The Bulwark Podcast - Tim Miller: It Was Dumber than You Might Have Imagined

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

The weaponization committee hearing was an embarrassing bust. Plus, James O'Keefe's love of musicals, the karma of calling DeSantis a groomer — and Charlie has Covid and he still showed up for your Super Bowl weekend pod with Tim. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is February 10th, 2023. And as we head into this desperately needed Super Bowl weekend, the good news is the Chinese balloon is still dead. There's a new Monmouth poll out showing that Donald Trump trails Florida's Ron DeSantis in a two-way race, asterisk there, two-way race, 53 to 40%. We haven't talked about this much, but I mean, the death toll in Turkey and Syria is just absolutely horrific. Big political story of the day, Mike Pence gets his subpoena. That is a BFD. If you've been following it, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky has been getting a hero's welcome in Europe. I love the picture of the King of the West meeting a guy named Charles in London. Elon Musk is acknowledging that he has

blocked Ukrainian troops from using his Starlink technology. Meanwhile, the House's weaponization committee turned out to be absolutely the goat rope that everybody expected. I mean, it's almost, I don't know, just bear with me here for a second. It's almost like Jim Jordan is just not very, very good at this. And as I mentioned in my newsletter morning shots this morning, I tested positive for COVID last night. Right before I did the 11th hour on television. So I gutted it out. I did this.

This should be fun. Tim Miller, you've had COVID, right? You gutted that out, right? Not really. No, you're like the Patrick Mahomes out there on a hurt ankle on COVID going to MSNBC and the Big Friday podcast. I'm just, I'm proud of you. You're a warrior. Well, you know, yeah, I mean, not me. I'm a baby. I'm a baby. I would have had, I'd have taken my horse pills, the ivermectin, would have taken all of my zinc and just cuddled up. Cuddled up in the bed for three days. That's how I handled it. Well, I did that.

I actually did cuddle up in the bed for about two hours, and then I got dressed up and went down to TV. But, hey, screw ivermectin. I am loaded with Paxlovid. Is that how you pronounce it? Paxlovid and NyQuil. I have to tell you that these are the wonder drugs. I have no idea why Ron Johnson is not having congressional hearings about NyQuil as the answer to everything.

So, hey, can we do a little bit of promotional business before we get into... Let's do it. We got a lot to promote. Well, you know, I've talked about this before. Look, most of this stuff, I'll be really candid, most of the stuff that we have at the Bulwark is free because we don't think you can save democracy from behind a paywall. But the Bulwark Plus community is, I think, unique. And I don't think I'm saying that simply out of special pleading.

If you become part of this, you know, you can get this podcast. And by the way, there's a big story in the New York Times about, you know, podcast disinformation. Steve Bannon is the greatest source of disinformation in America today. And I mentioned in my newsletter, you know, there are choices because Steve Bannon has the number five political podcast in America today. Who is number six? Yes, who is number six at his heels? I wonder.

I have a guess. I have a guess. Is it Candace Owens? The Bulwark Podcast is the number six political podcast in America. Now we have been like up to four. We've been down. So we've been consistently in the top 10. So if you could see it in your heart to have us beat Steve Bannon, I think it would be a great moment for America. But anyway, back to Bulwark Plus,

you can get an ad-free version of this, The Next Level, The Focus Group with Sarah Longwell, Beg to Differ with Mona Charon and her crew. The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood and Across the Movie Aisle, and actually Behind the Paywall, which means something that we keep for the members, Just Between Us, which is a podcast that I do every week with Mona Charon, and The secret podcast that I can't tell you about because it's secret. And also, of course, the Thursday night live stream. And of course, we have a suite of newsletters. I'm guessing, Timothy, if I asked you to name all the newsletters, you probably can't because there's so many of them. There's Morning Shots. There's the Triad. We have a new one,

Press Pass by Joe Perticone. We have Overtime. And Sunny Bunch has a newsletter. So, again, I think that one of the special things about the Bulwark Plus community, and I think one of the reasons why people join, is they want to be part of this conversation that almost never is occurring anymore. I mean, everybody's gone into their own bubble. And you look at, say, the top 10 political podcasts, and it's sort of the good news, the bad news. I mean, the good news is we're in the top 10. Bad news is number three is Candace Owens. Four is NPR politics podcast, but then there's Bannon's War Room. Number eight is The Verdict with Ted Cruz. I mean, so... Is he still in the Senate, or is he just in the podcast business these days? That is an interesting question. I don't know whether you agree, Tim. I think one

of the real highlights of the Bulwark is reading the comment sections that we have. And again, that's a benefit for Bulwark Plus members, but I am continually blown away. I don't always agree, and sometimes I'm annoyed. I will admit this. But, you know, how lucid and eloquent and thoughtful the comments are in our community. I guess what I'm getting at you know, how lucid and eloquent and thoughtful the comments are in our community. I mean, I guess what I'm getting at is it's a club you want to be a member of. I'm learning from the comment section. Like a lot of times, you know, you've got me and I'm just, when you're doing this podcast, as you know, many hours a week, you're just popping off on a lot of topics. And sometimes you're popping off on things you know really well. And sometimes,

