The Bulwark Podcast - S2 Ep1009: Amanda Carpenter: Daddy? No, Manny Trump

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Trump is siccing the thought police on the Smithsonian, he's got an FBI task force set up to protect Elon's car company, and he's turning random tattoos into gang insignia—unless they're on Pete Hegseth. Meanwhile, Greenlanders did not come to play, Elise Stefanik gets benched, the DOJ won't do its real job, and next week's elections are making Republicans nervous. Plus, courage is contagious—make them come after everybody. Amanda Carpenter joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. Amanda Carpenter joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes "Hands Off" demonstrations on April 5 Protect Democracy's "If You Can Keep It" newsletter Tim and JVL on JD and Usha Vance's Greenland trip MTG lashing out at a British reporter Tim's playlist

Hello and welcome to the Bulldog Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. One thing before we get to our all caps guest, I heard from some people, there's been a little misunderstanding about a convo that me and Lovell were having at the end of the pod yesterday. I just, I do want to clarify. I brought up that there are these hands off America rallies happened on April 5th. And I brought that up at the very end after a pod that was pretty emotionally draining and we were talking in the context of like this disconnect between

our, the intensity of our alarm and anger and sadness with what was out there in the world. And I think some folks, I heard from some folks that seemed to interpret that as like dismissiveness about these rallies. And I just wanted to be super clear that that is not what I intended, the opposite actually. And so I want to make sure we'll put a link to the list of the gatherings and the show notes. If you feel called to go, I encourage you to do so.

I hope to see a lot of people out on April 5th. And I think that my point yesterday is, you know, this is kind of an incubator. This thing is going to take time. We're not seeing the initial emotional reaction that we saw in 2017. And that is disappointing, but you got to start somewhere. So there you go, April 5th, hands off America rallies. All right. Our guest today is a former colleague. She's a writer and editor at Protect Democracy. She's a co-author of the Authoritarian Playbook for 2025 and a contributor to Protect Democracies If You Can Keep It.

Substack, it's Amanda Carpenter. How you doing, girl? Hey, I'm, you know, and it feels weird to say I'm doing great. I'm doing okay. We're here. It's Friday. I felt like I had to wake up and just like preparing for this, like just take a few deep cleansing breaths because there's so much going on. But I am, if there's anybody to get into it with, I'm happy to be here with you for sure.

Let's mix it up. Let's mix it up. Yeah, I know. I've had this nagging cough that maybe some of you guys haven't noticed because, you know, Jason and Katie cleaned me up. It's prevented me from going to yoga because I don't want to be the guy like hacking up a lung in yoga over the past couple of weeks. And I do feel like it's had a negative impact on my internal self. I'm wound a little tight. So yeah, we can do a little Ujjayi breath together. Yeah, you know, we get sometimes these tips at our work

for like self care, how to take care of yourself. You're such a lib now. You're getting self care tips. Well, no, I took up running a couple of years ago. It's like, you know, like that ticks a lot of boxes off for me, you get out in the sunshine, you get time away from the screen. Like it takes care of a lot of things in one.

Actually, my husband does yoga. I don't do yoga. It's kind of funny. I'm like, that's your thing. I'm just going out on the trails, but you know, everybody, everybody get outside is what I'm saying. Yeah. Get outside, get some vitamin D, go to a rally, take a run, go to a crawfish boil.

That's what I'll be doing this weekend. I have my note for beginning the podcast with Protect Democracy, Amanda Pauperie. I mean, there's so many threats to democracy out there that I don't want to be in charge of what the biggest threat is, where the doomsday clock is the closest to midnight. So I want to let you go first. You tell me, what are you guys monitoring that has

you the most alarmed out of all the bullshit that's out there? What would say, I don't want to speak for the group. I'm here speaking for myself, but right now, I mean, honestly, the most urgentmed out of all the bullshit that's out there. What would say I don't wanna speak for the group. I'm here speaking for myself. But right now, I mean, honestly, the most urgent thing that is in your face on tape, easiest to see and understand are the people being nabbed out the streets

without any due process. And thank you, Tim, you have been on this in a way that you humanize it, put a lens on it, talk about this person that got shipped off to El Salvador. This is deliberately a complex issue that Trump shows to divide the pro-democracy coalition. I see these mini debates happening. Is this an immigration issue?

Is it a speech issue? How about it's just a basic American fundamental right that you have a right to face your accuser, right? Like you don't get picked up off the street by plain clothes officer without a warrant, without anything. And I understand that, you know, some people who are here on visas or, you know, whatever it may be, may have more restrictive rights.

I'm not like maybe, but as a basic thing, we have to know the reason people are being picked up. And if Marco Rubio wants to get up and say, well, actually there's two, with this one tough student. Yep. I'm really lasered in on this because right now there's two different explanations coming from this administration, right?

Like you had the spokesperson come out and say, well, something, something, terrorism. And then Marco Rubio had a camera in his face and started saying, well, if you're kind of the student activist lunatic, we are going to revoke your visa and we're going to come after hundreds of you. So like, what is it? Is it terrorism or we don't like what you're saying?

Because if it's terrorism, and that's really what they're leaning on to do a lot of things, tell me what she did. You know, if there is this terroristic threat on campuses, like I need to know exactly what she did that you're tracking so that we can stop this from happening other places. But if this is like you just don't like that she showed up in a protest, you didn't like her out bed, you didn't like the tattoo that somebody had, then say that. Because I need to know, we all have a right to know, what tattoos are

okay. What words are okay to say, otherwise you're going to get shipped off to Louisiana or El Salvador or some other legal black hole where nobody knows the rules. Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts on this. Number one, just as a free speech principal, I would be against what Marco was saying. Yesterday in his press conference, it's like, look, if you apply for a visa and you put on your visa that you're just here to go to school and you come here and what you're really here to do is organize people and protest against the government that we have a right to revoke your visa. I think I'd be against that in any context, but it at least is a defensible argument if

then the next step from the government is we're going to send a letter to Ms. Oz Turk and say, hey, we've decided to revoke your visa. Secretary of State has jurisdiction on this. You have three months or two weeks or whatever it is to, you know, either reapply or leave the country. At least that would be like how a liberal democracy works. Right? Like, I mean, again, I'd be against that, but that would at least be like within the bounds of normal democratic type behavior. And we could have a debate over what the rules should be for people here in student visas, right?

