The Bulwark Podcast - Jonathan V. Last: How Much Stupid Can We Possibly Take?

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Thom Tillis was the pivotal vote to confirm a buffoon to run the Department of Defense, and now he’s shocked about Hegseth’s incompetency. JD wants everyone to know he’s a Catholic now, but he doesn’t seem to have absorbed even the basic teachings of Catholicism. And Susan Collins claims she has influence with her Senate colleagues over Trump’s agenda—even though on almost every occasion she has made sure that her vote won’t matter. Meanwhile, Trump did a coup in Venezuela with an associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Plus: Tim reads from the mailbag, Trump is repulsed by Ken Paxton, the Antichrist might be walking amongst us, and what would happen if armed, leftwing activists created a sanctuary space in Ohio to protect Haitian immigrants?JVL joins Tim Miller.show notes: JVL’s ‘Triad’ on the illegal Venezuelan oil deal Tim’s ‘Take’ with MAGA pollster Rich Baris Pulitzer-winning reporting by “Pablo Torre Finds Out” on the Clippers Tim’s interview with Ruby Cramer on MAHA Here’s how you can help the City of Springfield and its Haitian Community:Support the Haitian Community Help & Support Center, St. Vincent de Paul, and Second Harvest Food Bank Bulwark LIVE: GOOD FIGHT TOUR with Tim, Sarah, Sam and JVL is coming to the Southeast in October. Tickets are on sale NOW. Head to TheBulwark.com/Events for details and to get your tickets. Go to Dupe.com today and find similar products for less. It’s 100% free to use. Stop wasting money on brand names and start saving with Dupe.com today.

Welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Want to start with a big shout out to my guy, Pablo Torre. So rarely do the good guys win in a story. So rarely do our big, rich oligarchs get punished for their cheating. And it happened. People doubted Pablo. They smeared Pablo. And he was fucking right. And Steve Balmer. Sorry, Steve Balmer. I mean, there are other rich guys. I wish we'd be punished before Steve Balmer. But it's just nice to get one. It's nice to have one happy story. So if you guys don't know what I'm talking about, you can Google it. But Pablo did a deep investigation to the way that the owner of the Clippers cheated. And boy, was the punishment real. So shout out. Thebork.com slash events go there. The Columbia, Charlotte, and Atlanta shows are coming together.

They're going to be bopping. So if you don't have your tickets yet, please go get them. Also, if you're on YouTube right now, half of you don't subscribe. About 47% of you based on the data. Why? Why not? You're hurting my feelings. You're right there on YouTube. Just click the little subscribe button. Help us out. We're going for $2 million. And this is the moment to do it because this show today, it's going to be a doozy. It's going to be a duzy. Straight fire. I'm bringing in the resident Prince of Darkness at the Bullwark. He's the author of the Triad

newsletter, something you should also be signed up for. He's the editor of this here, Bullwark. It's JVL. How you doing, Jonathan V. Last? You know, it's great to be here. I will say that considerably less than 50% even of the people watching this are signed up for the triad newsletter. I don't know why. Seriously. And it's the best fucking newsletter in the business. So go get it.

With this show, I want to start with some happy news because it's going to be all downhill from there. Okay. We're going to get increasingly dark. And then maybe for dessert, we'll give you some laughs. So we'll begin with the happy. I had a fellow by the name of Rich Barris, big data. Republican, the People's Pundit on the Bullwark takes feed last night. This is 30 minutes of just pure joy for you, if you're listening right now.

If you just want to treat yourself to a little guilty pleasure, 30 minutes of listening to a maga, like it really died in the wool maga pollster talking about how fucked the Republicans are because Donald Trump is screwing everything up is really satisfying. I loved it. I loved him. Again, Tim, I have a real soft spot for genuine MAGAs. Yeah, right. Like, people who just legitimately believe what they believe.

Okay, right, the MTGs of the world. This guy, what I don't like is the ones who like, you know, piss in your pocket and tell you it's raining. And he didn't do that. He was great. I think you ought to make it a regular, regular bit. Me too. We didn't, I wanted to argue with him a little more. But Rich projects easy wins for John Alsoth and Abdul El-Sayed.

And he thinks that even some of these stretched. a Tucker endorsement last night. Not exactly. I don't want to impugn Abdul with saying you got the Tucker endorsement. I think what Tucker said, I don't have the quote in front of me, but it was something like I would kill myself before voting for Mike Rogers. So it's kind of like a negative. That was an endorsement.

Would he write in? I guess he wouldn't write in America first. He said Abdul was really America first. Abdul is really good on A-PAC from Tucker's point of view. You know how we always made fun of all the never-trumper's who couldn't decide between Kamala and Trump or Biden and Trump. And so they wrote in Edmund Burke. Who would be the Tucker version of writing in Edmund Burke?

Who would he write in? That is a tough one. It would be kind of like Father Kaufflin or something. I'll workshop that. We'll workshop that. Hewing Long. Pap Buchanan. Pap Buchanan.

Yeah. Tucker wrote in Patu Kling. Ding, ding. Here's some other good news. Isn't just Rich Beres. It isn't just the people's fund. Call Rove from the establishment side. The Republican Party said this on Fox yesterday.

Time is running out if the president wants to have Paxton win. He needs to start tossing a lot of money. Paxton's way. A lot of people are raising this alarm. People on the Republican side don't understand why they're not spending to help Paxton. They're very concerned. Paxton might lose. Trump was...

Have they seen Paxton? Well, Trump was asked about this. They're concerned. Trump was asked about this yesterday. Actually, I have to apologize. is yesterday we played an ad where his voice was in it. It didn't occur to me that counts. But we don't play clips of Trump.

So I'm going to have to read it. And you hate to hand it to Trump, but this is a good one. Ken Paxton, you might not like the way he dresses. And I say this. It's so insulting to him, but I might as well say it. You might not like the way he looks. You might not love his television interviews. But he was the best attorney general, and that speaks a lot louder than the suit that he's wearing that doesn't look so great.

more than anything frankly. I like how he goes back in. It's kind of one of these things where he's like, I'm attacking him, he's ugly, he dresses horribly, his interviews are boring, he's really unappealing, but he's good.

But also he really does dress badly. So this is all good news, right, JVL? Should we stop the pod here? Rich Barras, call Ronald Trump, nobody, and it seems pretty negative. I still think Tala Rico is a stretch. Okay.

you know, like there's a chance. Even if it's a one in three chance. If you had been told you have a one in three chance of winning a Texas Senate seat, you would have thought to yourself, that's pretty good. I'll take it. I'll take that. I mean, did you have any thoughts on the weekend Paxton dresses?

You're not really a sartorial critic. I would say when you're a man of a certain age, you do have to stop wearing untucked button down shirts. Leave it at that. Yeah. It's not good. I don't wear untucked button-down shirts. I'm younger than that, dude.

