The Bulwark Podcast - Jane Coaston: We Have Some Questions, Melania

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

No one was really asking about Melania’s ties to Epstein. But after her surprise White House statement to the press on Thursday, the questions are flowing—particularly because a former Brazilian model who moved in both Trump and Epstein circles is posting threats against the First Lady on social media. Tim and Jane break it all down. Plus, Melania does not speak or read English very well, Trump is furious about Tucker & co.’s opposition to the Iran war, Vance’s motives for converting to Catholicism are disgusting and unchristian, and why would Iran permit Saudi-paid Jared to participate in the Islamabad peace talks? Jane Coaston joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.Jane Coaston joins Tim Miller for the holiday weekend pod.show notes JVL and Catherine LIVE on the not-so-great economic news  Tim's deep dive on Oscar Romero was in this episode  Tix on sale soon for The Bulwark LIVE in San Diego on May 20 and in Los Angeles on May 21 Follow "Bulwark Takes" for breaking news over the weekend Tim's playlist

Welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to give you a vacation episode of the podcast. I'm here in Indio, California. I'm in the desert. And so I needed to find a California buddy to come on the show with me. And I mean, the content gods have blessed us with very vacation-friendly material. She is the host of Crooked Media's What a Day podcast.

Couldn't be happier to welcome back. Jane Coastin, Go Blue, for fresh off the Michigan Championship in your sweatshirt. Yep, yep. It's been great. successfully fixed my Instagram algorithm to only give me material about Michigan doing things that I like. Like, it's funny how Instagram at a certain point you'll just keep giving you what you want to see. And sometimes that can be like really bad because you'll click on one depressing thing and it'll keep giving you more depressing things. But right now it's just all good Michigan vibes and

things about running and like other stuff I'm into and nothing that I need to not know, which that's why, you know, I have to check Twitter for all the things I don't want to know. I had some school parents tell me that they were upset because they didn't really know that I was a content creator. And then all of a sudden I came up on their Instagram. And so they're like, oh, that's interesting. So they started watching me. And so like now all they're getting is never trumped content in their reels. And they're like, I need to retrain my.

She's like, I love you. I need to retrain my algorithm. And I was like, please, my feelings won't be hurt. You know, do what you need to do. Yeah, they don't need full Midas touch in their, in their, in their, in their fees. As mentioned, you know, I'm going to be a little loose today. All right. I'm already mentally out on the polo grounds. And so luckily, the first lady of the United States, Flotus, gave us, I think, something that we can really just, just kind of experience altogether.

You know, I want to, I want to marinate in our Slovenian first lady. She summoned reporters yesterday to the White House to give a surprise statement about Epstein. Nobody knew what it was going to be. nobody knew why they were being summoned. It seems like her husband didn't even know that she was going to do it, if you believe him, which is a big if. I don't know that I can, I'm adept enough at creative writing and creative speaking to explain to people to paint the picture for people.

I think it's like beyond my limitations. And so I think we should just watch it together. How does that sound? That sounds great. Okay. Did you experience this yesterday like I did with people texting, like your phone going like eight texts of what is happening right now? What is that? What is Melania doing? Is that how you experienced it?

I experienced it live in the cricket offices because we had televisions on. Oh, wow. And I watched a group of people, including the young men of Pod Save America and our beloved colleagues, all watching this, trying to figure out what is happening and why is this happening? Like, there are lots of moments in politics where someone, like, tries to answer a question no one asked, and then thus leads to more questions. there's lots of examples of that. Like, I feel like Eric Adams did that like twice a week.

But this was, I think, the most prominent example, especially because it was coming from someone who is noted for very rarely speaking. Yeah. The, I was not introduced to my husband by Jeffrey Epstein. And I didn't know anything about his crimes. And all of the other things she says during this event. It was a real, like, all of these things I am saying on my T-shirt really, raise a lot of questions about why I'm wearing this t-shirt kind of moment.

It was. So I'm hoping that you have a little bit of extra clarity now after 20 hours and of being able to sleep on it. Let's watch Melania together and we'll just kind of annotate it. Feel free to jump in. You see anything that catches your eye. I never been friends with Epstein. Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and town. Okay, let's stop there. Let's stop here. We'll stop here.

Let's pause. So we begin by saying I've never been friends with Epstein, which, as you said, is very much a, like, my. Again, this is like, we are starting from the jump. I also appreciate that she knows we don't need to know which Epstein. We are not thinking like, oh, Mark? No. No, no, it's not. Also, like, I'm aware that this is just a vocal cadence thing. So, but it is interesting. She's like, yo, we're overlapping social circles, which is very common. It just, someone wrote this for her. Like, there was a team of people. She's got staff. She has a team of people who wrote this. And I want to know everything about them. Yeah. Everything. Well, it continues to get a little bit weirder, but I just, what a lead, you know, to just get out there. Some of the.

the press. Yeah. And just be like me and Epstein, not friends. Let's continue. To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell. My email replied to Maxwell cannot be catarized as anything more than casual correspondence. Okay, let's stop it there. That's up.

Okay. This is not true. We should just say, you know, she comes up and she's like, I made a polite reply to Gleine Maxwell, but that's not right, actually. She emailed Maxwell proactively and used in terms of affection. She signed at Love, Melania. Also, no one was asking about this. Like, this was something like, we, I was kind of aware that there was an email,

but I was kind of like, you know, there's a lot of emails in there. I was wait, yo, there are other people, other fish metaphorically to fry in his emails. No one was like, let's really focus on this one. But now I have, again, I didn't have questions. And now I have so many questions. Yeah, right. As you mentioned, the, I'm not linked to the serial child sex trafficker T-shirt. He's raising a lot of questions that are already answered by my T-shirt.

Okay, we will press forward. I have some theories about why she's actually doing this. now nobody knew, we're putting things together. You know, here in the Airbnb, I have put up kind of like an ad hoc cork board. And we'll get to that in a second. But I want to hear a little bit more from the first lady about what she had to say to the nation. My polite reply to her email doesn't amount to anything more than a tribal note. Okay, I'm sorry, we have to stop here for a second.

