The Bulwark Podcast - Stephanie Ruhle: The Trump Family’s Massive Side Hustle

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

The corruption in the Trump administration is so shameless and so abundant that neither the media nor regular people can keep up. While Ivanka’s purchase of a private “fixer-upper” island is getting a lot of attention (aside from infuriated Albanians), the private equity deals her husband is making while supposedly negotiating Middle East peace are not. Trump himself has never had so much money—including from the top businesses paying to play—that the corrupt generational wealth he’s creating will even be around for Barron’s great-grandkids to enjoy. Dems need to start connecting the dots now. Plus, Bill Cassidy is putting his future lobbying career ahead of the American people, no one should ever count Pelosi out, and Tim says Platner is looking like a risky choice.Stephanie Ruhle joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.show notes Joe on Trump's stock trades  Tim on Cassidy protecting Trump's $1.8 fund  Tim's playlist

Hello and welcome to the bulwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I'm delighted to welcome back to the show. My buddy, MS Now Senior Business Analyst, host of the 11th Hour with Stephanie Rule. Well, she was or is for just a little while longer, the host of the 11th hour. We're going to be moving on June 15th to a new morning show, money, power, politics with Stephanie Rule airing from 9 to 11 a.m. On weekdays, it's Stephanie Rule, of course. How you doing?

I am great. And there's only one. there's only one because everything else is excellent, terribly sad part of the new show Money Power Politics. There's only one terrible part. It is terrible. I know what you're going to say. It airs at the time that I tape this podcast. It's going to be very challenging for us to be on air together. But we're going to try to make it work. We're going to make it work, especially because the show one day a week is going to have a live studio audience. And if there is one thing that makes Tim Miller light up like a Christmas tree. It's this boy with an audience. I do need an audience.

I'm aware that you tape at the same time, but I have a feeling we're going to lure you to the Big Apple on those days when there's an audience standing by. Talk to the producers. Find me a podcast studio and building. And we can just kind of pop, I can pop right over. We'll figure it out. We'll talk offline. We'll talk offline. Okay. There's a lot of real news. This is real news too. But there's a, There's a lot of news affecting what's happening in our country that you would think we don't start with. But I'm obsessed. And I feel like I absolutely need Stephanie Roles take on this story first. And it is what is happening in Tirana, Albania. I don't know if you've been following this. For Ivanka once spotted this beautiful vista while she was on a super yacht, is that what you're talking about? Yes.

For anybody who has missed it, I want to play for you. Ivanka Trump was doing an interview discussing one of the... the many grips and businesses and entrepreneurial opportunities and daddy's gifts that she is focused on right now. And at the beginning of this, we're going to play Ivanka in this interview, which it feels kind of like a, what was the, what was the guy's name in the Hunger Games? Who's just like the gay guy doing the, doing the suck up interviews? It feels like one of those types of interviews. I'm going to have something to say about that on the other side. Okay. So we're going to listen to Ivanka. And then in the.

Like in the most veepish fashion possible, after we listen to Ivanka, I'm going to play for you some audio of what the fallout has been of this interview and this attempted conquest. So let's listen. All right. I'm going to pay attention to Ivanka. Here I go. An unbelievable, beautiful 1,400 hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean. We were on a friend's boat. And we stopped for a swim.

Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated. And it stayed with us ever since. I had to have it. Over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it. I'm sorry. Those explosions are the fallout of Ivanka.

That is the streets of Tarana. They're so pissed. Ivanka is raping and pillaging their Flamingo Island. And anyway, Steph, what do you make with that? But let's just start there. And I want to start with the problem with the media landscape and Ivanka's announcement. Okay. And obviously, I'm not dogging on independent media.

Here, the two, you and I are on your absolutely fantastic podcast. But the problem is as follows. Because there are so many outlets that just want the opportunity. opportunity to talk to a person of significance when a person of influence or significance wants some free PR and wants to just get their message out there, whatever their message is, they never, ever, ever have to sit down with a person who's actually going to not even take them to the mat, but just ask them critically important questions, right? So Ivanka got to sit there at a podcast that was probably like, great, amazing, we're getting the first daughter,

we're going to get to sit down with her for 90 minutes. I can't wait to ask her. when she is great at being great. And there's not one question being asked about, like, where are you? Why are you there? Why hasn't it been developed already? Why wouldn't there be U.S. dollars being spent there? But instead, she gets the benefit of crafting a story, right, creating her narrative, and then that gets to live on and live on.

And I'm just saying historically, I mean, do you really think that Richard Nixon wanted to sit down with David Frost? No, he did not. But if you want to get your, story, if you're a message you want to get out there, well, then you're going to have to balance how do I tell my story and get my message and answer the hard questions. Not a single hard question was asked. This isn't just, well, there we were on David Geffen's boat or whomever's, I don't know who's boat. It was the Rothschild boat. I wish it wasn't, but literally it was

Matt Rothschild's votes. You know, I did a swanda, I'm Jared did a cannonball and there we were just swimming to the shore. And it's like, great, can't wait to hit that up. And there are so many questions that aren't answered. And one of the, listen, if we, we have all sorts of entrepreneurial lawmakers, obviously business people get into different businesses, you know, international real estate development, have at it. The problem here is that every possible turn, they wanted to in Trump 1.0, and there were some constraints, but in Trump 2.0, every possible thing that we are seeing happen, somehow somebody inside this administration or their immediate family member is getting a piece. There's a side hustle everywhere.

And this one, while we don't know for sure, there's more questions. And it has people feeling uneasy. Justifiably so. Yeah, it has people in Albania feeling more than uneasy. Yeah, no, there's, I take your point in the media angle there. I also just enjoy the combination of Ivanka saying like within three sentences. I swam there. I was barefoot. I walked up. It was beautiful. It was heaven on earth. And I felt like it needed me to help realize its potential. Do you know what it was? I thought you said it was perfect. Why do you, why are you needed for I thought its potential was being realized? My favorite is there I was, this untouched beauty in nature. So you know what I decided to do? Build a 10,000 room resort with maybe a times

their opportunity because that's what you want to do when you come upon untouched perfection in nature. It's something. It is something else. The point you make it with the interview as well. With Ivanka, it's like, slightly the stakes are a little bit lower. I mean, the corruption is real. I want to talk with the other corruption. But with Jared, it's pretty fucking insane.

