The Bulwark Podcast - Jane Coaston: POTUS's Racism Notches Another Win

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

The "eating the cats and dogs" blood libel worked so well that SCOTUS agreed to end humanitarian protections for Haitians. Justice Alito, who complained about the way Italian-Americans were depicted ...in "The Sopranos," just couldn't see any racism in Trump's repeated disparagement of Haiti or its immigrants. By the way, Megyn Kelly: You didn't do anything to build this country. And while JD thinks Nixon's Watergate crimes are now no big deal, the federal government just sentenced an American to 30 years in prison for moving anarchist zines out of his home. Plus, Jane's nostalgia theory explains why Vanilla Ice thinks the early 90s were the best era, the white male obsession with Caitlin Clark, and the men who can't quit blaming the 19th Amendment for the country's ills.Jane Coaston joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.show notes Jane’s pod, “What A Day” Roy Cooper’s new ad The reporting on Rep. Hamadeh Tim’s playlist

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:13 Welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I am delighted, but not as delighted as you, the audience is. Welcome back to the show, host of Crooked Media's What a Day podcast, which is now daily coming for me. But it's shorter. It's shorter. Okay, you can do both. And she's also, as I mentioned yesterday, you people like her so much. She's the current record holder for most audio downloads of a single podcast. And I think it's just because people wanted her Melania take so bad. It's Jane Koston. Hello. It's good to see you, Tim. Jane, high bar for you to clear. I know, I know. Regrettably, we don't have Melania Trump explaining how we should have just read her book, but no one read her book. I'm so sorry.
Starting point is 00:00:51 I still haven't. I should have pulled a clip just for fun. We should have just done a flash at him. I had nothing to do with Epstein. How I met my husband, which I detailed in my book. And I'm like, no, we didn't read it. I did not do sex trafficking with Jeffrey Epstein. Okay?
Starting point is 00:01:11 Anyway, we've got a grab bag of fun Tim and Jane topics at the end. We are going to have to talk about Chud Catholic convert J.D. in the middle. At the beginning, we have to start with some angry news. Is that okay? Can we do mad stuff first? I think, yeah, I think that that makes sense. Because, I mean, there's a lot of angry news before we get into how Ushah Vance didn't have any issues growing up. And she doesn't really get what J.D.'s Odeal is, but that's neither here nor there. We'll get back to, I feel like I can call it.
Starting point is 00:01:43 That's kind of on that sort of nickname level. I'm trying to decide which thing I'm more upset about this morning. I think the thing I'm the most upset about is the Supreme Court ruling on the temporary protected status for the Haitians. We're going to do legal nerdery next week, but when we get all of the Supreme Court rulings in, and so I don't know that we need to go through the ruling of the fine-tuned comb. But, you know, in short, what the practical effect is is that over 300,000 Haitians
Starting point is 00:02:10 who fled horrific conditions in their country and are in America under legal status, have now been made illegal by the Supreme Court because of some Calvin Ball-style decision. And now they're subject to Mark Wayne Mullen and Stephen Miller and their goons. And who knows what's going to happen? So I've got some rage on this. I'm wondering what your reaction is. Yeah. I mean, there are a couple of things about this, because it's not just folks from Haiti.
Starting point is 00:02:38 It's folks from Syria. It's folks who are here on temporary protective status. And there's a split screen, which a couple of people have been sharing, I did as well, which is Samuel Alito saying, like, Trump's comments, you know, you can say anything about someone's country. You can just like dislike people's country. Like, whatever. It's fine. Like, so it's not racist.
Starting point is 00:03:00 And then you have, if I remember correctly, you have in her dissent, Elena Kagan being like, here is all of the things Trump said about Haitians and talking about how they're bringing AIDS, how they live in a shithole country, how they're just terrible people, how, you know, we should be able to get more people from Norway and Sweden. And it was interesting how Samuel Alito's whole thing
Starting point is 00:03:23 doesn't look like anything to me. And this is someone who once decried the sopranos for promoting anti-Italian racism. So like there's this weird, like, it's interesting because I just keep thinking about how like, The Supreme Court, the conservative justices on the Supreme Court, can see racism if it impacts them directly. Everybody else, they're like, oh, what, who? It's like if horse blinders work like this. And it's telling because I just keep thinking of moments in which people on the right have decried anti-white racism or what they believe to be anti-white racism,
Starting point is 00:04:01 which really just makes it so clear that there is a swath of. the American right that knows what racism is, but can only identify it if it is happening to them. Or I think maybe in the case of anti-Semitism, for example, like on Fox, they're like very keyed in on any signs of anti-Semitism if it comes from a DSA leftist. Right, right. But it just, again, you go like, you know, anti-Semitism on the right. They're like, who? What?
Starting point is 00:04:32 I don't know what you're talking about. I got nothing. And I'm like, yeah, you're, you're. your hands are in front of your face and your eyes were closed and you've just been going la la la la la la for the last several years or you've been saying like oh it's okay because you know i'll never forget the you know conservative commentator ben shapiro basically saying like anne colter may be anti-semitic but she likes is real so it's cool don't worry about it you know no need to worry about that like it's totally fine also you can say whatever you want about a liberal jew that's fine but conservative jew no not allowed here's the thing And like I said, we'll get more into the court stuff next week. But this is what people voted for. And this is what we were going to get when Donald Trump came back in. And it's a heinous, disgusting, un-American, like fundamentally on American policy.
Starting point is 00:05:22 But, I mean, it's what they campaigned out. This was not, they did not hide the ball. I mean, they campaigned on these people being kicked out of the country. They made lies about them. They ate cats and dogs. They wanted to pay a bounty. You know, Christopher Rufo offered a bounty for proof that Haitian immigrants eat cats and or dogs. This was a thing that actually happened.
Starting point is 00:05:46 Did he ever get that? Did he pay out the bounty? Unclear. I'm guessing no. I will also note that there's very specific groups that apparently were very mad about animal cruelty, and that group does not include white people who apparently can do animal cruelty all day long. There's kind of this overarching thing I have where it's like, oh, you know, you had on CNN last night somebody ranting about a Haitian immigrant who, you know, hit and killed a child in a truck or something like that. And basically just, yeah, yeah, which, I mean, one, the parents of the child went to a city council meeting, if I remember correctly, and begged people to not use their child's name as a political country.
Starting point is 00:06:29 But also, it's so obvious this idea of like, one. person did something that was terrible and horrible and awful and evil. And that's just one person did something. And that it's like, obviously this is, you know, endemic across this entire large community, which is just like such obvious bog standard evil racism. That's just how that is. Like there's a temptation to want to do a tit for tat of just being like, look, like clearly we don't care, you know, we don't care about criminality coming from any other group or. any other number of people. But to your point, this is what they campaigned on. This is what they said they would do. And there really is something about like,
Starting point is 00:07:13 there are people who can say in some ways that the Trump administration, you know, this isn't what I voted for. I didn't vote to go to war in Iran. I didn't vote for him to be obsessed with a fucking reflecting pool. I didn't vote for him to be obsessed with, I don't know, arches and ballrooms and be like,
Starting point is 00:07:30 you know, like, whatever the actual stereotype type of Marie Antoinette, who side note, seems like she was a fine person. It's fine. We can get into that as another conversation, but, you know, actual Marie Antoinette, fine. But like this, you knew. You knew the whole time. You wanted it to be the economy of 2019, and you said, this is also fine. So it's fine.
Starting point is 00:07:52 We're going to send these Haitian kids that are just trying to live a life in our countries or going to school, people that are working in the factories. And you have all these, there are all these anecdotes. I shouldn't even have to say them with people. that are going to work. People who have been here for like 16 years at this point since the 2010 earthquake. Like, I'm going to send them back to what? Well, also like the idea that this is somehow a good thing for us.
