The Bulwark Podcast - Sam Stein and Mary Peltola: Cozying Up to Commies and Corporate Elites

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

First, Sam Stein sits down with Tim to discuss the latest humiliation of our troops: Trump’s red carpet welcome for President Xi. Plus: the White House’s insane propaganda machine, a new Maine poll throws some cold water on the midterms hopium, Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s obsession with furries, and is RFK Jr. running for president? Then, Tim pulls back the curtain on his interview with Mary Peltola, which wrapped just hours before a new critical New York Times piece dropped. In their conversation, Peltola explained how nearly every issue Alaskans care about can be summed up by “fish, family, and freedom.” And that viral debate moment with Dan Sullivan revealed something deeper: He is not doing enough to protect Alaskans from corporate greed in Washington.Sam Stein and Mary Peltola join Tim Miller.show notes: The New York Times story on Mary Peltola Trump’s new propaganda ad paid for by your tax dollars Video of Trump greeting President Xi The White House’s AI reconstruction of the meeting Jonathan Cohn’s newsletter “The Breakdown” Closing Song: MJ Lenderman - “She’s Leaving You”

Welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. I got a double header for you today. In segment two, we've got Alaska Democrat running for Senate, Mary Peltola. We taped the interview yesterday before a story came out about some of her staff management choices and some of the Sam Stein-esque text that she is sending to her underlings. And so I'll have a lot more to say about that before we get to segment two. But up first, he's the managing editor of the bulwark, the aforementioned Sam Stein. What's up? What's up, man? How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. We had our president once again kind of cowtowing to a foreign dictator that we're supposed to be in competition with yesterday. The plane landed Andrews Air Force Base. Bill Crystal, as is as this is wont in the morning, shots in the morning, pointed out that it was the first time since 1962 that a president went to greet a foreign dignity, dignitary, excuse me, at the airport. and the last time was Kennedy greeting a British leader, so, you know, a little different. I don't believe that time we rolled out the red carpet again and had U.S. troops literally on their knees,

kind of like smoothing it out, making sure that there were no kinks in the carpet while the Chinese waited and looked on from above in the airplane. Just another absolutely humiliating degradation of our troops to the benefit of first putt in her last year and now she. It wasn't that they were smoothing it out. They were like looking for little speckles of dirt that they were trying to remember. I mean, they were really getting in there. I'm surprised they didn't have a Dyson to go and clean it up.

I thought it was pretty appalling. You know, it's like for a guy who's so obsessed with imagery, does he not recognize the imagery in that? Right. Like he's got Chinese dignitaries just waiting as he cleans up for them so they can walk on a red carpet for him. And then there's other elements of it that. looked pretty silly like him wincing and him wearing gloves and like the 60 degree weather

we're going to get to wincing the gloves what it was happening with that it was very strange and you would have thought it was the depths of winter in dc you're in dc not that bad trump was in a suit and a very heavy overcoat and then also heavy gloves what was that wasn't it like in the 70s yesterday what was it was high 60s low 70s I mean it was beautiful day it was my type of weather. I enjoyed it. It really was not that cold. It's like one of those days where you don't know if you should send your kid to school with like shorts or pants. You know, it's not type of weather, right? You're in a hoodie now, I guess, in Trump's defense. Well, the office is pretty cold. I am not wearing gloves for the record. The gloves are weird. I mean, is it the hand condition that's that is covering up the bruises. And then they put out some photos today and they clearly were AI edited where the gloves are off. I don't get it. Old people do get. Old people do get. chilly. You know, this is why a lot of elderly moved to Florida and Arizona. It's kind of like a running joke. Sometimes when it's 40 degrees. Sometimes it's a run joke go to these retirement communities, you know, and somebody's sitting in there lazy boy with the blanket on, even though outside

it's 92 degrees in Tucson or whatever. Like that's kind of true. So maybe he's just, his blood circulation just isn't flowing to his extremities anymore. That's possible. That's possible. In terms of like why he does this for Chi? I don't, I mean, the conventionalism is that he just has a strongman complex, right? And he likes his people. And he, he's not a confrontational guy despite being confrontational. So when he rolls up the red carpet for folks, it kind of is on brand. It's not the same as him getting gooey about Mom Donnie.

But there is something, too, the idea that, like, he just doesn't want to do personal confrontation. He wants it to seem historic, I think. I think it's part of how he feels about it. the carpet and the plane and the airport and it's a dramatic scene and the flyover. I think that's part of it. How upset is he that the ballroom's not finished right now? Very. But then also, Bill points out, he is consistent on this.

He won't offend these guys. He won't offend Putin. He'll suck up to Xi. He's a presidential bully, but he's cowed by the big boy bullies of the world. I don't know how else to look at it besides. How else can you look at it? There's just no other way. I mean, there's so much to say to China, too, right?

I mean, they are helping the Iranians. They are an adversary, obviously, on AI. Not only they're helping Iranians. I mean, based on reporting, it seems like, are responsible for the deaths of American troops in the theater. And they've been providing a lot of help to the Iranians, including specific incidences. Yeah. And it's, you know, we're obviously supposedly in some sort of trade war with them, but he keeps pushing off the larger tariffs with China. And then I know we're going to get into it.

But the AI race, he doesn't want to win it against China, but it doesn't seem like he has any inclination to take a hard line against China. And like you said, against Russia, what he does is it's the Dutch, right? He's got to go hard against the Netherlands. Yeah. Denmark. This game is so obvious at this point that I try to just really pick my battles for when I bring it up. But, I mean, just imagine the Fox treatment of Obama in this situation. I mean you have, here's the story I was referencing.

Before Iran carried out its attack that killed three U.S. troops in July, Tehran acquired high-res satellite images of the base in Jordan, the U.S. base in Jordan, from Chinese entities, according to U.S. officials familiar with details of the incident. So it's like U.S. security officials briefing the press saying, no, China gave them the targeting images that led to the death of troops. So China was working with Iran, killed U.S. troops, fast forward, not even a month. and we have other U.S. troops on their knees

smoothing out the red carpet for Xi. It is fucking appalling, and it would be wall-to-wall. In this case, it would have been for good reason. Like the Barack Obama is like in the pocket of China. He's too weak. He rides the bicycle. He's a rugla eating, like all of that stuff. And like that's not.

That's actually Trump. Everything they would have said is Trump. Well, also, and I may be butching this, but I'm pretty sure back in the day Trump would have gone off on Obama for this type of stuff, too. I mean, there was this whole thing where it's like, I think Obama had to get off the plane, the Air Force one, at some back entrance and because the Chinese didn't have some sort of staircase for him on the front entrance.

I forget what it is. But I believe Trump was just like, I would have turned the plane around and I would have absolutely left within a second. And it's, you can, he always postures as a tough guy. But this gets me thinking, we're not doing the cabinet rankings for this. But you ranked Rubio really high, I think one and the last one. And it does kind of, I keep coming back to Rubio for some reason right now talking about this, because that's a guy who would have been all over this, right?

They got a hard line on China. Oh, my God. You couldn't have pulled Rubio off the Fox set if this was Obama. Yeah. Like making the troops kneel to China after the Chinese killed American troops. And it's sick. And he was a supposed hawk. And Cotton was a supposed hawk.

