The Bulwark Podcast - Michael Steele: A Petty, Punk-Ass President

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

In the wake of the massive winter storm, the power is still out in some places, trees are down, and the death toll continues to rise. And where is FEMA? Don’t pester Trump about it because he is very busy going after political opponents like Don Lemon, re-litigating once again his 2020 loss in Georgia, and keeping up his terror campaign in Minnesota in hopes of invoking the Insurrection Act. Plus, he’s got a side hustle orchestrating the payment of $10 billion in taxpayer money to him and his family. Meanwhile, there’s a pretty stinky smell of corruption around the new Fed chair pick, Lindsey Graham wants in on the grift, and where are all the bros who just had to vote for Trump because of Biden’s supposed reign of cancel culture?Michael Steele joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.show notes Michael's show, "The Weeknight" Tim and Andrew on the FBI raid at the Georgia elections office Follow "Bulwark Takes" for our weekend coverage Tickets for our Bulwark LIVE show in Minneapolis Tim's playlist

Hey, y'all, tickets are officially on sale now for our 26th live tour kickoff show in Minneapolis on February 19th. We're stoked to be with our friends in the Twin Cities. Fucking demanded that we'd be with our friends in the Twin Cities. We're bringing Sarah, JVL, Bill, Sam, me. We'll see who else. Maybe some other folks. We're looking forward to being with you. All profits from the show will be donated to Second Harvest Heartland,

which is providing food to folks in need in the Twin Cities. Make sure you're also saving the date for when we're heading to Texas. We're there in Dallas for one night, March 18th, and Austin for one night, March 19th. Watch your inbox and the bulwark.com slash events for more information on how to get tickets to all those shows. We'll be seeing you soon. Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. He's the co-host of MSNOWs, the weeknight, airing every day at 7 p.m. in the east.

He's a former chair of the RNC. He was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. It is Michael Steele, the chairman. Herman, how you doing, man? What's up, play, I'm player. How you doing, Tim? Girl. I know.

Here's when we stand at 1030 a.m. when we're taping this. We have a new Fed chair who has ties to the Greenland debacle. Trump is suing the government for $10 billion, his own government. Lindsay Graham might shut down the government if she doesn't get some bribe money. Tulsi is raiding elections offices. The regime has arrested Don Lemon, and we still don't know who killed Alex. I got a bunch of other stuff, but I'm going to stroke out just going through all those topics.

I just, I'm kind of, you're a host now, dealer's choice. Which one of those you want to start with? It's Friday. Yeah. So, you know, we always talk about living for the weekend. It never met more than it does right now. Look, all of that's bad. All of that's bad.

Arresting Don Lemon for what? Look, the Fed chair and all of that stuff, a lot of this has been in play for a while. the extra stuff, you know, suing the government for $10 billion, going after a celebrity host, all of that bullshit is the distraction. And the fact of the matter is it is proving to me that Susie Wiles, who was lauded coming in as the adult in the room, that, you know, she was his muse and she was in his ear and could, that shit don't mean nothing. because Donald Trump is a thing unto himself. Always has been. Always will be. And this idea that somehow we're going to magically control the dragon, you know?

I mean, hell, even in Game of Thrones, there were moments when that dragon looked at, you know, looked at it was sitting on his back out, okay, bitch, you screw up one more time. You know? The reality is we now, I mean, there's more than ever recognize. they're trying to steal the elections for this November. They're trying to and have in many ways put in place an authoritarian state with Donald Trump sitting on the toilet. And you've got around him the Lindsey Graham's and others

who are willing to shill because they think they're somehow going to be protected. And so that's our Friday. That has been our every day since 2016. And I think that in many respects, particularly in certain parts of MAGaverse, and I've heard you speak on this, you know, light bulbs may be coming on, but they still are dim. Yeah, they are. You know, that's a good thesis statement as we go through all of these things,

because I think we might as well start with Don Lemon in Minnesota because, you know, I mean, we weren't fooled, but we'd go through this BS here in the midweek, where Tom Homan comes into Minneapolis, they got a new boss in charge. they're going to tone things down. Donald Trump's been a little spooked, and, you know, they don't like seeing the dead white people in the streets and they might change their policies a little bit.

That was nothing. Like Donald Trump just lives the news cycle. The dragon, you know, sitting on the throne to mix your metaphors like sitting on his golden toilet. Like, he's a survivor, right? And he wants more power. And it's like, oh, that thing didn't work. People are mad at me. We're going to do this other thing tomorrow.

