The Bulwark Podcast - Sam Stein: The Ridiculously Unserious President

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

We’re raining hellfire down on Iran and American soldiers have died, but that doesn’t stop Trump from hitting the links, doing a little dancing, or holding a revenge rally. His main preoccupation is his daily PR battle over the war—which currently involves arguing that higher gas prices are a good thing. And his ever dutiful backup chorus in Congress is happy to explain how “freedom isn’t free.” Meanwhile, the immigration system has been so undone that we now have a shortage of seasonal workers. Plus, the absurd shoe-related loyalty test at the White House, a major Trump donor is trying to buy a Senate seat in Oklahoma, at least one white Afrikaner refugee has seen enough and wants to go home, Sam and Tim have new Cabinet member rankings, and some justice for JVL and Bill after Wednesday's pod.Sam Stein joins Tim Miller.show notes JVL’s “Triad” on Iran from Wednesday and Thursday Bill on the "epic failure" of the Iran war in "Morning Shots" Adrian and Jared on Markwayne Mullin Sam's and Catherine's 'Bulwark Take' on higher gas prices Tim's and Sam's year-end ranking of Cabinet members "Odd Lots" podcast Tickets for our LIVE show in Austin on March 19: TheBulwark.com/Events. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/BULWARK and use promo code BULWARK at checkout. For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/THEBULWARK

Welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Thursday, March the 12th. I want to bring you a little comfort food, a little porridge, a little ice cream, you know, whatever it is that makes you feel good inside. Little crawfish atouffey. And it is my friend and yours, the managing editor of the Bullwark, Samuel Stein. How you doing? Good. I every one of those was great except for porridge. I don't want to pay it here. Why did porridge come to mind? I don't know. I don't know. Where a porridge can't. When's the last time you had porritch? forged him. I can't recall the last time I had forged. What's your middle name? I was going to do your middle name. It's

Ignatius. No. It's Do we have to? Ignatius would be Catholic. So it's something Jewish. What's an I? What's a Jewish eye name? There's a good thing here. It's short. My middle name is Irving. It's

named after my grandfather, Irving Fine, who was a famous composer in his day, tragically died at the age of 49. But look them up. Good friends with Aaron Copeland, Leonard Bernstein. He wrote some great classical music bits, started the music program at Brandeis. A little Stein family history for you. Well, it seems fake. And it seems like your parents were just big Irving Crystal acolytes. And we're trying to come up with a different reason. You don't want to give Bill the credit. But that's okay. We have a lot to talk about. You said you're nervous.

Yeah. Do you want to talk about why? Before we get. Yeah. So I listened to the pod yesterday with Sagar and, you know, I feel like, you know, he's like a seven-course meal type guess. He's talking about like thad missiles and he's reading the front pages of the Korean press and he's got all these analogies to, you know, World War II. He's doing General Westmoreland Spoot bits. And I'm like de jornos. Like you're going to enjoy it, but you're going to, it's not good for you. And so I'm a little bit worried. My intellect is not on the level.

And yeah, I woke up a little bit early today in sweats thinking about this. Here's an important thing, Sam. There's difference between intellect and wisdom. Well, I don't have that either. And I think that there was a shortage of the ladder. We appreciated him coming on. Now, he was great. Let's talk about the news.

We're still at war with Iran. We're still climbing the mountain of conflict. We're still having a, what did Trump call it, an excursion? An incursion, I think is what he meant. Yeah, he means incursion. I think he just doesn't either he doesn't understand the difference between the words or no one's bothered to correct him or both. But he definitely means incursion. And he keeps saying excursion.

Yeah. And excursion is like we're taking a short little excursion to the bayou. With our porridge. Yeah. Yeah, to have some porridge. Yeah, we're doing an incursion. Okay. So here's the latest from the incursion excursion.

Yesterday, Iraq and Oman closed oil terminals after two tankers were attacked and left burning off Iraq's coast. The IEA said on Thursday that the war has caused the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. 800,000 people are displaced in Lebanon amid continuing Israeli strikes on Hezbollah. Cargo ship was struck by an unknown projectile near Dubai. There's like a style section piece about rich people that are never going back to Dubai after the trauma they've experienced. early assessments by the UN refugee agency find that up to 3.2 million people have been displaced in Iran since the war started.

We are continuing our onslaught onto Iran, about 1,500 people dead there, eight American soldiers dead. So that's the state of affairs. Donald Trump says we've already won, basically. It doesn't feel that way. Yeah, why does he keep saying we've won? We obviously haven't won.

Although he does say we won, but we're also still fighting. he has this weird way of justifying this. I think this is a mess. I mean, it's a mess, right? I suppose I would feel differently about it all if I understood why we were doing this. And I'm not really sure anyone's given

a convincing explanation for why we're doing this. Generally speaking, like, if you're going to kill somebody, it's a good start to, like, have a reason. Let's say someone said, what's your interpretation of their reason? What would you say? I would say that Israel feels a real and legitimate security concern with Iran. They felt that way for a long time.

Israel's military has demonstrated really impressive capabilities between the pager attack and the first 12-day war with Iran and other, the ability to decapitate Iranian leaders. And Israel has not imminent, but like real security concern. And they convinced Donald Trump to do it with them because Donald Trump, like, enjoys seeing things go boom. I guess. That would be the reason that I would offer. You mentioned Israel like four times in that. And I mean, it's just like.

But like what else? I mean, obviously, obviously we would not be here if Israel didn't want to do. Right. Okay. It's like, that's like not a concern. It's just like obvious. Like, let's say that, you know, like that that, you know, like that that, you know, that was entirely. Let me try to paint like the most.

generous reason for this. This is the most generous interpretation of what we're doing, which is the Iranians posed a regional threat, but also to a degree of threat to the United States, through ballistic missiles, through their ability to disrupt. To what degree? To what degree? I don't know. To some degree.

Like how many degrees? Like two degrees? It depends. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll go back to the degrees. And you couldn't live in a world where, you know, they were threatening us like this.

And I just, even that doesn't really make sense because we were living in a world. And I thought one of the most interesting rationales was when I think it was Tom Cotton. They're like, you know, they've been an imminent threat for 47 years. It's like, yeah, we've lived with this for 47 years, right? Like we have. Trump was already president once during those 47 years. Yeah, we lived through with Trump. I guess when I look at what's happening and all the sort of disruption,

and the loss of life and the tragic killing of these girls in this elementary school and the displaced people and the costs and the trauma and everything that comes along with it, I can't accept it because it's hard to understand what any of it is for. That, I think, is one of the primary failures of this administration, and really Trump, honestly, because he seems so much more attuned to trying to win some sort of daily PR battle around the war than he is about actually prosecuting it and explaining it to the American people. To have a finer point on this. Both our colleagues, William Crystal and Jonathan last, were smeared yesterday on the podcast

