The Bulwark Podcast - Nicolle Wallace: The Sore Loser Is Trying to Ruin Our Elections

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

The one presidential election Trump lost was when he was in power and in charge of election integrity. Still, Trump is asking his supporters to believe the most preposterous lie yet: The elections run by Democrats in '16 and '24 were legitimate, but the election he oversaw wasn't. And he seems determined to take matters to the breaking point ahead of the midterms. Plus: Never forget that Jack Smith charged Trump with fraud for knowingly lying about his loss to Biden, the real TDS is continuing to claim the 2020 election was stolen, Lindsey Graham damaged our democracy, and why has Merrick Garland stayed silent through all the purges at the DOJ and FBI?MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace joins Tim Miller for the weekend podShow notes: Nicolle's show, "Deadline: White House" Nicolle's pod, "The Best People" Tim's playlist Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code THEBULWARK at https://www.Ridge.com/THEBULWARK #Ridgepod

All right, everybody, I just wanted to give you some programming notes for while I'm away, since this is the last pre-vacation podcast. We got you obviously a great guest, the best person I could think of. Here's the plan. Next two weeks, we're going to have summer Friday, so no show on Friday. You'll get four Bullwark podcasts each week. We're going to have different guest hosts, all your Bullwark friends, Sam, Sarah, JVL, Bill, some surprise guests. It's going to be great. Show might come out a little bit different time-wise, a little later, a little earlier.

You know how it is. And these guys, they're all busy. And they're all doing this for me as a favor, working extra time. So if you could do me a favor and be nice to them, send them positive feedback in the comments. Let them know you appreciate them. I would be grateful to that. So I will see you guys in two weeks. Up next, Nicole Wallace.

Hello, welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is the last pod before you're rid of me for two weeks. And so I had to bring in a fave, a friend. She's the host of The Best People podcast. She's host of Deadline White House every Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. on MS now. It's Nicole Wallace. Hey, Nicole.

Hi, friend. Where are you going? I am going to Germany and then France and then Mexico. So we're covering the whole world. Can I stow away? That's amazing. Yeah. So, yeah, we're going to do gay dads in Europe and then family at the beach.

I love it so much. Yeah. Last year I took one week off. What's your vacation schedule? Oh, this is so bad. So I've taken two days off to go to a baseball tournament. And I have all this like vacation guilt. It should take a couple weeks.

You have a guilt to go away. I have like a vacation guilt. Yeah, I've got to get over it. It's a me problem. There's not, there's not any reason. I should plan a vacation. You're inspiring me. You do have to get over it.

Here's why. And here's why I'm doing two weeks this year. It's two reasons. One last year I did one week to go see OAS. my friends. And I came back and it was like the worst week in my life. Yeah, reentry is brutal. And I was like, you know, I feel like reentry will be better if at the end of the vacation, then I do another bonus time with family where it's just the family. I feel like by the end of that I'll be like, you know, work sounds fine. Yeah. Yeah. Two weeks is a good stretch. I feel like

the older you get, the longer it takes to be on vacation. So the longer you have to stay on vacation. That's true. Yeah. The other thing is I just, and this kind of ties to our topics, the next two years are going to be insane. Yeah. And we have a dementia riddle. We've said that for 11 years. I know. But that's what I'm like, I don't see how I can take two weeks next year. I mean, we're going to have literally two presidential primaries and a dementia riddled autocrat trying to hold on to power.

I mean. I'm afraid to leave the, you know, in those circumstances, you know, you want to make sure your passport's current and whatnot. Exactly. Exactly. I know the lawyers that would tell me keep the phone off at customs. It's fine. I don't think we're the cash is otherwise.

Right now. I don't think that he's pulling my. No whiskey bottles for us. My custom. We're pre-taping this. Trump's speech is in a couple hours. But as you said in the green room, it's always old crazy with him. It's no new crazy.

So I think we can speak about it as if we've seen it. Here's what we know so far. When asked by our reporter, he said that the reporter asked if it would concern election machines and integrity, Trump said it would concern that subject. We'll have a couple other things. Really big news. Our country has to shape up. That's what we're going to be talking about.

It doesn't get bigger without free and fair elections. you don't have a country. There's some reporting that he's going to mention China, interference trying to get voter rolls, that is something that's been reported for years. Anyway, I don't know. Are you going to be watching? Do you have your popcorn ready?

No, so here's my issue with this. I can't get through the gate of the total fuck you to his supporters because what he's going to say is that President Barack Obama was president, the election was free and fair, and I won. when President Joe Biden was president, the election was free and fair, and I won. When I was in charge, I fucked it up so badly that I lost. It's like an epic, epic, epic, epic, epic, mind fuck to his own base. He's going to make his base swallow this absolute shit sandwich of like,

I'm the only one that can fuck it up. I mean, what is he going to hire John Brennan tonight? Yeah. Bring in some people that know how to do the business. But it's the most cynical thing I think I've seen him do. He's going to ask his base to accept. He's going to ask Brian Kilmead to go on TV tomorrow morning and anchor newscasts where Brian Kilmead is going to have to tell the morning, you know, MAGA viewers that

Obama and Biden ran free and fair elections with election integrity and Trump didn't. And you know who was running national intelligence? Rick Ronell until May of 2020. And then John Rackcliffe. He's going to fire him tonight? It's a good question. I mean, his dudes were in charge of election integrity. and he's going to make his base swallow this most brazen pile of absolute bullshit lies

that of the last three presidential elections, he's the only one that couldn't protect us from China or Iran or whoever he's going to say hacked him. I think that's a very important frame. I'm glad you said that because one thing that you can do, you know, I feel like sometimes you end up talking past magas we all do when they're talking and their delusions and you're trying to fact check them. And it's like they're unfact checkable. Correct.

They've been 10 years just kind of stewing. in lies and an alternate reality. And so like the fact checking is a fool's errand. Right. And so sometimes a better... It's like crime statistics. Like when they're all chinned up about the cities and you're like, actually the crime and it's like they're too stewed in like terror about American cities.

And so it's, but... The vibes are. What you're doing is you're taking up face value. You're saying, okay, fine. All right, sir. You're right. Great. The election was stolen.

Really? Who did? Why? Why isn't Trump figured it out by now? He was the only one that couldn't secure the elections. he was the only one that couldn't ensure that he had a free opportunity at the ballot place. Who did he? Who was in charge of that?

