The Bulwark Podcast - Sam Stein Used to Be a Thief

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

We’ve hit the August doldrums, so Tim is taking the daily pod on a little excursion. The Bulwark community delivered some epic mailbag questions, one of which prompted Sam to make one of the nerdiest confessions ever. Also, Tim and Sam adjust their Cabinet member rankings: Marco is an utter catastrophe, RFK Jr. is failing on all fronts, and Kelly Loeffler is proof that aliens exist. Plus, DeSantis is doing some seemingly dirty dealing down in Florida, ICE arrests are soaring—and here’s hoping that Trump’s super PAC spends millions on ads for the midterms extolling what a great job he’s doing as president.Sam Stein joins Tim Miller.show notes: NYT on the surge in ICE arrests Vanity Fair piece on Lutnick that Tim referenced The Atlantic on Trump's midterms ad campaign Tim's latest 'Take' on Trump's immigration policy Sam's 'Take' from May on the DeSantis Medicaid scandal  Alien Kelly Loeffler video Bulwark LIVE: GOOD FIGHT TOUR with Tim, Sarah, Sam and JVL is coming to the Southeast in October. Tickets are on sale NOW. Head to TheBulwark.com/Events for details and to get your tickets.

Welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have managing editor Sam Stein back in the show, and here's why. I'm going to tell you why. We're still at the end of the August doldrums. Okay? With the end of August, I don't know what Trump is doing if he's getting a facelift. He's just bleeding all day.

But, like, he has been, like, a little less on the crazy lately as far as the new news is concerned. That's one thing. Everybody's kind of getting back into school. They went a little fight. So it's like, what can we do this week to loosen it up a little bit? Sam's laugh is one thing. People have been counting about his new beard and they're a little worried about him.

I received some texts or concerns that Sam is... I think he'll hostage. We're on vacation, getting into the hard drugs. And so what we're going to do here is we have a mailbag for you and the cabinet rankings. We're just going to have fun. And we might dabble in some conspiracies because it's important to have fun and dabble in conspiracies

because I was looking at the YouTube rankings. And the shit that is still in front of us, Sam, there is lefty conspiracy theories. Jimmy Dorr is beating me. Do you know Jimmy Dorr? He was doing a segment about whether Charlie Kirk was hit with a drone this week. That's beating me. Okay. The right wing nonsense.

Sorry, one second. Was the segment that Charlie Kirk this week was hit with a drone? No. No, the death. But the assassination wasn't really a gunshot. It was a drone. And it was a pretty. precise drone, I've got to say.

Like, just the neck. Okay, didn't hit anybody else there at Utah University. How big was this drone? Small. And so, you know, and then you got all the right wing losers beating us, Candace, Megan. And so I'm just like, this might be the path, Sam. Begging people

to subscribe, if you're watching on YouTube, click to subscribe, and also doing the types of content that people want, which is Natalie Harp conspiracies. Yeah, I don't want to beg people because that looks a little desperate, but like, you guys should be out there. You guys should be subscribing as a way to bolster the idea that you don't have to dive

so deep into the conspiracy land in order to be a success in this industry. Like, help us prove the premise that you can be sane and still attract an audience. Just some light thoughts about, I am dabbling on some light thoughts about whether Natalie Hart is Russian or about her health, history, her story, her brother, the communist. I have a lot of thought. Anyway, we'll get into all that at the end. Okay. Serious news first.

Yes. Almost like 15 minutes of seriousness, 40 minutes of Sam interrupting me and laughing. New York Times this morning has done the analysis on the soaring number of arrests that ICE has done for non-criminals. It's been happening this summer. Thousands of people who had not previously been the focus of the mass deportation campaign have gotten rounded up.

They included people married to U.S. citizens, including one that we sent to Central African Republic, people who had entered legally and were pursuing an asylum claim and then obviously the Haitians and others with temporary legal status that the administration pushed to revoke if it chart will put up for the video folks right now

and you can just see it's just like hockey stick go up of people who are being detained who have no criminal history, no issues at all and that's what they're doing to get their numbers. Why do you think they're doing this?

I mean, that was a question I was kind of asking. I had a couple theories. What's your theory? Well, one is that Mark Wayne Mullen had this brief period of time where people were mad at him. There was those two deaths,

and then they made some sort of policy change where they weren't going to do the traffic stop arrests, and then everyone freaked out on the right about Mark Wayne, and so I think he recalibrated. That's one theory. The other is that Trump's got nothing else really going on, and all the foreign policy stuff is distracting, and so he's going back to his bread and butter.

but those are the only ones I have, and I don't know if you have any other profound thoughts. I would add to that. I mean, look, this is basically immigration and trade are the two things where there's any ideological coherence at all. Like, they're very committed to a whites only immigration policy, and they're very committed to deporting people. I do think that there's a genuine ideological effort,

and this is the easiest way to do it. I mean, if you want to get people out of the country, the easiest way to do it is to go nab the people that you have in the system already, right? Like, if you're a TPS, like you filed for TPS, we have your address, if you have a job, you're paying taxes. Like, the government can find you very easily, right?

And they can find, like, the worst criminals, too, right? Because that you went into jail. But, like, there's this, that gray area of trying to find people who stuck in here, right? Like, who, that's a lot harder. That's a good point. So, like, you start with the people who are in jail already

and you ask the states for the records so you can go and get them thrown out. Low-hanging fruit. You go after people who have work visas or who are here with some documentation, TPS status, and you go after them because you can track them down. Then it becomes a little harder, and you can't just use the vehicle stops. You can, I guess, but it's going to backfire. But then you start looking for different ways to nab them.

And so one story in particular stood out to me, like literally yesterday, and I guess it stood out to me because it's my home state, Connecticut, but Senator Chris Murphy tweeted that there were ICE arrests happening parents at school bus stops. So like that seems both sick and cruel and awful and inhumane. But to your point, it's like if you are trying just simply to get numbers and you know you've got to find people and you can't just knock on the door and enter, like you start looking for places like bus stops at school districts that have a lot of immigrant kids and it's awful.

I mean, what they're doing is a collective trauma and the idea that a parent has to wake up, you know, you're a parent, I'm a parent, getting your kid ready for school is a pain in the fucking ass and it's chaos every morning. Imagine adding to that the additional element of whether or not you're going to ever see your kid again. And just think about that.

Exactly, the other people have been showing up for ice check-ins, you know, the asylum. these, right, racial targeting, Kavanaugh stops, right? Like, that's it. So that's what they're doing. Like, they're doing less of, like, the ASMR porn of like, hey, we have these people in chains. And we're putting out social media. They are doing less of that.

But, like, they've killed two people this summer. Right. I think it's just that, like, because of some of the circumstances, they're immigrants. You know, you're going to have more outrage and backlash if it's white and American citizens that are being killed. Let's just be honest, right? And the

video element, like the videos of good, and Preddy were just so, there's so many angles, it was so striking, and it was summary execution in the streets. They are still continuing on with the other parts of this, too. I mean, with Maine, Houston, we've seen. And the other thing is they have, like, seemingly unlimited funds to do this, right? It would be one, and this is why it was so pernicious to give them all this money.

Because if you have, if you have, like, a resource check on you, you start prioritizing, you do the things that actually matter, and you don't just, like, spray and pray. But they have so much money to spend. You know, there was a story yesterday that kind of got under the radar. But Kilmore Obrego-Gar Garcia, the sort of original big immigration story, you know, he's still not deported. Like his case is 16 months in.

It's still going on. And it really comes down to this, which is the government wants to send him to Liberia. His lawyer says he has no attachment. They want to send him to Siberia? Liberia. Oh, Liberia. Might as well. Just kind of hot.