as warm hungering, bloodthirsty neocons, you know, who are to blame for a lot of things. And both of them have newsletters in the last 24 hours about this topic. It sheds a little bit of light on. I think your confusion about what we're exactly. exactly it is that we're doing there. JVLs yesterday was headline dire straits. The Iran war is run by idiots. And I don't want to speak for them, but I think that both JVL and Bill and myself would be open to interesting proposals considered on how to help the Iranian people find freedom from a from a horrific regime. But like what they're doing is not that. JVL goes in depth to,

you know, white papers that have been written by experts over the the past quarter century, talking about how Iran has prepared for this moment and, you know, some of the obvious things that they would do in reaction. And our government seemed to, like, either not know or not care or not think about that or not bring in the people who did know when they were making the decisions. Bill writes this morning about how they should rename this epic failure. You're not going to read Bill's email headline because it's the perfect bill email. Sure, I'll read it. Sing, goddess. of the fury of Trump,

the wartime president is focused on footwear. It's a classic bill piece. There's references to Homer and Elliot and the Killies. All in all, though, the summation of it was, like, Trump doesn't know what he's doing. Like, this is all just about megalomania. Yeah. To that point, and it's like,

if even people that, like, hypothetically could possibly have been sympathetic to the mission, are looking at this and saying, this is madness. It's insane. It has done in the most stupid way possible. I think that kind of tells you what you need to know. Yeah, and I've seen people say, you know, and I don't want to speak on Bill's behalf, he can do that very much himself. We'll see him on Monday. I've seen people say, well, you know, Bill's just clouded by TDS and anything Trump does. He's going to pose. Like, how could this guy, of all people, oppose what's going on in Iran? And I just don't see that. I mean, like, Bill is pretty open-minded. I talked to him all the time, and I've edited the newsletters he's written about Iran.

I think he would be supportive of a war that was based around some principles that he believed in. And this is not that. I think it'd be supportive of a war that was done with proper and professional execution, too. But this is not that either. And just if you kind of narrowly isolate the issue of the Iranian people and this idea that they deserve a government that is more liberal democratic and respectful of human rights and all the things that I think Bill legitimately believes in. I mean, what about this war has been in pursuit of that?

We're going to end up with a more autocratic regime with a younger, more despotic Ayatollah. Or maybe they kill him and see what the next person is, and it's like dealer's choice. Right. Right. Well, we killed the people who we thought were going to be good. He's playing go fish for new Ayatollahs. Right. The Iranian people are seeing their capital city absolutely, you know, bombed to smithereens. They've seen schools bomb.

They're seeing their water supply, their oil supply absolutely decimated. They have oil rain coming down from above. Like, is that really supportive of their rights and their hopes and aspirations? There's nothing that would give you a sense that this is being done for the purpose of helping a beleaguered Iranian populace. And I think everything indicates that this is being done to JVL's point by people who don't really actually pay attention to the details. I thought JVL's column was spot on. Yeah. And I think, again, just to look back on the Israel part of it, I do think that if you read the press there, like there's not like a clear end goal.

But I think that the people in charge of Israel are kind of happy with any out. Like if it's a weakened Iranian regime with fewer missiles that could, they could shoot at Israel, but a similar radicalism, not great. Not the best outcome, but I still have an improvement. If it's total chaos and they have internal fighting and warring, so they're focused on each other, not their neighbors, that's a win, right? If hypothetically you get somebody who's more moderate in, even the best case. Right. So I don't think that they have like a plan for the outcome for the end game. excited though, right? It's like, why would a failed nation state in Iran be a win for the region?

I mean, what you'll end up happening is no one who can control anything. It's at least understandable, though, because they're getting rockets fired at them all the time. You know, and I think the point is that Trump is just along for the ride with that. Yeah. But I hear you. And the refugee situation, one thing I didn't get to a saga, I wish I'd have got to more because it's something he's good on. But we're spending too much time on the stuff he's good on. I wanted to make sure we had a little time for me to to dunk on them is the comparison to Syria.

is like Syria is so much smaller than Iran just in like the number of humans that live there and like the Syrian refugee crisis had ripples throughout the entire world to today. Yeah, still today like Syrian refugee crisis

explains like why Brexit happened possibly. You know what I mean? Like there's a whole yeah you know the whole Western world and obviously the Middle East like dealt with the ramifications of that and so if you end up in that situation that's Even like in the ballpark of that in Iran, given the number of people that live there, I just, it's unimaginable.

It's cataclysmic. I mean, we're talking not just about refugees. You're talking about famine. Yeah. Disease, you know, the potential for more terrorist attacks, guerrilla tactics that JVLA laid out. It's unfathomal to imagine. And then just the scope of human suffering is really, you know, it obviously goes underappreciated, but like we can't lose sight of that. One more thing is kind of back to we don't know we're doing.

and I don't see anything that we're doing, helping support, like making the Iranian people feel like we're looking out for their best interests. To the bombing of the girls' school. I forget it was yesterday the other day. There'd been some discussion about how maybe it was the AI targeting. And Claude that was how that happened. As more reporting comes out,

and kind of shout out to the remaining reporters who are on this beat after places like the Washington Post eviscerated their Middle East reporting. We still have the Reuters' Times. Much of other places are doing good reporting. What we're learning from them is that it may have actually just been out-of-date targeting. Like, the school was near a military base. And like, this was, you know, the things had changed in the past seven years or whatever since whatever the targeting that they're using.

Just deeply tragic. I don't even know how much more there is to say about it. And the fact that the president of the United States just continues to lie about it is un-fathomable. Unconscionable. Unconscionable. Let's just be real about this. Every bit of evidence now points to, including our own.

own review, the own United States review, preliminary review says, we fucked up. We did this. We are responsible. Like, whether it was cloud or, you know, old day data is kind of irrelevant. And it's a little relevant just in the case of, like, it'd be pretty alarming if our new AI tools,

what we're doing hallucinous. Does this make the case for AI? Not really. It's just like, it's good to know that so far, like, the AI isn't hallucinating and trying to kill young girls. Like, that's all. It's just a,

it's just a fact. That hasn't happened yet. We thought it might have happened. So that's the only reason that's... Wow, that is quite the silver lining. It's not a silver lining. We should know whether the AI... The Defense Department's AI is hallucinating targets as girls' schools.

That's always... You think the execs at cloud are like, whoof... Yeah. Trump should be... I mean, a normal empathetic human being, let alone president, would say something to the effect of this is a tragedy, No matter what, we're looking into it. We're still investigating it.

But no matter what, it is a tragedy and it's horrifying to imagine what these families and these people are going through. This president has not even acknowledged that this exists. He's denying reality. What an affront to like basic humanity that he can't even bring himself to just say, I'm sorry that this happened. He wouldn't respect someone who couldn't do this in normal life. Well, exactly.

I don't respect him. So that's, that's like, he's. keeps me nice and even. The cost is another thing that we have, and there have been some speculation, et cetera, and who can you even trust the fucking Pentagon? Who knows? But the Pentagon tells Congress that the first week of the war, so seven days, cost $11.3 billion.

