The Bulwark Podcast - S2 Ep1039: Amanda Carpenter: MAGA's Bad Week

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

First, the Vatican chose a Bulwark pope, not an AR-15 loving, immigrant-hating pope. Then, in a major blow to Steve Bannon, Trump pulled his nominee for U.S. attorney in D.C.—forcing the avid TV watcher in the Oval Office to turn to Fox News for the 23rd time to help fill his administration—this time with Jeanine Pirro. And in the North Carolina Supreme Court race, the Stop the Steal candidate finally conceded to his Democratic opponent seven months late. Plus, Trump is acting like a Soviet central planner, the reconciliation bill fight is starting to look ugly, and the economy proves yet again that it does not lie. Amanda Carpenter joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. Leave a comment show notes Tim's and JVL's 'Bulwark Take' on the new pope JVL's Triad on Pope Leo XIV Damon Linker's tweet about the elderly Fox viewer Linda McMahon's letter to Harvard Poster in Josh Hawley's dorm room Tim and Sam on Trump's fake trade deal with the UK Tim's playlist

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. One quick note once again for the Bulwark takes podcast feed. There's just so much crazy shit happening in the world, you know? And I taped a podcast yesterday morning on the protests, which I thought was very cute and important and a change of pace for what we're doing around here often. And then, you know, two minutes later we have an American pope that's crapped on JD Vance. So me and JVL got on, our house Catholic, you know, our house Catholic in good standing at least. And so, you know, if you wanted a quick response to what's happening when crazy stuff happens,

just go ahead and make sure to download the Bullock Takes Feed. And if you missed it yesterday, go listen to JVL because he's really great on this stuff. But we're going to do a little bit more on the Pope right here today. For those of you who are patient, who can wait 24 hours in this world, that's a good practice. And we've got a good guest for it. It's my old friend, a writer and editor at Protect Democracy and contributor to If You Can Keep It on Substack. It's Amanda Carpenter. What's up, Amanda?

Hey, happy Friday. Are we all feeling a little Catholic this morning? It's Friday. Well, you know, I mean, as a cradle Catholic, I got to tell you, we had some bumps. I had some bumps in the road with my Catholicism, but my little brother went to Villanova. Oh. It's an American pope. I saw multiple tweets about how it's a bulwark pope because he voted in the Republican primary in 2016, we have from the records, but he sent some quite negative tweets about Donald

Trump and JD Vance. So, we have a bulwark pope who went to Villanova, who's American. I don't know. I'm feeling about as Catholic as I've felt in a while. I'm ready to do some hymns from my childhood. Lauren Ruffin I know, I feel like I should congratulate you and JVL, although I am sort of like trying to adjust to the idea that we have a Pope who tweets or acts as active on social media. I mean, it's very cool. I think a lot of people are, you know, rightly excited. Yeah, and it's so strange. It does like bring home just, the Pope, even to me as a Catholic, as a kid, it just, it does feel so distant, right? It feels so distant and holy that like a creature that's like not quite human, like a little bit, like mostly human, but a little bit not. And then

all of a sudden, you have this Pope and like the pictures are going around and it's like, here he is at the deep dish pizza joint in Chicago. And like, here's his brother, who was, you know, watching cable and like came downstairs in the suburbs in Chicago to start talking about it. I don't know, the whole thing is a little surreal. I think that's good. It brings the humanity back to it, at least for those of us Americans. Yeah. And hopefully we think this one will be around a while. I feel like we've been through quite a few popes, like more popes than normal. They shouldn't be turning over this quickly. So I'm hoping the American one stays.

He's a right 69. There you go. That's what I was looking for. We're going to do a little bit of politics. JBL did write a triad on this. People should check out about how the College of Cardinals was probably not thinking about Donald Trump when they're deciding who the Holy Father should be. And yet, you know, it's hard for us to avoid the fact that the most recent tweet that he sent was a retweet where the person is quoting a theologian regarding

Donald Trump's policies in El Salvador. Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet? And one of his last previous tweets before that was simply, J.D. Vance is wrong. Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others. So it's kind of hard to not see it a little bit in a political context, no? Is that too myopic? No. Those are fairly direct statements.

I guess you can put it this way. They may not take into account America's politics in making that decision, but there's no way the decision makers were unaware of those tweets, right? There's no way that they were unaware of the fact that Donald Trump was posting AI images of himself as the Pope. Those things would be hard to miss. And even if they weren't on the ledger of pros or cons, they were certainly in the Pope. Those things would be hard to miss. And even if they weren't on the ledger of pros or cons, they were certainly in the ether. In case you have doubts about whether or not they were

aware, this was the mind blowing one to me. My friend, Jill and Kent, I was interviewing one of the Pope's brothers. I was like, yeah, we were playing Wordle the day before and I was texting him and I was like, have you watched the movie Conclave to prepare? And the now pope replied, yeah, I just finished Conclave. So there you go. It's a strange world. Okay, we just for one laugh, we got to have one laugh before we get into serious business. Oh, there's going to be more laughs. Okay, great.

We'll start with a laugh here. Pizzagate Jack Pasobiac, the person we believe is behind the end wokeness Twitter feed, at least that's what the buzz is. He was on Real America's Voice, a very important news outlet where Bannon's show is and others. It's a mega news outlet. And he was live when the pope was chosen. We should just listen to his reaction real quick. What I'm seeing from his social media does not bode well for Trump supporters because we're seeing things here where he's attacking JD Vance and not years ago, very

recently promoting anti-Trump and anti-Buchanan articles regarding the deportations of criminal illegals to the United States. He was attacking that less than three weeks ago. We even see him posting anti-Trump articles from when Trump first ran for office. I'm not going to mince words, folks. I'm not going to mince words. This is not the election that conservatives wanted. God save the church.

