The Bulwark Podcast - S2 Ep1012: Sam Stein: Elon Is Toxic

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Musk was so high on his own supply that he thought he and his money were magic—but Wisconsin voters turned out in droves to prove to him just how toxic his brand and DOGE are. Meanwhile, the Dem base is looking highly engaged as they keep showing up for special elections in numbers Republicans used to deliver in off-cycle races. Plus, Cory Booker's epic filibuster, Mike Johnson gets owned by moms, and China will fill all the vacuums Trump is creating in science, foreign aid, and trade. Sam Stein joins Tim Miller.

Hello and welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Bullwork After Dark tonight. I'm here with the Bullwork's managing editor, Sam Stein. We are taping right after the very professional call of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race made by the decision desk HQ, Dave Wasserman and others. Yeah. And I got an early flight tomorrow and Sam's kid has a tick in his or her head. His.

Thank you for the revelation. It was not enjoyable pulling that thing out. Hope I got it all. So we're doing a late night taping tonight. So buckle up everybody. We're punchy. All right. Listener, you might

think that, you know, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, is that really worth it? Is that really a late night taping thing? Is that something I should care about? Let me tell you, if you have any doubts, I want to play for you, one of the world's richest men discussing the Supreme Court race just the other day. They think it's, well, it's just, you know, some kind of judicial thing. That's not that important. But actually, what's happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the US House of Representatives. That is why it is so significant.

And whichever party controls the House, to a significant degree, controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization. So it's like, I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it's going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will. Yeah. Susan Crawford, the Democrat-aligned judge.

You are affecting all of humanity, the destiny of humanity. Sam, what do you make of it? Good. Good. Did you hear the guy screaming at him? No pressure. No pressure. Do you feel like Western civilization was on the line in Waukesha County tonight?

I mean, I personally did not, but maybe I'm happy it is, right? We get a little bit of, as Elon sees it, we get a little bit of a turn here. I'm happy with that we're turning civilization in a new direction. Are you not? I'm happy. I'm happy that Elon's sad and it felt a little overwrought to me. Just a little, just a touch. Destiny, are all of our destiny settles on this Wisconsin Supreme Court race, this race that Elon heard about maybe, you know, four weeks

ago and decided, you know, I'm going to put 20 million in there. Yeah. I think that there are a couple of things that are really important about the race that, that may be a little short of, you know, civil, Western civilization, but, uh, but I think are pretty important. Number one is Elon Musk. Can not just go buy races. And I think that there were people, particularly on the left, particularly for grasshoppers,

I had some folks who've come up to me that are like very worried about just elections going forward, Elon monkeying with it, the Twitter, the bots, the amount of money that he has. If you can't buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, then it's gonna be very much more challenging to buy bigger races. It's not like you can't buy any race, but I think that it is.

Let me stop you there because I hear you, but what happens in a race where there isn't such donor enthusiasm on the democratic side, right? Like the actual total amount of money was relatively matched in this race, but you know, there's hundreds of races, hundreds in the, in the cycle. Sure. Could he steal a random marriage race somewhere? Sure.

To me, I think that Elon, Elon is not magic. He does not have scary magical powers. Like he is not able to manipulate the vote, the machines. Here's what he is. He's just a man. If anything he's toxic. That's what I was going to say. He backfired.

I think Elon's money, like I think probably, which we'll get to next, because the nature of the backlash against Trump and the nature of how these special elections work and the nature of the coalitions, Susan Crawford was probably going to be the favorite no matter what. But I think Elon was a net negative on this this, even including the 20 million that he put in and

the $2 million bribes that he gave to random Twinks, college Republican Twinks yesterday. I think even in spite of that, I think he was a net negative. Oh yeah. I'm a little bit surprised that they had him show up, honestly. If I were the Republican party in Wisconsin, you know, I would have said, thank you, I'll take your check, but can you just, you know, maybe like not come to the state? His numbers are terrible.

And frankly, I think a lot of these races are way more referendums on him and Doge than they are on Trump. And so I feel pretty strongly that he was a net negative in a serious way tonight. So I think that is important going to the midterms because Elon is not going to disappear. You know, it's not as if I was on with John Halleman earlier and John said, I think rightly, I don't object to this observation, but he's saying that the Republicans in the House who are up in tough races and swing districts are hoping that a rebuke of Elon will get them to chill out and go away. That ain't happening.

Or maybe to get Trump to push them away, right? Maybe Trump looks at... That's all I've done. That's what Johnathan Martin was talking about. I don't think that happens because of the money, honestly. But that was the premise of this Jonathan Martin story, which is like they want Trump to say, ooh, this is not good.

And you know, maybe that's like the nice side benefit from this race. And then Trump is like, you know what? We gotta kick you onto the curb. I don't see it happening, but it doesn't mean that there aren't people who aren't hoping it happens. Yeah, I agree with that.

So Elon, being toxic, I think is an important takeaway from the race. Another important takeaway, as Elon mentioned his speech, so there's one thing he got right, is I do think we'll see, like Wisconsin has a really terrible gerrymander, having a four, three democratic Supreme Court might make a difference in that.

It might make a difference as far as the house of representatives is concerned. I don't, I frankly don't think the household represents will probably be that close in the next, in the next midterm, but, um, that's meaningful in the micro. But if it were, this would help. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I think that's meaningful in the micro. A turnout is pretty good.

It was not quite as good. It's just seen yet. I mean, it's like, we haven't obviously counted the votes in Wisconsin yet, but it doesn't look like it's proto-Sawitz kind of, like, which was the big post-Roe Supreme Court race there, but like pretty good turnout from the Democrats there, and then we'll get to Florida. And so I think that is also encouraging. And I think those are all, and it happened in obviously a state that's going to be very important in the future. And I think this also affirms something that we've been talking about a long time around here, which is like that these coalitions have totally flipped.