you know, a little bit. And, you know, just this week, I was popping off about how I was a little bit annoyed by Joe Biden's Buy America stuff. And the comments, you're getting these comments that are with all these details of all the reasons I'm right. I love that when the commenters come in with details and facts about how these policies are deleterious. Every once in a while, the commenters also come in and tell me why I'm wrong, which I don't like as much. But, you know, it's vibrant. People are smart. The people here are smart. It's really something. They really are. They really are smart. And this is something I've always thought about. I don't want to be part of that club. I don't want to be associated with that. But if you read the comments, you get a sense of this is a good group to hang out with. So as I was pumping the Paxlovid and NyQuil and various other drugs into

me last night, I was thinking, you know, if I can't get up in the morning to write my newsletter, that's going to be okay because all I would want to do, and I did other things too, but as I was going to bed in this drug-induced state, I was thinking, I just want to resend out Tim Miller's absolutely outstanding piece about the soft DeSantis boys, spelled B-O-I-S, which we'll leave aside. And, you know, because I was sitting there and I was reading some of the commentary, you know, the horse race commentary about, well, you know, how is DeSantis responding to being, you know, called a pedo? You know, is he being forceful enough? How does this

actually play? But you went to a really interesting place, you know, how shocked, shocked and offended all of these folks are, these anti-anti-Trump folks or people in MAGA world are just shocked that Donald Trump would actually smear and say shitty things about Rhonda Sandis. And I'm looking around like, well, this goes too far. When did this start? This crosses the line. And I have to say that I sat up in my chair when your piece came through and you guest wrote the triad. So people may have seen this in their mailbox. And you said, have you seen this movie before? Remember when Trump threatened to reveal Ted Cruz's supposed affairs, when he accused Ben Carson of being a child molester, when he falsely claimed the Jeb liked Mexican illegals because

his wife was one, when he alleged that Mika Brzezinski was bleeding from her face after plastic surgery. When he retweeted someone who used a pedo Biden hashtag, etc., etc., etc. Like no shit, etc., etc., etc. And by the way, here in Wisconsin, Wisconsin primary, I remember that whole Ted Cruz affair thing. It was everywhere. And of course, Ted got over it. And then you point I do. Byron York, the Washington Examiner's saddest Trump lick spittle, lamented that Trump is going lower and lower. Former editor for Trump fan blog, American Greatness, Pedro Gonzalez, is now under the impression that his one-time hero is unserious and acting based on his insecurities. You don't say. Claire Monster and miniature tough boy Dave Raboy called it bottom feeder stuff,

which you should know. Tim, I want to say this to your face across several time zones here. This is a great point because, I mean, the lack of any sort of self-awareness is chef's kiss here on the part of these people. Thank you. In the comment section, vibrant as ever. So you just get in there, Bulwark Plus, everybody. You meet a lot of friends when you make fun of the saddest Trump lickspittles. You know, you can find commonality across ideological divide. That's nice. I like watching these friendships blossoming in the comments but um i was fired up

i wrote this in a coffee shop in about 45 minutes all the best stuff happens when you're just getting your dander up you know because i was seeing these some of these tweets it was the buyer in york tweet that made me the most mad i was just like lower and lower really donald trump lower and lower what is actually how long has this been going on is there gambling in the casino? Like, what, you know, what was actually prompting all of this, right? Like, that is the thing that was driving me, and it's obvious. The thing that was prompting this is that they know that the person that they used for a little while, who practiced this just absolute wanton cruelty against anyone who possibly threatened him was now threatening the person that they want to replace him, you know, because they see Trump as a loser.

They're ready to move on. They have their new precious Ron DeSantis. John Chait has been really good over at New York MAGA, just chronicling just how wide and deep the DeSantis level of fandom is in conservative media. And so now, you know, as I wrote at the end of the article, they're like flopping around on the ground like a French soccer player, you know, pretending that they got tripped and they need a red card. They're mad at Trump about this. They had cheap shot on the French. Great World Cup match. They're still French. It's still soccer. So there's the hypocrisy element of this, which is maddening in itself. But it also

is kind of what we've been seeing for the last eight years. The thing that really, you know, got my dandruff was just over the subject matter, and how DeSantis himself responded to it, right? Because I think for we've been writing down this for a minute, but if you for whatever reason, haven't seen this, what prompted this article is that Trump on his social media site, whatever it's called, was posting some memes, as he's wont to do, of DeSantis appearing to be drinking a cancerous cup with three girls who are, I guess, in college, maybe possibly underage. We don't know that. Yeah, we don't know. Like, this is all from the context. It seems like he took a gap year where he was a teacher. And I guess he's hanging out with these girls. And that's what these pictures that surfaced. Okay. So Trump, you know, shares these memes. Trump didn't write this because

he doesn't use big words, but other people, you know, one of them wrote that it was a fibophilia-esque, which is, you know, the step above pedophile, you know, sleeping with older teens when it's inappropriate. It's a thing? Yeah. Fibophilia. Yeah. Yeah. Roy Moore was an a fibophiliac. That's why I knew that word from Roy Moore's time. Weren't we all at one point? I don't think it's a fibophilia if it's teen on teen. I don't think that's a fibophilia. I think it's grown up on teen. It's a fibophilia. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. I stand corrected. People who are pedophiles is an important distinction, right? It's like, no, actually, I'm an ephebophile. Anyway, terminology of the lesson of the day. The other meme suggested that Ron DeSantis

was grooming, that's a key word here, grooming these young women. And so Trump shares both of these. And that is what leads everyone to say, oh, this is so low. Oh, you're a bottom feeder to accuse Ron DeSantis of grooming. I said, you just have to take a moment sometimes and just say, really? It's unfair to call Ron DeSantis a groomer? The person who has mainstreamed this accusation against anyone and everyone that serves his political ends? Do we not remember that it was Ron DeSantis' spokesperson who was calling not just gay teachers and Florida groomers, but anyone who opposed the Don't Say Gay bill as a groomer sympathizer? And, you know, we have Chris