You know, I think that there are legitimate different notions about how we should deal with China. Like, they are certainly a geopolitical adversary. Yeah. And Trump doesn't seem at all interested in that competition. The opposite, actually. Sometimes when it's convenient, they pay lip service to it. Like, oh, we need it for the AI race or whatever. But, like, we're also selling them chips.

We're not doing anything to, it doesn't seem like we're doing anything to hurt their position. And apparently they have, they, like, now have access to an F-35 in all our technology. Like, we accidentally handed it to that. They hacked into, government data and they have all the information of people that work at DOJ, other places. So whatever the Chinese word is for Compromot, they could be using that. Their spy services could be using that against us. They are being fully aggressive and gaining during this Trump period.

And Trump is like treating Xi like the older brother that he wants to like like like him more and invite him to the cake party. I will say you don't have to give her credit. But in this case, Laura Lumer was not. Lumer was right about something. Lumer was not happy by the she tweeted. Truly embarrassing that American men and women in your former S-degree Xi Jinping, the communist dictator of China today at joint base Andrews, while the GOP pushes up messaging about the need to combat communists. It's like, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No shit. That's the whole thing about the Trump and communists. He's like, the communists are coming. It's like, which communists don't you like? What specifically is the part of communism you don't like? You love Xi. You're accusing Zoran of being a communist, but you seem to like him.

you like state bullying private enterprise you like mass agents in the streets like you like the gulags like what part of communism is that i'd like to know a little bit more about the critique of we got we got government paid for advertising on fox it's very coming to that communism's coming to that communism's coming you mentioned the flyover though i want to get warmed up before we talked about the flyover because it's pretty funny because it doesn't do you any good for the audio listeners to see the video we'll put the video up for the youtube guys but i'm going to kind of do a I'm going to do kind of a second by second walkthrough of what happens on this video. So we have Trump and she standing there.

The National Anthem is playing. Trump is saluting. You know, the player is the national anthem. She is like shoulders slumped, just kind of like hanging. She's kind of like the cool kid in high school that when, you know, the Pledge of Allegiance is like, I'm not going to even, I'm not even going to put my hand up to my heart for this. The Pledge of Allegiance, like, I'm not my shirt isn't tucked in. I'm just kind of hanging.

So she's chilling. All right. Trump is at attention. And then the plane comes over, whoosh. And you would have thought that somebody slammed a car door in Trump's little tiny finger as hard as possible with his reaction. He's like, wins. It's a full facial wince.

Like his teeth, his fake teeth, you can see all the, and then the nose scrunches. And she doesn't flinch simultaneously. simultaneously simultaneously did Trump having a full body reaction to this noise. Chairman She is just unmoved, unperturbed. And then the plane goes over and then both of them go up and look at it. And then Trump kind of shakes his head like, whoof, that was something that I decided to deal with. And Chairman Shee is like, whatever. And I totally mugged, plain mugged.

He was plain mocked. It was the combination of the two that did it for me because Trump's little reaction was like, you know. It was like the eagle. It's like my favorite video. of the eagle in Trump Tower where the eagle goes to like kind of pack him and he like acts like like so fucking the tiger was near him yeah no he he was not he was quite alarmed by it and I think it hurt his ears and then she just didn't get it's like she is cold he just doesn't care he's bored he's like bored kind of like looking away okay I've seen those before all right whatever

by the way under and under noticed here because she's kind of hiding behind and this case, I'm talking about S-H-E-She, not Chairman Xi, hiding behind Trump. It's hard to see. I can tell if it's his wife or a staffer. I think it's his wife. Is it the blonde? No, no, no, no. Behind you, it's a Chinese, it's part of the Chinese delegation.

So behind Trump's hand is a woman who stands there also totally unperturbed for this. He's wincing. She doesn't move an inch. It's just that. She doesn't flinch. I feel like we're not appreciating the wince. It is a dramatic, I'm like scared wince. It's like something like was very painful for him.

Full body shudder. Yeah. Maybe he has a hearing aid in or something. I don't know what's happening with that. It's like the first time he heard a loud sound in a while. And then they put out a image from this moment because they thought it looked cool where the plane is flying over and Trump and she are standing there. But they've edited out the wince.

They did an AI edit of this exact moment of Trump getting plane-mogged. That's what the White House decided to put out, but it was an AI-edited. So he's not winning. He's also only wearing one glove in the AI-edited image. I'm not sure why they took only-old-do. Does he have six little fingies on there? Does they have a six stubby-fingy? I can't tell, honestly, but he's only wearing one glove in the AI-edited image.

But the real one from Getty, he's very clearly wearing two gloves. Weird choices here all around. Okay. On the substantive side, we don't have much yet on what's happening. I guess we know that, as you mentioned, they're delaying the tariffs. But that's kind of the extra, extra level of tariffs. We already have pretty high tariffs on China, which is causing part of the inflation. And we've hit record high, like I think since 2004 on the 30-year bond today. So that's not good for the president. Good times. But on the AI is the one substantive thing we have this morning before the meeting. Trump bleats this. A big day with President Xi of China, super-intelligent. Parentheses, S-I. He's really sticking with that. He's really leaning into S-I. What a great brander he is. It will be a big topic of discussion,

but I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China's position also. Our guardrail is the DOJ. So no worries. I mean, Todd Blanche, who's indicting Jim Comey over some seashells. Like, they got this. You know, if we end up with a superintelligence that starts hacking into bio-weapons facilities or whatever,

like the DOJ will hang. It'll take a little while. I'll have to go through the court system. You know, it'll have to be an indictment. grand jury. But, you know, eventually, assuming the whole human race has been exterminated, Todd Blanche will get around to it. I don't really understand. You can't have both, which is that we have to speed run to superintelligence because of the competition with China. And also, I'm meeting with China today that's all cool. We're both going full speed ahead. No worries.

We're going to sell them chips and everything. What's the point on rolling out the red carpet for this guy if you can't build some sort of diplomatic relationship? to deal with the most existential threat facing humanity. Like, I don't really get why we're bending over backwards to be nice and kind and giving them all this pageantry. If we're just going to be like, you know what, let's not even worry about a deal with you guys. Isn't the carrot there for the reason?

Also, to me, it's like, doesn't it feel like these guys just have given up? Right? Like, I mean, putting aside their deportation effort, it just feels like they've given up. They don't really have any good ideas. It's all. Well, I don't think they've given up on two things, making cash and the Trump vanity projects.

And I think the AI is where they think, you know, I mean, if you're Trump, I want good relationships with Jensen Huang and all these guys. Maybe. And, you know, who knows? We got investments in there. Or maybe they think that that's all the only thing propping up the economy is spending on data centers in AI. And it's just, I feel, though, like there's like a sense of, I don't know, defeat emanating from the White House where they, I mean, you look at it across the board. It's like this diesel export thing. It's like really hilarious to me that they just don't know if they should do an export ban on diesel.

And one minute they're like, yeah, he's going to do it. Next minute they're like, no, he's not going to do it. And, you know, permitting reform, same thing. Yeah, it's going to happen. It's not going to happen. Beyond, again, immigration and deportations, they don't really have an ideological project at all. Even the terrorists. They're on again.