And I had Robert Garcia on a couple weeks ago, and I was asking about this. He hasn't testified before Congress since 2022. He hasn't done a tough interview in about that long either. He doesn't have security clearance. He doesn't have security clearance. He does speak on background frequently to reporters who just quote him. as senior official, even though he's not. And it's just like, this is pretty crazy, you know,

like that he is able to kind of live in this bubble of impunity, you know, while all of this corruption is going on. And I don't know, like, do you feel like, is the dam breaking on this, the combination between what's happening with Albania and the Iran War fuck up while he's got the Saudi money and the Trump personal investments? I don't know. Do you feel like...

I'd like to tell you that the dam is breaking, but I don't feel like it. It is, right? Like we actively cover it every single day. It's actually one of the main reasons I wanted to move to 9 o'clock in the morning because we do a daily segment called White House for Sale question mark and we're covering it and I'm trying to push it constantly. I would say where I'm disappointed in this, I haven't seen Democrats tell a cohesive story. Connecting the dots, showing the grift, asking what is Jared Kushner is in charge of peace negotiations in the Middle East, whether we're talking Gaza, now we're talking Iran, and at the same time, he's raising money, okay? And just think about Iran is the perfect example. The situation there is a mess. Trump and his family are making huge amounts of money, while the average American who might not own their home or isn't invested in the stock market is struggling, is struggling to put gas in their car, right? Is facing inflation, is paying higher prices or grocery stores. And I've yet to see Democrats really pull together

a cohesive message connecting the two. Right? When Donald Trump says, we don't need to talk about affordability. You know, people are doing so well. What Democrats should be doing is laying out, here's exactly who's doing so well. Here's why they're doing so well.

Here's the businesses that are getting huge breaks from this White House. And here's life for you, America. And I think we're seeing some of it with the midterms, like the sort of the anti-incumbent movement. But I think it's high. When you say, is the damn breaking, I think something that would help it

is, you know, the truth matters, but only if people see it and people know it. We cover it every day in the news, but I don't think Democrats in a real way have taken this opportunity to lay this out for the American people. If you ask the American people, they're kind of like all politicians staying. Listen, I did a panel yesterday and immediately, you know, one of my panelists jumped to Nancy Pelosi's stock trading. And I'm like, oh, really, we're there again? Well, this is their big job for 2027. That's what I was asking Garcia about since he's to be the head of the oversight committee, and we're going to be on this a bunch, too, because they need to be laying the groundwork now.

But when they have the investigative power, assuming they win the midterms, that's the first step, the corruption stuff has to be the top of the list. And your point about the Nancy Pelosi thing, my colleague Joe Perdicone wrote about this a couple weeks ago now. And the amount of money that Trump has invested in the stock market in the first quarter of this year, because that was when the report was for. So just 3,700 individual trades, okay? professional traders, professional career investors haven't done that many trades over decades.

Right. And all of Congress, so when you think about the closely tracker, all of Congress invested less money than in the year of 2025, the whole year, than Trump did in the first three months. Don Beyer, who's a Democrat from Virginia, you know, posted this the other day. You know, he's going at Eric Trump. Trump's assets aren't in a blind trust. He bought and sold individual invidia stock in 15 separate transactions. totaling millions of dollars. And this is just one example of many. But there's a huge government oversight of what's happening with NVIDIA.

They're allowing NVIDIA to sell chips to other countries, to China, et cetera, that was not allowed before Trump came in. So he's simultaneously changing the rules to make it better for them while personally investing. But to this, I look to Congress. And here's why, because shamelessness is Donald Trump's superpower. Okay. if it looks bad or smells bad, he doesn't care.

That means nothing to him. Like, unless it's truly illegal and even if it is, I mean, it's debatable what he's going to do there. But this argument that we're hearing back, like Trump's trading stocks, you know, Congress can trade stocks. Like, we have been talking, right, since I started covering politics in 2015, we've been talking about banning or limiting congressional stock trading. Right? The answer shouldn't be, yes, Trump's doing it. You don't like it. Well, members of Congress do it too.

None of them should. Right. Okay? Journalists who cover, okay, journalists that cover businesses that cover companies do not buy and sell shares of those companies. Officers, board members of publicly traded companies have an enormous amount of restrictions. My dad, who retired this week, congratulations to him as a mutual fund manager, doesn't go trade stocks on his own that he's trading in the mutual fund. That's unethical. You can't do that, right?

But exactly. And so to me, this is so hugely disappointing that, like, we've yet to see any regulation around congressional stock trading. Look what the president is doing. And I just think it's absolutely galling that we don't see anything move on this. This is when people say, what can Democrats do when they get back into power? One thing that I've been focusing on because, you know, it's my bag as a former op-o man, as what, it's like, how can the Democrats be more like Traigality and investigate what Jared Kushner and Ivankar doing in all? Albania and what the Don Jr. All of the various businesses.

You mean Benghazi style. Yeah, Benghazi style. That's what they need to do. But the other thing they can do is assuming they take, you know, let's say that they have the House representatives, right? Forcing the Republicans to vote on that. Now, that means that they're going to have to take a little bit of a hit on themselves, right? Like passing some kind of stock trading act that bans Congress but also bans, whatever,

members of the cabinet, or you name, you figure out what is appropriate from trading stocks and putting it on the floor, voting for it, making Republicans decide whether to vote for it or not, and then using it as an issue. And then maybe if the Senate can get it passed, forcing Donald Trump to veto it. This is what you can do when you're in the majority in Congress, but the other party's got the White House.

Until now, until it was so, so over the top from Trump, I think the American people, the American voter, hasn't demanded change yet in terms of, of congressional stock trading or what the president can do because by and large, I think the American voter, while they don't, they never like it when they hear about it, they're basically focused on themselves. They're not in a bad way, but they're like, can I afford health care? How's my kid's school? Like, what are, you know, what are the rules and regulations that impact my daily life? And that's their top priority when they're saying, this is who I'm voting for and this is what I

want. Like, I don't think in the past, well, I've talked about it, you know, until my ears, tongue fell out. I don't think there's a huge American voting block demanding let's close the carried interest loophole. Let's, you know, ban congressional stock trading. But yes, yes, there absolutely should be. But I think now things have gotten so over the top. And when you think about the now sort of the rage against the billionaire, eat the rich sentiment, it's real.