Keep going east. He wants to go to Costa Rica. Costa Rica, Costa Rica, so they tell. Take him. Literally the government can just say, cool, we'll send you to Costa Rica and be done with it. But because they can spend unlimited money, they're just willing to incur the cost of litigating this thing for,

I don't even know what the reason is at this juncture, but they can just take the litigal cost and eat him. And so you have stupid shit like this happening all over. the place. A little rumor the flight for us this morning that we know this stuff is happening but whether it's actually happening on Friday

but some immigration advocates had reached out and said the government has a flight for Afghans and Iranians that are going to the Central African Republic on Friday, including Afghans that helped us and the war of Afghanistan. Why are we sending them all to these African countries?

Do we have some sort of mineral deal that like you know we're getting in exchange? I feel like that's probably the other side of it. Yeah, I mean, look, well, part of it is like they avoid, you know, any issues to Trump. I mean, all these places have huge human rights violations. Right. And Central African Republic, like the story of the man that, that as aforementioned, like, has a U.S. citizen wife, it's Cuban immigrant. Like, these times people, I thought that the Republicans were full, like, the people fleeing communism.

And they didn't send him to Cuba. They sent him there. He, like, doesn't know it. He has no money. He's in the middle of Central African Republic. You can't get work there. Like, what is it, what are you supposed to do? I don't know.

It's fucking insane what we're doing. It's wild. Okay, so rumors that's happened on Friday. And I do think this is, again, we've seen, you know, this is a whack-a-mole thing. But we do see reactions to this when there is public outrage. So I do encourage people to continue writing their representatives about this. You know, we got Katie Britt. We got Katie Britt, actually, we got her to put out a statement,

baby? You did. I know. And thank God. I was on vacation when you were doing this whole thing, but I noticed and I was very happy. And honestly, and I don't mean this in like a shallow way. I was proud that you were doing this shit. Because Katie Britt, like, it bothers me that she glossed on to this poor kid in Texas as like something she was crying about and couldn't stop thinking about and then she stopped thinking about it. Did the whole New York Times take out? I can't stop thinking about this guy until Friday when I'm going to stop thinking about this guy. The beautiful, the classic New York Times picture of the, you know, person looking longingly at the window. They love that.

It's like a pin up picture of her. She's like, what? And she had the, I think she had the state of the union response. Or I forget, she had some speech or something like that. She had a horrible state of union response during the Biden era where she was in the kitchen and it was like scream to. It looked like scream to there, the knives. There was some other speech she gave. I was thinking about that one.

But there's some of the speech she gave where she was like, didn't mention this kid who she apparently couldn't stop thinking about. I was like, she deserves all of it. The knives in the kitchen with the stay of the inters. That was one of the weirder things that will stick with me from the 2020s. I deserve texting my friends being like, do I have Trump arrangement syndrome or is this the weirdest shit you've ever seen in your life? And everybody's like, it's so weird. Yeah, it was the airy voice.

Yeah. I want to talk about the midterms a little bit. There's this report in the Atlantic. It really tickles me. Trump had an Oval Office meeting about how to spend their super PAC money. What of kind of the less. covered elements of the corruption of this administration is how they're driving people,

corporations mostly, but also rich people to give huge amounts of money to their super PAC. And in part because it's like, administrations always did this kind of, like, on a small level, which is like, well, you know, one good way to get response back from the candidate is to, like, donate to the super PAC. So this isn't, like, so different, like, a lot of the other stuff that Trump is doing is like unprecedented corruption.

But like he is doing it on just a hypercharge scale. Like the reports I hear of like people, you know, like Brian Ballard, like the close lobbyists, like clients call them, be like, can we hire you to lobby? And it's like, yeah, the entry fee is whatever, 50 grand a month or whatever. But also you got to give a million dollars to MAGA Inc. And like MAGA and like MAGA-N super PAC and then we'll take you. Like just crazy levels of credit. So they have all this money.

They've been, they just had, one unprecedented part of this is just how much money is in their super PAC right now. For the midterms, a lot of Democratic strategists I've talked to are worried about this. And we have maybe a silver lining because Trump called all the strategists in the Oval Office, according to three people familiar with the meeting, according to the Atlantic. He told him he thinks that they should spend the money on ads that focus on him. The president wants a series of ads, focused on his own record. He suggested to the ad makers mine his own on-camera statements as the building blocks.

Quote, go look at the clips, the president told the team. I cite accomplishments all the time. You're in comms prior to this. Like, come on. How many times have you been with the candy who's like, we just need to add, advertise better about me, right? Like, like a classic.

That's the problem. We're not doing enough ads about how great I am. Why, he's got like $400 million. I don't want to get the figure out. $400 million, I think is it. It's something crazy. I've been wondering, like, why he hasn't spent this. We're what, 68 days away?

They spent some of it. They spent, I think, $800,000 to help Darlene Graham. 800 grand. He spent some money to beat Thomas Massey. Not even one four-hundredth of the total. He spent some money to beat Thomas Massey, I think. So they spent a little bit in the primaries. Don't you think it's getting a little late in the game?

I mean, like, what are they waiting for? If I were a Republican, I'd be a little bit upset. You're sitting on all this money. It's like you're going to let us just get killed here. The strategy starts talking to us worried about. I'm thinking of one conversation I had in Iowa in particular. I'm talking to Iowa Democratic Party folks. And they're like, look, we feel pretty good about sand.

obviously run a good race. I've had in the polls. We talked about that was near yesterday. Turek, you know, kind of a coin flip, good candidate, bad year. Like the thing that they're the most worried about, though, is like, you know, Iowa still went to Trump by 11 or 12 last time. And they're worried that they have this huge, you know, war chest that it's hard in advertising to, like, convince people in farm country that things are great when they're shitty. But it's kind of easy in advertising to go talk to Republicans about how the Democrat is crazy. Right. And so that's what they were worried about. They'll just be able to keep a lid on the democratic ability to win over Trump voters because there'll just be so much advertising, you know, talking about how they're Sharia law communists

that you don't want to seize their farmland and give it to China or whatever that they do. And if they don't use the money for that and they use it instead for these ads that could maybe even backfire that are just like Mr. Trump being like, things are great. Look at my agenda. Best economy ever. Golden Age. That would be a dream come true, really. I would love to see the ad that Trump,

if Trump actually got into the business of making the ad himself and picking the accomplishments. I mean, you said early up top that it's been like less than crazy week for Trump. And I guess so. But I was also sort of perusing his true social feed yesterday. He put up five posts in an hour about how clean the waterfall is at Meridian Hill Park in D. I was just like, whoa.

This is what I think is happening. I think he's getting the hair transplant. He's sitting around. You know, you can't go out. And so he's just bleeding. Sure. Well, my point is, would an ad that he crafted for the midterms

include a lot of footage of Meridian Hill Park. And the eyewans being like, what the fuck is this park? Why this is not, this is not in... Look at the big beautiful fountain. Look at the big beautiful fountain, though. It used to be homeless people and drugs. And they called it Malcolm.

Max Park. Obviously, if it's a bunch of ads focus on Trump, and that's how they spend their money, Democrats would be positively thrilled, both because they want to make the election about Trump, and then to your larger point, which is more interesting, is that I think the only way Republicans do pull this thing out is to figure out a way

to somehow both depress Democratic votes, which I don't think is going to happen because I think Democrats are at this point willing to just do anything. but to more or less compel those fence sitters to just say, I'd rather not vote than vote Democrat. I don't think they're going to be able to juice turnout that much on their side of the aisle if I had to guess. Trump won. If you look at this, Sarah was really good on this, 24, talking about the double haters.