They're off again. It's just there's just nothing. The arch. The arch. Yeah. The arch is it. They have the propaganda project about just praising Donald Trump as if he's a cult figure. You know, they kind of have that.

That's really what they have left to focus on, Donald Trump's personal legacy. This is a Fox ad that says on it paid for by the U.S. government. Shout out my guy Jim DeFeedy down at a local TV reporter down in Miami. He's awesome. Always does great interviews. And he spotted this on post on social media. An ad on Fox News paid for the U.S. government. I'm only going to place half of it because the first half is Trump talking, which we don't

like to do. But the back half, you'll get the gist. The person that I've ever had and nothing was going to stop him for fighting so hard for the country he loves. Love me. Love me. Love me. What song is that? What? I don't know. What song is that? Do you know? I thought this was a quiz. No, I was wondering. I do know that I had to live through days of news cycles and then years of social mockery because Jeb Bush once asked people to

platform. And Donald Trump is using my tax dollars to put an ad on TV where someone sings, love me over pictures of him and then uses Dana White's voiceover to talk about how tough Trump is, because he's an MMA guy. Like what possible rationale could there be for using tax dollars to play that ad? And it's not like, you know, sometimes, Colchin's always gotten a little cute with that. Sometimes it's like, hey, we got to let people know about the new bridge we built. And so we're going to do ads, you know, that's like, hey, guys, have you noticed the road work? Okay. But like, this is just pure cult propaganda paid for by us.

Embarrassing, kind of, too. You're right about the, a couple things. One is like, I remember like, you know, Obamacare, the Health and Human Services Department had a big ad budget to, like, encourage getting into the exchanges. People to sign up. Yeah. So that, that does happen. But this is just propaganda.

I mean, this is just pure propaganda. There's nothing. they're pushing beyond Trump. And it's both alarming because this is literally taxpayer-funded propaganda pushed out on TV networks that are very deferrenched to the president. You got to be scared of this stuff.

This is kind of Orwellian, right? And then also if you actually, and I feel bad because the people who are listening to this, didn't get to see it. But like, I nearly had a seizure watching that ad. It is just, if you have epilepsy, like you're in trouble watching that ad there is so many cuts so much light happening coming at you it made me like a little bit nauseous and i feel like it wasn't the best ad i guess that's

some saving grace here but it's like this is all for the project of trump that's it yeah and i have a lot of problems with the ad and i stand in solidarity with our friends in the epilepsy community that wasn't on the top of my list but uh i hear i appreciate you acknowledging them They shouldn't be forgotten. I just, I think that we also just should also just focus on how humiliating this. It is. Like, Trump's approval rating is, as a 29.

Like, he's getting close to the dick line. Okay. He's like, down at the bottom, you could possibly be on approval as a president. People are abandoning him. Finally, members of his own party are starting to distance themselves for him.

And he uses that moment to have an ad. Love me. Love me. Please love me. Love me. It's desperate. Not as desperate. It's bad.

It's bad across all verticals. Like sometimes when you're looking for something online, you find yourself over researching. We're looking for a little extra privacy, for example, in our backyard and kind of needed a little privacy screen. And I can't even tell you how much time me and my husband sent sending back options to each other, looking at different options. And then finally, we're having friends over and we just really need it. and we're like, F, we'll just get the Amazon one. Looks great. Looks great.

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They shop you save. All right. I want to take a moment here to give the counterbalance to that point. Trump is nearing the dick line, but there are some concerns. I want to put some cold water on the opium. I've done a lot of hopium this week on the show. And we had a round of New York Times Sienna polls out today. And the one in particular that caught my eye was in Maine,

which had Susan Collins winning that race, 49 to 46. Trump's approval in Maine, negative 34. Collins' approval plus three. I think that is pretty telling that this is, whether the poll is exactly right, March to Bear, et cetera. But, like, this is not something that's just over, like, showing too many Republicans. Like, the poll is showing that there are a lot of people in Maine that don't like Trump, but still are happy with Susan Collins for whatever reason.

Jackson's favorability, Troy Jackson's minus eight. Even below that, Grand Platner was down at, like, minus 43 for the Platinum dead enders. So I don't think that was going to be the answer. I don't know, man. I mean, we lived through this six years ago. Collins defied expectations. And I think that the Plattenor Jackson Handoff obviously has created. had some tensions within the main base.

We saw that in the New York Mag story this week. Swing voters, maybe don't have the same impression of Susan Collins as I do. I don't know. What do you make of it? Well, we didn't actually live through this six years ago because six years ago Collins never led. I mean, she was down all the time to get in. So maybe this is just more resembling reality, right? But to me, there's a couple things to take away from this.

One, the sort of caution in the poll, though I trust New York Times, CNN more than anyone else. But this is like the first one she's led in a while. There was actually another one out today that has him up by five from UMass Hamhurst. Whatever. It's going to be close. There's three points. Two is that this is a great signal to any other Republican that you do need to defy Trump if you want to get your approval up. Right.

Like Collins has strategically come out against Trump. Yeah. on several issues. I don't think she's done it on any significant issue. She's always there with him when it matters. But she's made her reputation about I can be somewhat of, you know, a bulwark to say at least. No, no, don't do that. No.

Boo, boo, boo. Three, though, and this is, I think, the most important thing. And actually is in the write-up of the times. The thing that she's done is she's just brought home so much money. and she's you could see it in all you know she's the senior member of the appropriations committee she gets a lot of stuff done for Maine but she also gets incredible deference in Carvats from the administration so whenever there's cuts across the board exceptions are made for Maine whenever like the Canadian tariffs and Carvats were made for Maine the NIH funding that they were going to go after with this executive order was cons who wrote Rassah and was like don't do it and they didn't do it so she does have they have they have I've given her enough fodder to go back to Mainers and say, hey, I'm delivering for you guys. If you get rid of me, you're not going to get all this stuff. And there's something true to that.

Yeah. And there's something true. It's like anything that's complicated. There's something false also. I mean, the tariffs are still hurting Maine. The Canadian trade war is just in the way that Canada reacts. And there's a lot of cross-border pollination there, economic. There's tourism.

You know, Canadians not going to the main beaches and all that sort of stuff. that all that stuff trickles down. So I used to say there was an ice murder in Maine. So it's nothing like they kept him out. If Trump said negative 34, though, I just have a really hard time seeing her winning. I just do. That's that's unbelievably bad. Like I can't.

It's unfathomable to me to be negative 34 in Maine. Well. That's not a blue state. They've got 40 days. Troy Jackson and their campaign's got to get their shit together and make a really clear. I don't, the positive stuff about Troy Jackson, I think at this point. is kind of meaningless. Like they've got to make a really clear case to people.

They've got to. Yeah, they have to drive for favorabilities down. That's just it. Yeah. Other polls of note, Michigan, Elsaid up by five. I keep saying that I just, I think that the DC view of Mike Rogers is totally wrong. He's not at all like Susan Collins. Like there's a handful of like K Street lobbyists who are like Mike Rogers who think

that he has appeal in Michigan. and they're like 22 people that like read the Wall Street Journal and go to the Chamber of Commerce and are like really passionate on Israel. But that's like that's like a 0.1% of Michigan that feels anything about Mike Rogers. I also that's going to win that race. Pappas is up only five to Hampshire. It's something to keep an eye on. Interesting poll in Pennsylvania.

