The Bulwark Podcast - Brian Stelter and Jonathan V. Last: Worst Case Scenario

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

The administration wants people to believe that Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off the air because he supposedly crossed a red line when it came to Charlie Kirk—yet at the same time, somehow totally ignore that this is naked government coercion of critics who embrace the time-honored tradition of skewering presidents. And because this is the Trump administration, there's also a corruption angle, namely a local TV station conglomerate trying to curry favor with Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr to get a $6.2 billion merger approved. Meanwhile, Vance is openly manufacturing a new, broader conspiracy behind the Kirk assassination, continuing his admitted pattern of just making things up out of whole cloth. It'd be nice if other members of the media noticed. JVL and Brian Stelter join Tim Miller. show notes Brian's "Reliable Sources" newsletter JVL's Thursday 'Triad' Bulwark Live in DC (10/8) and NYC (10/11) with Sarah, Tim and JVL are 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.

Hey, everybody, it's Tim. We had a little change of calendar today. Had a funny lefty that I wanted to chat with. And hopefully we'll be back on soon, you know, to bring a little balance to Joe Manchin. What a sweet. I mean, he's frustrating. I get it. But I don't know.

78-year-old white guy wanting to go with me to knock on the door of a guy with a confederate flag outside. I don't know. I'll take him up on that. Maybe that. No, we should do it. Tim and Joe. in the road. I don't know. We'll see how the ratings are for that. So instead,

we had big news with the Jimmy Kimmel firing, chilling news, and we have a little double header for you. I want to get Brian Stelter on because he's the best sourced person on all this media reporter at CNN. So he's up first and we're going to talk about what he's hearing from sources, as well as the implications of the Kimmel suspension. I guess right now it's an indefinite suspension so we'll see and then in segment two jvl wrote a banger of a newsletter late late last night on this and i want to talk to him about some of the kind of broader implications of the firing so it is going to be a good one stick around for both up next brian stealthon Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast.

I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to chief media analysts at CNN. His books include Network of Lies and Top of the Morning. It's Brian Stelter. How are you doing, Brian? Other than a lack of sleep, I'm doing well. Okay. I was wondering, so we brought you in, obviously, because of the big news yesterday,

with Disney folding to pressure from the administration and suspending Jimmy Kimmel and his show indefinitely over a joke that we, can get into whether or not it was even factual or inappropriate at all. But just the fact that this pressure is happening, I think is the biggest news. Before you get into all the details, I'm just kind of wondering what your top line reactions are, what's happening in your inbox, how chilling is this to people? This feels like the worst case scenario to a lot of people. Yes, to comedians like Jimmy Kimmel, but also to other entertainers, other forms of, you know, media stars out there in the ecosystem.

And then separating Kimmel, the comedian, from the free press, this is also very chilling to many journalists who work at ABC, who work at other companies, who are feeling that pressure indirectly from the Trump administration. So, you know, in some ways, Tim, I feel like we're talking about a situation, if you imagine a building, we're in an elevator, and we're going down floors. We're going down floor by floor. And, you know, maybe back in December when ABC settled with Trump and made that lawsuit go away by paying his future presidential library, we were several floors higher than we are today. This elevator continues to move downward pretty rapidly. I want to get more into the meta stuff, but just for folks who haven't followed this minute by minute, I just want to get into the facts here of what happened. First, the joke that sparked all of this, it sparked the pushback from MaguWorld. that struck to pushback from the head of the FCC, Brendan Carr,

was Jimmy Kim on Monday night talking about the MAGA reaction to the Kirk assassination. I just want to play a clip from it. We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

In between the finger pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House, flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism. But on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this. I condolences on the loss of your friend, Charlie, Kirk. May I ask, sir, personally, how are you holding up over the last day and a half, sir? I think very good.

And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks? They've just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they've been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years. And it's going to be a beauty. Yes. He's at the fourth stage of grief, construction. demolition construction this is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend this is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish now what you see from car and for a bunch of others

on the right is is them claiming that that kimmel was blaming the assassination on maga or saying that the shooter was maga i don't really hear it that way and also again it's important to say this this came out monday night so it was before the text messages had come out that kind of kind of gave us a little bit more insight into what the shooter's motivations are. I've been very anti-people putting out false information about what we know about Utah. I don't even really think this qualifies as that. What did you make of just like the actual merits of the complaint? The video clip also sounds different than the text.

So if you read the words that are, you know, in an article, you might think that Kimmel was out on a limb a little bit. When you listen to the clip that you just played, it's pretty clear that he was making a straightforward observation about the political environment. It is true that MAGA media figures were out there in recent days, basically saying he's not one of us, he's not one of us. That's true. And the facts have also pointed toward that reality. Although Kimball was speaking on Monday night before the documents came out and the text messages came out on Tuesday. So there's a lot to that, but I almost think that's beside the point.

Yeah, same. This is not actually about anything. Emil said about Charlie Kirk's alleged killer. Yeah. And frankly, even if it was a lie, like, if even was a lot, right, like, the government should not be in the business of bullying corporations into firing people because they said something non-factual about their boss. I mean, like, there's been plenty of examples of this throughout, throughout history, plenty of the right. It's not as if there's no right wing because Greg Gutfeld has never said something inaccurate about Joe Biden

or about Barack Obama, right? As the inverse was true, there would be outrage if they were pressuring him to fire him. So I want to go through, I think, the other fact pattern here that's important, which is like the underlying corruption angle here and like what the real motivations are here, to your point. I mean, obviously Trump has been on his high horse about going after these late night comedians because he's 79 years old, so he's in the demographic of caring about what the late

night network comedians say he's been going after all of them for a while now and then in addition to that there has also been a another merger case this is very similar to what we saw with CBS i'm going to run through this this breakdown actually come from your colleague jake tapper so shout out to jake but the next star media group which is the owner of the local tv stations owner a bunch of local tv stations that air abc they have an intention to purchase their biggest rival tegna which owns a bunch of other local stations it's a 6.2 billion dollar deal the problem is there's a cap on the percentage of stations that one company can own, right? And this would take them over the cap. Car had said, the FCC had said they'd be open to approve the merger, even

though it's over the cap. And then yesterday, head of the FCC, Brendan Carr went on Benny Johnson's show and criticize Kimmel's comments about the Kirk assassination. Let's play that. I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC. Again, there's actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters. And frankly, I think that it's really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, listen, we are going to preempt. We are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we, we licensed broadcaster, are running the

possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion. All right. So there he is. He's laying it all out. He's saying that these local individual stations should speak out. Next star did that hours later. Then ABC suspense Kimmel. And then Brendan Carr emails you with a jiff celebrating. So like that's the run. When you play it out like that, it's very clear what is happening here. This is the government pressuring, once again, just like the CBS case, the government pressuring a corporation that wants a merger approved to stifle any opposition speech in order to get in the good graces of the leader, right? And this is easier and cleaner than, let's say, the Stephen Colbert cancellation.