You know, and like, that's what's happening right now. So let's just start with Lemon. For people have not been following this. He's independent now. He's on YouTube. I've been over on a show a few times. He was arrested in relation to this incident where there are a group of anti-ice protesters. They disrupted a service at City's Church in St. Paul. I guess one of the pastors there was also an acting field director for ICE. And so that was the reason for disrupting the church and protesting. I'm not a huge fan of protesting churches. I'll just say this up at the front. but Don Lemon was a journalist covering this. He was an independent journalist following the protesters into the church.

He was videotaping. He did then go and interview this pastor and like ask him questions. Ask him some tough questions. But like, I don't know, I had some asshole on the internet messaging me today. He's like, well, what if the, what would you say if the proud boys had stormed a mosque? And I'd say, well, if they were breaking the law, they should be held to account. But if Fox News sent a journalist to cover it, I wouldn't want the Democrats to go in arrest Peter Ducey for being there and documenting the fact that it happened.

So anyway, just one more thing for context here before we get your take on it. Multiple judges have already smacked this down. They tried to bring it in Minneapolis to the judge who got rid of it with prejudice, dismissed it. Our colleagues at MS now are reporting that multiple career DOJ prosecutors in Minnesota and Los Angeles refused to be involved in this. Pam Bondi, when it was announced, said that this indictment was, quote, at my direction. So that's where we are right now.

The Attorney General is demanding that an independent journalist get arrested over the objections of prosecutors and judges. And that has been the will of Donald Trump. And Pam Bondi is the worst kind of hack there is in the job. She is useless in that role, except to the extent that she services Donald Trump. And you can take that however you want.

And the reality of it is, that at the end of the day, he is a firebrand, and he is a damn good journalist. And he was in a position to document the excesses across the board. I mean, whatever you want to say, like you said, I'm not a fan and do not advocate going into a church service in protesting, wait till the service is over, grab the pastor, have a conversation. They wanted to bling, and they wanted the,

firecracker moment. They got it. And here's what happens when you play with stupid fire. It will not only burn you, but it will burn everyone else in the vicinity. And so making an example of Don Lemon is what this game is. Instilling fear in the American press corps is what this is, to getting folks like you and me to suddenly, but more importantly, you know, the corporate entities that we work for to go soft, to, oh, well, I don't, know if we should, we've got to be careful. We don't need Trump mad at us. It's just two words that sum up what I feel about this administration, in particular this president in this moment. And I think a lot more Americans are coming to those feelings. And I think actions like this

further those feelings in a way that I think, look, I looked at the 2026 elections in 2025 and in late 2024 and said the Democrats are in a position then to pick up 35 to 40 seats in the House. And I thought the Senate was marginally in play. By the time I got to the end of 2025, it was at least 40 seats in the House

and the Senate is in play. As we turn the corner into this cycle, my friend, if I'm a Republican on a ballot, 2006 will look like a kitty party compared to what's going to happen potentially. If voters take the attitudes that are beginning to form and stew within them about how this administration is behaving, it is not addressing their core concerns about the economy, it is not addressing their core concerns about jobs because a lot of folks have lost their jobs, particularly if you were a federal employee and are still unemployed and you were the only

person who was bringing money into that household, these are the reality. that are happening across the country at kitchen tables every day. And this administration is more sucked up on building a damn monstrosity of a frigging ballroom or having the president go to some bitch-ass premiere, right, on a black carpet, whatever the hell that shit is, right? Instead of governing the country, Republicans stopped governing a long time ago. and they've allowed someone at the helm sitting behind the resolute desk who has zero interest in it, except for how much he can grift from the system, enrich his kids and his own personal coffers. Tell me how the president makes a billion dollars in a year, people.

Well, the government might give it to him in a second. We're going to get back to that. I got to sit on this down-linn think there's a couple other elements of it that are pissing me off that I think that we need to talk about. Last night when I was on your show, you were talking about the 10th Amendment. I want to focus on two amendments right now, the first and the 10th. And these fuckers, okay? These fuckers, I spent the last six years or longer talking about how, oh, the Democrats are trying to cancel us, are trying to silence us. Like the assault on free speech is too much.

That's what supposedly radicalized Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to get on board. That's what supposedly radicalized these comedian guys to get on board. on board. And it's like, are any of them going to stand up for Don Lemon today? I'm not holding my breath because I drive down past the smoothie king center here in New Orleans. And I've seen several times people on the marquee there with my uncancelled tour. You can't cancel me. I'm speaking the truth on all these fucking contrarians who are out there saying that, oh, the woke left and Joe Biden was trying to cancel us. And it's important that we get Donald Trump in there to protect free speech because I want to say the R word and I want to call people pussy.

