The Bulwark Podcast - Jon Lovett: It Is Time to Scream and Yell

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Trump has served up so many rationales for why he had to do this war, but helping Iran project even more power in the region was surely not one of the reasons. And yet, here we are. Iran is in control of a good chunk of the global energy supply, and other countries are going to have to beg to get through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the moment for Democrats to show what a real opposition is—especially when warmonger Lindsey Graham runs off to play at Disney World. Plus, Trump's coalition is mid-crackup, Hegseth's self-pity and insecurity is pathetic, and of course, Tim and Jon react to the news of Kristi Noem's bimbofied husband. Jon Lovett joins Tim Miller.show notes Jon's "Lovett or Leave It" pod The book Tim and Jon discussed, "People of the Lie"

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show, the co-creator of the short-lived TV sitcom 1600. Wow. Wow. Last place, finisher on Survivor 47. And my co-host on Speech Center, the video series Taking the World by Storm on the Lovitter, leave it YouTube channel, which you should subscribe to today. It's John Lovett. How you doing, man? I'm doing great. As a great president, one said, it's not whether or not you get knocked down. It's whether you get back up.

That's true. Way to pander to the eight Bush lovers left listening to this podcast. Don't worry, everybody. We've got good news. We're going to get to the bimbofication of Christynobs' husband at the end of the program. All right. And this might be coming out a little later than usual today. Because Lovett likes his beauty rest.

It's farm workers' knee, Cesar Chavez Day in California, something I was just important of this morning. And so it's, you know, it's taking us a little bit longer to get good. going today, but it's going to be worth it because had we done this on time, we would have not had the bimbification topic to give you at the end of the podcast. So stick around. That's right. Well, but here's what I want to start. One year ago, you were last on the podcast. It feels like too long, so we're not to have to do that. The title of that show was a worst case scenario comes into view. And I was kind of curious what I thought we meant by that. And I went back and read the transcripts.

And here's what you said. You said, it's hard to imagine a version of the Trump administration unfolding in which they're doing more in bad things without getting the blowback that might hurt them. And I thought that was interesting to reread that, thinking back to March of 2025, that like the worst case scenario was not just their behavior, which we expected, but the behavior of everyone else. And that's something to be positive about in the ensuing year. A lot of bad behavior has continued, but that has changed somewhat, wouldn't you say? It's...

Not enough. Not enough. I mean, look, the... The full co-opting of the Republican Party has continued. The idea that we would have gone to war in Iran without a debate, without a vote, without a plan. It's extraordinary. We're going to talk about what he posted today about what Europe should be up to. And the incompetence and chaos and silliness and silliness and.

idiocy of this is such a staggering, like, unacceptable and obvious degree, and there's still so many people on the right defending it. I think the optimistic part to me is I do think he's finally crossed some Rubicon and lost a lot of people that he needs, or you would have thought his coalition needed. And so I do think there is a crackup happening. And I think that's a reason to be hopeful, but I think what we said there still is right. But for you, the worst case scenario is still in view for you right now. So I think what we were talking about in March of 2025, which first of all, I can't believe it feels like that is a long time ago, but also I can't believe we were having that conversation so early in the administration, was that we were seeing the

worst possible version of Trump and everybody was really caught off guard, right? Like, that's what was happening. He was doing Doge and he was destroying. USAID and he was weaponizing the Department of Justice. He was the worst version of himself. And the question I think is, okay, we've had the worst version of Trump. Are we in the worst case version of America? Right. Like he's doing his damnedest, right? That I think is true. And I think the answer there is no. Like, yes, the weaponization of DOJ has been absolutely terrible and dangerous, but there are ways in which the courts are holding. There are ways in which juries and judges are kind of holding the line.

Also, just the fact that Trump is so unpopular and has never really had the populace behind his right-wing populism means that there are these natural democratic checks that include leaks to the press, that include the fact that they can't get the lawyers they need, that are competent enough to do what they would have to do to actually successfully weaponize the Department of Justice.

So there are ways in which Trump, at his worst, has not resulted in the worst-case scenario, for all of us. He's doing a lot of damage, but he's deeply unpopular. There's chaos in Congress. They can't fund the government. He's, you know, losing parts of his coalition, a lot of empty seats at CPAC. There's a lot of ways in which the lack of democratic legitimacy is creating checks along the way. Yeah. I'm teetering as I think about this. Just why I wanted to start with the deep question with you, because like there's a big part of me that, when I went back and read that transcript, I was like, whether it be no kings, whether it being the fact that,

you know, Don Lemon walks free. Like, there are all these ways in which he has been pushed back on, right? Like in March of last year, everyone was folding. Like the lawyers, the universities, right? And so that is good. And we, and we now even see even within his coalition, even if it's just too few people, but Thomas Massey, you know, like a bunch of mega podcasters now are starting to be like, this war is stupid. Laura Ingraham last night on Fox was shooting on the war. It's like that part, like the, you know, gravity is holding. And like, this moment that we had, which was like, oh, my God, maybe he can just do it every once and everybody's just going to curl into a fetal position and, you know, we'll end up with some sort of Trump, you know, permanent Trump autocracy. Like, that seems less likely.

The other side of that, though, is like the weaker he gets, maybe the more dangerous he is. And I kind of vacillate on that back and forth over the past couple of weeks as I think about this. Which, like, he seems weaker. And I do wonder if that means that maybe he acts crazier. because we got a long time left. The N word starts to come into my mind, the other N word, as Trump likes to say. Start to think about that.

Yeah, well, I hadn't been thinking about that. Now I am, thank you. Yeah, well, look, his attention careens, right? What is Brendan Carr going to get up to? What kind of prosecutions is Pam Bondi going to bring? What is the next phase of immigration enforcement? We are a bit, like, yoked to his kind of capricious attention. And so we did just run through a huge cycle of him unleashing chaos in Minnesota,

the deaths of two Americans that kind of ebbs because noem is fired, and we're going to get Mark Wayne Mullen to right the ship. And then all of a sudden we're in a war. We're in a war in Iran, right? The version you're describing where he's cornered and doing terrible and dangerous things is happening in front of us. We're seeing it. And then now you need, now you, now your mind goes to nuclear weapons. But meanwhile, we've created chaos in the Middle East and caused all kinds of global economic problems that will certainly like ripple and hit us.

So like, yeah, I think you're right. Of course, that's something to worry about. Yeah. You know, I was just thinking to myself. I was like, you know, if you'd ask me five years ago, who's the most likely to use a nuke? I would have been like the bad countries, like North Korea. And like, as of today, like, if there was a cal, like, this is the dystopia we live in. If there was a calci market on like what country is the most likely to use the nuke next,

I feel like us and Israel would be at the top of the list. But anyway, we can talk about that later. You can just marinate on that. Maybe we can come back to the end of the podcast. The Iran latest, Trump bleeds this this morning. all of the countries that can't get jet fuel because of the straight-of-hormoos like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran. I have a suggestion for you.