Who did he fire? Did this is a buck not stop with him? It's kind of like Cory Booker in the Todd Blanche hearing when he was asking Todd Blanche. She's like, so you went to meet with Gilling Maxwell. What would you get out of that? Right. Like, do you have any leads? Right.

Like, how was that for you? Right. Like, it's one thing to not be accountable to the truth. And I feel like as ex- Republicans, Like I am rooting for Democratic candidates because it's the only party that houses reality and the truth and supports democracy. But in terms of not having a dog in the fight, like, what is the limit for the absolute, you know, toxic, makes you look so stupid that you're actually going to believe that the only election that was stolen from Donald Trump was the one that he ran? Like, and if this isn't it, then what is it is what I want to know? Like if he can convince him of this that he ran three times and the only one that was stolen from him was the one he was in charge of, then I think we're just in a different timeline than I think even you and I in our sort of sometimes grim outlook think we are.

You're cussing a lot. This story is so triggering. I called Von Hillier and apologized after I had him on. Like this story to me, because it makes me. Sweet Vaughn, you cussed in front of Sweet Vaughan. No, I didn't swear. but I was so, to me, this is, this is it, right? Like, to me, if he can make his base swallow a narrative rooted in the fact that only he presided over an election that was fraudulent, then I think he can make them believe anything.

You know, I wrote this newsletter yesterday before break about like not getting numb. And I was focused on the state violence, you know, because it's a thing that makes a thing that makes. makes me the most upset. And then I get, I get myself more and more upset when other people aren't as upset as I feel like they should be, you know, about it. And, and, you know, Sarah and I were talking about this on the next level. And Sarah is apoplectic about Todd Blanche. Yeah. She's like, she is, like, doing the same rant, you're just doing it with the election about Todd Blanche. It's like, how can we have a system if the president's personal lawyer is running the Department of Justice? If it's a total hack and it's the person that did this

and that you can go listen to her in. I need to redo it. And it's like, this is the kind of flooding the zone with shit thing of ban on the ban on. But I do, I think this is an important, like way to combat it. Because we're all, you know, you're trying to think about how to navigate all this. And maybe the right thing to do is just for people to grab on the things that enrages sound the most and be the dog with the bone on that thing. Yeah. And, you know, rather than well, and like, just to be a doggy daycare together with all of our little bones, you know. Yeah. Right. Until we land the plane. Like, I think that's, Because this one for me is like, I'm with you.

Everything you said is right. I'm with you on ice. I only have so much room in my body for like anger. I remember when I was on with you last time, we talked about the, basically the kidnappings and taking men who hadn't been given their due process rights to Seacot. And I remember Fox News like lost their mind that I said that those stories, I was gutted by those stories. And it's like, I think at the time I could still be sort of startled by an attack from them. like, I guess the question is, why aren't you? Like, why is, why are people okay with anyone depriving anyone of their due process rights,

especially before they take them out of the country and lock them up in a terrorist prison? It's funny. I re-listen to that to see if there was anything, because it was about a year ago exactly. Yeah. And so I was like, I wonder how I'm thinking about things different and not as much as I would have thought, actually. Yeah. The Trump story is rather similar.

But one thing that just related to that is you were talking, we had a little Jeb talk at the end. And we're talking about, you know, meeting the Q. and kind of that culture and the expat. And I had John Blitzer on this week. And it's like the Cuban ex-pats, like the Cuban immigrants are being treated worse than anyone. I mean, I guess not worse than the Haitians or Venezuela, but maybe they're third on the list right now. What is happening? But then they're being sent to a third country, Mexico, where they're not a lot, where they're illegal there and they're not allowed to work.

And they're just dumped on the street. Like, it's a breaking bad movie. And, you know, they just dump them in the middle of the desert. And it's like, good luck. This is what we're doing to people fled communism in the country. And it's like, to your point about why aren't you matter at Fox, it's like, the Secretary of State is a Cuban and his family came from Cuba. And it's like, Fox, this was the big issue over that, right? Whether it would be wet foot, dry foot, or like this.

If there was one good group of immigrants, it was this. And all of them are saying nothing. I would imagine it's not even on Fox. Like that the Cubans are getting dropped to Mexico. They don't even know. The host probably don't even know. Right. And the thing about the election lies for me is if you feel, if you feel, you feel.

Follow the threat. And I know we're post-truth. I know we're post-fact. I know that it's quaint to ask for consistency. But Fox is going to have to cover the speech somehow. And are they going to ask Dominion for their money back? Nice. So like Fox is a part of the story. A big part of the story is the only network that paid nearly a billion dollars, I think $800 million because their internal communications proved that they knew they were knowingly lying about election fraud. So were they lying about? So were they lying about knowing they were lying? Were they deceived? I mean, to re-engineer a lie that even Donald Trump, according to Sarah Matthews, testified that Donald Trump said to her, I can't believe I lost to this fucking guy, Joe Biden. So like even Trump thought he lost. Mark Millie testified that he said, well, let the next guy deal with this. He's president.

I mean, Trump believed that he lost. And that's why he was charged criminally by Jack Smith, right? For part of it was the fraud. Part of it was obstructing an official proceeding. If they found people corrupt enough to go out and like re-engineer something that Trump knew not to be true at the time, then I just think we're in a new place. The brain can play tricks. You know, you can convince yourselves a lot of things. rationalization is very powerful.

Compartmentalization is powerful. You can tell yourself a story. Like in this one, it's like, part of the story they've been telling themselves recently is that we are obsessed with this. You know, anytime January 6 comes up, anytime somebody brings up January 6th, they're like, well, could you guys just move on from that? Like, this is not a big deal anymore. Like, you guys are, you know, you guys have derangement over this. And so that was like their way of out of this. I don't have to deal with this because like this is old news now.

Like, we're moving on. And Trump's like, no, you need to eat this again. You need to go back into the fantasy world and tell yourself some sense. story that lets you get to the place where there are the same lies that you pay to $787 million judgment on are now lies that you have to either repeat or just even pretend to think might have some legitimacy. Yeah. And to me, it's the same people, right?

I mean, John Rackcliffe, I remember, I think it was, I was driving down to the city. So it was like Saturday, because it's COVID still. It was Saturday or Sunday night before the election. And Rackcliffe had a press conference and put something out talking about election interference. So it wasn't like he wasn't consuming the stream of Intel in which whatever tonight's revelations are rooted in wouldn't have been sourced as well. It's not even about us. It's about making these sycophantic anchors at Fox News feed something that even they know, even they've communicated amongst themselves, as we know from that law. to be untrue to their viewers.