I got in trouble on this yesterday. Okay, I got in trouble about it. A lot of MAGA people are mad at me. So even my own friends are mad at me. But as I was watching this, there are many things that are going through my brain. But as I watched that moment where she talks about how her email to Gleine Maxwell was nothing more than a tribal note. I was like, tribal, what she's trying to say? Trivial.

Trivial. Trivial. Trivial. Trivial. Trivial. And I do just have to say her English has gotten worse. Her English has gotten significantly worse. And, you know, we have, I'm sure, immigrants listening to this podcast.

My husband's trying to get rid of his West Virginia accent. He's doing pretty well. Not judging anybody based on their accent. I mispronounced sovereignty yesterday on the podcast. That happens. But I do think at a global level, like the movement that is a sensibly an American first movement, that is obsessed with talking about a. assimilation and wants to deport 100 million people and is trying to, you know, ensure that the country is more homogeneous.

It is pretty strange that the wife of the president representing that movement can't speak English, really. Like, she's reading a speech. You forget that the movement has a exception for models or former models or people who could model. The model exceptions are really big asterisk here. They're English-speaking models. That is very true. English is quite poor. She's been in the country 35 years.

35 years. Like, there are a lot of people have been in the country far less than that who have learned English. She could get a tutor, you would think, down at Mar-a-Lago. What else is she doing? Like, she could practice. You don't have to say anything about this. I'm going to leave this here. You don't have to say anything about this, Jane.

You just take a sip of your drink. All I'm saying is that sip of your drink that you're doing right now, that is what all of the prominent media figures in America were doing after I sent that tweet yesterday, because I had the largest discrepancy between likes that you now can't see anymore, that they're secret versus retweets. Like, my plane landed. And it was like, you have 342 likes from priority Twitter accounts. And you have three retweets.

So people don't like to talk about it. People don't like to talk about the fact that the first lady can't speak English or read English very well. And I'm just, you know, I'm just observing. I'm drinking my lacroi. Just observing it. I just would like it to be noted for the record. Let's continue. Let's continue.

I am not Epstein's victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband by chance at the New York City Party in 1998. Pause. Quick pause. I had to Google this when it happened. He was married in 1998 to the second life. I should just say,

should just say, continue. This initial counter with my husband is documented in a detail in my book, Melania. We didn't read your book, Melania. We didn't. I understand that you're annoyed

because you did detail this in your book, but we didn't read your book. I think we could all admit we didn't read the book and I did not watch the Amazon documentary. I'm so sorry. I'm aware that there was homework. I didn't do it.

Tim Cook, Jim Cook, watch the documentary. There's five more minutes of it, but I feel like you get the gist at this point. I mean, I'm not sure. Like, the word Epstein, it's one of those truisms and communications that if somebody levels an accusation against you

that is untrue, then you're pushing back against it. You're not supposed to repeat the accusation. This is like Crisis Communications 101, because then people have video of you, repeating the thing that you're saying that you didn't do. And it's like, she's like, I did not know Epstein. I was not Epstein victim.

I mean, she talks about Epstein and Maxwell more than than anyone from the administration has talked about them for the entire term. That is, again, why I completely believe that Donald Trump had no idea about this. Because I would guess that they speak, what, like twice a week? Like, unless something's going on with Barron. you know, Barron's starting a Yerba Mata company. Like, you know, maybe they'd have to talk about that. But like, I would imagine that there are communications.

When I was a kid growing up in Ohio, all of my perceptions of what New York was like was based on movies. And I assumed that New York couples just had like two giant bedrooms on opposite sides of giant apartments. And they would just sort of interact in the middle somewhere. Because apparently I thought everybody was a was a was. I don't know. But this is how I assume that they do. everything. So like Trump not knowing about this, which he said, that I completely believe. 100%. I, you know, saw some reporting that the press who were gathered for that didn't know

what was coming up. And then everyone like Fox News is like, why were we here? What's going on? And now Fox News today is like, you know, Melania, she's got a team of lawyers. She's ready to go and I'm ready to go for what? Where are we going? I'm excited. Luckily for you, I woke up early this morning and I've been going deep into a rabbit hole in this. So I will answer that question. But first, on the matter of whether Donald and Melania speak. Famously, Donald Trump does not like interpersonal conflict. I know this is a very strange thing for people to understand. No, I could see that.

Yeah. I could see that. Yeah, that makes total sense. He loves making fun of people on his bleats, on his social media. We're going to get to that. He loves attacking people in performative WWE settings. But in his personal life, he does not like conflict. And so I think he basically lives his life just like trying to ensure that Melania

isn't mad at them. So that means talking to her as little as possible, that's fine. And if that means she's just going off and doing stuff, Donald's not calling her, I don't think, afterwards and being like, babe, what was up with that? Like, did you have to do that? Did you run that by me? No, that's not, that conversation isn't happening. Maybe in like a month, he'll do the Trump thing, whether I get a table of 10 people at Mar-a-Lago and there's some other cougars and some cabinet members and maybe a spy at the table. And he'll do like the past regress. It was like, that was kind of strange when My wife did that, didn't it? Wasn't it?

But he won't be talking to her directly. That's how he deals with people. Here's what we got. Here's what my research has developed this morning. At that party in 1998, where Melania met Trump, allegedly, according to her book, Melania, she was introduced by a man named Paolo Zampoli. He is an Italian supermodel agent. Okay.

Naturally. Are you aware about the other scandal that he's been involved in over the past month. Oh, yes. He's working very hard on or has successfully, I believe, gotten his ex-wife deported. Yeah, let me read that for people. Zam Poli, a former modeling agent turned presidential special envoy, naturally, reached out to a top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement,

explaining that his ex, Amanda Ungaro was in the country illegally. He asked the agent if she could be put into ICE detention because, that could help him get his son in their custody battles. Tim, I'd also like to back up for a second. How old was this woman when they met? I didn't get that far down the rabbit hole. You tell me. Let's just double check because I believe.

Let's effort this. Yep. Tell us things litigious. Let's get it right. I have verified this within New York Times. I'm going to guess 19 and a half. She was 17 and he was 32. Well, Megan Kelly support.