Number one, by U.S. We've got plenty. Number two, build up some delayed courage, go to the straight and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there for you anymore. Just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. Wrong use of that word.

But anyway, the hard part is done. go get your own oil President DJT it's very Trump it's about that one of the trumpiest things that he's kind of done you know it's sort of like hey I'm going to get into a you know a casino business with a couple of other rich guys

you know we're going to put my name on the casino and and then we're going to lose a lot of money because I did something really stupid and I'm going to declare bankruptcy and like you guys go figure out how to pay for it it's like kind of one of those things. It's like I started the war with Iran. Everything was fine. The oil was going and everything wasn't fine for the people of Iran, but, you know, oil was traversing through the straight. People of Europe and Asia were able to get access to this. Trump starts this war. Doesn't

really explain to them why? It doesn't ask them to sign up for it. And then he's then he's like, now I've created all this damage and like, good luck. Go fix it. President DJT. What a strange few weeks in terms of what he's been asking from people. So he starts the war. Who knows what they thought would happen? Obviously, the fact that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz was an extremely predicted and predictable result. So whether he was told that and didn't understand how serious it would be, whether he

was convinced by like Hegseth or someone else that you would never get that far because they would so quickly eviscerate the regime that it would. would be like Venezuela and we'd just be kind of talking to new and more reasonable people and everything would move on. Who knows? But after the fact, he goes to all of these countries and says, we've got a real problem in the street of our moves. I need you to jump in there. And like, no, thank you, sir. No, thank you. You started this war. We're not, we have our own domestic politics. Also, we don't want to put our people in harm's way for a war we didn't start. You started this war with Israel. You can fight it to the end. And that's that. Then he says,

though we don't need anybody. Meanwhile, in that interim, the goals go from regime change to preventing Iran from projecting power in the region. Then it becomes basically the Rubio version, which is, you know, destroy the Navy, destroy their capacity to make missiles. Nuclear doesn't really come up. Now Rubio is on the tarmac at the end of last week saying, after this war is over, we're going to have a real problem in the straight-or moves. And so you have Trump then saying kind of on the plane, you know, there's actually much more reasonable people in charge of Iran now. And we can really work with these people. And then you have now, and Rubio is saying that the straight of her move is going to be a problem and what Iran is planning to do after the conflict is unacceptable.

Yeah. Ruby also being like, we can't tell you who the reasonable people are that we're working with because it might harm them internally, which doesn't seem like that's the most stable counterparty when you have to do it in secret. And Trump said, I'm not going to tell you who they are because they might get. killed by their people or they might get killed by us, which, and us, I assume, includes Benjamin and Yahoo. So, but tough negotiating chair for the Iranians. But, but, but he's clearly like kind of internalized this idea that, and it, and there's true to it, which is the U.S. is more inert to the consequences of the closure of the strait of our moves. We have, we have liquid natural gas, like we have helium. We're not bad in nerds, but we're more. Yeah. More. I'm just more than,

And so it seems like what he's trying to do is signal that he's really, really serious about leaving this problem for others. That whatever is going on in these talks that Rubio has been having at the G7 and elsewhere, that he needs to signal to the world that he's really, really genuinely willing to fuck everybody over. Yeah. Which people will buy. I mean, Trump does bullshit a lot. But I think that is like in line with his kind of character. I don't think it achieves the end. again, not a military strategist, but if your goal was to try to limit or prevent Iran from projecting power in the region,

going from like a very weakened regime, which is how they were a month ago, according to all accounts, to a regime that now controls the global supply of energy. And it's going to put a toll booth up there. And people are going to have to beg them to be able to get through. That seems kind of like we had the reverse impact on their ability to project power, one man's opinion. Yeah, and just especially when the head of the regime that you're now claiming was changed was going to be killed by God in just a short while. He was quite old. The I total was 86, something like that.

You took out the leader of regime that would have died and left a power vacuum, and instead you started a war in order to what? To what end? What have we done here? My God. I've been intrigued by the Coalition of the Unwilling in Europe. UK was mentioned. Spain was the first one. Spain was like, you can't use our

Air Force base. Left-wing populist runs Spain right now. Then France was next up, and Trump was mad about that, shouting about the French. They're not as helpful as they could be. That's run by a centrist technocrat and Macron and his wife,

Brigitte. And now Italy this morning, run by Melani, right-wing populist, saying you can't use our bases and you can't fly over here as part of Middle East incursion you're doing. You know, my reaction to that, reading all that was simultaneously like, wow, how bad is Donald Trump fucked this up in our relationship with our allies?

We've talked about that like ad nauseum for a decade now. The other thought I had was it kind of shows that like we have sort of a unique problem with this like corrupt sphincter who is like very unable to president well. And like we also have a problem with right wing populism. But it seems like we kind of have a unique problem with Trump. individually and that like you know there's a lot of a lot of conversation out there it's not really cool particularly on the left to be to be like you know the biggest problem that we face right now is Donald Trump and and that the orange man is bad that's like a little out of vogue right now but that

does seem like the case to me well right the hope would then be that his unique collection of talents are what held the whole coalition together and that someone like a rubio or a vance couldn't do the same I think that's like maybe true. Yeah. I do think what part of this is the whole world, including most Americans, learned that preemptive or sort of wars in the Middle East, wars of choice in the Middle East are terrible policy and terrible politics. Including supposedly Trump. Right. You get elected on that.

And so, of course, leaders of these countries don't want to sign up for it and want to signal to their electorates that they want nothing to do with this. I think that's probably good politics for basically every politician in Europe. In the U.S., there isn't some big coalition behind this. The president launched a war and it doesn't have popular support that hasn't happened in our lifetimes or any lifetime. And even inside of the Republican Party, it's not as popular. I mean, it does better because their sort of older base is getting kind of the red, white, and blue 1990s style. pro-war shit from Fox and on Facebook, but even like the MAGA crowd that's consuming

a red-white blue cello, you know, yeah, a little bit of each flavor. Freedom Prize, baby. Freedom Prize are back. But like even the big chunk of the base that's younger and more online is consuming a bunch of big media that's saying that this is fucking stupid.

Younger Republicans, younger Trump voters don't think this is a good idea. So the whole world basically learn the lesson except for a tiny cohort of people. inside of what, you know, even the neocons, they're not in the administration, they're at the bulwark. Well, no, the neocons who are for it. We're at the bulwark and we should just say the bulwark thing, which is the thing that the bulwark has been right about, which we do like to say as often as possible, which is that you shouldn't have put erratic lunatic in charge of the most powerful country in the world.