Pete Slauson God save the church, man. I saw another one of these guys was tweeting about how he had posted a retweet about how maybe we should have some new gun laws following a mass shooting of children. It's like these guys wanted the AR-15 carrying border wall pope. I don't know that they're ever going to get that pope, but that's what they were hoping for. What's sort of amazing when you listen to him talk and other people, you know, they act like the new pope is going to lead some crusade against Trump just because he had the audacity to post online that JD Vance is wrong about something. That constitutes like the greatest attack on the American presidency that we've

ever seen. God save the church. I mean, just the, they're so up in their heads about everything. It's just, it's unbelievable. They really are. It would be like some lefty posting. It's like, have you seen that this pope is against abortion? It's like, yeah. Right? Yeah, bro.

The pope is not for alligator motes on the border. It goes a little bit against what you're going to get for it. Doesn't like throwing immigrants in prison. That is shocking. What a shocking statement that a Catholic... Isn't a huge fan of semi-autos. Anyway, on from the Pope to somebody a little further from God. We have a new interim US attorney for Washington. Okay, we got to start with the good news on this.

Okay, go. You go. We do not have Ed Martin as the DC US attorney. We do not have Ed Martin. I mean, that's a pretty, that's a second big blow to MAGA this week. Hardest hit, Steve Bannon. That is true. Eaglehead, a frequent guest on Steve Bannon's show. Somebody, I got to say, we were on this one.

I was with people like, why are you talking so much about this random US attorney? There's so many other bad appointees. I was like, you don't know how bad this appointee is. And he's been horrible. He's everything that you would not want in a US attorney, just doing frivolous letters targeting people for speaking out against Trump. It's just the utter politicization of a very important US attorney's post. Yeah. And then Ringleader, when it comes to the January 6th defense of insurrectionists

and fundraising for them on the ground. I mean, really a top organizer on that front. And I just, you know, defending white nationalists. And just sort of imagining, you know, Ed Martin is sitting somewhere, probably like McLean something and just wondering why is Cash Patel get a position and I don't? Like, I just wonder how that feels. Can't feel great. So So that was the good news. Yeah, I know. Let me have it. The question is, is his replacement any better?

No. Question mark. I think maybe. Who knows? We'll see. Well, you have to... Okay. You can't say better. You just have to soberly analyze... Soberly is the key word here. ... what she does or does not bring to the table in terms of mechanically understanding today how the Department of Justice works. Sober is the keyword there. Judge box of wine, Janine Pirro, is the choice.

The 23rd selection by Trump of a Fox News personality for a job in his administration. Damon Linker, friend of the Bullock, wrote this this morning, which I liked. With the Pirro appointment, we see once again that Trump is just an elderly man who watches Fox News all day and thinks the on-air talent is as good as it gets, which makes sense because the on-air talent is chosen to impress elderly men who watch Fox News all day. I think that's pretty insightful. She does sit in the leg chair a lot. She does.

She brings that. Like just the one on the end, on the five table for those who don't get that. Fox News staple. You won't see it anywhere else. I guess that's true. There's no real, there's no leg chair on Nicole's show. No one else does that where a woman wears a skirt at the end of the table. I haven't seen it done anywhere else. That's a good point, Amanda.

As a gay man, I hadn't really thought about that too. The glass table, Megyn Kelly pioneered the glass table. Oh yeah. So you could see the legs. I'm not making that up. That's, you know, when you're spending that kind of money on the legs. Linker is point is right. And so there's a, there's a way to look at this.

That's kind of soberly pointing and laughing at the absurdity. You know, there's some things to be concerned about though. Again, about the politicization. This is an important job. The U S attorney and first off, it's supposed to be the place that you're looking at public corruption. Obviously, Jenny Piero is not going to be investigating any public corruption in the Trump administration.

Not Iraq's husband who Trump pardoned. Definitely not him. It's supposed to be opposed because of the DC, you know, you kind of have more control over just regular crime investigations, right? Than in other jurisdictions because there's not a DC statehood, which maybe should have been on Joe Biden's list. So it's hard to imagine she's going to be focused on the carjackings and the rapes and the other stuff in DC. Actually, I think that might be the only thing she will focus on. So the reason why this position has outsized influence and has so much prominence when it comes to attorney generals is that naturally because of the jurisdiction it is in, it has

a lot of very complex national security cases, white collar crime, things that might have to do with government corruption. I mean, these are big ticket items that you don't see in other places. The other comparable one might be New York. What does she bring to the table? She hasn't practiced law in, I think, 20 years because she's been commenting on the news, which I'm going to say I do disagree. She had a failed Senate campaign first and then-

There was that. I do disagree with Damon a little bit on the idea that these Fox news hosts aren't useful in the way that I think Trump understands politics as media in this world. It is interchangeable. It is the job. You can't separate the two. And so sort of saying, well, they're just Fox News hosts. How could they do this job? Trump sees the job as that and communicating to the public at all times because he has a propaganda president. So that's in one bucket. That's why she's there to do the messaging, which is why I think you could anticipate

her doing a lot of things on the DC crime level because they want to crack down on crime and be really seen as that law and order president. And I think they have a lot of ambitions to use the District of Columbia as a test case for other things that they want to do on the policing front. And she, I think, is a contender to do that. But when it comes to the actual important things that someone in that role should be playing, when it comes to the national security cases, etc., etc., IA don't think she's equipped at all. Okay, that's a fair point.