That's not really pedophilia. It is not, but not good. Her agent at the time was Jean-Locke Brunel, who is an alleged procurer for Epstein, and they sat at Melania's table during dinner at Trump's first inauguration. So these are just fun little pieces of information. So at the inauguration was an Epstein model procurer, as well as the man that introduced, Melania allegedly to Trump, who was also a model agent slash procure, who met his then-wife when she was under 18. Got it. Her and Melania were friends. I want to do a little bit more on

what's happened here. So this ICE official called the local agents in Miami and detained Amanda Ungaro, the aforementioned 17-year-old, had been married to Trump's friend, Paolo. She's since been deported to Brazil. Angaro has been posting a lot on social media lately. lately. Amanda, from Brazil, they still do have the internet down there. Here are a couple of recent tweets at Melania. I will tear down your corrupt system, even if it's the last thing I do in my life. I will go all the way. I'm not afraid. Maybe you should be afraid of what I know of who you are and who your husband is. She also sent a tweet at Pam Bondi, asking if she fully understands the extent of the information she possesses regarding the individuals associated with her.

and that includes some pictures of a very young-looking Melania on that tweet. And supposedly she has taped an interview with Spain's El-Pay, airing this weekend. So I think that we've uncovered why Melania gave the impromptu press conference. Her old friend, Amanda, her old modeling friend, who was procured by an agent when she was underage and then married the agent and was since deported by the agent using his access to Trump. that woman is aggrieved and apparently has some things to say. You would have done none of this research. You would have been preparing for a festival experience, the likes of which you had never had before.

If Melania Trump had not said, you know what? Correct. We should talk about this. But we should also not talk about this. We should also be very obtuse. Like the level of opacity is just like. Right. I would not be currently following Amanda.

Angaro on social media. If it was not for that press conference yesterday, I would not have seen those tweets talking about how she will go all the way to ensure that people know who Melania is and who her husband is and what they did back in their Playboy days. So we'll see. Melania does say, we should mention, that she's calling on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein a public hearing. And I think that she's going to get her wish next year when the Democrats take control of Congress. We'll see how that turns out. for her. I want to move on to her husband, unless you had anything else on that. Nope. There's so much, so much in that to delve, but that's for later.

I mean, that's like 22 minutes, I think. There's something to that effect on Melania. That's more, more Melania coverage than she's received since I took over the podcast. So I guess mission accomplished on the press conference. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Financial Stress can affect us more than we know. Financial Stress affects far more than our bank accounts. they can take a serious toll on mental health and relationships with 88% of Americans feeling some form of financial stress

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That's better help.com slash the bulwark. Trump problems with the magapodosphere. Those also started with Epstein. So there's a little bit of a connection here. I was interested. A lot of the magapod guys are mad at them and women. Tim Poole yesterday posted this. He's the fellow that like wears a little beanie all the time,

even in the summer because he's bald. And he is always prepared for Civil War. He's always prepared for Civil War. He posts a lot about Civil War. Yeah. Anyway, he posted this, dude, in all caps. What if it turns out it was Trump the whole time with Epstein and the Democrats had nothing to do with it?

Wow. What if that was quite, that is quite the breakthrough? That's something to think about Timpool. Why did Timpool send that? Well, in part the Melania Press Governance, but also the Trump, this Trump, this Trump bleat. It is very long.

But it's kind of important that I read most of it. So before I read, you know, get comfortable, have your LaCroix. But do you have any thoughts on this Trump bleat before we get to it where he goes, full bore, whole hog against the MAGA commentators who are upset about his Iran war? I would just like to note that the great Abby Philip and others have provided endless berole of him saying, how amazing all of these people are. He loves and has cared for all of them. It has said at one point that they're all great.

And he thinks all of them are awesome until about what, like 24 showers ago. Does he shower that often? I don't think so. According to Adam Kinzenegger, he really smells bad. We talked to yesterday and Applebaum about how he does, like, how his experience of relationships is like that of a baby who does not have object permanence. Like the relationship is a relationship just based on whether that,

person has been nice to them in like the very second that they're in front of his face. So I think that explains some of this. Okay. Here we go. Dramatic reading of the Trump leap. I know why Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the number one state sponsor of terror to have a nuclear weapon because they have one thing in common, low IQs. I'm just going to pause there. Maybe we learn a little bit about while I, Melania's English is so bad. You know, I host a daily podcast where we have to quote the president quite a bit.

One of the most challenging things is there's kind of a general thing in news that if it's the president, you can't edit him. So you can't do internal cuts of the president, which is really hard when the president writes like beat poetry. Right. Like at no point in the phrase that you have you have just said or in the next, let's say, you need to go about another one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine words before you get to a period. Well, I skipped those nine words because I can edit him and I was trying to condense this as much as possible. So we're going to skip those nine words, move on to the next sentence. So just to start, in case you guys are just make sure everybody's following.

Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly, Candice owns Alex Jones, have one thing in common, low IQs. They're stupid people. They know it. Their families know it. And everyone else knows it too. They've all been thrown off television, lost their shows and aren't even invited on TV anymore, the most important thing in the world, because nobody cares about them. They're nut jobs, troublemakers, and will say anything necessary for some free and cheap publicity. Now they think they get some clicks because they have third rate podcasts, but nobody's talking about them. And their views are opposite of MAGA. or else I wouldn't have won the presidential election in a landslide. Maga agrees with me and just give CNN 100% approval rating of Trump, not hand-flailing fools like Tucker Carlson, who couldn't even finish college. He was a broken man when he got fired from Fox, and he's never been the same. Perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist or crazy Candace Owens who accuses the highly respected First Lady of France of being a man when she is not and will hopefully win lots of money

in the ongoing lawsuit. Actually, to me, the First Lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace. In fact, it's not even close. These so-called pundits are losers. I don't return their calls because I'm too busy on world and country affairs. And after a few times, they go, quote, nasty, just like Marjorie, Trader Brown. But I no longer care about that stuff. That's the president of the United States.