In the sunlight, in the light of day. Yes. Having a guy sneak up on a woman on the street with a hood and a mask like he's in fucking 24, you know, and like shake her down and then have her be surrounded by six other people and handcuffed. That is insane authoritarian behavior, right? Like that is not American behavior. There's no reason for this. This person is not a threat. Like this is like Stasi shit. Well, if she is a threat, if there is a reason for them to hunt her down like this in the plain clothes, like tell us, right? Like this is where I think we need to put a little bit more

of the burden on them to be like, what is the reason? Because we are going to have debates about whether, what free speech, what degrees are allowed, or is this immigration? But where I think there is the strongest possible ground is like, tell us the reason, put it in writing, and show us what the charges are because they're doing it without any of those basic steps.

And that is what's truly unbelievable to me because it is true. If they can do it to these people, they can do it to other people. They can do it to US citizens. So the US citizens better start, the best way to protect your rights is to actually exercise them in the moment. This is one of those times. Pete You know, I have an interview for the Gen Z pod for FY Pod. It's out tomorrow.

We did our first MAGA interview and I was talking to somebody, a young person that works for Bannon's War Room. The thing that was the most frustrating in the conversation is whether you are a traditional, classical liberal, Thatcher, Reaganite conservative, or whether you're a traditional classical liberal Thatcher Reaganite conservative, or whether you're one of these new tech bro guys, whatever you want to call them, or whether you're a Bannon nationalist world, the one thing that they all claim to agree with was this. That individuals have free speech rights, that the government, the jackboot thug, shouldn't be banging down your door because you wrote an op-ed or because you advocated or because you protest.

They all pay lip service to that across that entire coalition. It's just fucking silence. It's silence. It's Reason magazine is the only people that are even criticizing this. It is so disoriented and concerning because if they're going to do this shit where they take people off the streets and there's just silence, then there's going to be no checks, right? To me, that's the most alarming thing is that there has not been any even signal

that there is going to be any check on these guys if they want to even go further than they have. We always knew that there was going to be mistakes made in any amount of deportation raids, things that they did. And like, I think some of this is that they're just not getting the numbers they wanted, and so they need to go after easy targets. For sure. But when you think about, you know, I don't want to

get super dark here, but you know, what the possibility of AI being sicked on social media and tracking people's pictures and getting things wrong or right, or just sweeping it up with untested technology, I mean, this is really has the potential to spin out of control. Just the thing with the tattoos, it just seems like such an obvious... A lot of people have tattoos. What's allowed?

What is going to be mistaken as a game sign now? What is the list of approved content from this administration that you're allowed to say that you're allowed to put on your body? Just kind of force these questions. content from this administration that you're allowed to say that you're allowed to put on your body, you know, it's just like kind of force these questions. I don't know actually saying like I want the government to do this, of course. Make them answer these questions to show how absurd and ridiculous and dangerous this is. Yeah, I think such a good point because it seems I think pretty obvious that there's some outside group that is providing the State Department like a list of people that

did bad things. I don't understand how they'd be grabbing somebody like Ozdirk, these random op-ed signers. Well, I do think she's easy. I'm just going to do this perspective as a woman here. She's an easy person to pick up off the street, unless you were prepared for that moment. Again, maybe she threw smoke bombs into a window. I don't know what she did, but this is part of the problem is that they're keeping us in this like dark room with no facts, no information, but she's

an easy pickup, right? And they're going to go after easy targets. They are. And I guess my point is like, this is like the beta version, but you know, if they're, the state torrent is getting a list from an anti-Palestinian anti-Himans, whatever, like whatever, you know, sort of outside group you want to call it. You have AI software, like, oh, here are the names, let's put them into the song, right? Like you can see it gets dark really fast. We saw this with some of the groups that were putting the names and faces of people engaged in DEI in the government before Trump came into office. There's lots of lists that have been made.

People often ask, how bad is it? How close to authoritarianism are we? You want to say, okay, we still have room to fight. If you want to evaluate this question, if you were in this public, political, and media space, think about the steps that you've probably already taken to adjust yourself over the few years. Like I think about my career, I've changed my career totally in terms of adapting to this.

I don't tell like my kids, parents, friends, what I do unless I really know them. Like I take a number of personal, like security and safety sets. I don't post much on Instagram at all anymore. I am self-censoring out of protection, but also to preserve my ability to fight. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if you've taken steps like that, but I think you have to.

I haven't because fuck them, but lots of people are. It's funny you bring this up because I was just looking at... I don't want to out this person, but I was just looking at them on social media this morning. And it was a very, it's a very public type, a person that has been very public in politics in the past and does not like Trump, but works for consulting firm. And I saw a post from them criticizing something that a Democrat was doing. And I was like, I wonder if that person has been posting, because I know that they're not for a lot of this Trump stuff.

And you just go down, scroll down the feed and it's just like, no, it's like sports and occasional democratic hit, you know, whatever, maybe a retweet of a criticism, right? Of Trump, maybe. Whether that person would admit it or not, like they're self-censoring. People are, people are self-censoring. And now this gets us into the law firm conversation and the corporations and Columbia university, which I talked about a lot of it yesterday, like people are

self-censoring because they are either scared or don't want to deal with the BS. And like, that is all a form of soft authoritarianism. Yeah, definitely. Like nobody was doing that under Biden. Nobody's like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to send a mean tweet about Biden because I'm worried that they're going to come after me, that the, that my business will be harmed. That somebody won't get a contract. Like nobody was worried about that.

Yeah. At a minimum, everybody is trying to be more careful thinking about the environment, knowing what happened after January 6, knowing the threats that are just constantly out there. I mean, it's just this noise of executive order, like every day. Do we have executive orders every night targeting individuals on a personal level or an organizational level? I mean, they're raining down and using the executive orders to target individuals in this way, or as a means of leverage to extract a political price, is an insane new form of executive abuse.