It's more real than it has ever been in your lifetime or my lifetime. And so I think that we could see voters. It's unclear specifically where they are demanding change. And, well, I would just say this. The people that have to be responsible for this change aren't actually the billionaires. They're the freaking lawmakers, okay, who because they get a little bit of money here and a little bit of money there, continue to look the other way while the American people struggle and the mega wealthy are getting mega, mega wealthier. Owning a home is amazing until it's not. And we've been really going through it around here this week.

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type of reforms as a big, for the old time, you remember the Abramoff scandal. Abramov scandal looks like small beans compared to what's happening right now. But you did, you did have a lot of money sloshing around and they changed the rules. And in this Trump's second term, because the government is not enforcing any public corruption rules, those rules are basically for not now. And like the stories that I'm hearing, and I think the stories that will end up hearing in the years to come when the books are written and stuff about, Obviously, the Trump pardon list is the most obvious example of people just buying off pardons. But on policy issues, like people are going to Ballard, who is a big Trump lobbyist and going

to the other big lobbying firms and saying, hey, I want to hire you to help me lobby on this issue. That's how things used to work. And instead of them saying, like, sure, pay me $50 grand a month. They're saying, sure, pay me $50 grand a month. Also, donate $2 million to Donald Trump Super PAC. Also, you might want to consider putting Don Jr. on your board. And then like, once that's all done, like, we are going to get you whatever the issue is.

And this has been very effective. Or they're just cutting the lobbying firm out completely. Correct. Because now you can call this administration direct and you can pay to play. And where it's, I'm going to say, I'm going to give you two places where you're seeing enormous impact. Obviously look at it in these primaries and these midterms, right? Thomas Massey's race was the most expensive we've seen in history. And where do the biggest checks come from?

people who are never even setting foot in the state of Kentucky. It's pro-Israel and big tech. That was it. Like those were the two. Yeah. So it's Silicon Valley in New York. When Ken Paxton won, it was funny. I kept hearing people say, I'm not sure how this is going to go financially because

John Cornyn's really great fundraiser. Fundraiser from traditional big Texas money, this is not any traditional game anymore. Tech money, AI money, crypto money is so big at this point. point, these people can't even count the zeros, so they're happy to cut a check. And you can give two really recent examples. Look at AI, right? Donald Trump was feeling a huge amount of pressure because actual American voters were saying no data center in my backyard. This isn't working for me. So he's like, okay, okay, okay, I'm going to sign this executive order. And within hours before signing it, all these AI chiefs are going, boop, boop, boop, bo, bo, one 800, Trump. And he goes, no, no, no, no, I'm going to pause. I'm not going to do that yet.

And now the executive order he's signing basically says, you guys need to self-regulate. And if you choose not to, that's okay too. It's not just we're a company and we're going to hire a government policy guy to try to influence things. No, you're just going to pay to get things done. And you can look at the state of Texas now filled with super wealthy people who don't want to pay taxes in the state of California. So now they've moved to Texas, right?

Many of those people who have moved to Texas, we've all sat next to at dinner parties. And you know what they're looking at in their phone? their app that is counting how many nights they're sleeping in California or in New York and Texas because they want to avoid paying taxes. And these are the people that are now having huge, huge influence over regulations in these states. And I think it's so alarming. I don't know what we're going to do to make it go away. I don't think there's anything to do to make it go away.

The only thing that can is the American voter can say, big money gets you lots of things, but it does not guarantee you a win. So the American people have to stay informed and engaged. They have no choice right. I mean, they're fighting the big money at this point. I want to give this example of this where I'm a rare optimist on things. There is a little bit of a countervailing force here. And I should say this does basically nothing for the next two years.

Forget Vegas. It's Macau. It's whatever. There are no rules in D.C. right now. As long as Trump is in there, the rich VCs and the AI VCs can buy off whatever they want and they're going to be able to get whatever they want through 2020. At this moment, while I do believe it's very short-sighted of them, it works. Can we just give the Michael Dell example in the event that our audience doesn't know it?

Okay. Michael Dell and his wife don't. Just don't let me forget. I do have positive news. So we have to come back to it. But they donate $6 billion to the Trump accounts. And many people would argue the Trump accounts are a great idea, blah, blah, blah. What happens next? Donald Trump buys a ton of.

They are a good idea. It's just we shouldn't put his name on it. We're not North Korea. Yes, yes, yes. They donate $6 billion. Thank you, great, fantastic. Lo and behold, Michael Dell gets a $9.5 billion government contract. Is it a coincidence? I don't know. But once you get a nice big, fat, juicy contract like that from the government, it doesn't go away. Now, do I think Michael Dell is a crook for doing it? This is the game he can play in the world of Donald Trump. He's skeevy. It's a little skeevy. So we're in this moment where you can give to Donald Trump and get huge rewards.

So this works for the top, top, top business people out there. But imagine, Tim, if you even ran a big-ish business but didn't have frankincense and mirth and gold to bring to Donald Trump, if you didn't have something giant to offer, this isn't a great time for business. So make your point. That's right. No. We should add one element to the Dell story to make it even skeeve. which is Trump talked about how people should go buy a Dell. And simultaneously, one of those 3,700 stock trades that he did in the first three months was a very significant investment in Dadell, which has done very well for Donald Trump.

So he continues to cash in personally. Yeah, I mean, I think Dell is up in the last week, 30%. So this is my point. If you run a company and your stock is suddenly up 30% and Republicans or some lawmaker wants a big check from you, it's really easy for you to say yes. Here's the positive and the signs that they've kind of overplayed their hand. So they're going to be able to do corrupt deals the next two years. It's incumbent upon the Democrats to be on them for journalists to be on them, et cetera. But Adam Carlson, who is a good social media account I follow,

who's kind of monitoring elections, made this point about Big Tech this morning. Big Tech put their weight behind Matt Mayhan in California Gov. He got 4%. I actually like Matt Mayhan. I think that he kind of got screwed by, this was a bad choice of sideling himself up to Big Tech, frankly. He's been a good mayor. but this shows you just how toxic big tech is in certain areas.