This was across society that there were a ton of influential rich men who were saying that they couldn't say what they wanted. And so they had to get on board of Donald Trump. Here we have today like legal punishment. The Department of Justice directed by Donald Trump, the president and the attorney general have arrested somebody for exercising his First Amendment right as a journalist. And like whether or not you like what he did or thought it was appropriate, it's like, that's the whole fucking point of the First Amendment. People can say dumb shit.

People can do dumb shit. People can report. People can comment. And that's what we get to do in a free country. And they arrested him for his speech. This is state tyranny going after Don Lemon. What was the crime? He went into the church with a video camera or his phone and just documented what was happening.

Where was the crime? They're going to say it's the face act, whatever it was. that like there's some protection of church and religious freedom places or worship. Don Lemon did not disrupt the service. Right, exactly. Don Lemon did nothing to inject himself into that moment. And that America, please take your head out of your asses.

I know some of y'all sitting around you, whatever you're sitting around thinking, oh, okay, they got Don Lemon. They're coming for you, motherfucker. They're coming for you next. Trust me, because when you take out, when you take out the pinnacle example of free speech in this country, which is our press. Folks, they're the only industry, the only business, the only career, the only job that is written into the damn constitution. Not coal miners, right?

Not electricians. Not waitresses and waiters. Not tech CEOs. Right. Not tech CEOs, Elon Musk. Data center management. Right. None of that.

The press. And so this idea that, you know, you're going to sit by and just watch this happen is crazy because you are next. You are the menu. It's not being on it. You are it. And that's the reality of this moment. And I think you're exactly right about raising up those two pieces.

Because why the first and tenth go together? Because the first speaks to the very thing that does. Don Lemon represents in this moment. And the 10th represents the very thing that the states have always represented since the founding. And that is the independence to act and perform and to do whatever they want to do. Whatever their people want them to do. By the way, by the way. Thank you.

Their people want them to do. Yeah. If the people of Minnesota want their city or their state to be a sanctuary city or a sanctuary state, that's their business. Texas done some fucked up shit. Ain't nobody running into Texas telling them, I'm sorry, you can't do that. We're shutting you down. We're going to send in the army.

Did Joe Biden send in the troops when they passed a bounty act? You know, the left people sue women if they were having an abortion. Did Joe Biden send in the troops to Florida when they said teachers had to hide the picture of them and their gay spouse? Like, no, they don't send in the fucking truth. Can we just stop with the both-sidism? Oh, and to your first point about the Elon Musk. and the Bezos and all these broculture bastards, right, who somehow fell victim to the idea of the weaponization

that they're coming after. You're a fucking billionaire. Ain't nobody coming after your ass. Stop it. If you lined yourself with Donald Trump and you did it for two reasons. One, you liked the shit he was doing and you believed in it.

Or two, you felt or realized you could make some money off of it. Likely, both of those things are true. So don't come in and act on all. sudden like, oh, geez, you know, I watched Joe Biden and weaponized the Department of Justice, and it just made me realize, bitch, please, stop it. You're a grown-ass man. If you're a billionaire, presumably you had the brains to build a business. You hadn't had the brains to figure out that you were getting punked by Donald Trump? No, you wanted to be punked because you saw the money in it. You got, you got seating behind him at the inauguration, and that's the shit that lit you up. And now

you're going to sit back and, and what, enjoy the benefits of it? Of course you are. They're not going to come out here and defend Don Lemon. They're not going to sit there and say to Donald Trump, hey, hey, Mr. Trump, you've gone too far. Just like we've seen him do with other personalities on TV, what we've seen him do with black women in the press, where were their voices then? Yeah. And the other thing, just my final thought in the First Amendment part of it is, like, they arrested Ramesa Osterk for signing an op-ed. I've arrested Dunl Lemon for committing an act of journalism. This is as clear as day.

This is government tyranny going after people for either their opinions or for the type of journalism they're doing. And like, that is a straight assault on freedom of speech. And if you were a free speech warrior who was upset because the Biden administration was like working with YouTube to flag stories, that did misinformation. I kind of didn't love that either, but that was like middle management making some requests of tech companies. The tech companies could have said no to.

Don Lemon didn't get to say no to the guys that showed up with the guns today and say, sorry, no thank you. I'm going to keep doing my job. They handcuffed him, I assume, and jailed them. Took them in. So we'll learn more as the day goes on. Raise your hand if you've been putting off a dental

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One more thing. Back to these states. And I want to talk a little bit more about what's happened in Minnesota. Here's where we are right now. Based on reports for people on the ground, folks have been following. They're doing journalism in Minneapolis, and we appreciate them.

It doesn't seem like the number of agents in the streets has dissipated. The Minneapolis Star Tribune was saying they saw about the same amount of cars go out from the Whipple Building, they always do. And we still don't know. I have to obsess over this. I talked to Tim Walls on Tuesday,

and I asked him, who killed your citizen? Who killed Alex Prudy? Do you know? And he said, I don't know. Because the feds know, because they first sent those, the people, the perps, to another city and state. They told us that. Greg Bevino told us that.