And I think that's just, it's not that it's a new low, because there's nothing lower than the dehumanization around the ice stuff. I agree with you. That's the most heinous sort of bucket of conduct. There's probably nothing more dangerous in the weaponization of DOJ. So I agree with Sarah. But there's nothing more cynical. There's no sort of abuse of the affection of their base like the election lies.

It's not just the Fox guys, it's the centers. a kick out of this. I was reading Politico this morning. Again, this is in the preview to the speech. Trump administration ally anonymous, granted anonymity by Politico to say this. The people I talk to are scared shitless and they're scared shitless about what is the ad to the text. What is the ad lib? They asked John Kennedy, a senator, like, oh, I wish you'd talk about the economy. Yeah. How do you get up out of bed in the morning if you're these people as part of it? You know, it's like, I would have more respect for John Kennedy or for this anonymous official to be like, I'm curious what the president is uncovered.

Like, Lisa, it's like you're in year 10 of pretending like you might do something different. And what he missed? Like, how did he miss it? This was all he was like, like Bill Barr goes on CNN before the 2020 election and announces that they will be investigating and prosecuting election fraud. Like, like John Durham went in and he spent eight hours with John Brennan. I mean, you've interviewed John Brennan and been on with him. They have kicked all the tires around all the intel, around everything relating to the 2016 and the 2020 election. And they couldn't find anything in 2020 that would have changed the outcome.

So there's no read that isn't, one, totally fabricated. And two, it's just the most cynical thing you can do to your own voters. Like it's just such a mind fuck heading into the midterms where what he should do is what Kennedy said, talk about the economy and try to turn his base of voters out. I don't know over what. I guess he could have signed the housing bill or, you know, I don't know what still works. I don't know what still gets some excited. But I hope this isn't it.

You could at least pretend to have an idea. That is like the craziest part. And we talk about this bunch of the show. It's like, that's to me the craziest part about the economic messaging and the lack of it. It'd be one thing to be like, hey, you know, to do the old Trump stick. Like, hey, it's going to be the best. It's going to be the biggest. We've got this plan.

It's the, you know, cheap prices for all plan. And, you know, and it obviously bunk and BS and it's probably just a hand out to his friends. But like, at least you would have that. He doesn't even have that. It's like all he's capable of talking about is the 2020 election or stealing the next election or the ballroom or the pool. That's what he can talk about. Yeah. And like, I think I've talked about this on the show.

Like, like, I redid a bathroom and like didn't spend that much time talking about it like to the contractor. And he's like literally talking to the country about the intricate detail. of a project very much in the planning phase. It is the weirdest fixation that I've seen him have in 10 years of covering him almost every day. I think everybody who listens to this podcast is going to not be surprised

to hear that I'm not particularly organized. I'm losing things all the time. Nobody goes to the find my iPhone thing on their computer where it forces their iPhone to beep more than I do. I'm pretty sure I go to that site more than anybody on planet Earth. I mean, I probably have 100 of these earbuds.

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Ridge also is not just about wallets. They got power banks, keycases, suitcases, rings, all built with a great design and all made so you don't lose them. For limited time, our listeners get 10% off at Ridge by using code the bulwark to check out. Just head to ridge.com and use code the bulwark and you're all set. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. You had Jack Smith on a couple weeks ago now talking about all this. It was really good.

Obviously, I was jealous. It was appropriate that I think he was on the show because of what we were just talking about. I mean, like, your show probably more than any is just so consistent and focused on this, like, fundamental democracy issue that he was at the center of. And I was just wondering, like, what you made of his, of that combo. So they called me and asked me to do it the Friday before the 4th of July. And I said, I can't do it. And I didn't call my boss. And I didn't call my AP.

And I was like, oh, my God, I may have just lost Jack Smith's first interview. I'm going to get fired. But then, lucky for me, they called me back and said that he could do Thursday. So it was a Thursday before the fourth. It's interesting. He wanted that. He started the interview with that. It's interesting.

He said that he was like he wanted to do it around the fourth of July. He felt like that was important. He's so substantive. And so I think there was something about the feeling and the meaning of the Fourth of July that like meant something to him. And it means something to everybody. But I think to him it was like a good time to start talking. He hadn't done any interviews yet. And I think he did.

John Stewart's podcast with Brian Driscoll, the fired top FBI official. He is, to me, different from the way you and I come at these things in that, you know, I can prattle off like every trespass and every, I mean, I remember paragraphs of stories. Mike wrote that like he doesn't remember writing. Like I have this like photographic memory of just all. You plug quotes from the January 6th committee sometimes. I know the footnotes of Mueller volume, too. Like, where Trump asked Domagan to write a fake memo,

lying about a press story not being true and it was really true. Like, I just, I've covered the story in a way that I think because I didn't come out of television, like I really tried to like learn the Trump story. It's like the first big story that I covered. And my show started the day that Comey was fired. So I started my show with Jack Smith saying that the show more than anything else has been about the destruction of the rule. of law. And I guess two things. Like, like, one, Trump is so successful in making people like me feel

like we have Trump derangement syndrome. Like, what's wrong with us? Just get on board. The country's hot. You know, no, no. Like, we are correct in our concerns about the destruction of the rule of law. And now there's not really any debate. Like Todd Blanche is doing it in full view of everybody. So I guess, like, one, I was struck by the fact that someone on the inside agreed with that assessment that it's really bad. It's really bad. The department's being hollowed out. Having worked in the government after 9-11, like, that's really scary to me. That department, sort of, along with the CIA, like, stands on the line between us and everything that threatens us. But the other thing is that there are people thinking about what comes next. And I don't

allow myself to do that. Like, I feel like, like, sometimes when I read novels, if they're causing me stress, I'll go and read the end to see, see, like, you know, okay, okay, I'll keep reading. But I don't let myself. Yeah, yeah, because my nervous system is shot. Like, nine years of covering Trump. I don't, like, I like things like the bear and I like shrie. Like, I really can't watch a lot of like super suspenseful things that'll caught, you know, like, the horror movies used to be like for that rush.

And I can't, I just, if I'm reading something, like, I read a lot of thrillers. And if I'm reading a thriller and it's, and I'm up really, really late by myself, I'll have to go to the back to make sure that the, you know, the hero lives. but I don't let myself think forward in the Trump story. Like I try to stay right wherever we are with whatever is happening. Because to your earlier point, there's already too much, right? There's so much. He's thinking a lot about the other side.