Big Tech put their weight behind Ethan Agarwal against Roe Kana. He got 6%. Open AI and anti-AI regulation big tech leaders have tried to make an example out of Alex Bores, who's running against George Conway in New York 12. They elevated him to co-frontrunner. Boris, and that's that competitor race that as Jack Schlossberg and George's in there. Have you interviewed Alex Boris yet?

It's one of those things with my whole podcast becomes primary interview. reviews once I take one, you know, you got to do everybody. And so I wait till the, to the general. But have you talked to him? I have. And again, not to bring up heated rivalry, but he is a dead ringer for Scott Hunter. Like, if this election doesn't work out for him, he does look like Scott Hunter. He could 100% be doing Scott Hunter look like contests and winning. No, he's a, he's a super smart young guy. If I had a dollar for every mom at school or mom in the MSNBC Green room who wanted to talk to me about heated rivalry, which is my culture, then maybe I'd have enough fuck you money to be buying elections because all you ladies are trying to just, you know,

insert yourself into, you know, gay culture, all right? Can we not have something? Can we not have two men kissing for ourselves? You know, it's just an incredible show. Moving on, but, you know, listen, you're making great points just because it's big money. It doesn't necessarily mean it wins elections. But I guess my point is, yes. Yes. Yes. Well, because they're taking it so far. Yeah, right. Sometimes you look at all this, and I feel this way. You look at the Elon situation.

I was talking to JVL yesterday about Elon for a while, so we don't need to rehash the whole thing. You know, just how NASDAQ has given them the friendly deal. You know, with the SpaceX IPO and Elon did, he broke all the campaign finance rules, started a super PAC. They coordinated. Nobody investigated it. You know, helped Donald Trump get elected, helped get himself inside the White House.

else now is going to become a trillionaire because he has inside deals. It's easy for people to look at that and feel like, well, fuck, we have no power in the face of this type of wealth. And I do think it's challenging to push back against it. But there's a pendulum to these sorts of things. And I do think it's possible that like the backlash, like that we're on the precipice of a backlash and that there is political power that is possible. But I mean, it's not going to stop Elon from getting a trillion. His situation is insane. No, no, no. And I think you could be right. And listen, this extraordinary wealth transfer when we have the SpaceX IPO will be mind-blowing. But I'm going to make this small, wonky comment that I think could contribute to

the backlash that you're talking about. When companies go public, okay, they're usually on the rise. The reason they're going public is they're going from small to medium, and suddenly they're growing public so they have, they then have public investment and they then will have the means to grow, right? So you are buying a stock. It's financing, yeah. Yes, that's great. So you're investing in an IPO and a company's going to IPO at $30 with the hope that their plans for the future, where they're going to grow, that stock's going to be at $100. Like that, that's what you're thinking. These companies, whether it's Open AI or SpaceX or anthropic. They're already capitalized. But this is my point. They're going.

public at the peak. So what we, listen, I could be wrong, but what we could end up seeing is they go public, right? A huge amount of individuals are then basically handing over money to all of the private investors to the Elon Musk who are going to walk away with bags of cash. And it's unclear where the room is to grow. They're already capitalized. That's depressing. It's depressing in terms of, but I'm saying this could lead to the backlash that we're talking about.

Yeah, for sure. The counterpoint to that is, is the stock market even real? Is capitalism real? Tesla stock continues to go up based upon essentially nothing, like hype and buzz and Elon's magic sauce. And if you look at their actual revenue to, you know, the PE ratio, not to get nerdy on our non-finance podcast, like compare it to the other companies at the top of SB 500. Like I saw a chart the other day where it was like Elon's ratio. It's like here and everybody else is down here. And so, I don't know, can those companies just keep going up on hype and buzz and opium? Listen, a long time ago, I would have said, no, we've gone so far, but I was wrong. Like, everything has been meme stockified or everything in the Elon or super tech world.

And listen, AI is absolutely our future. But that doesn't mean that we're not seeing huge overinvestment right now. We might be. And, you know, when people say, can the stock market just keep growing, we have. have to keep reminding people, it's this sliver of giant, giant tech companies that are performing, performing, performing. There are lots of big companies out there that are struggling. They are struggling because of tariffs. They're struggling because of inflation. They are struggling because of our immigration laws. Now, we have seen strong corporate earnings. AI is definitely going

to help a lot of companies, like improve productivity and optimize. But where the stock market is, versus where the real world is, in my years, working in markets and covering markets, I have not seen a bigger divide than what we're seeing right now. And I actually think you're hopefully starting to see some business leaders at least acknowledge this huge divide and saying, like, are we going to address this at some point somewhere, is someone? Hype can pop.

I just pulled up with the Ethereum stock chart. Crypto has had a rough little run. Ethereum's down 47% over the last six months when the market, the rest of the stock market is up. And a lot of other stocks in kind of that space are up. Bitcoin and crypto have had downturns before, but it's inotable. Yes, but I mean, even think about how optimistic investors have been since the war in Iran began, right? How do you explain this? Here's how.

Because there are all, I mean, so many who I talk to are legitimately like, You know what? I talked to Trump just last night. He's really done with the war. And I'm like, great, he's done with it. Have they talked to the IRGC? But this is the point. Right. Do they have this? They have a notice number over there? When you hear from the Chevron CEO, when you hear from big oil ideas. Well, I understand why they're happy. I understand why they're happy.

Yes, but I'm saying, you understand why they're happy. But they're the ones who are actually being intellectually honest about where oil prices are. And every other investors out there is like, listen, this is about betting on the future. and they know that Donald Trump will go to extraordinary measures for real or through, you know, smoke and mirrors to try to keep the markets intact. So they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just talk to him or Besson or Howard. Like, he's really ready to leave. And I'm like, babe, this isn't like Trump's ready to leave the party and he called an Uber so it's over. Trump may be ready to leave Iran.

And I think he's been ready to be done with Iran for at least eight or nine weeks. It doesn't end that way. And we had more attacks this week, like Wednesday. We attacked them. They attacked Qatar. They attacked the airport in Kuwait. Like, they attacked Bahrain. And what do we do?

We just decided to redefine what we call a ceasefire. Yeah. And oil prices are down. Like oil prices are down, you know, just in the last five days. Yes, but I think part of that is based on the belief or the assumption that Trump does want to get the hell out of there. Yeah. Okay. Well, good luck.