And then subsequently, yesterday, they told us now that they've put them on administrative leave. I don't want them on administrative leave. I want them back in Minnesota testifying about what they did. And to me, it is crazy that the feds can go into a state. They can kill a citizen of Minneapolis. And then they can hide from the local officials like who perpetrated it. They can hide evidence from them. They can cover it up.

It is totally insane that that continues to happen as we're taping this right now. Well, it continues to happen because no one's stopping it. Outside of the Democratic members of Congress and the Democratic officials in the state, where are the Republican members? Where are the Republicans? Well, Susan Collins got him out of her state. She got ICE out of her state. That's something.

That's something. That's what they can do. I mean, but at the end of the day, you know, they probably got full on the lobster, and they had to go anyway. I mean, I don't care if you are a Republican or whatever you consider yourself. If you're serving in the United States Congress, you should be concerned about what the government is doing. For all of these Republicans, for eons, who lived in this space where they talked about government overreach, and they talked about, again, weaponization because it was Democratic administrations.

All the things that they said was happening then that never happened, is happening now under a Republican president, and you're silent. And you've got the class clown and various senators running around, you know, standing on the plane, yeah, we're going to do, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, right? Instead of leading, and instead of trying to get this president to back up, because this folks does not end well for anybody. None of this ends well. It just doesn't.

We've seen this. History is continuity, as my friend Simone likes to say. And with respect to Minnesota and Mr. Prady's gun, again, as my colleague Simone says, where's the phone? Right? Because the phone will tell you exactly because he was filming. He was filming the officer. And it was probably more than likely still running when they were beating the crap out of them before they shot him 10 times. Where is that? The individuals who were involved. Literally. Literally, where is it? Why don't Tim Walz and Jacob Frye know where it is? It's their fucking city. Because the government won't tell them, won't tell. They don't want them a part of the investigation. So you have to ask yourself why.

Why would something that happened in a state not involve state officials who have the jurisdiction? They were on a public street. They weren't on federal property when this happened. They were on a public street. And so this is the jurisdiction of the state and the city. And yet this government has said, screw you, we get to control here. And that's not how the 10th Amendment works. That's not how the process within the administration of government and the administration of justice works.

Yet here we are. I guess the only thing other I can say is I don't want the names of the individual. who killed Mr. Pretty. I want the names. I want the faces. I want to see their faces. I want to be able to look them in the eye. And I think of the American people are owed that. I think the Prattie family is owed that.

And I think the government has a responsibility here that it is shirking because the men in control, the Republican leaders in the House and the Senate, don't want to do anything because they're more afraid of Donald Trump, then they are the family of Mr. Prattie, the people who live in the state of Minnesota, or the American people. Yeah, we pay them, the killers, by the way. We pay them.

They work for us. Trump's posted like 2,000 bleats in the past 48 hours, so it's hard to kind of go through all of them, but there's one I should mention. He writes this, agitator and possibly insurrectionist Alex Pretti's stock has gone way down. it was quite a display of abuse and anger for all to see he's referencing a video of Prattie from 11 days prior to when he was killed where he's kicking a cop car agitator and possibly insurrectionist Alex Prattie's stock has gone way down

like how fucking deranged do you have to be to post that about a guy that got murdered his stock is down he's dead your goons killed him yeah yeah with no insult intended to 10 year olds that's basically that is the most childish thinking in the world. It is it is immature. He's a 70 nine-year-old man with obvious health issues, obvious mental concerns, and he is, you know, in a position where he says stuff like that and people just go, oh, this Trump. But it's an indication of just how bad it is. I mean, that's how he values the life of an American citizen. His stock has gone down after we killed him.

Hey, array for outside. What the fuck? I noticed he didn't post about how his stock went up when they showed videos of him like serving veterans at the VA or when the son of a veteran, you know, played a video of him. Right.

Giving a tribute to his dad. You know, like there's no, stock doesn't go up. No. Stock only goes down. You kill him and then you spit on him when he's dead. That's what's happening. And you've seen this movie before and this is what Trump does, and I'm just telling people there will be more of this as we move out of this very harsh winter into what will likely be a very hot summer. There's more of this to come.

Remember the end game here. The end game is the Insurrection Act. That's the end game. Because the moment he can see a situation in which he feels justified in invoking it, it starts a domino effect of other things that will lead to martial law and the suspension of the 2026 elections. That's the end game. They're doing what they can to corrupt the system on the ground. I give you Georgia, right? What the fuck is, are we doing in Georgia? Let's talk about that. Tulsi Gabbard was there. She's the director of national intelligence. Thank you. Why was she on the ground at Georgia for an alleged, supposed fake law enforcement observation where they seized ballots? They went to an election that are seized ballots, Tulsi's on the ground for that.