Starting point is 00:08:20 Like, it doesn't do anything good for us. It doesn't add anything to remove people from this country. It just doesn't, like this. Like it doesn't. It doesn't add anything. It detracts from us. And it detracts from who we are. who I want us to be more accurately, because this is actually who we are right now.
Starting point is 00:08:38 I have to give you a counterpoint, Jane. Megan Kelly, who's usually writing around us in the podcast rankings, so people are listening to that show. She had a different take than you on the Haitian immigrants, and I'd like to play that for you. Look, this has been going on for over a dozen years. Go home. Get out. We know our country's better than yours. That's because we filled it with our work.
Starting point is 00:09:03 ethic and our culture and our values. You being here only delusive for us, those who built it and live it. And half of you people, more than half, you won't assimilate. We don't want you. We don't care if you're offended. Get out. Go home. Go back to fucking Haiti. Sorry. I'm just, I'm thinking about our friends in Ohio who've been dealing with these TPS Haitians for years now, who are drunk driving all over their towns and killing people. This is the whole cats and dogs thing. Like, they don't want to live like Americans live. You know how Americans stand to thwart drunk driving. That is something Americans don't drunk drive. That's why there hasn't been a years long campaign to get people to stop drunk driving. And there isn't a little
Starting point is 00:09:52 device that sometimes court officers will put in your car that you have to blow into before you can start your car. Because Americans don't drunk drive. like what she is doing there, and this is kind of a wider thing, is she is vice signaling. This is like, yeah, fuck you. I hate everybody. I'm a terrible person, and I'm going to perform that because, oh, I'm just standing up for our friends in Ohio. Like, because, you know, Megan Kelly, who is an extraordinarily wealthy woman, who has been an extraordinarily wealthy woman for a very long time,
Starting point is 00:10:27 is also got her ear to the ground in Springfield, Ohio. because I am sure that she is spending a lot of time just with everyday folks in Springfield, Ohio. And I'm sure she's not just getting emails from people who are already mad about it, who are also listeners of the Megan Kelly Show. You know, she's getting like real deal contextual information from the good people of Springfield, Ohio. This is a woman who once complained about a trans woman appearing on Kim Petrus, pop star, appearing in Sports Illustrated swimstores. issue because she was upset because what if her sons wanted to masturbate to the Sports
Starting point is 00:11:07 Illustrated swimsuit issue and they saw Kim petrus and they couldn't do it wouldn't that be sad Tim wouldn't that be so sad it would be very sad I think you're kind of nice to Megan Kelly there because what Megan Kelly is doing is she's being a rancid bitch that's what she's doing I'm sorry like that is all she's doing she's like you can call advice signaling that's just the fan it's like the Winnie the Pooh in the Tuxedo version of what she's doing, but she's being a rancid bitch. And she, this notion, it's a performance for an audience that is like, this is what we want. Like, this is what we want to hear from you. We want to hear from you yelling at Mark Levine about his micropanus.
Starting point is 00:11:49 God knows what. And it will benefit you financially to do this. If it didn't, she wouldn't be doing it. And you recall, I mean, the thing with Megan Kelly specifically is that we have evidence of all of this because do you remember when she was working for NBC? Yeah, it was a totally different character. Totally different character. Totally different.
Starting point is 00:12:07 She was like loving trans children, having them on the show. Yeah. Yeah. This is like the soft morning mom after school drop off. Yeah, lots of clapping. Yeah. Clapping. She did the wine dancing.
Starting point is 00:12:20 But she is perpetrating a lie that is underscoring the tragedy that's happening to these people that are being sent back to Haiti for no reason. They're being menaced by our government for no reason. Either in the country working hard, going to church, raising their families. That's what was happening about most of the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. And like this idea, I'm going to, can I steal a line from Barack Obama? The idea that like there's this great American culture. And it's like, we built this.
Starting point is 00:12:49 It's like, Megan Kelly, you didn't build shit. Like, she has not built any lasting cultural touchdown. She's added nothing to the culture. All she's trying to do is rip the country apart, undermine what made America special. Like the idea that Haitians haven't contributed anything to American culture. Like, I am so. As a New Orleans resident, I do have to object to this notion because New Orleans is Alabama without Haitians. That's what New Orleans is.
Starting point is 00:13:19 Like the Creole culture is New Orleans. And like that, I think, has enriched the country quite a bit. It's added a lot of, you know, a lot of spice to the gumbell. You know, there have been a lot of great Haitians. Baskat, Blake Griffin. You know, there was the Pierre Toussaint. She might be familiar. She lives in New York.
Starting point is 00:13:40 She pretends to be a Catholic founder of Catholic charities. It's just like this fucking idea that it's like, oh, we did that. We did. She didn't, she hasn't done anything. She's just, you sit in your basement, in your, in your mansion, and you, and you yell at people for money. Yeah. No, there's something, you know,
Starting point is 00:13:58 a concept that I find, I mean, it's, you know, you see it across different groups, but it's kind of like a stolen valor thing. And this is stolen white people valor. Yes, correct. It's like, you know, my ancestors, I'm like, did they? Maybe they did. I don't know who your great grandma is. She probably contributed more than Megan Kelly has to the culture.
Starting point is 00:14:15 Yeah, but I don't know. You see this with kind of like, you know, like you get stolen penis valor where it's like, men are like, oh, we are all universally stronger than every woman. And I'm like, sir, I've watched, you know, I've seen you get better. by a large bag of rice at Costco. So like, let's just, you know, let's simmer down a little bit on this one. But yeah, no, it's awful. But it's awful and it's garbage and it's what we're doing right now.
Starting point is 00:14:40 And it's what we're performing again to the world. And, you know, I mentioned this on my show yesterday that, like, we have this simultaneous, like, people are here for the World Cup and everybody's having a great time and people are, like, getting along and doing stuff. And this isn't conservative media, too. For people who don't consume conservative media, like, this is like a big stick for them right now. It's like, everybody's getting along. To that point, including fans of Haiti's national soccer team, which they've not been able to play at home in years.
Starting point is 00:15:08 And you have Haitian Americans who are here supporting their team. They are, you know, they're celebrating. They, you know, they're having danceoffs with Scottish fans. Like, it's great. And it's like that is, and you have conservative media being like, yeah, everybody loves us. It's so great. But like, you got to get the fuck out of here. Like it's a fascinating duality.
Starting point is 00:15:30 It is. Our mutual friend Larry, nation, dissent, was that one of those games? I think he's brought more to the culture than Megan Kelly. 100%. You all know I love Souls Out of Office sparkling beverages for an easy way to unwind without drinking. And if you haven't tried them by now,
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Starting point is 00:16:54 go to getsole.com and use the code the bulwark. That's getsole.com promo code the bullwork for 30% off. Okay, let's move on to another terrible story. This is something I've been wanting to get to. This is really a nice protest in Prairieland. So it's like, it's kind of complicated and how do you say this? Like the victims of a story like are never pure. You know, you want your victims to be Mother Teresa.
Starting point is 00:17:19 The victims in this story did some things that were wrong. But the way that they're being treated by the government is fucking outrageous. It's also like the way that they are being portrayed in media, which is, again, it's outrageous. Yeah, it's all, you know, it's outrageous. And especially because, like, one, it's led to some of the most irritating people on earth gloating about it. But also the degree to which, so what we're talking about is. Yeah, let me just get the breakdown. We're actually talking about before we get that.
Starting point is 00:17:46 Sorry. Yeah, our fucking dander is up. Okay, listeners, sorry. Sometimes our dander gets up before we tell you what we're talking about. Fourth of July last year, protesters went to. the Prairland Ice facility in Texas for protest. It was disruptive. It was not, they were shooting fireworks. They were doing graffiti. They slashed some tires on the government van. You should not do that. They're asked to disperse. Many of them did not comply. A federal agent-in-a-wife pulled out a gun.