Good luck. Good luck. Good luck and tell us what is actually in this peace agreement because we never know and when we hear it, it hasn't made much sense. You don't just want to lose weight. You want to look better and feel better. That's why weight loss by Hymns now offers access to the FDA approved Wigovi pill and the FDA approved Wigobi PIN. Wagovi is designed to help you lose weight and keep it off so you can stay on track with your goals. With Wagovi at Hems, lose up to 20 percent or more of your body weight when combined with diet and exercise. It helps you regulate your appetite and eat less. so success is within reach. Plus, Wagovi is the first ever GLP1 pill for weight loss.

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including important safety information. Wagoe clinical study information and restrictions. Visit Hems.com. One other economic story that is a little countervailing to all of the red out there is the jobs numbers. We had a relatively good jobs report this morning to beat expectations. Life's all about expectations, you know. So I remember when I, as a young man, when I'd never been to California before,

I decided to make a big California trip. I don't know, in college at some point. How old were you? And I don't know, probably 21. I went to GW and D.C. Like everybody else. Yeah. I didn't know that.

So, sorry, 21. And, you know, everybody at that time, to show you how old I am, San Francisco is very hot, you know, and people are. talking about how cool it was to go, and, you know, especially in my world, like music world and stuff. And so I got very excited with that. And people were like down talking L.A. a little bit. It's like, yeah, you know, it's a little. Everybody's whatever. This was the East Coast bias, you know, that I was getting for my college friends. And I went to the trip. And so I had low expectations for L.A. and I had the best, best three days of my life. And then I went up to San Francisco.

and I was like, it's cold here. People are rude. You know, life is all about expectations. You know, had nobody told me anything. I was like, maybe the things that have been different. This takes us to the jobs report this morning. 170,000 jobs, it's a good sign. It's a sign we're not really headed to recession. It's also like in I think three of Joe Biden's four maize, there's more jobs created than there were in this report. I don't remember a lot of, you know, like rah, rah, rah,

cheering the wonderful Biden economy during that time. So, you know, take it with a grain of salt. But it's notable that like the job market keeps chugging along, given all the warning signs. No, I mean, listen, this is a good jobs report. to me it means it's going to make it harder and harder for Kevin Warsh to lower rates because we are still in a pretty inflationary environment. You know, it also touches this idea that AI is going to wipe out jobs. I think AI is going to transform a lot of jobs. I think that AI is going to a lot of lower skilled jobs that pay the lowest, that have the most amount of turnover, we may see go away and it's an opportunity for upskilling and higher skilled jobs.

what I think is missing and what I would love for a portion of the government or even business leaders to start to address, every time we're seeing a city and a state panicked over the data centers and they can be, I'd like to start hearing from the government, here are all the opportunities to upskill, right? Every administration talks about like we're bringing vocational schools back and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, this one doesn't. For all the wiping out of agencies and organizations, yes.

I'd love a long-term planning group around here's what AI is potentially going to do to work, life, play in the country. Here's what we're going to start to think about jobs because we are still feeling the negative impacts of globalization and the hollowing out of manufacturing in America. We didn't address that correctly the first time around. We're potentially on the precipice of that happening again to jobs in this country. So we have two choices. We can hide out of the desk and say, AI, don't come, don't come, don't come. Or we can ignore the American people's fears and just keep plowing ahead because we say winning the AI race is everything. Or actually choose a third lane and put together a group with some long-term planning of how we're going to address this.

I think this is so cute, Steph. This is why I love you. It's like, you think that our government can do long-term planning. I know. Listen, it's not just our, but by the way. Just yesterday Donald Trump brought people in the White House. It's like, chart our pool bigger than your building. You know, you're right. We're going to come up with an AI regulation plan.

No, you're right in terms of how I'm great. I'm for you. I'm with you. We've got a great job. Sounds great. Nobody's long term, right? Our CEOs aren't long term. We live in a world of ultimate, ultimate short-termism because everybody has to get elected next year and meet a quarterly earnings report next. month. So there is no long-term planning, but that's exactly where the American people. We should be excited about how the extraordinary potential of AI, but instead we're panicked

about what it's going to do to our jobs. Wouldn't it be great if we addressed it? There's one corruption story I didn't get to because like podcasting with you is like. There's just so many. I can't even guess what it was. There's so many corruption stories. And there are a million. There's one in particular I want to get to because you shared it. And I had, I had missed it. which shows you the scale of corruption. It's a random thing. It's a small thing. Mike Levin, Democrat Congressman for San Diego, is kind of a sleeper.

He's been pretty good on all this. He posted this and you reported on it. This is what's happening with the airport in Palm Beach. Have you been to the airport in Palm Beach? Not recently, but I have been there many times. Okay. Have you? I have been there.

Not many times. It's fine. It's a nice, easy small airport. I like a beach, a small beach airport. You know, you go outside. Same. You can smell the ocean. That's nice.

It's charming. They renamed it after Donald Trump. I didn't realize this part of that, though. As part of that, he got the trademark and the licensing rights to the airport. And so he gets to profit off merchandise sold there, not just like the Donald Trump, you know, MAGA shirts. But like if somebody, if a tourist, you know, flies in, it's like, I want a Palm Beach airport hat, even if it doesn't say Donald Trump's name on it. Donald Trump now gets a licensing fee on that.

This is a public sector service. It's not like you bought a hotel. This is a fucking airport. This is a public service. Anyway, the story got even worse. Ron DeSanctimonius got involved with us. The county staff told the commissioners that they wanted to reject the name change or change the rules around the licensing.

And DeSantis told them that that would put their transportation funding at risk. You know, they wouldn't get their like road repair money from the state government. That's an insane story. This is an insane story, and it's happening right under our noses. We're missing it. And the fact that this administration and the president's family business is so brazen and willing to do this should make you afraid of what they're doing that you're not even aware of. Right? And what makes me so disappointed, just think about in the last 24 hours where I thought Donald Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund is never happening. It's going away.

you're going to finally see Republicans like the Bill Cassidy's or the Tom Tillis's who have all but been discarded by Donald Trump, they're going to stand up. And they're not. And I just don't understand why. I want to get to that. One more things just from the airport, because this is why this bothers me, I think. In some ways, it's almost, I almost want to give them respect. Because you like to have a Palm Beach International Airport hat and now you don't want to own one. Is that why you're saying?