Rufo, his friend that he put on the board of the college there, accusing teachers being groomers. He had the libs of TikTok lady whose whole life is calling people groomers, children's hospital employees, drag queens, teachers. Like that's her whole feed. This Libs of TikTok feed is about making accusations against mostly LGBT folks that they're grooming others. DeSantis invited her to the governor's mansion. He also accused the lieutenant governor who was running on Chris's ticket, I'm blanking on her people groomers and pedophiles. And now Donald Trump calls him a groomer and it's like, Oh, we're supposed to be clutching the pearls. Really? Like these fucking guys are just so soft and so weak. And they're just trying to protect that little dough boy that they can go and

smear any teacher, any public servant, any children's hospital employee and get attaboys and plaudits on Twitter because Ron's taking it to the left, taking it to those elites, the public school teachers. And yet Ron has to take one meme targeting him from Donald Trump. And now now we're smelling the vapors. Fuck these guys. See, now this is where your piece was so value added, because my first reaction was this is really kind of a dumb move by by Donald Trump. Fuck these guys. perhaps not the wisest thing, not to mention the fact that there appears to be pushback from, you know, some erstwhile MAGA types who are protecting their precious. But listening to you

now, given how deeply Santos has become invested in pushing out his own groomer memes, is this another one of those examples of unappreciated reptilian cunning from Donald Trump? Because he knows that Santos can't really defend. He can't say, accusing someone of a groomer is a terrible thing. We can never do that. That is just completely awful. When? And then comes Tim Miller with all the receipts showing all the time that he's done this shit himself.

I love your little COVID brain mix up there. We have to keep it in. Katie, don't cut it. You're calling DeSantis Santos. There is something there. There's a parallel there. DeSantis. That really was. Nice catch. I'm carrying you this morning, Charlie. You're doing great. So I've got two political observations on this. One is, I do think that it's challenging, and it has been for 10 years, to do normal political analysis on Donald Trump, right? And I think that this example, while I tried to zag here and cut through the clutter, is like, for starters, I don't think that enough people wrote about this. There was a tension because it's like Donald Trump dog bites man, Donald Trump does me. Yeah, exactly.

But on the other hand, it's like former president of the United States accuses top rival of being an Afibophile. Like, I don't know, that feels like a news story before 2015. Pretty big news story. You know, if Barack Obama was out there, like calling Mitt Romney an Afibophile, I think that would have made the front pages. So anyway, there's that element to this. There's the element of how it's hard to judge. Is Trump, you know, you get into figure skating judging, right? Now, is this a good hit by Trump? Is this his reptilian cunning? Or is this another piece of evidence that he's lost his fastball? And the answer to that question is kind of like, it's hard to really know, right?

And people that are particularly, I think, ill-suited to judge that are like D.C. and New York dwellers for whom like this is, who are very much not the target audience of Trump's lashing out here. So I don't know. I think it is, it's possible, right? That Trump sees that he's got this vulnerability here and is going to go pick at it with DeSantis and that that might work. I think that it's also possible that he is showing, if you listen to Sarah's focus groups, that he is showing a little bit of bad judgment in that in 16, he was able to push back against this claim that he was doing Republican on Republican crime by always being like, I'm a counter puncher. I'm a counter puncher. He's not counter punching

here. Like he's going straight to it on the person that, that a lot of his fans like for whatever reason in DeSantis. And so I do think it's possible that it's a little bit evidence that, okay, well maybe that reptilian cunning is still there that he knows that this is a scab to pick, but maybe his timing is off. And he's like old Norma Desmond, old man,

you know, back to your Olivia Nessie podcast in the, in Mar-a-Lago, not realizing that the world is passing by all of that stuff though. We don't really know. We're not experts on. So maybe the thing that everybody should be focusing on is the hypocrisy and just the absurdity of the DeSantis crowd crying foul. I agree. So I actually, when I wrote about this in my newsletter this

morning, I cited somebody from my past, sort of, conservative talk show host in Wisconsin named Jay Weber. I've known Jay for years. He used to be the morning, well, he still is the morning host on WISN radio. I was not on the same station. I was on WTMJ, but I knew Jay. I actually had worked at ISN for a while. I knew Jay very well. And what I really remember going back to, well, let me just read his tweet, okay? Because he was a perfect example of the Byron York brain that you were describing before. He tweeted out yesterday, I didn't defend Donald Trump against smears and shitty lies for seven years in order to have him turned around and use the same techniques against DeSantis and Republicans who threatened him in 24. If he continues on this path, I'm flatly out on him, which is bullshit on several levels, because I remember Jay very

well back in 2015 and 2016 in Wisconsin, where he was saying the same things about Donald Trump that I was. See, I was not alone as a conservative talk show host back in the day being anti-Trump. Almost everybody was. I remember pitching Jay when I was on the, yeah, our principals pack, the anti-Trump pack. I remember, and I didn't like, you know, know him, but I remember him being like amenable to anti-Trump pitches back then in 16. Absolutely. And he and I would exchange emails and I don't know whether DMs or whatever, you know, kind of like, Hey, attaboy. And Hey, you know, keep up the good work and everything and all of that stuff. And I think, you know, seven years ago today, he was on the air calling Donald Trump Orange Julius. So he wasn't defending Donald Trump. But then, of course, like so many others, he, you know, did the, you know, the flipping and

he became a reliable, as he acknowledges, he became a reliable turd polisher, you know, defending Trump against anything, defending Trump all this time. And now he is shocked and appalled and really, really hurt to find that Donald Trump is actually insulting. So, you know, seven years ago, Donald Trump was, you know, this massive campaign of, you know, lying Ted Cruz and all the women Ted Cruz and look at the things that, you know, look at things everybody else is doing. It's like it's dropped into a memory hole. But also his point, if he continues on this path, which by the way, of course he will, because he's Donald Trump, I'm flatly out on him. No, you're not. You'll come back. You will do that flip flop just like you did before.