I do, but, you know, I was at ladies' weights class last night. You're also much younger. Not that much. Trump, you know, very rarely makes me laugh, and other people he find it very funny. But every once in a while, I do have to admit he gets me. And the only thing I felt was missing from Ken Paxson was the classic Trump comment about Barney Frank RIP, where he said, Barney Frank, looking disgusting, protruding nipples. And as I was watching the Paxton video,

Paxton also had protruding nipples. And so then we're going to know Paxton's really in trouble, as Trump points out, it's protruding nipples. All right. There we go. That's enough happy news. We're going to move on to the Department of War. We talked about this a little bit with Michael Weiss yesterday,

created a little bit of a stir talking about Ricky Buria. I hear there's some scuttlebutt over in the Pentagon about the Ricky Buria, Rasputin information coming out to the public sphere. And among the people that have taken the news what's been happening in the Pentagon poorly and Dan Driscoll being fired from Army Secretary was North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis. Would you like to hear what he said?

I would love to. I'd love to hear it and then I can react to it. I mean, I'm cheating because I know this because I wrote about it today. Okay. Well, I'm excited to read what you wrote about it. I almost had a stroke on X.com. yesterday when I started reading this. So here we go. We'll see if I can make it through it through it. I served on the Senate Armed Services Committee for eight years and as

chair or ranking member of the personnel and readiness subcommittee. I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. Hags of is intimidated by competence and retreats to jining up culture wars instead of soberly, interesting word, attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force, I urge the president to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it. Tom Tillis, you might think I'd like that statement, but you would be wrong because Pete Heggseth got confirmed by a vote of 50 to 50, and there was a single person who could have stopped him from doing this. This very predictable thing

that everybody said was going to happen, this very obvious thing that a drunk weekend talk show co-host was going to be put in charge of this massive bureaucracy of the biggest military in the world. Everyone knew that was going to be a disaster and do you know who confirmed him

for that role, Tom fucking Tillis? I don't have a question. More of a comment. It's, uh, well, so I struggled with this aspect of it, Tim. Would you prefer he didn't say something? Yes. Okay, fair.

I would. I don't, I mean, have some, go away. go to Siberia, Tom Tillis. Like, go to Siberia. Or I guess what I would prefer in the, you know, perfect world is Tom tells us to come on to the Bullwark podcast and say, I fucked this up worse than anything I've ever fucked up in my life.

And it was extremely predictable and I should have known it. And you guys were right. And I will do whatever you ask. I like put me in coach. I will go campaign for Abdul Al-Syad if necessary. I will do anything. Don't get crazy. I mean, that's what he should do.

Of course. That's what he should do. He made Pete X at the head of the Department of Defense. You know, insane. He was once the ranking member of the personnel and ready subcommittee. You think he would know. So this is the thing that I, and Tillis just did this, what, four weeks ago with the Blanche stuff, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And then he voted for. And then he voted for him. Again. But here, the phrasing of his statement alibes Trump again. Like, you know, I'm calling on, it's Hegs. Hegsth is the problem. Please, Mr. Trump.

I urge the president. I urge you. Like, it isn't that if Trump doesn't fire him, then Trump, who's the commander in chief is the one who's doing something terrible, like, he can't say that. It's just him jerking off in public, isn't it? Yes. Yes. That is what, like, if you can't say.

In the most pompous way possible. Hegsthseth should be fired. And if Hegsth isn't fired, then the commander in chief is. I'll fuck up and ought to be impeached or something. Like, I mean, because if it is true that what he says, that this is the most incompetent secretary of defense ever and that he's harming the troops, et cetera, and it is true that their president won't replace him.

The president should probably be impeached, shouldn't he? Yeah, or we should do everything possible to contain him, I guess. And so, but Tillis won't even go to criticize him. Close your ears, but to your point of jerking off in public, like this, like, this is exactly doing. He's sucking himself off. He's like, oh, oh, you guys are so stupid. Jeremy before him.

Yeah. Look at my huge member. Like, I am so great and like you guys are so bad and so dumb and like, well, you should really do better. Let me finish on you. Like, it's like, what? You did this. You did this, Tom Tillis.

You put pretext secretary more. You hired him. You hired him. You know? It's weird that he can't even insert a boy, I can't believe this guy fooled me. Right? Like there's no, it is as if that thing that happened, well, that was an alternate universe. That was, uh, that was Tom Tillis from Earth X who cast that boat.

Not me. I didn't do that. That was the other earth Tom Tillis. Like, there's just no. Or I'm a weak man. These guys were all weak. Trump was right. Trump was right.

Yes. Right. I mean, Trump looked at the Republican Party and said, these guys are a bunch of fucking weaklings. And he was right. J. Mark was interviewing Susan Collins yesterday. And she, I think she does not look good. I mean, she's very shaky and...

She passed her prime? No, I wouldn't say that. You're 116th, I do. It's a joke. I'm saying I wrong. You don't cancel me. You're 116th of a doctor, but it doesn't look great. But she's kind of stuttering out like why she has done what she did and not what

Liz Cheney did. With the case of Liz Cheney, what influence does she have today? It's not just that she lost her seat, is that she has no impact in my view. What influence and impact have you shown? Like, Pete Hankseth is the secretary of, like, you guys did have a chance to have influence an impact. You know, you could have done your job, which is to advise and consent the president, and if the president decides he's going to, like, like, Kills is doing this thing,

like you said, like, what's the Russian line about how, you know, the something not the czar? Oh, the commissars. If only this czar knew what they were doing or something. Yeah. And this is like that. But like you are the advisors in this case. Like there's one opportunity where you were able to advise Trump. And you said, okay, sure.

We're going to put a total buffoon in charge of the Defense Department. We're going to put somebody that doesn't believe in MRNA research in front of HHS. Like we're going to, like we are going to do this. I'm going to rubber stamp it. I mean, Collins, I think voted against like Seth, I should say. But like if she's saying she's influenced. and impact, you would think that among the places she would have influence and impact would be her colleagues in the Senate. But she couldn't, she hasn't stopped anything. She hasn't done anything.

Like, what is the impact? It's like 1988, where there's a lot of pork barrel stuff. You're bringing home. Like, they're not even passing anything. Like, she's ahead of the appreciation. She did fund the ICE agents that killed somebody in the streets of her state. But like, where is the impact? So with Susan Collins is actually worse than that because she works very hard to not have influence. Right. Right. I mean, you look at her voting record. And what she does is she makes sure that her vote won't matter. And if her vote doesn't matter, then she'll go and do the opposite, right? And I hop off the bus.

And so it's like her entire career in the age of Trump has been making sure she does not influence anything. Right. I don't even know what to say. So why bother? I guess, like you tell yourself you have this influence because I don't know. You have a security and you've got staff and people call your office and you write them letters. But like on any of the big things. Like the big ticket things that have happened that have hurt the state of Maine, the murder in the street, the tariffs, you're a neighbor to Canada.