And you didn't even get to the Megan Kelly thing. Yeah, I skipped over. I was trying to focus on the highlights. Yeah. A lot we can get into here. One, all of this is, like, I think Tucker Carlson has been in regular contact with Trump, visited him, like, twice in two weeks, is constantly around. I think it's important to get at something, because I think that I've seen this error be made, which is that he is 100% correct that MAGA agrees with him. I think there have been a lot of people, including Tucker Carlson, who believed, who believed that MAGA represents.

represented something that was larger than Donald Trump. That has never been true. I actually wrote a piece for National Review in 2017 arguing that I know, I know. Do you still get any requests for pieces from op-ed pieces from those boys? Sadly not. But, you know, my door is always metaphorically open. But, like, there had been a lot of people, and you recall, there were a lot of people who have projected things on to Donald Trump for years.

And he's the most yes-and president ever. Like, he will agree with whatever. it is and then just sort of ignore you for a while. I think he's doing that a lot less now. But like in his first term, it was kind of like, we're going to get health care for everybody. And I'm the most pro-LGB president ever. I also love evangelicals. I also hate bombing, but I'm going to bomb the shit out of everyone. Like, it was a very like, if you wanted something out of him, he was going to say he would give it to you. And so I do think that there are people, including Tucker Carlson or Kandah Soans or something like that, who are like, when he says all

this, what he means is like he supports me personally. Can I just add one other thing to that? In addition that Trump is 100% right, that MAGA is just a Trump cult, I think that there's some other parts of like America First. We talk about that, people who aren't like the MAGA, the core MAGA. But I also think Trump is just, you never have to hand it to Trump or ISIS. But Trump is also 100% correct in his criticism of these people. The best part about this debate for me is that Trump's attacks on Tucker are correct.

And Tucker's attacks on Trump are correct, which is nice. Neither both of them are bad. Both of them have many other wrong views. But when speaking about each other negatively, they both manage to have moments of lucidity. And that's nice. I also think that it's interesting that Trump has all of these people over a barrel and he knows it. Because all of them, Megan Kelly literally said like Trump could drop a nuke and I would still vote for a Republican over a Democrat because God knows why. like Tucker Carlson is like, oh, you know, I still love him.

He might be the one exception. Does he have truck car over the barrel? I don't, I don't know. There's a poll that came out today that Tucker is a fave on fave in the Republican base, which is kind of interesting as 31 fave, 24 unfaves. That's like pretty high on fave for Tucker. Well, I mean, his favorability has dropped. If things keep going worse, though, could Tucker start to find something?

Yeah, his, uh, his favorable has dropped among Republicans by 47 points. So it is, he gets positive favorability with Republicans. but it has dropped dramatically. Yeah. I think Trump is aware that people want to use him for things. And he is fine with that until he's not fine with that. Tucker, in my view, wanted to use Trump as a vehicle by which he could get his specific wasp populism into politics. His view that, you know, there are too many people here, too many brown people.

Why want all the brown people leave so he could just fish and fish. peace. And, you know, whatever Candace Owens has going, which has been deeply concerning for a really long time, and Republicans should have seen it, but Republicans cannot resist an African-American saying, you were right the whole time. They can't do it. They are physically unable to do it. It can't be done. And so, like, they were real vulnerable to that. And the Meg and Kelly, you know, she was on NBC and then she got a podcast and then she just got mad. But, like, I think, that there have been a lot of people who have attempted to use specifically Tucker, as I think there's a very smart person on Twitter who I'm looking at their tweet right now who said a lot of

people, especially on the left, who put a lot of stock in seeing this man, Tucker Carlson, as a cipher for what MAGA believed and as a glimpse into its future should be reevaluating things to say the very least, which I think is true. Like I think that Tucker believed he was using Trump. Trump believed he was using Tucker. And I only think that Trump was correct in that. Like in the relationship here, one person was actually getting used and it wasn't, it wasn't who they thought it was. There's a lot to disaggregate there. But there's one important point that you're making that I don't think I'd talk about enough, which is that the message that Tucker is offering right in this moment is actually more appealing to like anti-Israel anti-war leftists than it is to the median Fox viewer. Right. Oh, 100%. Right. And I'm just talking about this just purely based on like, who's been more likely to share a Tucker Carlson clip in the last three months?

Wow, you're not hearing this from anyone else. Right. Like somebody who's on the far left that doesn't like the Democratic Party and has some obviously legit, you know, critiques of Israel. Like somebody like that being like, wow, even Tucker is saying this strange new respect for Tucker? Like that, is that person more likely to have shared a clip recently or, you know, your 60 year old? Is that something? even Boomer anymore. I don't know, Gen X, Boomer, Cusper, uncle, you know, who just like watches, you know, Brett Baer and Sean Hannity. Like, who's been more likely to share Tucker? Like, obviously left. And so that, I think, is important for just both analyzing, like, what is happening in our politics. But, and it's also important because I think it's a little dangerous, because I'm worried that Tucker's appeal to that group on the left is going to take people down a pretty bad pipeline that also kind of puts a damper on this idea of like Tucker's going to take over the party it's like maybe i mean he's super talented and if this war like really goes belly up

like really bad then like Tucker's maybe going to be the person sitting there holding the bag and you know that happened right for Trump essentially right like Trump was you know ended up kind of being the beneficiary of the fact that eventually the entire Republican base just turned on Bush and Bushism. So if that happens for Trump, then Tucker's definitely sitting there looking pretty. And so is MTV. But as of right now, like, that hasn't happened yet.

Like Trump is losing his podbrow base and the young men base that he brought in. Like he's not losing the core Fox base, at least not yet. No, I think it's important. Like MAGA is, again, MAGA are the people who don't just go to the concert. They're like buying merch at the concert, like the $40 sweatshirts where you're like, you know, you could find this. on mine. Like, it's way cheaper if you find it somewhere else. Like, they are fans of Trump.

It is a, I mean, it's a stand relationship. And it's one that's so contingent on what Trump wants and Trump's whims and not like, oh, what can I get out of him? Every couple of months, there's like, oh, you know, will Maga turn on him? No, that will never happen. The thing is, like, the people who voted for Donald Trump is a much wider slice of the voting pie than MAGA. It just is. Like the percentage of like hardcore mega people has never been and will likely never be that big. But there are lots of people who kind of go in and out and in and out. We're like, you know, I voted for Trump for the specific reason. Or, you know, in the first term, it was I voted for him because of judges.