That's pretty alarming, especially when you tie it to the fact that earlier this year, I guess it would be last year now, Tulsi cut a group within the intelligence operations, the job it was to look at foreign interference in elections. Right. She fired those people. The element that she has of control over elections, the only purview she has is making sure that foreign countries don't fuck with our elections. She cut the group that was doing that.

And now she's on the ground following up insane Trump conspiracy theories. She's doing a Christy Knoem thing. Put the Kappa and do the cosplay. I'm important. I'm serious. No, you're not. You are a tool like everybody else for Donald Trump. And what makes matter worse?

You're an incompetent tool in the process. You have no business there. And the fact of the matter is you've made it very clear. You don't care if the Russians or other foreign governments find ways to interfere in our elections. What you're concerned about is going and grabbing ballots, taking them from a secured location and putting them in someplace we don't know. We don't know what's happening to those ballots. There's no accounting for those ballots.

There was no receipt given to the Board of Elections when the ballots was taken, which was just a typical thing to do. Here's a receipt, a documentation of exactly what we're taking here, the number, et cetera. None of that, right? So she's cosplay. She's a tool. She's doing exactly what Donald Trump wants to do. Donald Trump wants a couple of things. One, he wants to ram down our throats to the point where he forces us to believe the bullshit in his head that he actually won the 2020 election.

That will be the litigation for him until he can definitively prove that case. Right? It'll never be proven because it didn't happen. He lost. The second thing, though, is, again, showing how they can get control of boards of elections, what they can do. I want to know the judge. I want to see that warrant. I want to know what was written on the paper because I firmly believe, my opinion only, that they lied.

Now, we have evidence that Department of Justice has lied on warrants before, right? They lied to this judge about what it was they were getting and what they were. they were what the crime was i want to see that because that will tell you everything you need to know about how the judge signed off on this thing unless the judge is another one like the one we got in florida who's holding up yeah i mentioned this to agger yesterday and rager who that's our morning newsletter like who's reviewing all these ballots now you're bringing them back in what we're you like we're using fbi agents like mid-level like federal law enforcement agents are not going to be using time that should be used looking after bad guys, like trying to do what a bunch of election

officials have already done in a state that was run by Republicans, by the way, it's totally insane. I mean, they've already lost civil losses. Rudy Giuliani had to pay out, you know, Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss. Like, these accusations have already been adjudicated multiple times, and it's Republicans who are running the state when it happened. I want to talk to, but go back to Graham at this House of Funding negotiation that's going on. This is ongoing. you know, like I said, we're taping this of the morning, so there could be some developments in the afternoon. But it's just, even if he backs down, this is like so fucking gross that we just have to address it. It cannot go, it cannot be ignored. So the Senate had struck a deal.

The Republicans of the Democrats had struck a deal last night. The deal is essentially that the appropriations bills, the funding bills for everything else besides DHS would be agreed upon, right? And push forward. And there'd be a two-week, you know, extension of the DHS funding to buy both sides some time to negotiate on, you know, creating some new rules around, you know, what the DHS enforcement agents are allowed to do in the wake of the two killings. Graham, like before this came to a vote, said that he refused to go along with it and was putting a hold on it unless they put back in the provision that would allow senators to receive cash payouts if they had phone records seized by Jack Smith.

You remember, the senators put that in to the last budget bill where they were going to be able to get payouts. They were going to be able to get cold hard cash because they felt like their privacy was attacked because they were involved in the insurrection. And Jack Smith was looking into their phone records. The House stripped that out after there was a bunch of outrage among a bunch of House Democrats who flagged this, including Suhaas Submarianium, shot out to him. Graham now is saying he will shut down the government, basically, unless he can get a cash payout. That's Lindsey Graham's stated position during the, negotiations as we taped us right now.

What is that? I mean, I guess it's in line with Trump. Should we just lump them together? Here's the other story. Trump has a lawsuit right now of $10 billion. Trump's suing the IRS, Trump and his kids and his organization is suing the IRS because his tax records leaked. He's suing them for $10 billion.