You know, because over the summer, when CBS canceled the late show, it said there were financial pressures and it wasn't about political pressure. A lot of Colbert fans doubt that, and they're right to be skeptical. But, you know, there was a real backstory about the financial situation of late-night TV. And there wasn't something so explicit and so sudden from the FCC tournament. But in this case, because we have car on tape saying we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and then within a matter of hours, ABC doing the easy thing and pulling Kimmel's show, it is a very clear case. It's a little bit of an Occam's Razor situation. We can make it more complex and talk about more of the backstory, but I think as Americans read about this and they process

it. The fact pattern is what it is. And that's what maybe makes this so newsworthy and so notable to so many people. Guys, one of my life mottos for, I guess, a few decades now, ever since I was addicted to snake and texting on my first little, what were those cell phones? This first little cell phones I had, I can picture it, those little bricks. Anyway, it'll come to me later. Ever since then, I had a motto. It was ABC. always be charging. Don't want your phone to die on you. You don't want any of your devices to die on you. It's more important now than ever because every fucking device is a different hole, you know, and you need different chords and different holes for everything. And luckily,

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Just head to ridge.com and use code the bulwark. And you're all set. After you purchase, they will ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Let's talk about Brendan Carr. He had been a big advocate for free speech, like people on the right and criticized the Biden administration and other administrations for pressuring social media networks for cracking down on misinformation, things like this.

You know, he had been a critic of Trump after January 6th. And like many of these other guys, he gets in there. And, you know, I think that he's trying to show fealty to the boss by throwing bombs going after his enemies. It's not that different from Bill Pulte, going after the Fed board member, for example. I guess you're on an email relationship with him. he's sending you jiffs of office space, you know, they're doing the raise the roof.

The office. I do that every time. I have like a millennial brain warp where I always invert those things on this fucking show. Anyway, in the office, he sends you them doing the raise the roof thing. So you've got a Jif relationship. Talk to us about this guy. Yeah, I'll go back in time a little bit. That's what I love about being able to talk with you

and have more than just a few minutes of TV air time to break this down. I've known Carr for about a year. I met him at a dinner. We exchanged numbers. He was just the lonely conservative on the FCC during the Biden administration when Jessica Rosenworzel was the FCC chairwoman. And, you know, Rosenworsel, just like all of her, you know, predecessors, she ran the FCC talking about net neutrality and open Internet and trying to erase digital divide and expand

broadband. You know, that's the FCC's focus normally. But once Trump was reelected and Carr was handpicked by Trump as the chairman, Carr really changed. He became a very clear maga media star. He signaled that he wanted to use the FCC's power in new ways. He basically aligned himself with Trump's anti-media rhetoric and has repeatedly used the powers of the FCC, which are quite limited, but use the powers of the FCC to investigate, to probe, to some would say even harass media companies that Trump doesn't like. Now, of course, he would frame it very differently, and he has said this to me. It's about the public interest. He is trying to use the SEC's powers to review the public airwaves and make sure stations are operating the public interest. That's his framing.

But I want to take you back to last December, because last December is when ABC settled with Trump, right, the $15 million payment. That was arguably the first example of media capitulation, and all the rest has followed since. You know, that settlement was the sign of what was going to come. And then a week later, what is the end of, what is the end of, card do. It was right before Christmas. And I remember he called me or he texted me, one or the other. And he had a letter that he wanted to share with me. It was a letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger. He had decided he wanted to put some pressure on Iger over, I'm looking at the article now because I don't remember exactly what it was about. It was about a battle between the ABC network and some of its affiliates. And he wanted to use that very narrow battle to

advance some broad points about the state of the industry and to signal that he was going to wield a heavy hand. So think about this, right? He's not only sending the letter to Eiger. He's also leaking it basically to CNN, making sure that it gets publicity. And I want to recognize, you know, the role of media reporters like yours truly in this. He is trying to use the press in this battle against the press. Yeah. And he's done that very effectively. He's done that repeatedly by publicizing his letters, by launching probes and then telling newsmax about the probes. You know, this has continued to happen over and over again. And when it comes to his gift from the office, you know, he was texting me about Next Star, the big station group, deciding to yank Kimmel. And I said, well, you know

ABC is Yanked him nationwide now. And so his response was to send that a gift from the office. And you've dealt with a lot of government officials in these sorts of stories as a media reporter, regulators, et cetera, over the years. And he's tweeting yesterday, Jimmy Blackface Kimmel's behavior is the problem. And he's sending you raise the roof gifts. And it's all. Like, he is not really, I don't think, even trying to, a lot of times in the past, you know, if you had government officials that were going after organizations that were of different political ideologies, right? Organizations that were against what administration, you know, might put forth, they would cloak it in some kind of like broader principle, you know, or some ideological motivation. He doesn't really even seem to be doing that.

I mean, like, this is just pure power policy. And he's trying to intimidate. I think he would say, you know, just to play devil's advocate just for fun. No, please. Let me read his post from Thursday morning here, from this morning. He said, I'm glad to see that many broadcasters are responding to their viewers as intended. Broadcasters have always had the right to not air national programs they believe are inconsistent with the public interest. So he is using government language.

He's dressing up Trump's war with Jimmy Kimball in government language. in government legalese and saying, well, we're the FCC. We license local stations to be in the public interest. So he is cloaking it, at least, in a way that sounds like a government regulator. And maybe that makes him so effective. You know, President Trump just posts on True Social about hating Comcast and wanting its licenses revoked. Comcast doesn't actually have most of the NBC's Asian licenses.