Starting point is 00:18:14 One of the protesters who had taken a rifle to the protest, second amendment, hell yeah, shot and wounded but didn't kill the officer that pulled the gun. You should not do that. the government prosecuted then, though, 22 protesters, not just the one. Including people who were not there. That's something that's important here. People who were not present for this event. Nine of the protesters were prosecuted under this material support for terrorism executive order that Trump signed last year, which is going after Antifa.
Starting point is 00:18:49 Which has gotten very undercovered. The reporter can call it. Clippenstein has been all over this. But yeah, it's gotten very undercovered. But yet. So they're getting hit with these terrorism charges. So these nine people, their sentence has ranged from 30 to 100 years. 30 to 100.
Starting point is 00:19:07 Many of the listeners got mad at me for what they considered one of my worst takes besides the decoration of the Oval Office, which was that I thought that the QAnon Shaman sentence was too harsh. He got like three years. Okay. These people got 30 to 100 years. for Antifa terrorism. The government alleged that eight of the convicted protesters
Starting point is 00:19:28 belonged to North Texas Antifa. In the case of one of the couple, the government relied on as evidence, they owned a printing press, story from like the weather underground, used to print anarchia zines. Yes. Anarchia zines.
Starting point is 00:19:45 One of the defendants, this is the guy you mentioned. Zines? I'll let you go. One of the defendants, which you just mentioned, Daniel, it goes by Des,
Starting point is 00:19:52 Sanchez Estrada didn't even attend the protest, as you mentioned. His wife did. She called him from jail after the arrest. The government recorded the call soon after he was stopped by police. He was moving a box of these zines from his home. The illustrations, there were stickers, you know, they had tattoo flash sheets. They're entered into the prosecutions, exhibit files. And now this guy has been convicted of terrorism for the zines.
Starting point is 00:20:20 Again, one, zines. It's extremely like 1993, which, okay, that's fine. Again, this person was prosecuted for moving a box of anarchist zines. I mean, I can't laugh. You want to laugh. No, no, no. You want to laugh because of the word zines because it makes me feel like we are having, like we're doing like a very special episode of Blossom.
Starting point is 00:20:44 Would watch that episode of Blossom, to be clear. But we are talking about someone who was prosecuted for terrorism, for moving a box of zines. And it's been interesting how this case is discussed in conservative media and in the media more generally. We're just like, ah, like, you know, they were colluding to do Marxist terrorism, which like, one, it is legal to be a Marxist, just like it is legal in the United States to be a white nationalist, completely legal. Now, will the FBI spend a lot of time listening to your first?
Starting point is 00:21:21 phone calls and trying to encourage you to like move guns across state lines. Yes. So remember, if anyone is excited about you doing crimes, it's always a Fed every time. No one wants to help you do crimes. That's like a really important lesson that I always want everybody to take away. Nobody wants to help you do crimes. But also, it's completely legal. It is completely legal to have a politics that I think sucks. It's totally legal. And the idea that this is doing anything to foment national security writ large is
Starting point is 00:21:56 mind-bendingly stupid. Like it just is. This is all happening also while there still is, to be clear, as far as I know, that MAGA slush fund for Jan 6 people, Jan 6 defenders, well, I mean, of course they will, they all make the point
Starting point is 00:22:13 of like, you know, somebody of them didn't even do anything. The cops just let them in and all this other stuff. And then they had to deal with like years and years of prison. Right. And there is a version of all of this. And I'm reminded of how, like, just after January 6th, you get, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green complaining about, like, jail conditions and a bunch of, like, libertarians being like, yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:34 Yeah. Yeah. Wow. You know. There were some people that got too harsh of sentences that didn't do anything on January 6th that just were there and walking around. That was, that is true. That happened.
Starting point is 00:22:44 That was not the vast majority of the people would happen. There were lots of people who were tasing cops. And then, you know, telling the victims of their sexual abuse of those people that they would be getting money from the government and they would just pay them off. That's a side note. So you have all of these people who are like, oh, you know, the government went so hard after us after this. And then you have this happening. And they're like, but that's fine. Do to do. That's all. Have we heard from Julie Kelly? Have we heard from any of the big activists on behalf of the January 6th choir? Have we heard from
Starting point is 00:23:18 Matt Gates? What about Marjorie? She's out? Have we even? heard from MTG about this? So maybe she might want to give MTG the matter for the doubt. If you have MTG's email or phone number out there, please ask her about this story. I don't. But like, this is crazy. No, it is insane. It's objectively insane.
Starting point is 00:23:35 When you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you believe that you have this thing, Antifa, you know, you have created it into being an overarching terrorist network, the likes of which we have not seen since, you know, al-Qaeda or ISIS, well, everything starts to look like evil Antifa al-Qaeda, ISIS, including someone moving a box of zines out of their house. Now, we could easily do this for any number of groups where, you know, they're moving white nationalist literature. You know, there's lots of that.
Starting point is 00:24:11 You have some guy moving like printed copies of siege or the Turner Diaries or any number of things like Atomvah and division, any number of these things. And I'm sure you would see people arguing many of the same people that, like, you know, it's not a crime to have these beliefs, you know, this moving this. The First Amendment's under threat. Exactly. Remember this whole thing about how my extremist views, my first amendment views are under threat because Facebook, a private company, deleted my post or canceled my account because I was posting. And that's why we have to get rid of Section 230 because, you know, life is very hard for me personally. This is a very commonly expressed view on the right, including by, like, the richest,
Starting point is 00:24:49 man in the world talks about this a lot. There's this great censorship. It's an attack on the First Amendment. This is a guy who's being put in jail for 30 to 100 years for leftist zines. Like, where the fuck is Elon? Like, where is that? Where is the outrage about this? It is, it's totally crazy. Attempting to foment race war in the United Kingdom. He's got a lot to do over there. And so, I don't know. I mean, the guy that shot the cop, let's see what the details are of this and all this. Obviously, this was very stupid. stupid. And this was not something they should do and you should be punished if it was in the law. But it's like for the same people that came to Kyle Rittenhouse's defense when he showed up to a protest with a gun that are doing the stand your ground nonsense that are talking about how their rights are being abridged by the government, like to now want to throw the book at like kind of some weird lefty guys that wanted to do earnest protests outside of the ice facility. I mean, I like, talking about the hypocrisy, I guess, is stupid. Yeah, no, I mean, it's a personal libertarianism.
Starting point is 00:25:54 It's like, I should be able to do whatever I want and you should have to do whatever I want you to. Say, whatever I say. Yeah, whatever I say. No, that's right. Yeah, that's it. That's really good. Okay. Well, I want to keep talking about this because, you know, unfortunately, we're going to need, I don't know, a July 4th, Texas choir probably for these people so they can get pardoned by President John Ossoff or whatever in 2029, God willing. but it's a fucking sick story. Really quick aside, I just wanted to mention another story. It's kind of hard to get everything happening in the news. But also this pretty shocking New York Times story about one of the Minnesota protesters, Paul Johnson. It's a couple days ago now.
Starting point is 00:26:35 It's according to Johnson. No reason not to believe him. Plenty of reason not to believe DHS. Johnson says he was, he laid for hours in a hospital bed in Minneapolis, Woozy from pain pills, and addled from the head blows that he said he received from federal agents. He was alone. He's unable to communicate with anyone. He was strapped in place by shackles on his leg.
Starting point is 00:26:57 He was there in the hospital for five days. And the story is, it's horrific. It's like monstrous. And they're just like examples of this stuff happening everywhere. It's interesting how you go back and forth. I mean, the overarching message I keep having over the last couple of years is that the people are full of shit this whole time. And so the same people who were like, you just can't trust the Biden administration. You can't believe with the government.
