The Bulwark Podcast - Lis Smith: A Very Vengeful President

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Tim just happened to quote from an official Iranian news agency about how the regime is cleaning up in their negotiations with the Trump administration, and the White House accused him of being a foreign agent. Maybe the administration should take a closer look at all the money the guy sitting behind the Resolute Desk and his family are getting from Mideast dictators if they're really looking for foreign agents. Speaking of massive amounts of corruption, the Dems need to be making the case everywhere just how brazenly corrupt Trump & co. are—and not wait until 2027. Plus, the real freak in the Texas Senate race is Paxton, Platner's struggles and missteps are part of his appeal, the Great American State Fair is another Trump fiasco, and parenting lessons on how to raise kids to push back against bullies.Lis Smith joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.show notes Tim's episode with E. Jean Carroll from last year Liz's book, "Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story" Tim's playlist

Hello, welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We are live and in person in New York City. So I'm excited to have my old pal, a Democratic strategist, advisor to the bench and majority Dems, author of Any Given Tuesday, a political love story. And we are here in kind of a mommy blogger studio. So I have a mommy. It's Liz Smith. How you doing? I'm good. Thank you. It's good to see you again. How's your mom? My mom is great. She's great. She's recovering from a broken pelvis, but nothing can keep her down. Does she miss me? Of course she misses you. I didn't tell her there. I was going on your show today. This is going to be the highlight of her week.

Maybe I should swing by. Does she need ice cream or something? Does she need a delivery? Yeah, maybe some PT. Are you qualified to do that? I can't do pelvic PT. I don't think she wants to be touching her pelvis. I feel like she would be more comfortable with you touching her pelvis than most other men.

Sure. Okay. Well, we'll get back to that. We might have a little parent corner at the end since we, you know, since it feels like a parenting vibe for Friday. We've got some fun stuff for people. There's a little bit of concerning news in my life. Not for me, actually. I'm not really worried about it. My husband doesn't love it. Like when he saw that the White House sent out a tweet earlier this week, accusing me of violating Farah, which is the, you know, where you have to register as a foreign agent. The reason that

they said I violated Farah was because I quote tweeted a report coming out of the Farsi Iranian news agency. I was just commenting on what they said. I don't take any Iranian money, obviously. We're supported by our lovely viewers and subscribers at the bulwark.com. Donald Trump does take money from foreign countries, quite a few. His family does, too. Yeah, UAE, Saudi, Qatar. He's getting a plane from Qatar.

He's getting a plane from Qatar. Seems like he might be a foreign agent. But I don't know. What do you think? Is this kind of good news for me? Should I be concerned? Should I be lawyering up? I could see why your husband is unhappy about it.

But I feel like you were going to be absolutely insufferable about this. You are just going to talk about this nonstop. Even like last night you texted me five times, just making sure I knew that one of the topics was going to be you and Farah. You're going to be at the bars saying, hey, did you guys see the tweet? I'm now Farah. But I mean, what's incredible to me is that this is probably the first time in history that anyone associated with Bill Crystal has been accused of being soft on Iran. An Iranian agent even. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. What a world. Yeah, it's a strange world. Yeah, we had Bob Kagan on earlier this week. and he was, you know, sounding like, you know, a downright leftist. So, you know, things are changing. But I am going to be insufferable about it, in part because there's no reason to be scared of these guys on this front because they've been competent in a lot of areas with their nefarious goals, immigration, for example.

They haven't really been very good at going after the foes. Like, I don't think the seashell crimes, like Jim Comey on the pot a couple weeks ago, he didn't seem to be shaken in his boots about going to prison over the seashells. You know, I don't know. Yeah. And, you know, I work with Adam Schiff, worked with him for a number of years now. And, I mean, it seems like they've been trying now for over a year to get him and haven't been able to do so. How does he feel?

How does Mrs. Schiff feel? Is she nervous or are they? I don't think anyone's ever stoked to be, you know, in the crosshairs of a very vengeful president. But he's a upright guy. He did everything by the law. He's pretty much a Boy Scout. I don't think he's too concerned about things, but no one likes being in the administration's crosshairs except for maybe you. I have to admit you have me clocked.

Yeah. Yeah, I enjoyed it. And I'm hoping that they attack me more. The more they attack me over their stupid Iranian policy, it feels like the better. Yeah. More eyeballs you get, the more money you make. What are they going to do? Like kick you out of the White House briefing room.

You don't need access to the White House. And also, I mean, I think that as a broader level, I mean, you're talking to a lot of Dems, I feel like the more that they're talking about this, just as general issue, the worst it is for them. Like, it would be one thing if they were like, I don't know, coming at me on something from an area of strength. But like the reason why a tweet that comments on, you know, how the Iranians are not really folding to Donald Trump's demands, you know, has them shook, is because the Iranians don't seem to be folding to Donald Trump's demands. And this thing was supposed to be over in a couple days. It was going to be unconditional surrender.

We're going to have the Iranian Delsi Rodriguez. It was going to be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was coming back, whatever their stupid plan was. And like, they're kind of fucked right now. And I don't know. Do you say to your dumb clients, like, press on the gas on Iran right now? Yeah, I do. It's incredibly unpopular across the board. I mean, it is a dumb war.

If you go back to 2001, 2003 with Afghanistan, Iraq, there are at least some, you know, at least half-baked, excuses for going into this. There really was no rationale for going in. There's no endgame and the effects of it are being felt immediately. Gas prices are so out of control. Like Donald Trump ran on two big things, which is, I'm going to lower your costs and I'm going to stop getting into wars. And he is getting us into wars and as a result, raising our costs. So it is, it's a very clear connection. This is not just some like amorphous thing that's happening across the globe, hard to follow. It is directly connected to the price that people are paying for gas at the pump. Yeah, I don't even know what a win is. Like your friend Scott Jennings posted yesterday. This looks like a huge win for