They're owned by other companies. Brennan Carr gets all the nuance. He gets how the system actually works. And he sounds kind of like a Chinese government regulator. when he's talking about that a little bit, like, cracking down on, you know, on images of Chairman She as Winnie the Pooh or something, but it is a big change. Another, you know, we've been following Sinclair for quite a while, but I'm sure some listeners are familiar with that, but if you're not,

and of course, another one of these owners of a lot of local networks, their response to this yesterday was truly, like, bat shit insane as, like, from another planet. Sinclair puts out a press release saying that Kimmel's suspension is not enough. They called upon Kimmel to issue a, a direct apology to the Kirk family. They called on Kimmel to make a meaningful personal donation to the family and to Turning Point

USA. They announced that during the Jimmy Kimmel time slot, they're going to air a special remembrance of Charlie Kirk. I mean, this is Batchett. I mean, they have dozens of stations across the country. And if you have

Next Star, one of the other biggest local TV affiliates, clearly sidling up to the administration, and then you have Sinclair doing like Newsmax style propaganda. This is a pretty alarming state of affairs as far as local TV news is concerned. It's also Red America's TV news versus Blue America's TV news. You know, Sinclair has been well known to have conservative owners, to have Republican owners. You know, that's always been clear.

Back to my days, going to school in Baltimore at Towson University, Sinclair was right up the road. And there was a controversy, you know, 20 years ago about what Sinclair was or was not airing on its local stations about the war in Iraq. So this does go way back. Back in 2016, I remember Sinclair's chairman had a meeting with Trump, and he says, he said to Trump then, we are here to deliver your message. So that infamous quote kind of betrays Sinclair's agenda.

Yes, it does have a pro-Trump bent, even though there's lots of journalists working at local Sinclair stations, just trying to report the news. I think it is fair for listeners and viewers to wonder about the objectivity of Sinclair stations and Next Star stations, given what we are seeing play out in real time. But, you know, these are mostly stations that operate, that exist in smaller communities, in smaller cities. Most of the bigger markets, the big cities in the U.S., the bluer areas, you know, they are stations that are actually owned by Disney or Comcast or other bigger companies. So I do think we're seeing this red-blue divide in some of the reactions here in terms of how the station owners are reacting.

But most importantly, Tim, this does have to do with Sinclair and NextStar having business before the government, right? Next Star, as we talked about, as you described from Tapper's thread, Next Star is desperate to get a deal done with Tegna. It needs Brendan Carr's blessing. It actually needs Brendan Carter rewrite the regulations altogether to allow it to grow as big as it wants to grow. This is no ordinary mega merger. This requires the SEC to rewrite the rules. So it seems to me, as an observer, Nexstar and Sinclair are almost competing about who can slather more affection on to Trump and Carr right now. It's like they're trying to one-up each other.

Nextar was the first to announce that it condemned Kimmel. Then Sinclair said, that's not enough. We want Kimmel to donate money to TPUSA. You know, it's almost like a game of one-upsmanship. Who can curry the most favor with Trump and Carr? I mean, we're just, I guess we're on a space race to see who can be Sputnik, the TV channel, faster in Russia. I mean, like, really, I mean, covering the Charlie Kirk funeral of sure,

of course, it's a news event, like airing a tribute to Charlie Kirk in place of normal programming to, like, troll Jimmy Kimmel and to troll the left. And that is crazy. That is just straight propaganda. I don't think airing a tribute to Kirk is crazy. I think putting it in Kimmel's time slot on a Friday night is the troll. That is the tell. That's the tell right there. Replacing Kimmel's show with the tribute is the tell. Are you just kind of looking for a comfy gene this fall? You know, it feels like the comfy jeans are back in. And I'm excited to once again shout out our sponsor of this very podcast, The Perfect

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kind of like just sort of regulate like where exactly we are you know i had some texts in my inbox i don't know about you of people like sending me the russia flag you know about where we are at this point with the level of speech stifling. And I think that there are some rush out parallels. But I don't, I think to be actually particularly clear about where we are and what you've been talking about, about these companies trying to merge. This is a corruption, kleptocracy, oligarchy story first. And it is also a free speech story.

But, you know, Jimmy Kimmel, if he wanted to, would be able to reemerge on some other platforms and be able to talk. Like, Jimmy Kimmel is not getting pushed out of a window, right? And maybe the only silver lining here is the decline of television at such a point that, like, we're not at the – it's not like there's three networks, right? And you're taking somebody off one of the three options people have. People have unlimited options. And so you wrote the story about how this is similar to Orbanism, and this is similar to what Oregon done in Hungary. And I just kind of want you to try to contextualize this for people.

Like, how is it similar to Hungary? You know, where do you think we are in the threat scale? Well, first, what's different? The U.S. is a much bigger and more prosperous country than a hundred. Hungary, you know, we're not a landlocked Eastern European country. But that said, when Victor Orban came to power in 2010, he consolidated control over the media in Hungary. He muscled independent media voices. He started, and I've talked with scholars who lived at firsthand, I talked with a member of the Hungarian parliament about this, in order to understand what the playbook was, because

I think it's very similar to what we're seeing now in the U.S. And it started with weakening public broadcasting. Of course, we know PBS and NPR been defunded here in the U.S. So the parallels start right there. First, go after public broadcasting, take the teeth out of public broadcasting. But beyond that, there was an effort in Hungary to weaponize the levers of government for party gain, to pressure privately owned media companies to tow the line, in some cases to take over those privately owned media companies, to have friends and allies of Orban become the owners of those companies. And then to punish the owners who still resisted with investigations, with tax penalties, etc. At the same time, you reward the ones who acquiesce, and that's a big part of what

we've seen in the U.S., celebrating and cheering for Fox News, for example, putting lots of guests onto Fox and giving Fox every advantage is something we've seen out of the Trump White House. So the parallels, they are plentiful, and frankly, there's more of them as time goes on. There are more parallels here between Hungary and the U.S. and the media control than there were three or six months ago. You know, I talked to a Hungarian member of parliament, former former member parliament overnight. And he said, personally targeted campaigns and character assassinations were the lifeblood of Orban's regime. They demonstratively raised the cost of speaking up and speaking out. What does that sound like? That sounds like targeting Jimmy Kimmel,

hoping he would be fired. Everything President Trump is on true social is the kind of behavior we saw out of this strong man in Hungary. Now, we know what happened in Hungary, Democratic backsliding, a much more authoritarian form of government. But I think we should also recognize how incredibly free the American media is. Like, here we are, you know, talking to it in these new platforms. And here's what my gut says, Tim. And I admit, I'm only on a few hours of sleep. I have not fully processed the Kimmel News yet.