You will come crawling back and say, well, I still don't like, you know, these, you know, accusations of pedophilia. But on the other hand, he's, you know, certainly superior to any of the evil Democrats who want to blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. You know that he's going to do that. So, Jay, you know, I, this is the problem of having too long a memory. Even when you have COVID brain, you remember all this stuff. The Jay thing is reminiscent of a shtick I had in 2016 when I was trying to get people on board for Never Trump stuff, which was, here's the thing. You're going to be Never Trump or at least anti-Trump or against Trump eventually. Like it might not be now.

It might be when he embarrasses you in the White House. It might be when you try to beat him in 2020. It might be when he runs as a in the White House. It might be when you try to beat him in 2020. It might be when he runs as a third-party candidate like Teddy Roosevelt 2024. But, like, so you might as well just be against him now. Like, you might as well just be with us now and just get the whole process over with. And Jay is a prime example of that. So, wait, you pitched him on stuff. Oh, yeah.

You never pitched me. Did you pitch me? It was you, Vicky, Jay. But did I talk to you back then? Or was I just too easy? We don't need to worry about Sykes. Sykes? No.

Yeah, because you interviewed Trump. I did. And so, boy, I'd have to go back and look at my emails. But during that Wisconsin primary period, we were sending Trump oppo out to radio folks. I definitely remember sending it to Vicky. And remember, Jay, I thought I sent stuff to you. I don't remember. I mean, you nailed him in that interview back in 2016. That's the one thing I have a clear memory of. Look at your monitor right now. See what I'm holding up? See what I'm holding up there? Do you see this? I just pulled this out

of my drawer. It's the front page of the Monday, May 16th, 2016 New York Times. Okay? Yeah, okay. And there's a story by Jeremy Peters. Once again, another flank of the GOP warms up to Trump. And it talks about how, what is it, evangelical Christians are lining up. And one day, I got a FedEx envelope from the Trump Organization on Fifth Avenue to me and written on the front page of The New York Times in Sharpie. You're a loser. Charlie, I hope you can change your mind with a line driven pointing at that story.

Charlie, I hope you can change your mind. Look forward to your show, Donald Trump, and then blow it in big all caps. I will win! I'm going to put this back in my special FedEx envelope. That's pretty good. But I'm a digital hoarder. I don't know about you, Charlie. I'm a digital hoarder. So I have like all my emails and text messages. This will come back to haunt me at some point. But here it is. Yeah, here's me sending you an old clip of Trump attacking Governor Walker for being too unyielding in his fights. March 23rd, 2016. You reply. All caps.

Thank you. Gold. So we did. We exchanged. There are a couple other little exchanges here. Me doing my job as a flack. You ripping Donald Trump. God, so it goes back. Isn't that something? It's like, you know.

All right. So a couple other things I really want to get to today. I want to talk about the Ana Paulina Luna story for people going, who? The new George Santos and the weaponization committee. Can we just start with the weaponization committee? Because I understand that you, for your sins, spent time watching it. I guess I'm struck by a couple of things. Number one, how badly organized it was. What a sort of, you know, Star Wars bar scene of witnesses they have. I mean, when your whole deal is, I mean, you have your first big thing, and it's Senator Ron Johnson, who hasn't met a conspiracy theory he doesn't like, you know, Putin fangirl Tulsi Gabbard, Chuck Grassley, Twitter user Jonathan Turley,

retired FBI agent who didn't know what a smartphone was. You know, and the contrast with the January 6th committee was pretty amazing. I mean, that committee spent months putting together its evidence, right? And it looks like Jim Jordan and his people just like printed out some old Fox News clips. So what did you think? You watched this thing. Yeah, I suffered through it. I was thinking about writing about it, but I mostly just wanted to be able to comment on it, you know, with an informed manner rather than a Twitter matter. And it was so annoying that I just, I didn't get my dander up like I did on Ron DeSantis. And so I just decided

to sort of save my takes for the podcast here. I know that this is hard to believe, but it's even dumber than you probably think and expect it. And I use that word particularly dumber because it wasn't crazier than you expected. It was like about as crazy as you expected, maybe even slightly less. But it was just, it served no purpose. The arguments that they were making were all conjecture. They had very little actual evidence to add to any of their arguments, any of their silly arguments about the weaponization of the deep state and big tech. I still don't really understand what, I guess they're trying to claim that the Twitter censorship regime, which is the number one issue for Republicans all over America, despite the fact that Elon Musk now has Twitter and apparently does whatever cat turd

asks him to do. I don't understand why that's a big issue, but that's their number one issue. They connect that to the weaponization committee because the FBI, I guess, sent some emails to Twitter requesting that they take certain things down, threats, violent speech, things of that nature. And so much of the committee is like old people complaints about the internet. You know, Jonathan Durley is like, oh, ranting on and on about how Twitter is the marketplace of ideas. And this is a free speech space.