And not to Trigger everybody by going back to 2024 when happened. But basically what happened is like Trump won in 16 and 24 because he won the double haters and Biden won 20 because Biden won them, essentially, is like what happened. And I mean, obviously it's more complicated than that, but that is true. But the thing here is there's not a second person to hate, right? Like, that's the issue. I guess the point is that, like, if you get these, like, Republicans that are unhappy with Trump, but also don't like the Democrats, if you can get them to turn out anyway and hold their nose for Trump.

And in a place like Iowa, I think that's a tougher sell in some of these states. In places like, Iowa, even older electorate, they're used to voting. They might go vote anyway. And it's like, okay, well, I'm unhappy with Trump, but I'm not going to vote for two Democrats. Maybe I'll vote for Rob Sand. I just think that that's the best case that they have. What's An Seltzer poll in this rate? Too soon.

Sam. Too soon. Sam. Sam. Sorry. Sorry. I almost had a stroke right there. Hold on.

What am I supposed to talk about next? Oh, I had one other thing. Yeah. Fucking Hans Seltzer, dude. Honestly. I'm going to be an old, old man. I remember exactly where I was when that poll came out. And I remember slacking with you and Sarah.

And we did a take right away. And we were just like, the vibes were so great. Yeah, the take only is my picture in the thumbnail. It's a good sent to me about once a month by MAGA people. Not upset at Ann at all about that. Okay, other bleat that Trump sent, this is hilarious. I love this one. Trump is so mad at Congress.

He simultaneously thinks he's done all these things he's not getting credit for and that the Republicans in Congress are cucks, right? And so Trump doesn't realize like how this looks, I guess, but he rebleets, whatever you want to call it, a post from a guy who writes the follow. This is on Trump's social media. Matt is the guy's name. Right-wing nut job.

And he wrote this. I don't think the GOP fully grasp how badly they're fucking up right now. I'm talking to people who normally have zero interest in politics who are legitimately pissed off. They're not seeing the major reform they thought would happen and they're really mad about it. No true accountability.

No true mass deportations. Okay. no meaningful decrease in the deficit lots of very long vacations and no work people are pissed they voted to Trump in office and the GOP continues to slow walk every reform people want

where are the doge cuts or is the Save Act people are waking up they're not happy about it people believe they're voting for the Trump agenda instead many feel like they're getting the same old Washington if Republicans and Congress

don't start producing results they're going to discover that frustration has consequences and the time they realize that it might be too late Trump posted that because he sees that as an attack on Congress yeah I mean

So the most predictable thing is what happens when if and when they lose in November. Like Trump's not going to be like, yeah, that was on me. You know, I shouldn't have done that. It's going to be like John Thune fucked up and should have passed the Save Act and we would have won. And like everyone can see this one coming a million miles away. Thune can. So it should be fun. It's pretty encouraging, actually, because if Trump has already accepted that it's a loss

and he's just going to blame John Thune and Mike Johnson and he doesn't even care about Congress anyway because he does whatever he wants on the things that he cares about of the ballroom via executive order. And that is kind of disincentivizes the cheating process. And I do think that, sure, I already tried to cheat with the gerrymandering and they'll keep trying to cheat. But like to have the will to really create problems, like you need Trump to be fully locked in on that. Like he was fully locked in on the stop the steel, right? And it kind of seems like he's like pretty locked in on the East Wing. Well, let's be clear about that, though.

Because the fully locked in on Stop the Steel came after the election. Right. That's true. So we don't know. Like, it's possible that, yeah, it's possible we wake up on November 4th or whatever. And it's relatively close. And Trump's like, oh, man, I could really fuck with this shit. That's true.

For sure. I've been more worried about the post of Prey for a while. Yeah. This is just a story I just wanted to cover briefly because we haven't talked about it. And I guess you did an interview. Was it you that did the interview? Yeah, I re-listened to it. It was months ago.

This story's been kind of on the low simmer for months. It's about Ron DeSantis. And I guess people just don't care about Ron DeSantis anymore. He's on his way out. He has no hope to run for president anymore. You know, it's kind of like, okay. So it's hard to kind of get people's dander up about outrage. But it's a pretty shocking story.

A state grand jury found the DeSantis administration, quote, misappropriated, taxpayer money when it diverted 10 million from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation. From the Hope Florida Foundation, they had a sophisticated scheme where they passed that money through multiple organizations before landing the bank accounts of two PACs and the Republican Party of Florida. Those funds were then used to defeat a legalized marijuana ballot initiative. So to sum up, like the grand jury found basically that they took Medicaid money, should be going to health care for poor people, and used it. Instead, to give to Cassantis' friends, political consultants to do ads against a legalized

marijuana ballot initiative. To which I ask, where is Nick Shirley? Where's Nick Shirley? Where's my man? He's got to get on this one. It's such a convoluted story. That pretty much summarizes it. But there are a few components.

I re-listen to the interview I did with the reporter who broke this story. And it's even crazier in a way. So basically, this Medicaid settlement happened. with this company that overcharge states for prescription drugs. And a lot of states trumpeted the fact that they had this settlement. One state that did not trumpet the fact that they had this settlement was Florida. They kept it very quiet. No one knew that Florida had gotten $67 million in this settlement.

It was just not there. And then they were talking about separately this Hope Florida initiative, which to summarize more or less is like, we are going to use state administrators to take people who would normally be on food stamps or whatever government assistance programs and send them to churches. That's what Hope Florida does. It was a KC. DeSantis initiative. Somehow Hope Florida got a $10 million infusion and no one really knew where it came from.

Well, if you dug into it, what happened was is that they took 10 million from the $67 million settlement that they never announced, sent it to Hope Florida. then they didn't just keep it in Hope Florida. They took that $10 million, as you know, and put it to these anti-marijuana initiatives that they were trying to defeat in the state of Florida. And all this, which is crazy and undocumented and done basically by executive fiat,

had the sign-off of really big players in the DeSantis suburb, including the current state attorney general, apparently, and then Ashley Moody, who is now a senator. The attorney general is just like basically a grope person. I had some random. guy that was like, you know, one of these, you know, the person, people who wants me to be to call more balls and strikes, be like, why aren't you, why don't you go up to the Democrats more like, well, Trump is going to be gone in two years? What kind of Republicans are coming behind?

And I was like, you have no idea the type of Republicans that are in these, what is, yeah, that are in the wings. Yeah, go look at the New York Republican Party. Yeah, it ain't George H.W. Bush is the Attorney General of Florida. Let me tell you. I look at this stuff, and it's like so transparently corrupt. And it's unbelievable. And they're all like, well, I don't remember. ever signing. Someone obviously fucking remember saying. It's like, do the Floridians look at this stuff and say, man, maybe we should try something new, right? Like I guess I understand

the Florida Democratic Party is in shambles and the people that they're putting up are quacks and crazies too, not all of them. But like, do you look at it and you're like, oof, you know, like, do we want this? Is this right? Like maybe we should like dabble in something new. I don't think David Jolly winning that governor's race is crazy.

Like, McDonald's what has happened in inside his brain. It's just like the other day he was talking about how people who moved to Florida from Blue States were stupid. And yesterday I saw a clip of him where he was talking about how they're going to, one thing he's going to work on is the roads and make sure there's no potholes so that the ladies have a nice smooth drive when they go to get their hair done. I'm like, what? I'll vote for that. Hell yeah. Okay. No one wants to have their hair popping. Anyway, I don't know. I think he's got a chance. All right. We're about to get to the fun part.