Starting point is 00:27:19 says to you, that kind of like new world order Alex Jones thing, where they're all like, well, DHS said that they were all very dangerous and that this is all 100% true. Well, no, this is the Tim Dillon line, which is like Alex Jones was right. It's just everything he was warning about it.
Starting point is 00:27:35 And he's completely fine about it. But yeah, no, it's a... Uncool. Well, I want to move on to one quick news item, just because I haven't mentioned it all week, is this housing bill drama? people haven't been following it. Basically, it's like the one bipartisan thing that Congress has done in the year
Starting point is 00:27:58 26. Great job to our friends on the Hill. Woo-wee. They've been working hard. They got in, they did like, I think a good 42 days of work this year in the Senate. I'm making the number up. It's something like that. Now, they got one bill, work together on it.
Starting point is 00:28:13 It's for housing. It includes some good stuff to. It's a lot of compromises. A lot of compromises. It includes a little bit of slop, popular slop. but that's what you've got to do these days to get things through. That's how, you know, you... And on balance, pretty good, Bill.
Starting point is 00:28:28 And it's funny because on balance, it was so good that you have Elizabeth Warren being like, yeah, and the Trump White House until, you know, everything changed very quickly, saying, yeah. And then, and then that changed. And even like some middle there are up here, like everybody is. So the whole... So I think I'd have like 40-something no votes in the house.
Starting point is 00:28:47 Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. So this week, Trump is, like panties are in a bunch because he's in a couple of pissing matches with random senators like Bill Cassidy and others and he's mad that the Save Act isn't passed. He thinks for some, he thinks that the Save Act's going to help him steal the midterms. I'm like skeptical about that. We could talk about that if you want, but it's a really bad bill. But I don't know. I don't even know if Trump really understands what's in it. I'm pretty sure Trump just thinks it's a,
Starting point is 00:29:14 this will help me steal the elections bill. Yes, which he keeps saying that even though like, just like one aside is that like part of it is that you know you would need a passport or a birth certificate to register to vote and i don't know and i think matthew glaces has made that point i don't know if trump knows who in america has passports just gonna just gonna say that i'm interested in that count i figure like if we can only do two compromise bills all year the housing bill and passport only voting are things that i would be interested in we'll put that tell me more tell me more i'd like to learn more about your passport-only voting idea. I'll just see how that turns out.
Starting point is 00:29:51 Let's you give that a test run. Because the save act hasn't been passed, Trump said, no, fuck it. I'm not going to sign your housing bill that his administration said they support it. They literally had like, all these House Republicans want is to get into a picture with Mr. Trump
Starting point is 00:30:08 and have them pat them on the head and be able to show the picture to their friends and post it on their Instagram so they can be like, see, daddy, likes me. That's all they want in life. Yeah, they want to go, And they want something to campaign on. They want something to campaign on because everybody's fucking furious.
Starting point is 00:30:21 Exactly. They're going to have to go, I mean, they're probably not going to do town halls because they don't want to get screamed at about how data centers are going to, I don't know, kill our children or something like that. They don't want to deal with this. Like, if you live in Utah, you're aware that that Kevin O'Leary data center has caused everyone to lose their minds completely and it's scrambling everything. You don't want to. You just want to be like, housing. We did it. You said you were worried about affordability.
Starting point is 00:30:42 Here. Here. We did it. They had this whole event set up. They had this. They're the flags. They had the stanchion. People, like, Republicans were showing up.
Starting point is 00:30:51 Republicans were, like, speaking at the same time being like, we did it, we did it. This is so awesome. We're so excited. And then Trump's like, no. Not going to show up to that. You got to do the Save Act first. So that went back and forth this week a little bit. Where it landed is Speaker Johnson showed, maybe like the tiniest little bit of stood up for himself, the wee little man.
Starting point is 00:31:12 And so they ended up just going ahead and, without fanfare, passing the bill. Johnson said he's going to, he sent it along to the White House, whatever. I don't, I don't, what do you have to do to do that? That was never a hell guy. I said this yesterday. I'm a little bit out of my depth on parliamentarian stuff. He said he transmitted it to the White House.
Starting point is 00:31:29 I don't know. Mike Johnson lives in hell. You got a hand. Mike Johnson lives in hell. So it's been transmitted. I don't know. My husband will tell me after the podcast how a bill transmits to the White House, but it gets transmitted somehow.
Starting point is 00:31:40 It's transmitted over there to the White House. Now Trump has 10 days. and he can veto it. He could sign it. They could do a press conference. He could do nothing. The bill automatically becomes law. He could do nothing.
Starting point is 00:31:53 If the house is not in session, then it becomes a pocket veto. Anyway, who knows? We'll see how this turns out. I think Trump is, Trump likes it as a cliffhanger for the next episode of the apprentice. And that's where we're at on the housing bill. Okay. Let's do some JD talk. Fun.
Starting point is 00:32:11 Huh. So, Where should we go first? You had mentioned the vice signaling with Megan Kelly. And what she was doing was an example of vice signaling, but maybe not quite as apt of an example as what J.D. offered yesterday. So the vice president was giving an interview at the Richard Nixon Foundation, and he has some updated thoughts on Tricky Dick.
Starting point is 00:32:35 Let's listen. I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, but I think deservedly so. as I joked with Robert backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency
Starting point is 00:32:53 is crazy. And by the way, if you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions,
Starting point is 00:33:08 tried to do to Donald Trump and the First Trump administration. There is a parallel. So you know, there he's at the Nixon Foundation. So this was a planned bit. Yes. He had planned it. It was like, you know what? I'm going to go to the Nixon Foundation.
Starting point is 00:33:22 And I'm going to talk about how Watergate, not a big deal. Most of our listeners are my age or older. Not at all. We appreciate all the youngs out there. And so they either remember, learned about, or lived Watergate. There are some who might not have. So I just want to give a quick refresher. Just a one paragraph refresher on what happened at Watergate.
Starting point is 00:33:41 Because I don't think J.D. Vance knows. That's the other thing. I don't think he has any idea what it was. Because the deep state did play a role. The deep state did play a role in Watergate. I just, the opposite of the role that he thinks. Right. So Mr. Nixon's aides authorized a break-in of the DNC headquarters to install bugging equipment.
Starting point is 00:34:02 They were going to bug their opponents. They hired some really motley characters to do this, and they weren't particularly good at their jobs. So they got caught. Then the Nixon White House enlisted. the CIA to help create a cover story, because news of this got out and their investigations into it. They didn't want the FBI. They don't want the cops looking into it. So the CIA were like, guys, don't worry about this. This was a part of the plan. We're doing some spying on some, terrorists. Maybe there are Antifa. Who knows? Okay. The whole operation was paid for by a slush fund
Starting point is 00:34:36 out of the White House. The chief of staff knew about it. The AG knew about it. They both were convicted, went to jail. The president knew about it. You know how we know? There were tapes. President was talking about it. So the president was colluding with the deep state to help him cover up his plot to spy on his political foes. That was Watergate. That's what happened at Watergate. So pretty big story, pretty bad.
Starting point is 00:34:59 I think, personally, if Donald Trump colluded with the CIA and the thing is, the more I say this out loud, I'm like, yeah, this seems like something he'd do. 100%. Like the, you know, hiring, I mean, based on this whole reflecting pool thing, yeah, he would hire a Motley crew to break into the DNC and install. But, like, all of this 100% checks out. But it also, like, like, the idea that that would just be like a 12-hour story. One, I don't really think that there are, like, 12-hour stories anymore. Like, I think that J.D. Vance desperately wishes that there were.