I'll nod to that. We'll see. I guess the point that where I was going with it is the ball is going to be dropped somewhere because what they're going to want her to do is the stuff that Ed Martin was doing, right? As far as sending a letter to Georgetown about their DEI program, sending a letter to Robert Garcia, because he used a metaphor talking about Elon Musk and how it was like a threat against his safety

or whatever, sending the letter to the medical journal, because RFK asked him too, about how they're being unbalanced, right? Like all of these like totally frivolous political attacks that you can do from a perch such as this. Now, once you officially indict someone, you know, then you need a grand jury, then you got to prove a case. So, you know, there are some limits, of course, on, you know, your ability to cause problems from a US attorney spot. But I do think that those things we're going to see from her, and we know that because she was on Fox. And when she was on Fox, she would constantly criticize back during the first Trump administration, Jeff Sessions and Chris Ray and other people in the Department of Justice positions of

power for not defending Trump harder and not going after his foes and not doing this. So I think she will see as part of her remit going after Trump's foes. Whether she's effective at that, I'm guessing probably not. But I do think all the time spent on that is time not spent on this national security stuff and whatever. Yeah, and definitely prosecuting terrorists

and things like that, that actually are very quite serious. But one note on that, in terms of Trump looking for people who will do that kind of work for him. I really want to raise a flag on Linda McMahon. Have you been watching what she's been doing? She issued an insane letter to Harvard that sounded like some 22-year-old staffer wrote it after just imbibing on Pizzagate Jack for the last five years. I mean, it was

really, I really urge people to go read that letter that essentially just accused them of harboring hate in every respect and how dare you let in, where are these foreign students going from? It's just three pages of going on and on like that. And so, she is someone I didn't really have on my bingo card of stepping into that role, but she's all in. Well, she's used to playing a character for the wrestling show, you know? So, she'll play the MAGA character. I think that's right. I mean, the Harvard thing, it's sort of similar to the Doge stuff in the sense of, I wonder if you feel this way too, like, I don't know. You could probably sell me on the fact that, uh, that these universities endowment should be taxed.

Like, you could probably sell me on that. You know, the idea that, you know, things that were initially nonprofits turned into hedge funds and we should maybe tax them like hedge funds instead of nonprofits. Like if you, if there was a serious non-political effort, that's like Liberty and Harvard, you know, all of these universities that are doing that, like that have turned into real estate companies, my alma mater GW should also, you know, be taxed. You can sell me on that program, I probably, maybe that's wrong, I don't know, but I think that

there's a legitimate policy argument there. But what these guys are doing is not that. They're bullying, you know, they're just trying to use their bully pulpit as part of their little malice cultural revolution to try to pressure any institutions that they think are undermining them. That's what they're actually doing. It's not some policy efforts to create tax fairness. One of the things that is really interesting about Linda's letter to Harvard is that the whole reason that Trump started going after these universities for anti-Semitism, right?

This traces back to the executive order he issued in his early days. It's the reason why he's going after Columbia, now going after Washington University, who had some protests over the last week where students broke into an engineering building, took it over, damaged equipment. And so now there's a task force investigation going from Trump into that university. So like there is stuff happening on that front. But if you look at the letter that she wrote, she essentially outright accuses them of violating federal law, like barely obliquely references a congressional hearing about the anti-Semitism

without even going into it. And so it's like, this is all pretext, like raising the idea that we're protecting Jewish students when there are things happening on these campuses, but just using that as like the big hammer to go after them with and sort of forgetting the plot and the process is something I'm watching. Pete Yeah. And it's a way to stifle speech. Like we have this situation at Tulane, which is a private university that's down the street where there were seven students, I think, that were doing a peaceful protest. And like, you know, they called in the cops and, you know, it's all the stuff we're like, none of us, I'm not for like disrupting classes

or obviously violent. By the way, that did happen again at Columbia this week. Obviously intimidating. That did happen again at Columbia this week. Right. We took over a library and people had to come in again. So I just want to make sure I'm not downplaying that. But yeah, it's a mixed bag.

Yeah, it's a mixed bag. But when you have the feds doing this solely as a way to try to stifle opposition, to try to bully, to try to give, as you said, a pretext for this. This is what they're doing across the board. And it's important, and I guess this is what gets us back to Pirro. And that's why it's important that they're appointing people that are willing to do it. And you need people that are willing to put their name on these ridiculous letters because you're not actually going to win in court, you know? But you can go a long way as the government by threatening, you know, by intimidating. And because people, universities end up and other institutions end up saying,

well, I just don't want to deal with the hassle, you know? So we'll do something here so that if we get one of these letters, we can, we can say, Hey, look at this, we called the cops on these seven students, you know? And like that is the pernicious element of it. Delete me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. It's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number, and family member's names hanging out on the internet can have actual consequences in the real world and makes everybody vulnerable. actual consequences in the real world and makes everybody vulnerable. More and more online partisans and nefarious actors will find this data and use it to target political rivals, civil servants, and even outspoken citizens posting their opinion online."

As somebody who is an outspoken citizen posting my opinion online way too often, that's something that I'm conscious of. And somebody was sending around a little email to me yesterday about how in one of these scrapes someone thinks that they figured out our new Bulwark Pope's email address. And I'm thinking, man, if the Pope's online information is vulnerable, well, that's a sign that mine and yours probably is too. So take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me.

Now at a special discount for our listeners Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to join delete me comm slash Bullwork and use promo code bull work at checkout The only way to get 20% off is to go to join delete me comm slash bull work and enter code bull work at checkout That's join delete me comm slash bull work code bull work More news yesterday. We had a big deal, big, big deal with the UK, big announcement. With the 10% tariff that we put on UK, that we put across the board tariff, still remains. It's a big art of the deal here.

With a few exceptions, they took it down to 0% on Rolls-Royce engines. I talked about this a little bit with Sam. Huzzah. Yeah, I know. of the deal here with a few exceptions. They took it down to 0% on Rolls-Royce engines. I talked about this a little bit with Sam. Huzzah. Yeah, I know. I talked about this a little bit with Sam on YouTube yesterday. So, quick correction, a couple of people flagged this for me. It's airplane engines. I thought it was car engines. I guess Rolls-Royce makes airplane engines. Either way, it was a little gift to Boeing because Boeing is part of the deal also as part of UK purchasing some Boeing equipment. We have also as part of the deal, the beef, I guess, export tariff goes down

so that UK can finally get some good beef over there across the ocean, which is nice. But like all things said, like there wasn't any actual real progress on like, you know, there were some people, you know, like your old boss, Ted Cruz, and some others who were saying like, oh, this is just Trump, the deal maker. Right. And like, eventually we're going to land in a place where we have better freer trade, right.

And he's just using his cards, right. To get there. And it's like, okay, well, here's the first deal we've seen and the 10% tariff that is going to hit anybody in America that gets their allergy medicine from the UK or gets whatever other products we're importing, their tea from the UK, like, that's going to be 10% more. We had a trade surplus with them. That's an important point.