Bob Brooks is really strong kind of a union, like an old school kind of union guy. That's also a little bit moderate on cultural issues, running a really good race. He's up three in a seat that Republic. hold now. Shapiro in the same district up 23. So I think it is kind of interesting, like on the one hand, that, you know, you're seeing that some of these pickups are, it's a good poll for Democrats. That complicates the, the narrative of some of, like, you know, your buddy Ryan Grimm and some of the left populists who want to talk about how the Democrats can't win because they've gone too moderate and they all hate Josh Shapiro. And Josh Shapiro is winning a Republican House district by 23. Just a little note. Yeah. Just don't know that that's happening. It's true. Was that not not know-worthy to you?

It's very noteworthy. He happens to have like a truly comical opponent. But, you know, yeah. Yeah, some people might say Trump was a truly comical opponent. That's true. And he managed to win. So anyway, okay. You're not actually like thinking New Hampshire isn't play, do you?

I do not think New Hampshire's in play. I think it's a little closer. I think it's interesting. I think we're seeing some interesting signs about the way that the trends are really different. Like Republicans, this is why I was like, it was funny. after the election 24, it wasn't that funny. There were, you know, some people who were listening to the wrong independent liberal media outlets or convinced that Elon Musk had stole the election or something.

And every time and I would get this brought up to me from time to time, you know, out in the wild. And I'd always say to people, like, Trump did better in blue states than in swing states, right? Like, there was no reason to try to cheat to steal New Jersey. And like Trump did better in New Jersey and New York. And so there's this little bit of this realignment happening. But I do think in the sunbelt, the Democrats are going to really outperper. form, Georgia, Texas, et cetera, and maybe in the plains because of the farm stuff. But then in some of these blue states where people are unhappy with their state governors,

I think that maybe Democrats won't do quite as well, like the New Yorks of the world and New Hampshire, California, Oregon, Washington. We'll see if that happens. For the record, New Hampshire is run by a Republican, but yeah. That is true. That is true. You're right. And so is Vermont, even.

Phil Scott. He's the last remaining to Miller Republican in the country, Phil Scott. Okay. We're going to end with two things. One is, I asked Sarah Matthews about the RFK for Prez thing yesterday, and she just didn't have the passion for this question that I know you do. And so I kind of want to just take one more swing at it. He's coming out with a new book. It seems like the type of book that somebody who's going to run for president wants to come out with.

I don't know. If you're RFK Jr., you look at Vance, you're like, this guy has no Riz. I've got nothing but Riz. Trump, I've already won Trump over once, you know, and maybe I can win him over again. Trump Kennedy. Maybe Trump thinks, man, what if I could get one of the kids on an RFK ticket, RFK Ivanka, like, cements my legacy. We're Kennedys and Trump families together. I just, I'm not predicting it, but that doesn't seem like insane. You know, I don't know what the

polymarket odds are. We don't do that here. But like, you know, if I were betting, man, I could, I would absolutely put some money down on him running. Look, this guy is, is there like, you know, levels of egotamania that we can rank. I mean, this guy clearly thinks he's not just, you know, God's gift to science, but maybe God. And the book thing is really astonishing. First of all, it's corrupt, right? Like the person who's paying him in advance is also got apparently companies that have business before HHS. But beyond that, it's like $4 million. These books are about like, you know, his vision for America. You don't do that unless you either are trying to just get money through a donor or you have future ambitions.

But the other thing, and I've heard this from a few folks, he's been told internally by like Susie Wiles and the like that he is one of their best political assets in the cabinet. And I do think his favorability is the most, is the highest among the entire cabinet. Yeah, I think that's probably true. And we could, I'm sure there's data out there. But if you were told you are the one guy in this cabinet who's got, like a real cachet on the trail and we need you out there and people really like you and you help to like Donald Trump because you helped bring the coalition together and you have this

cross appeal from liberals and conservatives. If you get told that, why wouldn't you turn around and say, wait a second, J.D. Vance is going to take the baton here? Why wouldn't I? Why not me? Also, you know, he brought measles back. How could you not run on that platform? Any one minute rage on, because I feel like it's one area I fall down a little bit on the

podcast is all the latest. in HHS. People can sign up for Jonathan Cohn's newsletter if they want to know all that at the breakdown, but do you have one minute on anything that's enraged you recently? Well, yeah, I do. I mean, they backed off it, but I just, this NIH thing, it was so, I felt like people weren't actually appreciating how bad it would be. They suggest they were batting back and forth whether to do an executive order that would have created a panel to sign off on all these NIH grants. And we're talking about billions of dollars in scientific research.

NH grants are issued by merit. They are issued by people petitioning scientists to go through the studies and say, yes, this looks like a promising grant, or maybe it's a real risk, but like it's worth the investment. Imagine if Stephen Miller is looking at your grant and saying, no, not, don't like it. The amount of breakthroughs we would have fumbled, the brain drain that would have resulted from that, would have been cataclysmic. And already, and Cohen has heard from a bunch of people after he published his story on this, people are just in the science research community are just dying for more sensible and consistent funding.

We are just absolutely killing the golden goose. I think people should be outraged by this. It's a disaster. That's my right. Love that. I am outraged. I share that. Thank you.

Final topic, just a little, just for kicks. We got to have a little giggle. We got to see them giggled. I end out the pod. Tommy Tuberville was on the Senate floor yesterday, and he had a big easel with a blown-up photo of the emoji of the pregnant male. It's one of my favorite emojis, by the way. I like, I love sending that to people.

I don't send it to you. It's a little intimate for a work text. You can maybe talk about some of our other work texts. But let's hear what it was that Tommy was concerned about, Enri, the pregnant male emoji. Many, listen to this, that many airline pilots. flight attendants and air traffic controllers are part of the furry community. Lord help us.

Lord help us. It's terrified when you think about this. When you walk on to a commercial flight, it's possible that the pilot flying a plane could have a deranged fetus of dressing up like an animal. You can't make this up. No, you can't. Can't make it up.

I know, I'm going on a flight tomorrow. to Springfield for the show. And Tommy's got me freaked. I'm going to demand that I get a look in the cockpit to see. So to speak. To see if my pilot has a bunny hat on. I'm not getting on that plane. I want more.

I want more. I want to scroll through your nudes. Okay. I want to scroll through your Tinder, your hinge. I want every pilot. I want to see whatever. And by the way, when we're doing that,

I'd like to look at Tommy Tiberville's search history. And I'm interested to see what he's looking. Good point. I'm interested to see what he's looking at. Why does Tommy know so much about the secret furry community of pilots? What's his porn hub? What's he doing? What's happening on pouring up? Is it something freaky?

Is it a deranged fetish? Because we certainly don't need somebody with any deranged fetishes. That's a good idea for Pertico. I'll send Perticoan up to the Hill and ask Tommy if he's, if he has experience with the furries and why he's so interested in it. Did you see the guy yelling at Josh Hawley walking through the a holiday yesterday about what about Carlos the bus boy weird stuff happening out there yeah

all right um by the way if you're a furry and you listen I feel total confidence with you you can fly my plane flying my plane total confidence I mean I hope hopefully like I want you able to see clearly so hopefully like you're not like in the dog hat or whatever whilst flying the plane otherwise all good totally good all right I'm going to patola next you have any uh any I've got long thoughts on it but do you have anything you I want to share? Yeah, and I hate doing this, but because the whole Ptoll story is about the, like, nasty text that she would send her staff and all this stuff, I think it's worthwhile to, just to be transparent about it.