And so when I cover like, why do people stay? Why would you stay and be part of Cash Patel's corrupt FBI? The reason people who say you should stay as long as you can is because I think there's a belief that when you go to put it back together, when you go to put democracy back together, you need some people who were sort of in there holding the line from inside. And so I was really, it's just not part of it that I think about a lot, because I've been out of the government for so long. The people that still got to do the job.

Yeah. And when I said, like, they just stay until there's a friction point with Todd Blanche. And he said, absolutely. I mean, you don't, you don't betray your oath. You don't, you're not part of the destruction of the rule of law. But you stay until you have that friction point. with this new regime. It was sort of a new way to think about it.

And I guess for people like us, I mean, it's a little more gray. It's not black and white if you're inside and you're working on something that is so far untouched. If you're working on cyber, you're working on child trafficking to the degree that they even still do those things. I mean, I don't know. He made an argument that I hadn't really heard persuasively before about why you stay as long as you can. The thing that struck me is he, I mean, obviously, he's so poised and serious, such a real person

compared to the clowns we have in there. But he's just kind of matter of fact about how, yeah, and the president wants to put me in jail, so I had to get a lawyer. And then the president went after the law firm. And so this was kind of in the context of you asking him, like, why more people aren't speaking out? And I think you single out of Chris Ray.

And he's just like, look, this is what happens. Like, if you speak out, it isn't they just come for you? You know, they come for Jim Comey's daughter. They come for the people you hire to protect yourself, right? So you have that obligation question. I wonder how, like, persuaded you were by that. answer because I, this is a genuine question because I vacillate. I feel like maybe sometimes those us who are talkers are like, more talking would be the, would help. And I think that's true in some

cases and maybe in other cases, I don't know, it's a little more gray, as you said. I think there's zero excuse that any leader whose people are being persecuted and prosecuted and investigated, stay silent. He did not persuade me of any argument for Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Christopher Ray, to stay quiet. None. There is none. because the agents that have been, Walt Giordino, I think is his name, who was fired while his wife was dying of cancer, didn't, you know, as far as we know, didn't beg to go work on the cases for which he was fired for being a part of. They were cases that were assigned to him. I mean, I've never been an FBI agent, but I imagine it isn't like circle time where they go

around and they say, who wants red, who wants blue, who wants, like, I imagine you get assigned cases based on expertise, experience, and location. And the idea that the, people above those people are silent is to me one of the like gravest you know abdications of leadership and honor that I've covered I'm kind of like what does a day look like for these people this shows my obsessiveness but I'm like what is John Kelly doing today sometimes I wonder it's like it's not like they can't be busy I you know it's see the military guys that I have in a different in a different yeah sure I picked him instead of Madison particular because he left them I'm not sure to be chief of staff.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I put the DOJ and the FBI people in the category I do for the harshest criticism for their silence. Because what, like Lisa Monaco, who was confirmed in a bipartisan manner, is staying quiet because what? Because she ran the Department of Justice, but she's not responsible for the prosecutors who've been fired brutally and abruptly and unjustly. I mean, why not speak out and defend? Liz Hoyer or Brendan Blue or all of Jack Smith's prosecutors. Like she was their boss.

Merrick Garland, I met with him before he left and was so emotional and heartfelt about the men and women of the Justice Department. He's never shown that publicly. Why not? And some of them might say it wouldn't help. It might help the people who've been fired who are being investigated. It might help them find lawyers if Merrick Garland were out vouching for their character. And I guess my thing is, you don't know what would help.

I mean, I remember you and I talking after Trump won, and we sort of looked at each other like, oh, my God, we're going to do this every day because that's our job. And you just put one foot in front of the other. And I don't know if it helps. But I know that if being afraid of what someone was going to do or say got into my head, I couldn't do my job. And so I don't know what leader of any institution thinks that leaving their people on the battlefield field to be investigated, prosecuted, persecuted, smeared in the line.

It's just, it's an unprecedented abdication of leadership role. Yeah. I think that's right. I mean, I don't know. You could maybe sell me. There's strategic things having behind the scenes. There's a strategic time to reach out or not sometimes. Like you that you and I don't know about?

Yeah. No, no. It's not happening. That's what I'm saying. I just don't think that's happening. And the Ray thing strikes me as much too because it also goes to like this core narrative of this administration that Ikea is unique. capable of speaking to, right?

A, like, they care about the rule of law and the cops and they're the back, the blue guys, and they're the ones that want to keep you safe for criminals. And it's like, well, no, actually. Like, I, you know, I understand that if you were the person on the Iran portfolio with the FBI that got assigned to the Mar-a-Lago documents case, because Trump had Iran war plans there. To your point, they didn't pick that case. Like, they were there because Donald Trump had the fucking Iran war plans at his bathroom, you know, next to the Cougar den at Marilago on the pool deck.

Like that's where the, that's where the plans were. And so they had to get pulled in. They got fired. Obviously, I get that they might not want to speak out. I don't, you know, I don't know any of these people, but they might, they have to get jobs. They're out of families. Like, Chris Ray can talk about how important they are, though. Correct.

Better than anybody, I would think. Or that they didn't do anything wrong. Like the problem is that you and I see them as, you know, career public servants. And we haven't been pickled in 10 years of, of bull. bullshit lies about the FBI. The MAGA base is due in 10 years of bullshit lies about the FBI. So these people that have been fired aren't just people who are fired for touching the Trump cases. The MAGA base finds them to be corrupt, rogue, criminal. They've been smeared and maligned. So forget about whether or not it makes a difference in terms of whether they keep their jobs.

Every single person above the chain of command of all the fired FBI agents and prosecutors owes every single person who's been fired by Trump, Blanche, and Patel, their reputations back. That is what they are owed. I don't think they could get them their jobs back. I'm not sure they could even get them lawyers or law firms to represent them. But the one thing they could do with the 67% of Americans who disapprove of Donald Trump is get them their reputations back. And that they refuse to do that is, I think, one of the biggest disgraces that we cover in real time. I agree. There's this guy, Kyle Serafin. Do you know that name at all? He's, I only know him because of Will Summer. God bless Will Summer in the False Flag Newsletter.

He's just like, he had a beef with cash. He's like this MAGA FBI guy gets fired. And he gets to be, like, and so I follow him on social media now. And his social media, if Kyle's watching, God love you. But like some of those stuff he posts is insane. You know, I mean, like he is mega. Okay. Like, he is conservative.