In theory, maybe. That's not it. But why it bugs me is, like, I almost want to tip. the cap of respect to this like petty level of corruption. They made a multi-billion dollar crypto deal and the UAE is paying them off. They're making

ungodly amounts of money, generational wealth. Barron's grandchildren will have trickle-down money from the amount of corruption that they have done. Barron's great-grandchildren, assuming he ever sires a child, I guess. And they're nickel and diming us for licensing fees at the Palm Beach Airport?

Like what? Okay. That's that's the killer to me. That's the killer. I'm like, listen, you won the game in terms of grip. Like, you now are worth a multiple of what you are worth when you were lying saying you were super rich. You are now mega, mega, mega wealthy. And still, you're like, I've got to scrape one extra pickle from you at the Palm Beach airport. And not, I'm like, for real. You're 10% off the mug. Yes. It's crazy. I'm not built like that. But, okay, but that, but babe, that goes right back to. all the times, whether it's the ballroom or anything else where Trump says, I'm going to pay for

that with my own money. And then he never, ever, ever does. Just remember this. If you're wondering, like, where did this come from? In Donald Trump's first term, remember, Trump's family foundation was disbanded, was made defunct by a New York judge for misusing funds. that they said were going to charity. As part of the punishment, I believe the officers on the Family Foundation, and it was Ivanka and at least one or two of the other, I think it was Ivanka and Eric,

for 10 years weren't even allowed, maybe the 10 years are still going on, to sit on the board of a nonprofit because they misused money that they had raised for their family foundation that they said was going to charity. If someone's willing to do that, then you bet your bottom dollar,

they're going to scrape an extra number. nickel off that hat you're buying at the Palm Beach Airport. Back to the slush fund. It's crazy. Back to the slush fund, as you mentioned. So I did a whole separate video on this and people want the long story. But just the short of it is, so they had this voterama around the reconciliation bill. They have one chance this year to fund the things that Trump wants.

They did get the ballrooms out of this. But it's mostly ICE fund, the ICE funding that the Democrats had blocked earlier this year with the shutdown. So now this is their only chance to pass something without Democratic votes in the year. And so they're going to jam all the money for the ICE and CBP in there and then a bunch of other goodies for other stuff that Republicans want. Okay. So you can only lose three Republicans, like assuming every Democrat votes against it. All right.

You can only lose three Republicans on this stuff. And there are three Republicans in particular that are in the Senate that are up in very contested elections. Susan Collins in Maine, we'll get to that next. John Hustead in Ohio and Dan Sullivan in Alaska running against Mary Pelton. And so the three of them don't really want the baggage of having to vote for Donald Trump's slush fund because they don't want the ads, you know, about how you're getting poor. And Dan Sullivan gave $1.8 billion of your money to Donald Trump's pals, right? And so Bill Cassidy and Tom Tillis, who have said that they are the brave ones now, that they're the, you know, they're the ones that are going to speak truth to power on the way out. They put amendments up to stop the slush fund. And so did Chuck Schumer on the Democratic side. and Cassidy and Tillis do the DC bullshit. They vote for their amendment, okay? They had different things.

I think Tillis wanted to give the slush fund does something else and Cassidy had specific rules around it. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Like, they had their own amendments. They voted for theirs so they can say, hey, I voted to slop the slush fund. But on the one amendment that had the chance to pass that needed four Republicans to vote with Chuck Schumer

and the Democrats on it, they both let the three vulnerable senators vote with the Democrats, and they voted to protect the slush fund. So the slush fund goes forward. Okay, then you know Republicans better than I do. Why would they do that? Why would they do that? I think that because it's a country club and Bill Cassidy might be mad at Donald Trump,

but he doesn't want John Hustead to be mad at him. He doesn't want his boy, Dan Sullivan, to be mad at him. And Susan Collins, he wants to give them a little gift. And so he let them do it. You know, he rationalized, power of rationalization. It's so pathetic, though. One of those guys with the three could have killed it. They could have, you know, is going to, you know, codify, whatever the rule is, into legislation that the slush fund is over.

And so now it's still like in the courts. And who knows? Maybe next year Trump reanimates it. We'll see. But it's off for now. But it could have been off forever. I think your country club analogy is a perfect one where they have the opportunity to do the right thing. and they're like, but if I do the right thing, who am I going to get to eat lunch with next week?

Because I don't want to eat lunch with Chuck Schumer and Andy Bashir. Like, even if Trump's mad at me now, if I kind of do this sort of thing and he a little bit forgives me, maybe I could go to a party at Mar-a-Lago. Maybe I could be in the gang again. You know, maybe I can get some lobbying hustle. Lobbing hustle. Lobbing hustle. Yeah, I want them to answer my call. I want our Republican buddies to answer my calls next year when I'm lobbying for Johnson and Johnson or whatever.

So they're looking out and saying, well, I'm not going to have inside information next year. I'm not going to have this gig. What's my next chapter? And their next chapter of making money or real money certainly isn't with the American voter or Democrats. So they need to keep the water warm for themselves. I mean, it was amazing to me. The day after Bill Cassidy lost, he comes out and is like, I'm not sure I feel great about Iran. Really, Bill?

Well, what happened in the 24-hour period before and after you lost in Iran that changed? And the answer is nothing. I want to do a little bit of politics. I have this section of my notes is called. This wasn't politics? No, no, like campaign politics, rank politics. That was policy, corruption, laws. Now we're just talking about campaigns.

This section is campaigns and fuckboys. And so people can take fuckboy as a pejorative or not. It's just a descriptive term. I've got two people we're going to talk about in the fuck boy section. What does it describe? You don't know a fuck boy when you see one? If it's a descriptive, no, but I, no, but I turn to you. If F boy is just a descriptor, what is it described?

It's kind of like you know when you see one. You know, it's a guy that likes to party. You know, it's a certain type of guy that likes to party, likes to go through women and have a good time with them. They could be, there are malicious fuck boys. They're affable fuck boys. Got it, got it. It's like porn.

You just, you know it when you see it. You know it when you see it. Is an F boy straight? Straight, yeah, straight, yes. Yes, got it. Yeah, for sure. All right. The first one, obviously, we're going to talk about is Grand Platner.

Well, there are three of them, actually. Grand Platterner, Spencer Pratton. No, a surprise. Grand Platner, there's a big New York Times story yesterday, which you have talked about ad nauseum. The gist of it is there are, the North Times talked to, I think, six of his ex-girlfriends. Three of them said he was a swell guy.