And the old Obama era situation where Democrats did better in midterms and in special elections, excuse me, where Republicans did better in midterms and special elections, and Democrats did better in general elections, like that has totally flipped. And there's this hilarious kind of irony kind of, it might not be funny for some people, but the Wisconsin also passed a voter ID tonight. And I really don't think people have internalized. I think it's a very small minority of people

that internalize the fact that voter ID, whether or not you think it's a good policy, probably helps Democrats now. It used to help Republicans, and I think it probably helps Democrats now. It's much closer to a wash now. Yeah, I mean, I think Democrats are still wary of it because of the effect it might have on African American voters.

But you are right in that the Democrat coalition is way more heavily tilted now than it was, I don't know, eight years ago on educated and engaged voters who are much more likely to have ID. And that is, you know, that's what we're seeing throughout these special elections and probably what we'll see in the midterms is that people who are engaged politically are going to vote democratic and they're coming out. The only hope that Republicans have is that they can nationalize all this stuff and bring out these Trump voters.

But that's really hard. Like on special elections or random Supreme court races, as we've seen tonight. All right. There's some specials in Florida that Republicans won, but there's some also, some maybe green shoots for Democrats. In Florida one, your favorite candidate, Gaye Valamont, she lost by 15 to Jimmy Petronas. She ran against Matt Gaetz in that district and she lost that by 32.

This is like the Florida panhandle. This is a redneck Riviera, Florida Bama. Yeah. This is a, this is district Trump Trump one by I believe 37 points. It's pretty red. And you know, somebody named gay, if only she was named gay, if only she was named gay, Hussein Voldemort, then we would really be in business. She's pretty close to being named gay Voldemort and she ran to the panhandle

and she, she only lost by 15. Honestly, there should be some clause in the Florida constitution where if your name is gave all the more and you come that close, you get to co-serve. You can't run with that name. We respect you. It's great. I'm happy for you. I respect the gays and I respect gay, but it's just really hard.

And I think you should get 15 points a 50% points The long version of a female the female gay gay lord is the male version of a male Atris I don't believe it's gay at risk. No, I don't think what are we doing? It is a late-night podcast gay I apologize. I apologize gay I don't mean to do a scambia County Pensacola 22% more dim Surrounding ones also about that. This is why I was tied into gay Voldemort.

No Democrat apparently has won a Scambia County for president since 1960. I learned that on Twitter tonight, but gay won it. Gay flipped it. Gay lean, which makes sense for the plan handle. That'd be gay lean. She leans gay. Lesbian Voldemort. That'd be gay lean. She leans gay. Yeah In Voldemort, okay over in Florida six and and you know a similar demographic over in Daytona Beach Mike Waltz

Won that district by 33 in the election 24 Randy Fine. There's a fucking piece of work Yeah, he's a Republican. He won by 14 over Josh. Wilde is a math teacher so neither of those reasons end up being that close. 15 point loss for gay, 14 point loss for Josh, Josh Wilde. But like that does not bode well and explains why at least Stefanik got pulled out. There was some chatter last week that Randy Fine was in trouble, but the chatter was mostly generated from Republicans hoping to two things. One, set expectations and two, get as

many national resources or attention on this race as possible. Because again, it goes back to can you nationalize the race? Can you get those Trump voters engaged? And I think they succeeded in that, but then you step back and say, wait a second, that's like a 15 to 16 point swing. And I will note, I thought the data points are actually more interesting in the micro in that they were breaking each county's in these districts. The swing was universal. It was uniform. It wasn't like, oh, there was just larger turnout in the more educated counties and

less turnout. No. Every single county was moving in the democratic direction about the same percentage points and to me that I think is way more significant than anything else because it signifies that This is just an across-the-board frustration or you know anger towards Trump that we're seeing manifested That is why people like Elise Stefano cannot leave the house And I mean in Wisconsin obviously have obviously you have more of a, uh, kind of a diverse demographic, you actually have like white working class areas, black areas,

and Milwaukee college towns, uh, you know, than you do in kind of these red districts in Florida. And again, this stuff is still coming in right now, but as of now it was like 23 of 25 districts, Crawford did better, Earth County's rather Crawford did better than Kamala, you know, so almost across the board and then it was totally across the board in Florida. You know, the thing that jumps out to me, that special elections, because of this, of these coalitions we're talking about where the more

complicated it is to vote, you know, and the harder it is to get people to turn out to vote, the better it's going to be for Democrats, at least in the short term. So I think specials are even a little bit better than midterms will be for them. Just, just based on coalitions, obviously a bunch of stuff could happen between now and before another recession between and next November, you know, obviously there are other elements at play here, but I just look at this and it's like, okay. You know, and if they're going to run 19 points better in these districts, you know,

that brings in a lot of red areas into play. And I do think that like, this is my number one message to Democrats call me is I'm like, they should look at these, you know, R plus 10, 12, 13, 14 districts and try and try to get some surprise. I think that there could be some surprise wins. Or at least make, make Elon spend a few, you know, bucks. Get people running. Civilization is dependent on all these things, you know.