President Trump. He was posting the 19th report from Axios saying that we have a deal right around the corner. They're going to be right eventually. And the folks at Axios, they just, one of these times, they're going to be correct. Like they keep saying, deals around the corner in the kind of broad sweep of history a deal is around the corner because we'll eventually have one you would assume but but jennings says this was a huge win i i don't even know what could be a win i don't know like even if the iranians gave them everything even if the iranians woke up tomorrow and they're like we're crying uncle the blockade is hurting us too much you know iatola jemane number two the maybe gay one is just like mr trump whatever you want like we're opening the

straight tomorrow, we'll give you the dust. Even then, it's like, was it worth it worth pissing off our allies? Was it worth all the like munitions we've lost, the cost of this war? We'd have to rebuild our military, the cost of consumers of gas. I don't even know what a wind looks like. Yeah, and that's the problem is the cost. And thinking about all of that money that could have been spent here at home. And that was a big thing Trump talked about in 2024 is why are we spending all this money in Ukraine when we could be spending it here at home? But he's doing that in Iran. And this Iran stuff makes a lot less sense than intervening with Ukraine. And then the other thing that's even more troubling is when you see now that because of all the block industry

of Hermousse, gas prices are not going to go down for a very, very long time. It's not like they come to a deal and gas prices immediately drop. So gas prices are going to remain high through the election. I do not see them getting a win before November. And the biggest losers of all this are going to be consumers. It's going to be the voters who went to the polls in 2024 and said, I'm not going to vote for Joe Biden because costs are too high and he doesn't give a shit about inflation. And Donald Trump very clearly gives even less of a shit about inflation than Joe Biden does. All right. So just because I'm enjoying the administration threatening me, Does it make it good for the administration to threaten people?

So I did want to mention one of the story that's happened this week that I find pretty sick. Somebody else that seems like they're actually being targeted by the administration, not just by tweets as E. Gene Carroll, CNN reported that DOJ opened a criminal perjury investigation into her testimony during her deposition about how her lawsuit was funded. No one's confirmed that recording, but there's also some other related investigations. Trump's trying to get immunity from having to pay her the $83.3 million. And this is insane that he's going after her. To the extent that they even are looking into it,

it's so disgusting, you know, to think that Eugen was victimized by Trump. They took it to a jury of their peers. There was a result. And now he becomes the president. And he's trying to victimize her again. I don't know. What's your perspective on this? Because, to me, it's just like, is this what we want the fucking DOJ doing?

Does anybody want this? Does anybody feel like this is justice or, makes anybody feel safer or anything. It makes me fucking pissed on behalf. It makes me pissed. And no, I don't think anyone wants this. I don't think anyone asks for this. And there is always that fear.

If Donald Trump can do this against his enemies, Democrats could go in and do it against theirs. Does that sound kind of good to you now? Are you thinking, are you changing your mood on whether the Democrats should do more vengeful? I think Democrats should hold people accountable. Okay. But I'm not for just like, you know, bloodthirst vengeance, at least not.

not politically. With your personal. Yes. All for it. But the other thing is like, doesn't the DOJ have bigger fish to fry? Right. Like, you know, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, all of these things. And instead of focusing on these big problems, we're focused on E. Jean Carroll, who had a, you know, legitimate claim that Trump had sexually assaulted her years ago.

And I think it's frightening to people. I think it's really petty. And this is not what he was elected on. And this is not what people care about. And this is not making anyone's lives better. Yeah, 82-year-old, Eugen Carroll. It was one of my favorite episodes of the podcast ever. I got to listen to her.

She went through. She just was very upfront about her past sex life. And I believe that she had had sex with five or six men total in her whole life. And it was like an Oscar winner, an astronaut, an Olympian. I mean, it was the best roster I've ever heard. It sounds a lot like mine. It says it's so different from mine. So different for mine.

You know, bartender. Anyway, so E. Jean is wonderful, and she's a spitfire, and I don't think she'll be pushed down by this, but it's sick. Thinking about the vengeance question, and this isn't really vengeance, but it's more like oversight. I saw you posting about this this week. I feel like one thing that I can bring, you know, having been a Republican, quite a while ago now, but it's been a minute. But the Republican oversight during the Obama and Biden years, Obama in particular, was aggressive and like bloodthirsty and relentless.

And look at Trey Gowdy and his management of that oversight committee. And some of it looked stupid and they made fun of it. They're like, oh, you're going to have the 32nd Benghazi hearing. But like, it worked. It worked. Like we learned about Anthony Wiener's behavior because of those investigations. everything that led to the Jim Comey letter to Clinton in the fall of 2016 came out of those investigations. Like what should the Dems be doing and preparing for right now, assuming they can take over in 2027?

We'll get to that next. Like, what for, you know, how to effectively do oversight over this administration. So we can't wait until 2027, like hopefully we win the House. We cannot wait until 2027 to start prosecuting this case. I don't, where were you in 2006? Oh, boy. That's probably smoking the bong on Panic Tour. Where was I in 2006?

I was in Jeff Lamberti's campaign in Iowa. It was really good. We were the second closest Republican challenger in the country. The Republicans won zero seats last that year. That's very, very. That's been like Culver won. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. Culver crushed Jim Nussel in the governor's race that year. Our friend Maria Carmel. I know. I was going to say Maria worked for him. Yeah. Shout out Maria. Yeah.

I was in the closet, actually. So that's where, that's what I was in the closet. Did you ask Maria out? I did. Yeah, I was in the closet. I asked Maria out. I was wearing fake glasses at the time. I was going through some stuff.

I was still a Republican. I've really kind of self-actualized since then. There was a period of time where I looked back on that with a lot of embarrassment. But now that we sit here in this soft focus studio, I can say, I look back on that now and think, man, maybe I needed that, that embarrassing moment with Maria Camela to fully come out the other side and blossom and be my true self. So you went from being a closet Republican fake glasses wearing operative to a never-trumper, to a Democrat, and now to an agent of the Iranian government. Allegedly. Fulsely, allegedly. Wow. That is like some Madonna-like reinvention. It's been a journey.

It's been a journey. Where were we? Why were we talking about 2006? Sorry, 2006. You know, your personal story always gets me. So I was with Claire McCaskill in 2006. And, and her. her center race. And if you remember that year, that was when all of these GOP corruption scandals came to head with the lobbyists and pay-to-play stuff with Mark Foley and the cover-up with him, you know, doing all this inappropriate stuff with underage pages. And it was a mixture of like bad sex stuff and mixture of pay-to-play stuff, a mixture of self-enrichment. And we, Democrats effectively use that to say that there was a, irredeemable culture of corruption in the Republican Party. We needed to drain the swamp,

clean house. And we had candidates who could prosecute the case effectively, like someone like Claire McCaskill, state otter who'd rooted out waste, Jim Webb in Virginia, like this just amazing, you know, war hero. I think we're really ripe for a moment like that now. The corruption is so much worse, so much more brazen. I was last night I was reading through all the Trump stuff. it is crazy. Like, have you ever just tried to read it out on this show? Like, it would take forever. Like, the billions in crypto stuff, the family deals.