Thank you for bringing that up. Okay. I really, I love this tariff issue. I just got to say, I love it. I think it's going to be super important for two reasons. It breaks the idea that Trump is some kind of economic genius that is going to lead the country into prosperity. It shatters that idea.

We're going to see it this summer because he can't unwind the effects now. But also you have the double bonus that it also shatters the idea that he's a good negotiator. Yes. Again, why are we negotiating with countries that we have a trade surplus with? That makes no flipping sense. His whole point is with deficits. Why are we doing any of this? And again, it goes back to this idea, the reason why he's doing this, he said in an executive order, we have to have like liberation day and tariffs because there's some national security issue.

What are you talking about? What is the national security issue that you had to revisit and negotiate the price of beef, like some nanny state leader where you're just getting in there with your little ledger and be like, okay, Rolls Royce, you can have a waiver for airplane engines. I mean, just like it is bananas. It's not a good use of any president's time. Although, you know, I don't mind Trump wasting some time, not doing worse things, but it's just like, you know, the movie idea tear off like since when our foreign films part of a national security emergency.

I mean, I know he gets ideas from the movies, but it's just the dumbest crap possible. And it's going to blow up in his face and people better be ready to explain why, you know, this is just not only bad policy, but it's bad autocratic policy. This kind of like autocratic bullshit does not make anyone more prosperous or more free. People always give him the critique, well, he doesn't understand how tariffs work. He absolutely understands tariffs in the context

and that this is a mechanism I can use where everyone needs to grovel to me and I get to be in charge. That's why he likes the tariffs. But the idea that this is all done under the umbrella of a supposed national security emergency, I expect false flags to be better orchestrated, especially by a conspiracy theorist in chief. This is just the flimsiest flim flam, and it just deserves to be crushed and destroyed.

I have two thoughts. One on your point about how we have a trade surplus with the UK. This is like so important just as far as the political rationale argument is concerned. It's like not that important on the actual economics, but like, because it's fine to have trade deficits with countries, but they don't have a coherent rationale for why they're doing this, right? Because they can't say this. but they don't have a coherent rationale for why they're doing this, right? Because they can't say this. Like, they can't say what you just said, which is the true thing. Trump just wants power and wants to be able to give people waivers and feel like a king,

right? Like, that's really why they're doing this. Like, that's the real reason, right? And they can't say that, right? So you have to come up with all these rationales, right? And it's like, oh, it's national security. That's why we need a fentanyl. We need a fentanyl Mountie.

The dolls are going to attack us. We need a Mountie in Canada, you know, to be a fentanyl Mountie. That's one reason. And then it's like, oh, it's because we have this trade deficit with all these countries, we need to even out the deficit. But it's like, well, wait, no, we're doing this with the country we have a surplus in now. Right?

It's like, oh, we're going to bring manufacturing back. But then it's like, well, not all the manufacturing. I mean, Andy Ogles, a congressman on TV saying like, this, this is part of the El Salvador negotiation too, because we need prison labor to make some of our shirts because we're not going to make all these shirts. They have no rationale. And the UK deal undermines like the one consistent thing that they're saying. Again, which does make me economic since Larry Summers really is really good on

this where he's like, I have a trades deficit with my grocery store. I give them money, they give me groceries. So like, that's fine. That's how the economy works. Yeah. And that's a nice position to be in. Yeah, right. But anyway, that's their argument. And they totally undermine it with this UK thing. Let's sound like Republicans from the 90s for one second. Okay. Here's the other thing. Kevin Williamson wrote about this in the dispatch. Trump, he's a socialist. It's crazy. It's great. They were talking about how this whole time,

it's like Kami Kamala. It was the whole thing during 2024 was Kami Kamala. Trump, because what? She wanted to increase corporate taxes by 2%. Trump is trying to centralize control of the economy. He's put in place the biggest tax increase in our parents' lifetime with these tariffs, the biggest working class sales tax increase on everybody that we've seen in this country in a long, long time. On top of that, he said recently that he'd be okay with a top tax bracket increase. Pay up, Donnie. You got lots of meme coin. top of that, he said recently that he'd be okay with a top tax bracket increase. Pay up, Donnie. You got lots of meme coin.

Let's see it. So like, it's truly wild. Even on the core issue that you would think that they would maintain whatever traditional conservatism, he is running a government that is far more socialist, far more centrally managed than anything any Democratic nominee has proposed since probably fucking McGovern. Yeah, but not only that, I mean, you couple in the education and the book bands and we want to get in and see what curriculum you are teaching and what is the, you know, makeup of your faculty in the, you know, the staff room.

Yeah. And we want to send your children to work in factories and that's how we'll make America great again. I mean, it is really just top to bottom garbage. Soviet. It's Soviet. Central planning. That's totally unbelievable. Just one more thing on tariffs. Potentially, I have a slight cave in coming on China. I want to contextualize this for people though. The New York Post reported yesterday that they're weighing a plan to slash the 145% tariff that we have currently on Chinese imports down to maybe as low as 50 to 54%. That was their report yesterday.

I'm not great at math. Is that a lot? That's a lot. Is that a big discount? That's a big discount. Okay. Turns out that was fake news though from the New York Post because this morning Trump sent Is that a big discount? That's a lot. That's a big cut. Is that a big discount? That's a big discount. Okay. Turns out that was fake news though from the New York Post because this morning Trump sent

a bleat that said 80% tariff on China seems right up to Scott B. Here you go. Here's the shit sandwich, Scott Besson. Good luck. Your call. 145 to 80 because why? Art of the deal. Sounds good. That's a good number.

Feels right. Round. He likes how there's the two circles on the eight and then the one circle on the zero and it looks aesthetically nice. So what's kind of fun is kind of, it's interesting to watch how he's setting up these guys to get fired and blamed when this blows up in his face predictably this summer. Well, like, you know, he didn't negotiate the right rate.