I voted for him over abortion issues. I voted for him over these specific things. Like it was. A lot of times illogical things. Like I supported him because I was mad about what the libs did during COVID. When it's like Trump was president during COVID. but whatever. Like, you know what I mean?

The time space continuum is apparently irrelevant here. But there was like a sense of a transactional relationship between you and the president. Yeah, right. And I think that Maga does not have that. Maga, the transaction is he exists. I am given fulfillment. That's all I need. And so I think the challenge is that like, yeah, Tucker Carlson has a massive audience,

but his audience is, I think, increasingly more people who hate both parties. but especially hate Democrats because it does seem to be that kind of people, I'm sure you've seen online there's that amazing graph that's like, whose fault is it? And it's like, did Republicans do it? Well, it's probably a Democrat's fault. Like, it's just the degree to which like Democrats are responsible for absolutely everything while Republicans are just sort of like. Right. They're the of agency. Right. I do think one of the things in the post was a lie. I need to correct something I said earlier where every critique that he offered of Tucker and Alex and Megan was correct. because when he said about Candace that he, to him, actually,

the First Lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace. I am going to have to call bullshit on that. I don't know that Trump's dick works anymore, but I do think that if he was forced to choose, you know, who to watch Shark Week with, I find it hard to believe he's going to pick Brigitte McCrone. I mean, I think that Trump is lightly. afraid of Brigitte Macron and I would 100% there was that whole incident where she like allegedly

slapped her husband on a plane and they got off the plane. It was so good. It was so good. So I am staying out of all of that. The relative, the relative attractiveness of anyone involved in this conversation is that is a that's a I'm, I'm, that's a drain. I'm not circling. No thank you. You're an observer of the human condition. I'm an observer of the human condition. I just don't need to comment on the human condition all the time. But, like, I have been, for one thing, quite entertained by Alex Jones being like, we got a 25th Amendment him. Like, you know, his ankles are swollen.

He is out of his mind. God must get involved here. Like, I've only seen, there have been only a couple of times in which Alex Jones has been genuinely befuddled by someone else's insanity. It's this and the time Kanye came on a show. Right. That's the most baffled I have ever seen Alex Jones. For the record, like, what Alex Jones does is performance art.

He has admitted that in his divorce proceedings. He thinks of himself as a performance artist. But there are a couple of moments where I think he is genuinely baffled by another person being performing insanity more so than he is. And this is one of those two occasions. One of my favorite bits recently from kind of like, again, like bro podcast world. Just be clear, Trump is losing ground with like those people. Right. And like I think it's Tim Dillon.

And one of these guys has like Alex Jones was right bit, but everything that Alex Jones predicted in the 1990s, Trump is doing now. You know, it's like there's going to be, there's going to be an evil company that was started by a homosexual that spies on you and knows everything that you're doing. He's like, yeah, Alex Jones nailed that one, but it's Palantir now and Trump is doing it, you know, and it's like all of the, you know. Well, you've seen the video of Alex Jones being like,

I don't understand why everyone's so worried about Palantir. Like, I think it seems fine. I think it seems totally fine. I think it's great. I love security. I think it's like it is on the long list of things that I will never move on from. The degree to which the Jade Helm people so totally brought into like, actually, I love Jat Helm. We should be doing more Jat Helm.

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your membership. All right. We have a bunch of other stuff to get to, so we're not to have to rapid fire it. We just, unfortunately, like I told you at the front, we're just going to have to marinate in the Trump podcast wars in Melania. We do have some actual news, actual Iran War update. So I'm going to rapid fire through that. Trump bleated this morning.

Iran is doing a very poor job. honorable, some would say, of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. Shocking, that that wasn't a trustworthy partner. And that you're made up agreement. They were not abiding by. Kuwait dealt with a wave of drone attacks overnight and blames Iran and his proxies. Israel and Hezbollah continue to exchange fire this morning. And we have weekend peace talks in Islamabad with J.D. Fiance, obviously, the closer.

We'll see how he does with Jared Kushner and Whitkoff. Should be noted pretty strange that Jared Kushner is still going there, given he was in the situation room with BB at Netanyahu when they were plotting the war. And he's also on the payroll of the Saudis. I don't really know why the Iranians would feel good about having him as a counterparty in this negotiation. But there we go. So that's what's happening with Iran. Any thoughts? I think this is going just as one could predict.

I want to be clear about something because I do think that there was a point that was made by some folks, I think, far further left than I am, that there has been a tendency by people in the liberal sphere to be like super opposed to this war, but also kind of imply that Trump is a bitch for not bombing the shit out of Iran. I'm thrilled that we did not end Iranian civilization. I think that's great. I would, this war has been dumb from the very beginning. This war was dumb when people were starting to contemplate it last year, which I think that there's an argument to me made that the Israeli government was kind of like thinking about this in a way when we obliterated Iran's nuclear program. I think there have been a couple of prominent Democrats, including Chuck Schumer,

who kind of said like, oh, you know, Trump got, you know, worked on this, which is true, but also fine. I don't want this. I don't want this war. I don't want to do any of this. It's terrible. Yeah. Right now,

the attack, the attack on him is not that he's a bitch, is that this is really stupid, and it's going to harm people here and abroad, and it's a betrayal. Like, that's the attack on it. It's incredibly dumb.

All of this is dumb. Like, my point is not like, oh, you know, I'm so, I'm so mad that we did not do this horrible thing Trump threatened to do. My point has been to, Which is that this war, I think, is unjust and evil.

