The Daily Beast Podcast - What Ron DeSantis Is Counting On to Beat Trump

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Will Ron DeSantis be as popular among the rest of the country as he is in Florida? Charlie Sykes, editor at large at The Bulwark, thinks not. But that isn’t stopping the governor for going for it anyway, it being the 2024 presidency. He tells New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy why in this episode, including a few things that he believes DeSantis is banking on to win. (And why this won’t work). Also in this episode: Jared Yates Sexton, host of The Muckrake Podcast and author of The Midnight Kingdom, has proof that Trump’s religious pandering will lead to violence and tells co-host Danielle Moodie why liberal white Democrats in media are embarrassed of Trump, but just won’t quit him. Plus! Andy and Danielle reflect on Trump’s rally in Waco, and how Trump has gone full “vengeful” old testament. They also discuss the state state of the country after the latest school shooting in Nashville and reminisce on the very recent time Republicans swapped the American flag pins for ones of AR-15s. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an excellent show we have today. Jared Y. Sexton hosted the Muckrake podcast and author of Midnight Kingdom stops by to talk Donald Trump and the signs that our democracy might be backsliding into fascism. Then we'll talk to the bulwarks, Charlie Sykes, all about Trump's and DeSantis's feuding all weekend long. But first, let's have some fun. Welcome to Another Day in Hell. Just kidding.

It's Another Day in America. Donald Trump has decided, Andy, to kick off his bid for the presidency while he's under multiple investigations. We're still on indictment watch in a place that just makes so much sense for where we are in America, which is Waco, Texas. Now, you may think to yourself, but Danielle, Waco isn't the largest city in Texas. And, you know, what comes up for some people when you're going to be. you say, Waco, Texas? Well, maybe what comes up for you is the fact that this is the site of the 30th anniversary of a 51-day siege that happened in 1993. And folks who are anti-government, who are pro-white supremacy, flock to this place. They love it. It has become one of their anointing places.

Donald Trump, of course, when approached with said question, why Waco? Oh, it was just a coincidence because apparently he thinks we're all as fucking dumb as he is. Yeah, it'd be one thing if there were any other weekend that he were in Waco. But on the 30th anniversary of the standoff, that turned into quite frankly a massacre, that's a bit of a stretch, I think. I'm going to just wildly say that that's a bit of a stretch. There's so much here, but I think it's all summed up. There's a guy named Charles Pace, who is a current minister in the Branch Davidian Church

or whatever, which was David Koresh's organization. And here's what he said to a Texas Tribune reporter. He said, Trump is, quote, making a statement by coming to these stomping grounds where the government lay siege on this community, just like they laid siege on Mar-a-Lago and went in and took his stuff. This is not lost on the people that Trump doesn't want it lost on. This same minister, by the way, told the New York Times that Donald Trump is the anointed of God. And, you know, it's interesting that there is so much of a religious aspect to the Trump

campaign and to Trumpism. So we've got, you know, Trump saying things in Waco, like I Am Your Retribution, which is a line he's used before and he is just increasingly becoming and turning himself into a religious cult leader. It's not an accident. He's doing it on purpose. It's exactly what the Q&ONN people are looking for. And that is, as we've discussed, ad nauseum on this podcast, that is now his base. It is the full-on Q&on people. And that is the base of the Republican Party right now. So he is getting up there in Waco and saying things like, I am your retribution. And he starts off the speech. he plays this horrible, horrible song that was made by the people who are in jail for their

participation in January 6th. And he shows images from January 6th. The Republican Party is now, it's the party of January 6th is what it is. Yes. There's just no other way to say it at this point. The rank and file of the Republican Party, they all think that, and sometimes, even though they're contradictory, they all think that at the same time, 1-6 was a glorious attempt at battling the forces of evil and also, by the way, it wasn't us, it was Antifa, but that depends on what day it is. But in general, they view the one six prisoners, the people who have been convicted of crimes on January 6th as they are political prisoners and they are the vanguard of whether you want to call it the revolution or whatever. But that's exactly what this is. And so, yeah, going to Waco is

far. It's as far from a coincidence as you can get. I want to add something here because I think that important. The Houston Chronicle, their editorial board, came out about this as well. And this is what they said about Waco. I'm going to read two things quickly, which is, first, they quoted and said, Waco has become an alamo of sorts, a shrine for the proud boys, the three percenters, and the oathkeepers, and other anti-government extremists and conspiracies. That's from the Houston Chronicle. And they also said this, quote, Trump doesn't do subtle. dog whistle messages are not his style the more apt metaphor is the blaring air horn of a mac 18 wheeler barreling down interstate 10 so here we have it the media wanted to play footsie with don't rump

back in 2016 and say oh well we don't know if he's racist oh we don't know if he's a misogynist oh we don't really know what's in his heart oh we don't know what he means by this because a 70 year old year fucking white guy has no idea what he's saying. So we got to handle him with kid gloves as if he's a fucking toddler. Donald Trump knows exactly what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's saying. He knows exactly why he's choosing the places that he's choosing. He knows exactly why he's putting up clips of January 6th. He knows exactly who he's talking to and how to talk to them. The more that you can infuse religiosity into what he is doing, the more riled up these people will be and the more that they will see his cause, which is the fight to keep his ass out of jail, it will be their cause.

Right. Right. Their reason for entry into this religious war that they have been waiting for and praying for because Donald Trump is now their symbol. And the fact that the media, mainstream media, does not do any job to try and critique or create any type of critical analysis as to what is happening here is, exactly how the fuck you get a Waco. It's exactly how you're going to wake up with people with fucking Kool-Aid and wearing the same Nike sneakers. Like, it's so clear what he's doing and they are helping him do it by not connecting the very obvious dots. So I appreciate the Houston Chronicle being like, yeah, Trump doesn't do subtle. This isn't subtle. He's in Waco for a reason.

You're absolutely right. The mainstream media has not done a good job of connecting these dots. you have to look at authors like Jeff Charlotte, who I interviewed just last week, I think, on this podcast, whose new book The Undertow, which is about what he calls the slow civil war that we're facing in America, very explicitly talks about how Trump is using, you know, religious iconography and stuff like that. And it's interesting. As Charlotte points out, in 2016, Trump was very much a sort of a prosperity gospel guy. And it was like, follow me and your life will be great. And, you know, you'll have riches and, you know, make America great again. And then by 2020, it had turned into something a lot darker. And then I think now in 2024, it's the full on, like, it's the vengeful God of the Old Testament. You know, and that's where we get the I am your retribution. And it's all about getting even and smiting your foes and stuff like that. Except that they're, as you pointed out, they're Donald Trump's foes.