And we don't even have a terminology for it yet. Well, here's the latest. Let's go to the latest executive order from last night. Trump is targeting the Smithsonian and the zoo for programs that advance divisive narratives and improper ideology. Wolf pandas. What? Wolf pandas.

What was the zoo doing? I don't even know. What was the, I assume this is like a, they had pride night at the national zoo or something and they've got to cancel that now. Trans penguins. Yeah. Well, we were sure. Maybe we honored the gay penguins, you know,

from Antangomax 3. That is a crazy, like just phrase, improper ideology. It gets silly and it's laughable, but it's like, look, the president is saying to a museum, I will punish you if you advance an improper ideology. But this is where I think there is opportunity to shift the burden on them and also just make it absurd. Like, can someone ask, like, can you tell me

what the penguins and pandas did wrong? Like, can we start forcing these questions to be like, why are we cracking down on the National Zoo? Maybe they're doing something insane. But just again, like this random executive order, we're going to target the Smithsonian, we're going to target the Smithsonian, we're going to target the zoo along with everyone else. What is going on?

Because we do need to have the ability to laugh and have some absurdity in this. Yeah. Here's one example that they put in the executive order. For example, the Smithsonian American Art Museum features, quote, the shape of power, stories of race and American sculpture, an exhibit representing that societies, including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement. The sculptures, so what is the concern about this? Yeah.

So that warrants an executive order. Like, what are we supposed to do? Like, shroud, mask it? Like, oh, what are we doing? Yes. Yeah. So, that warrants an executive order. What are we supposed to do? Like, shroud, mask it? What are we doing? I'm sure you guys, since you're so many lawyers over there, are pretty deep on what's happening with the law firms. It seems like there's more coming.

I know there was a report yesterday at Skadden Arps, another big DC law firm is in negotiations. I don't even know what you would call the words that are involved in a hostage negotiation with the White House right now. We've seen some other law firms be more aggressive in fighting, which is encouraging. What are you guys monitoring with the law firms? I want to point out a few bright spots because it's important to show who is doing well versus by the way, like you having George Conway on last week to talk about Paul White, that was great, very informative, glad that he really brought it to them. That was necessary.

But we did see, there is the Perkins-Cowie executive order. There was a story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about how it's fighting back. Great. They're one of the good ones right now. And also more importantly, its biggest clients are staying. That includes Boeing, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, NFL. Because in order for these law firms to not only stay and fight, they have to not lose clients. So I want to say thank you. Thank you. Keep fighting. We need everyone to stick together on this because the whole point of using these orders is to divide and conquer people and pit these loft rooms against each other.

So they start stealing clients. But there was like a sweet part of that Wall Street Journal story is that the day after they got the order, apparently this managing director, I think in Seattle, someone sent a bouquet of flowers to them to saying thank you for standing up. And he took a picture and sent it to everyone, 600 people in that office. I don't know who sent that, but the fact that they thought it was noted, these are rich people, they can buy their own flowers. They can throw themselves flower parties every day

if they want, walk around with laze. But they were touched that someone did that for them. They took a picture and sent it around and made it into a journal story. Just please find ways to celebrate and be kind to the people who are doing the right thing. Because we do spend, we have to spend a lot of time talking about the bad.

But when you see these little glimmers of hope, I hope they don't like reverse stance, celebrate that. And so then there was also an executive order that came down. Was this another one last night against another law firm? Willam Hale, Willmar Hale. I'm not a big law person. They're pushing back.

I saw a statement from Ryan Goodman who tracks all this stuff where they issued a statement saying essentially like we're standing up for the role of law blah blah blah. Good. So we have two firms doing the right thing in light of the bad. Maybe that will encourage other people to stand together. And I think these things do have a way of starting and having a line of separation between the cavers and these people who take an oath to uphold the rule of law actually doing it is a pretty good start dividing line and hopefully people want to be on the right side of the ledger. Hey guys, if you loved yesterday's episode with Jon Lovett, then you're going to love

the YouTube series we're doing together called Speech Center, where we dissect political speeches with insight and chaos and gayness and laughs and despair. Jon, as you all know by now, is the host of Love It or Leave It, America's top late night political gay live comedy podcast where he takes on the biggest and most absurd stories in politics, helping you stay informed while laughing instead of crying. You can tell that John's producer wrote that. This season is promising some big name guests unexpected conversations and can't miss moments. He does a monologue with jokes.

They're mostly funny. He does captivating interviews. Captivating, love it. Are they captivating? They're pretty captivating. They're at times captivating. The one I saw last week with Tom Green, you remember Tom Green? I haven't seen that guy in ages.

It was hilarious. What's happened with Tom Green is crazy. Love it, pulled it out of him. Anyway, plus he's got signature segments and games. Love it or leave it delivers the type of comedy you won't find anywhere else. So go catch new episodes of Love it or Leave it every Saturday. Watch on YouTube and go catch speech center on YouTube or join a live show in LA to witness the love it chaos in person.

We're going to do some more positive at the very end because it's the weekend, but I've got to take us, I'm going to take us to the reality. I know, I know. I got to bring us back to dark reality. Sorry, sorry. I made it. The vice president, the second lady and the national security advisor are in Greenland today to set the tone for this conversation. I want to play for you the intro to this news story on ABC nightly news, whatever they fucking call it, ABC World News tonight, last night. Let's take a listen.