It's like the gall to tell Jonathan Martin that you took the path you did so that you could have influence and impact. Like three days after Trump starts a crippling trade war with a border, a country that borders you where there's a ton of. you know, economic cross-pollination and tourism. Where was your influence? In her defense, I do suspect that Susan Collins believes what she's saying. Sure, I do too. Total delusional. Yeah, I think she's just delusional.

Yeah. My favorite anecdote about Susan Collins ever, by the way, I love bringing this up any time she comes up, is that on January 6th, I forget what I was watching, she was doing an interview. And she said, when started I, at first I thought it was the Iranians. she was dead serious this was not like matt gates pretending like he thought it was antifa you know for spin like she was dead serious like she somehow thought that the iranians were storming the capital could have been yeah well there were a lot of iranians down at the at the speech you could see when the cameras panned through all those brown faces yeah i really hope she loses okay i want to go

to yesterday's d'isler is there anything else on heggseth you said i haven't read your try is that out yet. So in my defense, I'm not staring. I can't have read it. But is there any other he says? Yeah. It's okay. People can read it. It's about how he's already working hard to lose America's next war. Like he's not finished losing the current war, but he's already working ahead and getting started on the next war too. Well, that's great news. Congrats for Tom Tillis. That'll be another L on his head. It's past week we're on the market for some, like, I don't even know how to describe it, like what I want. Like, I guess it was kind of like a privacy screen. I want like

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and a browser extension if you want to make it even easier. No account needed, totally free, start saving money with dup.com today. I want to talk about your newsletter from yesterday about Venezuela and this mob deal that we're doing for the oil in Venezuela. I kind of feel like this, I wanted to mull again on this one. Because Bill and I talked about it on Monday

and I felt like I was in this situation when I was like, guys, you don't understand how crazy this Venezuela thing is. Like, it's just on its face, obviously. it's ridiculous, but it's even crazy you guys understand. And then I felt like when I didn't, I didn't feel like I explained it properly. And then your newsletter yesterday, like really laid it out. And so I want a second swing. I want you to tell people what exactly is going on with this supposed oil deal. Okay. So the oil deal is illegal. And I mean this in all of the ways. So it is the Department of Defense, which has taken, I think it's 30% stake.

35. 35% stake in this Venezuelan company, which is a state-run company. So the Department of Defense is not allowed to take equity positions. There's a reason for that, which is that the military should not have an independent source of funding. Do you know what happens in countries where the military funds itself? They wind up taking over. Yeah, right, right. In Venezuela, their own constitution says that this is illegal.

It's articles 12 and 13 that are like very, very clear. Foreign entities cannot touch our national resources. They can't have leases. They can't rent them. Like this is no, no, no, no, no. So it's illegal from both ends. It can't possibly last. By the way, it's on a bunch of land that's really inaccessible.

And the reserves aren't really used. useful for American purposes because of the quality of the oil, leave that aside. And then the craziness is I, so I got pulled down the rabbit hole of this guy who was the intermediary of all this, who is Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, who is like a, like Jared and Don Jr. had a baby. A Latino baby. A Latino baby. Yeah.

Okay. So. So keep going. Tell me about Alejandro. It's the craziest fucking thing. So this guy is very young. He's 46. He is born in pre-Cavez Venezuela,

when Venezuela is a functioning, actually very well-to-do liberal democracy. He's 19 when Chavez takes over. And by the time he's out of college, and he comes from a very wealthy family to begin with, you have in the early Chavez years, the elites in Venezuela doing one of two things. They're the people who decide they're going to try to,

oppose Chavez and recapture liberal democracy. And then you have rich guys like Alejandro who decide they want to play ball. And they go from being like, you know, normal rich to being filthy fucking oligarch rich. And this is what happens every time a strong man takes over everywhere in the world. This is Saudi Arabia. This is Putin's Russia. It's a tale as old as time. This is happening right now here.

In America. Right. with Nutlick and the Trump kids. The Trump kids. Who's the guy? The Whitkoff kids. Yeah, all those. Anyway.

So Alejandro decides, I'm going to play ball with Chavez and Maduro. And what he gets in return from that is a bunch of state run contracts for power generation. And so he's like 29 years old and he's being given $2 billion to, you know, I think you're just the kind of guy to go building power plants for us. Yeah, right. And he then goes from that to he gets a stake in the state run oil conglomerate. And then he starts making a whole bunch of really weird moves internationally. He becomes part of a financial services conglomerate, part of a conglomerate that's opening up banks in Africa. He buys a discount sunglasses company called Hawkers.

He opens up a Spanish version. version of Uber, basically. And so he's doing all of these very strange, unrelated businesses internationally. And by total coincidence, a whole bunch of countries start investigating him for money laundering. And it does seem possible that the guy whose entire career is made by currying favor

with the narco-terrorists who run Venezuela, might have been potentially allegedly involved in some way. Now, important to say, he's never been fully charged or convicted in any jurisdiction. He's fled a couple of countries. He has fled a couple of countries. And then he hired Rudy in the Trump first term.

Right. When he was investigated by Trump's DOJ. Yeah. And he hired Rudy and the Trump DOJ dropped it. And then somehow after that, also Switzerland, decided to stop pursuing him because Switzerland was pursuing him as well. He gets in all of this by being

in tight with Chavez and Maduro. And at some point Maduro cuts him out. And it's not entirely clear what happens here. My guess is some other oligarch made a better offer. And so Maduro forces him to sell his share in the

state run oil company. Or he's stripped of it. I forget whether he sells it or a stripped of it. And he then decides, Alejandro, well, fuck that. I'm going to get Maduro and see he starts putting money into the opposition. He flees the country. He has all of his assets that are still in Venezuela seized, but he's got assets all over Europe and Africa and stuff. So he's doing fine.

He's living high in the hog in Spain. He then has to leave Spain because the Spanish police are investigating him for money laundering. So he goes to the UK. He sets up business in the UK. He winds up being kept under house arrest in the UK because the Swiss are trying to extradite him because they're doing a money laundering investigation. But while he is in the UK, Delci Rodriguez calls him up and is like, hey, you know, if you wanted to come back, as long as you promise to be a good boy and you don't cause any trouble for Nikki, I think I could probably make that work. And he realizes, oh, I now have something to give Trump, right? He had needed Trump's help, which is why he hired Rudy. Yeah.

And so he becomes the back channel to Delsey Rodriguez. And it is now clear as day. And I think I said this to you When we did the kidnapping in January Obviously, Delcee gave up her boss, right? Oh, yeah. And he's on the phone in some of this reporting. The Alejandro is like on the phone with this. On the phone with her that night for hours and hours and hours.