I mean... Did you see the Dell story that came out this week? This one is so crazy. So, Trump, obviously Michael Dell put the money into the Trump bonds or whatever it is, which is pretty annoying as it is, but like the money is going to a good thing. But, like, why do it put Trump's name and face on everything? But Trump, as part of that, at a press conference, it's like, go buy a Dell.

Like, go buy Dell. And he starts promoting Dell from the White House. Simultaneously to that, he bought like $5 million in Dell stock. And this week, Dell got a $9 billion dollar Department of War contract. Yeah. And so their stock obviously goes up huge. And like, this is crazy. Like, the amount of money that he is personally investing,

in addition to all the crypto stuff, in addition to the family stuff, is beyond, like, everybody made a big deal with the Pelosi tracker. This is billions of dollars. Yeah. Billions. And so the trading as you're talking about. And then you add in, much like the Mark Foley thing, you have that, the whole Epstein file cover up, right?

And the fact that they didn't want to release it, in part because they wanted to protect a lot of the powerful men, not necessarily even ones who were partaking in all the disgusting, unlawful things that Epstein were doing, but who were just like sideling up to him knowing that he was engaging in this behavior. And so I think it creates this perfect stew of corruption and swampiness to run against. And Democrats actually have good candidates, much like in 2006, who can do that. I think one of the things that Democrats have done well this cycle is go outside of like some of the typical career politicians and look for people with different types of profiles and, you know,

sort of an ideal type of person here. Again, this is someone who's been in politics more, but like someone like Rob Sand, right? He runs ads just saying, you know what? He's ready for Governor of Iowa. Governor of Iowa. Stealing is bad. And he made fighting corruption a hallmark of his time as state auditor. I think he's got a great shot at winning, winning that governor's race in Iowa. But Democrats need to go at the corruption issue and say, look, Donald Trump, Republicans ran on making your life more affordable, lower and costs for you. Instead, they are just focused on making themselves as rich as possible. So I agree with your assessment of the campaigns, the folks that are running in campaigns. And I think that the Democrats have a lot of good candidates.

We're going to get a little bit into more into that. I'm a little less impressed with the D.C. Democrats, particularly in the Senate side. If you think about, like, who is going to be the Traigaudi? Shouldn't that person be the Traigaudi already? If you said right now, Who is the Democrat that is, like, bringing voice to the corruption in the most compelling way right now? I don't, you know, if you said Epstein, it'd be Rocauna. Garcia, Robert Garcia, also did a really good job on Epstein. You know, there are other issues you could think of other people. Noghous. Noghs has actually done a really good job on a lot of the corruption stuff.

And, again, if Dems retake the House in 2027. He's Congressman of Colorado. I love Joe Noghous, Big Nuggets fan, but, like, people don't know who that is. Like, who of the big name senators? But Trey Gowdy wasn't a big name until he took this stuff on. And I actually think that, you know, having someone who is a relatively fresh face doesn't have a lot of the washing baggage. Sure. Taking this on would be most effective.

But we've got to lay out the case now. And sometimes we think, because we read all of this news, we listen to the bulwark, we read the New York Times, read playbook, we do all this. I can't say I do all of those every day. I'm a mom of a three-year-old. Yeah, I was going to say that you're taking some liberties with the word we. when he said we listen to the bulwark, the listeners listen to the ballwork. You listen every once in a while. I do.

I do. I do. I do. When I have one of your clients. Yes. And but most people don't. And you, I swear to God, almost passed out the other day when you, quote, tweeted Glenn Greenwald. Yeah.

He did this, a Jubilee where he was talking to MAGA supporters. And he was telling them about all the corruption in the Trump administration. And none of them knew anything about it. Right. Knew anything about it. Why? Because they get news from people who are aligned with them ideologically. A lot of them aren't seeking out political news. They're not listening to Bullwark. They're not reading the New York Times. They're not looking to non-partisan things. And so how is it that we are able to get this message out to everyone? Because I really do believe the corruption message is very critical in the selection. And it's really got to be in all of the above strategy where talking about it every day on the campaign trail. It is part of the economic message we're doing. It's in our are paid advertising and Democrats are going as many places as possible to talk about. The corruption stuff is so, so corrosive. And I have never been one of those people who was overly hyperbolic

about the Trump stuff. I think sometimes early on when Democrats did it, it hurt us in the long run because they freaked out about so many small things that by the time the big things were happening, we lost credibility. But the stuff we're reading about now is crazy. It's crazy. And we have to, we have to win this election. We have to prosecute this case. And we've got to put in really, really strong guard. Where else to make sure that this can't happen again? You know, people buying pardons.

I forgot to mention that. It's crazy. It is a little bit of a problem that nobody in the Democratic Senate conference seems to be able to talk. You know, like Chris Murphy's pretty good, but it's tough. It's tough. It was like a weakness of the Schumer recruiting. I was talking to a fellow Democratic strategist the other day who actually like Schumer.

But it's like, if you look back, it's a greener new era now. You know, and I don't want to be. to just pick on random Democratic centers. But like, if you just think about the people that they recruited in these states in Michigan and Nebraska, Nevada and some of these states, it's like, it's not exactly people that are lighten the room on fire. It was legislators. It was got people that, you know, one knew how to work the system.

And like, that's fine. But in this moment, I kind of wish there are more people who could like light the room on fire. You mean in terms of going on media or like, like so, look, I think someone like Adam Schiff, again, someone I work for in the Senate, in that format, he is very, he is. He's a former prosecutor. He's very good at prosecuting the case. But would I put Adam Schiff on hostile media? No, I mean, because the hate is so ingrained against him

that he is not going to be a particularly credible messenger. But we need to figure that out and figure that out fast. Who is going everywhere. Rokana, you mentioned, has done a good job of going to many places. But, yeah, let's deputize more people. Now, Rose, but on Fox and things are different. I had the team because, you know, do you feel like you get credit for like coining to go everywhere strategy?

Is that Liz Smith TM? I think some people have given me credit for it. I give you credit for it. So I had an idea for a gimmick, which was I was going to put on Dems on Fox recently and we were going to grade them like who's doing well. You know, we're going to grade on the Pete scale like, you know, where Pete is the best and, you know, who, I don't know who'd be the worst in that, in that trajectory. But for this week, only one Democrat has been on Fox.

It was Chris Coons and he got asked about Jill Biden's book. And I just, I wish Jill Biden would just go away. I mean, God lover, just hanging out in Delaware. We don't need the book. This is not a book anybody wants or needs. So it wasn't that great of a hit. You know, you weren't really on offense when you're talking about the Biden-2024 debate. And Coos are the best he could.