Mm-hmm. But where he has that. little gift is, and I hate to give him credit, but he does have that gift of at least for a decent size segment of the population of turning his enemies into your enemies and making these people believe that the people who are out to get Trump are really out to get them and that they're only out to get Trump because Trump stands for them. When in fact, obviously they're out to get Trump because he is a criminal. Yeah, an unethical, immoral criminal.

But they buy it. They absolutely buy it. And that is unbelievably dangerous. And as you alluded to, we've seen this, you know, with Jim Jones. We've seen this with other cults. And it, that end very, very badly. And that is exactly where we're headed. And it's not an accident also that Trump is sounding increasingly like a QAnon person and

that he has been more and more, I was going to say retweeting, but I guess it's retweeting. but I guess it's re-truthing or whatever. QAnon posts, and because that is, QAnon is basically a religion, and it is the religion of his base, and that's who he's playing to. And the only one thing I want to say about Waco and the Branch Davidians is it pisses me off that this has become this cause-celeb among the groups you mentioned, the proud boys and stuff like that. Because a lot of normal Americans were pissed off at what happened at Waco,

and it was a horrible example of government overreach, and it ended in a lot of death that should have been prevented. And for them to hijack that and to turn it into a symbol of their movement, it really kind of bugs me. It is something that all Americans should, and I think most Americans do agree on, but they have just completely kidnapped it and taken it hostage, and it's now their thing.

And so you end up with Trump going to Waco, and it being, like you said, not a dog whistle, but blaring air horn. You know, and this just goes back to paging fucking Merrick Garland. We're almost at the two and a half year mark since the fucking insurrection where Donald Trump used then when he was actually on Twitter

and not his broke-ass truth social to be able to summon his followers to the Capitol building. He's using the same language. And now he's had two years to turn himself into a fucking religious martyr. Where is Merrick Garland? We keep hearing that things are moving,

We keep hearing that things are moving. And in the same time, at that same pace, Donald Trump is moving. And so are his fans and his followers. Like, all Donald Trump has to do is continue to point to the person that he doesn't like to the people that he says are attacking him when they're actually doing his job. We see this now with what has just happened recently with Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, who got a very real threat in the mail, the white powder that, was in the letter that said Alvin Brague, I'm coming to kill you, exclamation point,

exclamation point and so on and so forth, was not, you know, a toxin this time. But all Donald Trump had to do that preceded that letter to Alvin Brag was to say that Alvin Brague is working with the anarchists and the devil. That's what he put on his broke-ass Twitter. And then a couple of days later, you have a letter to Alvin Brague with white power. Come on. Yeah. He also referred to Bragg as a degenerate psychopath, as a danger to America.

He posted a picture on, again, on his broke-ass Twitter. It was two side-by-side pictures. One was Trump holding a baseball bat and the other was a picture of Alvin Bragg. And he actually ended up taking it down. So someone close to him or whatever was like, even for you, you know, that's too far. But the point is he posted it and it was up for a while. And we're talking about people who are not the most hinged of individuals to begin with. So if they're even the slightest bit unhinged and you see Donald Trump posting a picture of him holding a baseball bat next to Alvin Bragg,

it's not a leap for someone who's not right in the head to begin with to think, I should go kill Alvin Bragg. I should go bash Calvin Bragg with a baseball bat or I should send powder to Alvin Bragg's office or whatever. I mean, that is not a reach. You are fairly explicitly endorsing violence against the Manhattan DA in this case. And yet, none of this is going to get better anytime soon. And it's going to get worse because, you know, he's gotten away with it his whole life. And like you said, no one has ever held him accountable.

He just kind of floats through life and he gets away with this shit. The media doesn't quite know how to handle it. And it's just going to keep spiraling and spiraling. and spiraling. And yeah, someone is going to end up, I hope to God I'm wrong about this, but someone is going to end up dead or very badly hurt in an actual murder attempt because of him. But Andy, this has already happened. We had a police officer die on January 6th. We had police officers badly brutalized physically and emotionally. I believe that the count was well over 100. So we're already talking about the implications literally in real time that have.

happened following the January 6th insurrection. So every time we listened to the testimony of Shea Moss and her mother in Georgia who were threatened, who literally had to become shut-ins after just being volunteer poll workers, right? Because they were made a target by Donald Trump. I'm just so tired of Donald Trump being able to literally, literally, every single day, shout fire in a crowded theater with people who are armed to the tea with their full arsenals of their AR-15s and, you know, and their handguns and this, that, and the other thing. And now you see at these rallies Trump in 2024 or die flags. Like that's what we're seeing.

These people are ready. Trump knows it. And he's hyping them up. And you know, I think that until, you know, and you see him slowly. But surely, beginning to turn on the other fascist, Ron DeSantis, and beginning to what, target his staff, target Ron DeSantis? So the reality that is going to happen is that it isn't going to be enough for the Republican Party just to bow at Donald Trump's feet. Because he is turning his fans and his sycophants on the party. itself. And that's when you're going to see the real big implosion. And then these people turning

around and be like, oh, we had no idea. Oh, but we didn't know. Yeah. I mean, look, we could go on and on about this about how the Republican response to Trump's rhetoric has been to, you know, go after Alvin Bragg and not say a word about it. And all they do, as you pointed out, is enable him. But before we finish this segment, we do want to touch on yet again as we record this, There was a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee at a private, I believe it was a Christian school called the Covenant School that has kids from preschool through grade six. And three children were taken to the hospital and then pronounced dead after arrival to announce two adults also dead. The shooter is dead. We do not know if they are at this point if they are one of the two adults in that tally or if the two adults were victims.