And, you know, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was never really my favorite. It's like, Jonathan, do you have any particular expertise in this matter? And he's like, well, I read the Twitter files. And she's like, but I mean, have you worked for Twitter or do you know anything about the way their processes for vetting and for deleting? Basically just have a Twitter account. That's it. Yeah. It's like I have an account. I have an account and I'm a user of interest and I'm a legal expert a Twitter account. That's it. Yeah, it's like I have an account. I have an account and I'm a user of interest and I'm a legal expert.

And so- That was classic. Yeah, it was a classic change, but he's going on and on. And it's like, I feel like I'm in a crazy world. Donald Trump has a social media account. His chinless spokesperson, Jason Miller, has a social media, not account, platform.

There's Truth, there's Getter, there's 8chan, there's Gab, and Twitter itself was bought by a pro-Ron DeSantis troll, Elon Musk. Are we really concerned about the threat to free speech seems to be thriving to me online? Like who is targeting, like no one is targeting anybody. If anything, it's conservatives that are doing better than ever on the internet. So here's the problem they have, that they are in effect like speaking in tongues in Fox News speak, that if you're not deeply immersed in that, every once in a while you're going, what are they talking about? Because I mean, they come from this world where this is what they have been regurgitating for months and months and months. So in their heads, it makes

sense. And when they say it out loud, it's like, okay, unless I had like a scorecard to keep up with them, I wouldn't understand what they're talking about here. Okay, so now, very self-consciously, you know, having escaped from tribal politics, I really believe very strongly in the adage, you know, that do not fawn upon the mighty, do not become a fanboy, do not put your hopes on any politician. And this frustrates people because people want to say, no, you should only say that the X person is absolutely wonderful and fantastic and that they are always succeeding. And no, I'm just not doing that. Except I got to say, this new guy, Dan Goldman, the new congressman, you may have seen

him before. He was on various other committees. I mean, he, as a staffer, he was amazing yesterday. And this is not the most important moment, but I have to admit, last night as I was trying to keep myself awake until the 11th hour last night, and I've pumped myself all full of COVID drugs, I have to give credit where credit is due. I'm listening to the Lawrence O'Donnell show, and he played this extended clip of Dan Goldman cross-examining this former FBI special agent named Thomas Baker, who the geniuses of the Republicans figured, we're going to get this expert on the FBI, a guy that retired more than 20 years ago, has a book to sell, has become a real fan of Seb Gorka. I mean, he's appeared on podcasts of Seb Gorka, former Trump advisor, who has ties to all of

these anti-Semitic organizations. I mean, he's full MAGA. And the guy is allegedly going to be talking about how the FBI has changed. And it's really changed and gone downhill, you know, since 9-11. And before 9-11, we were okay. But after 9-11, just listen, it runs about two minutes, but how Dan Goldman takes apart one of the Republican star witnesses, Thomas Baker, former FBI special agent. Go. When did you retire from the FBI? I retired from FBI employment about 20 years ago. 1999, right? It's a year. Yeah, and I've continued to be engaged with the FBI in a number of levels since then. Okay, so you retired two years before 9-11, right? That's correct. Right. And are you aware that one of the reasons that 9-11 occurred was that the FBI and the intelligence community did not coordinate

sufficiently? Do you agree with that? That's a conclusion of the September 11th commission, and it's very valid, I think. And so you read that like I did, and that's all the information that you had because you were not at the FBI. And as a result of 9-11, the Department of Homeland Security was created, right? A year or two after that, yes. So you never worked in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security when you worked for the FBI, right? I was working as a consultant during most of those years. When you were paid by the FBI as a special agent, did you work with Homeland Security? No, it didn't exist.

Okay. And you never investigated foreign interference in our elections, did you? No, I personally did not. And you have no experience investigating Russia's efforts to interfere in our elections through cyber attacks and social media, do you? Other than what I've studied and researched. Okay. And in 1999, when you left did smartphones exist of a sort really yes what well we had we had phones we had smartphones

okay well do you ever do any search warrants for emails search warrants for emails no i did not i've done ever investigate domestic extremism oh god i started to feel bad actually yes i investigated the klu klux klan on many occasions no good i would call you ever investigate any insurrections on the capitol no there was none okay and i appreciate that your your service sir but you would agree that a lot has changed in the FBI in the 23 years since you left, correct? Good and bad, and I have stayed engaged on a number of levels. One last question. I read tweets about the— Just for context of why I started to feel bad.

So this is the kind of commentary you only get for people who suffer through hours with this fucking committee just before this and this poor fbi guy baker was just getting smoked colin all red who is a who's a rep out of texas um former football player i thought his might have been even better the goldmans i mean he is just he is just lacing into this guy about what whether or not january 6th was domestic terrorism and so you I mean, he just was in for a pounding. Baker was not prepped. Unlike, you know, Liz Cheney and our friends on the January 6th committee who made sure all those witnesses were prepped. It did not seem like a lot of work went into prepping Thomas.