He kind of pivots back to his message for interest. It's like, okay. So, like, what is happening there? Like, are not enough Dems trying to go on? Do you think Fox realizes things are bad or not having people on? Like, it feels like the effort on the go everywhere is not really as intense as I would like in this moment. So there are two reasons these days to go on Fox. One is to have a moment, right?

Where you just go on and you're like, I want to punch the host in the face. That's a very self-serving thing where you will get donors out of it. The chatter in class will be like, oh, look, this guy can take the fight. This guy or gal can take the fight to the Republicans. You will get plaudits online. But when you take that approach, you are absolutely not winning anyone at home. and I've just seen over time people more and more doing that approach versus the persuasion approach. And in 2019, 2020 with Pete, he did lean very much into their persuasion approach.

And you still see some Democrats doing that. Mark Kelly had a really good appearance a number of months ago. It was like Jason Crowe's trying to do that when he goes on. I see him a few times. Roe is pretty good at that. We mentioned him already. And so I think if the goal is to get the message out to people that this administration is really corrupt and that it's wrong and that it's this corruption is hurting you and that you elected these people to lower your costs and they're just getting rich, I think going on and yelling at them, insulting the host is less effective than trying to make the persuasive case and say, look, we can all agree corruption is bad, that people should not be getting elected to Congress to and, enrich themselves. And I would try to strike more of that tone. And it doesn't just need to be

Fox News. As we know Fox News, its audience is getting smaller and smaller over time. And so we've got to really hit the entire ecosystem. But it does feel like a moment to do it, right? Because of the corruption, because of how bad the war is going. And I don't know. I'm looking at like, you know, if you're Will Kane out there, are you scared of having Democrats? Like, why aren't Democrats on the Will Kane show right now? I try to have Republicans on this show. None of them will come on. And I think that they realize that it's a position of weakness that they're in. And it's pretty telling that there was only one Democrat on Fox this week. And to me, I think that the Democrats should do more to be trying to go into these spaces.

But I think it's pretty telling that Fox is not, you know, using this moment to try to find, you know, an Alan Colmes punching bag to knock around. I think that they realize that, like, that they're not a lot of good arguments they have for the way that Donald Trump's been governing the last couple of months. Well, what I found interesting, I think it was this week was Megan Kelly went hard. at Trump on saying, I cannot believe how brazen they are in their corruption. And you've seen people like Joe Rogan, you know, call out the corruption too. So it doesn't just need to be Fox. Like, Rogan is not like a right wing outlet, but it's certainly more right coded. But he has a huge, diverse, persuadable audience. It is very tough to get booked on there as a politician. Megan Kelly, a little easier. It's sometimes she does a lot of this stuff in bad faith. But I would

look at the broader ecosystem and not just think of the only way to reach right-leaning independence and Republicans as Fox News. Well, we can see the P. We can say the P word again. So I guess that'd be my message to Jesse Waters and Will Kane. Like, don't be a pussy. Yeah. Have them on. Yeah. Yeah. It's 2026. All right, lately, if you're getting dressed for the podcast and YouTube, you want some staples, you want some basics, you want some basics. You want to make it easy as possible. Barack Obama famously said he tried to cut out all decision-making. And so, you know, he only gave himself two suit options. That's not me. I like to mix it up a little bit, but you do want to make it easy on yourself. And when you're doing that,

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because I don't. People know that you're working for. for Mallory, by the way. I'm partial to Mallory in the Michigan Senate race. You've a bunch of other candidates. So I kind of want to just talk a little bit more broader about, you know, the various stem candidates and what you're seeing out there. And one person that we can talk about because famously, you're not working for him is James Tellerico. Well, apparently no one told Jasmine Cock at that. When I interviewed Tel Rico, we didn't do this bit on stage because it felt a little insidery, but I did ask him behind. I was like, so has Liz Smith been telling you what to

do. And he's like, we have a, he said that we have a joke on the campaign internally and we can't decide what to do. We say, let's go to the big boss and we'll call Liz Smith. Mike, and I mean, just you can't even imagine. I remember when the video popped of her of Jasmine. I have Jasmine Crockett at some like closed door fundraiser saying, I'm behind all these things, all that. I'm literally with my two and a half year old son at his swim class on a Saturday morning. Like, girl, I am not playing Rasputin in this race. I am struggling to get that swim diaper on. And, you know, it's sort of like the fairer thing with you. It is, especially when you're a parent of a two-year-old and sometimes you're like, God, this two-year-old is

kicking my ass. I feel so powerless. It's sort of nice when people think of you as this, like, powerful puppet master. And sadly, in this case, it wasn't true. And like, I would gladly take credit for it if it were true. James has ran a great campaign. But I think he's a great candidate. I gave him some early informal advice, but I've not been working on this race. What do you think now about the situation? He's in the general. You're against Ken Paxton. Republicans going whole hog at him.

I mean, low tea, Tala Rico, going back to all of his various peak woke quotes. Talafriko. Tala freco. He had some bad peak quote quotes. Oh, yeah. We can admit it. I mean, talking about his whiteness, talking about my neighbor with a uterus. He literally talked about my neighbor with a uterus.

Yeah. And it's like, I don't want to hear a man saying the word uterus at all. It's weird. And we can respect and love our trans neighbors. Well, also just saying, woman and my girl. Right. I think that's okay. So, I don't know, how worried are you about all that stuff?

Like, do you think it lands differently in 26 and it in 24 because of what else happening in the world? Like, what's your assessment? Look, a lot of Democrats said a lot of dumb shit in 2019 and 2020. And I saw it up close. You know, I was on Pete's president. presidential campaign felt like a daily struggle with some of our staff trying to force PTO's, you know, gender neutral language when it came to abortions and things like that. And he's a guy from Indiana.

He understands that this is. He had to take his pronouns out of his bio. This is not how you're going to convert people on a fractious issue like abortion and choice. So look, I think we temporarily lost our minds. I think we're at risk for that to happen again, by the way. I don't think we're out of the woods. But for now, for now, I'm seeing some of this language bubbling up in some of these deep blue primaries. And I'm concerned with 2028.

I'm really concerned about 2028. I feel like we should maybe just do another episode on this. But I was talking to another Dem strategist about this. And they're like, people that think that we've moved on from the crazy stuff in the 2020, it's like all of the incentives for the Dems of 2020 are going to be to go as far left as possible to get, to get claps online and small dollar donors. Bingo. And the staff that, you know, will be on these candidates. campaigns will try to push them that way or threaten to walk up, et cetera, et cetera.