Starting point is 00:35:37 But, like, you know, we're still talking about Jeffrey Epstein for. example, Jeffrey Epstein is not a 12-hour story. Jeffrey Epstein has been a multi-year saga, and it's Donald Trump's fault. I mean, I guess Donald Trump keeping his classified docs in his bathroom was a shorter story than maybe if past presidents had done that because he's done so many other crimes. So, like, J.D. Vance is maybe accurate. I mean, it raised a lot of question. The narrow sense that it is true that the boss that he works for has done so many crimes that they end up not getting the attention that they might have got it in a past era. And then if they did Watergate right now, that it would get maybe less attention than it did for Nixon,
Starting point is 00:36:17 in part because they're doing so many other crimes, and in part because they have a massive propaganda apparatus that would have tried to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal. Like, that part is true. So he is correct about that. I don't know if it's the compliment that he thinks it is, really. No, no. Also, like, it's just funny because Richard Nixon, they're just like the right-wing rehabilitation of Richard Nixon, which has been going on for a while. Like, Roger Stone has, like, some giant Nixon tattoo.
Starting point is 00:36:43 Not very well also. I would like to object to that. I don't think that there's a renaissance. I don't. There's not a renaissance also because you just have to, like, if you're on the far, if you're on the far right, you just have to strategically be like, yeah, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and Nixon having his own cabinet of African-American advisors and doing a lengthy profile and interview with Ebony Magazine about how much he believes and wants to do more for African-Americans, and he thinks that Republicans have left African-Americans behind.
Starting point is 00:37:11 This is entirely true. You can go find that article. There's just a lot of stuff where you just have to pretend that Richard Nixon is the Richard Nixon of like the campaign of 1968 and also not the Richard Nixon of what his presidency did or anything else about him. And also the Richard Nixon who, again, hired dipshits to break into the DNC. Like, the break-in is not like, you know, obviously it's very interesting. But like if you follow like the TikTok of how all this happened, you're like, I think that the
Starting point is 00:37:46 quote from all the president's men is just, you know, from deep throat is pretty much like, you I'm paraphrasing, but it's basically like, these were stupid people and it just went too far. I used to know it. It got out of hand. It got out of hand. Got a hand. These weren't very smart people and it got out of hand. That's what I have in my memory.
Starting point is 00:38:05 I don't know if that's exactly right. But it's something like that. I'm sorry to be stuck on this. The vice president of the United States doing a bit where he's like, you know, this crime that a past president committed, where they tried to spot. on their opponents, they tried to break into their opponent's headquarters, they used the CIA to cover it up, not a biggie. Like, that is pretty shocking in itself. Like, that should be a 12-hour story on its own. Like, the vice, the sitting vice president of the United States, like, what he's signaling there is he's like, you know, we can do crimes. It's not a biggie anymore. We're post-crime
Starting point is 00:38:44 now. We used to be a country where people cared if the president and vice president did crimes. We're not that country anymore. Thanks to the greatness of Donald Trump. Thanks to the Trump Vance administration. The government can be corrupt and do crimes. And we're pro crime. It's a pro crime administration. We can do it. Now, people in the streets, if you're protesting with your zines, you can't do that, but we can do crimes. That's their stated position. Yeah, we can, we are pro us crime. It's, it's pro us crime. It's also striking like showing up at the Nixon Foundation and then talking about the most controversial worst thing Nixon ever did. It would be like going to like, you know, the Ronald Reagan library and being like a wrong
Starting point is 00:39:29 contra ruled. It was great. Also, remember how we helped to fund El Salvadorian right wing death squads that raped and murdered a group of nuns and lay people and then Gene Kirkpatrick lied about them? That was so cool. Look how great that's turned out. Things are going great in El Salvador now, right? While we're on JD, I've covered this quite a bit, but because, you know,
Starting point is 00:39:49 We have the Catholic thing together, and people just really loved your ruminations on, you know, your favorite epistles and saints, Eucharistic rites. Last time you're on, we should also just bring up the book discussed earlier this week. A key part of his conversion story is that God sent him an emissary from heaven to help open his eyes to the fact that smart people could be religious. That messenger was Peter Thiel. God works in mysterious ways. and he learned about Peter Thiel. He learned about René Girard.
Starting point is 00:40:22 He started doing some reading. And he's like, you know, maybe. Looks like I can be rich and bad. And Catholic. That's neat. And so he's gone on a faith journey simultaneously towards his faith journey to Trumpism. He's written a book about it.
Starting point is 00:40:40 His wife not on board. He's one of fascinating timing for a faith journey. Yeah, wife not on board. Just wondering if you have any thought. The Bell Hooks thing is also kind of weird. Bell Hook's first book was Elgy's second book Communion. That's his. So that is a strange subplot.
Starting point is 00:40:54 I just kind of wanted to give a let Jane Cook period in response to J.D. Vance's communion. I have, obviously, many thoughts on this. I will say, I'm not sure if I mentioned this last time, but the Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity was less obvious. Less of like, you know, like seeing the cross in the sky. and just being like, yeah, I got to do this in a related note. Like, it's really...
Starting point is 00:41:21 Honestly, I wish he gave me a miracle. I wish, like, honestly, this is insulting. I wish he gave me, like, at least jush it up a little bit. Yeah, no, like, at least like, I mean, it's just like, there, you know, there's a lengthy history of people converting to Catholicism for political reasons. You know, people have converted to Catholicism in order to gain control of Paris, for example, because Paris is worth a mass. But like, this may be one of the stupider ones.
Starting point is 00:41:48 Like, this like, oh, yeah, I conferred. And Rod Dreher was there. Like, I converted to Catholicism. And the timing just happened to line up for when I believed that a cultural Catholicism would be most politically advantageous. And that's not just me saying this. The Wall Street Journal was like, yeah, the conversion narrative seems a little politically incentivized, to which I'm like, yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:11 Yes. Yeah, perhaps. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it is a bit. But again, but actually, I want to get back to. To Usha. I want to get back to Usha. Because I think Usha Vance has, in the last couple of days, worked her way up to be, I believe, a comedy queen, unintentionally, I think.
Starting point is 00:42:33 Maybe. Can we play the clip of Usha that you're about to reference where she talks about why she has not converted in a recent joint interview? Well, I think in some ways it has been a very personal journey for him. I grew up in a household, a Hindu household, a very stable household, and I've not felt the same sense of need to seek something different that he has. So I think the journey has been more in our relationship, right? Trying to understand where he is, the different ways he's thinking about things, how that fits into the life that we have together and less a religious journey of my own. There you go. Deadpan.
Starting point is 00:43:10 It's just like... Deadpan. Yeah. My family wasn't. fucked up, so I didn't have this whole need to go into, like, you know, have a whole journey. I'm, we were actually just fine. Which, one,
Starting point is 00:43:23 I love that Ushah obviously knows that her family and her herself are targeted by some of the worst elements of human society and people on the right for being not white and not Christian. There are people routinely who were like,
Starting point is 00:43:38 ah, like invaders, bullshit. And I just love that she's like, actually, we were solid and stated. and normal unlike these fucking weirdos over here. Not like the white Appalachians. I was like people, my husband has been saying that it's created some issues with,
Starting point is 00:43:58 you know, continuity in the country. You know, having all that. No continuity issues in our house, our Hindu household. Just my parents. It was good.
Starting point is 00:44:07 We ate Indian food, vegetarians at our traditions. I'm very, I'm very successful. I've done. all the right things. I didn't need like a satanic tech demon to be a spiritual guide for me because I was spiritually fulfilled already.
Starting point is 00:44:23 And has an energy that says a lot going on here that I don't need to know more about. Didn't need any of that. I'm all good. Yeah. Which again, I respect her for just having the like, actually he's the problem. Yeah. Which, you know, I respect that. I will respect that.
Starting point is 00:44:42 You know, like, people make choices. And I respect that. Have you suffered through any of communion? No, I have not. I'm good. I'm good. I want to make you. Can I give you an assignment?