Like that was probably a mistake. And doing it twice, especially after he tried a coup, was really dumb. And I think that's like the big takeaway here. And I think that there's a lot of people who try to come up with other takeaways. there are many other political implications, but like the big one is kind of the big one. There are an existing other cadre of neocons who are like the biggest cheerleaders of the war. Like Trump's like go-to chorus right now is like Mark Levine, then Shapiro, Artisan at the Washington Post, the commentary magazine guys. I mean, there's like a group of people who just I can never see enough blood spilled in the Middle East for their taste.

like, well, not, I don't know, I guess, until, you know, Israel controls from the river to the sea and beyond, as Mark, as Mike Huck could be said, like, you know, into the Levant. Until that, they won't be happy, I don't think. But, like, no one else is for it. Yeah. The fact that the Lindsay Graham school, like that, they got control, that they got the, they got the helm for this, even though they represent a vanishing minority in the country in terms of views at this point. Like, it's, it's pretty staggering. The critique from, like, the kind of. of soft Trump supporters who were like, this is what he said he wasn't going to do. Why are you letting these people do this? They're sort of using him. I think that's true. I think that's true. I want to play a little bit from Pete Higseth, who's also not really been very impressive, I don't think, as Secretary of War. I don't know where you're at on that. But he did a press conference

this morning. I don't know if this was a speechwriter or if he asked Rock to kind of write him like a novel, like a romance novel of the war. But during the press conference, he gave us this. I'd like for you to react to. I did the same with his boss, a colonel with a heart the size of Texas and a beautiful deployment mustache

to match. I witnessed lethality. I met a junior airman as the sun was going down and a chill was setting on the tarmac who when asked what they needed she simply looked up at me with a sly smile on her face and said, more bombs, sir, and bigger bombs.

We will happily oblige her. I'm sorry. What do you even do with that? He saw lethality. And a man with a mustache. I thought they had to cut their mustaches and beards. I don't know. I don't know where we landed on with the mustaches.

Maybe it was just the beards. Yeah, that looked up on the chill, you know, a frost. on the tarmac and a sly smile on the face. Why was it sly? I looked out at the horizon, the Persian Gulf, the sun rising, in the east, the crows at dawn. Like, what the fuck is he? More bombs, sir, bigger bombs, sir. And even take it at face value, right?

Like, just take what he's saying at face value, which is so, what do you mean your finding out. Like, what are you talking about? What is that supposed to tell us? Like, a person on the ground is saying they need more bombs and you're going to oblige their request for more bombs. Like, it doesn't make, none of it makes sense. It's like, it's his impression of what he thinks someone's supposed to sound like, but he's also, like, not really aware what, like, an actual leader would, you, you talk to Jeffrey Goldberg about this and I thought it was what he said about it was smart, which is, like, hey, you're the defense secretary. You are powerful. You need to talk this way. You don't have to keep kind of reminding people that you're in charge, you're in charge.

It's like, it's like Joffrey saying, I am king, I am king. You're in charge, my guy, you did it. You're the boss. As plainly and straight in a straightforward way as you can tell people what the facts are. That's what, like, projecting genuine, like, strength would look like. But these people are so, like, kind of self-pitying and insecure and on some level know that they're doing something wrong or in the wrong jobs and don't belong where they are. So it all becomes this sort of like this sort of show because they don't know what to do, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, I think that's right. He knows it's a shit show. I think he's out there this morning. It's like, what can you talk about? Like, what are the things that you can talk about that you can point to as far as success is concerned? You know,

if I'm sitting in Pete Higgs-S chair, it's hard to get inside his brain, but I'm going to try. And it's, we've bombed a lot of shit. We've been pretty good on the bomb scorecard. You know, We've hit more of their shit than they've hit of our shit. Okay. So that's good. Winning. That's lethality. That's winning.

We did accidentally hit an orphanage, but we're also, you know, hitting their missiles. So we can talk about that. And I can also kind of like borrow the valor of the people that I'm sending there, you know. I've got this. I can, you know, kind of paint this gauzy chat GPT version of, you know, an Americana story of the soldiers and, you know, the mustache. maschioed man from West Texas and the woman who volunteered to fight and, you know, like, he's trying to do that. That kind of thing, yeah.

Yeah, right. Exactly. And he feels like maybe I can, I can will into existence something that is heroic about this or, you know, something to be proud of about this. If I focus on how many people were bombing and the courage of our people. and maybe then people won't be able to undermine me and point out that this is the stupidest war that we've gotten into in a long time. And that's a competitive category because we've been on quite a few dumb ones. Yeah.

And the feeling he must have in these rooms with, you know, he's outmatched in every room he walks into, even places where he's meant to be in charge, how that must feel to look at these generals in the eyes. And... Yeah. Well, and then he gets outmatched to the briefing room. Then he gets outmatched in the briefing room. Because why it doesn't do the briefings anymore, really. Right.

You know, because the questions are about all the ways in which they failed. My view on it is I think that it's already far worse than people have really accepted internally and that the like medium term damage is hard to predict, but it's going to be across economic, geopolitical, militarily. Like this is just an unimaginable quagmire that is going to be. impossible for them to disentangle themselves from. And even if Trump runs for the exits as we are talking right now, like the ramifications are going to echo for the rest of his presidency. That's where I'm on it. Donald Trump is a short-term thinker who borrows against the future in everything he's ever done. And he has been throughout his life and his time in politics protected by the, you know, the

the cowardice of Republicans and the resilience of America. The resilience of America has been his great protector through all of this, right? And the resilience of our institutions to kind of push back against his worst excesses actually protects him in some sense. That's a lot of what happened in the first term. It's part of what's happening in this term, but also the resilience of the American economy. I think there are a lot of people that were surprised by how much the economy was able to withstand these global tariffs. I think there are people that predicted the impact would be worse. That's the truth, right?

Like people said, oh, these are going to be terrible. And they have been terrible for prices, and they've had a negative impact. But we weathered it. We have weathered it. That's just absolutely the truth. They're bad costs. We shouldn't have done it. And I think he's counting on the same thing here that we can weather the implications of this.

Our alliances can weather Trump's like mercurial bullying across the world. But at a certain point, that's just not true. It stops being true. There's only so much we can take. and like he just pushes it and pushes it and pushes it and we'll just pay. We're just going to pay for years to come. But I think this is unweatherable, I guess, is my take. This is not a popular thing to do, you know, because you don't want to be,

you don't want to be the never Trump pundit that's like, this is the end, the walls of clothes in, a lot of, you know, carcasses in the desert of the walls are closing on Trump takes. But I don't think that this one is weatherable. I mean, who knows? He's not ever running for anything again. So I guess it depends what you mean by the definition of that. But I just, I think that he's permanently politically damaged by it in a way that at other times he wasn't. I agree with that.