A high level American delegation led by Vice President J.D. Vance is heading to Greenland. President Trump insisting the U.S. will, quote, go as far as we have to go to gain control of the island. ABC's senior national correspondent Terry Moran is there. And Terry, this has really become a high stakes visit. Yeah, this is a dramatic moment in the struggle for Greenland. The struggle for Greenland? What is happening? That was on ABC News? That was ABC News. That was not like Don't Look Up. That was not a clip from a spoof movie. Like just dead serious

staring down the camera, Terry Moran, the struggle for Greenland. What is the fucking struggle? What are we doing? What is happening? Okay, I didn't see that. I was highly entertained by the AP write-up of this visit coming to action. We'll, we'll get to the bad part, but like, can we just walk through some of the absurdity of it? Sure. Let's do it. So this is the AP story. So it's initially, Oshavans was, had announced a solo trip, but then her

husband had to join her, then they had the change of itinerary. Again, they're supposed to see dogs led racing. Yeah. Apparently they were to change the itinerary. Again, they're supposed to see dogsled racing. Yeah. Apparently they were not welcome at the dogsled race. So then they had to narrow the visit. She had to bring her husband and then they could only go to the

military space force base. Yeah. So like, go Greenland. I want to add one little element to this. Yeah. Go Greenland and go, This is from Danish TV 2. I want to shout this story out because this is my favorite story of the week. Apparently, we sent some advanced people door to door in Greenland to find someone who would

welcome Usha into their home and they couldn't find anybody. They couldn't find a single person that would invite, that would allow the second lady of the United States to come into their home to eat some whale blubber or Whatever they do in Greenland. They couldn't I couldn't find a single person. I love that I mean don't you get the impression that they thought by sending her they could send like the nice face as like to warm them Up towards I guess JD and Walt's coming later. Sorry Cruella, the people of Greenland have watched 101 Dalmatians You know, it's not it's not landing. Yeah How do you piss off Greenland and also Canada? I mean, this is kind of amazing Denmark

Yeah, so that you can they can only go to the Space Force base They can't stay the long weekend one day trip in and out and you have to stay in the base because otherwise you'll be Protested anywhere else like they have to have a safe space in order to make this visit. I just, I find that hilarious. And I just like, can someone just slip Usha Vance, Karen Pence's phone number? Because I feel like they might have some things in common.

They might need to get together for a little wine night. I don't know. I am not putting Usha on the level of mother. Mother has shown more integrity so far in 2025 than every single person in the Republican Party, handful of Democrats, most big law. Mother is stalwart. I don't know. I just have this vision of where like JD was like, so Usha, maybe we'll just go to Greenland for the weekend. You can get a spa day, take some time off. And then Greenland's like, hell no, you're not coming here.

I don't think they have spas in Greenland. What is it? Of course they do. A snow spa? What would they do? There's only 50,000 people in Greenland. Greenland is as big as Monroe, Louisiana. There's no spas in Monroe. I mean, you know, maybe there's- I'm just picturing like a nice little like Cabin Chalet, do a cold plunge. Cabin Chalet? I don't think this exists. I don't know.

I'm from Michigan. I think it's like the UP. You do? I don't think it's like the UP. But people of Newt can give us a note because we're on your side. Well, they can invite me. Yeah. If you have a, you know, if you have a spa, some kind of ice spa or cold plunge, you can

invite them in. Listen, I can go to a Sephora in Alta and do a cold plunge and that works. They definitely don't have a Sephora in New York. I don't think they do. It is a tiny, there's nobody there. Okay, CVS. I'm not hard. Here's the thing.

We're going to laugh. And me and JVL, if you're obsessed with obsessed with the story of JVL is we, we did the Bullock takes feed for our bonus feed. So go check that out. Me and JVL did like 45 minutes on this last night because he just can't, he can't not talk about it. So there's the laughter, but like, if you are in nuke or if you are in Denmark, you have to take this seriously.

I mean, Putin last night gave a speech where he was like, you know, the Americans have a point here. I mean, they have to consider their strategic needs in the Arctic. So like Putin is seeing it from the serious point of view. If you're in Greenland and Denmark, you have to take it seriously. And they've been talking about it all week. And they went from just sending the second lady to then having the VP give an interview where he's like, the Danes aren't being a good ally, even though they're spending more than what they're supposed to on NATO. And then you have the VP saying, no, I'm going to come now. And then you're like, oh, we're going to bring the national security advisor because he's in trouble at home. He shouldn't be walking around the halls of the

White House. People get mad at him. So we're going to send him. What is the national security advisor doing there? That's intimidating. I would be intimidated if I was Greenland, right? I agree. I think that's the point of this weird visit, but I am going to find some joy in the fact that they're isolated to a one-day in-and-out trip and they're not welcome there. I'm finding some joy in the backbone of the Greenlanders. And, and Matt, I love the Danish, uh, prime minister, Matt. She's awesome. So I am finding some joy in that. To me, this is like, are we sure that they, they aren't just going to like try

to put the American flag down and the, in the ground and say, this is ours now? I mean, Or their real estate shopping for Trump's next whatever. I want to talk to you about Elon. I do this for every conservative and ex-conservative that comes on here, just to kind of level set. Ostensibly, this is what we wanted. The government being reformed and cutting out the waste and abuse.

We've all wanted this. I had a gentleman message me I used to work with. It was like, there's no part of you that's still ostensibly conservative enough to support cutting government spending. Are you just a full blown lib now? Maybe I guess. I have a response to that question, but I'm wondering what your response is on what we're seeing from Elon and Doge.

No, I don't know what part of my conservative background signed up for having an unvetted, unappointed, unstable- Foreigner. Person just come into the government without any of the proper security clearances, taking hold of private data, compromising it, and then just deciding to come up with a bunch of cuts while he's running like three other businesses. I mean, there's been plenty of work, lots of good, smart people who have proposed plans to systematically cut the government with buy-in from Congress in an actual constitutional way.

And they just said, oh, with that, we're going to come up with our little Doge kids and do whatever we want. So no, I didn't sign up for that. I didn't sign up for signing off all this power, which does belong to Congress, to some dude. Okay. No, me neither. That was also my response.

Also, you know, there are some other things the conservatives were for besides cutting government waste, things like being fiscally responsible, balancing the budget. Something these guys aren't doing. Like that's the whole farce of this whole thing. They're putting forth a budget that is going to increase the debt and deficit by trillions over the course of the administration, even including the cuts that they're doing here. Another conservative thing was believing in the separation of powers, the rule of law. Remember the whole, oh, we're a republic, not a democracy thing.