Starting point is 00:44:53 I kind of want to make you. Oh, okay. You can give me an assignment, but adult man converts to- I will read two chapters if you provide me with a copy of this book without me having to purchase it via using currency because adult man- I didn't read either. Producer Ansela you read it and created a document for me. Okay.
Starting point is 00:45:10 So we're going to send you some select bites. You just send me whatever you'd like. I love adult man converts to Catholicism and you'll never guess why. To be continued on that. Do we want to do politics stuff? We're going to end with the Tim Jane Popery. Do you have any deep takes? I have here on the DSA wins in New York and DAC, Chivalier or do you take?
Starting point is 00:45:41 And I've wanted to get to the Roy Cooper ad all week where Roy Cooper is just like, there's all this discourse out there about how the Democratic Party's becoming socialist and going off the deep end and weird. But I'm Roy Cooper. And I'm just a good old boy for North Carolina. And you know what I think? I think criminals should go to jail. This is Roy Cooper. And I have a message.
Starting point is 00:46:02 And it's like he's winning by numbers not seen in North Carolina in decades. For one thing, I think, like, others have made this. point. I think that like New York, I know, holds a massive place in the American cultural and global cultural imagination. And it's been interesting to see how like these elections have for like, either either if you're supportive of them or if you're like terrified of them, you're like, this is the future of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, you've got lots of other people running and lots of other places where they're just like, we're doing something very different. And that's fine. I think that it is important for Democrats to be like,
Starting point is 00:46:42 we run where we are and we work towards what we need. And so like something that, you know, to DAC, there was some reporting talking about how there were a couple of people who mentioned that they voted for her after a moment in which during a debate with her primary opponent, they asked like, oh, you know, how often do you go to the Dominican Republic? And she's, you know, I haven't been in a couple of years.
Starting point is 00:47:10 You know, I'm here. And her opponent was like, oh, I go all the time. And, you know, people were like, why would you go all the time? And it kind of gets like, do you remember during Mamdani's debates? This is the best number of the debate, where everybody's like, when are you going to go to Israel? And it was like, I'm not going to leave New York. I would be mayor of New York. That's like, that's my job.
Starting point is 00:47:30 That's the New York. That's the thing. I mean, I am not Jewish. That is a experience. We've covered that. Yeah. But the degree to which people, you know, Jewish Democrats voting for Bradlander, who is a Jewish Democrat, and people are like, you know, he's a coppo. He would be, like, what was the quote from the Republican gubernatorial candidate that, like, he would be running a concentration camp?
Starting point is 00:47:57 And it's just like, it's interesting. Actually, somebody has been running a concentration camp. And like, you'll never guess who. We sent people there. That's what I don't think it was Bradlander was protesting it, actually. is what happens. Yeah. And it gets at, like, you know, I made this comparison that, like, you know, the right gets very mad about, like, how sometimes people, Democrats talk about black conservatives. They've gone, I hate this term because it's repulsive, but like, oh, they've gone off the plantation or something like that.
Starting point is 00:48:24 And there is a degree to which you see this kind of like, hey, why are you making decisions I don't like? And, like, it's a weird dynamic. there's something, I mean, to the point with the Roy Cooper ad, where it's just like, North Carolina is not New York. Now, I think that what you saw in New York and what you're seeing in a lot of places is that Democrats are like, hey, stuff's really expensive. We should do stuff about that.
Starting point is 00:48:51 Yeah, and we're sick of the old, we're seeing this Colorado right now. Stuff's really expensive, and they're just sick of the old politicians that don't feel like you're doing anything. Yeah, I mean, that's something, like Michael Bennett's coming back to Colorado right now, and he's getting the Janet Mills treatment here, like giving this gubernatorial run.
Starting point is 00:49:04 It's like, I think that an understated thing about the platinum Janet Mills thing is that Janet Mills is 80 Yeah, right. Like people, I mean,
Starting point is 00:49:11 it's been talked about but maybe not enough. Like the gerontocracy thing is real. Yeah, I know. I mean, here's the thing. It makes for good discourse.
Starting point is 00:49:21 There's legitimate concerns about the views in particular that Chivalier has and I think that there's legitimate concerns about rising in December as we cover that a lot. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:31 To be clear, also, the whole thing of like, like, interracial marriage, like being against international marriage, but like leftistly, I'm like, girl, like, and just as a general thing also, this is kind of an underappreciated part about the campus protests. It's like, like, she was there and she's in the, I was like, she's 30.
Starting point is 00:49:51 I mean, like, okay, like, you're allowed to go to school for 12 years if you want, get a doctorate. I have nothing against anybody that wants to do that. But it feels a little bit against the spirit of the campus protest to be a 30-year-old as a key campus protester. One man's opinion. Anyway, closing the loop on Roy Cooper, I just want to offer, because we have a lot of discussion. You guys do it crooked. What should the Democrats do in the future?
Starting point is 00:50:13 How do you win? And I know that what we want to be true is that people want to be inspired, that we need a new path forward and some creative ideas that will make life better for people and we can aspire to a better politics. And I hear all that. But maybe it's a 350 electoral vote win just to be like, I'm. I'm Roy Cooper. And I think we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. And I think we should put criminals in prison. And I approve this message.
Starting point is 00:50:46 And I was, maybe that's good enough. Seems like it's doing pretty well North Carolina. Democrats haven't won North Carolina in a while. Roy Cooper just wants to follow the golden rule and make sure bad guys are behind bars. Don't hate it. All right. Here's the popery. We're not going to get to everything.
Starting point is 00:51:04 Podcast has already been long. Okay. I've created eight topics that are. in the Tim Jane Hobby Horse. And we'll go back and forth until the podcast is over. We won't get to all of them. We want to leave people a little bit. Something to want to come back for the next time.
Starting point is 00:51:17 Okay. Topic one is Caitlin Clark Discourse. Topic two is Jane coasted nostalgia theory is evidenced by Vanilla Ice. Topic three is the anthropic economist talking about the log utility of human beings. Topic four is Congressman Abe Hamaday, Republican from Arizona's interesting living arrangement. Topic five is Haralbob, famous gambler and podcaster and sports team owner. He wants to repeal the 19th Amendment. Topic six is a Jane favorite about how Republicans want to start prosecuting women who have abortions. Topic seven is Brandon Sorsby's gambling scandal. And topic eight is Diana
Starting point is 00:51:56 Rossini's love affair with Mike Vrable. Eight great topics. We're not going to get to all of them. You want to start? No, you start. You're the guest. You pick the first of the eight. Okay, so Coasta Nostalgia Theory. I will start there. Okay, great. So, Coasta Nostalgia Theory, and it has proven time tested, which is a funny way to refer to it. Do you miss this time, or were you young and or hot at the time? So, Vanilla Ice, you remember?
Starting point is 00:52:27 Can I read the quote? Do you have it in front of? Yes, I want to read the quote of Vanilla Ice, and I believe it was in the Atlantic, or we got friends of the Atlantic, did some important reporting on this. and vinyl ice is one of the like two people that said that they would go to Donald Trump's stupid fare. He said this, I am complete American through and through all my bones to every TV show to blockbuster videos to ripping our back seats out and putting in subwifers to having Z, Kavarici pants, to even having a bolo. You remember what a bolo was. Yes.
Starting point is 00:53:02 So the article makes it clear that Vanilla Ice believes. that the early 1990s were the zenith of human civilization. Now, could it be... Well, it's a great time, good time? Pretty good. I was six, so... And I was not good at being six. I think, just to preface this,
Starting point is 00:53:23 I am the kind of person who, like, I was born to be between the ages of, like, 35 and 38. Okay. Like, that's what I was meant to do that. I was meant to, like, read the New York Times and complain about it. Like, that's what I was meant to do that. It's just that people don't like it when you do that when you're seven.