I think this is more like Bush after Katrina or Biden after kind of inflation hadn't resolved quickly enough. And people determined that he was too old and were shocked that he was considering to run again. And there was no coming back from it. and they were self-perpetuating. I think this is the chaos of this. Like the failure to address prices, the fact that gas prices are now going to hit $5 a gallon across the country, plus him going around showing people the ballroom.

Like I think this is locking him in. But he still remains popular on the Republican side. That's the problem. I noticed you didn't pick Obama flashpoint, like Obama after he failed to do Simpson Bowls, or, you know, Obama after Cylindra or something. Yeah, Solendra. Did you see, listen, I'm sorry.

I did it to trigger you. So, go ahead. Republicans spent a decade talking about cylindrant. And if you're not caught up on your 2010s, if you turned into politics after because of Trump, whatever, or if you're a kind of independent, spirited person who maybe isn't familiar with the great political battles of the late 2010s. Just clot it. Just clot it. Yeah, slender was a loan, part of a loan program. The company failed. The government lost $535 million. That was a scandal. They were investing. investigations, there were hearings. It was the great waste of taxpayer dollars, government picked

winners and losers. That program ultimately turned a profit. We made money on that loan guarantee program. Donald Trump last week gave a billion dollars to a French company to make them not build windmills. There'll never be a fucking hearing from these people. That's it. That's what I wanted to say. He paid him a billion dollars. Total energy. And I mean, I think we lost a $535 billion plane on the tarmac in Saudi Arabia this week, too, because of a war that we started for no reason. That is going to actually probably have the reversed effect of what they're hoping for us for around's ability to project power. So we move forward.

I want to talk to you about some immigration stuff. I saw you. This came on my algorithm. Okay. And there it was. It was John Lovett on the street outside of the beautiful crooked media offices. So it was John Lovett in the world. Okay.

And you were at a, I believe, the No Kings rally. That's right. And you're talking about the MAGA rights immigration agenda. What's happening right now with the deportations, with DHS not being funded and how they were and the weakness of their blood and soil nationalism. And I was like, that was pretty good off the cuff bit, but I love it. So I don't know if that's a shtick you've been working on that you've been kind of workshopping in various podcasts or any place. But I want to explore it with you. You're basically talking about the hollowness of the Niagara Rides' blood and soil nationalism. Yeah.

So something I felt there out there. We were downtown in L.A. It was a bigger No Kings protest than the one that came before. And, you know, like, it's a big coalition of people showing up. There are a lot of people. I walked in, like, the first people I saw where as a lady, she was like, do you want to know what the communists think about the Epstein files? And I was like, I don't actually. But I appreciate that you're out here.

And, you know, good luck. I have a feeling it's it's actually a, like, that's a one, maybe the one spot where you and the communists find some allies. We probably have an event diagram. We probably have some alignment on it. I just, you know, I had to move forward out with my kid, my husband, you know, we were going to go up to hit speakers. Like blood and soil nationalism, it kind of depends on having people kind of not just online, but in the world, right? It's meant to be people that take great pride in their country. And this is our country.

This is where we belong. But you'd think if that were a genuine, deep, felt political ideology, it would exist in the world. There'd be people walking around on soil, you know, blood in their veins. But that's not really what MAGA is. There are people that'll go to a turning point, USA event. There are just, you know, people that'll show up at a Trump rally. But millions and millions of people are showing up for No Kings. They're leaving their house and their phones and their computers to bring their phones with them.

but they're leaving their screens, and they're going out and having a real experience with people in the world. Maga doesn't really do that in the same way. Like, Maga is a movement of people watching screens and consuming content on social media and on television. That is what it is. It is people angry online. It is people riling each other up via right-wing misinformation

and, like, right-wing propaganda channels. And that can be enough to get people to show up and vote, as we've seen, but it's not a movement of people like with actual blood on the actual soil. It just isn't. And it makes it really brittle and it makes it really ultimately weak. Like that, we were talking about this before. Like Donald Trump is a right-wing populist, right? But it's not popular.

And he's never had. He is not the part of a popular front. He's not leading millions of like men with PTSD who feel abused by the French, right? Like they just don't have the fucking guys. And that's part of what makes the republic. capitulation so pathetic because they're like surrendering to this guy because he's got you know 80% approval among republican voters but he doesn't have though like the strength that like kind of political the political movement that should make them actually afraid like for the country like just

isn't real it's all digital yeah there's also just the shell like you call it brittle and there's the shallowness to it because it's just like it's anything he says right and it's like if you look at the polls now about Iran and it's like the maga republic are more supportive of the Iran War than the Republicans who don't define themselves as Magger Republicans, which is strange. You would think it would be the opposite, right? You would think that it would be the Wall Street Journal Republicans or whatever that are the most into the war. But it's the Maga Republicans are willing to go along with whatever. It's a lifestyle brand, right? And a lifestyle brand is different than kind of a blood and soil tradition.

And like they, I guess both have their strengths and weaknesses. But as far as political movements are concerned. But like, you know, if you look at Orban and God willing, he's going to lose here next week or in two weeks, we're going to talk about that election coming up next week on the show. But like, there is something real about it. Like, it's gross. And, but it's obviously not for me, right? This kind of Magyar, Hungarian, you know, oh, we have these immigrants who are coming in. They don't share our values. They're trying to make us cosmopolitan. They're trying to make Budapest the same as Paris. And like, we don't want that. Like, they're, like, that's a real complaint, right, whether or not you, you know, put any value in that complaint.

And, like, that is what undergirds a lot of the other right-wing nationalists around the world, Modi, and India, et cetera. And I was interested that you said that because I was like, I don't know, you can see them trying to do that here with, like, the heritage American shit that you sometimes see online. But it does feel like the good parts of America do make that a little more challenging. I mean, not so challenging that he hasn't won twice, but about making it sustainable. Yeah, we're not hungry. There's people like, oh, you know, Donald Trump is trying to turn America into Hungary. It's like, well, you know what? I think it'd be harder to turn Hungary into Hungary if it were filled with fucking Americans.

There's a little bit of a lack of like, hey, like, we're America. First of all, we're a big, fractious place with multiple levels of government. We are a rebellious and freedom-loving people. And we don't like being told what to do for good and for ill, right? Like, that's who we are. And we talk a lot about the grievance part of what, like, fascistic government offers, right? Like you can point at the right enemies.