This is why we did the run for something episode. It is less dire in these areas than I think the conventional wisdom is. I think Democrats have some huge structural problems, particularly in the Senate and these red States, but in local elections up through Congress, congressional elections, I don't know. Right. I mean, the Senate, the Senate's like a totally different conversation. Here's what I think about this is one is that I know that the run for something people have

seen is stark engagement. So I think people are jazzed to is there's been this sort of talk and I know Lauren Egan is going to address this in her newsletter that comes out Wednesday night about how well the democratic brand is so damaged and people like Democrats like like how the party is going to, you know, never resuscitate itself. But that data point is bunk. Like, I just think people need to get over that data point. Like we were there with Republicans a while ago. These things are cyclical and also people, this is really just referendum on Trump and

Elon. And then three is that- Thermostatic polarization, Sam, you know. Oh yes, that's a more technical way to talk about it. And three is that Like you do need to challenge every race and the reason you do is because Even if you don't win them all you have to sort of create a bench for future races and I'm reminded of how in 2009 and 2010 you were there I mean like Obama had 60 Senate seats, like the house majority was massive.

All the state houses were Democratic. It felt like, and then he just lost it all. I was working in Iowa then. So I was thinking of like Dave Loebsack. It's like this random like super left professor at Iowa ends up beating Leach who had been there forever, who had been a Republican, had been there forever. You know, so you win surprising places. Like that race didn't even have any ads in it.

And this guy wins. No. And yeah, and they will, and they'll be shocked at the races that they actually win. And you just run for it and you hope for the best. And sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle. Yeah. One last thing, and I've been meaning to mention this because it's relevant as a local perspective for Louisiana.

People wouldn't have noticed this. Civilization did not rest on these four amendments that we voted on here in Louisiana last week in the special election. But the Republican governor, Jeff Landry, was pushing these kind of changes to the constitution. They're on taxation and legal issues. And they're kind of arcane, except for the tax element.

The rest of them were pretty arcane. But there was a big push from Democrats and activist groups here in Louisiana that was just like, vote no on them all y'all. And there was like a little ad campaign around it. Just vote no, no to Jeff Landry, no to what he wants, F him. Basically it was the campaign. Like there wasn't even a ton of education on like what the actual ballots were. It was just like, say no to this, resist it.

And they got slaughtered. Like his ballot initiatives got slaughtered here, which in Louisiana. Well, it's a catchy phrase. It is a catchy phrase. Vote no to them all, y'all. All y'all. Yeah. Anyway, I think that there are obviously positive signs there, even here in deep red America.

Imagine what this podcast would have been like if Crawford lost. Well, it would have been kind of like the podcast is every other day. So it's not that hard to imagine. It'd been Tuesday. It would have been that hard to imagine. It's a fair point though to, you know, you shouldn't over interpret, but I just, like at this point, there's so many trends to this direction that it's like, okay. I agree with that.

I agree with that. Everyone's like, don't read into special actions, but no, I'm going to read it. Yeah. I want to read it to it. All right. What else are we going to fucking do? Or to talk about Cory Booker. Let's talk about Cory.

Cory Booker. Boy, he hit the record for a filibuster record long filibuster. I didn't think he could do it just kind of bladder wise. Like when I, Cory didn't, what's the longest you've gone without peeing. Well, you know, I've got that dog inside of me, Sam. So probably, probably a lot. Probably a lot. I just, that's why I kind of feel like I'm a little made of sterner stuffed and Corey, I was wrong. Corey, Corey surprised me.

What was the final number? Are you going to 25, 25 hours plus record filibuster. I have some thoughts on it, but let's play a couple clips. Let's first play a hand talking about kind of the moral moment. This is an American moral moment. This is the question of where do we stand for healthcare? Where do we stand for social security? Where do we stand for VA benefits? Where do we stand for our American neighbor when the call and commandment of every faith in our land is to love your neighbor? What is the quality of our love America? Now is the time to get angry but let that anger fuel you. Now is your time to get scared

for what's happening to your neighbors and let that fear break about your courage. Now is your time to stare at despair and say you will not have the last word because I'm gonna stand up and at least I can give one person hope in this country. Can I give one person hope in this country? And so what do I want from my fellow Americans? Do better than me.

Do better than we in this body. That's a low bar. We are flawed and failed people. I see people showing up at our town halls yelling at us, Democrat and Republican, do more. How are you letting this happen? Well, I hate to tell you we're doing all that I can think of. This is why I'm standing here to try to give voice to those people.

But what is more needed from now is less people sitting on the sidelines. I think that was in like hour 22 or 23. You can come hear his voice going, his mouth's a little dry. And so just like being able to summon that kind of spirit at that hour is pretty impressive. And, you know, I think there's like a tendency to want to go into from us and pundit world, like go into figure skating judging on this and for me it's just like man he's trying to get people going will it work i don't know like will it land with people will land with just one person i don't know but i think that it is like at least being responsive to this thing that we've been talking about a lot which is like there is a demand

out there for people to say fuck this like like come on like we can do that we've been talking about a lot, which is like, there is a demand out there for people to say, fuck this. Like, come on, like we can do that. We can fight this. Like it is not, don't despair. And he was at least being at minimum and maybe more than this. He was being responsive to that demand. Well, look, I think, and I'm going to try to articulate this in a way that makes sense. Clearly voters want Democrats, Democratic voters want Democratic lawmakers to do more. I will say also that it's clear to me that there's not really much more that Democratic lawmakers can technically do that would stop what Trump and Musk are doing, right? In order for them to make that point to voters that really the power to resist and oppose musk and trump

rests in collective action and public action Something like this had to happen Cory Booker or someone had to make a personal sacrifice a historic personal sacrifice in this case To say look I get it. I'm doing this. It's not going to do anything like it's not going to stop a piece of legislation. It's not going to cause Republicans all the day. One less day, one less day. Yes. And maybe, and look, maybe, you know, the next step, Chris Murphy should get up

and take the baton and do one more day, right? Like you can make the case, but it's not going to ultimately lead to, you know, something not passing that could have passed otherwise. Maybe maybe Republican lawmakers move by, but that's about it. But he in order for him to make the case to people that look, you are where the power of resistance lies, he had to make a sacrifice along these lines. And I watched not all of it. I watched a decent amount of it. And I thought he succeeded in that. And I thought the last hour especially was a really remarkable, considering how exhausted he must have been, really remarkable weaving