Again, as we discussed time and time again on this show, it seems like every week we sit down to discuss what's going to be on the show that day. And inevitably, someone will say, what about the shooting? And it's just, there's never a week it feels like when this doesn't come up. I don't even know. It is so hard at this point to be able to sustain outrage at our politicians, at Republicans. who would rather build bulletproof whiteboards, send kids to school with bulletproof backpacks, have kids as young as three do active shooter drills, armed teachers. They would rather give you every, every other fucking solution than the most obvious,

which is to ban assault weapons and have sensible gun reform. Regulate actual guns that are killing people instead of uteruses. But that's just too obvious of a thing to do. Yeah. And look, at this time, we don't know what weapon was used, but comes, you know, on the heels of, we now know there are 20 million AR-15 style rifles in circulation in this country. In 2004, that was 8.5 million, so it's more than doubled. It's really hard to just sit here and say, we need to do something because we keep saying that every week and nothing gets done.

Every week. And nothing, I don't think, is ever going to get done is just the way it feels. Just in the past, I don't remember what month it was. We had that one day remember when the Republicans were wearing AR-15 lapel pins. That's where we are. Remove their flags and removed their recognition of them as members of Congress and instead wore AR-15 pins. Yeah, because their loyalty is to a rifle, not to a country. It's sick and it's wrong.

It's infected so many people in this country, it feels like, particularly people in Congress. I don't know. It may be that there. The majority of Americans are actually ready for some kind of assault weapons ban or something like that. But it's never going to get through Congress. Those people are bought and paid for, you know, 99% on the Republican side. It's soul crushing.

And then just to think three children who went to school today to learn and it was their last day on earth. And it's just, it's so heartbreaking. I don't even know what to say anymore. I don't know what to say either. But until people decide that, you know, children's lives. are worth more than their precious right to carry an AR-15 and down Main Street. I really don't think that anything is going to change.

Folks, I am so excited to bring on to the show one of my friends, a new friend, who I just like can't get enough of, Jared D.A. Sexton, who is the co-host of the podcast Muckrakers, as well as the author of The Midnight Kingdom, a history of power, paranoia, and the coming crisis. Jared, one, I can't get enough of your tweets. Your tweet threads are probably like, I mean, they're just masterclass in laying out exactly what is functionally wrong with our democracy and the reaction that we are having to witnessing in real time every day, the backsliding of our democracy. And so I want to start off with one of your infamous tweet threads, that you did last week.

And it was talking about the Alvin Bragg, Manhattan DA, and the case that we know is unfolding with Donald Trump and the hush money to Stormy Daniels, which we've talked about on the new abnormal many times. Donald Trump, of course, claimed that he was gonna be arrested. The media fell for giving him free advertising for a week so that he could continue to raise millions of dollars off of his very foolish support.

And you tweeted this, and I thought that it was so good. You said, for years now, he and his flunkies have cultivated a Christian nationalism that prepares supporters for extreme violence. He's trying to pull the trigger. And you had quote tweeted what he had said initially about Alvin Bragg and referring to him as saying this. This is what Donald Trump said of Alvin Bragg. He is doing the work of anarchists and the dead.

who want our country to fail. Donald Trump would then follow up this tweet, Jared, with a picture of him with a baseball bat and then a pitcher of Alvin Brague next to him. That picture was then pulled over the weekend from social media, from his team. Just talk to me about this and how we're not having critical analysis and conversation in mainstream media about what Donald Trump is doing. Yeah, and first of all, thank you for having me. I mean, this is the type of conversation that has to happen. And Donald Trump, and I always try and put this out there because it's important to say, Donald Trump is a symptom of a larger disease. He is a really, really useful entry point to start talking about the major critical problems of not just America, but the foundational problems of America, simply because we can recognize in him some of the things that other people are able to sort of hot. The repulsive nature of him and the obvious corruption of him allows us to start viewing these things.

And I want to make something very clear. In American history, and America has been largely formulated and constructed in order to be a white supremacist grift. From the very beginning, this thing, the deck was stacked as a matter of planning. And what has happened throughout American history is that there have been moments in which a white elite, particularly a white Christian wealthy male elite, whenever their power is challenged, whether it's through populism or democracy or changing of generations, whenever that is challenged, immediately what happens is they start talking about good and evil, God and the devil. They use it as a framework and an ideology in order to protect themselves, which in the new book, The Midnight Kingdom, I was able to trace back to

ancient Rome and then throughout the entire history of America. This is, what always happens. And whenever that power and that wealth is challenged, inevitably it leads to some sort of a violent outburst. Donald Trump doesn't understand this, right? People always ask me, does Donald Trump, is he a fascist? And it's like, well, you know, through his instincts he is, but I don't think he can tell you what it actually means. It's just that this person recognizes that whenever he is challenged, whenever he is put in danger, that there needs to be violence, that other people need to step up to the plate in order to protect him. This has been the case in American history, whether it's the civil war in which the white

aristocracy in the South saw that their power was changing and then, you know, tossed us into a major civil war. Or you can even go into the period of time during the 20s and the 30s in which industrialists started to embrace fascist in the United States of America and then started funding fascists around the world. What is happening again and what we are getting a front row unfortunate seat for is that Donald Trump is showing us how these cycles continue to play out. Our media cannot even begin wrestling with it because, by the way, they have a completely symbiotic relationship with him for their profits, for their rating, for everything that makes their ships float. And on top of that, I know that this isn't going to be news for a lot of your listeners,

it is also an entrenched white wealthy privilege class itself. And as a result, it can't look in the mirror. It's either unwilling to or incapable of doing so. And so as a result, we are moving into another period of crisis that looks a lot like past periods of crisis. And Donald Trump is one of the main actors and drivers, but is not the root of the problem. There are larger problems that are the roots here. The way that you lay this out, Jared, it is so clear, right? It's so clear what is happening. And one of the pieces that I want to pull out right now is the media's unwillingness that they can't seem to grapple with. Because when I feel like when we say things like that, like the media can't grapple with it, oh, it's so complex. It's so layered. Is it that they can't grapple with it or is it what you said at the top, which is that there's a reason for this, because it results in monetary gain.

Oh, it's so complicated, right? And what are the problems with this is I think that we have a problem in this country understanding that media criticism is absolutely essential because the media, of course, creates the reality that we live within. And currently we're in the middle of an absolute existential fascistic crisis. And one of the issues is that these organs of communication, whether it's the New York Times, the Washington Post, cable networks, you. name it. Like, everyone's looking around and saying, it is quite obviously a crisis. Why aren't you

treating it as such, right? And there's that division between the media, political class and the rest of us, particularly those of us like you and I and a few others who are raising the alarms on this. People are saying, well, okay, you're making a good case. Why am I not seeing this when I turn on the television or pick up the newspaper? And a large part of the problem in all of this is that Donald Trump, by the way, they find him repellent. The media absolutely loathes him as a person because, you know, he sort of reflects a lot of our problems. He reflects the worst of us, like what we fear that we could be. They don't like that he embarrasses America, that he says dumb things, that, you know, he's a buffoon and a clown.