You can galvanize people to like turn against the other. We talk about that a lot. But there's another part of it which is like meaning and purpose, right? This only can happen if there's a, there's a real gap of like meaning and purpose in a society. And I do think like that, we are in that. That is a feeling people have. If you talk to people, there is, you can see it in whatever. You want to talk about loneliness.

You talk about like the ways in people feel like kind of disconnected from each other, the lack of community, people stop going to churches and started doing horoscopes, whatever. But Trump doesn't have an answer for that. Like, Trump doesn't have a, can't speak to that. He doesn't have any kind of language. Well, him, it's his library is the answer. It's a big penis tower with his name on it. Like, that's the answer. That's like you can sign up to my lifestyle brand. You can wear the shirt if you want, the hat. Yeah, and that's the answer. And that is just not, it's not going to work for most people. It just isn't. And so he's not, there aren't millions of people signing up to put on a uniform and walk around the streets being a proud member of the Trump

Party. It just isn't what's happening because he's not offering them anything. He's not offering them. There's no, there's no positive part of the bargain. He's not even doing the shit he said he would do for the people that voted for him even though they don't like him. It's like a Stan culture thing. I need a New York Magazine article on this. You know, it's like being a believer or, you know, whatever. What a billy, I wish his fans called. I'm not sure, Tim. you're not sure i don't know what they're called are you part of any stan culture what about nicky minage i'm really not i'm not part of any of those things i'm okay no um that's what it is i've been occasionally under a withering attack from the k hive

which is never like well yeah you've you've raised the ire of the k one once in a while though they took off their uniforms and distributed themselves amongst the civilian population the barbs is the nicky minot right the barbs i still don't know what the bill of the illish group is called. We're not going to, I do not want to die or the K-Hive on this. So we're going to move on. Let's do a little dem figure skating judging. You are always, you know, so we'll just caveat with the love it caveat about it is unfair that, you know, Democrats are like the only group with agency in our world. And so it's frustrating that, you know, you nitpick the Democrats. Well, meanwhile, Lindsey Graham, like started a war with Iran and then said, hey, I'm going to

Disneyland. I'm going to wave my little mermaid bubble on. I'm going to walk around. I'm going to have the characters sign my book. He found the only place on earth where the French are happy to see him. Wait in line for a picture with Woody, you know, meet some of the evil queens. Anyway, so that's like what Lindsay's going to do. No agency. We can mock him. We can criticize him, but there was no expectations that Republicans will ever do the right thing. The Democrats, though, you know, unfortunately, do have responsibilities. And I'm curious what the right thing to do is both across as DHS shut down in the war. I was talking to Bill Crystal about this yesterday, but you being a Democrat and good standing

and, you know, lifelong Democrat, I think your wisdom is probably better suited for this. But I don't know. I feel like I want more. And I don't know if this is about my hierarchy of needs personally or whether this is political strategy, but shouldn't they be having fake hearings about the war? Shouldn't they be, you know, chaining them? themselves to the White House fence. Shouldn't there be screaming people outside of the, outside of the airports,

advertisements? You know, and there's some people that are satisfying my needs. Ruben, Gago's been really good. There's others that don't even be out. But, like, I have a little bit of feeling of an emptiness and the vigor of the response given the scale of the destruction. I wonder what you think of that. You know, I'm conflicted about it.

I have the same feeling you do. So let me just play it out. We talked about this yesterday. on Pots of America, about how you had Graham. Well, what was that show? On what? It's called Potsave America.

Okay, I'll check that out. Lindsay Graham is at Disney World on Space Mountain, and then TMZ caught Congressman Robert Garcia, California in Las Vegas, and then Robert Garcia said, yeah, we should be in and we should be voting, but they sent us home. I'm visiting my father in Las Vegas, and I'm not apologizing for that, and you should post it a picture. That's the right way to handle that.

I think that's right. But then you think, Okay, I understand that. You're not really in charge of when Congress is in or out. But what would an opposition look like? If everyone was so incensed by the fact that they were being sent home, that they refused to leave, not because they were even necessarily that focused on the politics of it, but so outraged by the fact that they were being sent home without having had a vote on DHS,

being told that they're going to leave for two weeks while people are working for the Coast Guard without being paid, while Trump is illegally paying TSA because that's what's drawing the most headlines, and just stayed in Congress. stayed there. Yeah, called fake hearings, stood in front of the Capitol, walked to the White House, whatever it looks like. And I don't know which of those, like, kind of strategic things are the right thing to do to get the most attention. But I think what you're getting at is this feeling like, where's that, where's that instinct, that sort of outrage that drives you inescapably towards standing on the stairs and refusing to go back

to your district? And like, that to me has been a problem with the Democratic response to Trump from the beginning. I don't feel like they're as mad as me. Yeah. And maybe they are. But I don't feel like they are. And so, yeah. And so to me, that's like there's the two parts. One is like the emotional, you know, hierarchy of needs pyramid. And maybe that doesn't actually matter. But it would be nice to think that your leaders are as mad as you are.

Like, that would be nice. And I think that that's a potent political tool, actually, when people believe that you reflect their upset anger. But then I also think there's just the strategy of this, too, which is like, they're as weak as they've ever been right now. Like, I want boot on the neck, not literally. Right. like this is the moment to invite yourself on Laura Ingram's show. Like this is the moment to go into their spaces and point at them and be like, look at the destruction they have wrought, right? Yeah.

And like there are other times where Democrats try to do that where like the topics are these kind of democracy and, you know, norms, esoteric things that actual people don't care about as much as we wish they would. But this shit people care about. Dumb wars, recessions, higher gas prices. Like people care about that. Yeah. you know what, Tim, you're waking me up. You're waking me up. What are we doing here?

Let's go. Let's get up. What are we doing? Let's go. Go on, go to their spaces. Go on Fox News this week. Gas prices are over $5 again. We're fighting a stupid war in the Middle East. He's showing diagrams with a fucking ballroom on Air Force One. What?

Let's go. What? That's what he's focused on? Pete Hacksuff had his broker, try to invest. and it's a military companies. He's the Secretary of War before he started a war. We started the dumbest fucking war that you could possibly imagine. And Pete Hague said rather than coming up with a plan for how we're to keep the straight of Hormuz open,

is trying to figure out how he can make a few bucks in his Charles Schwab account. And this is fucking outrageous. I don't even think he managed to turn a profit on this thing. Did he even do the investment? No, because he's too stupid to run the war or to be corrupt. He's stupider than Eric Trump. Eric Trump is at least doing corruption correct. He's getting rich.