of history of the civil rights movement and all that and his own life experiences into the current political moment that we are in. And I have people who I've, you know, sources now who've, federal workers who have been in contact with me for weeks, you know, total despair among these people, especially today. And we can, we'll get into it. I know, uh, because there's so many cuts today, you know, they, they, they lost their jobs today and they're in a lot of hoods and they were just like, I'm sobbing watching this. Like he's channeling everything I feel right now watching this. And that's all you really can ask for, right? Like in politics is doing that is channeling people's emotions and directing it into something constructive and good. And I think you accomplish

it. I agree. And you're making a good point about like, who is the target here, audience for this. And a lot of ways really, it is people that are anti-Trump, right? I mean, they're Democratic partisans or maybe not, but they're anti-Trump and anti what Musk is doing. And they are looking for somebody to be a leader, to channel their energy, to demonstrate sacrifice, to encourage them to get off, like all the things that you said, like, right? And I think a lot of times when people get into the analysis of this sort of stuff, it's like, well, this went over the swing voter and walk a shot. It's like, no, it's not going to win over the fucking swing. Obviously not. But like that isn't the only objective. Like that is one objective of politics. It's one thing people need to do, but there are

other like elements of this. You know, there's the legislating element, there's the leadership element, there's the motivation element. And so I agree with you. I think he's successful in that regard. I want to play one other clip that just kind of gets into the core of what the substantive policy critique was he was offering. I asked you, are you better off than you were 72 days ago economically? I asked that question. Ask it to your friends. Are they better off economically? Well, I don't see how they could be because prices are up, stock market's down, the risk of recession is climbing, consumer confidence is in the gutter, 401K plans are getting losing value. Are you better off than you were 72 days ago under this president's leadership on the verge of his so-called liberation day that's going to drive prices up even more? Again, this is another

example of like something we've been talking about. It's tough. The strategists are all like, pivot to kitchen table issues. And it's like hard, right? Because how do you get attention for that? Well, like this is a way to get attention for it, right? And think while I've been banging for more kind of emotional reaction from the Democrats on some of this, on the democracy stuff and the deportations and all that, this is a way to get into the economic issue. And I think in a way that is pretty compelling, that speaks to the political opportunity for Democrats, which is what are people getting out of this? I think that is a better framing than being like,

our egg prices are up, or trying to troll around that. It's like, no, it's like, have you gotten anything out of this? You also don't want to hook it to one thing, but yeah, I think that's right. What have you gotten out of this? And in fact, what have you lost out of this? There was that, and then there was

the last anecdote he told, again, I thought the close was really remarkable, but the last anecdote he told, which was his personal story as we've through what's happening to NIH and science. He's talking about Alzheimer's research. And he's like, what is more unobjectionable than funding Alzheimer's research? Like we all know it's a scourge.

We all have loved ones or relatives or friends more terrible than funding Alzheimer's research. Like we all know it's a scourge. We all have loved ones or relatives or friends who've been affected by this horrible, horrible disease. We have a role. We have a bipartisan role to solve this stuff. And yet here we are cutting this research, retarding our progress on this stuff. And why? For what? We can say that again well that was not in the negative sense the pejorative way way to go fuck you I was what was

I think so yeah and then and then he's talked about being with his father who was suffering from Parkinson's or something I don't I want to be I'm sorry if I'm being inaccurate here and having to walk him to a bathroom so that he could urinate and having to help him take down his pants and all that stuff. And it was just like, oh my God, you know, you talked about kitchen table issues and that it's not what we can conventionally call kitchen table issue because it's not about, you know, the price of groceries and stuff. But goddamn, you talk about that stuff at the kitchen table, right? Like everyone talks about it at the kitchen table. And look, you might be right about the intended audience, but there was another intended audience, I do believe, and that was the Republican senators who were

in the chamber or maybe just watching who have worked on this stuff with him in the past and who might say, you know what, like, what are we doing? What just say your question? What are we doing here? Like, come on. Maybe that was the audience, but I think they should focus. He should focus on a guy. Okay. Like let's just, let's, we're getting a little high on our own supply here. The Republicans, the scales have fallen from Ron Johnson's eyes tonight, Sam. I would say maybe not Ron John, but maybe Lisa Murkowski. Maybe Mitch McConnell. Maybe Dave Aldemore was watching. We don't know. I've got one other, just we have to do this because it's a political podcast. He's thinking

about running for president. Yeah, of course. I'm just sitting there. I'm just leaving that there. Aren't they all? That's a real thing. Isn't that basically a prerequisite for serving in the Senate? Yeah, but like, they're all thinking about it. Like, this is a real thing.

And, um, I don't know. I'm open to everybody. Everybody get out there. You're yawning already? We're seeing. We got a lot of time left. We got a lot of time left. All right, pull it together.

Pull it together. The people don't pay zero dollars for this podcast to have a yawning guest. Did I just lose this? No, I don't pay zero dollars for this podcast to have a yawning guest. Did I just lose this? All right. So Corey's going to run for president. It was pretty good. More is more.

More is more. I've got one other attaboy to a Democrat that I want to close with. So this is a very unusual podcast today. But first we got to do a little serious stuff. As you mentioned earlier, a total bloodbath today at HHS. Our new colleague, Jonathan Cohn, who's awesome and everybody should sign up at theborek.com for his newsletter if they haven't yet, has a new one out tonight, RFK Junior Guts, America's Health Bureaucracy. It's been a little hard for me to follow this because like a lot lot happened. I guess also before you tell us what we know, we've had amazing feedback from our listeners and viewers and readers who are in the government or friends who are.