I would have gone for, you know, insert 245, whatever it's gonna be. He only got 70, that's why it didn't work. Bye bye. And then, wait, who's the next best Fox News economic analyst? They'll be coming in next. He tried Steven Moore for Fredshare before,

but that didn't work because he didn't pail child support. He's always looking for some diversity. So like, who's the, there's a black guy, there's a big, he's kind of a big fella. Pain? Pain, Charles Pain. There you go. I think he might be on the shortlist. He's on deck. He might be on the shortlist. Get your slide decks ready. I think it's just worth saying because I think that I'm concerned that our friends in the

mainstream media might fall for some of this, which is like, even if this tariff went down to 50%, we're already seeing this across the world, like, oh, well, the UK deal, it's like we have a deal now and we've got some down to zero. If you had told people in November that he's going to come in and put a 80% tariff on China and a 10% tariff on the UK, everybody would be like, that is hair on fire insanity. But he benefits sometimes for doing extremely crazy things that are just way beyond the pale and then bringing them back to modestly crazy. And then people are like, oh, well, he dialed it back. I agree with you.

But this one is so difficult just because there's so many countries and so many products and so many things to keep track of. And the system is so finely tuned when it comes to imports and shipping. I mean, this one is just too easy to screw up and thinking this is like another issue where you can message your way out of it. The economy doesn't lie. His people will. The economy does not lie. When things start getting jacked for back to school shopping, when people are looking for their back to school sneakers, you know, and things like that, if there is any kind of shortage on the shelves,

I mean, people are tuned into it now. They know what to expect. Dang, I wish I wish Amazon would have stuck to that threat to start putting the tariffs on their prices, but there are going to be other companies that do that because they're going to have to explain to consumers that this isn't their fault and they may be happy to pass on the cost to customers and keep them later. But I think people will recognize what is happening this time around because there's

been such a long warmup and it's going to be more than eggs. Yeah, you're definitely going to see it on other smaller retailers who don't care. Like Amazon, Trump has leverage, right? It's like, well, you've got the space stuff and all this other stuff, right? But I was seeing, I forget the name, because I'm not a big shopper of women's dresses, but there was a women's dress online retailer. One of my Instagram friends was sharing this, they're like, they're going to be a bridesmaid.

The bridesmaid dress ended up being an extra $300 with a new tariff, right? And so all of that stuff is going to, sorry to trigger some of the Lib listeners, trickle down into the economy, and people are going to start noticing it. Trickle down tariffs. Right, this episode is also sponsored by Sol. Sol has those out of office gummies that we've been talking about, but also the out of office beverages. I'm going to tell you, you know, you don't want to have that hangover. Sometimes you don't want to have that hangover. And now we're in NBA playoff season and I've been trying to do, I do no drinking on weeknights,

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summer sipping. Plus Sol has other amazing wellness products that help improve sleep, stress, pain, focus, bloating, and more. Bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to Soul today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order. Go to GetSoul.com and use the code THEBOWLWORK. That's GetSoul.com, promo code THEBOWLWORK for 30% off. Do you have any takes on the birthday parade? I just wanted to throw that on the table. I don't know. Well, I do because it is a birthday parade. You can see everybody getting warmed up like, oh, it's the 250th anniversary for the army.

No, it's a birthday parade. He's always wanted this thing. And I think we will know whether it's a birthday parade or a military parade when you see who is front and center at the part of it. And like one big tell is that Trump is the one who's putting it on. If it were a military celebration, Trump would be invited, not running it.

I would say that's probably a key distinction, but I do wanna like sort of tee up around this event that will be happening probably at some point in June. I think we need a better way of explaining and understanding what is propaganda and what that looks like in America versus normal political persuasion. Because the president does have a lot of ability to persuade the public. But what Trump is doing is fundamentally different and multiple levels. And I think if this does happen, this will be the purest expression of it.

And that, you know, political persuasion is meant to sort of bring people along, it's rooted in fact. But the propaganda that Trump engages in on a constant way, as well as all the people that are surrounding him in the cabinet, like it's really meant to divide people and polarize people and say, you are either with me or you are against me.

That is not persuasion. That's what makes all of this so different in ways that are kind of hard to analyze because we haven't seen it before. But leveraging the federal government for these propaganda purposes that are meant to split us apart and make people choose between us and them. The ads that Kristi Noem is putting out with taxpayer dollars to thank President Trump, that is not an exercise in political persuasion. That is propaganda designed to promote the idea that Donald Trump has gifted this border enforcement upon us or what have you. And I'm getting a lot of these ads on Hulu, weirdly.

And part of the tell for me, in a way that I think I can explain to other people, is that if you see the other ads that are being put out on the campaign side from chump-aligned groups, people like Crystal LaCivita running it, et cetera. You can't tell the difference. You can't tell the difference between what's a government PSA and what is a campaign ad, other than if you would know that Kristi Noem is actually a cabinet secretary. I think we really need to have a discussion about how the communication tools are being exploited in ways that are really malicious and go beyond what should be acceptable.

Way beyond. Way beyond. Yeah. Yeah, to say the least. To say the least. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I've got a month to warm up more birthday parade takes, but just in case. I didn't see you between now and then.

I wanted to get the Amanda view. I never was the Hill person you were. We're coming up on this tax cut talk. I don't want to get too excited. But I've seen some things this week that have made me feel like it might be possible they bungle this. Like the big thing, and we'll do a deep, deep dive on Hill stuff with somebody as we get closer to getting

the bill details. But you know, they get one shot at this because reconciliation where they're going to have to jam through something without the filibuster and they want to extend the Trump tax cuts. But like 32 Republican members, it's going to sound familiar to you, I bet, said they're not going to do it without, they're not going to vote for something that increases the debt. That is impossible. So they're going to have do it without, they're not going to vote for something that increases the debt. That is impossible. So they're going to have to rationalize this somehow because just extending the tax cuts themselves is going to cost like four or five trillion.