I still don't even know, having watched hours of it, I don't even know what his point was. That's exactly it. The point of him there was, I guess, to have an FBI official to validate that they are also concerned about politicization in the FBI. But he didn't. He wasn't bringing any receipts. You would think if they want to have a insider whistleblower, they would find someone who worked there in this millennium. OK, hey, we're getting lots of special requests from our colleagues. this millennium. I think so. Okay, hey, we're getting lots of special requests from our colleagues

for you and I to talk about this amazing story about James O'Keefe from Project Veritas. The report yesterday was that your good buddy James O'Keefe from Project Veritas, one of the rock stars of the right,

these are the guys that do the undercover stuff often. Sometimes they get something and a lot of it's sketchy though. But Project Veritas and James O'Keefe have been dancing close to the line for a while and now he's put on leave while they investigate things. So there are so many anecdotes on all of this, but one of our colleagues, Amanda, wants us to comment on something from the Daily Beast, this anecdote, okay? pay for Project Veritas staff to accompany him to Virginia as he performed a lead role in a production of the musical Oklahoma. Oh, Oklahoma. In the memo, one employee worried that all the money spent on musicals risked alienating donors. All the theater stuff and how it's handled makes me very uneasy,

the memo reads. And later, in the end, we were in a deficit now. Our fans and potential fans beyond do not respond positively to all of that stuff. Now, as I recall, you shared a video of him dancing a few months. So he's like into musicals. Oh, yeah, he's a theater kid. Are you ready for this, Charlie? I mean, I'm just, I am bringing the inside scoop on everything.

I did not know. I was not prepped for this. I did not know that this question was coming. But yet, I still have the inside scoop on everything. I did not know. I was not prepped for this. I did not know that this question was coming, but yet I still have the inside scoop. Not only is he a big theater kid, James is a Project Veritas conservative rat fucker. There's this video the other week of him. He was chasing this New York Times reporter down the street. Just some New York Times reporters like videoing him back and James McKeith is just screaming at him. And it's like, oh man, great, great work here, James. He is a big theater kid. I guess apparently spent $20,000 in Oklahoma. But not only that, he has on the Project Barry Totts staff, a choreography department. At least

one, maybe several people who work for him who just organize their dances and their plays and at these turning point usa conferences who does that for us at the bulwark well i would think it should be jim swift um but i don't know for sure but i went to i got into the project very tough after party when i was at the turning point usa conference and that is where i took the video that people we can put it in the show notes uh i'll put in the comments section so this way this makes your bowler plus membership worthwhile put the video in the comment section if you haven't seen it on this podcast and you know he is doing uh you know that's like every day i'm shuffling okay anyway either note or you

know he's doing he's shuffling to that song and no one's watching and i'm just there up close and personal with my smartphone monitoring these dance dance moves. And, you know, I started kibitzing with his staff. And he's got this coterie of people that follow him everywhere, security, and other people as they're talking to some of them. And I guess that, you know, for purposes like this events like Turning Point USA, they have a choreography department that plans their kind of dances that they do when they're revealing their lib owning videos so that's where the big donor money is going and uh i guess this daily b story indicates that some folks are unhappy with with that use of resources and that james is on is going to be on leaf which is really

unfortunate for him and for us really to not to miss out on that kind of art high art it does seem that the grifters are we're at the stage now where the grifters are all going after the spoils all together. It's kind of like the hyenas decided that we better get our bit right now. Do you see that story about Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA is about to lose students for Trump? They had apparently had that. And so now the students for Trump,

which is one of the major grift organizations, is breaking. I mean, they're all fighting with each other who gets control, who has the domain names and everything, which is not that surprising because you have a certain kind of person who's attracted to this world and there's a lot of money. The stakes are very, very big, right? It is like the little foxes. Speaking of the kind of people attracted to this, so we've had the George Santos saga, which I am not bored with at all. As you can tell, I still have it on my mind.

Story in the Washington Post about Anna Polina Luna, who, by the way, was one of the Congress people who was also supporting the AR-15 pin earlier this week. George Santos and her had it on as a signal, guys, we're up for anything you guys are up for. We will wear anything. So what's the story with her? Apparently, she's a little bit of a fabulist.

We're a lot of a fabulist. She's kind of, and again, why does this keep happening to the Republic? I have two points on this. So for Anna Polina Luna herself, she has become close to Matt Gaetz. There's some whispers about that, which I'll leave at that, but I think that they're close friends. And she's a Florida, new Florida Congresswoman. This story about her by Jackie Alamany, great reporter over the Washington Post,

one of my favorite parts of it is just right off the lead here. She's been really pitching herself, I think, in Trump's party. There have been obviously some concerns about the party's outreach to Latinos. So there's like a recruitment effort. We want candidates who are Latino to show, you know, and to maybe help the party do better with that demographic. And so she pitched herself as a Mexican-American. I guess she was the first Mexican-American woman to represent Florida in Congress. We're slicing these identity politics categories pretty thin here, but that's the one way she pitched herself. Turns out, when she was serving in the Air Force Base in Missouri, she described herself as Middle Eastern Jewish or Eastern European. Now, Mexico is not in any

of those areas. And then she changed her last name to her mother's last name, as I guess an homage to her mother's family. So I guess this would be like if I decided I wanted to run for Congress, changed my last name to Safa, and said I was Lebanese, I think would be the equivalent of this, which I think my friends from the rest of my life would find pretty, pretty odd. But I identify as Lebanese now. And my mother is half Lebanese. And I'm taking taking her family name and I don't understand the problem with this. It was actually my mother, a lot of mom on this podcast, she suggested when Jeb was doing bad that he take on

Kalumba, his wife's last name. He's like, you know, maybe that's how you get rid of the Bush baggage. So this kind of fun, silly, tongue-in-cheek suggestion was apparently taken by Anna Paulina Luna who is also with Gates on going against McCarthy. And so she's now taking on this far-right firebrand persona in Congress.