We have a tip line, theborg.com slash tips. Folks have been sending it in. It's totally anonymous. If you or a friend were hit by these cuts, please tell us your story. Anyway, what have we learned so far? Just quickly on the tip line, I cannot stress enough enough We've gotten some great stories out of these tips like it's this is not just sort of like oh we want to get yours You guys are giving us great stuff. We genuinely appreciate it and and it's contributed to a lot of these stories so yeah today was probably about as devastating a day for our

Healthcare bureaucracies as anyone can remember in recent history, for sure. It had been previewed last Thursday. They were gonna cut roughly 10,000 positions from HHS, that's the Department of Health and Human Services, that oversees the FDA, the NIH, the CDC, other agencies. And today was the day. And I had scores of people showing up at work, getting an email saying,

you were sorry you're being put administrative leave and you no longer have access to the building. And that's that. And it was really sort of indiscriminate in a way. I mean, well, I guess not indiscriminate, but it was just, a lot of people had trouble figuring out like what the actual upshot was. It wasn't just administrative leaders,

like that was clearly part of it, but there were top, top scientific officials who were just like, oh, like for instance, the acting director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. He we got an email from a tipster. Thanks again. Unexpectedly placed administratively. He had 20 year career as a researcher and a leader at the NIH. He was just gone.

And, and Cohn tracks a lot of this other stuff. I mean, it's like Lie Heap, Head Start, Food Inspectors, you know, they were all just cut and- CMS, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Yeah, and it's hard to put your head around just like how big an impact this actually will have. But he did quote Wendy Armstrong, when we read this, Director of director of infectious disease at the University of

Colorado, your old neck of the woods. We've had a lot of devastating days, but this is really unfathomable. Armstrong said, it's astounding. It will affect patients with all kinds of different kinds of infections, and Americans will suffer and people will die. And that's a horrible thing to see coming. It's bad. And I will just add that part of the subtext stuff here, maybe it's not even the subtext, is that RFK is just like trying to reinvent basically how we do health in this country.

And he's installed people who have deep skepticism of the health bureaucracies. And they have a lot of political support. I will say that. I had a lot of people on my feed being like, thank God, go for it, cut more. But I think it's objectively, you can say it's a head in the sand approach to how we do this stuff.

Jonathan interviewed Kevin Griffiths, who is an old spokesperson for the CDC. He was actually there for part of the time that RFK had been installed at HHS, and he told Jonathan that RFK, as long as he was there, never attended a briefing on measles, even though there's a measles outbreak that has been happening. Subject matter experts at the CDC had briefed RFK one time by the time he left, but it wasn't on measles.

Avian Fu, same thing. And we're just in a place where the heads of these agencies have distrust in science and don't seem particularly concerned all that much about the real problems that they are facing in the current moment. Yeah, I don't need the political element of this in a second, but like the real substantive health and effect, particularly on the research side, to me is the thing that I just keep coming back to it here. And there are a lot of terrible

stories, but like, as we get these stories on the tip line and I'm reading them, like the ones that jump out to me are always like, like we're in the middle of a 20 year study on this, on whatever it is, you know, diabetes or specific type of cancer or whatever. And that is stuff that is not easily remediated by like some rich guy, you know, coming in and doing it or the private sector obviously coming in and doing it. Right. That is not like some of this other stuff, which is maybe patchable. You know, it's like this is we're F'd, you know, and like maybe Europe starts to do more and but like all that takes a lot of time and there's real sufferings. Oh, no, no, yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

I mean, look, in each budget's what $30 billion, we're not going to get rid of all of it. But let's say we do cut five, 7 billion. There's not some dude waiting around being like, you know what, I want to fund that random study on, you know, some, you know, chromosomal issue or something that just doesn't happen. And particularly rare diseases or things like, you know, yeah. And if, and people are like, well, can't the private sector step in? And the answer is no.

I mean, in theory, they could, but their motivation is profit. They're not going to fund long shot. What if it's a thing that only 12 people get a year? You know what I mean? Like there are all these rare types of things. Well, so even if it works out for them, they're not in the business of funding Longshot, you know, go to the moon type initiatives. They want to fund something that can get them profit in five, 10, 20 year horizons.

And so then the real only funding mechanisms are foreign countries. And the honestly to God, the people I talked to, the only foreign country who's got the money to come in and get this done is China. And across the board, every single, I mean, it's on trade, it's on science, it's on foreign aid. Every single vacuum that we're creating, that Trump's creating, China will fill. And it is the theme of the first two and a half months so far. Well, CNN has a story about how China has launched some large-scale military drills

from multiple directions around Taiwan this evening. So you know, great. So in addition to that, handing over a lot every all of the soft power, maybe the hard power might be coming for us as well. Do you see any direct political thing? I mean, the CDC, not to just be rank politics here, but like CDC, like there is a lot of these jobs are in Georgia. There's been a big Senate race there. I don't know. I mean, you know, we hear from people there are placed

in a lot of places in the country, the Virginia governor's race. I don't know. I mean, yes and no. Yeah. The CDC cuts will, will impact Georgia in that. And, and Ossoff was talking about that for instance, and then the research stuff that Booker mentioned, I mean, I think that does have resonance with some folks. Bill Cassidy, who facilitated a lot of this, thank you, Bill, and Bernie Sanders, whom helmed the committee that oversees the stuff, have asked RFK to come and explain what the hell's going on. But do you really expect Bill Cassidy to be like, you know what, I got this one wrong?