So Trump wants a, so Graham is small potatoes compared to Trump. Graham's just trying to shut down the government to get, you know, a few milly for himself. Trump wants 10 billy. this is what's happening. I don't know how America tolerates this bullshit. I honest to God don't know at this stage how South Carolinians of which my family originates on my mama's side

tolerate this very petty, insignificant little man who is the imp at Donald Trump's heels and has been told to go out and they found something. Now, if you were, weren't making phone calls on January 6th, you weren't getting text messages on January 6th, then there was no need to be concerned about anything. That wasn't? I mean, if people who were involved in the insurrection had your phone number and were texting you, I'm sorry,

that may be of some national interest. And by the way, we weren't even reading the text. We were just seeing if they were texting you. That's all it was. Were you texting with the people trying to overthrow the government? Right, right. So now, Oh, this bitch wants to get paid millions of dollars for what? What are we paying you for again? So can I talk about the brothers that the government spied on their phones and took their text messages? Should they be lining up and getting a little piece of something, something too? I mean, when do we start paying criminals for crime?

I mean, that's, I'm sorry, that's crazy to me. If you're a part of an investigation, you're part of the investigation. I don't care if you're a U.S. Senator or not. You shouldn't have been doing the shit. It just shouldn't happen that way. But it has, and here we are. And so now Lindsay is saying, I'm really to shut down the government unless I've been able to put a provision back in that's going to pay me millions of dollars.

They wanted to look at my cell phone. I'm going to shut the government down. So you won't be able to get your services until I get my cash. So South Carolina, take note because this is your senator. At this point, having two former Republicans talk about how fiscal responsibility is dead is like the biggest dog bites man story in the world. But sometimes I just can't help myself and we're together. I just want to combine these stories.

So Trump wants 10 billion of my money. Trump wants the Trump Corporation and his kids to get $10 billion of our money, our taxpayer money, and he wants to do some inside deal where his people in the administration negotiate with his people at his company and one side, uses our money to give the other side a payout. That's what Trump wants to do. 10 billion. Lindsay Graham wants to pay out because he doesn't like that the Justice Department was doing his job.

Meanwhile, here's this other CBO. CBO has been gutted, but every once in a while there's still a couple people working in there. And here's what they estimated on the National Guard deployments. $500 million last year. It cost us half a billion for these guys to go and be Disney characters in the city. Like that was the result of this. They antagonize the citizens. They did some selfies.

One of them got killed. We had a casualty. Right. and they achieved no goals. Like there was nothing accomplished. So they spent 500 million of our money to invade our cities and it results in one tragic casualty, and there's nothing to show for it.

Like you'd think that there'd be somebody over there that would be like, what are we doing with everybody's money? It's OPP, baby. What are you talking about? It's OPP, other people's money. Come on. I mean, what, though?

Nothing? It's so stupid. But here we are. Look, Donald Trump is estimated to already, including the $1 billion that we know of, estimated to have already made $3 billion. So you've gotten three of the ten already. So we're really only talking about $7 billion, Mr. Trump. So we'll have your people negotiate with our people over our money,

and we'll give you $7 billion. That's basically what it's. saying, Lindsay, I know you feel put upon and I feel bad for you, brother. So let's just give you several million dollars to make you feel good because your phone got caught up in something that shouldn't have been caught up in because you were texting with people you shouldn't have been texting with, but that's irrelevant. Let's just give you a million dollars. And then the half of the half a billion dollars that we spent to send our National Guard into harm's way and to make a mockery of them, that too, is money.

That, you know, we just write that off. That's just the cost of doing business. And so we have an administration led by a man who failed at running a casino. So what the hell do you think he's going to do with your money? He had no regards for his own money. Who loses money running a casino? Donald Trump. We're 40 minutes in.

I haven't even got to the fact that we have a new Fed chair. Kevin Warsh is one. Do you ever deal with Kevin Warsh, this guy? He was a D.C. creature. He's one of these old-style traditional Republicans that's like a little bit was like just greasy enough to keep playing the game, you know? And so it's interesting because he's got a lot of statements on the record that are contrary to what Trump wants. And that's just not for there. That's wholly irrelevant.

Well, it's wholly irrelevant in any situation because we know anyone signing up for Trump is going to do what he wants. But it's particularly irrelevant in this situation because let me tell you a little fun. about Kevin Warsh. His father-in-law is Ron Louter. Ron Louter is Trump's friend from college. Ron Lauer is the guy that put the idea in Trump's head that we should take Greenland because they have rare earth minerals. Ron Lauer is currently doing a lithium deal with a government-backed company, one of these companies that the government invested in, because we're China now. And they're doing a lithium deal together in Ukraine. So they're essentially

stealing from our alleged allies in Ukraine. And he also just, as a little icing on the cake, he also is in the Epstein emails. Epstein talks about how they hung out. And that's kind of worship his father-in-law. It's not Kevin. Let's be clear, but his father-in-law is Trump's oldest friend behind the Greenland