Two of them said he was toxic and volcanic, and he drank a lot. One of them, who is also does happen to be a Republican operative, we should say, said that he... She's a Republican operative? She is, the one that said that he touched her, like, that he, like, physically grabbed her and pulled her out of a Uber aggressively and one time, like, threw her into a room and shut the door, but the only one that says that he, there was a physical, you know, element to this

is the one that happens to your Republican. That doesn't mean it's not true or not. It's just, we should, like, that's just the reality. So he was on with your colleague, Chris Hayes, last night. It was a really good, if you care about this and want to, assess these accusations at his defense. You should watch the interview because Chris was, I think, really went through all of the elements of the story and all the other accusations pretty meticulously. And Plattner responded to them.

I was on talking about it after. And I just want to revise and extend my remarks on one point a little bit because I think why don't you tell us what you said just in case people hadn't have watched it. Sure. Thank you. I think that this is a big risk to go with Grant Platner in Maine if you're the Democratic voters. Like Maine is a very important state or democracies on the line. Democrats to take the Senate need to win four Senate seats.

Maine should be the easiest one. It's the one that Democrats won in 2016-20 and 2024. All these other states have been in states Trump won. So, ostensibly, you just need Democrats to win. And so it's like kind of a strange state to take a risk on. I simultaneously think that Grand Binder has been like a very talented candidate and the people of Maine obviously like him. And he's offered a message that resonates with people, which is that he's fucking pissed

about the oligarchs. He's pissed about people getting screwed over. And he offered a way more compelling message than Janet Mills who feels like she wanted to be anointed to the seats like we're at a French aristocracy and I understand why the people have made and resonate with him. So I just think that those two facts

can just live side by side, right? Which is he's been a good candidate the people who has resonated with. It also feels a little risky given what we know and what we don't know. And to what we don't know, the one thing I just wish I would have said last night is on the topic of the tattoo, which I've talked about a lot,

I don't really care about it. Like, I think he, when he got it, it was, he's probably a fuck boy having fun. He's in the military. It looks like a skull on crossbones. It looks badass. I don't think he's a Nazi. He doesn't have any other Nazi traits. As I mentioned several times, this administration sent people with tattoos to a foreign gulag,

which is much more Naziist to me than a grand platinum's tattoo. That said, he's lying about it. Like in the New York Times story, this ex said, Wait, you're saying he's lying about the tattoo or he's lying about the women? He's talking about the tattoo. Like, he's not thinking about knowing that it was a Nazi tattoo. Like, when Chris asked him last night, he said, hey, the New York Times reviewed texts between one of your exes and her friends from, like, last year before you, in Grand Planner story, he says last October, someone came to him and said, this is a Nazi tattoo. He was like, oh, my God, I didn't know that, and I covered it up.

That's basically his story. Previous to that, one of his ex-girlfriends was texting with her friends, like, oh, my God. he's like I wonder what's going to happen with his toten cop for what I don't I don't have the text in front of me but she was texting previous to this being in the news like I know that like what do you think he's going to do about his Nazi tattoo you know which which Chris Hayes is asking him and he's just like Graham like if why did she know before you and his answer was like not great just I wasn't convinced and so I just want to say sometimes in politics people spin a lot of politicians lie if you like Graham Platner that's fine But I think everyone just should look at the reality of this, which is in my view, which is like he's obviously lying about that. And that means that who knows what else? I just, it is a risk. It's a very important state and it's risky.

And we don't know what else. Sometimes obviously did a lot of reporting on this. And maybe this is all there is. But it's a risk. So I understand the appeal. But man, boy, if you're signing up for this one, you know, it's a little bit of a lottery ticket and not necessarily a good one. In terms of Graham and Spencer Pratt, I actually think their success, whether they win or not, will put aside, but their success is so much more about the American people than it is about these two men, that these are two absolute 100 percent out, out, out outsiders. I mean, Spencer Pratt, truly the last thing he was doing was selling crystals tied to the Mayan apocalypse.

and the reason people know him is because he was sort of a villain on a Vapid Cali reality show. But the fact that these guys, outsiders like this, are getting so much support. And to your point, like, these are really important governing jobs where you need to understand how these cities work, how these states work hugely important. Mayor even more than Senator, really. And as Senator, you're just kind of one guy, but mayor in particular, yeah. Do you know, it's funny. Chris Hayes actually said this during commercial the other night.

He's like, you know, if suddenly I had to wake up tomorrow and someone said, hey, Chris, you're going to have to head down to Washington and be a senator? He's like, I could do that. Like, I think I could pull it off. And he's like, but if I had to wake up tomorrow and be the mayor of my city, that's a really hard, complicated job. And L.A. is like, you know what? I agree with what Spencer Platt said about the fires. I'm pissed too. I'm going with him.

But my point is, traditional lawmakers or just Democrats or Republicans need to listen to the American people who are who are. are willing to say, I'll take a Spencer Pratt, okay? Just because he's speaking, not giving them a policy solution, not coming about extra duties, but just for the sheer fact that he's saying, this effing sucks, you're ruining one of the greatest cities in America. Look what this fire did to us. The fact that just that message is resonating so much with people just has to get these parties together of like what we're doing in this prescribed way. isn't working. Spence Prada is going to lose that L.A. Mayer's I just like find kind of delicious. And I don't know if you know this audio engineer Jason

was in a band and one of the songs that he wrote was in, what was the stupid show? He was on the Hills. That was Jason's kind of to fame. So there you go. You know, we're bringing it here to the podcast. My last thing is just as an aside on Graham is I'm not a, I'm gay. I'm not a woman. And Alyssa Slotkin is on. You are you are? Yeah, I'm a homosexual. So, you know, sometimes I have blind spots. Sarah brings this up to me all the time. Who know. Who know. Blind spots. I try. I try really hard. I have a daughter.

I'm trying really hard. But sometimes I have blind spots. Alyssa Slotkin said something on TV yesterday when I was on with her on Nicole, where she was asked about this. And her answer is kind of funny because it was like, it was almost like she didn't have anything to say on the merits. She was just like, I can't believe that I'm a senator as a woman. And I've achieved all this.