So about a billion and a half a day. It's pretty significant nut there. I think from my perspective, I'll just, can we just put on our just cliche hats here? From my perspective, it's somebody who's concerned about the $30 plus trillion dollars that we have in debt. seems not great that once again we're doing absolutely nothing to care about that. Maybe from you as a former Huffington Post-Lib perspective, you might look at this and say, isn't that about what the Obamacare subsidy is time to cost?

If we keep going at this pace for a couple more weeks, I think it's three more weeks, it will be the cost of the Obamacare subsidies, which we couldn't afford. Can't afford. Too expensive. Unreal. Delete me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time with surveillance and data breaches are common enough. to make everyone vulnerable, data brokers make a profit off you. Your data is a commodity.

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That's Join DeleteMe.com slash Bullark code Bullwark. Good a bunch of other stuff to get to. I have a section here titled Louisiana theme. fucked up from the administration. One is related to the Iran War, then we'll move on to some politics. There is something called New Orleans Uria. I'm not going to pretend like I know about this.

What is that? But it is, urea is basically fertilizer. It is kind of natural gas and ammonia and nitrogen and you get fertilizer. I was listening to the Odd Lots podcast. My favorite dork podcasts, our pods save the world.

They usually fall asleep, though. odd lots, which does like random economic stuff. Joe Wisen and Tracy Alley, they've been on the show. Derek Thompson's show had him on last week. I found a nerd out on stuff. Those are some of my favorites.

I was listening to the Odd Lott show. And I was like, oh, the New Orleans Uria, I should care about this. The Port of New Orleans is the primary hub for importing and storing this fertilizer. It is coming, though, from the Persian Gulf. Shocked. Got to go through the Strait of Hormuz.

45% of the world's tradable Uria comes from the Persian Gulf. China also has some of the remaining 55%, but they have an export ban because China cares about their own people and they ban the exporting of Uria so they don't ever have a shortage. So what we're going to see now

as we head to the spring harvest is farmers paying more. Maybe some of them have already their fertilized, but like paying more. Long story short, this is just going to lead to additional costs, not just in gas prices, but in food and grocery prices.

because A, the trucks are now paying higher in diesel, you know, driving the food around the country, and the farmers are paying higher in fertilizer because we have a fertilizer shortage. So there's another fallout from this. I was talking with Catherine Rompel about this yesterday. We did a little thing on the takes feed for those who haven't followed. You should check out the takes feed. The economic ramifications are pretty wild and they're going to get much worse, assuming this keeps going. because precisely what you said.

So much is dependent on, you know, not just fertilizer, but obviously, but fuel. And Trump himself has been very adamant, like, well, you know, if you bring down gas prices, everything gets brought down. And he talked about, like, you know, donuts. You know, he had this famous thing where he was like, you know, the cost of donuts, it depends on gas.

And what's been crazy to me is to watch Republicans in Congress try to rationalize this, where they're just like, I think one person, I think I figure who it was, was just like, you know, well, they're all like, freedom isn't free. we should play you should play freedom are we fighting for freedom like you can't use the george w bush talking points if you're not doing the george w bush war okay like i'm sorry like you can't do freedom isn't free for this unless we're fighting for the freedom of the iranian people in which case i think

people are going to have to be on the ground in iran sure sure well that's the benign talking about you don't free people by bombing them that doesn't work that's the benign talking point someone else was just like well you know these people are kind of poor and they don't really understand That was Center Houston, Big Great Snowout against Sherrod Brown, where he was just like, you know, the poor people don't really understand how to manage their budgets at the grocery store. I can't believe you said that. The thing is going to spell out of control, and it's hard to like draw it back. And here's like the dark irony of all this is like they basically had inflation under control. Like they weren't right.

Obviously prices weren't going down. And that was a stupid thing to promise because you don't want prices to go down because that means you're in a recession. But like, like inflation in the February was down to like basically the target. It was like a little, you know, you want 2%. It was like 2.8% or something. It was like housing was the reason essentially that it was higher. And it had almost gotten back to normal. But then they do this war of choice.

And it's like not only has gas prices just skyrocketed immediately, but it's going to truckle down to like all the other shit that regular people pay for. Yeah, 100%. On top of that, here's the crisis. This will be the Tim Cook section, because this is a real crisis for me. Tim Cook or Tim Cooks? Me. Yeah, Tim Cook.

Not Tim Cook. Sometimes Tim Cook's about Tim Cook. I've had a few of those. We have a crawfish crisis in Louisiana, and this affects me personally. Obviously, grocery and gas prices affect me personally, but nothing affects me more than this. I want to read the story from Stephen Markantle and the advocate. It's spring, and Charlie Johnson's crawfish processing plant in Bowbridge should be humming. This crawfish peeling and cookroom is usually staffed by Mexican migrant workers,

along with a handful of older locals. In a typical day, they'd rotate between Spanish and country music as they work. Some employees have worked to the plant for 14 years and can process 4,000 pounds of crawfish meat a day, which is important because I'm eating like five pounds a day myself. The peeled tails are shipped to restaurants and grocery stores, but on Friday nearing peak crawfish season, typically raucous room. is silent and empty. That's because crawfish processors across Louisiana

say a shortage of temporary work visas has left them without the migrant labor. They depend on forcing plants to sit idle during the busiest part of the season. It's not like that they were hiring illegals. They're going to go, I'm illegals. It's not even that. They've broken down the entire immigration system.

They don't want new people coming into the country. So we don't have seasonal workers, temporary work visas that we needed to carry out important services, like make sure I can get my fucking. in crawfish during crawfish season. This is an outrage. And it also, you know, crawfish inflation probably won't affect you, Sam, you know, up in the northeast.

But it will affect me. But there are other examples of this is just the one that I care about personally, but where we're not getting seasonal workers, fruit's going to be more expensive, vegetables are going to be more expensive. And like yesterday, that was the thing that maybe I got the most mad about or second most mad about with Sagar when we were arguing with this. And he was talking about like, Tim, you're. treating these humans like their utils and like,

you only care about them for your neoliberal goals. It's like, no, actually, I care about them as individual humans and don't think that we should be shipping them to foreign gulags. And I also simultaneously think that like Americans should be able to have cheap, fresh fruit and produce. And if that is supported by, you know, having some temporary migrant labor, then like, great. Like, what's the problem with that? Here's the alternative. of fucking Charlie Johnson's crawfish plan is empty. Once you go for the crawfish, you've gone too far.

Yeah, this is not great. And I don't get Saugger's point. I mean, this is a win-win, frankly, for the U.S. society. They want the work. We benefit from the work. The American economy clearly benefits to work. Like any statistical breakdown of that. And now anecdotally, we're seeing what happens when you don't have this.

So this is holistic, too. It's like, you know, across the board, it's not just seasonal workers, obviously. You know, everyone from the seasonal workers who pick your fruit to the foreign PhD students who would normally come and study here are like, no thanks, or we can't get in. And then I saw this morning, the one group that we have been letting in, the white Africaners, did you see this guy? Oh, I love. This is my favorite story of the week.