But one thing that James is doing that I saw work well for Zoran Mamdani in his mayoral races, Zerunumadani was confronted with old tweets where he said, you know, we need to defund the police, the NYPDs and anti-queer, anti, I don't know, like all this sort of language I don't understand or use, right, that I've never heard normal people use. Like a colonizing force, right? It's like shit that sounds like it's from an over. The police is anti-queer liberation. Oberlin College dorm lecture.

You don't know who threw the first stone at Stonewall. It's right around the corner from Stonewall right now. So, but Mom Dani went out and said, you know what? I regret those statements. They don't reflect my views now. And guess what? I'm going to keep Jessica Tisch as police commissioner, which I think was the best decision he made. And he was able to effectively neutralize it by saying, I said dumb things.

I don't believe them now. Did it piss off some people in his coalition? Yeah. But they're more willing to go with him because he still was the most progressive person in that race. And by that time, no one in that mayoral primary is running on defund the police. Like everyone sort of understood. Texas is different in the city, though. Right.

But with, so with James, he's been smart to say, I said dumb things. And which I hadn't said them and moving on. And not only that, he is, I think, making a very concerted effort right now. and you and I talked about this before. Is he like actually a moderate or is he just aesthetically a moderate? And we're seeing a few areas where he is like breaking more with Democratic orthodoxy. An oil and gas saying that Democrats have been too hostile to oil and gas and that oil and gas is lifeblood for a lot of communities in Texas. That is, you know, a few years ago would have been, you know, a heretical thing to say.

he slammed Biden's handling of the border, which is really smart. You know what he did was he said, and this one was interesting to me because I haven't heard this from a lot of Democrats. You know, his background is as a middle school teacher. And he said that he thinks that there needs to be, you know, more accountability for teachers, more accountability for bad teachers, you know, stricter standards. And we haven't really heard that from a lot of Democrats lately. Democrats sort of went from being like sympathetic.

or supportive of education reform under Obama to just like not talking about reform at all. And I thought that was interesting because we know that George W. Bush in Texas had been a big proponent of this. And so it sort of signals to people that he is a different type of Democrat. But he's got to go out that he's got to certainly prosecute

the case against Ken Paxson, speaking of freak, right? And there's a lot of opportunities there that fit into the whole corruption frame. I mean, this is a guy who went in with like a net worth a high, $150,000 now a multi-millionaire. How do you make that much money as an attorney general? Yeah.

And- bribes. And then... What she's been indicted for. Calarico had... He stole a pen. Yeah, he stole a pen. What the heck is that?

He stole like a Mont Blach. I don't know. Is that what it's called? Yeah. I'm not a fancy pen. Right. Yeah. But, yeah.

And then there's that thing where he let off the hook, this guy who admitted to repeatedly raping a a boy from the age of like eight, nine, ten. You got like 30 days. 30 days. Because they're friends or had a relationship of some kind. Right. And so, I mean, that's like morpholia, steroids.

It's Epstein. It fits into all of this whole class and it's disgusting. It's sick. He hasn't debated since 2014, speaking of the P-Whor again. Paxton doesn't debate. Doesn't debate. So I think a lot of opportunities for him to go on offense. Like, look, if they're going to go this way about Tala rica,

go let's just go there with Paxon. That guy does not have a face for TV. No. Honestly, it looks like there's something wrong. He's uniquely... He looks kind of like a drunk, humpy-dumpty. Yeah. Yeah, I almost wonder if he's dealing with a medical condition.

But like him calling... It seems like projection. It might be one of those situations where like you have all this guilt on the inside and it begins eating you away at the outside. You see this sometimes. Like the Dorian Gray. Harvey Weinstein had that. Yeah, sort of situation.

But he... is a freak. He's like the definition of a freak. And one thing Democrats have against him is all the awful things Republicans have said against him. Because, you know, all the crazy, those NRC ads against him were ridiculous, like saying rape and murder would go up under him if he's senator, went after him for being, you know, all the infidelity, all the corruption in his office. And so I think it's there's a lot to go after Paxton on, but James has got a, it's still, you know, Trump plus what, 14? Yeah. He's got to go out and, you know, galvanize the base, but also make sure he loses those red areas by less.

What do you think about the broader as we get into kind of these other races, both in the House and the Senate in red districts or redish, soft red districts? You know, there are kind of a couple models out there. I guess partners in Maine, which Conval won. It's not a Red District, but you see, you know, kind of people doing the kind of populist left thing. Dan Osborne is doing that in Nebraska. You know, then you also see people trying more of, I guess what you call me, more of a middle of the road type populism, localizing Paltola in Alaska, Roy Cooper in North Carolina. Like, how do you kind of navigate all that?

Do you feel like there's a case for both of those options? Do you prefer one? Like, what kind of advice would you give people? I prefer the one that's going to win in there. area where people are winning. I've said this forever. I wrote about this in my book. There is no one way to be a Democrat. We've got to give people space to be different types of Democrats. I also want to see it. I want to see it in real time, like what's working and what's not working. And one thing that excites me about this cycle is we are truly running different types of candidates.

I mean, Graham Platner couldn't get much. What did you think about the idea that we do a candidate swap and have him run in Texas and Tala Rica run in Maine? I don't think that any of the woke stuff would really matter in Maine. And I think the people in Texas might like some of Graham's Reddit posts. Yeah, I saw that. I could see it. I could see it. He's not a usual kid.

However, I would say that this is where I think Graham would have problems in Texas is on, like, issues with law enforcement and immigration enforcement. Not exactly. Yeah. And Texas is a place where people want immigration enforcement. They don't want the, they don't want the, like, chaotic ice raids. But they want secure border. They want secure. Your guy Bobby Polito, who you can still for us on the show.

He was really good on this. Yeah. Yeah. And they're supportive of law enforcement. I know Platterner said negative things about that. But I think Platterner is a really interesting candidate. You know, he had all these things. People thought we're going to end his campaign.

This thing, this thing. It felt very much like Trump in 2016. I've been watching this. I'm so happy you said that because it's hard to say this without being offensive to Platterner. I don't mean, I really don't mean it this way. But it's like, how did the Republicans, who spent 10 years watching the Democrats do what you just said, ineffectually throw stuff at Trump and think it was going to work

when all it did was boomerang back on them, you know, because it was like, oh, oh, Mr. Trump said some uncouth words. Like, oh, that's going to really be the thing that broke him. Like, all of this stuff didn't work. It just made Trump supporters love him more. And like this is just kind of like the inverse of that. Yeah. Where the Republican, like, every time I see a new APO drop,

there was some free beacon thing today that was like, who Graham Platner said on Reddit, he wasn't sure about the Armenian genocide. And I'm like, oh, that'll do it. That's really going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. It's just, it's a misunderstanding. It's a misunderstanding what attracts people to the candidate.