And he's down with cash. No. Hey, but no. When this is what I'm about to say, when he talks about cash, he sounds like us. And this is kind of like how like he's conservative Republican senators. like, are in the books. Like anytime or anybody that quits, like anybody that is then all of a sudden free to be honest, like sounds like us because that's what the truth is.

Right. And so it's like if Kyle Serafin, who's like this rank and file like guy who got the wrong way with cash can pop off and talk about all the corrupt things that he's doing and all the ways he's mismanaging the FBI and the way he's making it less safe, then surely, you know, the rest of them can. I guess that was my point. Well, so I've said this, you know, we've been covering Trump. for 10 years, right? At least longer, it feels like. Rachel said yesterday, 47 years. It just feels like

47 years. So I've covered every book that's come out. And you have to be cognizant of stuff right, on the right and the left. There has never been a book or a revelation or an article or an interview that's come out that reveals anything positive about any of these people. Right. Like once they are free to talk, they say worse things than you and I do. J.D. Vance, Mitch McConnell and John Kelly have said much worse things about Donald Trump than I ever have. They call him despicable. They call him damage. They call him broke. Just things that I wouldn't know because I don't see him up close. They're credible. But there's never been an occasion where someone who is up close with Trump leaves and says anything more positive than when they said when they were working for him. It's always the other direction. Okay. You mentioned Mitch. Let's do the Lindsay and Mitch stuff. How have you been thinking about the Mitch story? Like what's happening? happening with that? You know, like, I'm not going to let them change me fundamentally, right? Like, I'm not going to dance on anybody's grave. But Mitch is alive, so you'd be dancing on his... Right, that's right.

Well, so I'll tell you this about Mitch. I said this to Heather Cox-Witterson yesterday. You know, like, he's older and he's been pretty public about his, like he had polio as a child, he lost speech from a podium. So I wasn't surprised to hear that he had a health challenge. And I wasn't suspicious until Scott Jennings posted that he talked to him for 25 minutes about foreign policy. And I texted Danabash and I said, is Mitch dead? And she said, no, Scott Jennings just posted about him. I said, that's why I wondered if he was dead. So I wasn't suspicious. And what is interesting to me is I'm not on Twitter. But supposedly the right is just as suspicious as the left. So I don't know what's going on. I think life is legacy. So I don't have anything new to say about Lindsay and death or Mitch in sickness. But I, you know,

I find it heartbreaking. Like, there's no way these guys agree with the Donald Trump foreign policy. And there they are. There they were. I'm not looking for grave dance. I'm just curious, like, about your, like, personal reaction on, like, Lindsay, like you had to know Lindsay pretty well, like before all this, right? And you guys had to hang out.

Yeah, I mean, Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham were the most brutal critics, more brutal than Jeb when you worked for him in 2016 of Donald Trump's lack of character. Lindsay Brown looked into a camera in the primary in 2015-16 and apologized to Muslim members of the American military for Donald Trump's racism and bigotry. Do you remember that? No. I don't remember if it was on a debate stage. And then after January 6th, he said, it's been real fun, but I'm off. I'm out.

And Lindsay just couldn't stay away from power. It's a pathology. I'm not qualified to diagnose. But I think that he, I think that he did a lot of damage to the democracy. I think he did a lot of damage to the men and women who protected him on January 6th. I've seen some of the statements from them. And I, you know, not a fan of a single Republican who capitulated to Donald Trump over nine years and brought us to this like, like breaking point of American democracy.

Like he could break our democracy tonight. It's interesting. It doesn't feel like you have like conflicted feelings about it at all of Lindsay. I mean, some people did. mean, how do you feel? I don't know. I just, it made me a little melancholy. I mean, because I haven't liked Lindsay lately and I obviously and I don't like, I don't want to pretend like we're good friends. Like I knew him pretty well. I need to call me. He had my phone number and it's really funny and affable and there are things you really cared about that I really

cared about. Yeah. So I don't know. The whole thing is like it's sad. Like, look, I work for John McCain and John McCain loved him. Yeah. But one of the things they love together was the democracies under threat by Russia. And Lindsay Graham didn't break up with Donald Trump when he, like, threw Zelensky out of the Oval Office. He seemed to hug him just as hard after as before. So I thought I believe some of the same things that he did, but I'm really not so sure. Sure.

It does take me a little bit to like, I wanted to kind of just get the Nicole temperature on the America 250 stuff. Obviously, Jack and something he wanted to say. But the McCain thing, Mark Salter, I'm sure you know well, is McKin. speechwriter. I should have him back on the pod. He's been years probably. He's so wonderful. He's so wonderful. He's so brilliant. He helped Cassie Hutchinson with her book. Oh, did he? I didn't know that. He's such a good person. Anyway, he's so good. The last thing he was on years ago now, he talked about like one of the cool things that working for McCain, whatever your complaints were about McCain, as he goes,

anytime we went somewhere in the world where there was an autocrat trying to deny people rights, no matter it was Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, whatever. And John McCain would go somewhere and we would go to meet with leaders or go to a school or something. There would be somebody there. There'd be like John McCain.

Like that is what America is supposed to be. You are fighting for us against this tyranny. And certainly not every policy. It was perfect or whatever. But that was like this goal. I mean, it was the Shining City. It was the old line, right? And he like represented that.

You know? Yeah. One of the other things maybe. makes me melancholy recently during the fourth is like i do i wonder if that's just gone like i wonder i think there's certain things that we can save and protect like we can protect our democracy and fight for it but i don't know if that is savable yeah if we're in a world where it's kind of like you know that every four years you might end up getting a person that's going to be on the side of the fascist you know and i don't know i just want to think about that at all you and you know

working for mccain you know i i i really feel like we're always one leader away from something different. I always did. I'm not sure if I still do, but I want to still believe that. You already talked about that earlier. Right. I don't let myself pull the thread too far forward. I would say this, though, like, I don't know who wouldn't give Orban's successor a meeting or a chance. Like, I think when we rid ourselves of Trumpism, the way Hungary's rid itself of Orban, I hope that the world gives us a chance if we prove that we want to be something different. than corrupt and hostile to our allies and ignorant of the value of our alliances and indifferent to the role that Russia plays in aiding Iran while we're at war with it.

Like if we as a country, if our people choose something different, I hope that the world will give the leader that the American people choose after this. If it's something or someone different, a chance. Yeah. What do you think? I'm thinking about it. That's what you think of a question for me. I've done gulping down coffee and trying to get my head around it.

Yeah, okay. You keep drinking coffee. This is the point of the podcast, okay? You know, I come on deadline and it's like I've got to have a 90-second spiel. All right? So I've got to give my little spiel. You can always have more than 90 seconds. I know.