But before we do, tomorrow's pod, I'm, like, obsessed with what's happening in Russia right now. The Russians and the Iranians are having a meeting. Trump might have stumbled into World War III. We sent our CIA director to Russia, I guess, to warn them not to invade NATO. But simultaneously, reports seem like Russia is indicating that since we're running out of material, maybe they are going to try to. We've got serious foreign policy matters tomorrow. So do you have any other serious matters before we get to the cabinet rankings? No, I've been waiting for to do the fun shit for a while.

this is too much serious shit already. Yeah. Do you need a shot or something? You're a little low-energy jab right now. Are you ready for the fun part? I am not, get the fuck out of here. I am not low-energy. I'm not going to go to the candidate rankings.

Boy, do we love our fans in Canada. You know, Sam came with me and Sarah. The three of us, those lives just trying to have a complicated history with Canada. That's true. Canadians are getting maddie. I want to go back in 27. I want to go back to Canada. We love all the listeners.

we have up there. We see it in the numbers. And I don't know for sure if this reporter is a listener of the show, but they were at the Doug Ford press conference yesterday. And it seems like they probably listened to us, just based on

context clues. Let's listen. You talked yesterday in your interviews about your confidence that a deal can be reached, but today you were talking about the problems that people like Howard Lutnik and other members of the administration present. Nutlick has made it to Canada.

You've gone international. Unbelievable. Oh, I love that. Howard Nutlick scuttled the deal. We'll see if he makes it the cabinet rankings. People have missed it. Sam and I've been doing this for a while now. Every quarter or so.

We update our rankings of the worst members of the Trump's cabinet. Very competitive category. You know, it's really tough to narrow it down to the top five. you know, you've got to do a lot of pruning. The April rankings, I just want to remind people of, I'm just going to set a baseline. Sam had worst cabinet member,

Pete Hegeseth, second worst, RFK Jr., third, Bessent, fourth, Chris Wright, sleeper, fifth, Marco Rubio. In April, I also had Hegseff first. We had the same there. I had Rubio 2, Todd Blanche 3, RFK4,

and Brooke Rollins was my sleeper in the fifth slot, Secretary of Agriculture, who is bankrupting farm country and telling all of us that we should grow chickens in our backyard. First of all, you don't grow chickens, motherfucker. They don't, like, plant them in the ground. You don't? They don't grow?

You get a chicken, you feed it, it grows. You grow a chicken. Is that not right? Like a fucking bush. Okay. So, cabinet rankings now. I'm going to give you the members of the cabinet that kind of made my consideration list. So these are like,

There's no way. These were the nominees. These were the nominees. There's some not there who we just would never put in the five. Yeah, well, it's just, Margot, Rubio, Besset, Hague, Seth, and Blanche. Yeah. In the four power ministries, obviously, we're going to consider all them.

Yeah. Rallens, isn't going to make the cut this time, so I didn't want to mention her. Notlick, of course, RFK Jr., Sean Duffy has really been making an ass out of himself lately. Linda McMahon at education. I felt like she had to be nominated because just yesterday, Did you see this? The Department of Education posted a video comparing Trump to Hitler. I did see that, yeah.

And then deleted it. So, you know, that's where Linda McMahon is right now. We're doing Trump-Hitler videos. Russ Vote, I want to throw in there. And I did want to mention she's never made a top five. I don't know if she will this time, but Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Leffler. Is this because of that video?

Jed did put out a video where she, I believe that she's not a human. I think I'm now increasingly thinking the aliens exist. I think that they're throwing us off the scent by releasing some of these supposed alien files. And I think that Kelly Leffner and Jared Kushner are non-human beings. They don't look comfortable at all in their own skin. They could be from men and black. And I think having an alien in the cabinet is concerning. So those are kind of the nominees.

Do you want to start with your fifth or first? You're going to go first to fifth or fifth to first. You didn't list someone who I have in my top five. Oh, really? Who's that? Mark Wayne. Oh, Mark Wayne Mullen. Yes, he should have been in the nominee list.

You're right. Yeah. It was an oversight. Okay. So then we have, so one more time with the possibilities. Kelly Leffler, Russ, vote. Mark Wayne Mullen, Linda McBand, Sean Duffy, RFK Jr., Nutlick, Blanche, Heggseth, Bessent, Rubio. Right.

He's not in my top five. I do, I think he could have maybe cracked your, we should consider him rotation. Bergam. For all the reflecting pool nonsense and how she. the America 250 thing was. Thank you for bringing that up. He also has been managing the Department of Interior horribly. They're firing all kinds of people randomly.

Oh, yeah, and what's going on in Texas? In this, around the... Big Bend. Yeah, Big Bend. Yeah, he was defending the Big Bend wall. Yes, it is despicable, actually, what he was doing to that man, the Olympian, that did nothing.

And after he was, you know, it was announced that they weren't going to investigate him anymore. Bergam publicized it, they still want to go after him more and that he did it. He's maligning this guy. But yet, he's not in my top five. I would put him six. So just putting it out there.

All right, you want my five? Well, I think we'll just go one at a time here. Well, what are we going five to one as in like the least worst to the worst? Let's do that. Yeah, okay, yeah, sure. Who's your number five choice? Blanche. Blanche, number five.

Boy, that's tough. That shows you how competitive the category is. It's a great field. When Blanche is number five for you. There's a lot going wrong. But Blanche, you know, he sucks. What can you say? The weaponization shit, the fact that he wouldn't back away from it,

the settlement on IRS auditing with Trump, just the way he kind of bulldoze the senators in the confirmation. And then, of course, obviously, DOJ is just, he's not even like hiding the ball that the DOJ is an arm for Trump. In fact, he's embracing it. So, like, yeah, he probably could have been four or three, but there's just real stuff competition. It's hard.

It's just really hard the people I had to cut. All right, let's hear your number four. Duffy. He makes his debut. He makes his debut. I can't swallow this dumbass series that he put up about him vacationing across the country, not because the content's so shitty,

which it is. And he's like, you know what? Like he's dropping infomercials in for like credit cards and stupid shit like that. And then on top of that, the way he's treating his daughter who just wants to like be able to say, hey, can I apply to Harvard? No, no, they're going to indoctrine at you.

Like it's just, it's, corrupt. It's just so corrupt. He's just taking bribes. So, yeah, he cracks my top. And also, it's personal. It's personal. It's personal. I've flown a couple times this summer. It fucking sucks. I'm sorry to curse so much for those in the car. But I've had horrible experiences. And I know that's not necessarily just his fault, but I blame them. I thought you're going to say it's personal because you're still mending fences with the Canadians. And he's like his smearing of them is not having a military when dead Canadian. you know, were buried because they came to our defense after we were attacked in 9-11.

We do nothing except try to steal their land and make fun of their beady little eyes. Horrible. Yeah, that was bad. I didn't like that. And I should have put that in there, too. Thank you for, you. Top four. Okay.

All right. You want my three? I do. Mark Wayne. For all the reasons we articulated. Yeah. I mean, ICE is record-setting arrest and terrorizing parents and rumors of them like going now into, you know, Springfield, Ohio with the Haitians.

there and it's like, no, not good, buddy. Not great. Obviously, we led the segment with ICE. I did a whole video out this morning over on YouTube. You can watch about just some specific horrifying stories. In spite of all that, Mark Wayne doesn't make my list because the cabinet is so bad. And it's really Stephen Miller. This is Stephen Miller.

Mark Wayne is a vessel for Stephen Miller. And that is the reason why I don't use them. Duffy also didn't make my list. So we have two different members. And my top two are the same as last time. I got RFK at two. My brother, we got measles deaths in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he's talking about natural measles being a great thing.