And she's freaking out because she thinks that the Americans killed Maduro. And her understanding of the deal was that they were only going to arrest him. Yeah. And Alejandro is saying, no, no, no, don't worry. he's not dead. It's all going to be okay. You can trust these guys. You're going to run everything, etc., etc., etc. So Delci takes over, and one month later, Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche start talking to the Swiss saying, hey, guys, you got to drop this extradition request. We need him to be able to travel freely between the U.S. and Venezuela. He's doing important work

for us. It's quite the story. It's amazing. So we do illegal coup with an international criminal, money laundering criminal allegedly. Allegedly. And we work as a team with him, take over the government, and now are illegally stealing their oil. Yes. With Venezuela. It's a short summary of what happened. When you hear the story,

you're kind of like oligarchs, rich people, international. God, this sounds like the Epstein class, doesn't it? And I'm going to tell you, I got a DM last night about this story. And it's not just the Epstein class. It's Epstein's friends again. It's an Epstein friend that Trump did this deal with.

Alejandro and Epstein were LinkedIn were LinkedIn friends, which is nice. You knew this. Alejandro requested Epstein on LinkedIn. That's in the files. Some emails back and forth. Epstein asks another intermediary. If he insulted Alejandro,

misspels Alejandro. He says, why did you guys disappear? he's copied on emails about a meeting in Palm Beach. So it's like we did a coup with an Epstein associate to take over Venezuela and steal their oil illegally. That's what we got. Great. Okay.

It's great. I felt like people deserved the full story there because it's one of these things like is obviously on its face, it's insane that we're kidnapping people in Venezuela and trying to steal their oil, but like the details get a little complicated. but I think that the detail, it's important to wade through the details to just understand the scope of the madness around us. I want to go from there to an interview that J.D. Vance did with a child podcaster.

My understanding is you've not watched this interview. I'm coming in cold. I have to suffer through J.D. I guess it's relevant to what we're about to talk about. It's a little bit of the Catholic in me. You know, I feel like it's kind of the penance I have for being a former Republican. I have to do self-penance various times. And one of the self-penance is I have to do is monitor the person that most offends my being.

You know, and it's like that's the kind of cross I have to bear, if you will, to use a Catholic phrase. Cheney talks about his faith a lot. It doesn't really ever use any Catholic phrases. The response to the first clip I'm going to play one of these clips, I got to laugh from a post on X. from a gal named Claire Stagg, who says, this dude is just three evangelicals in a trench coat. That's pretty good. And so I want to use that as the kind of intro to a series of clips of J.D. Vans talking to a child podcaster about his faith and how he kind of balances his faith with his responsibilities as a leader. What I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now.

And if that leads to the end times, okay? Why would it lead to the end times? I don't understand. There's so much to unpack in such a short clip. Are you doing God's work? Is kidnapping people and sending them to a foreign country? God's work? Is shooting people in the street?

God's work. You're not calumny and blood livals, right? The things he's doing where he says things that are knowingly false about people to demonize them and then promises to keep saying those false things. Is that God's work? Is that God's work? Emily Zanati wrote this. I don't exactly know where she has in Trump these days, but she was Trump curious,

kind of a right-wing media figure. She writes this about J.D., you know what? I give up. This belief isn't even Catholic. Dispensationalism is a heresy. I don't think he's doing a heresy, but it's deeply weird. Matt, whose social media handle is Matt, please clap, which is rude. Do you really start to be making fun of Jeb 10 years later?

Fun fact, Roman Catholicism doesn't believe that human actions can bring around about an acceleration of the end times. He really struggles as kind of the basics. In a different interview that we don't have the audio of, or a print interview, he said this week he was trying to describe blood libels, or why anti-Semitism was a blood libel, and he misunderstands blood libels, which is kind of an Old Testament thing. But then he says that something along the lines of, like, you know, it's a deeply anti-Christian to believe that somebody is guilty based on their blood. And I was like, it's kind of like the original sin is kind of like the fundamental thing. It's kind of like the fundamental thing. Pretty sure.

It's actually kind of like step one. It's like love your neighbor as yourself. Original sin. Like if you only know, you know, two things. Like kind of those are the things that you know. Anything else in the end times? Or should we move on to whether J.D. is going to heaven? I mean, I have never in my life heard of Catholic use the phrase end times.

I don't think. Like, that's just an evangelical. way of talking about the world. That's fine. All right. Let's go to clip two. Is JD going to heaven? On a scale of one to ten, ten being absolutely certain, one being not certain at all.

How confident are you that you'd go to heaven? Oh, man. That is a tough question. It's high, but it's not ten. Right? I mean, it's a seven or it's an eight. Like, I'm always one of these people who is always going to have little doubts. and like if you'd ask me that question a year ago probably was like a five or a six

wow wait why the why the change like five or six and now seven or eight because I'd say the difference is and again all all respect to to God but I still occasionally have doubts like is this actually real yeah right wait I might be in a simulation he's a seven or eight not because he has doubts about whether he might be going to hell he's a seven or eight because Because he doesn't, he's not sure that God exists, actually. Right. We might be living in a simulation. I do talk to Peter Thiel about that quite a lot.

And Elon says there's a high chance that we're in a simulation. So, you know, that's why I might not go to heaven. How do you process that? Well, I mean, look, I don't want to speak for everybody. But my sense, not a priest, not a canon lawyer, is that every Catholic's answer to that question should be one. One. Right. Every Catholic's answer to the question of how sure you that you're going to heaven, one should be it because you don't get to go to heaven on your own.

It is only by God's grace that you go to heaven because his mercy is infinite. Right. And that's so it's also an evangelical thing, right, to think to be in your phrase that's a seven or eight because like it's a few, you know, we're now going to get into a little dorm room theology. talk, but like, you know, this view that by accepting Jesus into your heart, like, that's, you know, then that's all you need to do, right? Like, that's not the Catholic view, right? Like, right. And so, like, you can understand why he'd be like, well, I'm going to, you know, if you were of a faith. If heaven exists, I'm going there. Right. Yeah. If you're, simulation. If you're in a faith journey where, you know, you're of a faith tradition where, like,

all I have to do is, is believing is enough, then, like, yeah, then, you're, then you're going to go unless heaven doesn't exist, right? Like that the framework that he's thinking about it in. And it's like, whatever, that's fine. If it wasn't for the fact that he just wrote a fucking book about his conversion. Catholicism, he doesn't understand anything about it. He doesn't seem to have thought about any of the Catholic teachings at all for like even one second.