I'm just joking. I'm just joking. Sometimes. Howlman takes like six minutes. Okay, well, that's not a model. Howlman's the new Schmidt. Like, I feel like I can like ask him a question. And then like if a story's broken,

I can like, it's the best. And it always lands. Like he always like sticks for a minute. He brings it back around. He sticks a landing. Yeah, it just kind of goes down to tributary, the river. And then it comes back and it's the main body. It's great.

It's great. I guess you just think about it's, it's all before my life. Like, obviously things can change over time and, you know, who knows of the future holds. And I, like, you know, there's, like, there's, you can get crazy talking about the stuff. And when I peed on this week, he was talking about 2050. And I was like, I'm glad there's somebody like Pete thinking about 2050. But that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, who the hell most.

How was Pete? I asked you this on the TV show, but you got him at such a raw moment for Pete. How did he say? He's mad. He's mad. I just like he's mad. And he's Pete, you know, I think that's what I said on your show. Like his emotional range is not like his high and some of the rest of ours, right? Which is probably good for a leader, right? But like, he's mad. He cussed twice on the pod. I don't think I've ever heard him cuss before. Maybe I have. I can't, I can't. I couldn't remember. And then off camera. Because I asked about Chastard on the podcast on the podcast. I. pod and you can kind of tell you didn't want to talk about it. And I've met Chast a couple times. I know him a little bit. And I just feel for him. I, you know, I connect. And so I asked him off camera about it. I don't want to reveal it. But again, you can just tell he was like, really upset.

You know what I mean? It wasn't fake. You know what I mean? It wasn't this. I wrote the newsletters. Like sometimes when people, bad things happen, people want to say, oh, you know, you're just playing the victim card. You're just playing the game.

And it's like that, listen, that was really bad. It was really painful for them. But also, on the other hand, I thought he was really good at the speech. at the Iowa-Duboyne dinner. And I think that he's always been good at, like, arguing on Fox and pretty good at Q&A. But, you know, he's never been, like, really, like, goosebumps guy for me, other people, you know.

But I thought he was, it's interesting. I don't know. There's something about the second Trump and him being in the wilderness for a while. Maybe it would just have. I don't know. Like, I thought his speech was really good. So whatever that's worth.

Well, I thought it was interesting that you asked him, like, did part of you want to say, like, fuck off. You're not taking my kids. And to me, like, you're right. Like, it shows that like, there's only one side still, like, respecting the rule of law. And I thought that was so interesting. And in some ways, it is in and of itself optimistic, right?

That, like, he's still, and in his own telling, in his statement or their statement they put out, like, they feel like the cop, you know, believes them. And so, like, to me, there's also this rule of law, like, layer to it where, he's he's sort of still in this system that Trump is burning down. Can you imagine like if that happened, if anyone did that horrible, horrible thing? And hopefully no one ever does that again. Like hopefully publicizing it means that no one ever does it.

But there's just, there's such a, it's such a disorienting moment. Yeah. Between the sides. It really is. Oh, we were talking about the McCain thing.

I don't know. So here's my thing about Pete, because this does kind of relate, actually. It's like the other part of the conversation with Pete was just, how, you know, Democrats shouldn't always be the ones who are feeling forced to defend the system and to for, like, people were unhappy about the way certain things went in foreign policy and in government.

And I get all that, right? And so you find yourself, you know, even when you want to say, hey, we want radical change. I want things to be different. Like, you're still by nature respectful of the way, of like, the way things work and of other people and stuff. And so it's hard to be the revolutionary when you have that. And I feel like that's just the same thing with foreign policy. I just, I kind of feel like this has been dumped on the Democrats now where it's like it's hard to imagine. And we haven't had that. And it's like since World War II,

every president, both parties, bad people, good presidents, you know, whatever. They've all like believed in like some basic, you know,

rule of law abroad, you know, liberal democracy. You know, we should, to varying degrees support and protect it. And it's like, I think that's over on the other side.

And so then I just think that that changes things as well. And so it's like, and whoever it is on the Democratic side can can have a bold plan for how things should be different. But like fundamentally, it's like you're never going to be the radical with the other side's going to be like, you know what, actually, fuck France. Like, we're going to side with Qatar when they get us to plane. You know what I mean? Yeah, but like here's where I think this is around the energy that you sort of give to it.

Because I think that Trump is so corrupt and so extreme and so disinterested. in any foreign policy, economic policy, or like grifting policy that helps a single person that voted for him, that you can be for things that will be radical after Trump that aren't actually that radical. Like to say that while your president, you cannot also trade in the stock market would be like a radical departure from where we are. Trump traded like- Or your teleprompter person cannot trade in the cashy market, which is a story today apparently. His telepomped their operator made $100,000. So like to be for things that are widely accepted will be a radical departure from where we are.

I think the Democrats have to like really root themselves in the moment and be for fixing all the shit that just feels like it's like, you know, if you've had a shitty, you probably don't have shitty vacation rentals. But you know, like you go and it's supposed to be sunny and then it rains. I'm not that fancy, Nicole. Yeah, no, I don't know. I just feel like you'd have. you'd have your arms around it better than I did. But like, so you're running, like, the house is leaking everywhere. Like, people are pissed off of the grocery store.

They're pissed off of the gas station. If your military family, like, like, we cover his erratic posts about Iran because there are signs of instability and lying. If your family's in the military, there are signs of when they're coming home or not, right? It's like how much longer would the deployment be? So you can, like, level set the things where Trump is so off the rails. And it would be a radical departure from where we are. right now without being like traditionally radical. Does that make sense? Yeah. How do you think they're doing it that, the Democrats right now? Well, I can, I think Assoff gets better every time he opens his mouth.

I just interviewed. He was really good in the, what was it, the Clayton testimony? He was really good in the parking lot two days ago. Like, like every time they ask, like, he's just on the moment and able to, and maybe it's living, you know, he seems to be someone who isn't always in Washington, right? Like, I feel like half the time we get him, he's into. So, like living among his neighbors, like if you are living in your community, going to events with your kids, as you do as well, like people are talking about like they're worried about eating salad this summer because they don't want to get the diarrhea parasite. They are like, what is that data center story? Like people feel like things are spiraling out of control, regardless of who you voted

for and where you come down in immigration. Nobody wants an ice jail in their neighborhood. Like there's all this stuff that just feels so unmoored. And Asoff feels like plugged into the stuff people actually talk about Warnock, too. And I don't know if it's like a Georgia magic kind of thing where like there's a little bit that you have to talk to real people. Yeah. And they're like in the center of the story. Yeah. You know, not people that are totally in your bubble.