Yeah, and they're throwing so many different things to get at him. Like Susan Collins yesterday was saying, oh, he like cusses on Reddit. Like, ooh, you know, Donald Trump calls people pussy from the podium. I actually think that part of Graham Patner's appeal is the fact that he led, an imperfect, flawed life, struggled with so many things and is, you know, is trying to be a better man. And I happen to believe that people shouldn't be defined by their worst days.

The worst things they've said online, the worst tattoos they've gotten. And they ask Maria Camilla out on a date when they're in the closet. I mean, you know, you probably don't. Nobody wants to be defined by that. That's not my worst day. Yeah, that's, you know. Yeah, I've done worse stuff than that. Let's not do that, though.

Let's move forward. But the... We're not going back. And I think people sort of have responded to that. Now, I understand why people have misgivings about Graham Platner. But to his credit, and I certainly don't agree with him on ideologically on everything. I think on issues of like immigration, maybe law enforcement, I'm probably a little bit more toward the center. But I respect that he has taken his case directly to the people in Maine.

He's like going everywhere, taking all of the questions. He didn't like just get. getting in a bunker after all these things and hide. He ran right to him and answered it. And like the people of Maine are going wild for him. In that primary, he was just trouncing the incumbent governor. I saw a video the other day of like one of the Republican trackers following him around. Being like, do you still like to masturbate in public restrooms, Graham?

And it's like, okay. But he's out there. Right. And it's like, okay, yeah, go for that. If you're going to get mad at a Marine for saying that like, I don't know, have you ever watched Jarhead? You know, you got to catch a moment. Yeah. Well, there's a masturbation.

seen a jarhead trigger warning. Oh. I watched it with my mother. It was traumatizing. Yeah. Note to self, I will not be watching that with Adrian. But there's a big difference between Platner and Trump, though. Because Trump never went out and said, I'm sorry for these things I did.

I'm sorry. I did these awful things. Grand Platterner was saying, I was a bad person back then. I was going through a lot of troubles, but I'm a different person now. And I want to use my struggles, use my journey to help other people who have gone through similar things and, you know, go to Senate and, like, fight for people who feel left behind by the system. And he's, like, tapping into the very anti-status quo, anti-establishment feeling that people have. He's fucking pissed off. And everyone I know in Maine, like, I'm talking about people

who, like, worked for Hillary Clinton. Like, not, I'm not talking about, like, lefties, all that. They go wild for him because they've seen him up close. And the nice thing about a state like Maine is you can actually see and touch a lot of people up close. Harder to do that in Texas. Trying to force Mills was such a mistake. Oh, yeah. It was such a mistake by Schumer. It was like looking at 2024 and saying,

okay, let's double down on all the dumb shit we did there. Someone old, someone who is the definition of the establishment. I don't understand why they expected a different result. Let's pick on the populist lefties for one second. Okay. Okay. Here's my main issue. Like in this moment right now, I feel like in the conventional wisdom, in the narrative, online, everybody now says, like, what the Democrats need to do to win is populist economics, you know, people in the grand platinum mold.

Like, that's how you win over swing voters. And we're going to do that instead of moving to the middle, you know, on cultural issues or whatever, the things that people suggested in the past that you do to win over swing voters. And I'm like, I'm open to here to try in it. I'm actually not, it's not my cup of tea personally, but that could be right. Like my issue with it is like they're very dismissive of any other possible model for winning voters. And their model hasn't actually worked yet. Yeah, it's true. The Kamala model didn't work.

We saw that. That's true. I bet I don't think anybody is suggesting we run the Harris campaign. I mean, what even was the Kamla model? Exactly. The funny thing about the Kamala model, which I called the Kamala conundrum, is that it's like, it's so funny. Moderates say, well, the problem was that she was too far left. She was a California progressive. And then the populist Bernie types are like, well, the problem was she did the one event with Liz Cheney. And she was too much of a corporate center. It's like, so she didn't appeal to anybody.

My point is, like, they haven't done it. The reason that there's no bench of populist lefties is because they haven't like recruited successfully a candidate to go out and win a general election in a purple state or a red. state, and that's not even really Maine. Like, Maine is like a light blue state. And so sometimes I look at the kind of discourse around that, and I feel like kind of the Bernie lefts a little bit over their skis. Yeah. I mean, generally the things that are loudest, create the most conflict, get the most coverage, but to your point, there's not a lot of success.

And, like, I've, you know, I talk to a lot of voters, seen a lot of focus groups. And, like, overall, what people say is that. They don't want a revolution. They want stability. They want people who understand that they wake up in the middle of the night, like, concerned about losing their job, like being one health emergency away from, you know, being bankrupt. They're not necessarily, you know, bankrupt right now, but it's just gnawing economic anxiety.

And to a lot of people, the idea of this, like, revolution is actually pretty terrifying to them. They just want stability. They hate the chaos of the Trump's, but they don't want it replaced by a new sort of chaos where you're kicked up your health care and forced onto a different system. And I sometimes think that just saying, you know, a noun, a verb, a billionaire, doesn't, it's like maybe great for an ideological lecture,

but it doesn't really connect with the main issues that people are feeling, which is they just can't afford shit. And they want to be able to know that, like, if they go to the doctor, their services will be covered, they won't get surprised bills. when they get prescribed prescriptions, that they will be covered. They can afford them. They can afford them that maybe they can pay for them at the same rate people play overseas.

And so we need to make sure that it is not just this up in the clouds, whaling against billionaires and monopolies and all this stuff that a lot of people don't understand and really bring it down to the very urgent existential things that people feel about costs in their lives right now. Prove me wrong. It's fine. Like that is what works and then that resonates, but it just it hasn't. And I get frustrated. And I do think that people, it's funny, like they see that clearly when looking at the other

side. Like nobody looks at the other side. You know, people, it's because Trump won twice. People say, see, we need more of that. Like, we can just let our freak flag fly. But like Trump moderated on some random issues, like foreign policy, which he hasn't followed through on. And, you know, healthcare, which he hasn't followed through on them.