Share some of your texts? Share some of your texts to me. Because you're about to, like, you know, talk, you know, you have the disclaimer and you're about to opine about this. And I went through our text history, and I don't think you have much of a leg to stand on. Really? This is from March 7th, 2006. Hey, Sam, you're a piece of shit. Please stop over-editing my piece. Tim.

Sounds right. You over-edit the fuck out of my pieces. My beautiful pros, you know, you're ruining. A month and a half labor, direct quote. Yo, little Jew boy. Can you hop on the Riverside? No, that is not real. That is not real.

Little Jew boy. Can you hop on the Riverside? We're all waiting for you. you. Okay, fine. I did not say that. This was two weeks ago after you and me and Will recorded, hey, that trio segment, that shit was retarded. What the hell, Tim? You have no like to stand on when it comes to this. Okay, just so people are aware.

I would never say that about you, the second one. That was really... You didn't deny the other ones. They're all made... For the record, they're all made up, but Tim is owning the first and the third. I do say nasty shit on text. and we'll go over that a little bit more next. Everybody stick around. Thanks. All right, you know those pieces in your closet you find yourself wearing on repeat. A sweater that goes with everything.

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Some of the highlights from that, if you haven't seen it, as four former staff members, I think we're assuming the ones that she'd fired recently, said they directly heard her use the Fsler, rhymes with maggot over the years, in some cases about her own staff members. This is an allegation they denied. She also used the word retarded in several texts, including some of their screenshots of.

She said, I hope Planned Parenthood knows that if we don't win, it's more their loss than ours. Fuck those bitches about Planned Parenthood. And, you know, there's other stuff about mistreatment of staff. allegedly. Here's my thing about this story. I really don't care that much about politicians

texting nasty grams. One of the other things he said is they made staff members feed a chameleon, a pet chameleon, some crickets. That seems kind of like a fun job in Congress, to be honest. I like the people complaining about that. I don't know. As Sam just alluded to, I

definitely have sent some fuck those bitches texts to people on the staff. I may have even sent one last night. And so of all this stuff, and obviously you want members of Congress to be respectful and to use good judgment. So you'd like to learn more about all that. The only thing, other thing I just would flag is this accusation about her use of the F slur. Again, I'm just not really, you know, a big language police guy.

But I will say that my husband reading the story wasn't thrilled to read about it as somebody who got some F slurs yelled at him at the lunchroom. And they deny it, but it feels like something you should at least address. My main interaction in the story is that once again, like, is an example of, like, all of the things that are harming Democrats right now from their strategy. It's being overly cautious, showing weakness, like doing unnecessary harm to themselves through staff, struggle sessions. Here's, like, the behind-the-curtain real quick backstory and all this. The campaign canceled three times from this podcast. That's fine. It's just a podcast, right?

Like, if they just want to do Alaska Press, like, that is totally fine with me. me, I think I've actually said that in the past on the podcast. It was just a little bit of a red flag given the story, how they handled all of it, especially given that I'm obviously favorable to her. This is not a hide the ball fake podcast interview situation. I do radical candor here. The listeners know where I stand on my guess, good, bad or otherwise, peers knew where he stood. Jason Calcanus knows where he stood. Mayor Pete knew where he stood, you know? In this case, I find Dan Sullivan to be an unbelievable, quizzling and coward. More on that in a sec. And I've said a million times that Poltola has probably the best messaging of any Dem Senate candidate out there besides maybe Asaf.

So everybody knows, guest, listener, like what they're getting on this show. It's not really a scary interview outside of the fact that I do some jokes. But again, like, if you don't want to do it,

there are a million podcasts out there, a million interviews. Like, that's fine. But, like, this is not, it's the situation where the nature of this interview is that we are candid with each other.

And, like, we're not doing propaganda. Because if I disagree with something the campaign does, I say it as I'm doing so right now. But on balance, everybody knows, obviously, I want the Democrats to win the Senate. So eventually, she goes to do the show. You're going to hear it next.

It was a lovely convo. Right after the show ends, the story drops, and the campaign refuses to put her back on to address it. I don't understand why. She didn't seem incapable to me. This is the kind of thing the senator has to do. We're asking for five minutes to just respond to the story. This long is going to be an Oprah sit-down where we go through all the feelings.

I saw a video last night. It's not just me. I saw video last night of them running from local press after the event. I don't understand what anyone involved in this story is thinking. If you're Mary Peltolo and the current staff, like, why are you hiding from this? Why are you prolonging this story? You can't explain what happened to someone that plainly wants you to win the race. This all seems pretty straightforward to me.

I can't imagine there are too many Alaskans who are changing their vote because Mary wasn't PC when she was popping off texts. So I think it should be pretty straightforward to, to answer it and to address any concerns people have. As for the Dem staffers that created this story, like, they're even worse. If you were the snowflake that leaked the text where Mary Valtola said the word

retarded, were you hearted the text? Like, the person that leaked it hearted the text and then leaked it. Why are you leaking this 40 days before an election? What are you doing? Do you want Dan Sullivan to be the senator from Alaska? Do you care about the

creeping fascism in the country? I mean, it's not like you got a comb thrown at your head. That's a little inside joke. Like, these people all have to buck up. We're in the big leagues. Like, the stakes here are extremely high. If you're going to leak against a Democratic candidate boss because you think that they were mean to you, like, the time to do that was a long time ago or after the election,

unless they're doing crimes or very, like, unless it's platinum, right? Like, there are serious exceptions to this. Like, her using the R word or telling Planned Parenthood to fuck off, like is not, This should not rise to the level of the New York Times in this moment. So again, again, like we're seeing from the campaign caution and from the staffers that leaked this, just like this oversensitivity. And we're seeing caution and unnecessary sensitivity from Democrats in the face of a really aggressive and dangerous authoritarian threat.

And we're seeing it time and again. And I do not understand it at all. It's totally self-defeating. And in this story, everybody's guilty. So anyway, the conversation we had is next. I thought it was really interesting. I think you're going to learn a lot about her. I hope you stick around for it.

You can read the Times story for yourself if you want. We'll put it in the link in the show notes. And as for my view, after all this, like nothing in this story is even in the ballpark of the cowardice of Dan Sullivan, which we talk about on the pod. Dan Sullivan has been a loyal simp for the guy running internment camps. Dan Sullivan raised his hand and said, yes, sir, when he said, I want to make the head of the Department of Defense a weekend talk show co-host who is a drunk who has no ability, no experience, no knowledge to lead the military.

Dan Sullivan, who's supposed to be like a strong pro-military Republican, said nothing as they've left our soldiers out to dry on the USS Lincoln. Eight of our soldiers attempted suicide. We started a stupid war with no plan to finish it. We put the biggest moron imaginable in charge of the Department of War. Dan Sullivan just sat over there and said, yes, sir, okay, sir. When it comes to cowardice, there's nothing in this New York Times story or anything else that is even in the same universe as what Dan Sullivan has shown. So I could not more strongly urge people to do everything they can to oppose Dan Sullivan and his rubber stamp for Donald Trump.