I want to pause here because I feel like as just kind of a self-assessment of my work on this podcast. The RFK beat is the one that's the toughest for me to follow. Not only by not one-16th of a scientist like JVL, my ACT score was brought down by like three points just based on my science category. Like I was at the top of the pops on math and all the other stuff. Science, I was like down at Forrest Gump levels. So it's hard for me to understand this stuff. And so I don't cover it as much.

And you do. You and Cohn, this is kind of your, you know, among the things you're really locked in on. If you're going to put RFK number two, I want like a two-minute RFK hate where you explain what's been happening with them. I don't know if two minutes is going to suffice. But let me say. I'll give you three. Okay. There has been 2,800 cases of measles this year.

That's the most in three decades. And this man has the audacity to say that's because of Joe Biden. He won't take ownership for the fact that he spreads nauseous, problematic, anti-vaccine nonsense across the country. And when kids die, which is happening, he then has the gall to go out there and tell the governor of Pennsylvania, you know what, natural measles may actually be the way to do it. on top of that, he oversees a bureaucracy that's tasked with making sure that our food supply

is protected. In fact, this is a big feature of his political appeal. I'm going to make food great. And I can't buy a bag of fucking lettuce without worrying I'm going to have explosive diarrhea. So food's not particularly great. On top of that, beef's not particularly great. On top of that, food prices aren't particularly great. We don't know if we have proper food inspectors. If that was it, that would be enough. But it goes so far beyond there because we're standing on the cusp of incredible breakthroughs in cancer treatments. MRNA technology could make us have personalized immunotherapies for cancers, if all goes

according to plan. And RFK Jr. hates MRNA and has launched a campaign against it and has sat on top of a bureaucracy that is systematically gutted the federal investments in groundbreaking research, including into cancer research. And he has the audacity to say he wants to make America healthy again. That, to me, is an abdication of leadership. It's an indication that he is not fit for this role.

And it's a sad, sad commentary that he somehow has stayed, not just in the cabinet, but atop our health care bureaucracy. So he is number two. A number one for your speed, Higgs, Seth. Great job on that on RFK. Andy has a fucking brainworm. And have you seen his diary and what happened to his wife? Okay, never mind.

That's your top five. Sam, Hegset, RF, K, Mullen, Duffy, Blanch. Wow, we're going to have some divergence. So we're going to get to see some comments and let people know who they think is more in touch with the incompetence in this administration and who's doing the most damage. You do not even list my number one.

Come on. You do not even list my number one. Okay, you got. Leave it like that. I'm going number five, RFK Jr. You covered it. I kind of didn't want to include him. I wanted to include Bessent.

We discussed Besson a lot on Tuesday. I've got some more Besson material coming in the mailbag. The two measles deaths this week pushed RFK over Bessent. You know, once you start causing actual deaths, you got to make the top five. Number four is the aforementioned Howard Nutlick. I mean, he created a trade war single handedly. I mean, I guess two-handedly. with Trump. There's also this insane

Vanity Fair story that people should read this week, which is like he has gotten himself in the Department of Commerce involved in this like real estate deal with the Pietitare issue. And he's kicking Tori Burch out of her house. He's wrecking havoc everywhere he goes

and his kids are corrupt and Howard Nutlick is number four. He's back in the rank. I think in my very first ranking he was in. It hasn't been in for a while. Number three is Todd Blanche. You kind of covered this. I'd be like having the Department of Justice be an arm of the president's vengeance.

It's extremely bad. And in any other administration, Todd Blanche would be far and away the worst Attorney General option. And all we can do is hope that he suffers the same fate that Nixon's Attorney General suffered. Number two is Pete Hegseth, which we didn't really cover that much in yours. But like we both have them in the top two. He changed the name. the Department of War, started one war, lost it. I don't know what else to do, really, with him.

He was in Iowa. He's doing push-ups. He's like, has this new thing where he keeps saying trannies. Like, he thinks that's going to help. He's like, oh, if I use a majority of about trans people and talk about how tough our military is and how we have real men, real fighters. And it's just like, man, maybe you'd be better off if you had trans people running the military because what's going on right now is a fucking.

disaster. People are jumping off ships. So P. DeG says too. And as you mentioned, my number one is Rubio. You love shit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He is the National Security Advisor. Marco Rubio is the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor.

I think he might also be like the Grand Marshal of the Supreme Court or like the auditor of the post office or something. He's the National Archivist too. The Archives. Okay. I don't know what's happening in the archives. I'm sure it's not going well because nothing he's doing is going well. Everyone just kind of wants out, like, oh, he's the fixer in here. He's the serious one.

Marco's one people turn to. Based on what? Like, the job of the Secretary of State is to be the chief diplomat. How are we doing in diplomacy right now with our allies? Has Marco done really a great job of navigating diplomacy with our NATO allies? No, they all hate us. How about our Middle Eastern allies? They're all begging Trump not to continue escalating the war that he started.

The Kuwaitis are like, what the fuck he's? happening. We had thought we were close allies and now, like, the Iranians are bombing our infrastructure. We might have to kick your military bases out of our country. That, Kuwait started talking about that this week. They might kick our soldiers out of the country. And then how are things going in Central America? Well, we're doing coups. Most of all the governments besides El Salvador hate us in Argentina. We'll see what happens there. We're bombing things in the Gulf of Mexico in the Caribbean. What are the points to point to from the diplomacy side of things where he, improving things. I guess we're improving relationships with North Korea, that that seems to be

a one-to-one Trump to Kim Jong-un thing. South Korea, they hate us. Like, so Marco has totally failed as chief diplomat, as Secretary of State. National Security Advisor, I would think, would be the main advisor for the stupidest war that I've ever thought of. I went back and relisten this morning to our podcast from before the war started. I had Jonathan Chait on it. Before it started, I was literally on the show being like, I don't understand this. There's no objection. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What are these guys doing? Marco Rubio was the national security advisor that advised Trump, you would think, to get us

into this war that had no objective and it's been a total disaster. At least Jady Vance has been leaking that he was against it privately. Marco, I kind of half-ass leaked that he was worried about this, but it seems like he didn't do anything to stand in the way of it. He's still the national security advisor. Do we feel more secure right now? Is he doing a good job at that? Marco has been just an utter catastrophe.

I guess the only thing people would point to is that the coup in Venezuela was successful for a military standpoint, but we'll see how that goes long term. I don't think things are going that great in Venezuela right now. For me, it's not like a mark of a good thing that we did a coup and now we're stealing oil from another country. Okay, that's the feather in his cap that he's going to run for. Everybody's like, JD's such a clown.

Marco is really the guy to watch out for. What record is Marco running on? the worst foreign policy since the Iraq war? Sorry, Bill. Yeah, but the National Archives has never been better. Fuck Marco. That's where we're at. He's doing a horrible job.

Marco, Heggseth, Blanche, Nutlick, RFK Jr. I'd have to check the archives, but I think that's the first time we've had Rubio as your one. So this is new ground here. Welcome to the list, Marco. Welcome to the top of the list. So people can vote in the comments and who made a more compelling case for their list.

Do you have any critiques of mine? Anything you want to push back on? No, those are solid. And you're making me reconsider, Marker. That's a very valid case. Thank you. It was tough not to put Kelly Leffler on the list. I mean, if you can't walk like a human, it's pretty concerning about what's happening inside the cabinet.

Honestly, if you hadn't seen it and you're an audio listener, go watch it. Please, please watch. Please do. Please come to the video and watch us. And then we get double counted. You know, that's nice. All right.

We're on to the mailback. Yeah. Are you ready? I'm ready. Pod's already been long. It's going to be a good show, long show. Do you got anywhere to be? Probably.