The Secretary of War is dumber than Eric Trump. That's a problem. Pete Exeth was never meant to be rich. I don't think he can handle it. I think he needs the constraints. I think he needs to get up and go to a job. That's what I think about. The fake RuPaul-style hearing,

were you not on board with that idea? I'm brainstorming ideas. I'm into it. I'm into it. I'm into it. They have the gavel and they interview former, you know, military leaders. You know, Chuck Schumer.

We're just spitball here. Chuck Schumer. gas prices go up some little alert goes off in the in the Schumerverse and he and it's a Sunday night and he trudges down to the gas station and he stands in front of the gas station

and he points at the prices and he goes bad this is bad and I hate this and we're going to do something about it. Look at that number. Terrible. This is gouging. They're gouging you. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Where's that Schumer? What about to that?

Turn around. Poking finger. I want to poke finger. I want to poke. the finger. Part of the problem is that we can just say it. Because I was saying on day one, and I hate to do I told yourself because I'm wrong a lot. But there were even too many

Democrats up to it, including Chuck Schumer, that were kind of at the beginning of the war being like, let's see. I know. Maybe it'll turn out okay. And they weren't for it. It's not their fault. I'm not blaming them. But like there was a little bit of a sense of let's see how this goes. There are a few exceptions. I mentioned Ruben, you know, Chris Murphy,

Bernie, AOC, like there were exceptions. But like there was a little bit too much of that energy. And I think it's kind of hard to transition from the energy of, let's see how this goes. Maybe it'll turn out okay. Maybe it'll be good to the energy of this is so fucking stupid. I can't believe it. My hair is on fire. Can you believe these guys are this stupid? Please vote them out. Don't let them ever have power again. Even on the supplemental, Lauren Bobert was like, no supplementals, no fucking way. We don't just send more money to the, to a foreign war we have needs at home. And she said that with more clarity than a lot of Democrats.

We're like, well, I got to see the package and I got to see what's, I got to get the briefing, and I got to support the troops. And it's like, yeah, of course, support the troops. Support the troops by putting a fucking leash on Donald Trump. Yeah. Take off the leash that BB has on him and put on one yourself. Yeah, it can be a harness so that he can jump around without having to worry about. You know, you give him the harness. I don't want to, you know, it doesn't be a have to be kind of restrictive in a kind of feel.

Like, it just has to kind of hold him back. Have you ever tried a harness? You know anything about harnesses? Are we at the Christine Homes section or what? We are. We aren't there yet. Okay, two more things before we get to Christyneau. I have a limit on the show on how much 2028 I can do because I don't like it.

It's too early. Too early. But this exact topic ties into why I don't like it, which is why I feel okay, bringing it up. And I feel like it's in my integrity to bring it up right now. There are two ROM stories out this week, Ron and Daniel. One about how he eats a salad. And he seems to eat a salad the way everyone else trusts. Because the dressing on shakes it up.

Of course, the dressing on, and then he shakes it up. Okay, whatever, I understand it. It's tough to be a profile writer in this day and age. You're trying to find an angle, whatever. A lot of posting about that. I don't know how much more there is to say, but if you have any thoughts, you're welcome to share. I know you're eating a lot of salads right now to prepare for the wedding.

The other story was out this morning. It was exclusive by Axius. Axis exclusive. Rom rolls out an ICE funding plan. He's going to take the money from ICE and give it to community colleges. And here's the thing. Like, fine, that's a fine plan. I'm fine. That's a fine. It's a whatever. Like if a Democrat became president and did that,

fine. I would not have a segment talking about how stupid that was. I don't think on this podcast. It would be a totally a fine plan. Would it be my favorite one? But like right now, ICE is terrorizing people in America. Like right now, DHS is shut down because we have an actual fight that is happening over the funding of this organization that has like a real impact on people. the TSA agents aren't getting paid. You know, people are getting menaced outside of Kinsenegeras. Like, this is a cute fight right now. And like doing 2028 footsy stuff where you're like leaking white papers in March of

26 is fucking stupid. And if you do want to be president in 2028 and you're a Democrat, I would think that the best thing for you to do right now would be to do what we're just talking about a minute ago. which is yell and scream about how terrible Donald Trump is and how terrible the establishment is that has got us into this situation. Yes. Or do nothing.

What to wait? I don't know. I don't want anyone to wait. I don't want anyone to wait. Look, I retract that. I don't want nothing either. I don't want white papers. I don't like little, here's my little Politico scooplet in March of 2026.

It's triggering. Yeah. It's very old school. right you start kind of like doing these sort of policy pronouncements in the run-up to create a kind of like intellectual framework for the kind of campaign you're going to run it just feels like it's from another era like i don't have a visceral reaction to it part of what i hear it was like okay you're going to take the money from ice and give it to community college it's just like okay you think community colleges should have more money and you should and you think ice should have less money i agree with that i i agree with that but we're still there's something about the way democrats like move money around like with the like you know it's priority signaling i agree with that but how big should the tax base be and what should the government do with it right like what is our ideology what is our view as democrats because so many of the i think the like symbolic battles and and you can whether it's it's like how democrats should be signaling right on how angry they are about the shutdown

or what should democrats do to signal they're against the war in iran so much of it flows from the that people generally know what Democrats, they fully and clearly know what Democrats are against. And I'm not going to be go so far as that people don't know what Democrats are for. I think they actually do broadly, right? But they don't understand what they're fighting for. They don't know what really drives them. And I think part of that flows from like, there's just no clear ideology outside of the left of the party. Now, Rom comes from the era, the Bill Clinton era, when there was a clear center-left, small L liberal pro-market governing ideology that was animating and interesting to people. And interesting to them, they could talk about it. If you asked a novel question to Bill Clinton

about an issue he hadn't thought that much about, he had like a way of thinking about the world, a framework that he could use to apply it. And the left has that. I think some pro-democracy, like the Chris Murphy's of the world, I think do have kind of, they're on their way to that, but most Democrats just don't. They don't. I don't think Chuck Schumer does. I don't think a lot of mainstream Democrats have that. And so they kind of careen like through politics figuring out what's the best way they can kind of represent the party signal to the base they're on their side like kind of not be too far to the left whatever and it kind of leaves them straightjacket i think that's like kind of Kamala's campaign is like a signal example of that so yeah like i'm not super interested in these kinds of like signaling policy pronouncements i've got to ask you about that that's more insightful than what i said i do think that like short of coming up with that framework screaming about how much damage Donald trump is doing would be good it's better than nothing

It's certainly better than like leaking white papers. I just, while you were talking, I just Googled. Ice raid community college. So I was curious. It's like ICE unlawfully arrested a Minnesota community college student. ICE is taking students into custody at campuses like Elgin Community College, number 2025. This is shit that's happening right now, you know. And I think that there are plenty of opportunities to go engage with the world and show what you care about, even if you'd,

haven't come up with a broad ideological framework, but show where your passions are and signal that without playing the stupid, doing it in the stupid DC way. The governors have a little bit of advantage here because we've seen Pritzker out there and he's having to make decisions about how to fight Trump in his state

while doing the best he can to get the federal dollars he needs, what have you. Same for Newsom and some of the other governors. But if you're not currently a governor, if you're a senator or if you're not in power, If you're not going to be showing up to lead this fight now, like nobody's interested in you showing up on a white horse in Iowa in 2027. Speaking of Democrats, not knowing what their North Star is and how to move money around.