scam, stealing from Ukraine in the Epstein files. Seems like some conflicts. It's important that the Fed is independent. So if I was one of the senators, I'd be like, you know what, Kevin, even if you are on the up and up, like, the appearance of corruption here seems pretty high, given that Trump is saying that you're going to do what he wants and that your father-in-law's his bestie. Well, and I just stop at the first point, because remember

back in the conceit of Senate hearings over many, many years, you have the nominee of fill in the blank and they sit down and they tell you how righteous and how upstanding. and how independent and how this and that they would be. And then they would just go on and they would rule to overturn Roe versus Wade and they would rule to strip civil rights and they would go on and run agencies into the ground and make it more expensive for us

to deal in our own personal economies. Well, Trump said, to hell with that shit, I'm just telling you straight up. I told him, way he gets this job is that when he gets in there, he lowers interest rates. So when you ask him in a Senate hearing, did Donald Trump tell you to do X and X, he's going to lie and say no. But he already has his marching orders because trust me, within the first three months of the job, if not the first four weeks, that's what he's going to do. He's in the job because he's already

agreed to do what Trump wants him to do. He's not an independent actor. He has no respect for the friend. I don't give a fuck who his father-in-law is at this point. Because at the end of the day, he's the guy who's going to ruin the economy. Because he's going to do what Donald Trump once personally done. There is no more independence if this man is put in the job. Again, I think every Republican in office right now is accountable for every piece of shit this happened since January of this year.

Every last one of you. It's happened in your name. It happened on your watch. It happened with your approval. This will be no different from that. This is such a good point. And I agree with you that it kind of doesn't matter who his father-in-law is. But I'm obsessed with it.

I'm going to bring it up every time I mention him anyway. But you're right. Even if his father-in-law wasn't Trump's college best friend, your point would still be valid. But I'm going to keep bringing it up. But on these Republicans owning it, this is something that bugged me this week. And the ones that have a little bit of shame still,

you know, your Dave McCormick types, your John Curtis is out of Utah. They put out some of these Susan Collins as statements of concern. These guys are going a little too far, et cetera, et cetera. And on the one hand, it's like, okay, you kind of appreciate that.

They're like, wow. At least there's some signs that people, like, maybe eventually things will be too much. Eventually, there might reach enough dead people in the street that they'll find a backbone. On the other hand, it pisses me off because it was so predictable, man. Like, we all did all that.

Like, they funded it. Like when you gave this like Christy Gnome, you know, carte blanche and a budget that's bigger than the U.S. Marine Corps, a budget that's bigger than the U.S. Marine Corps. And you gave it to her and you're like, hey, go hire a bunch of people, go into the interior of the country and start roughing people up and getting out immigrants. Like, what did you think was going to happen? And we all said it. We warned it. And by the way, it wasn't just us. J.D. Vance back in 2015 when he was using his brain, did a big long post.

about this, about how stupid, you know, the deportation plan was because, you know, conservatives who recognize that government makes mistakes, like also can recognize that the government can't execute a mass deportation within the interior of the country without making mistakes. Like, it was obvious and it happened. And now these senators want to be like, well, you know, if only we had just had a different figurehead at the top of it, you know, if only our rhetoric, our tone was a little better. And it's like, no, man, you, you have. funded it. And this is where we're at now. This is where we're at because this is where Republicans have led us.

And the very chilling and telling part is there were many exits along the way that they could have taken, many exit ramps they could have taken. Mitch McConnell could have ended all of this shit if he just corralled the Senate around his speech that he gave on January 6th and 7th and voted to. not just to impeach, which the House did, but to convict. All of this, we could have avoided all of this. There's so many moments along the way where folks like you and me and many of our friends were throwing up the flares, putting up the warning signs, screaming, no, no, no, don't go down

this road. No, danger, Will Robinson, danger, danger, right? And they plowed us right through to this moment. That's why I say they own every inch of this shit. And this November, it is time to account. And if I'm a Democrat, if I'm an independent, if I'm a like-minded Republican, in every race, I'm holding up the list of things that they rot. And I'm reminding those voters, this congressman, this senator stood by silently when this happened, voted for these things to happen, looked the other way, gave soft platy, in the face of horrific moments,

didn't say shit when a horrific moment happened, right? Why should we send them back to Washington? What value do they have to us? Our communities, we are struggling, we've lost employment, our kitchen table is cracked because of the weight of the economics that we're now dealing with. Our kids are undereducated because the Department of Education of education is doing crazy shit.

We're burning books. The cultural and social fabric of the country has been torn. And it's all because these guys follow one man. And so we'd like a leader to follow us. What about just the more acute crisis right now, which is a lot of people in a lot of parts of the country are dealing with major weather issues and electricity issue. Right?