Starting point is 00:53:38 They get very annoyed by it. Anyway, so Vanilla Iitz reached his personal zenith in the early 1990s. Most fame. He was dating Madonna. He was like in the teenage mutant. Two Madonna, two people who dated Madonna mentioned in the show. That's interesting. He was in a teenage mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
Starting point is 00:54:00 I mean, that's, you know. Go ninja, go, ninja, go. But he had a great time. And then he stopped having such a good time as the article details. And it makes total sense to me that he would find the time at which he was young, hot, and really famous to be incidentally the greatest time in American history. And he is not alone in thinking that. And like I love, and you can tell this because when the greatest time in human history, has slowly moved forward as people get older and talk on the internet. So if you read the comments
Starting point is 00:54:41 on different centrist, right-leaning, left-leaning websites, the commenters all tend to be, in general of what I've seen, like from like National Review to the free press or even like left-leaning sites, the commenters who comment a lot all tend to be in like early 70s, which means that they were in their 20s in the 70s, like, you know, just about. Right. You will never guess when they think the greatest time to be alive was, Tim. They believe firmly that the greatest time to be alive was like 1977. I consider myself to be an amateur cultural historian.
Starting point is 00:55:22 I happen to be aware that in actual life, 1977 was not a great time. in America. A lot of problems. We had some blackouts. We had the son of Sam. Stagflation. A lot of stagflation, a lot of issues. My favorite example of movies that if you didn't really know what they were about, you'd think we're super happy, but they aren't. Like, Saturday Night Fever is actually an incredibly depressing movie banging soundtrack. But like, it is telling when people talk about, you know, and you see this with comments, like, there's a lot of internet slop about, like, remember how great things were? Nikki Haley did this. Like, do you remember being a child and how free and awesome things where we're just going to get that back.
Starting point is 00:56:00 And I'm like, well, you can't because people can't be 10. There's a user on Blue Sky who talks a lot about like everyone is 12 theory of just people, just attempting to get back to like being 12 or, as I'd argue, when they were young and hot. And it's like everything is centered around when people were young and hot. The cultural norms, like, oh, you know, when I was 22, I was young and hot and dating all these people. I don't understand why Gen Z isn't just doing that. I'm like, well, you are not 22, and your memories of being 22 might be a little laugh.
Starting point is 00:56:35 So, Coaster Nostalgia Theory never fails. It's always correct. I love Coaster Nisthology Theory, and it isn't. There's the exception that proves the rule, and it's a handful of people such as myself, who have Peter Pan syndrome. And here's the thing. This allows us the, we get a thick skin against, you know, having to deal
Starting point is 00:56:59 the consequences of coasted nostalgia theory. It has its own side of problems, and some of the commenters on this very podcast have mentioned that they noticed some of the negative side effects of Peter Pantha. Nobody gets out of this world without some issues. But I was listening to Joe Rogan yesterday first time in a while, and he has,
Starting point is 00:57:16 it was just a classic Costa nostalgia theory. He's just become grumpy old rich guy now. There's no Joie de vivre. There's no love of life. There's no joy in the podcast. It's just him bitching about how L.A. isn't as cool as it used to be. And it's like, you know.
Starting point is 00:57:30 And you'll never guess when L.A. was at its best. When he was hot and young. And it's like, you know, here's the way to avoid that. If you want to do the Steve Buscemi, how do you do fellow kids meme? It might look embarrassing, but it makes you stay current. Because for me to acknowledge that the past was better
Starting point is 00:57:49 would mean that I'm not having a good time now. And it's important to me to pretend as if I'm having a better time now than I was having when I was 22. And in order to do that, I have to look at the positive things that are happening in society. And there are many because in any culture, there are going to be some good things and bad things happening at the same time. And so that is how I combat coast and nostalgia theory. I think other people should look into it.
Starting point is 00:58:13 It's very important. Top of it, which one should I choose? I'm going to choose Abe Hamaday because I've received so many texts about this. He's a congressman from Arizona. The errand shock of our time. I'm so excited. If people do not know Congressman Homiday, I would just recognize. recommend you just Google him really quick.
Starting point is 00:58:28 It's just important to just get a visual of who we're talking about. I've got to meet Abe several times. I was kind of the de facto circus correspondent for the state of Arizona during, God, I don't know, Times Flat Circle. What would have that been the 22 campaign? And so I was in Arizona a lot, was covering Arizona. He's been a figure. It's always been.
Starting point is 00:58:49 I've always had some questions, but I don't, I'm not an outer. I'm not, you know, I think everybody should live their truth. So I was interested to see the story. came up today, or yesterday rather. And I just want to read a little bit from it. First term Arizona Republican, Abe Hamaday, had been living with a senior male advisor at his Capitol Hill residence.
Starting point is 00:59:06 People describe the relationship as closer than a typical member Stafford dynamic. The Stafford had been a realtor previously. On May 5th, 2025, Hamaday, Ms. Floor votes while on vacation in California with the staffer, a trip he posted about on his private Instagram.
Starting point is 00:59:21 So, people are asking me, what do I know? I don't know anything besides what is in the story and besides what I can see with my eyes and what you can see with your eyes if you Google it. And so up until the moment where Abe Homiday sends me a dick pick in DMs, I'm going to assume that he is straight and having a really weird relationship with the former realtor that is a senior staffer in his office. And I'm taking no further questions at this time. Jane, do you have anything to add? I would just say that at no point is living and having a close relationship with senior staffer good. I think that that goes across all orientations.
Starting point is 01:00:04 I think we can all agree. There's a version of the story in which the senior staffer in question is a woman, and I'd still be like, well, that's screwed up. Don't do that. None of it. Also, again, part of the reason why I make the Aaron Schock comparison is because there's a real looks-maxing thing going on here. And also because the Aaron Schock story, maybe one of my absolute favorites.
Starting point is 01:00:23 It is a congressman brought low, brought asunder by an interior decorator who, so this is like 11 years ago. So Aaron Schock, representative. He has redecorated his office. And Washington Postreparter is there to do something. And the interior decorator is also there. And she's like, hey, do you want a tour? And that resulted.
Starting point is 01:00:52 And it was a Downton Abbey theme. It was a Downton Abbey themed, which I, you know, again, not casting aspersions, should have been a tell. You might be stunned to know that Aaron Schott came out like several years later. He came out. Yeah, now he's like an instigay with muscles. And he got into a weird, there's a weird Venezuela scandal with him. He's trying to get in on the Venezuela cash. Of course.
Starting point is 01:01:12 Much love to people of Venezuela, by the horrific earthquakes. Absolutely. But yeah, the interior decorator brought his entire political life down, which is funny. All right. We're over, but I don't want to, don't want to deny people six of the topic. So we'll go rapid fire on the final two. We each get to pick one. Short. We're going to have to just try to contain ourselves. And we'll leave the other four for a future date. WNBA, AI Utills, 19th Amendment, prosecuting women, Brandon Sorsby, Diana Rossini, Jane Custin. What's your final choice? WNBA needs to do a better job of cutting down on fouls. They've been trying to, but not really. Also, it's telling whenever people, talk about Caitlin Clark. It's always people for whom I'm like, can you name other white, heterosexual WNBA players? Or any WNBA player. The Kayla Clark discourse pisses me off so much because it's like, hey, maybe it is true. I try to watch the WNBA. My complaint about WNBA is like the
Starting point is 01:02:07 season timing is weird. I'm a prime possible audience member. And it's, I do make it kind of challenging for me to get into it. I'm doing, I think that the market, like there could be ways that they could improve on the marketing side of things. It's a fair critique. And I will also say, like, their games are blowing up, like the, you know, viewership is up. Everything's up. They're doing great. They have all these old white guys.