Thank you for bringing it up. The guy comes in, at least one guy comes in. He's like, actually, this is too violent. I'm going back to South Africa. And pricey. Yeah, it's a little too expensive and violent. Too many guns and everything costs too much in America. I'm going to go back to South Africa.

Yeah. The refugees, the white refugees that Stephen Miller is bringing in. Look, I've been raging about this administration's immigration policies from the start. And I just, I can't imagine anything that could have gotten me more upset about it. But fucking with crawfish season. Don't fuck with crawfish. It's the final straw. Okay.

It's all going to be talking to my Louisiana neighbors about this. impeachment at this point. I mean, impeachment or at least, I mean, Bill Cassidy, where are you? Like, Bill Cassidy, if you aren't going to save us from the measles by blocking RFK Jr. from running health of human services, like, at least you could fucking ensure we have people to work in the crawfish processing plant so we can have our crawfish. At least you could do that, Bill Cassidy? Are you completely worthless? Where's your governor?

He's like too busy with Greenland. Greenland. Yeah, he's, where are those boats, by the way? There was a big announcement. Jeff Landry and Donald Trump made a big announcement. We're in a sense of medical boats to Greenland. What happened? Do we have an update on those boats? Have they made it to Newkin?

We got to do more following up on these random stories. We should just have a feature in the newsletter. Did you have an agri-email? The administration asked them what the status is on the boats that are going to nuke. It's a great idea. I would like to know about that. Okay. I also just like to know generally what they think.

And this was a strategic imperative for our safety that we take Greenland. And it seems like we've got our eye off the ball now that we're like raining hellfire down on Iran. And Cuba's next. Yeah. So speaking of immigration policy, we have a new Secretary of Homeland Security. Great news for everybody.

If you're getting bored of Sam, stick around at the end. We are going to be giving you our updated cabinet rankings, which I know is the reason why Sam's on the show today. So we can't include Mark Wayne, Mullen, former. Is it really Mark Quain? No, I just thought I like to call. It's been.

Marquane, Marquane Mullen, former semi-pro MMA fighter. It was 3-0 in his career, one win over Huggy Bear, and then two wins over another guy, the same guy, in a Tulsa semi-pro MMA. Yeah, what's your fucking record, Tim, huh? Well, I got into one fight on Thomas Circle that I think was a win back freshman year at college. And then there was another time when I'm, I was trash-talking somebody at a bar. Also probably freshman year in college.

I was pretty hot as an 18-year-old. And it was a bicycle-themed bar in Denver. And I was trash-talking a guy. My friend said we should leave. The guy followed me out. And then one of my buddies was a golden club boxer and he smoked him in the face. And then I kind of just deduct. And so that's another win.

So that's like .5. No, that's like half a win. You did none of that word. That's 2 and 0. 1.1.1. Yeah. Anyway. They're going to have to vote, I guess,

that Donald Trump just wants to, like, name him his secretary. That's not how it works. The Senate will have to approve him. Presume he'll get through. But, you know, there's been a lot of focus, I think, on the scandals around Christy Knoem and her personal life and her spending and her physical appearance and, you know, the snuff films that she's put out, like all that kind of stuff.

But, like, on the actual policy, there's not a ton of evidence that things are going to be very different. And Adrian wrote about this earlier. this week for us. Mark Wayne Mullen said Renee Good, engaged in domestic terrorism. He called Alex Freddie Doreen. She said the Liam Ramos story was false. He said, I should remain masked.

He's called for the National Guard to go into the cities. He's opposed judicial warrants. It looks like there's a review happening of CBP policies and they're instituting a lot of stuff that the little guy, little Ms. Vivino, had

been putting in place. Now they've gotten rid of of him, but some of the policies I think are going to be in the new rulebook. So, you know, there's a little bit of a new boss name as the old boss, just kind of a different face situation here. So I guess in one sense, the scandals, like those sort of like high profile scandals involving personality and corruption will be gone, right? It's not going to be, you know, there's no jets where there's a bedroom that may or may not be for, you know, hanging out with Corey. But on the actual substance, it's very much the same. I mean, we don't know.

Yeah, we don't know. We don't know what Corey's willing to do to stay inside the good graces of the second theory. Anything it takes, Corey. It's back on cameo. Is he? He's back on cameo, yeah, helping people with their poopies, the whole thing. Well, yeah, but on the actual substance, I mean, look, this, and I do think this actually matters because I think my hope and my my my my belief is that a lot of the public

revulsion over Trump's immigration policies had to do with how they reacted to things that people saw with their eyes so you saw the shooting of Renee Good, you saw the shooting of Alex Brady, and then you saw Christy Nomenichinston saying, well, these rocks of domestic terrorism and so on and so forth. And people looked into like, what the hell are you talking about? Like this is not, we can see this. You realize there's video footage of this stuff. And if you have someone like Mark Wayne Mullen, who is just going to echo exactly that, I don't think it does, it means any sort of fundamental shift in how they're doing this. And let me just say, we know that they do want to at least pretend like they are shifting, right?

It's not just that they have sacked Nome and replaced her. It's that there's leaking of these stories of, you know, their political principles going to the hill and saying, don't talk about mass deportations. You know, we need to just, you know, sand it on the, the rougher edges. So they care about this stuff, but this guy is just going to do exactly what Stephen Miller says. The other thing that's happening simultaneous to all this is we still aren't funding DHS. I mean, like the DHS has a ton of funding from the last, right? In the most recent budget negotiations, you know, DHS is still in a partial shutdown, which is affecting airports,

affecting FEMA, affecting other types of security. I have seen some reports of like pretty gutted other parts of DHS, you know, things that you would think that they should be focused on child trafficking, things of that nature. And so the Mullen confirmation will be happening simultaneously to this, like, debate over whether to fund DHS. I don't see how any Democrats can vote for it at this point besides Federman. Fetterman. Fetterman's already said he'd vote for it. Yeah. And so, like, how does the logjam break on that? Like, in a normal, world, what you'd happen. If we go back to 2013, what would happen in a situation like this is the incoming secretary would make some concessions to the other party. And as part of the confirmation

hearing, like they would fund the department and confirm that person and they would make some changes. It's not going to happen this time. Well, in 2013, it would require, I believe, 60 votes to get this guy confirmed. They changed the rules. So now they don't have to make those concessions. And it's not definitely not going to happen because this administration views any sort of reform as an indictment of something they've done or as an admission that they did something wrong. So if you're like, well, we'll vote for Mark Wayne, Mark Wayne, Mullen. If you, you know, let's say just throw something out there, institute a, you know, no masking policy for ICE agents, this administration would say no. They would say absolutely not. You're going to docks these people. You know, we weren't doing anything

wrong. How does the shutdown end? I mean, there's been, there's been, there's been a The negotiations happening on the Hill, they don't seem to be going anywhere. There's been an offer from Democrats to fund, for instance, the TSA and all the other agencies other than ICE and CBP. That's not going anywhere because that would just isolate it even further. So I don't know. I mean, we reported that Republicans had been hinting to Democrats, hey, if we turn against Christy No, I mean, we get her out, would that unlock these votes for DHS funding? and the Democrats I talked to on the Hill were like, no, absolutely not.