The moderate sent a letter yesterday, I was like, ooh, we're not going to vote for anything that doesn't bring the salt deduction back for people in the high tax states. These are kind of the New York Republicans basically. Trump floating, maybe we can pay for some of this by increasing taxes on the top tax bracket and then backing off of that. I don't know. It seems ugly. David, this is supposed to be the only thing really that Mike Johnson does this year in

John Thune because they have passed nothing since the Lake and Riley Act. They've literally passed like three bills since the Lake and Riley Act and they seem to be struggling. So I'm wondering what you think about all this. Will the old school tea party guys really hold the line? Well, here's, I think you need discussion about how this is getting bungled because it is. Just to start with the fact that,

oh wait, where's Elon Musk? I thought he had this handled, right? That was the whole reason he came in to do the Doge rescission, send it to Congress, and we got the cuts, we're good. And somehow his 70 bazillion trillion in cuts dissipated to 1 billion to 150 to nothing. To where is it? So number one, I think we need to evaluate that the guy that Trump brought in to take care of this has failed.

Otherwise we wouldn't even be having this discussion. But also it's an all Republican Congress. What's the problem there? These guys can't solve it. And so I think that is also a mark against a key economic promise of the Trump 2.0 presidency, which was supposed to be so much better, so much more efficient. Isn't, you know, the Project 2025 thing rolling? No, it's not. It's not. And one thing I am in particular watching

and think is extremely interesting, just as a baseline, the Trump budget cuts more than the Hill wants to. The Hill wants to spend more. And the secret weapon that Russ Vogt and others have always wanted to deploy is something called impoundments, which I know you've talked about before,

which is essentially Donald Trump unconstitutionally, unlawfully saying, Congress, you can pass all the money you want, but I'll just cut where I want. This is how we held up the Ukraine funding in Trump 1.0. But now Republican senators are sort of onto that fact, because I do think there is a contingent of people thinking, well, okay, the Hill can do what they want. We can let them pass the budget, but we can knife it later through impoundments. But there was an interesting story in Politico, I think published two days ago, where it quoted Republican appropriators. Simpson of Idaho, I think, essentially said, you know, we see impoundments and we think it's illegal and there's going to be a challenge on that. Murkowski was weighing in. And so that to me is a very positive development when it comes

to how the budget process will be used and how Trump could potentially be constrained on some level. But one other really interesting development is that there's talks about cutting Medicaid funding. And Josh Hawley, whoo, he has been out there, he's the number one mega populist, essentially, and I haven't really seen, maybe JD Vance got close to it, but making the case that the president, you can't cut this funding for our people. This recognition about how this would deeply impact the red states and impact Trump voters. So people are hearing about that. Can I tell you something uncomfortable about Josh Hawley that I want to go back to the

budget stuff? Yeah, yeah. Boy, I've agreed with him twice this week and it's making me uncomfortable because he did a big post yesterday about how Facebook shouldn't have their own currency. Facebook is talking about creating a stable coin. Oh wait, so he's against crypto coins and meme stuff Well, yeah, I think that I think case by case basis. I think the president, the president can have his own currency and he can get bribed.

But he doesn't want corporate America to have their own currency. OK, I'm not saying I'm just I'm not saying he's perfect or consistent. I'm just saying he did have that picture of a shirtless man on his wall on the wall in college. And he is kind of right about Medicaid. And he's kind of right about Mark Zuckerberg shouldn't be allowed to have his own currency. So, I don't know. I'll take the wins where I can get them with Josh Hawley.

That poster is really something. He's holding the baby. I guess maybe it's just about fatherhood. Skin on skin contact. And I loved skin on skin with my child. I'm now distracted thinking about the poster. Okay. The budget thing though, I don't know. I mean, I guess they're going to probably have to jam it through somehow, but they're in a big pickle. I guess this is the big point I guess that I'm trying to make is that like, and if this is happening, if you are right

and if I am right, if our doomerism about the tariffs is right and the economy really hits the skids this summer and they haven't jammed this through, in my opinion, they should have just tried to jam something through as quickly as possible and they're debating this in July and the economy is hitting the skids and they got to do Medicaid cuts and people are pissed and Josh Holley's are pissed about that and they've got some hardliners on the debt, maybe there are only four of those that actually exist anymore, but they're a problem. And they've got the blue stake guys and they're a problem. I think it might be get uglier than I had previously thought. I kind of assumed they were just going to write something and Trump was going to bully everybody into jamming it through. And I think that still is probably the most likely option,

but I don't know. I think it might be uglier than that. Yeah. If people want to see a sign of how badly it's going, Cash Patel testifying on Capitol Hill this week. So he had to go to the Hill to talk about the FBI's budget. Let's play it right now for people. I have a timeline on that. It was due last week by law. I understand.

And your answer is you just understand you're not going to follow the law? My answer is that I am following the law and I'm working with my interagency partners to do this and get you the budget that you are required to have. And you have no timeline? No. Well, we also need a full budget request, not a single paragraph full of wild talking points that we saw with the skinny budget proposal. We're now having a budget hearing without a budget request.

So Director Patel, where is the FY26 budget request for the FBI? It's being worked on, ma'am. Have you reviewed it? Have you approved it? Not yet. When will we get it? As soon as I can get it from my interagency partners and get it approved. Six months from now? I don't know, ma'am.

I'm not going to make the time. Well, how do we as Congress do our budget and our work without that request and without the spend plan? Well, ma'am, I'm here. I'm doing the best I can. I can't make up answers. I'm going to commit to you to work on getting you the information you need. That is insufficient and deeply disturbing. No response? I've given my response. Now, there's probably not any part of me that feels sorry for me about Kash Patel, but I would feel sorry for him in that moment if I was not familiar with his record and

had not read his coloring books about Trump. But just how uncomfortable was that? He's getting berated. And Kristi Noem got berated about a similar thing. To your point about this impoundment, they're trying to get around all these problems with the budget, but just not following the law. It's Trump. And Roosevelt has told them they could do that. But like, here's the problem with all that

is like, that works politically for them on the EPA, right? Because all of the Republicans on the Hill actually don't care if they're funding environmental protection, right? It does not work for the FBI. It does not work for DHS, right? Like Like does that work for some of these other HHS? Like does that work for some of the medical things? Were there Republicans on the Hill who, their name was, they were a co-sponsor on the bill, they worked on this and they passed the budget and they don't want fucking Russ vote deciding whether or not to spend the money. And this is all too arcane for Trump to get involved in.