Like people are out of their homes. I got friends who are not. in their apartments across Red States, Mississippi, Tennessee, because this cold front that came in, you know, in the ice storm,

people weren't ready for it. And do you know who has accountability for that in the federal government? The DHS. FEMA is under DHS. So while these guys are spinning about a murder, when they should be helping people, they're real people,

red state people, that need help right now, and they're distracted, doing all this shit in Minnesota and Maine and everywhere else. Tim, FEMA hasn't even done what it's supposed to do for North Carolina from the weather storms that they had over a year ago. FEMA, I mean, the fact of the matter is Donald Trump has distracted the government in such a way that it is doing everything but what it's supposed to do. And so FEMA isn't FEMA-ing, right?

It is not taking care of in helping cities that are ravaged by the winter weather, let alone those that are still recovering from fires. I mean, in certain states, Donald Trump has told him not to do anything. They're lifting a finger to help California on the heel. Colorado. Yeah, he told him not to go into Colorado because he's mad about Tina Peters, who is his little minion who got jailed for messing with the voting machine. Right. So you've got a punk-ass petty president. who's sitting there telling, well, I'm sorry, we're just not,

your city got burnt out too bad. Your city got flooded too bad, you know, because I don't like your politics. Yeah. I mean, that should tell you something that he's concentrating his ire against his political opponents. And that has real life consequences in how people are recovering from natural devastations like floods and fires.

And it has real consequences of how people are going to move forward when they look out their window and they have to keep their kids indoors because their ice agents prowling the neighborhood to grab up U.S. citizens. I'm done yelling for the podcast. It's been a lot of yelling. I have one more thing I've just been dying to ask you about, though, that we have us here or just get to get your take on because you're closer to it. You're a lieutenant governor of Maryland. One of the names gets thrown around for 2028 is Wes Moore.

It's the governor of Maryland right now. What do you make of that guy? I like Wes. He's a good guy. You know, he's got some challenges here in the state of Maryland. He's got some holes. He's got to figure out how to fill in the state's budget. His own party, to some extent, is not happening with some of the decisions he's made.

But, you know, that's not saying much since the Democrats control the state government two to one. So it's all on them. But this goes to what I was saying before about the realities of our economies have direct impact at the state level. And it goes to our conversation about the power of the states to make certain decisions that are left to it under the 10th Amendment. But I think, you know, look, he's going to be a name and a voice that's going to be mentioned. I remember when he got into office, we had a conversation. I told him, I said, ignore the conversations about the presidency. Just do your damn job.

You are the governor. Do the governing thing. And if the opportunity affords itself later, you consider it. But I think the country's in a very different place. looking at a candidate like Westmore very differently in 2028. What do you mean? Differently, why? Because he's an African-American and I don't see a whole lot of loves for people.

I mean, look, we had a black woman. They said no. The black man who made it, they said he was from, you know, Africa and a Muslim. And a lot of people bought that shit. So I think we need to see an attitude change. Can I be shallow for a second? Please. He's got a great smile and muscles, though.

Sometimes I look back at all this and I'm like, you know, maybe the Democrats just need to like the hot guy. And Gavin, Gavin also is handsome. But, like, Wes has a little less baggage, has a little less baggage, you know, than Gavin. I don't know. Maybe a handsome guy with muscles is just it. I don't know. Have you seen the clavicular thing where he talks about J.D. Vance and his recess side profile

and how he's obese and subhuman? Maybe it's as simple as that. I wish it was heavier. I wish it was serious. I wish we were in a serious country. Maybe we're not. Well, I look, in some respects, I think we've pretty. we're not because we elected Donald Trump twice.

So that's kind of like damning with faint praise. And it's like, you know what, Wes, you can win in a country that's elected Donald Trump twice. I didn't mean it like that. No, I think, I think Wes, if he's looking at it and I hear that there are folks in his orbit who are for him, whether he is or not, look, he's going to be a name on the table. the Democrats have, I think, a very good box to look into, to level up candidates. I think that there is something to your point, though, about how people will ultimately look at the next president. And I think they're going to be judging along some very, very different lines than we may

have seen in the past. And so the muscles may prevail in the end. All right, Michael Steele, the chairman. This was a sandwich week for the podcast. Me and Bill Crystal on Monday just screamed. Like, and just ranted. It was like, and another thing. And fuck these guys.

And another thing. And then we had three very serious people, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for very serious conversations. And then me and Michael Steele on Friday just ran it at these guys and after these guys. So it's nice. It's a little balance for everybody for the week. I appreciate you very much coming on the show. We'll see you soon.

All right. I appreciate you, man. Love you, brother. All right. Everybody will be back here. on Monday. See you all then. Peace.