You've been weighing in a lot on California local stuff I've noticed about. When I follow your feed, one thing that you are upset about is local governance in Los Angeles. You're upset about Donald Trump. You're upset about immigration. You're upset about the third-star democracy. You're also upset about local democratic governance in Los Angeles. So I'm curious if you're thinking about maybe a future in local Los Angeles politics or if you're just, if this is just an outlet for you to scream into the ether, into the void. I want Democrats in this big, rich, democratic state to govern successfully. I want us to prove that we know what we're doing because it is a pretty tall order to tell the country, we're here to save you.

while people are fleeing from California to Texas. And that is a legitimate, valid criticism of how Democrats govern. It'd be one thing if I thought, oh, that's so unfair. The problems in the Democratic coalition in California have nothing to do with the problems that Democrats have nationally.

And I just don't think that's true. I think the same kind of pathologies that we see locally in California are part of the problem nationally. They're different. It's a big country, different issues, all that. But when I see the ways in which California Democrats, especially in Los Angeles, aren't taking the housing crisis seriously, aren't doing enough to deal with the fact that Hollywood is making fewer and fewer television shows and movies in Hollywood.

And it's fucking with people's livelihoods. It's destroying people's dreams. It's making people give up on what they imagine their lives would be because we can't get our shit together and figure out how. It's more affordable to make television shows in London, in fucking London, than it is in Los Angeles, in the TMZ. TMZ is named for a big zone where you could shoot things without paying for hotels. That's the gist of it. That's what the name TMZ comes from, from this big region that has been the core of American, that has been like the place from which American culture, cultural hegemony around the world came from.

And we're just giving up on it. people can't afford to live here people can't afford to make shit here we can barely build a fucking train in under 30 years and it's just not acceptable even your local train this is what you were tweeting about they're trying to build some i i guess public transport and 80 18 people complained about it now it's not being built no it's well so that's an example where the pressure worked uh and we can potentially build it faster now currently the timetable is to begin construction one year do you think it is tim when we begin to What is it? It's like a monorail or something? It's light rail. It's light rail. It's a light rail. When do you think construction begin? Construction. We're March 31, 2026. I'd say you begin to construction. I don't know. Probably like after the Olympics. So October of 2028, probably. 2041, Tim. No. No. Begin. The current plan. Begin. Begin. Dig a hole. You're going to dig your holes in 2041. The reason this vote was important.

We might not even have a country in 2041. The hope, the hope was that if they could get this approved, you can unlock some funding and start construction sooner. That's what this fight was about. It was the possibility of maybe if everything goes right, building before 2041. This is why I'm incensed about it. This is why I'm bothered by it.

And we need more people to get in it here in Los Angeles. Donald Trump nuclear weapon. Lots can happen before 2040. The governor's race I'm not that enthused about either. It felt like the state of California, there could be some better options. But are you excited about anybody? Right now in polling, we do this jungle primary out here where top two go on to the general and there's a legitimate possibility right now that the top two finishers will be the Republicans.

Do you feel like the state deserves that kind of? Do you feel like this might be a Catholic thing for me that like there's some sort of cosmic like you deserve punishment? No. I think that the California Democratic Party deserves it, but I don't think it's worth giving them the pain because we'll all have to live through it. Katie Porter, Swalwell, Steyer are basically kind of in a different category than all the other candidates that are polling in single digits below them. The question is when those candidates will start dropping out. Their names are already going to be on the ballot because none of them dropped out in time to have their names not be on the ballot.

People are going to start getting their ballots, I think May 3rd, May 4th, May 5th, something like that. And these people need to drop out and endorse because what California should really have is two Democrats duking it out in the general because that's what the majority of voters are going to be deciding anyway. At the very least, we need to make sure one Democrat is able to get more votes in these two Republicans that are splitting all the Republican votes. Now, that shouldn't be that hard unless people don't do the right thing. So I don't really, like I would love to have the luxury of having a favorite. We need a Democrat to be in the election. And so we need some of these Democrats to start dropping out. and Jose Mayor. I don't think it's going to happen for him, though. Okay, last topic. We saved

this for everybody. All right. Here's your dessert. I love it looks pained that I've got done this long. Okay, love it looks. I'm good. I don't feel pained at all. You're projecting that onto me. I'm happy to be here. Yeah. I just, your whole body language shifted once I started talking about the California governor's face. I'm just mad. Like, it's unfucking believable. I spent so long doing national politics and talking about national politics, and I really didn't pay enough attention. Like, I've been in California for over a decade. And I really didn't focus on it enough. I was too focused on what we're building here. And obviously, that's what I think about most of the time. But I love Los Angeles. I do. I genuinely love living here.

It is infuriating to me how many people are kind of struggling to make a life here because of how expensive housing is and because of what's happening to the industry. And it is an emergency. It is an emergency. And they don't treat it like it. And it makes me fucking nuts. Love it for city council. That's the passion I'm looking for. That is the passion I'm looking for for congressional Democrats about what's happening in Washington. A bunch of congressmen in California and congresswomen who I don't even know who you are. I wouldn't recognize you on the street. That's insane.

It's 2026. Make me know who you are. I'm in the political podcasting business. Scream into your phone. Do something. Show protest. Show up. Final topic.

Christine Nome's husband today was revealed as a secret cross-dresser who don'ts gigantic fake breasts and pink hot pants to chat with online fetish models while his wife operated at the highest echelons of government handling matters of national security in a recent role as Department of Homeland Security Brian Nome 56 has been dressing up and paying adult entertainers to talk dirty. The Daily Mail has reviewed hundreds of messages involving three women from the bimbofication scene

where people transform themselves into real-life Barbie dolls by pumping colossal amounts of saline into their breasts. Brian has been bimbofying himself. thoughts John Lovett I'm not going to kink shame Brian is it just Brian is it Brian how do you pronounce it B-R-Y-O-N it's just

Brian or is it just Brian it's just a interesting spelling of Brian again not going to kink shame the man you know however you get your rocks off you know not hurting anybody just putting in a pair of big fake boobies and and it looks like maybe some lipstick I don't know it's hard to tell

talking to the gals talking to the gals wanting the biggest Tantas possible, just magnificent gigantic yavos. I think that's a beautiful thing. I don't know problem with that. I have a problem with that. There is something deeply dark about the whole thing because there's a moment in the Daily Mail story in which he says like something like I need to get better and then he stops talking

to them for a while and then he comes back. This doesn't feel like Dan Savage monogamish. This feels more like Lindy West canceling the book tour. You know what I'm saying? Like there's a darkness to this. There's a darkness to this. You have gnome on a plane with Corey Lewandowski doing kind of glamour shots in front of prisoners at Sikas. And then meanwhile, Brian is at home putting in the big magnificent bazumbas to pay women to talk to him.