It is brought on for, as far as I can tell, like, no real reason. I've heard there have been the great Jud Legum who runs fantastic. Yeah, fantastic substack. He compiled that there have been 17 reasons given for the war on Iran, and a lot of them kind of contradict. Like, I like that we've just kind of pushed past regime change. We're like, no, there is a new regime. And I'm like, I don't think the dude's son counts as.

regime change. Well, and the reports from Israel's intelligence is that the guys in charge now are more hardline. Yes. That's what they're saying internally. Which would make total sense if you had witnessed your entire family get murdered as the new Ayatollah has, based on the evidence we have. You know, he saw its father. And be emboldened. Yes. They are now murdering protesters at a faster rate. A lot of people use this logic for Trump, which is he went and did the stupid thing because he was so confident about Venezuela. And like, isn't that the same thing happening with the Iranians over the straight. Like this has been a success beyond their wildest imaginations.

Like they're simultaneously pissed and enraged that their family members, you know, they've people that died, right? But also, too, they're looking at this and they're like, shit, we really can close the straight. I mean, we always said we could, but we didn't really know. And like, yeah, we can. Yeah. Again, Iran doesn't have to win.

They just can't lose. Like, the winning, that's not, that's, like, I'm aware that we've, like, eliminated their Navy and all this other stuff. But, like, they're still there. And also, I think like... It's kind of like one of those buy games at the beginning of the college football season. You know, it's like the spread is, you know, Ohio State minus 56 and a half. And so, you know, you can still lose by 55 and still get your money.

Yeah. And so I think the other point is that, like, I think Trump doesn't believe other people believe in things. So he thinks everything is kind of a business transaction. And the point I've been making is that, like, you know, I think Eric Erickson, conservative commentator, made the point that, like, Trump was trying to do, like, the madmen theory of, like, I'm going to say this stuff and they'll come to the table. And I'm like, if we have been told for nearly 50 years that the Iranian regime is illogical, the Iranian regime wants nothing but martyrdom and the death of Israelis and Americans, why would they respond to a thing everyone knows Trump does? You know, you heard that over and over from conservative commentators after that ridiculous post. about ending Iranian civilization. Like, oh, no, no, he doesn't mean, is it negotiation tactic. Don't, didn't you read Art of the Deal?

And I'm like, so if everyone knows this, wouldn't the Iranian regime also know this and kind of be like, well, either. I like Melania, the Iranian regime can read, you know, so they could have read Art of the deal. They probably are aware that either he is going to give up and kind of like make up something and give him two weeks. Or he will do something. And they don't care.

Because as we have been told for 47 odd years, they are a regime that does not care about their own people. So, like, what are we doing here? Like, but I want to be clear here, this is not a like, oh, you know, Trump tacoed. Great, fantastic. We love to see it. The war is evil. It should not be happening. It's more that, like, this entire thing is so stupid.

Correct. To that point, the economic fallout, I still think is worse than people have wrapped their heads around. the what's going to be happening with it. Catherine Rampel and JVL are now doing kind of a little Friday live stream whenever we have economic news. So people can go check that out today. But just really quick, we'll let Catherine get to the nerdy stuff. But the consumer price index showed inflation jumped to about three and a half percent

compared to the same time last year, almost a full point higher from February's pace. Consumer sentiments hitting a record low. As mentioned, I landed in California last night. The gas prices, boy. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how people live. Like, I don't know how working people I can afford to go anywhere. It's real high. It's real. They're real high. Yeah, it's rough. So anyway, I think more on that, that just long story short, I think this thing is going to continue to unravel for him on the economic standpoint. I wanted to do a little potpoury with you on other random stuff out there, Jane. You know, other things of mutual interest that we have. So I have a bucket here called Catholic stuff. both Catholic school kids. You did you take off social media for Lent again this year?

I know that's a tradition for you. I did. I did though. People were you posting during the basketball? Were you posting basketball? No, I did not. I did not post during the March Madness. There were a couple of times in which I saw something incredibly stupid and responded to it.

And I was like, just like Jesus in the desert. Did you get a confession? I did not. I did not. I think that I am. now the dreaded phenomenon of like a cultural Catholic. Yeah. Due to the whole homosexuality thing, I don't really do.

Yeah. Same. I go to church. I go to a great United Methodist church, though I do spend a lot of the time being like, you're doing it wrong. Because we were raised Catholic and like we remember how it's done. I do have the kind of the Catholic sensibility still because once you're kind of baked in it, you can't get out.

It is something internal that is just a part of your. cultural soup that you swim in that you i'm sure when you go to the methodist church if i go to you know a non you know catholic or non-denominational church and always like it feels wrong there are things that just you can't even put your finger on exactly what it is but you're just like this is not correct this is not how things are supposed to be done and that is why i was the one that flagged as soon as jd vans's book came out and the cover of it had a picture of a obviously waspy church i started slacking everybody at the board and I was like, can we figure out where this church is? Because this is not a Catholic church.

And it's not the biggest deal in the world. This isn't the biggest scandal in the world. It's like if you're going to write a book about how you converted to Catholicism, it is pretty strange to have like the image on the cover of the book be something that, like someone that is a Catholic would look at that and feel like a visceral, like, this is wrong. This is wrong feeling. And I, you know, it's just like, no, that's not our people. That's not our people, actually.

That's their people. We love those people. It's fine. We love everybody, you know, on God's earth. But you said you were wanting to become one of us, and that's not it. But I think to that broader point, the current Michigas between the White House and the Vatican has been continually of interest to me. I have a theory on you that I want to ask for you. So you can riff on this.

Are they trying to do a schism? I just, I have a few data points. Yeah. Supposedly, and I should just say in the interest of not doing fake news, I don't. don't trust the free press. The free press was the first outlet that reported that, you know, there was the ambassador of the Holy See, came to the DoD and met with Trump officials. And they, like, threatened, you know, the Pope and said, if you don't get on board, like, we're going to do an Avignon papacy. We're getting all this stuff. I did totally believe that there is a convert

dork in this administration who would reference the papacy of Avignon. I totally am like, there's somebody here who's like, the Western Schism could work for us. I'm like, it didn't It worked for them. It did not. Well, and so, yeah, and so there you go. But so, and maybe that happened or maybe it was joking or who knows, but there's been some pushback and whether or not that actually happened. Whatever. We know that, like, that type of attitude was around.