You know? Yeah. I mean, right. Yeah. And it seems to aid the people who aren't in Washington all the time to talk like that. I'm still a Chris Murphy fan. Like I think he gets the autocracy. corruption stuff really, really, really viscerally and can communicate. I mean, I feel like,

like the Democrats are at the first stage of acceptance where they, like, they understand they need a communicator. I've tried to sort of stay out of the primary. Like as an ex-Republican, I feel like zero people care about my opinion about who they should vote for in primary. Yeah. Yeah, I've trying hard to say neutral in those two for the same reason. I'm always just like I'll have you on after the primary. Every once in a while, something will catch my eye that I'll feel the need to pop off on, but for the most part, I think that's a good instinct. as an ex-Republican. I also don't know that I'm that helpful to anybody. I'm kind of like, would you want, would you want me saying it? But anyway. And like I'm an ex-Republican. So like the more

progressive people don't always resonate with me. But I'm for saving democracy. And to save democracy, the Democratic Party is the only one that seems to be really interested in that. And so they should pick people who they think can do that and can win. So separate from that, you know, maybe from the ideological fissures. Like, from your opinion, you know, obviously the resistance, the Democrats, whatever you want to call us, pro-democracy movement, didn't nail it since he got back in there. You know what I mean? We did not stick our landing.

Okay. So, like, what would be your thoughts on like what we didn't do right or what, or even just if it's more forward-looking? like what So here's my, I don't have a lot of thoughts. I have, I have one. Like, you need a fighter, right? Like, that's the thing that, like, you actually need practically and you actually need politically.

And if you want a fighter, I would go find someone fighting him right now. You've got a couple of buckets. Like, it sounds like Ossef and Warnock are going to have to fight for the legitimacy of the offices they hold, even though I think Warnock ran again two years later and won. But so like people that are fighting him every day is where I would look first. The six lawmakers who made the video telling men and women to ignore illegal orders, I've been in a fight with him. He tried to indict and prosecute them.

And the reason we don't lump them into a lot of our retribution conversations is because the grand jury refused to indict them. But had the grand jury been, I don't know, in South Florida or, you know, somewhere else, like we could have six indicted lawmakers for simply telling men and women of the mills, to ignore illegal orders, I would take a fighter. And I think that like someone with a tier one communication skill set, some scars from being in a fight with Donald Trump. And I think redefining like uniting the party, the party doesn't need to unite around like every policy. The party needs to unite around saving democracy. And so I would pick someone who can,

who can communicate, who can fight and who can sort of redefine and reframe what a unifying it means in this moment. I don't disagree with any of that, but I guess my one thing I think that it's worth chewing over is, I don't know. I mean, if you look back the last 10 years, I don't think that anybody can say,

like, that the anti-Trump movement didn't fight Trump hard enough. You know, they could have maybe didn't fight him right, or they didn't do the right thing every now and then, but like there was a lot of fighting happening, and he still got back in there. I agree that people want a fighter and that that's important.

I think that when you look, listen to your answer, like the communication side, God love Clinton, Biden, Harris, but I don't, you know, they all had things that they're good at from communication standpoint, but they all had things that not as good. So that could be approved. You don't look at that and think, well, we did, we did the fighting and it didn't work. Is that demoralizing at all? Yeah. I mean, look, losing sucks. I mean, like, you keep got a kid, like, like losing a baseball game,

losing a soccer, like losing sucks. But like, look at the Knicks. Like, they literally lost every first quarter. It's like not about what you lose. It's about how you dust yourself off and go like clothes. And yes, Democrats have lost two of the last three presidential elections to Donald Trump. And it fucking sucks. But J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio are no Donald Trump for better and for worse. They just have to figure out how to go in. There's no analysis of the psychology of winners and winning that has you spending as much time in the past

as the Democrats seem committed to doing. It's interesting. in a way, you know, not directly, but I think that the way that your show is is almost offering a model. Because you don't do that. You don't do the struggle session stuff on the show. Mostly because I don't get it.

Right. Like in the Republican Party, like, if you lose, you just get up and go try something else, right? And it yielded Trump. I'm not defending it. I'm just saying there are like, they're patterns.

And I think the Democratic Party, there are enough people in this country are unhappy with Donald Trump. There are enough people who want to fight. autocracy. There are enough people, I mean, 80% of Americans think immigration is a good thing. That's the highest number in like 30 years. There are enough things that have changed after they've seen how Trump is trying to change the country that there's plenty to go fight for. And I do think those

three things are entry, like varies to entry. You have to be a modern communicator, which means like you don't sit with your comms team and decide who to talk to you. You figure out how to talk to everybody, right? Like, it's not, like, you sit down and pick, like, will I do Larry King or will I do Tom Broca? You sit down and you, and you have time to sort of think, sleep, exercise, talk to people and communicate. Like, that has to be, like, the new framework of how you run in this moment. But the next thing is, like, why are you fighting? Like, you're fighting because you don't want to live in a country that's an autocracy. And who do you need to bring along? Everybody who feels that way, right? So, like, you need this, this bigger pool.

And it's not about like the politics of subtraction are like, if I add Liz Cheney, I'm going to piss up Bernie Sanders. Like, that is over. You need someone who says, like, I need everybody there who doesn't want to live in an autocracy. And if you're going to have a fight about who you sit next to on the plane, get the fuck off the plane. Like the fights have been too small for the gravity of the moment. And so it's not about fighting harder.

It's about demanding that everybody fight for the same thing. And we can go back to fighting about policy. We should. Right? But as long as Trump or Vance or Rubio were there, we know what they're going to do. They're going to ask for primetime air time to peddle lies about things that happened while they were in control of the fucking government. That's where we are and that's where we're heading. I've been watching Roe this week and it's like, you know, okay, let's say what do you want about him or his ideology or quibble or disagreements.