I mean, are you surprised? I'm a little surprised that he can't fake it better. Like, JD's a little bit of like a cipher. Like, a sociopath. Like, I don't know. like I mean you are different you're still a Catholic in good standing and believe this I don't I'm lapsed

but I could fucking fake it like if I decided to run for president I needed to be a good Catholic I could sit down with this child podcaster and I could fucking fake it but he can't even fake it I don't know who I think might have been Karras Swisher who said this talking about

Elon Musk who said that you know Elon Musk sounds really smart so long as he's talking about something you don't know anything about And if you know, like, you know, if you were even half of a subject matter expert and he starts talking about the area of the world, you know, you look at me, you're like, this is fucking bullshit. JD's the same way. And so, like, I hear JD all the time and I just can't believe anybody can be persuaded by anything he says because he's so fucking stupid about the world. He's just a bullshitter.

And so that's how I, I mean, I just assumed that this whole Catholic thing was just, just. part of his brand repositioning and not having to do with anything real. Seven or eight. But, you know, I don't know the disposition of another man's soul. I hope. I hope it's true. I mean, you do kind of because he wrote in his book. I guess I did.

He wrote in his book that he doesn't think about hell. He doesn't fear hell. He doesn't think about it. Well, you know. It's just a strange deal. Like, he is concerned that his actions might bring about the end times here on Earth. But he's not concerned. at all that like his actions might lead to God judging him and sending him to hell.

Like to call it sociopath, he really kind of understates it. Honestly. Well, he's he's a hundred percent of sociopath. Yeah, total. 100 percent. We have one more. I'm sorry. We have one more.

We've got to just do one more. It'll be quick. Okay. Do I think that we're in the end times? I don't know. And I think that it's probably bad for me spiritually. to focus too much on it because there are like things you got to do. I got to be good to my wife.

I got to be good to my kids. I have to be, you know, as good of a leader as I can for the United States of America. And so I think that focusing, well, I'm fascinated by it. I think focusing on it is too much can be very bad. I think that there are like things about the world that make me feel like not shocked if the Antichrist was was walking among us. Same. But again, I try not to focus too much on it. Same.

Well, see, I'm glad we were kind of find a place for J.D. and I do agree. Common ground. The Antichrist might be walking among us. Sure might be. Might be the funder of your whole political project, actually. If I was going to rank the most likely people to be the Antichrist. All right. That was good.

I've got two other topics, I guess, that's kind of related to you know, we're going through kind of like a podcast, different rights of confession right now. And so I've got a topic where we can discuss something JD might need to confess for. And then I have a topic that I suspect might lead you to go to confession, which should we do first? Let's stay with JD. And then we'll go to you. Okay. The news in Springfield lately, like, really has me, like, struggling with my rage.

Like, I think I posted on Substact the other day, one of Jim Swift's dispatches from, from, from Springfield, like saying, like, I'm susceptible to being recruited by a militia right now. Like, an anti-government militia came to me, like, I would be, my ears would be more open than they've been before. I don't know how to use any weapons. I'm kind of a girly voice. I don't know why I would be a top recruit, but, like, I don't know, maybe they could put me in the, in the propaganda department or something.

I'm, like, really fucking mad. And the story of the Pierre Bell, he did nothing wrong. He went to college. he should have a student visa. We shackle him with this massive ankle bracelet. He can't play soccer. He can't do JROTC. He did nothing wrong.

He kills himself. It's just, it makes it hard to get up in the morning, honestly. So anyway, I don't know. What do you make a bit? I have a question for you. I want to stay with the militia thing.

So do you remember the Bundy Ranch standoff? Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. Right. And so a bunch of militia guys, a lot of guns, got together, and obstructed the work of federal agents. And do you remember what the federal agents did? Do you remember how they rammed their cars

and then pushed them all on the ground and shot them in the back? And then, you know, just started to open up. Do you remember, oh, that didn't happen? I don't think that's what happened. I was a child as the 90s. I'm pretty sure the agents kind of like stayed at a distance in the woods while they gathered their weapons.

And talked for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks to find an off ramp and then eventually compromised. I wonder if people on the, the left decided that they were going to start embracing the Second Amendment, like really embracing the Second Amendment and organizing. And created like a ranch in Springfield where the Haitians could live where they protected them. I wonder if the government would show the same restraint and wisdom, which, by the way, I think I'm in favor of the way the government handled the Lombundi ranchers.

I think probably good. They didn't massacre, you know, 200 people. But I wonder if that same sense of restraint would be true. or if suddenly these would be domestic terrorists? I don't know. It's hard to say. I think we know the answer. I saw this clip yesterday of Mike DeWine, who is the governor of Ohio, who's like one

of the three quasi-normal Republicans left in the country. And he was talking about how the situation of Pierre and how tragic it is. And after he talked about how tragic it was and, you know, how unfortunate it is, he said, I think that it should lead us to think, you know, as a country. about the mass deportation effort. And we should really think about that. Have a good think on it. It's the right thing for the country.

Yeah. Have a nice thing. And I'm like, you're the fucking governor of Ohio. Like this is your, like, what happened to like we're a Republican and out of democracy? This is states rights. Like you're the governor. Like you could go through the legal route and sue the administration, sue the Department of Homeland Security and the way that they're carrying out their actions.

I, you could go further. But the Ohio State Police in the streets of Springfield to make sure that protect residents. The government, government agents are behaving themselves. Yeah, you can protect legal residents. I don't know. Lots of things you could do. Tons of things you could do past thinking.

Like Tom Tillis. Yeah. Tons of things you could do. It's the same thing. I don't know. It's tough to come off of JD talking about going to heaven and like, looking about these stories. These people who, like, I would be against this if they were actually illegal immigrants

and hadn't broken any rules. Like, these kids going to right state. Like, there are a bunch of other kids at Wright State who have student visas who are from other countries who aren't legal permanent residents. The administration is turning them into a legal. Yeah. Choosing to. He volunteered to serve.

He's the J.R.O.T.C. They killed himself. Like, the administration did it. Like, because they, because they specifically targeted the Haitians, because of their race, because they were a useful foil to advance a one level against. Like, right? But JD's chances of going to heaven have grown up in the last year. So we want to do everything we can tell the people of Springfield.

So I know that Jim Swift in the newsletter has put out various organizations that are doing good work. And I'll put them in the show notes if you want to help them. I have a little bit more sympathy for a different group of people. And I get the sense based on some messages that I got from you and just knowing you so well with all the time we spent together than me. your empathy doesn't quite extend to that group. It was on Tuesday of this week. I had Ruby Kramer on the podcast. You wrote a really...

Great show. Yeah, thank you. Really elegant profile. She's a great profile writer of this couple in West Virginia and that basically got divorced over Maha and their kids got what appears to be measles kind of a weird situation where everything about it said measles, but the test came back negative.