We don't have a king. If you want to cut stuff, you control Congress. So just do it. It's not actually going to save any money if you illegally fire people and then they all sue the government and get paid restitution for not working. That's going to be a... Anyway, the whole thing is preposterous. On top of your unstable element of having this foreigner who doesn't really understand

American values being in charge of this, I want to play Elon Musk last night with Brett Bair talking about Senator Mark Kelly. Democratic Arizona Senator Mark Kelly posted on X about his trip to Ukraine to push for continuing to send U.S. weapons and support there, and you posted that he was a traitor. Why do that? Well, I think somebody should care about the interests of the United States above the interests of another country. And if they don't, they're a traitor.

Yeah, but he's a decorated veteran, a former astronaut, a sitting US Senator. That doesn't mean it's okay for him to put the interests of another country above America. Obviously, there are some Republicans who think supporting Ukraine is the right thing still, but there is a battle back and forth. Brett Baer's face is just like, what are you talking about? His mouth was very dry, I noticed, now that I'm just listening to the audio. Yeah. It does sound like, you know, I don't know.

I've heard some people at widespread panic shows that have mouths that sound that dry. I don't know what Elon's doing, but anyway. Yeah. I don't know. You get the feeling that Brett was trying to help him do some cleanup in there and he just refused to clean himself up. But the whole outside of Elon's work with Doge work and question marks, I do really think the Tesla backlash has been underrated in the government's response to it and how deeply alarming that is. Yes, it is terrible that he called Mark Kelly a traitor, obviously, but it kind of slipped under the radar that the FBI has established a task force to investigate terrorism against

Tesla. There's protests happening. Obviously, nobody burn up Tesla. Stop that. Nobody should do that. Nobody should condone it. People who are considering that, it will rebound against you. Don't do that. The best thing that could happen is that all these beautiful, shining Teslas are sitting in lots unsold. Don't touch them. Let them sit there. And I feel bad for people who bought Tesla's before in the before times. Like that, that does stink, but let everything after 2024 sit. I mean, that's been very effective so far. And so I guess there are protests happening Saturday, Tesla takedowns. I think that's really getting inside Elon's head. And if you wanna talk about the terrorism aspect of this,

there was somebody that drove into one of those protests in Florida not so long ago. So what about that? I mean, we can push back against this because the violence has been going one way for a long time and they still want so desperately, so desperately to put it on their opponents. Don't let them.

But, you know, I do think the quickest way to get Elon out of the government is to make him focus on his businesses. And there is so much Save Elon effort going on right now to rescue his Tesla business by Trump, by the DOJ, by the Commerce Secretary telling everybody to buy a Tesla, buy Trump, buy the DOJ, buy the commerce secretary who's telling everybody to buy a Tesla, buy a Tesla. You know, that's desperation. That's panic.

And when you get to, you know, what else is gonna happen with Trump and the jobs and everything, you know, bigger picture, I'm not an economist. I don't see how there's not a recession from all this. I wanna go to the economy next, but I just wanna say one thing about the other point that you made first about the, you know, looking into Tesla vandals as terrorists.

Elizabeth Newman, everyone's sort of known, she was in DHS the first term, came out to the ad for Republican voters against Trump. I love her. It's funny, her origin kind of story about why she ended up being a whistleblower, whatever you want to call it, from the first Trump administration was that she's in DHS as an expert on domestic terrorism. And like at the time there was a lot of chatter and worry about white nationalists domestic terror here in the country. And she was presenting reports, you know, talking about what to prioritize and, you know, what they should be looking into and political people inside the

administration wanted to silence that and say, that's not what we're going to focus on. We're not worried about that. Right. That's like the TLDR of basically, you know, what was her main issues that, that resulted in her eventually leaving. That type of just sort of soft politicization, it's not like, oh, we're targeting Wilmer Hale

or whatever. Like that's overt, right? There is a subterranean version of that, which is just like what these people prioritize that you're just seeing. And at the DOJ, to use kind of the V-Pish example, the signal thing, right? Like, again, had like some random captain accidentally texted in Jeffrey Goldberg, he would be investigated. Like the DOJ would look into it or the, or, you know, IG at the DOD has been fired or whatever, you know, like somebody would look into it, right? And there would be a real investigation. They'd be on leave of looking to the phone, right? And Bondi was asked about that yesterday or two days ago, maybe in a press conference, like, are you going to look into this?

And she's just like, well, I mean, Hillary Clinton bleached bit her computer, right? And so it's just like the DOJ and the FBI are now totally unapologetic about this more subtle version of politicization where they're just like, we're just going to investigate and look into foes, political foes and perceived foes. And like, we're not even going gonna do this other stuff at all. No, I mean, the politicization of all these independent agencies, but most particularly the Department of Justice

has always been one of the top democratic threats. And I don't like, I pulled this thing from Truth Social because I didn't even notice that he said it. Because by the way, he's posting all these things like in the middle of the night recently. Have you noticed that? Like the most absurd things. So I think his people hear it

and it does slide under the radar. But about Tesla, Trump posted, I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they're doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. What are they doing? I don't, we don't know. He goes on, perhaps they could serve them

in prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions. I talked about this earlier in the week or Monday, maybe Chamath, like this guy that's on the All In podcast, it's friends with David Sachs, who is the crypto czar, who's friends with Elon, who's the shadow president. He tweeted this. He like he was the, I think the first person to suggest this, right? That like the people that vandalized Tesla should maybe, and he specifically said citizens should be denaturalized and sent to San Salvador. And so now you just see the distance from that to now the president

now suggesting that. Yeah. I mean, it is, it's shocking. I mean, it's in print. This is in print and it's just, you know, talking to some people who are just way outside of this, just kind of listening to, not really participating in the conversation,

but listening to how they were evaluating what was going on. And the idea that it's still out there, I mean, a smart people who lean Republican, okay, that this is all trumped up, they were always out to get Trump. Yeah, the tariffs are bad, but like really, it's not getting, it's just like,

we're gonna ride this out and be fine. It's like, how can you dismiss something that's written like that, given the track record, given the pardons, given the January 6th of everything? I mean, these are people that lived through the policy debates about Guantanamo Bay, right? And how that became a legal black hole for foreigners. We are creating a legal black hole right now for Americans, right? Yeah. Legal residents at minimum already TBD about Americans. right now for Americans, right?