So it's like the one area where these Republicans on the Hill can like show a little spine and be like, Whoa, like we funded this program, whatever their pet project is, you guys have to actually spend it. You have to have to actually do this. And, and FBI is one of those areas. And I think that's why the cash thing was so, like, humiliating. I agree, but I'll keep watching it even though it was super cringe. And the Chris Murphy and Kristi Noem.

It was really good. I'm going to do a separate video on that for YouTube just because God loved Chris Murphy. He deserves a standalone. Let's do a little bit of good news. The North Carolina Supreme Court race for folks that have not been following this, the Democratic candidate won very close race and the Republican was doing all kinds of stop the steal type stuff and like challenging votes. I wanted to challenge all the votes from people who are ex-paths and like do all these other

chicanery. And it was going on for months. And finally they gave in. So talk to us about what we saw there. I know you guys were working on that. Yeah, this is a long story, but a great story. Yeah, we had a lot of Protect Democracy folks working on this case, but long story short, there was a Republican candidate, a judge. He was actually a sitting judge named Jefferson Griffin, and he lost the election November, but this thing has gone on since then. He fought it and fought it.

He lost the race by a little over 700 votes, but then tried to challenge and disqualify 65,000 votes. They were really just kind of going after everything. Okay, there's jockeying, even a judge who should know the law, shouldn't be doing this, but what was really concerning was that the North Carolina Supreme Court let it go on. And one of the most outrageous things that he was doing is that he was trying to disqualify military ballots because they didn't have a photo ID, even though no photo ID was required. So, like, you know, the fact that it continued for so long, even on the basis of these just really ludicrous claims was a big deal because it was essentially leaving this open.

But great news, we got a positive court decision and he finally, finally conceded this week. I think this is especially important because this is the kind of long-term election subversion that a lot of us feared after the presidential election. important because this is the kind of like long-term election subversion that a lot of us feared after the presidential election. It didn't happen because Donald Trump just won by so much, but this was a model, right? Like this was the thing that we feared, that you could like keep people out of the seat for so long and ultimately persevere by getting courts just to let it continue. And so this was a great win.

And also, I think it's important to look in the context of how well the court system is continuing to hold. Trump, he's been stopped a number of times, hundreds of times by a lot of lower level decisions. And so you do have to take some kind of heart in that, although there can still be big conflicts coming. Pete Slauson Totally agree. This is so good. You guys are out there doing this work. And this is kind of what we talked about with Leah and Ezra a little bit yesterday from Indivisible is like, it's important to be able to hold in your head at the same time, both thoughts,

which is that our democratic institutions have been weakened, and maybe in some cases permanently, and we are in a real time of threat. And yet, we're not Russia. And the path for Hungary, from Hungary when Orban took over, fucking 15 years ago, whenever it was, to now, was not an inevitable path. And it's not inevitable that Hungary is going to

end up being Russia, right? Like there are opportunities still to stop it. And I do sometimes see, get feedback from people that are like, you know, these guys are going to cheat and they're going to, you know, block people from being able to vote and, you know, and we're totally fucked. And like, we're not even really going to have real elections anymore. We're not there yet. Like, that's why it's very important, like the work that you guys are doing and others in this space and it's important for citizens to not like give up on, you know, like to not have that attitude that it's already done because we see in cases like this, like their gambit failed.

And frankly it failed in a race that was like pretty darn close, like really quite close. Like if it was ever going to work, it'd be in a case that had, I used to know the number, but I'm forgetting it now, 87 votes or 500 votes, whatever it was. Like it was a very small number of votes that separated the candidates. And so if they can't steal that one, you know, that's actually a pretty good sign, right? There are still a lot of, you know, elements out there that can allow us to push back against this and hold our fucking

liberal democracy. What else is out there with protect democracy? Is there, do you have any thoughts on that? Is there any other stuff you guys are monitoring, worried about? Yeah, one more thought on the big thing that, you know, I think we're really monitoring and watching and trying to prepare for. But first, if you want to stop authoritarianism, especially when it comes in the form of this populist style, which it often does, you have to make the autocrat less popular. The way you do that is by actually demonstrating that you can put cracks in his armor, that he is not inevitable, that he does lose in court, that yes, you know, this whole tariff thing that he's rolling out is actually kind of a disaster. They can't actually hold a budget.

He can't actually get his most insane people nominated and put in position. He does have people that he has to put out to pasture because of things like Signalgate, right? Like it's important to demonstrate that because of things like Signalgate, right? It's important to demonstrate that they're not capable. They're not the all-knowing, all-encompassing leader of the world. Talk about his failings because there are many, and then you have to be in a position to explain to people

why he's not executing on the promises that did make him popular. So I think there's a lot of opportunity to do that, a lot. And it's happening now. And so it's why I feel more helpful than I have been in a while, even though things are extremely rocky. And the biggest concern I have going forward

are conflicts with the court, defying court orders. I think you see now that Trump and his people will maintain that they're complying with court orders, well, just not doing it. You see the Supreme Court really doesn't want to have a confrontation with him. But I do worry that we're going to see something like that. And as a secondary layer to that, there is a lot of energy in the MAGA circles, and even voiced by people like JD Vance and Elon Musk, that you have to find a way to just terminate or get rid of district judges that you don't like. You know, this whole idea, this is a big mantra in MAGA

world right now, is that how can you allow district judges to issue nationwide injunctions against the president's agenda? I mean, that's not what's happening when they stop the president with a TRO or something like that. They're just upholding the law. That's what they're doing. But they're setting up again this propaganda like us versus them battle where the judges are not with them. Even though in many times they're appointed by Trump.