We also have Peter Thiel doing his anti-Christ lectures. Bannon was on this for a while, you know, going to Italy, trying to mess in internal affairs of the Vatican in favor of him. Something about the American Post. not being one of them, being a bulwark pope, has, I think, created some sort of psychological break. I don't know how serious they are about it, but I do think that there's interests in creating a schism. I think they want a maga Catholicism that they want to create. I just think that that is something in which you have gotten, the degree of high in your own

supply you have gotten if you firmly believe that that would even be a possibility that people are looking for, you know, a new Vatican in Destin, Florida. Like, as I, as I mentioned on my show today, like, the Catholic Church has been, has had like multiple murdered popes, at least one murderer pope, a couple of schisms, dozens of wars. The church has been around since, arguably, for 2,000 years, arguably, depending on how seriously you take, you will be the rock of my church comment by Jesus Christ. So, like, the idea. that Maga could be like, I know we've only been around for what, 11 years roughly, and be like, I think we can do this. Like, if you're the Vatican, you're like, oh, like, you've got, you have

vestments older than this. You have actually, you do. You have vestments that have lasted longer than this purported movement. So much of this goes to adult converts. People convert to all sorts of religions for all sorts of reasons. My mother was an adult convert who converted and were at to marry my father because my grandma had one rule and that was it. My sister-in-law, welcome aboard Abby. Yep. So she did what they used to call RCIA. They don't call it that anymore.

They changed the acronym because they keep changing things. They don't call it RCAA anymore? No, it's like, no, I, anyway, not the point. I know. It's the and with your spirit thing that we, none of us have moved past. I hate and with your spirit. It's end also with you. But there is something people do when they convert,

to religions as an adult, which is natural. And they're especially converting to Catholicism and doing so very publicly. So there are two pieces to this. One, people convert because they think the religion confirms stuff they already think. So you see this when you see all these excited articles about how all these conservative young men are converting to Catholicism. And I'm like, yeah, because they think that Catholicism is going to tell them, like, wow, you know, the Nicene something is all about how women shouldn't talk. And, you know, this, you know, letter from Paul to the Ephesians is all about how it would be so great if you got to sleep with women and they had to remain monogamous or whatever.

It's just like, you are converting to a religion because you think that the religion will change for you, not that you will have to change on behalf of your religion. And I think, like, we see that endlessly, which is also why we see. see all these people being mad at the Pope for saying Pope things like poverty is bad and we should try to limit it or war is bad which are all pretty like standard things for popes to say like pretty general like pretty general popish things and you see all these commenters being like I'm a Catholic but the last two popes haven't really been Pope and I'm like one that's a very American Catholic thing I will say like that's kind of an ancient American Catholic tradition of being like the Pope said it

I don't really need to get involved with whatever the head of the Vatican said. But like, you believe that the church should move towards you and your weirdo politics. You believe that the church should talk more about how gay people are bad and less about how poverty is wrong. Even though one of those things has mentioned a lot in the New Testament and the other isn't. And I'll leave it to the listener to guess which one. And so, like, there's a real sense of, like, you converted to this real. religion and then you're, it's like, you know, you moved into a house, but a lot of people were already living there and you're mad that they haven't just started renovating for you.

The other half of this and what really gets my goat is why I believe, and what I would argue, you know, a couple of other people have said is why someone like J.D. Vance converts to Catholicism, not because he had a road to Damascus moment, not because the scales fell from his eyes and he was knocked off a horse, but because it's politically expedient. And you see this, like the, you know, Constantine did it better, okay? Like Emperor Constantine, you know, we saw the cross in the sky, whatever. You know, people have converted for political reasons before. You know, famously, you know, Paris is worth a mass.

I know that. But to convert, not because you believe in it, but because you believe that it is popular or will help you politically, I find that repulsive. And I don't mean to get on, I'm aware that I am, I am honest. a soapbox now. But like, J.D. Vance, converting to Catholicism because he think it will benefit him politically, that it will surround him with the kinds of people who can help him. The ways in which

we see someone like Russell Brand or any number of right-leaningish figures who have decided that they are going to become culturally Christian or culturally Catholic. There is a well-known anti-Muslim campaigner who has converted to or says that she is no longer an atheist, kind of a Christian, but she's like, you know, we have to stamp for the West. The point, the point of Christianity is not to win. The point of Christianity is that losing is okay because we will, we will win in the end. It is not that, you know, you're going to win an election. It is not that you're going to win the White House. It's not that

people are going to vote for you. It is that, like, you will win in the ultimate end. I'm sorry, I get, like, very annoyed about this. Like, I keep thinking about examples. My mom was a convert, and my mom was definitely an adherent to a very, like, left-leaning type of Catholicism, liberation theology, which people might know. And we talked a lot about figures like Father Oscar Romero, who was shot, wow. I was about to guess Romero. I was about to guess Romero. Yeah, who was shot to death in El Salvador while performing mass. Gene Donovan and the nuns who were murdered alongside her in El Salvador, they were raped and murdered by El Salvadorian right-wing death squads. And then Gene Kirkpatrick and the Reagan administration lied about them

and said that like, well, they weren't really nuns. They were activists. That is what faith looks like. Faith looks like dying for Christ, even when you, you're not. You know, you know that the people in power aren't going to care. The people, you know, St. Maximilian Colby died in a death camp because he took the place of another man and starved to death on his behalf. That is what I believe Catholicism and Christianity can be. It is not about winning. You know, we just celebrated Easter, which is like the ultimate victory story, but people don't talk, I mean, people don't want to talk about Good Friday in which Christ is arrested. And we're when he is arrested, one of his followers cuts off the ear of a Roman soldier who's trying to take him.