But meanwhile, they have no interest in starting to look at the actual material conditions that have created the possibility of a Donald Trump becoming president. or there being the possibility of a fascistic crisis in this country. And a large reason is because we are living in the consequences of a complete political, social, and economic upheaval that has been taking place for decades now. And the people who are responsible for raising the alarms are the people who have benefited from that upheaval. Right. They are the people who, during the neoliberal turn in the past few decades, they are the ones who have emerged wealth. And by the way, I don't know that people necessarily know this. The media class in New York City, Washington, D.C., even in Los Angeles, you name it. These are people who largely come from privilege. These are, in many cases, legacies, people who their families were involved in the media before. And on top of that, these jobs don't pay that much anymore. And there aren't many of them. Right. So you need to come from a privileged place of wealth so that even if you were to enter into these, you know, traditional legacy institutions that don't pay, quote, unquote, as well as they used to, then you're supplemented.

You're not, you're not taking a huge hit. Exactly. And by the way, like, this goes all throughout. This is both print media, including publishing, including newspapers, we're talking digital media. You name it. That is how this works. So what you have a lot of in this country, and listen, this is going to be a hard truth, and we have to talk about it. And I know that you know this and I know that a lot of your listeners do as well. There is a difference between espoused principles. In this house, we believe in this. And then there's a difference between what are your principles when it actually starts to interact with your bank book and your power and your privilege. And so what's happening in our media is that in order to start understanding Donald Trump or modern, or the fascistic crisis, you have to start asking, how did this happen? And it's much easier to just tell a story that, oh, the problem's Donald Trump. And if we can just get past him, it'll be fine. Even though, by the way, they are addicted to him for their profits. And they want to go ahead and juice it as much as possible, which, a quick aside, is one of the reasons why every social media company profited off of Donald Trump for years

as he radicalized people, as he caused violence, as he attacked democracy. And then after January 6th, they said, oh, man, we got everything we could out of him. Now he's banned because it is a constant sort of a golden goose situation with Trump and the media. But they want to move past him. They want to get past this embarrassment. But guess what? They're made really uncomfortable by everything from the idea of civil rights, Black Lives Matter, gay and trans people, or even the notion that we should be

investing in social projects or that maybe we should take care of people or maybe that trillions of dollars were redistributed over the past few decades. They don't want to actually start digging down and understanding this or if they do understand it, they don't want to talk about it because that might put their own lives, their own wealth and their own privilege on the line. And you can't have that. You can't have newsrooms that are looking more diverse in terms of people of color or different backgrounds or socioeconomic statuses, because guess what? That means things might change. They would much rather pin all of this on Donald Trump and move forward. And if that means going ahead and accepting some of the authoritarian fascistic policies, well, then so be it. And unfortunately,

and you know this as well as I do, there's a long history of white moderates and white liberals who do this all the time. I mean, Martin Luther King warned us about them. What did he say? that it is not the Ku Klux Klanzman or the white citizens council that I am concerned with. It is the white moderate that stands by and tells you to wait and tells you now is not the time. Because you know how to deal with the most egregious of the egregious, the most disgusting and discriminatory and racist of the racist. It's those that want to take on just enough of it and are the ones that are the actual obstacles to progress. And that, I mean, that is what you have laid out with regard to the newsrooms, whether we're talking about on air or in print, because that's what they do.

Because if you were to bring on a group of diverse candidates, I mean, we're seeing this play out. Let's just look at what is happening with the New York Times right now. The New York Times has been called out on so many occasions over the last year of their anti-trans coverage. Glad has gone after them. HRC has gone after them. There have been petitions that their own people at the New York Times signed and are now facing consequences of signing on to a petition because they know that the coverage is anti-trans. And what is the call to add more trans people or to add trans people, period, into those

newsrooms? And they are pushing back against that because it would mean that they would have to to do some type of deep evaluation and analysis into the coverage that they are doing. So it's best to just stick our heads in the sand because then I don't have to change at all. That's exactly right. A quick aside, I think one of the most damaging things that has ever been done was after World War II particularly, we started telling the story that fascism is so easily recognizable. I mean, look at the goose steps, look at the armbands, look at the salutes. And the reason that that happened is because we don't want to look in the mirror and understand that U.S. policies, including segregation, including eugenics, including basic apartheid structures, are part of what inspired fascism and Nazism in the first place.

And that fascism and Nazism were taking hold in the United States of America. This is not something that is purely a 20th century European phenomenon. It is part of white supremacy and capitalist exploitation. And we don't want to deal with that. We don't want to talk about the fact that whenever fascism or Nazism or whatever you want to call it. And it's not just in Europe, of course. This happens like it happened in Chile. It happened in Spain.

You name it. It's happened in the United Kingdom in Paris. It's happened everywhere. And what actually happens is that often it's not just the far right that gets co-opted into this. It's white liberals. Eventually, they reach a point if they're uncomfortable with racial progress, if they're uncomfortable with the idea of changing economics, they will go ahead and maybe they don't put on the armband.

Maybe they're not going to goose step down Main Street. But they'll say, maybe we need a strong man to come in and take care of this. The difference here is that Donald Trump, they find absolutely unacceptable. Because in order to align with him, they find it embarrassing. In fact, they look around and they say, well, we don't want to be like rural white people. No, we're not going to be part of this movement. But if it can get dressed up in respectability. Yeah.

And by the way, I'm going to go ahead and say this. This is the reason you saw tons of Reagan Democrats. This is why in the early 21st century you saw a ton of Democrats lining up behind George W. Bush in the Iraq War is because secretly, secretly, they're okay with a lot of these things, as long as they're not embarrassed by it. And as long as it's not revealed that some of the things that they support or they're okay with are really disturbing. Donald Trump makes that apparent. But if they can move beyond it, they don't want, you know, a bunch of kids talking about pronouns.