There's nothing. And because of this, because there's no distinction between Cristina and Markway Mullin other than, you know, the $200 million ad campaign with her on a horse and the jet with Corey and all that stuff. Well, I guess that's a distinction. Maybe he'll be doing an ad campaign on a horse, too. We don't know. We don't know.

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now in Oklahoma Senate seat opens up. Right. This is maybe my second favorite story of the week behind the white South Africans going home because America's too expensive and violent. This is from your old pals of Politico. Governor Stitt, the Oklahoma government has been kind of unexpectedly

just demonstrated a little bit of independence at times from Trump. Oh, yeah. It's not exactly the state. Weirdly, yeah. You would have thought to hear that. But, boy, this report is, well, it's discouraging. It's really just reflective of the idiocry meets corruption of the Trump 2.0 era. Stitt is meeting with Trump today about Senator Mullen's seat.

Why, I don't know. Who cares what Trump thinks about that seat? He has no, it's the governor of Oklahoma's job, but I guess you got to go kiss the ring. I think in any administration, the president would probably want to have a little bit of say, right? I guess. I mean, we do live in a federalist country. like we don't have a king I'm just saying

look I guess you're still stuck in 18 year old Tim yeah I am I'm I'm gonna get my pocket constitution right here I grabbed I had I brought it back up Is that what you brought to the fight When your buddy had punched the guy out And you waived the pocket constitution in front of it

My fighting happened like right after my pocket constitution Face I think I was like I might have just did a white lie there to kind of Preserve my ego I do I think 18 year old was pocket constitution Tim I think probably 20 year old was I just did. I was a little embarrassing to say 20, so I said 18. Anyway, I can't find it. I got my podcast.

I'm here somewhere, but we are still a federal society. Anyway, Kevin Stitt is considering two people for Mullen's seat. His own senior advisor, something I've never heard of. Or oil magnate and Trump ally Harold Ham. Hell yeah. One of the largest donors to Trump's super PACs going back all the way to 2016. Huge supporter has done.

tens of millions of dollars into Trump and his packs. The idea that this guy gets a Senate seat would be a third world banana republic shit. Quite literally buying the Senate seat. It's incredible. And Trump probably would love it and demand in exchange that he like put more oil out onto the market. And, you know, if Kevin's, if Stitt doesn't do it, do you think like Trump, you know, takes FEMA contracts away? I mean, we're talking, the range of possibilities for retribution and grift is incredible in this one. Love it.

We'll keep an eye on it. Simultaneously think about corruption and lack of seriousness and et cetera. We've got John Cornyn down in Texas. You go across the Red River to what's happening there. So the Republican Senate primary went to a runoff. Taurico won in the first round on the Democratic side, Paxton and Cornyn. Cornyn had won very narrowly. It was a three-person race.

He hadn't won, but Cornyn had the most votes very narrowly over Paxton. Trump kind of throws out this trial balloon, basically, that says, hey, I'm thinking about endorsing Cornyn, and I think that whoever I endorse, whoever I don't endorse, should just drop out for the sake of the party. Paxton doesn't like that none too much. Paxton says, I'll drop out if Cornyn and the Senate passes the Save Act, which they can't do without breaking the filibuster. The SAVE Act is this kind of preposterous federal crackdown on voting rules in various states.

Markowski said she was against it yesterday because it would disenfranchised so many Alaskans. And so, like, that's kind of where things stand. In the meantime, a ton of oppo dropping. Like, my MAGA feed is just all corn and oppo, just about how he's a rhino cuck or whatever. And the polling is coming out showing that, like, Trump endorsement might not even really matter that much in this case because MAGA people want Ken Pexton. So it's an interesting evolving dynamic. John Cornyn is trying to navigate that and get the Trump endorsement and survive, have his political career survive. And he's also a little grumpy about that, it seems like he's kind of getting to him.

And here was John Cornyn walking through the halls of Congress yesterday. Previously said that nuking the filibuster would be taking a wrecking ball to Senate rules. Is that no longer true? I said I'd be open to reforms. What would you say to those who say you've just changed? your mind to win the president's endorsement. I'd say that's not true. You also said that it's...

I think we're through. Go away. I think we're through, go away. Hand in the face of the reporter. Didn't want any follow-ups on that. Because obviously, that's exactly what he did. Yeah. It would be amazing if he was like, yeah, that's why I did it.

I mean, I needed to win Trump's endorsement. I love it. I love it. Get rid of the filibuster. None of these guys actually believe in it. I mean, come on, do they? They're all willing to throw it. Maybe there's, like, three of them that are unwilling to change their opinion when it comes down to their own career.

But two of them are gone, Mansion and Cinema. I guess McConnell still likes this stuff. But, like, his career is done anyway. Just get rid of it. Can't it. Is cinema condemned Cornyn yet? Have you seen it? She's a new columnist, right?

She got a new columnist gig. I forget it was for some weird. Like Al Monitor or something. I don't know. That was like the Capitol News. The Washington Reporter or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Why is she not writing a column? about this? Yeah. I don't know. What do you make of it? You probably like the filibuster, right? I do like the filibuster. I did like it generally.

I mean, I always was, I was for the talking. The way that the filibuster has been used is ridiculous. It's like preposterous. It's like, okay, well, wait, now it's a 60 vote threshold for everything. Like that, silly and not what it was meant for. Right. I, you know, as somebody who likes drama and speechifying and politics and, you know, if somebody feels so passionately about something, you know, that they're going to go and

stay and try to block it. Okay, like, great. Like, that's, that's, that's fine. Let's do that. The current system is bad. I'm starting to even evolve on that. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, where's that pocketbook constitution? Where is the pocket constitution? I guess I said, maybe it's down to there. Can you find the page that points to the filibuster in there, okay, buddy? It's not in there. They never imagine this shit. Come on. Thank you note from Pete Buttigieg right there. I can. can't find. Oh, wow. I got my, I got Tyler's thank you cards from when he worked in the Capitol. Here's my thank you note from Barack Obama. Got some stationary. Got some stationary.

Yeah, okay, it's in here somewhere. Anyway, yeah, at this point, we don't even have a Congress. So, like, if getting rid of the filibuster, like, makes Congress actually do work, then I guess before that. Trump was back out in the streets yesterday. He's been in his bubble and he decided to go back out, do a rally, you know, the jerk off dance was happening. Like, we're just, we have soldiers dying in the Middle East. He was golfing this weekend. Yesterday, he was doing the jerk off dance to YMCA. And he went to Kentucky for the very important purpose of retribution against Tom Massey

because Tom Massey embarrassed him over the Epstein files. And so Trump is there trying to support Tom Massey's opponent in that primary, which will be watching. Jake Paul, the M.M.A. fighter, was there. with like very sweaty armpits, like sweating through his suit. And he went on stage and Trump endorsed him for a future office. Am I reaction to that? Are we playing a clip?