And no, this shit's like whatever cliche you want to have the horses out of the barn on this stuff. And, um, I don't know how much this is a political issue per se. Like I think when you do start capping grants to state universities for biomedical research, that becomes a jobs issue in your, in local states. And Katie Britt obviously had that happen. She objected. So we'll see, but I think it's one of those things that like maybe a little bit too esoteric for people to vote on. Though maybe, and I guess there's a macro economic thing. I want to get deeper on economic stuff

on tomorrow on Thursday's pod, because it will be on the heels of liberation day. I want to talk about liberation data. So I do think that just this combination of this kind of quasi government austerity, it's kind of like haphazard austerity policies of the government with the tariffs, like it does contribute broadly to the economy. So anyway, um, liberation dude's going forward with it. You excited?

We've had a running kind of debate between me and you. You've thought it was all smoke and mirrors. How long do you think these are going to last? What are you taking? I think he's bought in, man. Like, these guys, these guys, and I, well, it's hard to pull back from the rationale they have. They think that this is central to their vision for the golden age of America. And, um, I don't know, man, that'd be your former colleagues at Politico reporting that a lot of people around the president and vice president don't

really get it or understand, but like they, they want to go big. And so, you know, I don't know. I think they're going big. What do you think? You going big or are they faking it tomorrow? I know they'll go big tomorrow. And then in the next week, we'll have it is funny. They're doing it.

They moved it so that the announcement is a four o'clock. Because they don't they don't want what they didn't want was the image of like talking and then the ticker going down, down, down, you know, they don't want that meme. So this is not their first rodeo. Uh, no, my prediction is they'll, they'll put them in place and then sometime next week we'll have some sort of, um, carve outs that have been negotiated strategically by Donald Trump. And then we'll be like, Oh yeah, you really scored a victory, Mr. President.

And that's that you already seen a little bit of this, some pre-degotation. BB was out tonight. What did BB say? He said, today we canceled all of the customs duties levied on products from the U S Israel's largest trading partner. So it's kind of like a no, don't reciprocal me. Donald, I assume we get a couple of those others from his other friends, like the autocrats throughout the world.

I mean, we'll see Ardawan or whoever. What about the guy in El Salvador? Yeah. But Kelly, well, I mean, his economy is based on Bitcoin. So I don't do we, do they tear Bitcoin in prison with Bitcoin? So anyway, we'll, we'll see more of that. The funniest pre amble to this for me is have you seen the, uh, there's already some knives out for Howard Lutnick.

Yeah, I saw that. That was great. Like if this fails, it's on Howard knives out for Howard Lutnick. Yeah, I saw that. That was great. Like if this fails, it's on Howard. Oh yeah. Cause like, yeah, Lutnick, it's the commerce secretary. It's the comms problem. Right? It's like, if it fails, it's Trump.

It is funny because he is like this little chihuahua of a man and he's like, you can kind of see him as like, to me, I imagine him like, I imagine him and Trump, everything is high school really. I imagine him and Trump back at boarding school. Trump was whatever the baseball player and Lutnick was like the millhouse who kept running around trying to please him. Like, yeah, Donald, yeah, whatever you want Donald.

And there is like a little bit of that energy from him. And I could see how that maybe grates on the colleagues. But I don't think Lutnick was the master master manipulator behind the terror, the liberation day. I gotta be honest. London, London cracks me up. Honestly, cause he's out there and he's like, he's convinced himself that the best thing that he can possibly do is just be like the most ubiquitous salesperson possible, but he keeps saying things that are like really bad, such

as, Oh, I don't know if anyone should squeal if they lose their social security for a week. Like, come on, dude. So, you know, the fact that he's done all this stuff and is, you know, out there all the time for Trump and then still is going to have to fall on the X when this stuff hits the fan. I think it's poetic in a way. Yeah. That'd be six round. Well, I think we's poetic in a way. Yeah, I'll be six round that's you know We should have well, I think we should have a little game between waltz and him They seem like the most likely first first you will be fired via bleat and I guess I'll take waltz I think waltz kind of lasts less long than like for me, but I don't know. It's tough call and once there's still there's like a

Drip drip here, but the terrorists can I mean terrorists it goes out once there's still, there's like a drip drip here, but the terrorists can, I mean terrorists, it goes out through the fast lane. When they go south. It's going to get bad. And then like, you know, I like Scott Bessent. I think he's my dark horse for potential. See ya.

Yeah, we can't have, you know, let's see, you got to make the gay, the fall man, not gay Voldemort, gay Besson. If people are as obsessed as I am with, while the stock market continues to go down, worst quarter since 2022 and worst months since 2022, Newsmax's stock skyrocketed. Me and JBL did a whole 20 minute breakdown on this on YouTube. People should just go check this out. What was your conclusion? My conclusion is basically there are a couple of options.

One is that there is, that there's a, that that's a troll. There's like a meat, it's a Wall Street bets type situation. And there is like a meme stock troll thing. It's being driven up by people on various whatever discords and people in crypto worlds. But why would they do that? Because it's funny to make the LLs. Here's the problem. Here's the why they would do it.

This is the whole of that theory is that unlike some of those other stocks, meme stocks, like Chris Ruddy, who's the owner of Newsmax owns like 80% of the stock. So like all they're doing is making him rich. So that's the whole net theory, which takes me to, you know, corruption. Like either there's some kind of backroom deal. I mean, Ruddy is a Mar-a-Lago member is in there with Trump a lot. And there's a lot of similarities to the coin. Maybe there's some other rich people, some foreigners that are pumping it.

Like it's just a rug pole. But usually like you have some sort of like, you know, like big show around it. And you try to get a lot of interest in it, but they really didn't do that. I know. But that leads you to the theory that, you know, there's some whales out there that are driving it up and then it's like, there was a bet that like retail would get behind it because people would be like, Oh, this is a hot bet right now to like bet on MAGA media, but it's crazy.