They don't want a bunch of kids talking about the fact that gender is a construct and the patriarchy is dangerous and white supremacy is a thing. They just want to go back to their lives. And I just want to say one quick thing. we're seeing this right now in France. We're seeing these massive protests against government overreach and exploitation. And there's an entire class of French people. We're seeing pictures of them dining and basically just wanting these protests to go away. Guess what?

That happened here with Black Lives Matter. Eventually, it reaches a point in which people say, okay, we've made enough noise. Let's just move forward. And that white liberal particularly or the white moderate, they're more than willing to throw people of color over the side of the boat. We've seen them do it before. They're more than willing to throw gay and trans people over the side of the boat. They've done it before.

And they've done it to women. They've done it to the poor over and over again. What I find wild is that what needs to be addressed is the power of whiteness. Because this is what white people will always coalesce around. So your political affiliation may waver when you're your, young, you'll be progressive in a Democrat, but as you gain money, you'll start to see how those people are the problem. And if those people were taking care of or we had stricter policies, then I would have more. The problem is that we refuse to have direct conversations about whiteness

as currency and a power construct. And that it is weaponized openly with the far right, but it is weaponized behind closed doors with the white liberal. Absolutely. And by the way, I know don't have time to totally get into this, but we need to also understand that whiteness is malleable. And it always has been. I mean, basically, this entire thing is about intentional inequality. Like, there's the ability to go ahead and hang on to as much as possible. And if you need to go ahead and create collisions, you can go ahead and say, oh, now Italians are white, right? Now Irish people are white. And by the way, we're seeing inroads with that over the past few years. We're seeing people who have immigrated to America who are suddenly against immigration. This coalition that the Republican Party has been building is based completely on self-dealing. It's based completely on the idea of saying, guess what?

Things aren't really going to get better. Things are going to get a whole lot worse. But come underneath the tent of whiteness and we'll make sure that those people suffer. And maybe your life won't get better. But guess what? We'll make sure that the people you don't like or the people who don't look like you or the people who don't live where you live. We'll make sure that they suffer. But here is the truth behind it all when it comes to white supremacy and whiteness that you're talking about.

They are coming for you as well. They are going to dismantle every piece of social safety net that we've ever had. They're going to make your children go to work, by the way, which is exactly on the march right now. They're going to take away every right, every civil liberty that you could ever possibly imagine because it is a tool of a very special elect group of people. And they are a very, very small group of people that can go ahead and use these divisions that we've been talking about in order to protect themselves and to continue forwarding their power. The problem is that this strategy has worked time and time again because of exactly what we're talking about, a lack of willingness to start discussing these things. Oh, Jared, I could talk to you, honestly, forever.

The conversations are always so incredibly rich. folks, you must, must, must check out Jared's new book, The Midnight Kingdom, a history of power, paranoia, and the coming crisis, as well as his co-hosted podcast, The Muckrakers. Jared, you'll have to come back soon. This was fantastic. Thank you, Danielle. You're the best. Nothing is more abnormal than the rise of the radical right. Fever Dreams is a daily beast podcast, taking you inside the rights push to retake power, from the Maga Acolytes to the the straight-up grifters. They recently released their 100th episode,

so there's no better time to listen. Head to beast.pub slash fever dreams to check it out. We've got a former president and current frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination saying and posting increasingly disgusting incendiary, threatening stuff about what should happen to his perceived enemies. We've got his biggest potential threat to securing that nomination now facing a slew of coverage,

suggesting he might not be ready for prime time. Joining me now to discuss these and maybe some other fun topics is the Bullwarks Charlie Sykes. He hosts the Bullwark podcast, writes the Morning Shots newsletter, and is an MSNBC contributor. Charlie, thanks for coming on. Hey, this is great to be here. So let's start with Trump. We've got this looming indictment, maybe who the hell knows, who can say. But in the meantime, he held his first campaign rally of the season down in Waco, Texas over the weekend, where he ran through his greatest hits, how he really won in 2020, how he built the wall. He went after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. He went after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. After the speech, I saw numerous fact checks of it. And taking absolutely nothing away from the hearty souls who do those, I kind of thought, what's the point? Am I wrong to be so cynical about this?

No. When you're eight now of the fact that every time Donald Trump speaks, he's a fire hose of disinformation. We kind of get that, right? On the other hand, here's the question. How does the media? you cover someone like this? How do you cover somebody who is, you know, either just back shit crazy or lying, especially when it's consequential? I mean, we don't have the luxury of ignoring the guy because he's got some momentum. And the threat is very real. You know, as I wrote in my morning shots, it's almost like he's worried that he's been too subtle. So I'm going to go to Waco. And I'm going to make it really clear that I am totally down for the insurrection and the apocalyptic rhetoric. You know, it's either me or America is doomed, us versus them.

And in case there was any question about how crazy this next year and a half is going to be. Yeah, it's tough for the media to figure out how to cover a guy who just willfully lies and just says whatever the hell he wants. And the thing is, not that he was ever tethered to reality, but increasingly, he does seem more in line with like the QAnonon type people, doesn't he? See, this is, I think, one of the most difficult things is to realize that it's not strictly new, but you still really have to be paying attention because what Donald Trump is really amplifying right now is that Trump 24 is way more dangerous than Trump 20. And he was pretty damn dangerous in 20s as well. So here you have a guy who is openly saying we ought to terminate the Constitution in order to restore him to power, embracing QAnon, lavishing praise on Vladimir Putin. The National Republican Party is still like, yeah, you know, if he wins his nomination, we're still there. It's a bizarre, uncharted world we live in right now. And then I keep seeing people,

Laura Ingram, I know for one, saying things like, Mr. Trump, you need to move on from 2020. You need to make your campaign less about you and more about the people. And I just start laughing. And as you write in morning shots this week, despite his seeming erraticism, Trump has actually been quite consistent in his narcissism, his grievances, and his commitment to obstructing justice. All of this has been on display his entire adult life. Yeah, it's kind of amazing the people who are now suddenly realizing this, the New York Post has an editorial that he's not changed and therefore he can't win. Well, no, of course he hasn't changed. I mean, if only he had been warned about all of this, this is who he has always been. And the commitment to obstructing justice,

which now, by the way, he's convinced the House Republicans to go along with is based on long experience. I mean, he has successfully obstructed justice for most of his adult life and certainly over the last eight years. So why would he think that it wouldn't work again for him? Why would he think that he can't bully, threaten, and intimidate prosecutors, judges, and juries to back off from him? I mean, nobody's ever laid a glove on him so far. So why should he not think that he's going to get away with that? And by the way, Laura Ingram thinking, yes, maybe Mr. Trump, you would you want to be focusing on other people's problems rather than your own grievances? Has she made? met the guy?