But that said, the situation around. this story and how I was handled is definitely unfortunate. Next up, Mary Paltola. All right, we are back. She's the Democratic candidate for Senate from Alaska, a former congresswoman in Alaska native. It's Mary Peltola. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Tim. It's good to be here. I don't know anything about Alaska. I just want to be honest up front. Here's all I know. When I was in college, my buddy Kevin went and did a summer on the boat to make some money and thought it'd be a cool experience. And he told me to come and I was scared. And when he came back, he said the coolest thing about it was the butt sandwiches.

And I was like, this is not a joke. This is not a real thing. This is just a college boy, bro thing. But he was like, no, halibut sandwiches are the highlight of his trip. That's great. I love it. I love it. Yes.

Fish Family Freedom. Tell me about that fish family freedom. It has a nice ring to it, but I want to hear a little more. Give me the elevator pitch. Well, in Alaska, I just really feel like all of the marquee issues for us fit. into one or two of those categories. Take health care, families, child care, families, food insecurity, fish, resource development, fish, our abundance issues, fish, corporate greed, fish, and many other things.

And then freedom, of course. So that's why fish is first there. That was the thing I was always wondering. And it isn't freedom family fish, it's inverse. Well, and it's funny because my husband used to argue with me about that. He really felt like family should come first. And my argument was, you can't have a family without fish. They have nothing to eat. And it's really the glue that kind of holds us together. And he said, no, you can't go fishing without a family. So, you know, it's up for debate, the order of those. But freedom to me means everything from women's reproductive rights to Second Amendment, First Amendment. the freedom to live our Alaskan lifestyle. Republicans have kind of taken freedom, right? Like they've tried to code it as a Republican term.

And I'm just kind of wondering in what ways like you feel like, you know, maybe the Democrats have let them do that or that you think that's inaccurate as sort of a generic, whatever, branding point. Well, the funny thing that I've noticed is regardless of which party event you're going to, there is a lot of fear mongering that the other side is coming to take your freedoms away. I've heard it in both contexts. And I think freedom is something that means a lot to everyone. It certainly means a lot to people in Alaska.

It means a lot to our nation. I mean, we were founded on freedom of religion, you know, many, many freedoms. and I don't know if one party has necessarily co-opted it over the other. It really resonates with every Alaskan. Just nerd out with me on the fish a little bit more, okay? Because I do hear you. I hear you. The family does need to eat.

But, you know, and there are meat eaters out there, carnivores. You can survive without the fish. I was watching some of your debate with Dan Sullivan, and you were really getting into the weeds on fish stuff. I mean, like, how central is it to the economy? there and to the way of life. Well, I think a lot of Alaskans see fish as part of their identity. It really is part of the fabric of Alaska.

Most of most all of our towns are on the coast or rivers. That's how that was our transportation until around World War II when we got planes and roads and cars. I'm a UPEC Eskimo and UPIC people have traditionally eaten about 80%. of their diet is fish, and then half of that is salmon. So the generic word for fish is the generic word for food, Nika. And so it's just fundamental. I noticed you said you pick Eskimo there.

Am I allowed? I got in trouble for saying Eskimo once. Am I allowed to say that or is that a slur? Is that like you can say it, kind of like I can say the F word, but you can't? Or how does that work? No, I don't know how other, you know, I've been corrected by academics. saying, no, no, no, you're not an Eskimo, you're an Inuit. And I just don't know anybody in my region or in the state who refers to themselves as an Inuit.

When I was growing up, we talked about being Eskimo and eating Eskimo food and living at Eskimo lifestyle and speaking of Eskimo language. I think exactly like that. So Dan Sullivan like me doesn't seem to know a lot about some of this stuff. In the debate I was watching, he was cheating off your work on a question about salmon. And it was hard for me to even figure out what's happening. All I saw was you put up the answer immediately of no and then him like go and cheat off your work like I used to do in math class in high school and then put up the same answer. What was the subject of that? And do you feel like Dan is just out to lunch on this sort of stuff? The question was whether or not the North Pacific Fisheries

Management Council and NOAA are doing enough or considering enough in their policies, in their management decisions, they're not taking into account subsistence users. And subsistence really is a reference to people who live off the land and harvest wild foods for their own consumption. It's not contributing anything to the GDP. So the question really was, are these management bodies taking into account the needs of the people who are really living off the land? And, you know, The reason I ran in 2022 was to elevate ishish issues. And specifically the issue of the lack of salmon in our two biggest rivers, the Yukon River and the Kusko Kroquim River, for seven years running, people on the Yukon River have not

been allowed to fish for salmon. And we're talking about hundreds of tribes. We're talking about hundreds of communities that have been there for thousands of years and the reason they're there is based on their relationship with salmon. and this understanding that salmon would be coming back every year and are foundational to our food, food supplies. And I do not believe that the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council or NOAA is listening to people who are living off the land and haven't been able to fish for seven years in a row. So this really cuts to the core for many people living in those places because, you know, we're just accustomed. to putting away hundreds of salmon a year and we dry them and smoke them. And it's just a staple

in, you know, every lunch, every dinner, you just eat dry fish with your food. And we've been aced out of that now on the Yukon River for seven years. And every single river in the state has seen a real concerning decline in Chinook salmon, King Salmon. So that was the question. And you know, I don't feel that Dan is doing enough for those of us who depend on salmon. And I really think that he has shown his alliance with corporate greed and these commercial factory trawlers that are harvesting metric tons of forage fish. They're out there harvesting pollock, which is what goes into the McDonald's fillet fish. It's fish sticks, excuse me, but not only are they taking out metric tons of these forage fish, but they're also dumping over metric tons of juvenile halibut, juvenile salmon, and juvenile crab.

And this just goes against the fabric of who we are. We really do not believe in want and waste. You're supposed to respect your harvest. You're supposed to respect your catch and not waste any of it. Yeah, I'll tell you my bias on this is with Dan Sullivan, because I don't know if you know, but I used to be a Republican. And so back then I was, I remember, like at my pack that I was working with worked with him on that first campaign he ran.

And he seemed like a mainstream kind of guy, wanted to work to solve problems. And now I just, I see more of the national stuff. And he's totally MIA and absent, like refuses to stand up to Trump on anything, never sticks his head out on anything. And so part of me is like, well, maybe he's like, that's because he's, doing stuff back home. But it doesn't really seem like he's doing that either. What is he doing? Well, he's tripled his personal wealth in the last 12 years. He is a prolific stock trader in the Senate. He's one of the most active stock traders. He voted no to open up the Epstein files. I just,

you know, when I look at it, it just seems like somebody who is in it for his own personal career ladder. It doesn't feel to me like he's working hard for Alaskans or listening to Alaskans. I think he hasn't had a town hall meeting in over a thousand days. This is a concern. Yeah, I don't know. I'd like to see what his schedule looks like. I don't know what he's up to. The other big issue is obviously, you know, the war itself is an issue because, you know, to me, that was just a stupid strategic maneuver from the start that's hurting us geopolitically. It's also hurting us back home, though. And most acutely, up in Alaska, I was talking to somebody the other day when I knew you were going to be on,

just kind of who's up there and talking about their personal story about, like, how much money it's going to cost to heat their house this winter. And it was really eye-popping. And so let's talk about the home heating oil side of it first and then kind of the geopolitical. Well, in Anchorage, most people heat their homes with natural gas. In Southeast Alaska, most people's, electricity comes from their hydro projects. And these are much less expensive sources of power. But once you get off the road system, and even in the interior, even in Fairbanks, our second largest city, most Alaskans outside of Anchorage and Southeast, we rely on diesel.