Great. Let's do it. Let's do optimism. If these old-fashioned old-line media companies cannot stand a bit of pressure from the president, then talent's going to leave. Journalists are going to go launch startups. They're going to create more substacks and they're going to start more YouTube live streams.

You know, the likes of Jimmy Kimmel are going to go out. out and probably become even wealthier and more popular with new products. And that's thanks to the miracle of the Internet. Right now, we do not see, we are not in an environment where what you and I are doing right now is threatened. What we do see threatened are broadcast stations. The threats are real. I'm not claiming they're not, right?

President Trump's suing the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal. There are real threats against these old line media companies, including the one I work for. But I'm struck by the amount of energy that exists in that startup world on the live streams, in the podcasting space. And I think for every moment like a Kimmel, the suspension, more that energy moves to new platforms. Do you think I'm wrong? No, it's funny you say that because I was thinking this last night and I was like, I have a strange optimism. I mean, look, I'll just do the dark first. Gary Kasparov on the Russia flags out of things tweeted an early Putin sign of despotism was having the puppet

show kookly shut down so you know uh it's not as if there isn't some precedent for for this and i think that i like you the threats are real it is it is aspiring fascism and authoritarianism i just do wonder like the backlash one of my friends sent me a a flyer that was being posted around l.a there's a picture of jimmy kimmel and kind of like um one of the old doge meme formats with like the little uh little quotes around him where it's like really this guy like the guy with the corny dad jokes. You're scared of him. And I don't know. And we'll see kind of what happens in bro podcaster world. But this is so mockable. And I think it's really, it's scary. The same Claire stuff really scares me. The ability to crack down on local media really scares me.

But I do kind of think that there's going to be a backlash to this. I really do. And it's so hackish. And I think that there is a little bit of a silver lining here. And like you said, these big media companies might just be speed running their own decline, which is already happening. And, you know, we're right here. We're not scared. I'm not scared. Plenty of people are not scared. You can subscribe right here on our very YouTube feed. And right now, I don't know. I think that you can see pushback forming, for sure. I was really struck by something the LA Times media reporter Stephen Battaglio said on Harrison Cooper show last night. He said, maybe these media companies just going to have to get out of the broadcast TV business. And I, and at first, what are you talking about?

And then I thought, oh, that is exactly the right take at this moment. Because if you're Disney and you own theme parks and cruise lines and all the rest of it, and your future is Disney Plus, not your local stations, then if you're facing this pressure from the Trump administration, spin it up. Get out of the broadcast business. And I won't be shocked if we see more of those moves. If you view this, it's helpful to view this from the desk of Bob Iger, right? The Disney CEO who once wanted to run for president, who would have.

run as a Democrat. He's not a trumper. What is he thinking? Why did he do this? Why is ABC doing this? Well, he does have short-term business considerations, obviously. He's trying to find a path forward. I don't know if he can find it to bring Kimmel back. We'll see. But there is a logic to what he's done here, given the, you know, the monstrosity that is Disney. I mean, by the way, I'm planning my next Disney trip. You know, like most people, I have an affection for the brand. But I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, What are the upsides to owning ABC stations at this point? You would be a theme park guy, Brian. This is. Oh, I am.

I actually really want to go on a cruise. Oh, no. That is my hell. The hell is a Disney cruise. I'm trying to repent and be a good person in life so that in death I don't have to be on an eternal Disney cruise. Okay, it's really quick. On the Iger thing, and then I've one other thing, and I know you're just so busy right now. But I hear you on what an executive perspective is here, and it's like maybe it may be fucked.

we get out of the news business altogether. The problem is, man, this Trump administration, they're creeping into, they got tentacles going into all of your business, right? And like, they're in Intel's business on chips. If I'm Disney and you're like, okay, we're moving to Disney Plus, what if we launch a new Disney Plus show that has a Trump spoof or has a black non-binary mermaid or whatever, you know, whatever it could be that would get the administration upset? That is why to me, I just think it's such a short-term thinking to full on something this stupid, right? Because they could come for something.

Like, isn't, is that voice anywhere in media circles, you know, when you're talking, when you're talking to executive sources or is anybody saying like, man, I feel like we're, we're being too cowardly here and it's, and it's opening, it's showing weakness and it's opening the door to even more pain. Those sources are all over the place. Those executives are, you know, all over the place. They are privately struggling with this. Although, ultimately, it's only a handful of people making the final decision.

And that, you know, makes me think about Paramount, right? Makes me think about the CBS settlement by Sherry Redstone's Paramount and now David Ellison's control of the new Paramount Skydance. You know, what's been airing on Paramount that annoys President Trump? It's South Park. You know, South Park was supposed to air last night. It's going to be pushed back a week, but that says it's apparently the show's decision. They're running late, getting the show episode ready.

But David Ellison told me he loves South Park. He loves the show. He loves the creators. And so here's a guy who has been accused of capitulating to the president already, who may or may not have struck a secret side deal with Trump for public service announcements. And yet his network and streaming service continues to air South Park, which is some of the most biting satire of Trump anywhere in America. So these are the push and pulls that exist.

And, you know, I think all eyes are on figures like Allison and Iger now. It really is a handful of these men, and they are mostly men who are making these calls. Yeah, I mean, and Allison hired a ombudsman who has no history in the media, who is a Trump nominated to be the Trump ambassador. I just, it's very concerning. And I guess this is my last question for you because I think that there was a tweet from Julia Yafi yesterday, and it was a story about a Moscow newspaper. And it was like, where's the line here? And, you know, they had a meeting early in the Putin era, and like, how do we know what the line is? And how do we know how to avoid the line?

And in the meeting, somebody said to the editor of the line zigzag. It's like you don't know where it is. And the zigzagging line leads to this chilling effect, right? Where people don't know what to do or say and they start to, you know, they start to fold, maybe, you know, before pressure is even applied. And I just am wondering what your sense is on that whole, how widespread that chilling effect is now. Because like one thing that comes to mind is like, I feel this way when I'm going on cable. I know you do.

I see more now of reporters and anchors and people doing. caveats that they don't really need to do, you know, like Trump's name is in the Epstein files. And then they say something like, now that doesn't mean there's any wrongdoing. And I'm like, would they have said that a year or two ago or is that a CYA caveat, right? Because Trump has been accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein files. It doesn't mean he did it, but he has been accused, right? And to me, I just, I feel like I see a chilling effect across the board. And I'm wondering if you're seeing that. I think the temperature, the air temperature has changed, but it has not changed so dramatically that we suddenly need to put on a coat.