Starting point is 01:02:28 The degree to which. They're like, hey, I don't watch the WNBA, but they seem mean to Caitlin Clark. Boomer O'Siessen did a rant. It was like, girl, Caitlin Clark should go to Europe because the WNBA is too mean to her. I was like, do you know any other WNBA players, Boomer Asiason? Also this idea of like, no, oh, like Caitlin Clark should go start her own league. Does Caitlin Clark want to do that? No, she does not.
Starting point is 01:02:47 She does not care about any of that. But the WMBA needs to do a better job of fouling because it's not just a K. and Lynn Clark issue. Like there was like an Angel Reese, Brittany Griner wrap up a couple of months ago, like, or a couple of weeks ago that was like, the fouling issue was a problem. They have either been calling no fouls and then things go really hard or they're calling too many fouls and the game's goes slow. It's not great. But also there's lots of interesting and great play going on. Shout out to the Washington Mystics.
Starting point is 01:03:11 I have one more thing on Caitlin. Okay. Caitlin Clark. My daughter is Caitlin Clark Jersey. Watched out in college. I'm more into college women's hoops. I kind of only know the players if they were famous in college. And I Googled this because I try not to on this podcast and on Twitter make race, rage-baiting comments about things that I don't know anything about.
Starting point is 01:03:32 Which is like the entire Caitlin Clark discourse. People that know nothing about the league that, like, have decided that people are reverse races against her. I Googled it. She's currently the second leading score on her team. They're in third place in the conference. It's like, okay. That's pretty good. That's fine.
Starting point is 01:03:46 It's good. And she's just, she's kind of like the Jamal Murray right now of the DAWNBA. It's like, and that's okay. And on the actual numbers. And so we'll see how it turns out. And I feel like if the Indiana fever win the championship and she has a Jalen Brunson run, she's going to get lots of love. The whole thing is crazy. The whole, this idea that people are so.
Starting point is 01:04:07 It's absolutely ridiculous. And it also like the degree, like, I am bound to say this. The lesbian phobia just jumps out where it's just like, All the evil lesbians are just coming at her, like, bunch of them. Do the straight girl. Yeah, like this point, yeah, because there's no other straight women. And also that, like, it's just, it is indicative where it's like, you know, there's a permission slip people write themselves to be lesbophobic because it's like, no, no, no, no, I'm doing
Starting point is 01:04:35 it because I'm defending someone. Yeah. Defending women. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. May such cases. I do also want to jump, speaking of defending women and defending just like normalcy. there's like to our gambling mavericks owner repeal the 19th guy
Starting point is 01:04:51 who actually he then shared that he lives in a principality with an actual prince who doesn't care about democracy anyway there's been this kind of boomlet not just him of people talking about repealing the 19th amendment a thing that will not happen can i just pull up his tweet and if we're going to do it we should at least pull the because it's important to read it me and her alba have gotten to a couple of fights at social media he used to be on the bill simmons podcast he's now owns us he's on pablo troy show He owns a soccer team in Europe. He was a Mark Cuban guy.
Starting point is 01:05:18 So he's a figure for people who are kind of in, pay attention to that world. All right. He was replying to somebody talking about how terrorist sympathizers are taking over the Democratic Party naturally. He goes, this is a direct result of the 19th Amendment. It permanently altered the electorate, empowered the politics of emotion over order. Because that's what I think of when I think of Trump. No emotion. Accelerated the march towards open board.
Starting point is 01:05:44 Welfare, stateism, and the erosion of every traditional institution that once made the country governable. Democracy went wrong when it made the lonely individual, the basic political unit. The family should be the unit of representation. One vote per household and all the households raising children. You will be surprised to learn that Haralbav has not found a mate. You will see him frequently sitting courtside at NBA games with young looking women, which great. Good for him. Hot young women.
Starting point is 01:06:12 but he has not found a mate. And I don't know. I think that's just an interesting fact to mention in connection to his opinion about the 19th Amendment. It's interesting that people are deciding that it's, you know, it's been 106 years since the passage of the 19th Amendment. And then they're like, this is the issue. This is the problem here.
Starting point is 01:06:31 So I'm like, so we need to conclude that like every election from 1920, like, you know, things really, Herbert Hoover? Okay, now they're best president. but like every election since that. The greatest generation. Like the every, every midterm election. Like, you know, the election of 1948 or the election of 1952, like, oh, if only women hadn't voted then.
Starting point is 01:06:55 I want to meet the people also who are, want to repeal the 19th Amendment when something they do like happens. Like, it really is just the most like, fuck this, I'm taking my ball and going home argument. Like, one, it will not. never happen. It's like tankieism, but somehow stupider. Like this idea of like this politics that is so pure that and so perfect that it will just simply never happen. But also it like, it's telling that like, could I convince women of my political views? Because lots of women vote for Republicans. Lots of women are on the right. Fewer than they used to be. I wonder why. But it is telling
Starting point is 01:07:37 that the idea of like, oh, you know, we cannot, you know, women are just too emotional. to understand how important it is that we vote for extremely emotional Republicans. Like, Republicans who just rant and rave all day emotionally on the Internet. Like, we just can't. It's like a failure of imagination. Like, there's just no way we could convince these people to vote for us. Like, I mean, that's, it's loser talk. It's like we can't win, so we just won't.
Starting point is 01:08:06 We just won't do it. And it's, you know, I will point out, there's a National Review piece from, a couple, like from after a momdani one that actually made this point that, like, Democrats are trying to reach out to young men. It might not be working in a lot of ways, but, you know, I think that they're getting better at it. They're working on it. There's a whole thing. Republicans have basically decided, like, we just really don't like women. Like, we just don't like them. I would prefer they don't vote. And then they basically want, they basically want to neg women into voting for them, just being like, oh, you know, you, like, we don't like women except for like these
Starting point is 01:08:41 specific women who all talk about how terrible women are. I mean, it kind of goes with the like, we're going to punish women who have abortions thing, which everybody and their dog could have seen. Like, you could see this in the conversation about, like, even in conservative writings, the reason why they don't support, imprisoning women for having abortions isn't because that would be evil and wrong,
Starting point is 01:09:00 but because the polling is bad. Like, you know, if it were evil and wrong, like, then that was, you know, the whole house of cards were full down. But it's like, no, no, no, we can't say, We can't do that. The polling is bad. And so now you have all these people in the right who are like, well, you know, it just makes sense. And I'm like, you know, I wrote about this in 2022. Like how will we punish the women who have abortions? Like, you know, that was when the leaked up decision came out. And there was actually a national review piece that was like responding to that question. And the answer was like, well, that's never happened. So it just won't. We just don't even have to think about it. It's just so far away. We don't even have to think about it. And now the only answer you get from the right on this issue is it would be unpopular to do so. Not that it would be wrong, but that it would be unpopular. Once again, these people are ridiculous.
Starting point is 01:09:46 This is all very stupid. And women are cool. All right. So, well, I agree with all that. I will leave you with this. We won't do any takes because I'm just going to leave you with the quote because I think it speaks for itself on the AI U-Tells topic. If you're concerned about any of the topics, me and Jane have been discussing today,
Starting point is 01:10:01 I've got something to ease your mind for the weekend. The new economist at Anthropic did a paper a couple of years. ago that included this summation. In other words, with log utility, it is optimal to take a one in three chance of ending human existence in exchange for a two and three chance of dramatically raising living standards by a factor of 55. So, great, great, guys. Two-thirds chance that everything's going to be wonderful.
Starting point is 01:10:36 Milk and honey, unlimited bounty. One-third chance, we're all dead. We'll see you all next week. Thank you to Jane Koston. Appreciate you so much. Now you can see why you're such a popular guest. We'll be back next week with some less popular guests in the lead-ups to our 250th anniversary.
Starting point is 01:10:55 We'll see you all day. Bye, Jay. Thanks, Tim. Bye. If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it. Check out of the hook why my DJ revolves it. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer, Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anseley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz,
Starting point is 01:11:26 and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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