughts on the race reckoning that wasn't. This is just on the top of my mind right now because you mentioned earlier, this idea of canceling people for their ignorance and maybe that went a little overboard. I had Tanaasi Coats on a couple of months ago, and I was asking him about this, like about the backlash, and he said this.

He said, I think all movements had their excesses, and I think all movements have their fools. And sometimes those fools, you know, have power. And sometimes those excessive people have power. And they do things that are not smart and not in service of the ideals that they claim to be serving. And that's like where I just want, I'm just curious, you're just honest take on this. Like, when it comes to the kind of racial awakening stuff that you wrote about in the book, how much of that was in service of the ideals that folks? were claiming to be serving, and how much that ended up being a little bit counterproductive

to the service of the ideals that they were serving? I mean, I think that there's a little quip that people say sometimes, sometimes people are in the movement for change, and sometimes people are in the movement for change. And I think that's a fair assessment. We were very, very close to having another period of reconstruction in this country. And as oftentimes happens in the country, whenever you get close to having those periods or go through those periods for reconstruction, it's oftentimes met with a fierce backlash. I think we underestimated what that backlash would look like. Now, were there steps too far that we took when it comes to maybe things like Black Girl Magic or maybe some of the stances we took on the LGBTQIA plus issues, where there's stances that we took, you know, regarding monuments or painting roads.

or all of that other stuff that the monument stances were good but go ahead i mean that's not my ministry i'm not going to be there in the middle of the night because substantively i don't think that moves the ball down the road taking down a statue or or painting black lives matter square right i just don't think that moves the ball and racism in the football field you don't think that was the thing that was going to do i mean i thought roger goddell should have got the Nobel Peace prize for that just for that yeah just for that and so i hope i hope people hear the sarcasm it's interesting that the same stadiums that had end racism on the end zone like to up till like last year, maybe even some of them this year, also had like tributes on a piegeography to Charlie Kirk on the board. You know what I mean? It's kind of like the winds are hollow, I guess is my point. And I would say that to the Charlie Kirk crowd too. These guys will turn up back on you in a second. We still have systemic issues in these country that have to be deconstructed. And we still have issues such as, you know, people ask me all the time about systemic racism.

Give me an example. What are you talking about? And so black women are still three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterpart. That's a fact. I'm not talking about people calling you nigger. I'm talking about the access to quality health care. I'm talking about access to first class education, making sure that people are drinking clean water, not breathing in unhealthy air, making sure you're not living in food deserts. These things that, although the correlation with poverty is there, regardless of race, there still is an issue of race when you underline those things. And we didn't, during COVID, we had an opportunity to peel back the layer of the onion. And unfortunately, Unfortunately, people got $1,600 to checks and the fight was not had. Yeah, I guess that's my, because I agree with you, all those things that you mention, like, about health care and about access queen drinking water and food, it's, like, pretty separate from, like, the Robin DiAngelo, you know, kind of identity side of things. I'll make a statement, Newtown, if you agree with that. I think that in retrospect, elevating of diverse voices was good, centering race, like, across all versions.

articles to a degree that a lot of folks in the movement did, I ended up, like, inevitably creating a backlash because it's still a white country, it's still a majority of white country, right? And if you want to center identity to that degree where identity is the first thing people talk about, racial identity in every case, like, the white folks are going to start to start centering identity too. And that is not to excuse them for racist behavior. It's not to do any of that. It's just as a strategic matter, it's just, it's kind of against liberal democratic principles, but it also, I just think, is not in service of the ideals that you're serving and inevitably is going to lead to this place where there's like a real backlash.

I just wonder if you think other folks in your will to reflect on that. I think you're right to a degree. And I think that your point, if people reject it outwardly, they would be foolish because they need to hear that. And I think that that has a great deal of value. I think that there is a patent fear when you make that statement that people immediately begin to think like, Bernie Sanders, right? And they're like, you know, you have this purely economic message or

message about poverty that eliminates the overtones or undertones of race. Like, we've never dealt with that in the country. Where I think we need to go, and this is going to kind of weird people out, but if you go back and listen in 84 and 88, I think you'll be moved. We need to go back to a party of Jesse Jackson, who was able to effectively, not just his oratory, but effectively bring communities of color, bring immigrants, bring working class folk together around those issues that we just talked about, which are not just issues of differences, but they're literally killing us. Jesse is somebody who, and by the way, you got to get Abby Phillip on the show. She has a new book on Jessica. I'm working on that. If you're, if, well, if, if Republicans

brought back Pap Buchanan, why not Democrats bring back Jesse Jackson? Do you have a favorite Jesse Jackson speech? You want to leave people with? I want to go pick one. You got one? or? Yes, actually. His 84 DNC speech. We start there. I feel like I watched that 18 years ago when I was a Republican. So I'm going to go watch it after this. I'll probably have new new eyes. I've had some changes in my life also. That might give me some new perspective on that speech. And so I will do that after this. But Carrey Sellers, man, I always appreciate the time. I love you, man. Love your family. Call me if you ever need anything. I'll see you soon.

All right back at you. Hopefully we get to see you in New Orleans. Everybody else will see you tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. Peace. You have no face in medicine Oh girl You have no medicine What's in the medicine You'll be the medicine Oh girl

Is there a way to find a cure for this implanted in a pill Just the name upon the bottle which determines if it will Is the problem you're allergic to a well-familiar name? You have a problem with this one if the results are the same. I see the medicine. You have no medicine medicine. Oh girl. You have no patient medicine.

Oh girl. You have no patient medicine. The Bullwark to the medicine, you'll be the medicine, oh, girl. Thank you.