You know, I think it's a change of degrees. It's not, thankfully, as dramatic as that, at least not yet. Yes, I do notice some of the same behavior that you do. At the same time, precision is valuable, and especially for journalists on television, being fair-minded is critical. But as long as we see tough-minded coverage as well, then we're still delivering what the audience needs and expects. And ultimately, this is about the audience, Tim, right? The audience has an expectation. And obviously, Sean Hannity's fans have a different expectation than yours. But the majority of the country wants to actually be informed about what's going on with the administration. They want to actually be informed and not just spun. So I come down on a daily today to that old line about

how we've got to use your rights or you lose your rights. That's where we are. That's where guys like Kimmel are right now. You use your rights or you lose your rights. I doubt he'll be. back on ABC, but I'm hopeful that there will be many other possible homes for him. Hopeful, but I'm not sure. I mean, that's one of the questions I asked in my newsletter this morning. Will streamers like Netflix take a risk on someone like Colbert or Kimmel in this political environment? And my gut says yes, but I don't know.

I don't think any of us know. Well, Jimmy, I can't pay Disney money, but you're welcome on the Bullwark YouTube anytime, all right? So give me a call. A couple of your friends got my number. Brian Stelter, you got to go to TV. Thank you for jumping on on a busy morning. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks. Hey, everybody. We are going on the road this fall, and I want to see you. Sadly, our Toronto tickets have already sold out. So I'm plotting a return to Canada. You guys just wait on that. But there's still tickets left for our events in Washington, D.C. and New York City in October. Come join me, Sarah JVL for two nights of camaraderie and joy and resistance and podcasting and maybe some special guests at the D.C. event. We might give a big middle finger to the mass agents of Donald Trump that are roaming, the city's free streets. And we'll be back in New York a couple times later. The first time we've been in New York in ages the last time we had a live New York event, it was,

can remember because it was during the Nuggets title run and me and a handful of the folks who came out went and watched Jamal Murray put up 40 I think on the Lakers after the podcast was quite enjoyable. Maybe we'll have a similar night. We'll see. And if you really want more time with us and you don't want to just place a bet that you'll end up at the same bar with me after because you never know, you could pay for VIP tickets. They're included in the sale. It'll give you earlier entry into the show and you can hang with us for an intimate Q&A. You can check out all the details and get tickets at the bulwark.com slash events for more that's the bulwark.com slash events see you all on the east coast.

Hey everybody. We are back with a bulwark editor, author of the triad newsletter JVL. Sign up for his fucking newsletter if you haven't. My God, go to the bulwark.com slash subscribe. It's the best one in the business. And he wrote one last night, late night. I was in bed. I'm an hour behind you and I was already asleep before it public.

So, you know, you were just working, burning the midnight oil. And it's titled, First, they came for Jimmy Kimmel. You posted on the substag notes, this is a bigger deal than people realized. We just kind of went through all of the particulars with Brian Stelter. But give us, contextualize this for us. Why is this a bigger deal than people realize in your view? Well, I mean, this is, you know, somebody on one of the social platforms, just a couple days after Trump was sworn in, said, you know,

a pretty good barometer of our slide will be whether or not late night. comedians who are critical of Trump are still on the air. Well, two of the three are down. We're nine months in and two of the three are gone. I've done some blue sky slander on this very podcast over the weeks and months. So credit where do,

shout out to anonymous blue sky user for nailing it, center bullseye. So, although I suppose you could say that it's only half because there are still both Seth Myers and Jimmy Fallon, left. So maybe it's only 50%, instead of 66%. And Greg Gutfeld. So that's not great. The key point of this is governmental coercion, right? And that is what, you know, I would say during the great cancel culture freak out, I would, you were typically, I would think on the like, you know, hey, free speech, we got to stop this, he didn't like this. And I was just like, I don't know,

this is like social shame stuff happening and like they love social shame as i see this is the difference between us and our status is catholics you know both cradle catholics you stuck around a little longer than i did because the shame part appeals yeah i get it i love it it's a one of my kings and um i like a little social stigma it's just a kind of went a little overboard for me you know balance in all things for me right but so so you know here you have the FCC literally as you and sam pointing out last night, you know, the head of the FCC going out and telling people who have mergers before his board what they will have to do, you know, say, we want the people who are the affiliates, the local affiliates, which sounds like a mom and pop franchise, but isn't,

but are large corporations. We want them to act in this way, telling ABC that they could either do this the easy way or the hard way, which again, is just a crazy thing to say out loud. David Fromm put this, I think, quite well last night, to your point that a lot of people are out there talking about is this cancel culture. Like the bar stool guy was talking. This isn't really – it isn't. It isn't. It's not compare – we shouldn't be comparing it to cancel culture. Regardless of what your views were on this. From put it this way. This is not cancel culture because it's not culture. It's state repression. It's an order from the government. Yeah. And that's really – and that, I guess, is the stakes here. Here's the other thing. It's an open order. It's – none of this is being done behind closed doors, right? It's – it's not as if the FCC. is saying, we are totally fair and balanced and we are not going to put our thumbs

and then quietly saying, fire, Kimmel, Fire, Kimmel, Fire, Kimmel, that's not happening. It's just open, which in a way is helpful to us, I think, but also shows how much further down the path we are. And that's why I said, I think this is pretty dark stuff because, like, I just, I don't know how you wind up going back from this sort of thing. We'll get to that at the end. on whether we can go back to from it or not. The other thing you got into in your newsletter is the asymmetry, one of your favorite topics, and, you know, the different standards that they're being set and whether, you know,

you should even take critics coming from the MAGA right on this sort of stuff in good faith at all, like whether we should even consider their arguments, right? And I got into this with Brian, but like in this case in particular, I even on the merits, like, he didn't, he didn't even say anything untrue. Like, I wouldn't even say that he said anything inappropriate, actually. I should bring this up. I didn't have time to get to it. But I just, I do want to read this for folks.

Here was Kimmel the night after the Kirk assassination. He said this. I've seen a lot of extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of the political spectrum. Some people are cheering this, which is something I won't ever understand. We had another school shooting yesterday in Colorado, the 100th one of the year. With all these terrible things happening, you would think that our president would at least make an attempt to bring us together.