And then there are also, there are false negatives. And so there's a little bit of mystery in the story as well. well, but the kids, including one that has special needs, were not getting the medical services they needed, regardless of whether they got measles because of their mother's maha beliefs. And Ruby and I expressed, you know, obviously frustration with that, but also empathy and also thinking what's the right way to go about this? And we talked a little bit about how, you know, by telling them, listen to your doctors and follow the science, people feel like you're talking down to them and you're condescending

them and it has a backlash effect. I sense that you maybe don't care that much about the backlash effect. So I was in the car listening to this show literally screaming out loud, like a crazy person, as I was listening to it. And the first part was when Ruby was describing the woman, Leah, as... Like you were literally screaming? Literally screaming. Like audible noises. Like Sam Kiddinson.

I was screaming. very healthy, very good. It's good to scream when you're listening to podcasts. It's a show that's a good for you. And Leah describes herself as just, you know, being a person who's just really open-minded. And she explains that that's how she got into the Maha stuff because she's just open-minded about things. People are so stupid. And one of the ways in which people are incredibly stupid is they have absurd self-images.

Because Leah is not open-minded, right? Leah has her mind made up about exactly what she wants, and there is nothing that can convince her of otherwise, right? And so this is, you get in this fundamental place where you're trying to convince people who can't even understand themselves of the world around them. Can any of us really understand ourselves? I think that's part of the challenge of being human

and that many people succeed at it. That's true. not people like Leah. It's hard. And when Ruby said something like, you know, when you say things like, look at the scientific literature, look at the epidemiology, et cetera, people feel like they're being condescended to and like you're telling them that they're stupid. And I just thought, yes, yes.

And why can't we just say that? Why can't we say, instead of like, you know, patting them on that? head just say, listen, you are stupid. You don't know anything about this shit. Where did you go to college? What did you major in? Do you understand how a G-couple protein works? Do you have any idea like how pharmacological mechanisms function? Do you think that white blood cells function because they want something? Because there's a little white blood cell brain that's saying, oh, I got to go get the germs. Like you're in the fucking Saturday morning cartoon explanation of how a bill becomes law.

That's not. It's all just fucking physics. All right. All of everything that happens inside the body is physics. It all boils down to math. And let me tell you, Leah, you are stupid.

You don't have any fucking clue as to how the world works. And so you should just listen to the people who are smarter than you. That was really satisfying. Because that's not condescending. A little rude. But there is a deep insight there

that I think is worth exploring. And this is kind of like a small sea concern. conservative insight, actually. This is something that I would hear when I was in Republican circles for a while in the 90s back in the good old days, which is like participation trophy culture, stupid, right? Like, life is hard. You know, life's challenging. Some people are better. Some things like this notion that like everybody is equal, right? It was like this idea that was kind of like a nambi-pambi way of thinking, right? This was like some liberal

nonsense. And it's better for people just to to understand their various unfairnesses in the world, understand their strengths and weaknesses. And, you know, that can lead to meanness sometimes and cruelty that's unnecessary. But also just when it's blunt, it is true. Like, in some ways, maybe this is the participation trophy. We are all stupid. We're stupid about different things. Yeah, exactly.

I didn't know half the words you just said. I think I said this to Sam this week. Like, my ACT science score was so bad that it brought down the rest of my score from being, like, at the top going to being able to go to a really good college to be like, sorry, you have to go to a regular college like George Washington because your ACT score, it was so bad, but it's just because I don't know anything

about science. And I'm bad at it, and maybe I could be better if I tried harder, but like, whatever. And like, there's, I can't, I'm not going to win any weightlifting competitions. Like, every, we all have our weaknesses and frailties and stupidities. And it's better to just kind of accept to that, probably. It is only

with the science stuff. that we adopt this pose of, well, you have to respect their feelings. Not really. Economics. We have to do it. We have to do it with economics, too. I guess we have to do with economics too.

That's right. But if you took your, your car wasn't working, and you took it to the shop, and the mechanic looked at it, and I don't know anything about cars, right? And your mechanic said to me, your Johnson rod is bad.

This is a Costanza joke from Seinfeld, right? The Johnson rod has gone bad. And I said, you know, I don't think that's it, actually. I think the problem is that I was driving, over roads that were paved gray instead of black. So I'm only gonna drive on black paid, black tar roads, not the roads that have the gray or the tan concrete,

because I think that's really the problem. Would the mechanic have to say to me, sir, I understand because of your life experience that you may think that that's it, but really it's, you know, if we could just look at the sign, you'd say like, what the fuck is wrong with you? You're a moron. Yeah.

We should just be able to say that. It's a, it's an app comparison for me because as a child, and as a child, like as a teen, after I got a car, I didn't know how to do anything with it. And I had people in my life say to me, like, are you too stupid to figure out how to change your own oil? Like, you're smart person. I can't you figure it out? And it's kind of like, no, I was too stupid to do that. Like, there are people that are good at that. This is not in my, like, maybe if I really, really worked on it, I could do the minimum.

But you wouldn't want to drive a car that I worked, even if I spent all of my brain power, you wouldn't want to drive that. This is way different. Correct me if I'm wrong. You did not say, I don't really believe in oil changes. Right. No, no, no, no. Did you? No, of course that's the analogy.

You said, I don't believe in oil changes. I don't think cars need oil changes. I think what they need is the natural viscosity that oil creates over time. And that actually, because the motor, the engine. discovers because of the viscosity of old oil that it has to work harder and it makes the engine stronger. I didn't do that. It's the natural immunity that old oil gives your car engine. I think it's better just to know what you don't know, you know.

There's some wisdom there. That was pleasurable. I need a cigarette after that one. Okay, we have a mailbag I want to get to, but you have an upcoming triad you wanted to work out with me that you just described only as a very dark JVL triad. So let's kind of just work out the first draft of that, and then we'll hit the mailbag and let people go. So I need a little bit of help on this. I got to think it through. I just sort of looked up the other day and realized that the people around me, many of whom work in the bulwark,

there seems to be a working assumption that there will be a Democratic president in 2029. like just a you know like a 90% like it's almost like given all the questions are like well how does a democratic president fix everything you know how do we go back what do we and I just looked at all that I thought to myself I don't know why are we assuming that because I got to tell you is it even a coin flip maybe I don't know I mean I don't know what it is I don't know what the odds are right But if a Republican gets elected again after Trump 2, what does that tell you about America and Americans? And that's the dark thought that I was having, right? If after all of this, it happens.

Does it tell you anything we don't already know? And this is a tough part. Like, you know, one of the things, I talked about this little about Nicola a week ago. But like after he won this time, like one of the hard parts about like getting back on the horse and doing this job is just like it feels. It feels hopeless. You tell yourself, people tell yourself like, well, it's kind of bad luck and like Biden's hubris and the economy. And it's like we can still get things back on track. But it's kind of like if people chose that again, we did already live through it once. We did already have a capital storming. Doesn't that just say that? that something is fundamentally broken.