Right. Has she spent five freaking minutes with him? This is the whole, you know, putting the narcissism in narcissism that the entire campaign is about his whining, his grievances. It's all about him. It's all about loyalty to him. And for people like Lauren Engram to sort of do this wishcasting, like maybe he should be concerned about, I don't know, America, putting America first, helping improve

Americans' lives. Well, like he gives a shit, really, you know? I mean, he doesn't give a shit at all. That's the thing. It's like to say that he should make it less about him, A, it's always been about him. But B, now it's really all about him because, as you alluded to, this whole campaign is grievance mongering about the 2020 election. Yeah, and he's not going to move on from this. There's no chance. And it's important for him. I mean, look, in his own world of consistency, the one thing he's been consistent about is, right, he never loses. He can never be defeated. He's always a winner. He will never admit that he has lost something. He can only be betrayed. This is fundamental to his brand. So he's not going to move on because he wants to cast 2024 as retribution as somehow writing this terrible wrong. So there's no way he's going to move on.

And he's not interested in it. And I'm not sure that Ronda Sanders has figured out how he's going to handle this. Yeah. And the thing is, you know, by running again, look, if he wins in 2024, then he can say, I won in 2016 and 2024, but you're telling me I lost in 2020? That makes no sense. Obviously, it was rigged. He never loses. Right. And if he loses in 2024, he'll just say it was rigged again. So, yeah. The funniest thing, though, right now is watching Republicans getting upset that Trump is going after Desantis, as if this were completely unforeseeable. I do, I do love this. It's like, okay, so we like Donald Trump, but the personal insults, you're better than that, right, Donald? Seriously?

Where have you been? I think we're living in an era where there are no fixed standards. It's just whose ox is being gored. Republicans are like what? They're for fiscal conservatism until they're not. They're for states rights until they're not. They're for local control to do it. They're for civility until they're not, right?

We're backing the blue until they're not. So, I mean, it's just whatever. But it will be interesting to see how these insults play out because, I mean, Donald Trump's throwing everything at Ronda Sandus right now. I mean, he's decided that this is the, the week. Right now is when he has to make Ron DeSantis blow up on the lunch pad. I mean, this is it. You would think he'd be focused on his own problems or dealing with the prosecutor, but he's gone from everything from you're a groomer to a lousy governor to disloyal to

too fat. I mean, what? Where does he go from here? He's just throwing everything he possibly can at DeSantis. Because he understands that DeSantis right now is the only person that can actually take him down. I think he thinks that. Oh, absolutely. So all right, so let's move to DeSantis. in your Morning Shots newsletter that came out Monday this week, you talked about what you called the hot new, what's the matter with Ron DeSantis buzz? Show your work, sir. I also quote former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

When the herd moves, it moves. And I'm sorry, but I mean, you know, the punitry, you know, hive mind, you know, all decided that, wow, Ronda Santos is not ready for prime time. And they may not be wrong. It's just that it happened really quickly, didn't it? That people are suddenly realizing, Ronna Sendis is really not very good at this.

He was doing pretty well in his hermetically sealed bubble down in Florida. But now we're finding out that maybe that doesn't scale up to a presidential campaign. I mean, there's lots of dead and wounded lying on this path. President Scott Walker, you know, President Rick Perry, you know, President Jeb Bush. And people are kind of surprised to realize, wow. So maybe Ronda Santos kind of sucks that there's running for president thing. I think that he's got a chance still has time to turn it around. but I'm just not sure that he's figured out or that anybody's figured out how do you run against

Donald Trump? How do you take insults? When you're dealing with a Republican Party base that is going to go along with Donald Trump no matter what? I mean, this is the problem. Yeah, and he is trying to sort of thread a needle in terms of not directly attacking Trump the way Trump is directly attacking him. But we even saw, you know, when he was asked about this potential indictment of Trump and DeSantis did the lip service thing calling Alvin Bragg bad things and whatever. But then he tried to throw in a little jab at Trump saying, you know, well, I wouldn't know anything about having to pay hush money to porn stars. And then Trump just came right back at him with that picture of the young Ron DeSantis with like the high school students

and talking, as you said earlier, talking about grooming and stuff like that. And it's like, man, you are not, you are so not ready for this fight. I'm not convinced that he is. I'm not sure anybody is that they figured out how to actually handle all of this. Because, you know, what DeSantis is going to look like is he runs the risk of looking like a mini-me who is going to try to mimic Trump on a lot of the issues. And Trump, by the way, who has that reptilian instinct, you know, I was already locked into, you know, he says whatever I say.

He's a copycat. This is dangerous because Ron DeSantis is a copycat. He has decided that his formula is to be Trump without the baggage. So he's got to sound like Trump. He's got to make sure there's no daylight between them. He's got to make sure that Trump does not get to the right of him on any issue. But that's also a vulnerability because it means that anytime Trump takes a position, he's got to jump.

Now, you use the phrase, you know, threading the needle. Good luck with that because this is not a political universe that I think values and rewards subtlety and nuance. So what DeSantis is really counting on, I think, is there will be massive Trump fatigue, this belief that the cumulative weight of all of these indictments and controversies makes Trump unelectable and the people just really want to move on. But at the same time, Ron DeSantis has to ratify Trump's sense of grievance about, you know, any of the indictment. So if, you know, after New York comes down, Ronda Sanis is going to attack the prosecutors, after the grand jury in Georgia comes down.

Ronda Santos is going to attack the prosecutor in Georgia. After the Department of Justice comes down, Jack Smith comes down with charges, what's Ronda Santis going to do? So he's created this situation where he's going to look, he's going to look weasily and weak. There's a real danger. Maybe he'll figure this out.