It's like when he was doing his earnest bit, that's where he was. He was doing exactly what the right-wing shamers wanted people to do, right? Which is tamp down the rhetoric. And then in this, in this joke, like, he's kind of technically accurate, right? I mean, so in this case, like, obviously it's not good faith. But you make the point that, like, even in the other efforts to try to tamp down speech around Kirk, even in the cases where the person did say something wrong,

it's like, why should we listen to these critics based on how MAGA has acted and how the president and the vice president have acted? Yeah. I mean, so the legal system is grappling with the fact that regular order has broken down, which means that basically if you were a judge and a lawyer who is an officer of the court

represents something to you, you can take their word for it, Because they're a sworn officer of the court. They can't walk into your chambers and say, sir, yes, we got your order and we complied with it when they secretly haven't complied with it, right? And the reason you have regular order is because if the judge has to independently verify every representation made to him by both counsels, every case would take a million years, right? So regular order is breaking down because the government can no longer be trusted. And this has happened a bunch of times in a bunch of different cases, most famously in Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia case, where the government has come in and said one thing to be true, and it's just been a lie. A knowing lie.

A knowing lie. A knowing lie. Right. Not a mistake. And that's the difference, right? It isn't like, you know, oh, the government said something, what was wrong. They said we filed it, but then they forgot to file it. That's not what we're talking about.

So that same thing has happened in the media and the media doesn't understand it. like regular order has broken down. And so, you know, the places like CNN and NBC, they're just like, you know, and here's J.D. Vance says X as if you can trust what J.D. Vance says. And I just don't understand that. I went back. I got real torqued up about this last night because I was thinking about the eating of the cats and the dogs in Springfield. And if you, if you remember, it's almost exactly a year ago. Actually, this all happened in September of 2024. That can not be true. Yeah. It's only been a year?

A year and a week. A year and a week. Literally a year and a week. Okay. So, you know, so Trump is at the debate with Kamala Harris, and he is by the moderator, Dave Muerre, he is asked to basically set up like, hey, you said this thing about people eating cats and dogs, and it's not true. Do you want to do clean up on it?

And Trump, of course, just doubles down because that's what he does. And then weir fact checked him, then we got all that. And then a week later, we get J.D. Vance. who sits down with Dana Bash on CNN. And he is asked about this. And he's like, this is a first story. Oh, you do. Oh, great.

Let's hear. Let's hear our vice president. The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do.

Wow. So, like, I don't understand. why this isn't the critical context for every single thing out of this guy's mouth. He said it. He admitted it. He said that he created stories and he is willing to create stories and that's what he's going to do. So, like, this is what I don't understand, right?

If you are, if you are NBC or Politico or anybody else who's running a story and you include something by JD Vance talking about, you know, the terrible things that are happening, isn't the necessary context? Oh, and this is a guy who has created false lies knowingly and has admitted to doing such and promised to do it again in the future. So we should all recognize that he's doing it again. In order to work you, in order to work the refs, in order to work the media. Like, that was his rationale for doing it, right? Like, I'm going to make up stories to manipulate you.

And so if you are on the side that he's stated that he's trying to manipulate, you know, you feel like you might need to at least. least not just accept the manipulation. You might need to, you know, point that into context. You think, but that's not a lot happening. Again, this is, everybody's continuing to act as if regular order is still in effect. And it's just not. And you see it with what he said yesterday. Right. So this, yeah, I have this too. So this is the prime example of this when it comes to creating stories and in the context of Kirk, right? And thinking about the fact that Kimmel is fired for this joke about the way that Maga's reacted to Kirk because it's like technically accurate maybe contextually wasn't as clear as it could have been but like

it was a joke then you're the vice president going on to Fox News in an interview with Jesse Waters talking about you know the Kirk assassination and similar fallout and I'm about to play this clip but I think the important thing that I just want to bring up to your point of how we're not in regular order and how people are being manipulated this clip we're about to play our guys who are working their ass off behind the scenes by the way Brendan Jared at the Bullwark who are doing a lot of rapid response stuff for us and providing videos, they caught this and posted it.

I haven't seen anybody else post it. And when you put it in the newsletter and I went back and looked at it and had like 18 retweets. Like this is the vice president makes this statement I'm about to play. It has no attention. It's compared to the whirlwind around the Jimmy Kimmel joke.

No one is talking about this. Let's play. We know Joe Biden's FBI was investigating Charlie Kirk. Maybe they should have been investigating the networks that motivated, inspired, and maybe even funded Charlie Kirk's murder. If they had, Charlie Kirk might be alive today. Charlie Kirk might be alive. If Joe Biden's FBI had investigated the networks that inspired and maybe even funded his murder, I mean, there is no evidence for this. This is a created story like the Haitian cats and dogs. He's creating

a story. This is pulled out of thin air. Like the idea that somebody maybe even funded Charlie Kirk's murder. Like that doesn't even make any sense. Like this guy is living in a small town in Utah with his transgender girlfriend roommate in an apartment. Like where's the money? Like what he has, he's using a single bolt action rifle? Like what are you even talking about somebody funded this murder? This is a single person. And you have the evidence. You're the vice president. You guys have the investigation. You're just fabricating a story to create division and to get people upset and to get people and to make an excuse for going after your political foes. That's what you're doing. You're doing it on a news program. And that is like not even, it is so much worse,

exponentially worse than what we saw out of Jimmy Kimmel. And it's happening from the vice president. Yeah. And here's the thing. I want to parse these things very, very finally, right? Nothing Jimmy Kimmel said was factually untrue. Right. you just go back and go word by word like it you know it may have been misleading it may not have been fully you know transparently uh context or theological contextually contextually accurate right but but whatever like it was just true if you're if you're reading it like you know black letter here jd vance he does say maybe even funded so he has given him some some full right he's just asking questions but he does say the network

networks that motivated and inspired. So he is stating as fact that there are networks, which presumably he can identify then, which did motivate and inspire the killer. That's just a lie. That isn't even like him making inferences to try to guide people. That's not like seeding conspiracy theories in the way that maybe even funded is. He is stating as fact that there are. specific networks that motivated and inspired the guy.

Okay, where are those? There are a lot of those in Utah? Right. At his technical college, where there were a lot of St. George, you know, liberal bastions. In the video game discords? Was that those things? But apparently he was in for like 2,600 hours last year.