We rely on diesel for our own home boilers, our own home heater, if you have a toyo stove. Our powerhouses are generated by diesel. so our electricity is tied to the price of diesel. And one of the communities that I've heard about Shungnak, it's a small village outside of Katsubu, they're literally paying right now $26.82.82 a gallon for gas. And my understanding is they're locked into that price. You know, the rest of the world, the price comes up and down,

and that's reflected at the pump. If you live in a community that has a fall barge and a spring barge bringing in your diesel and gas, you are locked into those prices until the next barge. So for communities that just, you know, and so much of it was dumb luck and timing, there are communities who got a halfway decent price because they happened to make their fuel purchase and lock in their price during the ceasefire. But unless you were in that sweet spot of that ceasefire, you're going to be paying, you know, as much as 2680 to a gallon.

a neighbor village to Shungnak is paying $24 a gallon. But even if you're from a regional hub, like in Bristol Bay, Dillingham is paying $9 a gallon, I just don't know how we're going to make it through this winter. And last winter we were living hand to mouth. So a lot of Alaskans are very worried about themselves, their friends, their neighbors, people within their community, who we know even this last winter, which was really cold, it was a very cold. It was a very very deep, cold winter and it lasted through May. I started going to some of the villages outside, you know, on the coast, on the Bering Sea coast. St. Mary's, we had a gentleman come into our meeting and he was literally, he could not hold back the tears. He said, I'm so worried

about my kids. I'm worried about my grandkids. Every day they're deciding whether they can buy fuel to heat their home or food. So we are so low down on Maslow's theory of hierarchy. I just feel like we are living so hand to mouth and it's inevitably going to be harder this winter. Meantime, Dan Sullivan is living high on the hog. I mean, that's just unimaginable. I mean, the cost and what people are enough to deal with and how cold the winter is going to be. And then you kind of look at the point of the war. And it's one thing you've seen from some of these people from the president himself

talking about how this was worth it because of the nuclear. And to me, it's just from the start this seemed unimaginably. foolhardy and that they didn't have a clear objective. Dan Sullivan and the others, Republicans of the Senate, didn't speak out against it. What's your thought just overall on the handling of the war? Well, for so long and so many previous administrations, there is a recognition that Iran is a adversary, and there have been concerns about our national defense and our relationship with them. But everybody was much more cautious and much more risk-averse because of the Strait of Harmuz. And everybody who knows Politics 101 knows the relevance and how critical

that passageway is. And it affects all the other markets because it's a global market. And when one area is constrained, it affects the prices no matter where that oil is being drilled and refined. And there's this story today. I know you have a couple sons who are in the Coast Guard and the story today coming out about what we're seeing on the USS

Lincoln and CNN's reporting this that we were learning now that there were eight suicide attempts on the U.S. carrier group out there. And that's part of it true. Just like there was no plan, no strategy, and the treatment of our soldiers is really unacceptable.

From my perspective, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Well, I believe there have been 18 casualties to date because of that war and those casualties are being classified as death during a

how did they put it? Death during a conflict or an incursion or a ceasefire and that has huge implications for the survivors and if we I just think it's

beyond the pale that we would be so disrespectful to our servicemen and people who gave their lives in service of America and are fighting for us that we would turn around and dishonor their survivors by not providing, you know, not classifying in it a way. We're not that broke. It just doesn't make any sense to me. And the other thing that I- Those aren't the folks we should be scrimped at all. No, no, we should never ever do that.

that is just such a travesty. And just big picture, when I kind of zoom out, it just feels like reverse Robin Hood, where we're taking from the poor and middle income and shifting that to the ultra rich, not just rich people, ultra rich. And it just doesn't sit well with me. Let's talk about the Democrats a little bit. And if you get back in there in the Senate and you're pretty independent in the House on various things. I just wonder kind of how you think about that balancing independence with party loyalty.

Maybe in 2029 you get to a place where we have a Democratic president. They want to pass something to the Senate. And, you know, we just kind of saw how Manchin Cinema created problems at times and saw how they worked with Biden at times. I just kind of wonder how you sort of think about that, like being independent-minded, Karen in Alaska, but also recognizing that you're in a party. As an Alaskan, we really expect our congressional delegation, our federal delegation, to fight for us, regardless of who the president is, regardless of your party. And there's always a lack of understanding about Alaska.

You really just don't understand Alaska until you've been here. And we have such unique regions of our state. I think of Alaska as being six states within a state. And I'm talking about big Western states. Yeah. So we just have unique needs. if we were our own country, we'd be the 18th largest country in the world. 82% of our communities, you can only get to by error.

We're vast. And again, our energy sources come from many different places. So like when Biden was the president, I went toe to toe with him almost every week, if not twice a week, on things like prohibiting natural gas stoves. If you're in South Central Alaska, natural gas is your. cheapest resource for things like stoves. And, you know, there was a push to require, you know, to phase out internal combustion gas engines for electric cars. Well, if your powerhouse is generated by diesel and you're paying a dollar,

a kilowatt hour, it makes no sense to have an electric car, especially in a really cold climate. So there are a lot of extenuating circumstances, and we expect our federal delegation, to form alliances and coalitions and, you know, with everyone and anyone to move our priorities forward, we expect our federal delegation to go against ideas or, you know, situations that are not in the best interest of Alaska. So I, you know, 62% of Alaskans are independent, nonpartisan undeclared. Most of us don't see ourselves through a partisan lens. If I, you know,

had to, you know, describe myself, I think a Democrat might be the hundredth way that I would even describe myself. So every issue is unique and every circumstance is unique. And I think you just need to keep an open mind and really listen to Alaskans and how things are affecting them. Thank you about being in the Senate, assuming you could win. There are a couple of things that come up as far as how the process is going to work. I just wonder if you've put any thoughts into Chuck Schumer as majority leader for the Democrats and whether you'd support him and the question of the filibuster. You know, I'm not focused on the composition right now.

There's, you know, and it's so funny because we live in an unprecedented time and it's been an unprecedented time for a very long time. I'm sick of talking about how unprecedented it is, to be honest. I am too. I would love to live in precedented times. I would love to have boring guns. government. I'd love to have boring leaders who weren't doing outlandish things all, you know, every day, you know, not knowing how the zone is going to be flooded. But if I am so

fortunate to win, and this is not in the bag, I don't have any thoughts that, that I'm a shoe in or anything like that. This really is a toss up. This is a dead heat. And it's really going to take all of us to win this race. So please go to Marypeltola.com to chip in. we need to raise a lot of money to get out face to face in front of Alaskans. But this isn't a sure thing. So we've got the email pitch, but what about the vote for Schumer? You know, I am not interested in caucus dynamics. And again, I have no way of knowing what the dynamics will be at that point.