Yeah, there's no, that's just, no, there's no clips. That's just, we don't play Trump's voice on here if at all possible. This gets back, though, to the first part of our discussion about Iran. Does it take me from Jake Paul back to Iran? I'm going to get you back there, which is, it's very evident that, Trump, you know, all he cares about, I mean, this is not a revelatory observation here, but like, it's all, it's all about just, he has very little attention to Spain. He just cares about the news headlines. And he's just, he's doing things that do not in any way signal that

he is seriously worried about what's going on in Iran, let alone paying attention to him. He's playing golf, the weird, you know, rally, Jake Paul. I looked at his true social feed prior to coming on here. It's, you know, a lot of it's about oil, but it's, some of it's about like Gavin Newsom. I don't know. He had some riff. I think we're going to play it about Obama and like the stairs on Air Force One. Yeah, we're not going to play it, but I'll read it for you. Trump, the only thing I admired about Barack Hussein Obama, which was nothing, actually.

But the only thing is the way he was bobbing down the stairs. You talk about unprecedented. He would bob. And I couldn't believe that he made it without at least a noticeable major fall. What? Like, where does that even come from? Why did he even bring that up? I think he's very self-conscious about his own ability to walk up and down the stairs.

Sure. I get it. You don't need to talk about that out loud. But it's not even just Trump, too. It's like, you know, Pete Hagseth, the story yesterday that he kicked out a photographer from the pool because he didn't want sexy enough in the pictures or something like that. He didn't like his recessed side profile. Yeah.

The jaw line wasn't strong. It's these guys. He might bone smash. You want to shake. want to shake them and just be like, yo, there's serious stuff happening now. Please get a grip. They're not taking that seriously. They're 12.

They're 12. I'm like literally. And Trump like met his favorite WWE personality reality star and he is very excited to meet him. He is making bombs go boom. And like that is it. It's like this is sergeant's slaughter. He's like excited about an F1 race around Washington.

seeing cash baton as like MMA fighters training the FBI and it's like yo it just at some point you just want to say please take this job seriously just take this job seriously I just want you to take it seriously

I don't yeah I don't know I don't think that they're capable so I don't know do you have any hot takes on the do you think Massey can survive the Trump primary? It's a pretty interesting inflection point yeah because Massey has done the thing he's done it

yeah which nobody else this is true is it nobody else How would you say Liz Cheney did it? No, no, she did it. Okay, I'm about to explain the thing I'm talking about, which is they're going to oppose Trump on a matter of principle. They are going to not waver on it. They're going to campaign on it.

And they are not going to go full bulwark then because people always say like that's what you're demanding people. It's not. It's not what I'm demanding people. They're not going to be Tim Miller and just shit posting a lot of time. Like they're not going to like kind of give up and basically soft retire. That's what Liz Cheney did. I know we love Liz, but like Liz didn't take that with that Wyoming primary seriously at all. Like she wanted to stay in the race because she didn't want to give up, which was admirable.

But like, she didn't campaign to win that race. She campaigned as kind of this valedictory message sending type campaign that he like a noble loss. It was like a noble loss type campaign. Thomas Massey is trying to win. He wants to stay in Congress. He's a libertarian. He's not a resist lib. Like he is against Trump on the war.

He's always been anti-war. He cares about the Epstein files. He's always cared about them. He's a fiscal hawk. And he's such conservative on other issues. I'm like, that's him. He's just going to do it. If it works.

If it works. And that's why I wanted MTG today in Georgia. Yeah. And if either of them would have worked, I think it's a real signal that it's kind of like, like you can see the end. Like, we're not anywhere near the end, but you can start to see an exit path off of Trump

because he doesn't have that effect over people. Yeah. I agree with you 100%, but the flip side of that is if it doesn't work. Yeah. The message that sends pretty dark, for sure. Very interesting primary to keep watching. Okay, we are going to get to the cabinet rankings,

but first there are two members of the cabinet. I've promised the audience that I will only spend 15 minutes per week maximum on 2028 hot stove. now my exception to that is if I have a 2028 potential candidate on okay but like we're not going to do it's too early no it's too early

lots going to happen no sense doing it but it's a little fun so we allow ourselves like a little a little morsel every now and then Trump has been polling Mara Lago attendees

about J.D. and Markup the reply which I don't think should be surprised at given that like it's Florida and these are the rich people. And there's probably a lot of folks that, you know, hate the Cuban commies down there. But overwhelming feedback pro-Marco at Marlago,

at the country club as the rightful heir, not JD. And that is not nothing. It's not nothing to me for two reasons. One, I always like it when Trump's asking this, because number one, I like it when he creates drama in his own side. And number two, it means that he's not thinking about how he can stay in power. So, like, those are small, very light silver linings, very narrow linings. Like, you can almost, it's hard to see them almost, but they're there. What do you make of the polling?

The Mar-a-Lagra. So my general theory of this is that Trump will ultimately anoint someone because he wants to be kingmaker. And so there's not going to actually be like a primary is my sense of it, right? It's like everyone's just going to basically say, well, who's Trump going to annoy it? that person's just going to run and they'll win. So in a weird way, these Mar-a-Lago sessions where he's asking his buddies, like, who they like, really do matter. Like, they really do matter. And then the other component here is that, yes, it does signal that Trump's not going to run again.

But, you know, is he going to, like, not to borrow some sort of anti-Semitic imagery. Puppet master these people? He's not sure. Or do the Putin thing? or you run with me. You have to do it. You got to pick John Jr. Yeah.

Who's the med-Jur-d-D. And I guess the other thing, and I know this is not going to happen, but it is worth. I don't think, I think since you're Jewish. I can do it. And Trump is a Gentile.

Yeah. I don't think that there's any anti-Semitic. Good. I feel fine. Oh, I feel fine with this. Just thank you for clearing me. The other thing is, I don't want it there to be any.

I appreciate it. We just wanted to vet it. What about Don Jr.?. I know it's not going to happen, but where is Don Jr. in all this? Too stupid. And I think that the idea is that JD was the John Jr.

Vessel, right? Because JD... Yeah. So I've asked people like reporters, Dr. Dr. Roper about it. Love Robert Draper. Great reporter, great profile writer.

He did a profile recently about a kind of an ayahuasca type trip that people should read if they're interested in that. It wasn't Iowa. It's a different thing. I can't remember the name of it. Anyway, you know, he is still just from a profile writer's standpoint, like, around the ball in that world. Yeah.

You know, because he wrote about MTG, he wrote about them. And I just was like, I refuse to believe that J.D. Vanson and Don Jr. are real friends because Don Jr. is so fucking stupid. And like this is J.D. is like a sociopath that like will, we'll pretend to be friends with anybody in order to gain power. And I've been assured that they are genuine friends. I kind of don't believe it. I think the J.D. is like such a convincing sociopath. Like he can even fakes people out who are discerning. That said, I think that.

JD was like the Don Jr. stand-end because of their friendship. Interesting. Yeah. We never talk about Eric Trump either. You know, poor Eric. He seems to be running the business. Yeah. It's making money. He's all, he's all, whatever. And he's robbing people with the very cryptocurrencies. So that's pretty good. And maybe he's the true error, honestly. Okay, we'll keep monitoring it. I think that the Marco thing is interesting. And I guess lastly, before we get to the cabinet ranking, speaking of Marco, the shoes, pictures going around?