But in the campaign, he did moderate from like the Paul Ryan position on several issues. And you see clearly, like, well, Carrie Lake didn't win. Hershal Walker didn't win. You know what I mean? Like when you look at the other side, you can see, I think, you know, because you're not clouded by your own, like, factional interest. It's like, well, yeah, I've had the Republicans nominate a more normal person in Georgia. John Osloff might not be the hot new thing for 2028 because he might not be there anymore. Yeah.

And if you look at, you know, 2022, right? When it was a midterm election, I mean, it was different because Biden was president, the Senate candidates who won. It was, you know, we're both Ossuff and... Yeah, I just correct you myself, it was Warnock that ran against Warnock. It was the same year because Osloff ran against Purdue. Yeah, but then you had like,

you had Fetterman, you had Mark Kelly. And then the one Senate candidate who lost was Mandela Barnes. We should have won that race. And he was someone who was going more in that vein. Now, I don't think that there was a problem against rail against the billionaires.

But you got to bring it back to not just billionaires bad, But, like, for instance, you know, you and I talked about this before is we're seeing a lot of candidates right now talking about AI and the need to regulate AI. And full disclosure, one of them is Mallory McMorrow, a candidate I have advised since 2022. I'm not sure we are seeing a lot of candidates. We're kind of seeing Alex Boris, Mallory Gavin as doing it now as governor. And Mallory is the first, you know, statewide, this cycle to really take it on, taking on both the jobs and the online safety piece. And Boris has really sort of become the poster boy for this here in New York.

What they're saying is, yes, this is about AI because this could disrupt your job. It could put your kids at risk, do all these things, put your privacy at risk. The argument, too, is that these are a bunch of billionaires who are going to get rich by displacing you, displacing your job. These are a bunch of billionaires who are going to get rich by, you know, having your kids talk to chatbots that are, encouraging them to commit suicide or sharing like inappropriate sexual information with them. So if you can make that connection and also the connection that fits in with the whole Trump narrative. Yeah. Because they're buying off candidates.

They're buying off D.C. And there's this cabal of very rich people who are trying to write the rules for themselves and get themselves rich while everyone else is getting screwed. And so I think if you can bring it all together like that and not just make it just like class warfare, billionaire, bad. And like, this one gets under my skin. I'm sorry. I have to go there. Get loose. I know. I'm getting loose. You got me all warmed up here. But like, while I see these people going out there and saying billionaires bad, they are all lined up behind Tom Steyer in California. Explain that to me. This guy has spent half a billion dollars buying off influencers, buying off all these lefty groups whose whole rationale is billionaires bad, getting their support.

And it shows, one, it shows like, just sort of how bad of a candidate, Tom Sire said, you spend half a billion dollars and you're still in the teens. I remember him on those debate stages in 2020. This is not, this is a guy who's... Not a dynamic character. Yeah, not a dynamic character, but someone who's completely flipped his positions on everything else. But then, like, he has to buy all these people to support him. And all the people he's buying off to support him are the people who rail against the billionaires.

So find that all of that. It's a bit hollow. Bit hollow. Yeah. So you're part of the Katie Porter Hive. You know what? I'm a New York resident. I do some work in California, Adam Schiff, and, you know, Mayor Daniel Lurie, who is, I think.

Oh, we love Mayor Daniel Lurie. Okay, we're not, stop, stop promoting all your candidates. I want to move back to you. I'm just promoting, for the people that are mad at you. We love Daniel Lerick. For people who are maybe getting mad of some of your takes there on the left, you also were kind of a surprise Zoron Stan. I was.

And you were on, last time you're on, I believe it was during the campaign. And you were talking about how you would rank him ahead of Cuomo. Yeah. And I'm the transcript. Obviously, there's some personal baggage there. But you were also at the time talking about how much you liked him. You liked how much he loved the city and you liked his optimism. You've done a lot of local politics here.

So now we're what? Six months in, basically, five months in to the mayorship. I grade him. How is he doing? Yeah. So, I mean, just to your point, I had worked for Cuomo before. I wrote a book where I called out some of the bad things I saw. the scenes with Andrew Cuomo, some of the things that I thought he was very dishonest with people about,

certainly relating to his sexual harassment scandal. And then when he ran, I was one of the only Cuomo, staffers who was willing to publicly call him out. Why? It's pretty obvious. He's a pretty vengeful guy. But I thought it was really important. And I saw in Zoran Mamadani, someone who I didn't agree with on a lot of issues. But, you know, he did in a lot of ways, not ideologically, but in terms of his optimism, his presentation. Remind me a little bit of Pete. He tangled a little optimism. I loved how much he loved New York City. And I found that he talked about issues not in that weirdo, lefty, intellectual way with all those words. I don't understand. It's the halal truck. It goes back to the whole old truck. It's just like, man, these guys are just trying to make a living and they have to

fill out too many fucking forms. Yeah. And they're like, that's a, that was appealing to me at like a technocratic abundancy level. It's like, yeah, let the halal talk guys sell. cheap allow to people. Like, stop. Like, the city doesn't have to get involved in all this. And I liked the, you know, free 2K for people. And my biggest concern, so I ranked him in the primary. I proudly supported him, voted for him in the general. And I was a little nervous, a little nervous. But like, for me, my top issue is one, two, three, four, five. It's public safety, public order, you know, in part because of some personal experiences of I had. But, you know, yesterday I was reading a story. the left is very mad at Zora and Mamdani because policing has gone up.

The number of summons is going out have been up. People were complaining about the increased number of police on the subways. And, you know, to me, I assume to a lot of bulwark listeners, that is very welcome news. Because I really think when Democrats let our cities turn into dystopian shitholes of disorder, that it is very bad for the brand. Like some of its crime, but some of it is like, we live in the greatest city in the world. We should not be letting people die in our streets of mental illness and drug overdoses.

And so I think he's done a good job of that. The smartest decision he made was keeping Jessica Tisch's NYPD commissioner. I'm glad he's empowered her. I like the stuff he's done on housing and saying, I was wrong before for being a NIMBY. I'm leaning into Yimbism. I like the stuff he's done on early childhood education. I also like just his style. Like, I think that your style of leadership is policy itself.

And for years and years and years, we had mayors and governors where everything was conflict. Everything was a dick measuring contest. And he is willing to work with the Democratic governor, who is a very different type of Democrat from him, and get things done. Not only that, he's willing to work with the president to get things done for New York City. And I want that in my mayor. So. Sharia law Smith. So.

There you go, DSA, Liz. Yes. So I, certainly he's had some missteps here or there, but overall I feel positive. I hope he continues on this track. And I think he's defied a lot of the caricatures and worst expectations people had. We're back in the New York groove. The Knicks are in the finals. Oh, Ron is doing well.