The anecdote I always use about this is related to our friend Bill Kristol. Bill is the kind of guy, the old wise beard that gets called. Sorry, Bill. Take that as a compliment, in which it's intended, that gets called when somebody who, let's say they went to Harvard, and they went to officer training school, and they, you know, served in the military, or they started a business, and they're like, you know what, I think I might want to run for Congress in Florida. I'm going to move home to Tampa and run for Congress. I'd like to get some advice from somebody. Bill's the kind of person that people call. You know, when I first met Bill, you know, whatever that was, about a

decade ago, he'd get those calls. And sometimes if the person needed press advice, I'd talk to them. And these really talented people, a lot of them would want to run as Republicans, like center-right Republicans. Now, somebody that is talented, that doesn't want to shovel Trump shit, college-educated because of our education polarization, they're not running as Republicans. They don't want to like shovel Trump shit, college educated because of our education polarization, they're not running as Republicans, right? They don't want to run as Republicans. So they called, can I run a Democratic primary? Is there a third party option, right?

Like the types of income, it's a supply and demand issue. Everything's out of Smith. The kinds of candidates that want to run are calling Bill and they don't want to run a Republican primary. So if they do, they're quickly dissuaded once they realize what they're going to have to do to win a primary. And so enter people like Ana Paulina Luna and George Santos. If you are a grifter who wants to get into Congress, it is much easier to just pretend like you're a MAGA,

particularly pretend like you're a MAGA person of color where they're going to just vault you to the top of the line because they feel like they need to help their brand position with minorities, you know, you're going to very easily win a primary. And if it's in a safe district or in a Republican district, you're going to be a member of Congress. You can't do that on the Democratic side, right? The depth of people who are running in like an open, look at what's happening in the California Senate race. You know, there's going to be a hundred Democrats that get into these open seats, everybody with various different impressive resumes. You know, you can't just grift your way in by putting on a Joe Biden, like, you know, Scranton Joe hat and changing your last name and calling it good, right? Like,

you're gonna run into some other formidable challengers. And so I think that kind of supply and demand question is why we're seeing more and more of the Santos and Lunas in the party. And of course, they fit right in there. Speaking of the Ku caucus, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene has had quite a week. Apparently yesterday they had a closed door briefing about the Chinese balloon. And she disrupted it by screaming apparently, bullshit, bullshit. And she's very, very proud about it. I'm not going to ask what's going on with her because I think it's pretty obvious. I mean, she's playing the card for all that it's worth.

She's loving the attention. It does feel it's a little bit unchained, and it's like, how far does she take this? We're at the point now where a sitting member of Congress screaming bullshit becomes her like go-to signature move. I don't even know if I have a question there. Like, you know. Well, she's matured. She's learned a lot. She's matured. I'm impressed. Who said, was it Comer? Who did say that? No, it was McCall, Texas congressman. Again, one of the, one of the supposed closet normals that we hear so much about. Okay. It's the Super Bowl.

You got a pick? Yeah, I'm picking the Chiefs. I'm pretty annoyed with the NFL. As a Broncos fan, there was this moment on Monday Night Football, maybe about eight years ago now, where this famous throw of Mahomes, where it could have been six years ago, where he throws left-handed and he's falling down. And it's just this unbelievable Michael Jordan of football-esque play. And it was against the Broncos.

I remember watching it and texting my brother and saying, we're going to be losing to this asshole for 20 years. I'm going to be Charlie Sykes' age by the time the Broncos get out of this division. I was just fucking cold. And I saw it. And I just saw my future. And so I had some years of bitterness and pettiness towards Mahomes over this, but now you just got to appreciate it. And it's just unbelievable he's on the high ankle sprain

and he beat the Bengals last week. You know, they got a little help from the refs. That's my only concern. I agree with you, but that is my concern. And the shot on age, it was like, do better, Tim. I'm sorry. Because you know what? As soon as I mentioned I had COVID, you were online actually looking up actuarial tables.

Why? Charlie, no. I want you to be around for the Donald Trump Jr. 2032. It's going to be Friday. It's going to be Friday. We're going to be in the Iowa caucuses covering that. You're stuck here. Time is a flat circle, big guys.

And of course, the convention's coming here to Milwaukee. You know that, right? I guess I knew that, but I hadn't registered the Charlie Sykes impact. I want to shock you here. I'm actually looking forward to Rihanna's halftime show. Really? What are your favorite Rihanna songs? I actually have a new one.

Okay. From Wakanda, Lift Me Up. Okay. Which I'm hoping that she sings. Okay. All right. You had some other business as well. Yeah, okay.

Two final items. One is just I received a lot of negative emails and comments about my comment last week that the eggs prices were an evidence that inflation has not left us. And I just want to say to folks that I appreciate being held accountable. But you know, I was making a tongue in cheek comment. And yes, the egg price increase is due to the avian flu, not to the broader inflation. But I sometimes get a little bit annoyed with our democratic fanboy friends, I can get fanboyish to Charlie, who want to be like, you know, inflation is not a problem. These people are crazy that they're still complaining about everything.

The economy is great. Everything's great. And it's like, the economy is good. The jobs numbers are good. We now have more people in the workforce than we did before COVID. I'm impressed with that. I think the recovery has been pretty good on balance. But, you know, if inflation goes up by X percent in a given year and then stays static, well, people are still, the prices have still gone up.