It's like, it's easy. It's a declining industry. It's cable crazy. It's like, it's easy. It's a declining industry. It's cable news. It's in a declining industry. And every macro trend suggests that MAGA media is struggling right now. Yeah. And they're worth more than 50% more than News Corp right now.

Like in total market value. Anyway, go watch the whole video. The thing is, it's fucking insane though. It's an insane story. And, uh, you know, they'll probably, they'll probably be a Michael Lewis book about it at some point. I bought some at the IPO, by the way. Did you?

How much are you up? Can I tell you something? I'll have a little more admission on this. During COVID, I started messing around with meme stocks and all that during COVID to fit in with the bros. And I did this. I made a bet. Some of my colleagues will kill me if they know which company it is, so I won't say.

I made a very small bet on a conservative media company, like went after Trump won the last time because I was like, for the same reason, like, oh, I guess they'll do well. And it tanked. I don't know. I lost like 400 bucks on it or something. You know? So it wasn't a successful bet for me. So the theory of the case was right.

I was just early, as is always the case on my failed investment opportunities. No Annapurna funds over here. Two more things. I know you're not exactly the Cory Booker of this podcast. You're not wanting to do a full 24 hours. I can go. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, lost an internal battle with Annapurna Luna. Yeah.

It's kind of like a new hotness in the house. I think it's taken away from the Lauren Boebert MTG. She's kind of the rising star. Female star. Yeah, female star. The details are a little less interesting. The short of this is that she wanted proxy voting for new mothers. Yeah.

And Johnson and Nemo said basically no. So they had the rule on, you know, the rules that govern the house going for a vote today. And, and Aluna convinced seven other Republicans, I guess, in the Democrats. Yeah. Yeah. Nine others, eight others. Eight shoes. Okay. To go along with this and devote it, vote the rule down. And so, and then Mike Johnson just was like, okay, fine. And took his ball and went home and now the house is now closed for the week. And it's like these, I wanted to bring this up, because it's kind of funny that Mike Johnson got owned by Annapoli and Aluna, but it's also just like, I think it bears mentioning, I guys haven't focused on this enough on the pod. The house has done nothing. Oh,

like we're on April 1st and they've like literally done nothing. I mean they continued the last year's budget. They got the government funding bill. Yeah, that was it. I think the details on this actually are not unimportant. I kept asking Joe Perticon, like why the fuck do they care about proxy voting for new mothers? Like in what world is this a hill that they need to die on? Like what does Mike Johnson actually care about proxy voting for new mothers. In what world is this a hill that they need to die on? What does Mike Johnson actually care about?

He's like, oh, they think it's unconstitutional. It's like, Mike Johnson proxy voted. What do we also unconstitutional? Look around. We're deporting people who are innocent to El Salvador and not giving them due process rights. This is the constitutional line that Mike Johnson is going to freak about. And it just didn't, I just couldn't wrap my head around why this was such a big deal.

And I still don't really get it. So then why did they just shut down the house for the week then? I don't like it. Well, then he was like, well, because we have to now consider this discharge petition and it's going to, you know, take up all the business and we can't really consider any other thing else. And it's like, dude, it's just take the L just do the proxy voting. It's unfathomable to me. The point for me is like they have one job kind of, which is to pass a reconciliation

bill, right? Like to pass, to extend Trump's tax cuts and to codify whatever cuts from Doge they want and to like do all like they're going to do all that in one bill. And to me, it feels like they've done nothing. Like they've made very little progress. Yeah. They control all of Washington. They've handed everything over to Trump. So this also goes to the constitution thing.

It's like your constitutional line is, is, is proxy voting. But meanwhile, it's like you've, you've completely seeded all of the power of the legislative branch to the executive. You're like, you can just King Trump. Like the whole thing is bizarre. It's stupid. Clowns. Okay.

I want to do a shout out to me for representative Glenn Ivy. No Maryland. Oh, not to you. Oh, come on to you. All I do is praise you. I just praise you. Good Ivy went on Fox on his douchebag, Will Cain's TV show. He was talking about the story with Kilmar Brega Garcia that I've been obsessing over. For starters, good on him for going on to Fox. I've heard some pretty dispiriting things, actually, since I began my rants over the past two days or three days about why Joe Rogan is out

there more on this than Democrats. And I thought that it was like, I was just assuming it was just caution. And I was like, well, if I may, if people such as me and Chris Hayes and other Favs, others have been out there than you, like, who've been doing this, like maybe a little light of fire under people's ass, like, oh, like we can do this. And to me, it actually seems more like there's, they're being actively discouraged from speaking out. This is my understanding. So that's, that's pretty dispiriting, but not Glen Ivy. Glen Ivy was on Fox and I just want to play a little bit of him with Will King. I prosecuted the crimes of illegal immigrants for eight years.

I locked up more people in my day than you ever did. So don't lecture me about not being passionate about prosecuting illegal immigrants. Today you write the laws. You do something wrong. No, no, no, no. I've done it. You haven't. Back up.

Today, Congressman, you write the laws. Congressman, today you don't prosecute the laws. you write the laws. Congressman, today, you don't prosecute the laws, you write the laws. In fact, I did a joint prosecution with Rod Rosenstein of MS-13 when he was the US attorney and I was the state's attorney. I've done this before, you have not. Don't sit there and lecture me about being passionate

about people breaking the law. I've done it, you have not. A plus, Glen Ivey. What was the distinction? Will Keynes trying to draw there. You write the law. I think we'll get it. It's trying to say you don't get any credit, sir. You don't get any credit for severed between prosecutor and your past life prosecuting these criminals. You don't give me credit for that. If you're not out there right now as a congressman supporting supporting these deportations Trump is doing, I guess. But when he goes on there, there's a longer clip, but he goes on there and they cut, there's like a boring section of the

clip. But again, there's some legal ease elements to this where Ivy is out there and he's basically saying, look, this is not how this works. Like, like this person was, you know, under, uh, you know, whatever temporary do not deport order. And like, you know, he has his wife and kid are citizens. Like if you wanted to have a deportation, there's a process to doing this is that you go to a judge and they're 30 days, you know, and Wilkins like, you know, like, what this is no, we need new, we need real tough guys who are just going to randomly deport people, you know, based on whims and sadism and like, I don't know, is he convincing to. And like, I don't know.