And so would them wouldn't again do anything, in some ways, I don't know, would that change anything? Have not you already just accepted that things are fundamentally broken? Again, I'm just thinking all this through. And that's a good point. But I feel as though there is a strain of alibiing of the country, which has settled on, yeah, but people didn't vote for this. they didn't vote further.

They didn't realize what mass deportations would be. They didn't, they just thought he would give good economic jobs or whatever, right? You know, whatever the stupid, idiot shorthand for

the period of Trump's first term where the economy was good, which ignores the period of his term when the economy was bad. If a Republican wins again, like, what alibi is there left? I think maybe there isn't any. I mean, I can tell you

what it will be. It will be, well, the Democratic Party failed again. It will be the Democratic Party failed. Look, they put up candidate X, and candidate X did these five things wrong. And you can't expect independent voters and Republican voters to vote for Democrat unless they're absolutely perfect. And that'll be what it is. And also, also they'll blame us, right? There's this boy who cried wolf thing. Like, you guys said Trump would end democracy, and you guys said Trump was the worst thing since Hitler, even though it was on the VP that said that. And like, you said all these things. And then they didn't come to pass.

Like, instead, we just, like, got into a stupid war and, like, the economy got worse than whatever. Like, instead, none of those, like, worst case scenario things came to pass. And so you have to respect the voters. Some of those worst case scenario things came to pass. Who then look at J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio and say, well, yeah, and say, well, they said it was going to be horrible. And we survived it.

And so, and these guys aren't as crazy as strong. You know what I mean? Like there'll be that kind of element of it that the alarmists are to blame. Yeah, it'll be like claiming Foucher for the future fire burning. Right. It'll be, yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah.

A million people died from COVID and the real villain is Anthony Fauci. Okay. Look, a lot of this is cope and people need to get by day by day. A lot of it is, though, I guess my one thing I think I would ask you to think through as you write the article is, are the people that are talking about Democrats in 2029, do they, really just assume the Democrats are winning or is it a psychological exercise for themselves where like the answer is they agree with you like they will be broken if the Republicans win again in 2029 and so there's no point in even thinking about it or dealing with it because the project in the country will be broken and it's just like whatever I'll cross that bridge

and I get there it's more of a fruitful thought exercise to think about how we could repair because I think that's what's happening. I think that there are obviously some people out there that think it's a feta company, but I think that mostly it's a psychological kind of, we'll see. I look forward to the newsletter. Mailbag!

Here's the mail. It never fails. It makes me want to whack my tail. When it comes, I want to whale. All right. Three mailbag questions. One of them's more of a comment on the question. I just really liked it. And it's very relevant in apse to the topics of today.

And it's something I hadn't thought about. So I like it when a reader, you get such great comments in the triad and always getting things to kind of spark the brain. And so it's nice, I like getting a reader comment that makes me think about a new strategy. LJ. writes, I was listening to the next level this morning. I don't know exactly what spawned this, but could someone start to create outrage about the number of Christians being deported? Seems likely to cause a problem maybe for a bit of someone could gin that up, thousands of

Christians being deported by the Trump administration. I don't know if that would actually work, but it's an interesting thought exercise. because that is a talking point that I wanted to speak to this because here's why it didn't work. In 2016, when Trump was doing the Muslim ban, one thing that we did on the Jeb campaign, I think Marker's campaign and some others did this, was they're like, okay, we know that Republican voters don't care about the Muslims that are being, you know, deported or being screwed over in the Middle East, right? But like, but maybe they'll care about the Christians, right?

And so, like, we took this weird third path that I've regrets about, but it felt strategically right. They was just like, what do you mean, Trump? We're not going to let in the Syrian Christians that are being persecuted by Assad. Like, we won't let them into the country. Like, Trump is anti-Christian. Like, you won't even let the Christians being persecuted into the country. That didn't work, unfortunately. I want it to feel like it should, but I assume you agree.

So it won't. And I can tell you why. Okay. It's the easiest reason in the world. So I was looking at a piece by Radley Balco today about a guy in Louisiana who was just led off of death row because he was on death row and turned out to be completely innocent, like not like there was a technicality. Like he was actually, he just did not do the thing he was accused of doing.

Did in fact nothing wrong. And I said to myself as I finished, why is it the conservatives think that everybody who works for the government is a crook and you can't trust them? and if they work at the IRS or they're a teacher or they work in the Department of Public Works or somebody, anybody who works for the government is a liar and you can't trust them, unless they have guns and those guys have never been wrong in their lives. We have to trust everything they say totally and completely. And the answer of course, like, of course we know why.

It's racism. It's because they don't care about criminal justice because they don't care what happens to black and brown people. Yeah. It's the same thing with the Christians. Oh, are they white Christians? No. Don't give a shit.

I think that is right as a political answer. I liked it because, for nothing else, then, you know, self-soothing. It's nice to shame them. Would it be more powerful, like when the story of the couple that we deported back to shit. I can't remember if it was Honduras or Guatemala. But they went back to this kind of gang. riddle area of their home country. They weren't criminals.

I hadn't done anything illegally here. They had a small baby, and they go back. They get murdered by the gang. And it's just this horrible story I read on the show the other day where the baby is left by the mom's dead body. I mean, it's too much to bear. But, like, talking about that, like, we sent two Christians back to die and leave their baby out

to watch their mother bleed out. I don't know. Is there not something there? So, I don't know. I mean, I can only answer this way. If you believe that people are reachable and that they operate in anything close to good faith or that they actually mostly believe the things they say they believe,

then it's worth doing those sorts of things because maybe you can argue them into coming around. Yeah. I've pretty much given up on that. I'm not 100% of the way there, but I'm 98% of the way too. Like people are just, they want what they want. And they backfill everything else from there. You know, they say they're pro-life because they want these five outcomes that come from being, quote, pro-life. And you can't argue them into this shit because they didn't argue themselves into it.

They just want what they want. Yeah. Do you have the links I sent you? I do. All right. I didn't tell you about this one because it's going to be tough. We're going to have to edit it a little bit for Shannon's sake, but I received this email. Okay, Tim, this may be the toughest question you'll ever have to answer.

F. Mary Kill, Trump cabinet members. You're welcome, Mr. Newport. Thank you, Mr. Newport. For a couple of reasons, JVL is in a committed marriage, and so there's not to be any effing. We'll call it candlelight dinner. Okay. For the Mary category, we're just going to assume that, unfortunately, you know, Shannon has passed on our IP. and sell you're a free man.