And Christ heals the soldier's ear. Christ doesn't defend himself against the accusations made against him. He knows it's coming. He's aware of this has been coming for a long time. And, you know, even Pontius Pilate is like, I don't really want to do this. The people are like, we want this other guy freed, Barabbas. And Christ has put through torture. Like, you know, I think that Catholicism does a very,

a good job of this. I don't know how well other denominations do this, but like, he is tortured for hours and hours and hours. And even the act of crucifixion is a form of torture. It takes hours to die. He is crucified. We're told in scripture that he is crucified around noon, and he dies around 3 p.m. So he is dying on the cross, and people are making fun of him. People are put up a sign above him that says, king of the Jews. He is told, you know, other people who are being crucified with him are like, why don't you just get us down from here if you're the savior? And then another man who's being crucified is like, don't you know who this is? And Christ, that is the only time we hear in scripture that Christ is like, you know,

my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? His own father, who Christians believe that God, you know, Jesus Christ is both God and the father. And, you know, he, before he's arrested, He asks, you know, please, God, if you can't, like, let this cup pass from me. I don't want to do this. I know what is about to happen, but he goes through it on behalf of the human race. He dies the most horrible death imaginable. He is murdered by the state in front of his mother. Everyone abandons him.

His most fervent supporters pretend they don't. I have never heard of him. And he does it anyway. And he dies. And basically, everybody thinks the story's over. That's it. It isn't. And that's like, that's.

the story of Christianity is like the story isn't over you think it's over but it isn't and he arises but we and i'm a christian we believe that the win doesn't happen while we're here the win happens later there are yeah there are so many people who are currently facing persecution for their faith and it is not the kind of persecution where it's like oh no like you know i tried to kneel at a football game and some people got annoyed with me so i went to court I mean like being murdered for their faith in places like Nigeria and elsewhere. But those people and people who have been faced persecution for their faith in many faiths, people who became believers in Christianity in slavery, for example.

Like people who knew that they were never going to get to be free, never going to get to see, they were never going to get the win. They still believed. And I think the people who, convert to Christianity for political reasons or convert because they're like, this is the winning side repulses me. I think it's disgusting. I think it is,

I think it is the most. It's converting to Judaism for the jokes. Yeah. Like it is, it's deeply unchristian. And I, it is definitely, on the long list of things I have not been able to get to on my podcast for

understandable reasons. This is up there. But like, the idea that you would convert to Christianity because it's winning and then get mad at the Pope because he doesn't sound enough. like you. Like, come on. Come on.

Crazy. Banned wagon. Insane. Romero's so great. Not actually a liberation theologist, actually. That's true. I did a Romero deep die about six months ago. We recommend people look into him.

He's kind of like a, he's a very bulwarky and figure. I guess that's really more of a self-glaze than I meant it to be. But I meant just in the sense, like he was, I only mean it in the sense that he had come from more of a conservative tradition and then kind of had, you know, was awakened by the facts. People should read some Romero stuff. Final thing. We're long, but we're on religion. So if we're going to talk about it, we should at least just talk about the Antichrist too as well. I had Ron and Andrew on the pod earlier this week talking about their Sam Altman take down.

And I was so upset that I hadn't seen this article by the time that it's by the time that we had taped it. So I feel obliged to close the pod today by discussing it with you. Entrepreneur Sam Altman is one of 25 people who have splashed the cash to join a waiting list at Nectum, a startup that, that promises to upload your brain into a computer to grant you eternal life. There's just one catch. It has to kill you first. The process is described by the MIT Technology Review involves embalming your brain for it to potentially be simulated later in a computer.

The living customer would be hooked up to a machine and then pumped full of nectom's custom embalming chemicals. Nope. The man who's... thought that is a good idea is the one that holds the power of our artificial intelligence future in his hands. That's a little alarming about what he thinks about what it means to be human. Also, like, I'm... Do it.

How fucking gullible is this person? Like, even you're describing this to me, and I'm like, this makes cryogenic freezing seem like, like an A plus idea. Like Ted Williams' family has to like, congratulations. You were finally like, I know that didn't work out and a result in a bunch of lawsuits. Friesian at least has some like whimsy about it. You know, you don't think that you're a God. It doesn't mean that you don't believe that it's going to give you eternal life.

What you're doing is just, it's just like this hopeful wish that like one day people in the future will come up, that other people will come up with something in the future that will allow you to experience something new. I don't know, there's something optimistic and cute about that at least. This is, this is megalomania. This is my brain is so important that it must exist for eternity, my brain. Like, it's very telling to me that we are in an age in which there used to be like, you know, the smarter you were kind of the more self-deprecating you would be. Kind of just being like, well, you know, I know enough to know what I don't know.

Nope. Nope. you're like I got to be uploaded to the grid. You got to put me in the mainframe. No. Future generations need my brain. Yeah. Future generations need to know how much I've decided how horny I think AI should be.

Like I've thought a lot about it and everybody needs to know. I've been thinking how horny should this be. Oh, boy. That's pretty bleak. Luckily for me, I'm about to go have a. Rose and enjoy the musical stylings of Slater and XX

and Sabrina Carpenter who knows I'll be in the mood for late night and I won't you know we'll just kind of let this wash away I don't know I don't think my brain needs to be involved I just don't it's a nice brain I appreciate that everybody comes to the podcast every day but like the embalming of the brain

there's a mo you know that's a beautiful thing about life right I'm glad that you understand understand. You and I, I think we agree. Neither of us are that important. We should just go hang out and do stuff. We're not God. Nope. We're not God. Nope. It's cool. We have some insights. We have some interesting thoughts from time to time. I can do a Bon Mott with the best of them. Yeah. But you, you invite us to a cocktail party. You're going to have a good time. But no one needs that embalms. Please, Tim, enjoy your rosé. Enjoy Coachella. Jane Koston. Thank you so much. Everybody else,

I'm taking Monday off. Sarah Longwell and Bill Crystal will be here. We got bangers only next week after that. So you all enjoy your weekend as well, Jane, enjoy L.A. I will be seeing. We'll be out there. We have live shows coming up in L.A. Memorial Day. I'm going to be talking to you about that. Yeah, yeah.

I was about to be like, you email me and we figure something out. Well, it's going to happen. You know, it's in five weeks. I'm living a week at a time over here. All right. I'm just thinking about my Coachella schedule today, all right? The Memorial Day, the week before Memorial Day, we'll be in L.A. if you live in San Diego or LA,

tickets will be on sale soon. That's it. That's the show. Enjoy Monday without me, everybody. We'll see you all on Tuesday. Jane, love you. Go blue. Go blue.

Peace. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anzley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.