So again, the vice president of the United States is doing the actual thing that Maga and all the other people are insisting that everybody else is doing, right? They're doing the lying and making up. This is, I mean, it's not blood liable, but it's pretty bad. I mean, it's near incitement. It's definitely incitement. Is it near incitement? Right?

I mean, it's... I don't know. Incitement's a legal term. There's probably a legal definition for it. I mean, he's trying... Okay, let's get the word right. I mean, he is trying. to create a rationale for going after political foes, right?

Like, yeah, that's what he's doing. He's trying to, he's trying to, he's trying to create a story. He's making, he's fabricating a story to create a rationale to target political foes based on Charlie Kirk's assassination. That's what he's doing. Which is kind of, by the way, what Jimmy Kimmel was making a joke that Megga was doing. Honestly, like, he's doing it anyway. It's true.

Yeah. Two things I don't understand. The first is, so when I talk about asymmetry, how Republicans are allowed to get away with certain things and Democrats aren't allowed. When I say by a lot, like who's doing the allowing, and the answer is two groups, but the most important of which is voters. Like just your normal people who are not partisans, like that's soft 30% in the middle. They don't punish Republicans for any of like this sort of thing. They don't punish Republicans for eating the cats and dogs or you ought to inject yourself with bleach or any of that stuff. But they absolutely punish Democrats for so-and-so on blue sky said this terrible thing.

And they're a liberal. So I guess liberal cancel culture is really dangerous. Like these are just the beliefs that are out there in the world. But you can't change. Like, I don't know how to change that. I don't know how to address that. Like, that just seems to be a fact of the world we live in. But the other is, like, the elites who are supposedly calling balls and strikes, you know, like just normal, normal actors in the media, they have really given in on all this stuff where just like, well, you know, Republicans just, that's just what they are.

Right. You know, that's like, that's like complaining about a tornado. The tornado doesn't care. I mean, I'm not going to, it is what it is. Everybody understands that. That's, you know, tornado is going to tornado. But, boy, you know, why? Why have Democrats have been doing some terrible things?

Look at these array of screenshots from random people with names we can't identify from Twitter saying horrible, vile things about Charlie Kirk. It's like, you know, the media is treating all this shit as if it's the same. Or worse. Here's the thing. Giving more attention to the rando lefties than to what the vice president's saying. Like I said, I mean, maybe we could challenge me. Somebody could send this in.

maybe somebody covered this clip somewhere on the nightly news. But, like, I don't understand why this isn't a massive news story. Why people aren't giving this more attention. And the vice president of the United States fabricated a rationale for the assassination of Charlie Kirk with the intent of creating a pretext for going after his political folks. Like, that's what he did. It's just, it's as clear as day.

Like, he just created a fake story about what the motivations were of this assassination. And I don't think anybody knows about it. And he had previously admitted that he creates stories. That's the other, like, you know, again, if he hadn't already said, yeah, I created stories and I'll do it again. Like, then you could say like, well, we're just trying to prove that he knowingly created. You know, then you could say like, oh, but we are caught in a world where he has admitted to. He's already copped to it. And nobody cares.

I care. Nobody cares. I care. We should bully, but I think people need to be bullied into covering them. You tell me if you see anybody anywhere else in the media mentioning J.D. Vance's quote about if I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do. You tell me if you see that quote anywhere else, anywhere in the media today. Or the quote about how he suggested the killer of Charlie Kirk might be funded by the left.

And there is no lefty politician that has said anything to that effect, right? Like, I think about the widespread outrage about, and by the way, I want the truth to be out there. So, like, we did this on the next level. I'm among the people who are, like, saying to, like, lefty influencers, please stop saying that this person, that these texts are fake or this person is mega. Like, that is not true. And that's fine to say that that is not true. But he is, what J.D. Vance is saying is more irresponsible than the most crazed left-wing influencer out there. I mean, he's literally from the power and from the perch of the vice presidency,

suggesting that this assassin was a cog in some scheme by progressive groups. Do you want to go to the bad place? Oh, yeah. Because I'm going to end in a good place. Okay. So I sort of said this on next level yesterday, and I was like, I have some dark thoughts, but we were running out of time. Yeah, great.

There was some of our fans. had messaged me about this. They were upset. They wanted a follow-up. So let's just do it for me. Okay. Well, here it is. I agree that we ought to be doing truthful things and saying the true things. That's what I do. That's how I want the world to work. But as an analytical matter, are we certain that it is politically advantageous to operate in that way? Which is to say, if a bunch of people are running around doing false flag theories and creating their own conspiracy theories

and muddying the water, what if that's actually helpful politically? Again, not advocating. I'm just trying to look at it from an analytical perspective and say, what if the world we are living in right now actually punishes the side who is trying to be real strict about

and helps the side that has people in it who are muddying the waters and creating conspiracy theories. I hear that if we're going to go here, like I have a lot of thoughts about this. So I'm with you. I know you're just throwing that out there because and there are various different layers. Like on the one hand, I just from a personal level,

I'm in the like let the lie into the world, but not through me. I need that for like sleeping at night. Same. All right. And the reason that I am doing what I'm doing is because of this. We already ranted about this. And I just,

it's very important to me. So like I'm not going to do it. it's not yeah if you were going to live that way you just would have gone maga i would have a lot easier i'd have a boat by now you know yeah or at least a beach house i'm not going to do it and i just my little insides are too you know are wound a little too tight on all this stuff okay so that's me now to the broader question i was on a democracy panel in florida recently like you know one of these like what does the pro democracy movement do now and like this topic came up there's like very topic came up. And I was kind of making the point you were making that like there's some benefit

to playing asymmetric warfare back at them. Now, I also think we have to be judicious about that a little bit, right? Like the case I was making was, I think this was happening right after the airplane crashed at Reagan. And I was like, why not blamed Sean Duffy for that? That's not like, really like a direct lie. That's just like playing their game, right? That it's like, okay, anything the bad happened during the Biden administration, Biden got blamed for by Trump. So why doesn't anything the bad happen in the world during this time Trump get blamed for? I think that is defensible and probably smart politics, frankly. I think that you reach a point where there is potential blowback. I think that because Trump narrowly won this last election, there are some

people out there that say, like, Trump wasn't punished for any of his worst behavior. I'm open to hearing that argument. I don't really strategically believe. that. I think that Trump benefited from some of his bad behavior and I think that some of the Trump's bad behavior actually cost him and that given how terrible Joe Biden's approval ratings were and like the state of what we see throughout the world

with challenging parties and the fact that he lost in 2020, like, I think he did himself sabotage. Like, I don't know. I think that like if there were certain ways where Trump had made himself more acceptable to polite society, like just on the edges, they might have 56 senators

right now. I mean, like, you know what I mean? Like, they could have won, he could have won even bigger, right? I think that, like, he lost some ground from some getable people in the suburbs from some of his behavior, I guess I would say. And so I do, so I think that in certain cases, I do think a little self-policing is important because if you just sort of let everybody's darkest angels loose, you know, you end up, well, both darkening your soul and also potentially doing yourself strategic harm. And I saw some of that around some of the Kirk reaction, to be frank.