You are the managing editor of the site, right? Well, that's that right? Pulling up the calendar. Yeah, I got an 11, but I'll push it back. Don't worry. You're the Marco of the website. I guess Jared Poland is really the Marco of the board. Jared is.

I want to start with number one just because it kind of, it just kind of gets us ready for all this. Sarah had a very innocent question, which is, what's your go-to morning routine, coffee, Twitter, sunshine, Best Wish is Sarah. I thought it was interesting because Sam asked me to provide him the questions last night, but my morning routine is like this.

I get up, usually around 6.30, sometimes 7, and I don't leave the bed. I don't leave the bed. I have a great life. Listen to how amazing my life is. My husband, who gets up like the crack of tongs, he doesn't sleep, brings me an iced coffee. Oh, come on. Yeah.

And then I sit in the bed and I go, what are we going to talk about today? I'm reading the news. I'm reading all the newsletters. creating an outline. And I sit there for two hours and then I tape the podcast at nine. And during that time, you know, I'm thinking about what you all are going to like. I'm having two iced coffees. I go and brush my teeth and put on a shirt like this Jacques Moose shirt and then I come upstairs. And that's it. That's my morning routine. Sam must be much busier than me. Because last night,

like, 11 o'clock, he's like, where are my questions? And I'm like, you're going to get them in the morning when I do the outline. But you must have a lot of things going on because you didn't, you didn't review the line until like five minutes before we started. So what's happening for you? Slightly different morning routine. I get up. I go downstairs. I cook my kids' breakfast. Horrible. I don't mind that. That sounds horrible. You know, I got a dog, let the dog out, make sure dog pees. Discovered that because the dog's urine is absolutely destroying my lawn, I often then have to take a hose, pocket hose,

and spray the lawn just to wash out the urine. This is a lot. This is a lot. This is all in the morning. Then, you know, get my coffee, sit down, make sure that with my wife, my loving wife, make sure that the kids' lunches are prepped for school, jump into morning shots. Seems like she does the lunches and you're just kind of, you're just there for quality control? No. Okay. The way you said make sure the lunches are done, kind of, just the way you phrased it. She might. There's a couple of implications there that my wife is absolutely burning the shit out of our kids' lunches and I'm going to make sure. That's not true. then I get on the computer

I got to make sure the morning shots is decent or at least I hope it's decent. Our morning newsletter, sign up at the blog.com. Yeah, absolutely you're signing up. It's a great newsletter. We spent a lot of time working on the headlines, as Tim is aware, and then I drive into work

and make a couple phone calls to reporters to talk about what they're working on on the way into work, get into work, and do my 10 a.m. call. Oh, sorry, I forgot. I also walked the kids to school. Kind of late. You show up at 10 a.m.

No, I said I show up for the 10 a.m. for the 10 a.m. It sounds like a peaceful morning. One thing I forgot to mention, just because I don't want to, it feels rude because I don't leave the bed, right? So it's like hard to nitpick my husband when he's doing all those things that you do.

But there's a lot of yelling, like between the two of them. And are your shoes on? Brush your teeth. And I'm like, I'm doing my outline. Shut up. They're blaring Dally Parton this morning, you know, Kesha off.

That's nice. So is yours peaceful or is your deal of yelling? No, and it's not peaceful ever. And usually it sort of just falls all apart about 10 minutes before they need to get out the door. One of them doesn't have socks. And the other one has to go poop. They start screaming at each other. The dog's getting a little antsy.

I forgot to feed the dog. So I got to feed the dog. There's always like chaos right there. And then you start getting like anxious like, like, we got to get out the door. Gotta get out the door. What a pleasant morning. One thing that doesn't happen is drinking.

I had some people that have been suggesting for trying to, time that I'm drunk on the podcast or that a guest is. There's never a drunk guest. We taped this podcast at 9 a.m. Central time. Okay, everyone suggests if we're getting a little loose, it's just because we're creating fun content for you guys. Okay, question two. That was from Sarah.

Thank you, Sarah, for caring about our lives. We're getting sillier from here. This is Nick in Erie, Pennsylvania. It was this email from Nick that prompted me to say, we've got to do another mailback. It's such a good email. So we'll start with him. Shout out Nick.

Not sure why Scott Besson can be so triggering. there's the smugness and smartiness. But also, he sounds like his mouth is full of saliva when he talks. I think there might also be something about someone who either thinks they're good on TV or just likes being on TV, but isn't good at all.

You can't put my finger on it. Also, I have an indelicate follow-up question. Could you give special dispensation to the straits to use the F-slur for Bessence? I think you have the authority to do that, Nick, and Erie. I do have the authority, and I will

field that in a second. Sam, what do you have any thoughts? He raises an interesting question about who, well, does he sound, I can't tell if he sounds like he's got his mouth filled with saliva. Kind of does. Kind of, yeah. But like, who are other people who I think they're good on TV but are not good on TV? Sam.

And I noticed, yeah, I noticed in the Google Doc notes, you said me. So thank you for that. You're so much better on YouTube than on TV, and it's a compliment. That's why people come here to the board.com. I guess. I feel like I'm good on TV. You're pretty good. You're like a B on TV, but you're an A here.

I'm going to end you tip. Okay. I thought the obvious answer here. Fuck up. I thought the obvious answer here was J.D. Vance. Yeah. Like, J.D. is someone who has supreme confidence. There is a J.D. and Bessent parallel across all of those things.

Like, they're both extremely smug and smug and smarming and condescending. Yeah. They both think that they're way better than they are. And you can kind of see them laughing at their own jokes. And for JD, it's one like laughing at his own jokes. For Besson, it's more like, you can see him kind of smirk at how clever his little maneuver is. Like he thinks he's come up with a clever little spin on whatever terrible economic news there is when he goes on TV. He thinks he's got one over on Kristen Welker.

And that is off-putting. I would also put Stephen Miller in carry it, but I don't think Stephen Miller thinks he's good. I don't think he thinks he's good, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's just mean. He's condescending in a way, but it's kind of in a... There's something about the smarminess that he doesn't...

He can't even get that. He can't even reach that register, you know? Yeah, I got you. Like Scott and J.D. think they're pulling one over on you. Yeah. Stephen doesn't. He's just like... He's just like...

He's just like... Send the Browns back. Okay. Yeah. To the question of whether I can give dispensation of the straits to use the F-sler, I do have that power. Congrats. And I take it serious.

And I thought about this, I laughed because if there ever was somebody that deserves the F slur, it's really Scott Bessent. I mean, he encapsulates the word in every possible manner, like the way that he carries himself.

He used to live in a Barbie house. Like, he's almost like a stereotype of, like, in a different era, he would have been on the TV show as like the rich uncle that is always a confirmed bachelor that they don't ever say that he's gay, but he has all of the gay stereotype traits.

So, like, you want to say it so bad, and I have bad news for you, Nick, only I get to do it. Sorry. Sorry, only other gays get to do it. It's close. I thought you were going to give him. I know. I wanted to give it to him.

But unfortunately, we've got to protect our ability to say the F slur. And, yeah, I was in the LSU tailgate once a couple years ago, and I was kind of in a little small group of, like, my closest friends. and then a couple of their friends, and one of them dropped the F-sler to make fun of, I think, the opposing teams, coach, or player. And I looked at him and I was like,

eh, and he looks back at me, and it's like, well, I thought we were cool, though. And I was like, you know, Blake and Grant could do it. Like, they're in the inner circle, but, like, you're not there yet. You know, you got to really protect it. So, Nick, maybe you can grow into it. Sam, the next two questions are for you.