And so, you know, the defiance of court orders and any kind of push to remake the federal judiciary starting with places like the District of Columbia and peteTeam judges. Those are the big ones I'm concerned about. Pete Slauson Better you than me out there doing the work. Lauren Lester We've got lawyers who are much smarter, who actually know this stuff, and I just get to hear about it and try to help along the best I can. But it is not me. Pete Slauson It's a great organization. Do we have to talk about Joe Biden going on The View yesterday?

Lauren Lester I mean, I didn't watch it. yesterday? I mean, you want to just skip it? People are mad at me on social media because I just I just I wish you would just paint I wish you would just paint and it just walk on the beach blood pressure gets up and he doesn't sound good and it's And like doing the thing about how he would have won and it was sexism and I'm just I didn't watch it Just saying I can't watch him. I'm happy to say that myself and be like, I didn't watch it because I can't watch him. Okay, great, we're the same. All right, let's just move on from it.

I felt like it's a politics podcast and the former president did a big interview. Oh yeah, I thought you were gonna say the view is a politics show. I wasn't- Yeah, no, I was like, this is a politics show. So I kind of feel like I should mention that I didn't went out there, but it was just,

it's tough for me, it's tough for me. It's tough to swallow. All right. Well, I've got one more thing. So I don't know if you saw this, but Melania did a event where she had an unveiling of the Barbara Bush stamp yesterday. Were they friends? No, they were not.

They're not friends. So they did an unveiling. George W was invited, didn't go. I don't know if Joe was invited. I didn't ask him. It didn't seem like he was there. And I just wanted to take this opportunity, that Barbara Bush, I just felt,

I'm happy she can get the stamp. I'm sad it got unveiled by Melania, but over the course of history, I don't think anyone will realize that. So I think it's okay. But I had this lovely encounter with her during the Jeb campaign that I feel like now it's far enough away that it's okay to share. And she was going to do an interview for us with Nora O'Donnell, like on behalf of Jeb.

And she hadn't done any interviews. Folks remember the olden days. She had said that people were sick of the bushes and she hadn't really done any interviews after that. So I was like, okay, let's do an interview and talk about maybe how her views have evolved on that. Then maybe she was right with her initial view. But that's neither here nor there.

It was my job to brief her. I'd met her in a group setting or whatever, but I've never been one-on-one with Barbara Bush before. We're doing the interview in a hotel room in New Hampshire, and it's snowing, and she's walking to the hotel room on her little walker through the snow. It was so cute. She gets into the room and the person that she is staffing is there.

I sit down and she's like, okay, what are we going to do? What do you want from me? I start going over the easy questions, the obvious things Nora's going to ask her, and she's like, okay, well, what are we going to do? What do you want from me? And I start going over kind of the easy questions, the obvious things Nora's going to ask her. And she's amazing. I mean, she didn't need me to prep her at all on any of this stuff. And then we get to the tough questions. And I'm like, okay, well, they're going to ask you about Donald Trump.

What are you going to say about that? And she, I don't have a tape of it, so I don't remember exactly what she said. But you know how sometimes when an old person says a word and it's like they're spitting and saying a word at the same time, she's like despicable or something. She just looked like she wanted to throw up talking about Donald, talking about Donald Trump and, and talking about how he is so horrible to women and how it's so appalling that he is in this position right now and how much she despises him. And then she goes off for a full minute and then she looks at me and she goes, but I'm not going to say that. I was like, okay, what are you going to say? And

she gave a very appropriate first lady comment about how she has disagreements with him, particularly on women's issues. And she thinks her son would be a better candidate. I was like, okay, great. And then they're probably going to ask you about Ted Cruz. And she goes, oh, and she does the same thing. She was like, stop torturing me. Yeah, it's also not terrible Ted Cruz is and how unbearable it is to have to watch him. And she finishes that statement.

She goes, but I'm not going to say that. And I was like, okay, what are you going to say, ma'am? And she was like, well, I'll just say that I think that my son's going to be a better president. And I was just, it was such a delight to just be able to listen to her, just get off her chest, her absolute disgust on every level for the, for Donald Trump and to a lesser extent Ted, and then demonstrate how you're supposed to act as back in the old days when we had comedy and people with dignity in the White House. And so she'll be missed. She deserves a stamp. She deserved, I don't know,

Doug Amhoff revealing it probably instead of Melania, but such is life. I don't know, Doug Amhoff revealing it probably instead of Melania, but such is life. I don't know. Amanda, do you have any parting words for us? Amanda Slaughter You know what? It sounds like a good coping mechanism to get out your true thoughts with a trusted friend before you have to go in public and maybe say something you regret. So maybe I'll borrow that some time. Pete Slauson You know, that is good advice for Barbara Bush. Amanda, that's something that I will try and fail to put into practice. Thank you so much for coming on the pod. It's always great to see you. For everybody else, enjoy your weekend. We have a new pope. They're saying he's a bulwark

pope. We know he's a South Side of Chicago pope. So, live in that Catholic in the small sea, apostolic, the whole world, in the Catholic sense, be together this weekend. And we'll see you back here Monday with Non-Catholic, but favorite of the pod, Bill Kristol. See you all then. Peace. The city of Chicago is the better part of town And if you go down there you better just beware Of a man named Leroy Brown Now Leroy, all in trouble You see he's stand about six foot four All those downtown ladies call him treetop lover

All the men just call him sir And he's bad, bad, Leroy Brown The baddest man in the whole damn town Better than a walking car Meaner than a junkyard dog Now Leroy, he a gambler And he like his fancy clothes And he like to wave his diamond rings

On everybody's nose He got a custom Continental He got a El Dorado too He got a.32 gun in his pocket for fun He got a razor in his shoe And it felt, felt, felt, felt Leroy Brown The baddest man in the whole downtown Better than a hooking call Meaner than a junkyard dog It was Friday, about a week ago Leroy shooting dice

And at the edge of the bar sat a girl named Medorah and the old actor looked nice Well he cast his eyes upon her and the trouble soon began Leeroy Brown he turned to peasant by the mezzan with the wife of a juggles man And he's bad, bad, bad, bad Leeroy Brown is the baddest man in the whole downtown The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason

Brown.