But you don't look at him and say, oh, this is a magical communicator. This is Barack Obama or whatever. But he was on Fox this week. He was on DropSight, like the lefty. say friendly site. He was on my show. He's everywhere. And it's like, he can do it. He's important. He's a great communicator. It's like not as hard as it. I just, you know, I think people psych themselves out of stuff. Or they're afraid of the negative news cycle. Like, I also think like, like some of it is, I'm getting dragged right now for something I said to Jim Acosta that I stopped

airing Sarah Huckabee Sanders press avails because having worked in the White House to see her lie from the podium, like actually like it may be, gave me like a physical. reaction. And like, I feel like eight years. Who's dragging you for that? I don't know. But it's like, but it's like that used to like really bother me and used to really be in my head. But I really think like winning in this moment is so much about like mindset and focus. And whatever you want to say about MAGA and Trump, and I don't have any visibility into their mindset, but the focus is like diabolical. All right. Like the focus is on the like the three big lies they tell about Democrats and liberal cities being like like I'm sure you have mega people in your life who like

every time you go to New York are like be careful you know like I was like what I mean of what like crimes lower here than where you live but you know there there is such a and again this is just like hardwiring like like the right is sort of hardwired for this this like repeat repeat repeat and under Trump, and that's all being done in bad faith, they've drilled in all these lies about the left. And I think the left needs an equally capable and focused counter communicator. How do you keep the focus on the show in the morning? I kind of imagine you with the whiteboard with like a marker. It's just like, I know everybody wants us to talk about this stupid story where everybody's fighting,

but that's an X. We're not doing that. They can do that on the next hour because your show is remarkably focused. Well, I think I've talked to you about this. Like when he won a second time, I was like, he benefited from the. blur. So no more like, no more like 10 stories. Like we do like four stories a day. Like we really, we've really like, sometimes I do two. Like yesterday I did Clayton and Blanche and, and ice. Yeah. But so like your guy in the morning is he sends you 10, you cut it to three or it's just everybody knows now?

It's very collaborative. I mean, I don't know if Pat Berkey is is my EP and he'd probably be appalled by set like we share part of our brain. But like the Trump product. of the brain. He was producing all of MSNBC's live coverage of the 2015-2016 election. So a lot of of the stuff that I remember, he was the producer of for Brian Williams, who I was on with. I mean, I think that we have the best team that does this. And I rely very heavily on a team of people who are each one of them individually smarter than me and collectively, I think, smarter than anybody else that does this. And then I have, you know, like you said, there's stories that we've been covering now for so long that you just, like, they're all

logged in in the brain. But to me, the thing that unifies the most people is the mission of a broadcast, right? Like a podcast people are choosing you. They want you. A broadcast, you still feel some obligation to like kind of land on the thing that affects the most number of people. And to me, the threats to democracy are that. They're also consistent with what I thought I was involved in the Bush years with furthering. And I know that's going to be very, polarizing thing to say. But a lot of people that worked for the president really believed in the democracy agenda. And I know that comes with a lot of toxic baggage that people won't agree with. But for a lot of us, we believed as he believed, that spreading democracy was a good mission.

And the boomerang that like we can't even protect it here at home is particularly startling to me. Can we end up positive? Sure. Back during COVID, you always did heroes. You ended up positive. Lives well live. I struggle with that. Do you have a positive right now?

Is there a hero? Is there a life well lived out there? I mean, Jack Smith is like my hero at the moment. And I think I said this to Ari Melbury. I saw him in the office yesterday. Like I really try to never meet my heroes. I had a chance to meet Bruce Springsteen and I was so nervous that he wouldn't be as great as I needed him to be.

And he was like 10 times greater. He was so great. I told my son that he needed some younger fans. And my son was like, yeah, you do. When was it that you met him? I met him when he came to New York City. We went to the concert in the House, like recently.

Yeah, on his land of hope and dreams tour. Yeah, see, I noticed that. You've been shouting, it worked. He charmed you. You've been shouting them out lately a little more. But I actually, I've been tracking, I mean, I make you do these segments. I've been tracking culture because I find it absolutely disorienting that,

I mean, and you, I'm sure, feels like having worked for George Dobie Bush, like you couldn't get away from, I mean, from culture weighing in on politics. and that was healthy, right? Like it was an outlet for all the things that people didn't like. The fact that culture and all these people who I'm sure have problems with Donald Trump are silent or chilled or are intimidated

or afraid to speak out is shocking to me. So I think his stepping into the Minneapolis story was a huge deal and showing up with Tom Arella for the concert. I think the first show was there and then going on the Land of Hope and Dreams tour was a big sort of wake-up moment Now, I'm disappointed that not a lot of people seem to have followed, but I think maybe that comes as the election nears or if it feels less scary.

But I would say Jack Smith is 10 times better than I'd hoped he would be. And like, I think if you made a partisan point to him, like he would just, it wouldn't, he wouldn't not get it. It just wouldn't, you wouldn't get anything from him because it's not how he's wired. But to hear him talk about, like, there's no public. like they got at the public integrity unit. That doesn't mean like, that's not a liberal own. That means the American people are going to be so fucked when someone comes and uses their, their position of power to steal from them.

Like, he's this true public servant. And when you see up close what Trump is purging, he's not purging people who are against Trump, he's purging people who are for the American people. It sort of restored my faith in what we're fighting for, right? Like, I feel like you and I are fighting for not a return to the past, but a level set to public trust to when like the government actually, we didn't know any of their names because they were just doing their jobs and they were working for the American people.

If they did the wrong thing, they were held accountable because people do wrong things. They were right. They're fired. Yeah. I really feel really, really, really, really fortunate that I got to interview him this month. Hey, Tim. Nicole Wallet's going to vacation. I need it.

I'm telling you, this is the year to do it. I know. Why, what's going to happen next year? You're freaking me out. Look, people forget, they think of the elections every four years. But having done the primaries, they start in 27. You know, like somebody will, a Democrat will announce for president in 2027 in January. Yeah.

And so that, that cycle gets started. Then you will have Vance, Rubio machinations, Trump pretending like he's going to run again. I think Tucker Carlson runs. Tucker, right? Like, then Trump, I just, and I don't know what's going to happen. I'm just like, don't you think it's going to get crazier? And when he sees the end line, I don't think he's going to see the end line and decide. You know what?

I'm going to sand down my edges now. How can it get crazier? They're like fighting about like the reflecting pool. They're building arch. Like, I don't know that it can't. I don't want to say what I think it could be because I don't want to speak it into existence. I'm just saying I think this is the year, you know? So get on, get on the calendar.

Get my on the calendar. All right. Look over your shoulder at the beach. Nicole Wallace. I appreciate you so much. Thanks for all the time. We'll see you on the flip. Thank you.

Bye, everybody. We'll be back next week. You'll get the guests. You'll get the Bowork people. Happy, happy trip. All right, see you go. I didn't see you right next to me, but I'm so glad you could make it. By my side of my guest's vacation.

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