Maybe people will be so sick of Trump that they'll just turn to anybody. Well, we'll turn to DeSantis. And DeSantis has a bank of goodwill in the MAGO world that I think bothers Trump a lot. But wow, it's it has not gone well in the last couple of weeks. Yeah. Well, it seems to me what his problem is he's trying to sell Trumpism without the Trump, but the Trump is still there.

And people want the Trump. And people want the Trump. If the Trump weren't there, then you could say, you know, I am the heir to Trumpism and I am going to continue. But because the actual guy. is still there. It makes it really hard to say, I am the heir to Trumpism. I am the continuation of Trumpism. And Trump is like, I am Trumpism. Well, that's right. And right now, there are just not the polls which show this massive gap between Trump and DeSantis in terms of electability in the general election. Now, you and I may look at Donald Trump and think, man, this guy's unelectable in a general election. I, by the way, think he can win a general election. Oh, I do too. But right now, there's actually no hard, you know, empirical evidence that Donald Trump is a much weaker candidate than Ron DeSantis in the general election. So until you have, you know, Donald Trump losing by 10 points and Ron DeSantis winning by

five points, that whole talking point that the reason we need to move on from Donald Trump is he can't win just doesn't go anywhere. Right. So DeSantis seems to be going. He recently hired this guy, Nate Hockman, as part of his team. This is a guy who has cozyed up to people like white nationalist Nick Flentes, and he's a full-on culture warrior. We've got Nate Hockman, we've got people like Chris Rufo. This is what we're getting from the DeSantis campaign, assuming, look, he's not an official candidate for president yet, but assuming he does, this is what it's going to be, though, right? It's just going to be, we are going to hear the word woke so many times between now and 2024 that it is going to have us jumping out windows. Oh, I'm waiting for his

convention speech where it comes out in favor of banning the Michelangelo. those David, unless they put pants on him. No, you're, you're right. Well, I mean, you know, to a certain extent, what he's done is, he's handis is buying off some of the leading MAGA influencers. You know, people may not have heard of these folks, but these people, you know, have a lot of street cred in in MAGA world. But they're also these, you know, hard-edged culture warriors. I would also say charlatan culture warriors. And that's where DeSantis thinks the base is. So yes, he's going to do that, how, again, that would translate into a general election outside of Florida, I don't know. I mean, keep in mind how sheltered Desantis has been in Florida. He's been avoiding media

interviews that are not by a Murdoch-owned company. He has very strict, you know, limitations on access down in Florida. He's got a legislature and a Republican Party in Florida that will do his bidding. He really hasn't been exposed to the rest of the country or to different environments. And I do wonder how some of his attacks on the academic freedom on having more government regulation of the media, how that's really going to play if he gets to that point. His calculation right now is that I'm going to be more MAGA than Donald Trump and figuring that if Donald Trump falls, that he becomes the obvious error apparent, but that's counting on a lot of things happening.

Yeah. So you mentioned the statue of David. So let's get into that just a little bit to refresh our listeners' memories. actually made this school my fuck that guy on our last episode I think oh yeah richly deserved yes a charter school in tallahassee sort of forced out a principal because some students complained that a sixth grade class was sorry some parents complained right students loved it i'm guessing yeah i'm sure yeah some parents complained that in a sixth grade art history lesson uh michael angelo's statue of david was shown and they believed that that was pornographic because it has a cover your ears charlie penis that you can see look you could easily say, oh, this is one idiot school.

This is one idiot school board chairman. But there was a great interview with this guy, the chairman. Slate. Yeah, in Slate. And he actually says, he says, we're Florida, okay? Parents will decide. Parents are the ones who are going to drive the educational system here in Florida. The governor said that and we're with the governor.

So he made it clear that this is all being done in line with, as you alluded to earlier, Ron DeSantis' sort of whole campaign against academia and against academic freedom. Exactly. It's also part of this generalized culture war. It's not just any charter school. It's the classical school and they build themselves as teaching, you know, liberal, the liberal arts, the pursuit of, you know, truth and beauty. And yet this is the school where three parents, they complain about David's junk. You know, everybody decides that this is a huge issue of parental rights. This is, literally a Simpsons episode. I know.

This is cartoonish. And yet these people have no sense. I mean, listening to that chairman of the school board, you realize he has no sense of how ridiculous he sounds. I mean, he is thinking, we don't use pronouns here at this school, whatever. That means we don't use pronouns at this school. You know, we don't have any of this CRT 1619 crap here. We're doing what the governor, you know, wants us to do.

Okay, well, you've turned yourself into a freaking cartoon. of peck sniffery and the whole country is laughing at you not with you i get a sense that de sandis is starting to realize that this sort of thing is a bit of a it's not helpful to him he had a big press conference over the last couple of weeks you know talking about the school you know the book banning hoax right it's not it's not a hoax they are branding books yes realizing that maybe the you know biggest book banner in the country is not the way to launch your presidential campaign but this is part of the problem is and and i think it's part of the problem of disandis you sort of decided what he needs to do, whether he actually believes this stuff, I don't know. There is a sort of a sense of

like, you know, okay, Christopher Rufo, tell me what the most benighted, Aga, you know, America First supporter believes in and I will say those key words. Right. And then you watch the sort of the dumbing down of politicians like Ronda Sanders. So does that catapult him to the White House? Yeah. As sort of an aside, my favorite part of that slate interview was when the, uh, the board chair said to the off to the writer, the interviewer, you're from New York, aren't you? And you live in New York. And I was like, no, I live in Virginia. And he's like, well, you have a New York area code on your phone. And he's like, well, yeah, my cell phone is from New York, but I live in Virginia. And then later, the school board chair was like, I know they do all that up in Virginia, but down here. And it was like,

wow, that was a nice pivot because you wanted so badly to say New York. York, yeah. You know, the root of all evil. Virginia values. Virginia vows with its Republican governor. I thought that was interesting. Okay, so exit question. Where does all of this leave conservatives like you going into 2024 besides exceedingly depressed? Is there someone else in the GOP for you to support or at least root for? Well, I can root for a lot of people, but I think over the last eight years, one of the things I've realized is that I don't get everything I want. Right. We are still excommunicated. We are still soul-crushing. I think one thing that we all need is a little bit of humility to understand that we don't know what's going to happen. And even though we have this long track record of what Republicans have done in the past,

we are off the map right now. There are no charts that show us where we're going with these kind of indictments with the threat of violence. At this point, I would be willing to encourage any Republican who is not named Donald Trump and was willing to acknowledge legitimacy of the 2020 election. Any of those people would be just a vast improvement for the Republican Party, but also for the country and for American politics. That's all you can hope for. But I feel, you know, because I have the scars all over my back, I could show them to you. To bet on the Republican Party doing the right and the decent thing seems like a fool's bet right now.