Okay. But I'm going to weigh in on on the first. one. You had a show, this is from Joe and Casper. You had a show called Candidate Confessional. He's a big fan. I talked to losing candidates and staffers about their races. Talked to me once, actually, about the John Huntsman race, I believe? No, we talked about Jeb. Do we do, Jeb? And there were two questions you have. Because I talked to Huntsman. Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right. I think I'm going to connect to you with Huntsman and did Joe. I think that's what happened. Yeah. Two questions from Joe. Which of those losers ran the worst campaign, as then they may have been able to

win had they had a better strategy. And number two, as a Jew, you've never experienced a joy of a real confessional. And he's wondering if you want to confess to your Catholic priest, Tim, right now. So it's hard to say who ran the worst campaign because they all lost. Like the most torturous, there's different variations of this as I was thinking about it. One of my favorite episodes is, and this is actually appropriate because we talked about Doug Ford. His brother, Rob Ford, famously was caught buying or taking crack, and it was a remarkable

scandal. And yet somehow managed to win the mayorship of Toronto, even with that happening. And we interviewed the guy he beat. Like, how do you lose to Rob Ford when he was, like, got caught with crack? But that wasn't even like, the guy had a compelling reason for why he lost, which that, you know, it was very hard to actually to Akrod for it for the crack because people were like, yeah, you know, he fucked up, but we all fuck up.

So I would just say... Yeah, so I would just say in terms of like looking back at all the interviews we did for that series, and I love that series, and I'm kind of want to bring it back. The obvious answer is when we interviewed Ron Clayne about Al Gore. That is a race where it feels like if you did two things better, you're really cool.

It's exactly. There's like a very, like, it's not just a butterfly effect. It's like 50 butterfly effects, right? It's like there's just little things here and there. And if we had just filed it this day and like done this. And he thinks about it all the time. He's like, of course I think about this stuff. And that, of course, obviously the consequences of that are profound.

Yeah. Since, you know, I'm going to do my answer to this too, just of the races I was in since I didn't do candidate confessional. Fred Thompson is the answer. The 08 primary was so, like he really could have won. Nobody liked any of the candidates, the Republicans in the field. The Democrats, this was kind of pro. photo Tea Party. Democrats can see we could run up against this next time. But it's like McCain,

it's Mitt's first time. It's Rudy is still pro-choice Rudy. And then the conservatives were like Huckabee is just like, you're not going to make Huckabee your nominee. Like there just, there wasn't anybody that was like the perfect fit to get the kind of populist or the Christian voters or the, you know, Chamber of Commerce voters and get them all together. Fred Thompson comes in late. It kind of like has it. Like he's celebrity. Like he'd he done some culture War stuff and like really tried. I think he could have, he could have been the nominee. But he ends up like wearing $400 floor shime shoes to the Iowa State Fair and like riding around in a golf cart and he doesn't even try and like he doesn't learn anything on the debate stage.

He looks like Admiral Stockdale. So I'd be him. If you've enjoyed this, we want more flashbacks. Me and Bill have decided we are going to do the 1994-2006 retrospective episode for the Labor Day podcast. So we're going to do a midterm preview looking back at past waves. People wanted it. I've heard from many people. Question two is you've never experienced the joy of a real confessional. What would you like to confess to Father Tim? I think the question was that what sin would I confess to?

And it is something that's kind of haunted me a little bit. And it's a crime. And it's not like, I wouldn't say it's totally victimless, but it's somewhat victimless. And it's a great shame, in fact, in my family that I got caught doing this. But back when I was in D.C., when I was very young and I was not making much money in this industry. And I was obviously in the news occasionally.

Every now and then I would go into a bodega on Sunday. And I would steal the Sunday New York Times. It was very expensive. And I was like, I can't spend this money, but I also need this information. So I was like that guy in Les Mis taking bread. Winona Ryder. I mean, I was bad. You're stealing the New York Times?

You asked me for a confessional. That is the nerdiest confession I've ever heard of my life. You didn't steal any Sigs or a 40? No, I didn't. If I wanted Sigs, I'd have a friend, an older person, buy them for me. But I got caught by my parents doing it once. How? They saw me steal.

They're like, did you pay for that? I was like, no. I was like, news should be free, right? I was working for Huff Post. So I made it like some intellectual argument about it. Anyways, I'm embarrassed by it. New should not be free. Subscribe to the board.

I know. I totally just really. You're a grown-up when you're doing that. Wow, what a bad boy. I confessed. I've been having some wrong thoughts. You know, everyone says confession makes you feel good. I just feel worse now.

No, I feel much worse. Really? I wish we can edit that out. You should feel like, now that it's off your chest. You're going to feel good later. There's a period of time where you're embarrassed and you get over the embarrassment. And you're like, ugh, that was freeing. Kind of like right now when I'm about to say.

I don't know what Catholics live in guilt and shame. This is awful. It's horrible. Yeah. You're right. I don't know why I'm spending it. It's terrible. I've had some wrong thoughts about Nikki Haley's son lately.

Okay, moving on. We'll save the last one directed just at Sam for the very end. Two more fun ones. I like to shout out the people that send creative emails. This is Earl. Earl says this. In an alternate universe, Natalie Harp would have made an incredible kindergarten teacher. Her devotion to the children would be unmatched.

She would constantly have a positive attitude. she also has experience dealing with a man with the mentality of a five-year-old. Plus, she probably has experience with the occasional potty in the pants situation. What are other jobs for people in the cabinet and extended universe? That's a brilliant email. And honestly, thank you, Earl. Fantastic. I want to eject.

I mean, it's funny. It's a funny email. The premise is funny. But like, if Natalie Hart was my kid's teacher, we would be transferring schools in semester. I'd be like, this is too creepy. And, well, knowing what you know about her next. Yeah, yeah, but if you just happen to stumble upon her, you'd be like, oh my God, she's so caring. And she's carrying this printer.

She's carrying this portable printer for little Johnny's work. Yeah, no, Little Johnny gets a printout every day. I have one. So I thought about this a little bit. You know, I could have done, like, stupid, spoofy stuff like, oh, Stephen Miller should be a Rogaine spokesman. But the real one is Heg-Seth. I think you'd be fantastic as a gym teacher who, like, sells co-es. on the side, you know, like, right?

Like, you can see it too. Like, he's, you know, he's like telling him, he's getting your kids to, like, climb the rope and then he's selling weed to, like, the seniors in the parking lot. He would have been great at that. Yeah. White school, though. Yeah. Of course. That's why I'm my personalized experience here.

Oh, white public school. Yeah. I think that's right. That's a good one. Pete Higg said this gym teacher. I have three. Okay. I mean, the one's most obvious. Howard Lutnik is just a used car salesman. And you can see. him on the TV with the ads. Lutnik doing the ads as a regional car dealer. Perfect.

It was meant to be a regional car dealer. What would his tagline be? Come get your nuts licked with Lennick. It would be something related to the truck nuts. Sure, yeah. You know, truck nuts, nut lick. Someone come up with something good.

Scott Bessent, antique dealer. Scott Besson is an antique store. Steeler. Not just any antiques dealer. He'd be the best. And he'd go on those shows where they're like,

he's been in all these great discoveries. He'd be so fantastic at that. Yeah, you'd feel really good if you went to an antique shop and you saw Scott Besson. Lastly, RFK Jr., voice actor. Boyce actor. Awful. It's very unique. You need a bad guy.

A bad guy needs a very unique voice. I mean, who else could do the RFK Jr. voice. Yeah. It's like, I guess we got to go to RFK again. He's got that one voice. Great jobs. All right. We've also got here, this is from Clayton.