Yeah, what do you make of that? That's crazy, right? So Trump's been giving them all a certain type of shoe. And it's been described as like a lighthearted loyalty test, which is a little fashy for me. Like, it's like making people wear costumes and uniforms for you is like... A little... It's like... It's not all the way there. Like, they're not military uniforms yet, but it feels like a step in that direction.

But to me, the funniest part about it, it's like... I think Trump just, like, guesses what their shoe size is. Apparently. Because if you look at the pictures, like, Marco's shoes are way too big for him. Maybe Marco lied to Trump about his shoe size. Maybe this is probably it. Marco lied to Trump about his shoe size.

Yeah. He's like, he's probably like a seven, but he's like, yeah, give me a nine. He didn't want to get made fun of. You know,

he knew if he told Trump he was a seven, that Trump he walked around all the time. It's like, you know what that means. Mr. Seven over here. So he lied. So he's in these huge. huge shoes. He's like in these clown shoes.

And then there are other guys, I forget who it was, who's like their foot barely stuffs into the shoe. Right. And it's confusing. For starters, why wouldn't they just buy them themselves? It costs like $150 bucks. Just get the right size yourself and don't tell Trump. Or

otherwise, like the psychological, this was Andrew, but this was funny, like the psychological torment. Like imagine the place you have to get in. You're walking around every day in clown shoes to make your boss happy. Like, There's something submissive about like that, deeply submissive. I mean, there's so much to impact here.

One is, if it were me and Trump was saying, you know, I'm going to get you these shoes, what size are you? And I know that he equates shoe size with dick size. I'd be like, 14, sir. Size 14, Mr. Trump, I know. Just comes. Then you go buy your own regular, correct size shoes. Yeah, exactly.

That's exactly what it is. And you give the 14s to me since that's my actual size. Two is if you've ever worn shoes that are too big for you, and it has happened occasionally, you buy a pair of shoes, you wear them, like you wear them once in a shit, this is too big. It's awful. I mean, it's awful. Like they're falling off. You're like scraping the bottom.

You're tripping over shit. Like these are our secretary of state is doing this on a regular, apparently a regular basis where he's got to go through life in these oversized shoes. I can't imagine doing that. It's awful. And then third, it's so embarrassing, too, because it's like, do they have to wear these every day? Like, I don't want to wear this. I never wear the same shoes every day.

But I guess apparently these guys just show up and like, oh, fuck, I got to wear the Trump shoes again today. Like, do they change their suits ever? Like, do they, I guess they have to match? The whole thing's so stupid. But it's very fitting for the Trump era. I hadn't thought about that, just how awful it is to slide around the shoes. Personally, is this true? You know how as you get old, like you stop growing, but your ears get bigger?

and like it's especially true from Marco because like it's like Marco's Pinocchio curse it's like every time he lies his ears get even bigger but for me I feel like is it possible my feet are getting bigger because it's not been too big shoes for me lately it's been too small like every shoe I buy I've been the same shoes size my whole life like it feels like and now they're a little tight

and I'm wondering is it possible could your feet grow after 40? I think the doctor's weigh in on that for me pediators. I think it's possible that your feet actually go wider I don't know. Maybe my feet are widening. Comment on that if you're a foot doctor.

But when you're like me and you're a size 14, it's hard to find shoes. All right, let's close with the cabinet rankings. Me and Sam have been doing this since the start, just kind of an assessment of, it's sort of representative of where things are going the worst to the administration. It's also an interesting exercise. It shows our differences about where we're coming from. For most of last year, Sam had RFK ranked as the worst. cabinet secretary. I was vacillating back and forth between Nome and Bessent for most of the year.

At the end of the year, Sam realized I was correct, and we united on Nome being the worst, and we both ended up being right, as she's the first one out. The rest of the rankings, Sam had RFK2, Hegsa 3, Russ Vote 4. We're going to take Russ out for this one. We're just talking about cabinet. We're just talking about secretaries now. It gets too confusing if we're lumping in the trade wrap and the element. I had known. Rubio Bessent vote. So Sam had Noam RFK Heggseth. I had Noam Rubio Bessent as the worst three.

I want to go through. I'm just going to list everybody really quick. How did we do this last time? Did we give grade A's or did we? Last time, if people want to go watch the whole 30 minutes, we're already an hour into this pod. So we're not going to do an abbreviated version. But you can go look at our year end.

We'll put a link in the show notes. You're going to look at our year end. And we went through, we gave everybody a grade. But we're not going to do that this time. But I'm going to read all the cabinet. And what I'm asking for you is to give me the largest small person. We're not going to impugn any little people. But like the person who stands out among the Lilliputians.

Okay, I'm going to go through them and I'm going to tell you my, how about we do it this way? I'm going to give you my five worst. You give me your five worst and then we'll rank them. Okay, great. But I also want from you, if there's a sleeper out there that doesn't make the top five. Yeah, I got a sleeper. I'm going to read them all right. I got sleeper.

Here's the list. I'm just going to unread them all really good. Marko, Scott Best. Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Doug Bergam, Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture, Howard Nutlick, Commerce, Lori Chavez-Durimer, Secretary of Labor, RFK Jr.,

Scott Turner at HUD, Sean Duffy at Transportation, Chris Wright at Energy, Linda McMahon at Education, Doug Collins, Veterans Affairs. And then I'm also going to actually lump in there the intelligence agencies, Tulsi Gabbard, and John Ratcliffe at CIA.

So we'll start with like, Who is the standout performer for you? Stand up performer has got to be, it's, well, geez, oh, my guess, it's so tough. Speaking today in this very moment, it's got to be Hegg Seth, right? It's got to be Heggseth. No, this is your worst? The worst of the worst. Is that what you're saying?

Oh, okay, sorry. I thought, I'm at standup performer. Let's start with a compliment. Yeah, yeah. Start of those, and then we'll, you know, I still feel pretty good about my guy, Doug. I mean, Doug. Yeah. He is doing okay.

He is making people like do errands for him. I'm going to throw out a different one. I think there are only two possible choices. Okay. For the best of the worst. And Doug Bergam is one possible choice. And the other one is one I'm going to go with, which is John Ratcliffe. Why?

And I'm just grading him, well, because I'm rating him purely on skills demonstrated. He's demonstrated no skills. I mean, we, we don't know. We successfully kidnapped the leader of Venezuela with no cash. That's pretty good. Give that to Pete. Give that to Pete. The CIA, they found comedy.

They found him. Okay, okay. So I'm giving it to reckless. Sure. We can agree to disagree. Okay. Now we'll go to our five worst. You want to go one to five?