So, anyway, that's, it's a layered reaction, personal, strategic, and then not being, not going so far into the dark place that you become counter strategic. What do you think about that? I can see that. And again, I, you know, I'm where you are. I'm not going to do any of this myself. But I do, honestly, it does make me feel like, I don't know, should I personally, I'm not going to lie about any of this stuff. I'm going to be true. I'm not going to do conspiracy theories, but should I get really torqued up over people who do?

Because, you know, the responsible people in MAGA don't get torqued up over their president and vice president doing this sort of thing, right? And that has been a real help to them, I think. It has been helpful to them to have both like a regular, you know, regular political warfare and asymmetric political warfare arm. I'll give you a genuine answer to that. Should you get torqued up? I don't, well, do you get torqued up as a personal opinion? I think that we have, there's some obligation that we have to the, to folks that are listening, right? Like, like, I feel this to be at least like, hey, then that's what I did yet.

Just when we talked about the text messages yesterday, like, I had a lot of people, like real people, not fucking bots. It's like real people in my life, like texting, like, this seems like it might be fake. Can you really trust cash? And I felt like it is my obligation to them as somebody that is like the person providing opinions to say just bluntly, like, no, you know, I don't know it was in the mind of the shooter and his girlfriend when they're texting, but like it's real. I mean, it's not just cash fabricating this. Like I actually got a DM after we tape this from somebody.

I don't want to expose them. but, like, they know a person that works for the county attorney in that county. And, like, that person had to put their name. You know, and that person, I'm not going to say anything about what their politics are. But, you know what I mean? Like, there's a practical element to this that you should. I don't want to put the gas pedal and send other people into the crazy place. So that's why I kind of get a little, that's why I care about this, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Yeah, you and I are aligned on this. But I guess what I'm saying is, like, you don't want to go out there going like this, bad, you know. I ain't going to put on the hair shirt for this. I hear that, you know, like, and I sure am not going to do it while the vice president of the United States is out there creating stories as he has admitted he has done in the past and promised to do in the future. You know, like if I will say all the true things and I want, you know, my mission is always with our audiences. I try to help people be smarter and see around corners. Like, that's what I'm here to do. So I'm not going to swallow the whistle or anything, but I'm also not going to not going to lose my mind and to see.

send into finger wagging. You know, like, okay. Totally. I get it. You know, that's the thing that's happening. Great. All right. Let's close with this.

For me, it's good news. I assume you're going to put a dark spin on it because that's just the nature. So I'm playing the role of Sarah here. And you can play the JVL role. I saw clip right before he came on. And it's from one of these, I've been spending more time in the Manosphere. Okay, just because I'm curious, like what's happening? Like, what the reaction is started this?

ignoring it or they swallowing the whistle or they whatever and there's a show on barstool kirk minnehain show and i forget what the topic was but i started following it more closely because dude is obviously a conservative dude just in temperament and and some of his like terminology he uses let's just put it like that but he went at trump over something i forget what it was and so started following then i saw it again today and on this clip and i said this to stelter i'm like I do wonder if some of this stuff is so clownish that there's a backlash that people are just like, come on, like, Jimmy Kimmel, like really? Like, this is the threat. And here was the Kirk Menehain show from this morning. Let's play. I always do the left. No, right now in 2025 at 10.06 on September 18th, the extreme right are the biggest group of pussies that has ever existed in America. A bunch of because people with green hair at Starbucks and because once in a while, a fucking guy swam against girls

you fucking pussy's have broken in half he goes on and he gets into some internal inter-barstool strife that it's not relevant

for the podcast but he's writing that in context the Starbucks Cup is in the context of like some people were mad because they were going

to Starbucks saying write Charlie Kirk's name on the cup and they wouldn't do it and he's also talking about the Kimmel stuff and I don't know I don't know

is that there's maybe something, some salience there, maybe? I got to say, I'm pretty shocked by that. I am really shocked by that. Pleasantly? Yeah, pleasantly. Because that's obviously the case. And the fact that some of the non-politically aligned but only sort of culturally aligned people,

like the guys who want to be able to watch porn and, you know, and want to be able to say pussy and all that stuff and who thought that they were with the Republicans, the fact that some of them are like, geez, that's not what I'm into. That's a reasonably positive indicator. A reasonably positive indicator. Let's stop right there.

That's the end of the podcast. A reasonably positive indicator. That's Jonathan Vlas. We'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the Bullwark podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace. I hope to cancel me.

So I can go be with my family. So I can quit wearing this man's dog Tell the people kiss my dog I hope they crucify me I hope they put me down I hope they euthanize me I hope I never ever have to go on TV Jimmy Kimmel does not want to meet me

I told my manager No more parties in Los Angeles Last night I fell deeper than Brock Camped down a rabbit hole This so much I won't never find my appetite On my way home I crashed into a satellite That's why my phone was obsolete by half the night

That's why my dome is ringing baby as a right now My job is to lie down I hope to cancel me So I can go be with my family So I can quit wearing this man's dog Tell the people kiss my dog I hope to cancel me So I can go be with my family

So I can quit wearing this man's dog Tell the people kiss my dog Look, after tour I broke up with my girlfriend To fuck a bunch of bunch of dead I couldn't back then And yeah, that was cool But now I'm empty as my room I guess my insta keep me busy I got plenty of things to do

But I told read No more this LA Last night keeps flashing and I can't take it One sec, shut that phone up Before I break it Hold up Take me home before I say it I hope they banish me

I miss my family tree I was a family man And now I'm just a man to see if you paint Pay your rent and be responsible financially they need you I hope I get me too

I hope to cancel me so I can go be with my family so I can quit wearing this man's dog tell the people kiss my dog I hope they cancel me so I can go be with my family so I can quit wearing this nice dog tell the people kiss my dog

the board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.