And I still have to answer for and apologize for like a guy, like doing shit like this. And it did kind of resonate with me a little bit, that that is a little bit of the nature. It's hard to see a woman with these, you know, I don't even know what a woman version of these accusations would be, but it's hard to see them in the U.S. Senate. Yes. Yes.

Maybe the messiness of this guy. Maybe we'll get a messy bitch who lives for drama in the Senate sometime soon, is what you're saying. Maybe. I mean, to everyone, it's just like, well, listen, like, Platner's sort of, you know, when they were mad, like, why is the media covering this? Let's cover the issues.

like, yes, let's cover the issues and let's clean it all up and move on, kids. People are covering the issues in the North Carolina and Alaska and Iowa Senate race because those candidates don't have these other things that they're forcing the media to talk about. Fair point. That's what I would say to the platinum people. Hunter Biden is mad at me. Do you know this? Okay.

Why is he mad at you? And I would just like to say, Hunter Biden, be quiet. Yes. Or be allowed to come on my show, Hunter. We can hash this out. Why is he mad at you? I don't know. Well, I know.

But I don't know what prompted it. Some person, he's tweeting a lot right now, like way more than me. If you're tweeting more than me, it's too much. I'm tweeting. I'm not even tweeting. I'm tweeting too much. My question is, what good comes of Hunter Biden tweeting? Self-actualization.

What good comes for Joe Biden of Hunter Biden going to a state dinner? What good comes for the Biden family and their legacy of Hunter Biden all over Twitter and saying he's mad who could be mad at sweet little. you, Tim. Great question. Well, somebody tweeted at him, a Hunter friend, Hunter Stan, and saying, all of these pundits, the Stephanie rules, the people saying, and they didn't

say your name, but the people saying this kind of stuff, the people criticizing you, like, they're so lame, and Hunter replies to that person, so true. The pundits are truly exhausting. Just go to listen to Tim Miller or the pod bros, and you'll want to start smoking crack.

Which is kind of funny. Kind of funny, I guess. Yes, interesting that my name is the top of his mind. I don't think I have any crack smoking listeners, but if I do, shout out, I appreciate that I'm entertaining you while you're on a bender. Here's what I would say to you. If you, Tim Miller, subscribe to the Donald Trump All Press is Good Press, well, then this is your opportunity to say, Hunter Biden, thank you.

Yeah, I think he should come on. I'd like to talk to him. I think that Hunter and his defenders are struggled to internalize the critiques of him. And so I'll just say this briefly, which is, my critique of him is not about his, like, behavior really when he was on crack. I don't have a lot of friends who do crack, but I have a lot of buddies that have made bad choices in their life and went through drug periods and that are in recovery. And I get it.

Like, you know, you want to go hang out in a motel 8, like off I-95 and, like, party? Like, that's a personal choice. His personal choice became our problem when he, like, inserted himself into the very, very important re-election campaign. And he caused a lot of problems for his father. And then after his father caused a lot of problems for himself, Hunter was the one in the Oval Office apparently, telling him that he should stay in the race in the American.

And it's just like, that was my issue with Hunter. If Hunter was just out in the hotel rooms doing whatever he was doing, you know, the way of the pictures from, like, I would have no issues with that. Whatever, bro. Like, but he was trying to trade on influence. He was, and he hurt his father and it hurt the reelection. It helped Donald Trump.

He helped Donald Trump. So that's my criticism. of Hunter. Hopefully we can come hash it out. I hope this will lead a Hunter sitting down with you. I mean, he sat down with Candace Owens. Why not you? Exactly. We can do a gummy. I want to ask him about Brigitte McCrone's dick. All right. We're out of time. So we have... I'm glad we're out of time on that note. I had two funny media things, though. Do you want to make fun of Mike Lindell or Sean Hannity? We'll just do one. A little closer. We need a little dessert. Let's go with Mike Lindell. Okay. So Nancy Pelosi. Oh, this is what I was hoping it was. Was walking through the hill.

yesterday. And I don't know if you know this, but Mike Liddell, the pillow guy, has a media outlet Lindell TV that it's still talking about the 2020 election. If he gets a check from the $1.8 billion slash fund, that media company might grow. He hires young women who are kind of good looking to run around the hill and ask people questions about the imaginary election fraud of 2020. One of those reporters, reporters, scare quotes, encountered Nancy Pelosi this week, and this is what happened. Why was your daughter filming you on January 6th? Why don't you get away? These are just questions the American people want answers to.

You know what? I don't even think you're a real journalist. You work for Mike the Pillow Man. I do. And we're very proud. I don't consider that journalism. Mike the Pillow Man, that's not journalism. I don't have any reason to talk to you.

Okay, you know what? Here's what I'm here for. I am here for Nancy Pelosi's beautiful burnt orange Max Mara suit right there. I'm here for her fantastic blowout and turn her to that young woman and say, you work for that my pillow man. You're not, I mean, like, you never count Nancy Pelosi out. That's all I got to say.

The best. Remember, this woman ran for office when she was 45 years old and already a mother of four. Don't say like Nancy from San Francisco. That right there is Nancy from Baltimore. That's right. I tweeted yesterday that I don't know that anybody in basketball has grown on me more than Carl Anthony Towns. He did this beautiful interview after game one where he was talking about, about the woman upstairs.

And then he's also thinking about his mother. And I'm going to cry talking about it. And I used to hate Carl Anthony Towns. And he's growing on me. Nancy Pelosi is my Carl Anthony Towns with politics. She was enemy number one back when I was a Republican. And that, she's tough. I love her.

It was beautiful. When you get to know her, but that's it. And even if you don't like her politics, damn, it's tough to count Nancy out. It is. Wonderful. Stephanie Rule, what a treat.

We'll figure out a way for me. for me to get on that show. I don't know. Maybe I'll have to pre-tape or something. You might have to apologize to the listeners. If I have to pre-tap the show and big news happens overnight, you'll have to owe them apology, but we'll figure out a way to do it because I do love an audience. Maybe we'll air the episode on this podcast because you're going to light it up like a Christmas tree.

I love it. Stephanie Rulm, congrats. Good luck on the new show. Everybody else, it's Friday. Have a good weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday with Bill Crystal. Peace. Fuck boys, you'll miss.

You can thank them for. why I'm so goddamn reactionary. And for the graveyard in my stomach. The board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Ansela Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.