Yeah, legal residents at minimum already TBD about Americans to come. We don't know why they're being sent there. We actually don't know who's in San Salvador. This is a good point. We don't know who's in San Salvador. There could be an American citizen. And that is something, you know,

on the chart of authoritarian threats. I didn't have that one on there. I studied this pretty deeply. That was something, it came out of nowhere and it came out of nowhere fast because it's still March and this thing is being set up and piloted with people. We are a little bit unclear of the status and they're just being disappeared out there.

And Kristi Noem, costume Kristi Noem is gonna go there and play dress up once again, have her photo op in front of these people. We don't know who they are and we're just kind of watching it all happen. We don't know what to do. Maybe those people deserved it. Maybe they'll show us information later. I mean, we're being boiled. We're being boiled and the water's hot. I guess she must have brought her government ID there just so they knew it was Kristi now

because with their new face, I don't, you know, maybe they were concerned it was somebody else that was coming to see the prisoners and do the fucking Nazi propaganda. Probably not what I would have worn to a prison. All right, we're moving towards happiness. The first part is bad things might happen to Republicans. So that's a form of happiness. Yeah, it'll happen to everyone else first. Bad things can happen to everybody.

So it's a mix of views. And, it'll happen to everyone else first. Bad things can happen to everybody. So it's a mix of views. And then we're moving towards pure positive. Okay? So we're getting there, 40 minutes in. You mentioned it, the recession. Frankly, like out of everything out there, the economic uncertainty, we'll see what happens. The so-called reciprocal tariffs are supposed to come in April 2nd. Liberation day.

Liberation day. Liberation Day. We'll see what actually happens. But no matter what happens, the signs are not good. And there's another Fed report out today. They think that the market's going to do worse before Trump finally pulls back. I don't know. I don't know if they have psychologists at the Fed or experts on narcissistic sociopathy, but like, I don't know what that's based on.

But anyway, that's their analysis. I mean, that's like the biggest political opportunity for the Democrats at this point, like just, just taking out all of the morals and ethics and just like, what is the best political opportunity? This is that, right? I rate that number two. Here's where I think the biggest political opportunity is. Like if you have to plan themes around what you know is going to happen, right? And to me, like, SignalGate

is the beginning of it all, it's not the end. So if you have a Venn diagram, what what do we know about this members of this administration, the people that Trump is putting in high positions of power. They're in over their head. There's a Venn diagram between inexperienced, incompetent, and arrogant. They're in the middle of all those things. That means bad things are going to happen. Bad things are going to happen and unfortunately harm people at some point along the way. I don't know how we scraped out unscathed from the signal gate. We may not be because we don't know what other plans they were putting on signal. I mean,

but that's like, Michael Aller had an amazing quote, Republican congressman saying, we have to put safeguards in place so that this could never happen again. What are you talking about? There's a million safeguards in place, but you can't put a safeguard on somebody who does- On idiocy. On idiocy. On idiocy. You don't want to put your seatbelt on, you're going to drive 100 miles an hour down the highway in the wrong direction, crash into a busload of school kids, and blame the kids for the crash.

That is what they're doing. While you're texting fist, American flag, fire emoji. Yeah. There's no safeguards because that's incompetent, inexperienced, and arrogant. And that's just gonna be happening again, and again, and again. I pray to God people don't get hurt. I just don't know how they're going to.

But did you see this? There was this woman in Oklahoma calling her Senator Mark Wayne Mullins, likes to wear cowboy hats a lot, big dude. Her husband was some kind of service member and she was just livid, and I think rightfully so, at the fact that our national security officials and defense secretary would be so reckless to put these messages on a public chain and possibly compromise American service members' lives. And she was filming herself calling the office and saying,

I'm going to call every single day and put this on film until I get a meeting and get some answers why you were allowing this to happen. Good. Yes, I would have, you know, my brother served in the Marine Corps and I, like, I never served, I'd never been a broad, like I haven't done any of this stuff. And I'm just terrified of what could happen by these inexperienced, incompetent, arrogant people, because they won't pay a physical or personal price.

It'll be someone else down the line. And so I think you have to really go to the mat on this kind of stuff. You have to do it to protect your constituents, to protect our national security and everything else. And that's what you know is gonna keep happening. Maybe it's gonna happen with RFK who doesn't believe in measles. And measles coming back and they're just going to cut 10,000 jobs willy nilly.

Yeah, that'll have an impact on the recession that I think is coming. But these impacts are going to happen. And if you're not going to tie it to these problems, you know, what is also amazing is another like spin off this is that all the magas are saying, well there can't be any scalps. Like we are gonna keep Pete, he's not going anywhere, Pete has no scalps, no scalps. What they are telling you right now

is that they're okay with this happening again. The fact that there's no accountability for this stuff says, we're cool with this happening again. There's no consequences, no prices, no investigation because we don't really care. We're not gonna clean our act up. So when the next thing does happen, you can say they planned it.

You have to make them own this every single aspect and don't give an inch. Well, the incompetence of the arrogance ties directly to the economic part. Yes, yep. Because it's like, there's no reason for our economic uncertainty right now. It's all a self-own, right? Like it's like, there's no reason for our economic uncertainty right now. It's all a self-owned, right? Like sometimes presidents get in there and you get bad luck.

You know, a recession happens, something happens that was not on your watch, you know, that something systemic that's been happening for a long time in the market, there's a bubble, right? Like that's not the case here. This is all just their own incompetence and arrogance. And the funny thing that raised an eyebrow for me was some Tesla fan, but taking this back to Elon, some Tesla fanboy account was posting about how the tariffs are going to be good for Tesla, so you should buy Tesla stock. Oh, I bet. Yeah.