Is he convincing to be on Fox? I don't know. But I think it's better for people on Fox to hear, to A, hear the counter argument. Because, you know, again, if Joe Rogan can be compelled, maybe some Fox viewers can. So to hear the argument and B, to demonstrate the like, oh, you know, the Democrats aren't all just the people, the worst clips that you play on the five, you know, like there are Democrats that like actually made their career prosecuting gang members and can speak about that. And, you know, I think that that is a valuable use of time. So good on you, Glen Ivy. You got anything else on that? Absolutely. And I just like, yes, I've been on this, I've been beating this drum for a while now, but

like, you got to go on these places. Like what is the alternative? They're just going to paint you as a caricature and like, you know, every clip is going to be, you know, you transpose with like, you know, the border being overrun, whatever. And secondly, and we've talked a bit about this, but you know, it may not be a winning issue for Democrats, but it sure as hell is it may not be a winning issue for Democrats, but it sure as hell is not going to be a winning issue if you don't push the issue. You can't assume that like, it's just going to turn or that it's just going to go away.

And this was the Kamala Harris fallacy too. It's like, well, we don't want to talk about immigration because it's not a friendly turf. Well, it may be 80 20 Trump issue, but it's much better if it were a 60 40 Trump issue. You got to do these things. And so lean into it. Right. And I think I actually will, I'll shut up after this, but I do think, maybe I'm crazy that we're kind of hitting a tipping point here.

I mean, Rogan, the national review people, you know, some conservative immigration activists who are all like, you know what this, we probably do need due process here. What's going on? Those are cultural markers. And I think we actually would see more if Democrats went on these platforms and said, you know what, I've prosecuted MS-13 members. I know the dangers of gangs, but we can't fuck this up and ruin it all by deporting innocent people. It's a pretty easy argument in my book. Pete Slauson Same. And here's what I think about's the thing that they're worried about, which I get, because we're seeing this

from DHS right now, is putting out the fact that this, that Gabriel Garcia was part of a human trafficking ring. I've said this about every person I've brought up. I don't know. I don't know, because they didn't get due process. So I don't know. Maybe the makeup artist was like smuggling in fentanyl in their little, you know, MAC powder cases. I don't fucking know. I don't think so. It doesn't seem like it to me, but we could find out. So I think that there is a good reason for Democrats who are politicians who have a different role than me as a fucking blabber to like maybe not like lean all the way on a specific case because you don't want to be the guy

that's like, oh, turns out you were defending a human trafficker. We can fill that void, the commentariat and the advocacy groups and outside groups, and you can speak to the broad element of people are not for disappearing people off the street without a due process. That is what Rogan said. That is what the polls actually say. I think that folks can go out and do that. And so good on Glen Ivy for doing it.

I agree. Is it that hard to say, I don't necessarily support this person. I just want to make sure we're deporting the right people. Yeah. And that we're not wrongly sending people to a fucking concentration camp in El Salvador. All right. I told you a little less thing, but we have a bonus piece of audio. I want to leave people on a happy note. I want to leave people on a happy note. How often have I left people on a happy note? Katie, if I left people on a happy note one time since November, I can't recall. Maybe I have. Sometimes I- I'm sure you have.

Have I? Probably some- Maybe a shot in for you. Yeah. I've left people certainly on a laughter, a note of laughter, but pure joy? I don't think so. Do you still have that in your life? I do. I'm a father. My child doesn't have life-sorting.

You have tics. So, you know, I get to give her a good night hug tonight. I've got pure joy. I'm going to go to Coachella in a couple of weeks. That'll give me joy. I've got joy in my life. You know who else has joy in her life? Susan Crawford. Let's listen to her. But I've got to tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin. And we won!

And there it is. She beat Elan. That's good. She affected Western civilization itself. Western civilization is saved. Thanks to Susan Crawford. Good haircut too. Everything, the whole thing. It's a good vibe. It's a whole good person. There's so many Wisconsin haircuts in this video. You people, you got to check it out on YouTube. The audio listeners, these are happy cheeseheads. Sam Stein, thanks for staying up late with me,

brother. Thank you for having me. What a pleasure. What a pleasure. What a pleasure. Everybody else, happy Liberation Day. We'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bullard Podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace. Cause the fever mine is in your way No more tears till we cry And we have finally tried our act And we're moving on up Moving on up Lord have mercy we're moving on up Moving on up We're living proof in all's alert That we're two from the good black good And we're a winner And everybody knows it too

We just keep on pushing Like your leaders tell you to At last that blessed day has come And I don't care where you come from We're all moving on up Moving on up Lord have mercy, we're moving on up Moving on up

Hey, hey, we're moving on up Moving on up Lord have mercy, we're moving on up Moving on up, Lord have mercy we're moving on up Moving on up, I don't mind leaving here To show the world we have no fear, cause we're winners And everybody knows it too, we just keep on pushing Like your leaders tell you to At last that lesson day has come And I don't care where you come from

We just gonna move on up Moving on up Lord, how much we been moving on up Moving on up We just keep on pushing For a winner Lord, we ain't giving everybody Hey, we know we're moving on up The Bullork podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.