If all members of the bulwark were arrested by the administration and you could only get one of them pardoned, who would you pardon and how much Trump coin would you buy to make it happen? I thought a lot about this. I have three criteria. Okay. Wow. Three criteria to determine who deserves all the Trump coin in the realm for their

pardon, okay? Okay. Do they have a lengthyish life ahead of them if they get pardoning? Oh, no. More boomer, slander? Excuse me. On this podcast, we honor our... You can take your turn.

But like, Bill, well, Bill, but like, if Bill got a pardon and there's not as much time as Andrew. Oh, come on. We honor every day equally. Disagree with you. Second criteria. Could they handle being in... in prison or not?

Do they have a steely resolve or do you need to get them out of there? Like, that's an obvious criteria. And third is, would they make a profound post-parton contribution to society? Wow. And I went through everyone on the list. And it was very clear,

I went through the entire staff. I went through the Mastad. It was very clear who hits all these criteria and who would be the best to receive the pardon. There was no runner up. Just because you took this so seriously, I do want to just... Do you want know who it is?

I'm wondering if there was a runner-up, though. No, it's far and away obvious to me. Again, do they have a semi-decent life ahead of them for the pardon? Could they handle being in prison or not? And would they make profound post-parton contribution? I deserve the pardon. I'd send it all myself. I hit all the criteria.

What contribution would you be making in the post-partum? We're already had an hour in five minutes. There's no need to list all that. Take too long. I have two criteria. One, Catholic guilt, and two, would that person be able to get me out? Because I didn't consider myself. Would they have the skills and the wherewithal to be able to get me out?

And that left me with two candidates. Producer Ansley, Skipper, who I brought here. Smart. And I was like, I would feel really bad. if she was still in the detention camp. I mean, she had a good life, young person, life ahead of them. I'd feel bad. Then I was like, of lawyer Heather, also a good opportunity,

because she would really make it her life's duty to get me out after I saved her, I think. Both lesbians, lesbians are very resourceful also. So both would be interesting choices. Your second category, could they survive in prison, though? lesbians would do well in prison. So that makes me think maybe I should also pick money. We picked ourselves. No. All right. Rapid fire. This question is, how about Roger Clemens not being in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, all because a bunch of jealous

people, it's far less talent voted that he shouldn't be there. He was also not convicted or admitted to taking drugs. Roger is one of the greatest pictures of all time. No wonder baseball is in trouble. That came from Donnie and Queens. Oh, Donnie. First Long time. No. Do we have to engage that? Roger Clemens is fine. Donald Trump bleated that yesterday.

I know. He bleated that yesterday. I was trying to figure out why? Like, was Roger on TV or something like that? Roger's probably Magin. Now, Roger fucking sucks. I would trade any person that was not a violent criminal who is currently in a detention center for Roger Clements in a heartbeat.

Just snap my fingers. I would send Roger to Dilley and take out a Gariana. Very easy choice for me. All right. The final question is about you in particular. Actually, we never get life advice. So I'm going to do the one life advice question really fast. Mike in Nebraska.

This 100-year-old Omaha house I'm in is a big old money pit. This week, it's the water heater. Last month, it was the kid's bathroom toilet leaking to the bathroom below. I'm tempted to just move and go rent. But we got that sweet 2.75 COVID finance rate. A bigger city like Chicago or the Twin Cities to rent downtown for a few years until the kids go to college could be great if we can find high. schools, I don't know. AI and our future jobs and economy. It's all scary out there. You ask for

life advice and I just rambled, love the shows, Mike in Nebraska. That's tough. You want me to handle this in rapid fire? I don't know. What would you tell Mike in Nebraska if he asked you for your advice on that? I guess the only thing I would say is that the grass isn't always greener. That rate is fucking dope. I'm at 3.25. It's awesome. And yeah, houses are money pits. And I'm dealing with a leaky roof right now myself, which is annoying. But you have to understand that comes with the biz and you just salvage it until you get to the next problem. So, you know, stay put for a little bit.

Let's hope that things get a little better. But I don't know anything else other than what you send me about your circumstances. I have a couple thoughts. A lot of people are in this circumstance. It's an underrated reason why people hate the economy right now. People feel very stuck. The interest rate situation is so bad. And Trump could have gotten what he fucking wanted,

which was lower interest rates if he had just done nothing, except golfed. And instead, every decision he's made has made, has put more pressure on the bond markets and interest rates are higher. Now everybody's stuck and he's going to get punished for politically. And that is a silver lining that you should think about, Mike, when you have a leaky bathroom.

That Donald Trump is being punished at scale for other people suffering like you. But I don't know. You live in Nebraska. I don't know. I might sell that fucking mouse. Move to the South. Slander Nebraska.

get moved to the house, rent, you know. You can get a great rental out here in like canner and metric. Yeah, got to imagine. Real estate in Nebraska is much cheaper than anything. Yeah, Baton Rouge. You come to Baton Rouge, rent. Go to LSU games with me on the weekend. It's something to think about, Mike.

All right. Final question is just for Sam, and it's from a former employee in the valley. Why does Sam have a Labradoodle? No offense to Martha, who is very cute, but why is it now a right of passage for boogie podcast? to get a labruddle. It was odd enough when John Favreau,

Tommy Vitor and John Lovett all decided simultaneously that they should get the exact same kind of dog, a labruddle. But I thought we'd moved on from that. Why not a nice ugly mutt from the pound? Genetic attributes are not bespoke enough for you?

You know who I bet as a labruddle, Stephen Miller. I'll hang up and listen. Wow, that last one was harsh. Real wind-up. Long story short, well, long story. Sorry. We had a mup eagle, not a pure bread for 14, 12 years. He was 14 when he died,

rest in peace, Bennett. He sucked. I loved him to death, but he was just awful. He bade. He was food obsessive. He towards the end of his life, was peeing all over the floor. And he shed. And the shedding part was the key. That's just kind of like Trump, really. We needed a Natalie Hart for him. And we didn't have a Natalie Hart, but we gave him a lot of love and Karen. I love the little. guy so much. And when he passed, I didn't really want to get another dog for a while because it tore my heart out. Like, I just lost my buddy. And my kids were really upset. And then for a couple weeks, it felt really good to like not have a dog. And then my wife was like, you know, I said it would be a couple years, but what about like six months? I was like, oh, really? And then the next day she came

and she's like, you know, I said six months, but we're about six weeks. I was like, what the hell? And then she's like, what about six days? And so eventually I was like, look, fine, we can get a dog. but she's like, actually, there needs to be a condition. I can't deal with all the hair. It's causing, like, you know, my throat to clench up and it's just everywhere. Laberdoodles don't shed. It's like the one breed that really doesn't shed. And so we decided that we were going to get a dog,

and we decided to do a Labradoodle. And we have Martha now, and Martha is the best, and I love her to death. And I have no qualms or regrets whatsoever about getting the dog of the podcasts. I got to tell you, I think you're going to be sleeping in the guest room tonight, Because I think the person that's caught the most strays on this podcast is your wife. You're making breakfast. You're walking the kids to school. It's her fault that you couldn't get the dog you wanted.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Just saying what I'm hearing. My wife is an unbelievable wife. And I love her to death. And I'm so glad she made us get that dog. I love the dog. It was one of the great decisions we made. And I am so grateful that she walks the kids to school, including this morning, which I didn't do.

I do supervise lunchmaking. I'm not going to lie. that. That's Sam Stein. He's a managing editor. Former New York Times thief. Thief. Thief.

I will pay them back. I'm a subscriber now, so. We'll be back tomorrow. We'll have a laugh or two, but we'll have some more serious fare. But it's going to be good. So please, come back for tomorrow's weekend podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace.

Thanks, Sam. Bye. Brought to you, thanks for 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 Brown.