People's groceries have still gone up. So, yeah, the eggs example was maybe not the most precise. It was a passing comment. But I like to be held accountable and to be clear with our fans. But you could have chosen many other items in which it is inflation. So it's like, OK, avian flu for eggs. People, inflation's a real problem. Like the grocery bill is still very high.

I grocery shop for my family. I'm aware. Finally, I just, I don't have any other vehicle to express this. So here it is on the Borg podcast. And I just want to do a two minutes of hate on Kevin Durant, if you don't mind. And everyone can turn this off if they don't care about the NBA.

But Kevin fucking Durant was on the Oklahoma City Thunder 10 years ago. It was like going to be the next big thing after LeBron James. He's super talented. I get it. He's on the Oklahoma City Thunder. They lose to the Golden State Warriors in seven games. Great series. One of the best NBA playoff series of the millennium.

And after he loses, he's a free agent. What does he do? He signs with the Golden State fucking Warriors. Like they just beat him in this epic series. And then he went and signed with the people that beat him. It just goes against the whole spirit of the crucible of sport. It's like, why would you do that? You did not want another try you did not want

to kind of triumph over over this super team that that you that you almost were the one person that could crack so i didn't like that about kevin durant and that made me not like my hometown golden state warriors i've held that against him okay so then he leaves the golden state warriors he said well i'm not getting enough credit for winning on this super team duh and so he's like i want to start my own super team. So he goes across the country and he starts a squad in Brooklyn. He signs up with conspiracy theorist Kyrie Irving and maybe the most annoying player in all of the NBA, James Harden,

and creates another super team. This team collapses. They've won only seven playoff games over the course of the three or four years that they've been together. This year they're in fourth place. They're right there. Harden is gone now, but it's still Kyrie and KD. They're right there competing in the East. Conceivably could have made the final still. And KD and Kyrie decide that they want to be traded from this team they created. They created this team. The people

of Brooklyn were excited. They bought in. And now they're like, oh, we're demanding trades. So now Kyrie is sent to Dallas. Kevin Durant is sent to Phoenix. And my beloved Denver Nuggets, my long-suffering Denver Nuggets, who've done this the right way, who've built from internally, who have this beautiful generational player in Nikola Jokic, were winning the West. This was going to be our year. And now Kevin Durant is like now said, oh, I want to sign up with another super team. So now the Nuggets are going to have to defeat him in the Western Conference, you know, in his little bald spot when he signed up with the Suns. And it's just like, this is not, I have just a level of hatred for this that is unlike anything since like my childhood for sports. And so I have like a child's

purity of athletic hate right now. And so if you're a Phoenix Suns fan, I just want to let you know that we are now persona non grata until you are defeated, which you will be. And if you win the championship this year, I hope you feel bad about it. So that's my message to the Phoenix Suns fans and to Kevin Durant. Tim, do you realize that most people watch sports and follow sports to relax, to step away from the stress of their lives? That's not me. I think this is apparent. I need something to just really, really focus me, you know, away from, you know, the rest of this bullshit.

Can we agree on this, though? Can we have one final agreement? Do you not agree with me that Kevin Durant's behavior has just been appalling? Of course it's appalling. Okay, great. I'll humor you on this. Okay, thank you. What was our other agreement, then? Burt Bacharach, legend. Burt Bacharach. Is he going to be performing with Rihanna? Is he still around?

Okay, that's just cold. He died yesterday at the age of 94. Damn. I'm sorry to the Backerack family. Oh, come on. The guy, he's responsible for 52 top 40 hits. 52. Alfie, walk on by.

Promises, promises. Raindrops keep fallinging on My Head, What the World Need Now is Love. That's a good one. Do you know the way to San Jose? All were big hits before you were born, right? Is that what you're going to tell me now? No, I think that What the World Needs Now is Love,

and that should be a nice message. And after we finish the podcast, I'm going to just put that on in my home. I'm going to blare it. We're going to see what my five-year-old thinks about that, and I'm going to try to calm down about Kevin Durant. He and Hal David were the Rodgers in heart of the 1960s. And our absolutely brilliant executive producer, Katie Cooper and Jason Brown are going to put together a little bit of a Burt Bacharach tribute for us.

Just really quick though, really quick. What decade were the Rodgers in heart, the Rodgers in heart of? Believe believe it or not that's actually before is that mr rogers will rogers who are we who are we talking about rogers and heart were an american songwriting partnership between uh composer richard rogers and lyricist lauren's heart they worked on 28 stage musicals more than 500 songs from 1919 until Hart's death in 1943. I like learning. You learned about epiphilia. I'm learning about the Rodgers and Hart. I actually have a full list of all of their, which I will actually spare you.

Have a great weekend. Feel better, Charlie. Feel better. I appreciate you gutting it out and hanging out with me today. And we'll catch you next week. Pax Lovid, NyQuil. What else am I taking? Zinc.

I won't even bore you with the one. Vitamin C. Zinc. Pepsid. Like super doses of Pepsid. Lots of vitamin C, including gummies. Love that. So we are there.

I love gummies. All right. We will be back on Monday. Well, at least somebody will be. Have a great weekend. When the sunshine will shine together Told you I'll be here forever Said I'll always be your friend Took a note, I must get out to the end Now that it's raining more than ever

Know that we'll still have each other You can stand under my umbrella You can stand under my umbrella Under my umbrella. Under my umbrella.