Then it was like a long thing. I was like, but Elon replies to it though with, yes, but to be clear, this will affect the price of parts in the Tesla cars that come from other countries. And it's just like, wait, what? I thought, and then meanwhile, you've got Trump threatening the car companies, even though his co president is a car company owner, threatening the other car companies saying, you guys can't raise prices. Again, like he's Victor Orban. Like he's setting prices like a fucking cruise jet. We used to cry about the nanny state and this is like, he's forcing everybody in the US

market. You'll sell the car, the preferred car that I want for the price that I want so that I look good and Elon stays afloat and everybody's happy. Like this is the biggest daddy state. Ugh. But that, ugh. Don't give us that image. All right. I don't, I don't. Manny, Manny state. Ugh. But that, ugh. Don't give us that image. All right. I don't, I don't.

Manny, Manny state. I take it all back. But like, this is even like, it's grosser. I don't know. I'm going to workshop that. We'll workshop it. Anyway, we'll see. April 2nd is coming next week.

They're stepping in it and it's of their own problem. I want to close by talking about what happened to Elise so we can end with some shot in Florida and talk a little bit about the Florida race. But we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to get into that in a minute.

So, we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to get into that in a minute. So, we're going to close by talking about what happened to Elise so we can end with some shot in Florida and talk a little bit about the Florida race. But when we were exchanging some notes beforehand, we talked to yesterday, I talked to yesterday with Lovett about the importance of collective action. And I think he's really good on this coming from, you know, a more kind of progressive organizational background.

He uses the word solidarity unironically, which is something that's high card for me. So it was good to have love it out there doing it. But I know that you also feel like this is important and from like more of a, you know, nonpartisan protect democracy standpoint. So anyway, I just wanted to give you a chance to pop off on collective action before we, before we rubbed, rubbed Elisa's face in the dirt. Yeah. I also struggle with that term.

I don't like it. Like I naturally am just like, can we just not say that? Yeah, working together. Maybe we're starting to see some of that in the law firms that I referenced earlier, but it absolutely is important. Like I said earlier, all these executive orders are designed to individually target people, make them feel the pain, make them feel scared, isolated, and pit them against their other competitors in this space. Right? That is what this is all about. Gosh, we didn't even talk about all the FCC investigations happening with Brendan Carr and

how he's going after all the media companies, but another little glimmer of hope there. Yeah. So he has been investigating CBS for this interview they did with Kamala Harris, which I know you've talked about in the past. And you see groups like Americans for Tax Reform and others saying, you know what, maybe this isn't such a good idea. And I think the natural inclination is like, well, there's conservative groups who are worried about this because they're worried about a Democratic administration coming after them and censoring and editing

their content. I'm not entirely sure about that. Because if you're, say, a Fox News, there's nothing to stop Trump from getting into your editing practices and going in there because we know that- Right. Might be a bigger target, actually. Totally. That is certainly a likely Leopards are eating my face type situation because it's the one

he watches. Again, you have to imagine 81 year old Trump. Grumpy three years from now, 81 year old Trump telling an even stupider FCC chairman that he's got to go after Steve Doocy because he said something mean to him that morning. That does not seem crazy at all. That seems very possible. No, he's already done it. He already does try to dictate what Fox puts on the air.

Sean Hannity might be his closet, middle of the night phone advisor, but he got Megyn Kelly off the air. He already does exercise control, so that would only be two of our child. I think that is interesting because where you see collective action work, I think in real ways that are very effective are usually with the press, right?

Like you see a lot of times when a spokesperson, well, this happened the other day with Marjorie Taylor Greene. There was a clip of her and there was, I think, a reporter from the BBC asking her about Signalgate. And she said, are you an American citizen? I only take questions from American outlets. And just tried to sideline the question. And then she pointed to somebody else and said,

do you represent an American outlet? I'll take your question. And that reporter said, no, I want you to answer hers. I have the same question. Like, that is a nice little form, I think. I think I didn't take the lib class on collective action. I think that's how it's supposed to work. So more of that.

No, it's spine stiffening. No, it's, again, it's just like the courage is contagious element of it. That's what we're talking about is make them come after everybody. You know what I mean? That is what was so disappointing about the, you know, the folding at the law firms, right? Because it's like, do it, try it. Let's see. Let's see. These guys are weaker than they seem. Put the burden on them.

Yeah, they have less power than it seems like. They're less willing to put themselves out there. Like they're going after the easiest targets. Let's look at it. Greenland, Venezuelan refugees fleeing communism, female college students that are writing op-eds, the zoo. Right? Like look at it. They're not taking on, they're not going after Putin. They're not challenging, you know, the toughest institutions in this country. And they're doing that because, like, A, they're testing. It's a testing ground, right, to see how far they can go, you know, but B, because they're all weenies, you know?

And so, like, they are going to back down from a collective opposition to them. And I do think that's an important reminder to people. I agree. I agree completely. All right. Let's go to some schadenfreude. Elise Stefanik, my old friend, my old colleague, main character and why we did it to travel out from the Republican road to hell, it's really tough.

It's tough for her. I mean, she changed her entire personality for Mr. Trump. She changed everything. She just suckled up to him. She couldn't even say his name. She couldn't even say his name into 2017 or 18. She refused to say his name. She just called him the president. That was funny. She hated him so much. And then she just flipped on a dime, thanks to Alex DeGrasse and all

the people around her that let her know how she could succeed. She did it all so that she could achieve a dream, become United Nations ambassador. She gets it. She gets everything that she wants. She gets nominated. And then what happens? Well, Trump kind of nominated too many House Republicans. And so the majority got very narrow. And then a couple of House Republican women got pregnant, Kat Kamak and Annapolina Luna, so they couldn't show up to vote all the time. And so then their margins got even narrower. And then in a Pennsylvania State Senate district that Trump won by 15, some Democrat named

James Malone ends up winning it. And then they're like, shoot, we could lose some of these special elections. And then next Tuesday, there's an election for Mike Waltz's seat. I bet Trump wishes he could send Waltz back to the seat. Mike Waltz's seat in Florida 6, which is over on the Palm Coast. So if you know anybody in Daytona or all the way up north off the coast, up the Atlantic coast there, tell them to go out and vote on Tuesday. And you've got this teacher, Josh Wilde, math teacher running against Randy Fine.