Let me just, I'm going to let me, this is the pool I have. We'll spit off some nominees. Okay. This is the pool I have and I have to narrow it down to five. But in this pool, I got, obviously, my man Pete Hegseth. Okay. I got Tulsi. I got RFK. I'll never, never drop him for my five ever, even though he'll go up and down. I got Bondi. I kind of have Rubio, but, you know, that might be just because we're in the middle of war. And I got Lutnik because we're still in the Epstein saga. And then my sleeper is Chavez de Riemer. Okay. So I would like, did you mention Bessent in there?

No, I didn't even mention, I did not mention. Okay. So you at RFK, like this is pretty great, actually, about how many bad ones are. I'm happy we did it like this. Because I think that now that that means that there are 10 possible people for the worst five slots, because I'm going to add. Oh my. I think we've got to throw in Bessent as a potential nominee. Okay.

And I'm going to add also Chris Wright. Oh, yeah. Secretary of Energy. I don't think, I think he should not go without a mention. And I don't know that Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins should go without a mention. I'm not sure she's always been, she's always been a nightmare. She's been a nightmare. Yeah. She's been terrible and she keeps getting worse. And the foreign country is getting absolutely annihilated and all she, and she's like, grow your own chickens. Like, honestly, she did have the $3.00. She did have the $3 meal. She did have the $3 meal. She's like, you know,

Yeah, in the $3 meal. All right. All right. Here's my five. Okay, so there's ten categories. No, I'm just going to read them one more time for those so they can make their own in their head. Rubio, Bessent, Heggseth, Bondi, Rollins, Nutlick, Dermer, Kennedy Jr., Chris Wright, Tulsi Gabbard. Those are 10 nominees for the top five worst members of the administration.

This is tough. This is tough. Okay. Here it is. My five. You already have it. You're right. Because I'm still working.

I'll go through this. You work while I go through this. There's one that I kind of want to swap. Oh, boy. Okay, no swap. Okay. Coming in at number five is Lutnik. I just can't.

I can't with the Epstein. Epstein. Yeah, I agree. Not like did not make either of our lists in the fall in the part because it was like he's kind of silly. Like my rationalization of putting lessened on over Nutlick. excuse me not in the fall at the end of the year rankings was um was that like i expected more out of best like the economic policy was a nightmare and and i like i was grading him a little bit on a

curve he disappointed you yeah uh but but now with the with the epstein lies i do agree you got to take a second look at that he's five for he's my five my number four is tulsi what's she doing in fulton county come on come on girl what are you doing okay fair number three mr measles RFK. And that is a demotion because he has been my one and two. He's down to three now. He's down to three. He's down to three. I think he's been tamed a little bit, I want to say.

So I'm feeling a little bit better about that. Number two is Bondi. Okay? Just because the DAJ is a fucking mess. And she doesn't give a shit. And then number one is Pete. And like I said, Chavez de Riemer, she is, she's sneaking up on five. what she's done is truly incredible.

She's like, but it's almost like I appreciate the game in a way. Like she's boozing. You know, she's throwing birthday parties for herself. Now, her husband is harassing sexually. Apparently some aids there.

I don't respect that. But some of the other stuff is interesting. Honestly, like the reason why she can't make my top five is because you could do, what's the show that's on Apple that has John Hamm where he's like a rich guy? Oh, friends and neighbors? Yeah, friends and neighbors. Like, we could do like that type of dark comedy about the Department of Labor.

We totally should. The secretary and her husband are both having affairs with different people. Like, what's happening at the Department of Labor? Yeah, what do you think they do when they go home at night and they're talking about work? I don't know. Truly incredible stuff, yeah. Okay, this is challenging. Of the 10, I had to cut Tulsi because like-

You cut Tulsi. I don't see how she makes my top five. And she's not doing anything in the wars. She's been sidelined. She's in Fulton County. I know. What is she doing? To me, it doesn't seem like she's doing anything.

She's doing yoga. She's living the spirit of Aloha. She's not in my list. And at the beginning of last year, she was in my top three. I was very worried about her. Chris Wright, I had to cut, but recency bias. I almost put him in. I wanted to put him in.

Yeah, recency. He lied about the Strait of Hormuz being opened. Just long enough for some traders to benefit. Yeah. Lori Chavez-Durmer is out as mentioned. So now that means that I sub-7 to choose from, and I still have to cut. And I think I have to cut Brooke Rawlins, unfortunately. I really want to get her in there.

She's been a nightmare, but I got to cut her. I don't know what to do about my top six here, so I'm going to do it live. Number one, I'm going to go the opposite way of you. Number one is obviously Higgsuff. Yeah. It's just like unbelievably bad. Number two is Rubio. Ruby.

So he didn't even make your list. I mean, like, we're only doing this stupidy, stupid wars because of Rubio. Actually, I'm flipping it. For the same reason of Betzint and Nutlick from the end of the air, Rubio is the worst now for me and Pegseth two. Number three, I think you got to go with... Who's getting that rose? I'm looking at Nutlick and Bondi.

I think you've got to go with Bondi at three still. She's so, she's failed. Part of me doesn't want to do it because she's hardly failed at successfully getting anybody. But like the, the Minnesota, not to get serious for a second, like, and trying to investigate Renee Good's wife. Like, all that kind of stuff. It's totally unacceptable. She's three. Pause for a second.

I see where this is going and I don't like this. I know exactly where this is going. I don't think you do because I don't know who my fifth spot is. I'm going to be mad. Okay. Fourth is Nutlick. Okay. You can't put Nuttlke over Bondi.

because Bondi's covering up the Epstein files, Lutnik's in them. So I think you have to put him below her. So we've got Rubio, Hegsteth, Bondi, Lutnik. And the fifth spot is a competition between Bessent and RFK. I know where this is going.

I don't know. How do you pick? Bessent is overseeing just a totally voluntary collapse of the economy. And he's being so obnoxious about it. RFK has brought back measles. The economy is,

affecting everybody. The measles are only affecting people in small areas of South Carolina. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. RFK, not Bessent. It's got to be RFK. Come on. Okay. We'll put RFK at five. I wish I could do a tie. We'll put RFK at five. So one more time, where were our differences? I had Rubio and you had, I had Rubio and you had, I had Rubio and you had gabbered. So I had, you had Rubio, I did not have Rubio. I had gabbered. Yeah, that was the main one in terms of who we had versus who we did not have. And then the rankings, I had Heg-Seth 1. You had Rubio 1. I had Bondi 2 and you had Heg-Seth 2.

I had RFK-3, you had RFK-5. I had Tulsi 4. You did not have Tulsi. You had Lutnik 4 and I had Lutnik 5. There it is. What a show. Thank you, Samstein. That was the porridge that everyone needed after a saga.

We'll be seeing you on the Take's Feed. already subscribe to Borg takes as well. We appreciate you, everything you're doing over there managing the Bullwark, so I don't have to. And tomorrow, we have one of our faves. So we'll see you all then. Peace.

Us leaders, add a clippers game on the courtside. Watch a nigger shoot like a 4-5. Day mad at me, too, I got more fire. Why these bitches see you, go home rod. Go home, Roger. Tia and Tamara in my bed, I'm a smart guy. I ain't fucking with you niggas like a part-tie.

The Borek podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.