So candlelight dinner, Mary, Falcon Heavy. Because we're also not going to do anything that brings cash to us. So Candlelight, Mary, Falcon Heavy, the Trump Cabinet. There are not very many women in the Trump cabinet. And Mr. What was his name there? Mr. Newport. Mr. Newport didn't say Trump's current cabinet. So I'm going to take the most expansive version of this possible,

and I've sent you the links to all the members of both cabinets, first term and second term, for this. category. And I'm sure you're going to take a second to peruse. So do you want me to go first while you think about it? Because I've already, I've already prepared. Yeah, you go first. If you want, you can make me to the second cabinet after because all of my answers ended up being from the first cabinet. I would like to Foxx-Candolite dinner. If I was going to choose, I looked through the cabinets very closely. And I settled on Donald Trump's first secretary of energy, Rick Perry. I've heard some things about Rick Perry. And I think,

that we could get rowdy. I'm just going to leave it at that. I think that if I had to do one of them, not a lot of great options to choose from, but me and Rick, I think we could have a good old time after a night out in Austin. Moving on to Mary,

I find all of these people disgusting. And I was hoping that the first cabinet had somebody who had made it a full change. And the only person that is on that list is Mark Esper. And I just really don't want to be married to Mark Esper. And so I decided that the right thing to do strategically would be to marry Wilbur Ross. He's still alive. I think so.

Wilbur was born in 1937 and he's extremely wealthy. And so I think that we could have a good, short, loving marriage that might accrue to the benefit of my progeny. So there we go. For Falcon Heavy, it was tough from this administration because there are so many. and you don't know, I kind of didn't want to back to the future it where you do something and it makes things worse, you know,

kind of like, right? Like I Falcon Heavy, Marco, but it ends up, who not, you know what I mean? Something happened. So I didn't want to,

I didn't want to risk that. And so I decided just to go back to Turb One, and I'm Falcon heavy, Bill Barr. Fuck you, Bill Barr. Of all of those people, Bill Barr was the closest to being able to stop this from happening again.

And he pushed out. So that's my list. Perry, fuck, Ross, Mary, Bar, Falcon. If you make me do this, I can turn, I will. So long as we are understanding that the fuck Mary Kill here is really a metaphorical thing. A metaphorical thing. Candleight dinner. Candleight dinner.

For me, my candlelight dinner is Linda McMahon. Because if I get a couple drinks. From wrestling talk. We can do wrestling talk. Like, I could get through two hours with Linda McMahon just by talking. about the business. Yeah. Because I love wrestling.

All right. That's good. That's a good pick. Mary is easy. Mike Pence. No, if you can't get Mike Pence. I can't have Mike Pence. VP counts his cabinet?

I was thinking about pure account. He's on the list. I opened up two lists. Mike Pence is there. Oh, this is a cheat code. Okay. Then if I can't have Mike Pence, it's got to be either Rex Tillerson or Steve

and Muchin. Because those guys, are the least Trumpy and the most like they came from outside MAGA they did their jobs sort of and then they left and they they want no part of this bullshit. Rex is a great pick. You're like living the landman life now. You've got a private jet. You're flying out to Midland. Yeah. I feel like you're going shopping at sacks. Rex and I can have a good gay marriage together. Rex was born in 1952. God, he looks horrible. Anyway, okay, Falcon Heavy

So I was going to put JD on the Falcon Heavy, but you're saying I can't do that because I feel about J.D. I would also do that. And that wouldn't do anything about Donald Trump himself. Yeah. But if I can't have JD, I genuinely think that Hegsseth is the most damaging member of the camera. More than Rth K. The RFK was when I really sat with because I was like, it's hard to imagine him picking a worse replacement for RFK and that could save lives. Yes.

If Hegseth got sent off, I don't know. Are we sure that Don Jr. doesn't run the military? No, no, we're not. You're probably right. I mean, in a weird way, he could find another Hegseth. You can't find another RFK because RFK, I mean, the only, Trump himself isn't. waited any of the RFK bullshit. Like he just, he made a deal to get RFK in the coalition and then like Trump's policy is

dictated by this one guy in his own obsessions. So maybe that's the smart thing. But where I struggle with this is that people have agency. RFK is not forcing anyone. Yeah. To not get the research. The research part. Yeah.

You're not wrong. I'm surprised you didn't consider Kelsey for your candlelight dinner. No. we'll leave it at that we'll leave it there if I had to do this second administration I think I'm definitely fucking Jameson Greer but

and I guess I've just talked myself into Falgun having Kennedy the marriage is tough though the marriage is tough like thinking about who did you who did you pick you went first term as well if you had to marry somebody from this term it's really it's a really rough list

to champion. What about Kelly Leffler? I might pick Kelly Leffler just going to figure out what's happening with her walk. She is super rich. You get to go to owner's suite at WMBA games.

The NBA games. You know what? You make a strong case for Kelly Leffler. And maybe you meet the aliens because whatever's happening with her does it not come from a human. So maybe you learn something about science. Okay.

We've gone way long. Good show, long show. final question was for Sam, but I'm going to flip it on you. Would Sam be willing to step in the box for an at-bat against JVL's son? JVL's son, Flash, is in college, a college baseball player, a pitcher as a 90-an-hour fastball? No, he's not at 90 yet. He sits in the high 80s. High 80s throwing it.

So my question for you is, would you, do you stand in? Do you stand in for 88 high heat, high and inside from Flash? So this is a genuine answer. nobody who can't protect themselves should get in the box with somebody who is that level of a player it's so i play catch with flash still and it's terrifying hurt you're not because the ball comes in so hard i have to use a catcher's mitt just to like have catch with him um and there's so much movement on it and you know he's not trying to kill me like he never throws 100 percent you know I don't catch bullpen sessions from him.

Like, I couldn't catch bullpen sessions with him. So, yeah, if you can't protect yourself, you shouldn't really see anything over, like, 75 miles an hour, I would say. So. When was the last time you stood in the box for Flash? With Flash? He was probably 12 the last time I would stand in the box. It's like my brother, this level of tennis player,

where he was, I would be able to beat him. him up through like 11 or 12 because I'd be able to win the mental game. Like I'd just shit talk him enough that I'd get him off. But then just one like one summer came back. And it was just like I can't even hit the serve. Like I'm that's not even. Yeah. I mean,

and Flash is bigger than we all are now too. I mean, he's over 200 pounds. He's just, he looks like a professional wrestler. Yeah. What a good kid. What a show.

What we're aiming for on the podcast is we're trying to touch all of the human emotions, the entire human experience in one, one hour period. We went a little long today, 70 minutes, but, you know, we definitely laughed. We got angry. I got a little emotional. I got a little verclint, you know, hatred.

We felt that. I thought that's good. Rich tapestry of life. All right. Tomorrow we're going to make you a little, we're going to find somebody that's a little bit more balanced emotionally. Than me. How are you going to do that? We're going to try to find a podcast that kind of

eases us in to Labor Day weekend. Makes us feel nice and warm and cozy. Get your head out of the gutter, JVL. I look forward to that. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Jonathan. You're going to be back more often. I hope people like that. Let us know in the comments what you think

about the show and our answers to the FMK. And we'll see you back here tomorrow. The Bullwark Daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante, to Chico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.