We can get into it if you want, very complicated why that's, but there are a lot of reasons why that is a potential. Probably not, the Republicans are probably going to win. It's like Trump won the district by 20 plus points, but they're nervous. The polls show it very close. And so as a result of all these sequence of events, Trump's like, sorry, Elise, you got to go back to Congress. You can't be the United Nations ambassador. All of her staff has taken other jobs. The reports were that she was calling Marla, I go, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, please. No, let me keep it on. No, no, no, no, no. Nope. Too late. Trump bleeds it. She's back. Tough titties. Sorry, Elise. Anyway, what do you think, Amanda? I mean, she's happy to do this for the president that she loves so much, right? Like this, this isn't a problem. This shouldn't be a problem. She's happy to sacrifice, to go back to the house, to have that little office, to not have all the security detail and trappings of being UN ambassador. I'm sure her reward is coming later. Right?

Yeah. You've seen it from so many other people that Trump brushed aside, you know, Reince and John Kelly and Pence and Matt, you know, you see it all. You see it often that their award comes on the back end. It's tough. It's tough for poor Elise. The other thing is her Instagram feed yesterday was like a highlight reel. We're in March Madness right now for people. It was kind of like a one shining moment. Like the end of the tournament is like a highlight reel

of all the great things that she did in Congress. She was posting like a retrospective of her career in Congress. That was her Instagram feed yesterday. And then she got the call. Sorry, you're going back. You know, it is kind of interesting. So about that race, I mean, next Tuesday, you know, with the Wisconsin Supreme

Court race and that one, I agree, the Republican will probably pull it out. But if it can put some vulnerability into the system, you know, people are nervous. It should be a gimme win for Republicans and may not be. We have to be looking at these tealies. You know, the, the Wisconsin race is really going to be a referendum on Elon Musk's influence, how that plays on the ground. So we'll have a lot of good information to draw from that and the fact that Elise, because of these slim margins,

because of the environment that Trump has created, he had the biggest win, election win ever, but she's got to get recalled back to Congress and not have this job. It doesn't seem like a mandate. They talk a lot of talk, but these are facts on the ground that might, could change some things, little battles along the way. It could change some things.

It could change the way Republicans act in Congress if they're worried that they're, that they, you know, they start worrying about their own money. They're going to have to spend money regardless. You might win, but it's going to be, it's going to be nasty. Trump is going to have to- Well, Elon is having an event in Wisconsin this weekend where he hands out, what do you think? This is gonna turn me into Bernie. I'm literally turning into a Bernie bro.

It's like the inverse of, you know, there's the cartoon that makes fun of the far right wing nationalists who are like, if you keep calling me a Nazi, I'm gonna have to become a Nazi. And they're shaving their head and getting a Nazi tattoo. That's kind of like me.

Stop the oligarchy. Yeah, if Elon keeps handing out $1 million checks to people to go out and vote, like it's going to turn me into a Bernie bro. Like I'm going to be wearing a field of burnt tea on the pod pretty soon. But yeah, I mean, that's really gross. But again, so it's like, if Elon puts 10 plus million, it's going to be close to 20th by the end in a Wisconsin court race, and then they lose anyway. Then it's like, Oh man, maybe your money isn't as scary as we thought. Make him spend it everywhere.

Yeah. Make it fun. That's good. And then in the Florida six, just to talk about that, cause we talked about Wisconsin yesterday, you know, this race also it's going to have house members, there's this big bill coming up. This is why at least as it's come back, they have this tiny majority. They want to extend the Trump tax cuts, they want to codify

all these gross Doge cuts, you know, they want to do, like this is their big bill, they don't have much wiggle room. And if this house race, even if it's close, like even if it's just close, it's going to make some of these guys, like the Mike Lawlers you mentioned, be like, I don't know, I don't want to put myself out there. In this race, there's a lot of things that are kind of working in the Democrat guy's favor. This guy, Randy Fine, is a horrible, I mean, he's like a disgusting specimen. And they all know it too.

If you read the news stories on them, they all know he's not a good candidate. He's not doing the work. And he's in a fight with DeSantis. So there's like, so the Republican base is not excited. It's already depressed, right? Democratic base is. So I'm not really hopeful for a win, but I think even a close loss is meaningful. And again, if you know people, you know, go and check them out.

Or just anything that isn't close to Trump's margins, right? Like Trump blew the seed out. If this is like less than 10 points, I think the Democrats should really shove it in their face. Yeah, for sure. So, Josh Weil, if you know somebody over there, spent some time at Daytona Beach, I gotta tell you, not great. Not my favorite city in America, but you could surprise me, Daytonans. Come out and show me what you got. Amanda, do you have any final thoughts for everybody going into the weekend?

No, just everybody take care of yourself. I think I've said this pretty consistently. It's like always my mantra. Like this is going to be a long four years. I do think because I am optimistic about our ability to overcome it, but I do think right now through summer, if things go well, will be the hardest time, right? Like this is, this should be the hardest time. Pete Slauson That is optimism. I'm not the hardest time. That is optimism. I'm not feeling that, but great. I hope you're right.

If we put in the work now, draw attention to the right issues. You have to fight now to survive later. Put in the work now and then rest up, be ready to go the distance. The best athletes take care of themselves all the way to go to the Olympics. You can't get a sprained ankle now. So do what you need to do. Fight hard, fight healthy. All right. Yeah, you want a hot body, you got to put in the work, you know, Amanda? That's true.

It's just how it is. All right, everybody. You have a good weekend. We'll be back here as good as you can, you know. We'll be back here Monday with Bill Kristol. We'll see you all then. Peace. From what I understand So I come up big long I think I could have been your man We watch the surfers as they. on the Strip Ah, Daytona City Long hair's the wise, I like your style We both ain't got a job

I've got a job I haven't seen my band in a while At least nothing seems to last that long So hit the road, big man Take me home to Mississippi The The Borg Podcast is produced by Katy Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.