You could see the P.T. Anderson send up of this. Like I want a magnolia style kind of dark biopic of Christy and Corey. Corey doing the eight-hour shift with her in the airplane coming home from El Salvador with his stank breath and terrible face while his wife is at home texting him when are you going to come see your children? And, you know, she is getting alerts on her phone about the torture that is being inflicted upon Venezuelans under her watch. Then like the camera scene pans to Brian in South Dakota on the webcam.

with the tattas, the saline, it's bleak. It's a bleak. It is bleak life. And I agree with you. I want, if you're, I want happiness for everybody.

If that brings you happiness, bimbophication, that's fine. But in the broader kind of context of her life, it's a pretty bleak kind of film. It's something that they could film in the TMZ if we're still making films, I think.

My initial reaction to the story, which I feel like is right to tell you is, like you can't hide from your own soul's brokenness like really that's what i was just that that like you can go and you can you know pretend you're happy and put on a cowboy hat and ride the horse and never apologize never admit wrong act like everything you're doing is right act like you've got it all together you're powerful you're strong you're you're tough you're doing it you're the leader you're the one like you could be president someday but there's a darkness in you and it's why you thought when you killed that dog, it would be a story worth telling. And whatever that darkness is,

you can't hide from it. It's going to infect your whole fucking life. Tricles out to the cracks. I'm not one to say a person is or isn't evil. There are plenty of evil people in the world, but I do think there's evil inside of us. And I do think that like that evil, that darkness, right? Like if you don't face it, if you don't deal with it, you end up the leading the shield of America as while your husband is at home putting in fake boobs to pay women to talk to him while says he doesn't know what to do about his own wife's affair. So it's the whole thing makes me quite sad. It's quite, just answer the Y Corey question. It's interesting you brought that evil. You recommended a book to me recently that I read one chapter of and I was like, you know,

I'm going to save this for summer vacation. I'm going to save this from summer vacation. But I told you that I. It's fine. No, it's good. I'm interested in it, but I just, I got a chapter in the story. Anyway, why don't you share? Is it supposed to be private? No, I saw a Catholic. No, I saw a Catholic priest talking about a definition of evil by an author from like the 70s or 80s. I was like, oh, I've never heard that before. And I also love like stepping out of our current time and just finding old books that people aren't even talking about anymore. I just like, when I get out of the algorithm, I want to get out of the words, I'm sick of hearing. And so this guy named M. Scott Peck, who I hadn't heard very much about, didn't know anything

about. And I started reading the book. And it was just interesting the way this guy was so like kind of able to weave like a spiritual idea of good versus evil. And his own. experience as a psychotherapist. And I thought, or a psychologist. And I said, oh, that's interesting. I'm enjoying this. That's something Tim might like. And the further I got into the book, the more I'm like, oh, he does exorcisms. I gave him a best year. Now there's an exorcism. All right. Okay. Even before the exorcisms, you know, it's, it's another dark tale, which is why I easily transitioned from, from Christy. You know, we're talking about a man in the exurbs, of North Carolina, like leaving his family and having these dark visions and blackouts and

he engages in these behaviors. Anyway, it's an exploration of evil, which is important for our time. And I appreciate you recommending to me. And I will finish it on summer vacation. I can't promise to finish it. I will give it a second try on summer vacation this summer. Finally, I just want to check in on the light inside of you. I mentioned your wedding earlier.

How are you feeling? How are you processing? You know, every day you've got to live in the news. You've got to watch the worst people in the world ruin society. You've got to get feedback from viewers about your pimples. You know, you just can't, you can't just exist. You know, it's kind of challenging. And then meanwhile, you know, you have all this good stuff happening in your life.

I'm just, I just want to check in with you. You know, it's authoritarianism rising. Never been happier. Happy for you. I remember because, you know, John and Emily got married in 2017. And when I think about that wedding, right, I do not connect, oh, Trump just won and oh, John and Emily are getting married. Well, besides right now. Except right now.

But really, but like when I think about that, when I think about that wedding, there's no politics in it. There's no like, oh, we did, we had a good time despite. There's no despite. It was just a lovely, like, awesome time. And I'm sure at that wedding there are conversations I no longer remember about what was happening in the country. But for the, but truly, it was just that is life. and that life can be good and you don't have to let politics ruin it. In fact, you sort of have a, I think, a duty to yourself and your friends and your family

to not allow that because they can't have even one more thing. So that's how I think about it. I'm very excited that we're getting married. I also feel like having a gay wedding and just like that they're not going to keep us down at all. And I feel a bit overwhelmed by how much between now and then between like there's like the sort of overwhelm of like doing the wedding stuff and doing the job, whatever. like it's good problems to have. So I feel good. I'm like, Trump being so unpopular and in the last year, the fact that it turns out that even Trump at his worst is not so strong a force as America can't

stop it, I think is to me where I'm at, which is why I am in a better place about what's happening than I was a year ago, not to say things can't get worse, not to say they can't try to steal the election, not to say a lot of terrible shit can't happen and things can't take a turn. But right now, That to me is the story of the last year. Yeah, I agree with that. Occasionally I have to internally combat the evil inside of me and wonder whether I'm rooting for the bad stuff to happen. But okay, that's for another podcast, probably.

Unless you had a thought you wanted to share about it, unless you wanted to absolve me of my sins. Inside of each of us, there is an, everyone has, there's an ice agent in here. There is, there's a, everyone had that. There's a, there's a little Christy gnome inside of all of us that wants to preen and, be loved despite all the terrible things that we do. Right, there's just there's a little

darkness. I don't know if there's a Christy in me, but there's definitely a bryon. All right, everybody. We will see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. Hope you enjoyed that one. Sorry, it came out a little late. It's love its fault. Love it. I'll see you in May. Everybody else, we'll see you. You're going to bring those beautiful yaboos. I want to see in those big, be magnificent yavos, Tim. I'll have them. I love saying yaboos. I like you. I know you do. See you tomorrow, everybody. Peace. The board 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, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.