You can walk through the streets. I can feel the buzz in the streets. You know, people are hopping. Okay, two more things. We'll let you go. One, we just had to make fun of this. And this is kind of more in your era of music, actually. So Trump announced the great American state fair for the 250th anniversary.

I hate him so much. I couldn't even go to this thing anyway, even if it was a band I liked because I just, I need a break. You know, I'm going to be with my family, pool party, barbecue. I don't need Donald Trump in my life on Fourth of July this year. But anyway, he announced the lineup. It was very 80s, Martina McBride, like the 90s, the Commodores, Brett Michaels, your big Brett Michaels gal, Morris Day and the Time, young MC, CNC Music Factory,

the first tape I bought as a child was MC Hammer and CNC Music Factory. Vanilla Ice was coming. Millie Vanilly post-scandal, Flo Rida. So that was the list. There were nine people that were announced. Since then, five have dropped out. So we're left with just CNC Music Factory, Vanilla Ice, Flo Rida, and Millie Vanilli at the Great American State Fair put on by Donald Trump. So I read that Millie Vanilla had dropped out.

Millie's out too. And can we, wait, can we just discuss? discuss this because I remember where I was... Even Millie has too much integrity for this White House. I remember where I was when Millie Vanilly had that moment where they... The lip syncing. Yes, the lip syncing. And like...

Where were you? I'm like watching TV. In your own. Yes. Yeah. I think I heard about it at my cousin Tom's house now that I mentioned it. And I mean, I've still, over the years of rewatch that clip. I mean, their songs slept.

Like, I listened to them before I knew. But, you know, you would think the most embarrassing thing would be. would be inviting milly-vinilly to perform at your big presential thing. But no, we found something more embarrassing

is that they're backing out because it's bad for their reputation. Yeah. They were the most, like, reviled... Sullyed reputation. Sullyed reputation. Embarrassing group of the 1980s.

The guys talked about how they wanted to, like, kill themselves. They couldn't show their faces in public. And like the fact that this is a bridge too far for them, wow. Wow. Are you sad that Brett Michaels is out? You know, I was more of like a Guns and Roses girl than a poison. You know, I can fuck with some like every rose has its thorn.

Yeah, some power ballads. Yeah. Hair bands. Okay. Well, since we're in the Mommy Vlogger's studio, Bill Simmons had a bit that where he had parent corner at the end of his podcast with Cousin Sal on Sunday. So I figured we'd do a little parent corner and we could each tell, each other one story about life as a parent. Yeah. What do you want to go first or do you want me to?

Yeah. So I have noticed, so my son, it turns three and three months. And he's definitely taken on a lot of gendered characteristics. Obsessed with the trucks, fire trucks, especially, but garbage trucks, police cars, dump trucks, excavators, you name it. Born this way. But another thing noticed recently is sometimes we'll be walking out of the street. I don't love to use the stroller, but if he gets tired, he'll say up, and I pick him up, and he'll look behind me, and he'll be like, oh, the man's coming, the man's coming. And then, like, the second time I did it, he said, the man's coming. I was like, okay, well, what are you going to do about it? I'm going to push the man, and I'm going to give him a boo-boo. And, you know, I like that. My son, at the age of three,

already understands like you got to protect the women in your life yeah yeah so it's important to be a protector and that came out of nowhere don't get pushed around by the man by the government yeah don't get pushed around by the man american spirit yeah so i he's so cute oh he's so cute but also i like that he's so protective of his mama i like that too i also have a violent story so that's perfect we didn't plan this toulouse uh this week is in nike camp basketball camp and um It's a co-ed camp, but at her age level, for whatever reason, like, she was the only girl. Like, there are some older girls that are there, which I was happy about. So, you know, they can have, like, girl power lunch together.

But when they're playing the scrimmages, it's, like, her against boys. And she's really good. But the boys just, like, mindset at this age, back to born this way and gendered characteristics, is just a little different. They just are, like, at age eight, like, they're naturally more aggressive. Like, they don't want to pass to her. I've told the story before. I said my dad officially became a Me Too supporter when he came to watch her at like age five or six when she was the best player on the team and none of the boys would pass to her.

And all of a sudden, I think he saw the scourge of sexism firsthand for the first time as a grandfather. And so I went to watch the scrimmage the first day because I was coming to New York. And so I wanted to kind of show her that I was going to see her there. And I just saw that she was getting bullied a little bit. So after camp, I invited the neighborhood kids over. There's a 10-year-old boy and a six-year-old boy, and we played two-on-two. And that was me and the six-year-old boy against Toulouse and the 10-year-old boy, who's a big, big kid. And I just started Will Ferreling on them, you know, like pushing them down, dunking on that, you know, doing, you know, posterizing them, swatting every shot, like really bragging.

And she got really mad at me. Like, he gets mad at me like, screaming at me, like, you're a bragger, you're a bully. do da-da-da-da-da-da-da and like the six-year-old is like so happy because he's on my team and like we're winning and so he starts bragging and finally as we get closer you know I start kind of letting off a little bit and letting them push besides and they they started pushing back you know the 10-year-old boy started pushing me to lose started getting physical you know and and we won obviously but I felt like it was a good parenting life lesson because at the end I was like that's what you do to those boys when you go back to camp out there like get out there I like get physical don't

let those boys fucking push you around at Nike camp, you know, girl power, you're stronger, you're better than them, like go do it. And I don't know if it actually worked. So I'll report back the next time we're on on whether this was a useful parenting strategy. Maybe some listeners will let me know that, you know, dunking and blocking and trash talking, my child is not the right parenting approach. But that's what I went with this week. Yeah. And what do you think? I think, hey, let's go. Thank you. I appreciate that. Wouldn't you rather have your kids be the pushed, pushers than the ones that are getting pushed? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm a guy's a girl like out there. Yeah. He's fucking like little uptown boys like, you know, think that they're tough. I was like they don't got nothing. Yeah. Sounds like we got to connect her with Zane, you know, next time they're in the same city. All right.

Probably learned a thing or two. I know. We did her birthday up here. I don't know why I didn't see. It was right at New Year's. I don't know. We were busy. Liz Smith, anything else?

Anything anything else you want to shell for? Now we've made it to the very end of the podcast. Any other clients you want to pitch? No. I'm just here to show for a Democratic majority in 2026, but it's great to be back here with you, Tim. Amen to that, sister. We'll see you soon. Everybody else, we'll be back here Monday for Liz's favorite, Bill Crystal.

We'll see you all then. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer, Anselaer, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.