Are those scars? Is that self-flagellation or is that from others? Okay. There's some of it self-flagellation, which is also richly deserved. But part of it is just watching the invasion of the body snatchers and, you know, take over the party, you know, taking over the party nationally, taking it, you know, taking over the party here in Wisconsin and watching, you know, one Republican who knows better. And if you notice, by the way, it's kind of a January 7th vibe that you get after the Waco speech

where people are going, this is it. He's nuts. He's crazy. We have to do something about this. And yet you know that when push comes to shove, they'll be back. Oh, yeah. They'll come back because, of course, you know, they'll convince themselves and all the evil satanic, atheistic, communistic Democrats are just too dangerous to trust. So we have to give the Orange

Collegula, you know, another shot. Yeah, it's a party of Kevin McCarthy's. It is very much. Charlie, thank you so much for being here. Charlie Sykes from the Bullwark, great stuff, as always. Thank you. Thank you. It's been fun. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. Well, it's the beginning of another fuck week in America. Who is your fuck that guy to get things rolling? Oh, my God. My fuck that guy is multiple guys, maybe some gals as well, but it is the Texas House of Representatives, and in particular, we'll go with Dade Feelein, who is the Republican Speaker of said House of Representatives,

says he plans to introduce a bill to the legislature that will change the conversation on border security. And what this bill will do, it will allow Texas's Department of Public Safety, this is according to the independent, to hunt, arrest, and deport undocumented migrants. This group would be made up of both law enforcement and civilians. This is the interesting part of it and the sort of sick and insane part of it. The people in this group would have immunity from criminal prosecution relating to their actions on the border. So what you are doing here is basically, this is the purge.

This is they can hunt and kill undocumented migrants. Let's be honest, if they're given immunity, they can hunt and kill whoever the fuck they want in that area. And they can get away with it. And it is just unbelievable what is happening in this country. Democrats say that they're not going to let this bill go through. And one of the members down there, the chair of the Mexican American legislative caucus, says that, and she's absolutely right, she says this dangerous radical and unconstitutional proposal is going to result in the death of innocent people. 100%. There is no doubt about that.

First of all, any undocumented migrant they kill is basically going to be innocent because they haven't been charged with anything at the time. So anyone they kill is innocent. But in particular, I don't know what to do. I know we say this all the time. And, you know, part of the job of this podcast is supposed to be to help people laugh through all this stuff. But sometimes there are just these things. And it's like, how the fuck do you laugh about the Texas House of Representatives introducing legislation making it legal to hunt people at the border and to have immunity from prosecution when you do so? Like, this really is, I mean, this is a fucking last of us-ass country is what we're turning into. Yep. It's unbelievable that shit like this. And look,

hopefully it won't pass. But the fact that. it can even be brought up and brought up by the speaker, the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. This isn't some backbencher trying to make a name for themselves. This is the fucking speaker of the house down there. Is we're going to bring this legislation up for a vote. And man, we are just in some dangerous times. And particularly if you ain't a white male,

you got to be scared shitless going outside half the time these days, depending on where you live. It's unconscionable. All these people think they're patriots and they couldn't be further from that. And they're just little fascists who don't like people of color. The list goes on. Fuck those guys. Just I'm out of things to say fuck those guys forever.

Yeah. It's like black mirror come to life every day in this country with the policies that Republicans are putting up in these states. And what they're working on doing is creating an environment that is. so incredibly unsafe that then only a straw man can come in and fix. So they are creating the conditions for fascism to grow so that then an authoritarian figure can come in and say, oh, I can fix this. I alone, as Trump has said, over and over again, can fix this. It's fucking sick. Yeah. So, Danielle, who is your fuck that guy for this week? Hopefully it's a happier one. Oh, well, speaking of sick, Andy, over the weekend, there was a spill at a chemical plant.

into the Delaware River, which serves the Philadelphia region for their water supply. Immediately after there was a pipe burst and this spillage happened in the Delaware River, residents of Philadelphia, you know, not a small city, were urged to not drink the water and not bathe in the water. Then by Sunday afternoon, according to NBC News, those same officials rescinded their recommendations that residents use bottled drinking water after the toxic spill in the Delaware River. Here's my thing. First of all, along with how many fucking shootings we cover on this show on a regular basis, are toxic spills and derailments and environmental contaminations just going to become the norm? How many cities right now in this country

are there unsafe water drinking conditions, unsafe water bathing conditions? One is two fucking many and it's definitely more than one. And so again, when officials come out and And they say, oh, don't drink the water. Oh, no, just kidding. Drink the water. What do you think that most people are going to be inclined to do? I know that I don't want to drink the water. And I also want to know who's doing the fucking testing.

Because when we were talking about East Palestine in Ohio, it was the people that were initially responsible for the contamination that were the ones doing the testing. I swear to God, every day, every week, I feel like we are living inside of an Octavia Butler novel where everything just goes to do. shit in this country and it's under the rule of Christophascism. It is just wild to me. And, you know, God bless the people of Philadelphia. I hope that you've gotten enough bottled water because even after the fact that they rescinded this thing, they then turn around and say, well, maybe you should have enough bottled water for at least two days. Why? Because

contaminations clean themselves up after two days. I honestly, I don't get it. I really don't. But every day that I turn on the faucet in my place in New York, I'm just thankful. And that shouldn't be the case. So for that reason, all of the officials, this fucking country, our love affair with toxins, our ability to cover shit up and then find out later like, oh yeah, everyone was lying. And now half the people have cancer. I just, I can't. So for that reason, fuck all of them.

Yeah. And you're right. It does feel like maybe not as often as shootings, at least not yet. but there are a lot of toxic spills in this country. And I don't know. I mean, I guess this chemical plant, the spill went into a tributary of the Delaware River. Maybe can we build these plants not near water?

Is that maybe something we could look into? Maybe. That's a good idea. But I don't know. I know nothing about this stuff. So it could be that there's a reason we can't do that. But holy shit, fuck these guys. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the

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