That's fair. And I just, I hate to make big predictions. And the filibuster question is, I just think it might be so far away because you're talking about 2029, But in the Senate, you know, for the Democrats to be able to do things and that that has been a pretty big controversy among Democrats. I don't know, even when you were there in the House. I mean, do you have any thoughts on it one way or the other? Well, we don't have the filibuster in the House. Right.

But when you were in the House trying to get stuff passed, to get stuff passed through the Senate, there was a big, you know, in like 2021, 22, there's a lot of discussion about how the Democrats Senate couldn't do certain things without breaking the filibuster. Well, and this is a tough one because the filibuster threshold has come down. it hasn't been static. You know, it's been a moving target. And I think historically, we have never been in a position where the majority flips back and forth so often every two years. This seesaw, this kind of whiplash between the two parties. And our system was really designed to go slow and build coalitions and have broad support. And I think that's healthy.

I do worry about one administration, one majority coming in and making dramatic changes. And then in two years, another majority comes in and flips it again. I think the level of uncertainty that we are all living in currently is only exacerbated when we have a Congress that's just, you know, got these political footballs going back and forth. By nature, I am attracted to people. that want to do bipartisanship, and I like bipartisanship, and I like people that want to work across the aisle. One frustration I had with the Biden administration and the more centrist members during that time was, I think that there was a sense of, okay, we want to, let's move on from Trump and let's like work together and let's not deal with some of the stuff that was happening in the past. Would that be January 6th, et cetera? And to me, it's like, I don't think you can be bipartisan on policy issues without necessarily commiserating with people that broke the law, broke rules, et cetera. And I'm just kind of wondering how you think about that. Like,

obviously there'll be a policy agenda for the, for the Democrats, but shouldn't there not also be a corruption and accountability agenda, given what we've seen in the last couple of years? I think everyone across Alaska is feeling the weight of the corruption in Washington, D.C. And the corporate greed that has been allowed to happen really unfettered, if you look at every single thing we're paying for, we are getting crushed by these runaway prices, whether it's diesel or gas, transportation costs, freight costs, health care costs, grocery costs, even the issue with factory trawlers, you know, dragging the bottom of the Bering Sea, that's a corporate greed issue. And our government was designed, first of all, to have three different branches and a balance of power. And

it was also designed to be reflective of the electorate. And right now we have a house and a Senate that's half millionaires and billionaires. This is not a mirror of America. And I think that their agenda is very different than the average household agenda. And we all know financially, we are going backwards every month. And there is a direct tie with corporate greed and, you know, these millionaire and billionaire agendas that really are stealing. You're on board for oversight of whatever kind of of great, whatever scandals

we've seen people doing deals with this administration that are not legal or fair. And oversight is baked into our democracy. And we've been ignoring that. And we have a Congress that acts like they don't have the power of the purse. We have a Supreme Court that really cowtows.

And it just is feeling more and more like we just have one branch of government, all of the attacks on the freedom of the press, this is just a huge concern. And I just think this is not the way our system was designed. And it's really becoming bastardized. I've got an Alaska rapid fire from you. I've heard two things about you that have little birdies have said in my ear. One is that you're like friends with Sarah Palin. I guess Alaska is so small. And you ran against each other. But I don't know, I had a friend of a friend of Palin who said that Palin like you like you guys are pals. I don't know. Is that right? Well, we met before the current state of

affairs. We worked together before social media, before the MAGA movement. She was our governor for two years. And I was in the state legislature. I served in our state legislature for 10 years. And of course, that was 18 years ago now. But I was serving in the state house and the chairman of the, what we call the Bushcock. It's the rural members. There were 10 of us, five Republicans, five Democrats. And we worked really well with her. Her then husband, Todd Palin, is from Bristol Bay, and he's a fisherman, and he's also

Yupik. And I found Sarah very easy to work with when she was governor. So you guys had like having a momoses together or what? I don't know what do you do in Alaska? We bonded because we. We, yeah, we do that. Sarah and I bonded because she was pregnant with her fifth child. At the same time, I was pregnant with my fourth child.

And we were both going to work and getting dogged for being pregnant moms in these, you know, white collar positions. So, you know, there were a lot of things to bond on as working moms. I hear you also can't go running like you like because of the fact. fat bears. And, you know, at gay pride, sometimes I've got to run away from the fat bears, too. It's a different kind, though. Is that, that's true. Like, literally, like, you're scared of the bears. Like, you can't run because the bears might, might eat you. Well, we've got some black bears in our neighborhood. And I'm on a group chat with my neighbors. And there were some pretty stark pictures sent around of a bear or bears just tearing into somebody's garage door because they were trying to get to their, their trash. We've, you know, like most. places. There are people who want fresh eggs and have chickens. And so it's very bears versus chickens in the part of town that I live in. And actually, it was on my treadmill a couple weeks ago, just, you know, happily running away. And I actually saw this pretty big black bear dashing through my yard. He ran so fast. I couldn't even get a picture of it on my phone. But black bears

terrify me. You can't look big to intimidate them. You can't, you know, start yet. And you know, yelling and you can't run, you can't climb. So I'm pretty scared of lock bears. Okay, me too. That's a really Into the Wild type story. You ever see Into the Wild? That's a good one. That's a good movie.

I like that. That's the closest I've gotten watching Into the Wild. All right. I want to end with this. I was changed from light to heavy, but we never met before. And I just, I was reading just about the tragedy of your husband and Busy and who died in a plane crash about three years ago now. And I just, 57, I can't even imagine what that's like.

And so I just wanted to kind of give you the opportunity to tell our listeners like a little bit about him. Oh, he was incredible. He was a force. And it's been really a bummer that after he passed away, he was largely characterized as my husband because that that was not his role. He was just a larger than life guy. He was such a good hunter. He grew up as a child hunting muskrat and beaver. and just went on.

And prolific hunter, prolific fishermen, we call them providers up here. He really knew how to fill a freezer. He could humanely get his catch, process it, put away. He could butcher his own meat. He had an amazing vacuum ceiling setup. We would grind our own moose meat. We had seven kids together. I have four, and he has three.

and we've been a blended family now for 17 years. But when all of our kids were home and our boys were teenagers, we put away two mousse a year, which is a tremendous amount of meat and a tremendous amount of hamburger. And he was a pilot. There just wasn't anything he couldn't do. He testified before Senate. You know, he was rated for multiple different planes.

He could fix our boat motors, put floorboards in my boat in one afternoon, painted and all. He was just a really exceptional great guy. Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate it. I guess I have to see it for myself. So will you come?

Will you show me around sometime? I guess you'll be busy in D.C., but you'll be getting back. Please come to Alaska. We can go anywhere you want to go. Yesterday I was in Valdez. It is gorgeous there. Kodiak's amazing.

I think it's the second largest island in the United States. It's the largest Coast Guard base in the United States. huge fishing fleet. Juno is beautiful. Where I'm from is a different kind of beautiful. It's a tidal estuary with two gigantic rivers. So yes, please come. We would love to host you. I'll bring my daughter. I think she would love it. All right. That's Mary Feltola. Thank you so much for taking the time. Get back on the campaign trail. We'll be talking to you again soon. Thanks, Tim. The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper,

and with video editing by Dante DeChico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brough.