Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews - 4/20/21 - Guilty on All Counts

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

A cop-heavy episode tonight as we cover the verdict the whole country has been waiting for, as well as the Oath Keepers and their treasonous ilk. Also we’re joined for a conversation on the political culture of our nation’s capital by former White House Correspondent Sam Youngman. Join us!Support the show

Howdy, everybody. Thanks for being here. Today's Tuesday, April 20th, 20201. Happy weed day to all the stoners out there. I'm Trey Crowder, and that's Mark Aegee. What's up, Mark? Uh, what's up, Trey? I'm feeling a little feeling relieved with something that happened that was supposed to happen for once.

I know, isn't that weird? Did you make a wish? Like, a thing that happened that was, you know, a thing that was, you know, a thing that was supposed to happen actually happened in America. It's odd. It's a call, it's like seeing a shooting star, right? It's been, I mean, it's been like, like human brains shape things in a narrative arcs, right? This is where we tell stories and stuff. Like, we look at a cloud and see a turtle, you know, so we want, we think things should happen a certain way. And when things don't happen that way, it gets really frustrating, right? And we've had a bunch of reality go

like that on no happy endings for a long time now. Like, we're never going to, a lot of wishful fulfillment, we're never going to get Trump in cuffs, right? Right. You're never going to, nobody from, the architects of Iraq war, we're going to be free the rest of their lives. Same with the 2008 financial collapse. Over and over and over, you pick the thing. Like, we haven't had a happy ending for a lot of, uh, in politics in a long time.

And then finally, the right thing happens. It feels like the system relented a little bit. I'm glad for it. It's almost hard to process for that reason. We will, of course, spend more time talking about this subject, uh, later in the show. But first, let's get started. We've got with us as all. always, producer Matt, doing his thing. This is weekly skews tonight, as I just alluded to.

We will be discussing the verdict the entire country was waiting for. And also, it's going to be a little bit of a cop-centric episode, because as time allows, we're going to talk about the oathkeepers and their treasonous ilk, the reality of far-right nationalism and white supremacy in American law enforcement. Additionally, we'll be joined for a conversation on the political culture in our nation's capital and other things with former White House correspondent, Kentucky's on Sam Youngman. It's going to be a great time. We're glad you guys are here.

But first, as always, we must begin with the Daily. Tonight's DD, you know him, you revile him. It's Ben Shapiro, everybody, who, when responding to the Chauvin verdict, somehow managed the remarkable feat of being both a complete dipshit and objectively correct at the same time. This is what he had to say. Matt, there it is. So for everybody that's just listening right now, Caleb Howe tweeted, CNN's Don Lemon, quote, justice has been served. And in response to that, Shapiro said, and we all know he would never have said this had the reverse verdict been reached. Yes. Yes, we do all know that, Ben. That's sort of how, you know, justice works. Like,

you're either on one side or another of any given verdict. Yeah. And if you're pleased with the result, generally you would not have been pleased with the opposite result. That's kind of just a thing in the world. Yeah. Yeah, it's like when it's weird, it's so hypocritical that the Cowboys fans are happy when the Cowboys win,

yet sad when they lose. I don't understand it. Yeah. Shapiro is one of these dudes who's like, I'm not sure if you don't go on the internet, he kind of doesn't exist and yet is incredibly popular like his videos are always like number one two and three on faith turning on facebook so if you don't care who he is i guarantee your aunts and uncles do um and uh he's just objectively a fucking idiot i i i guess the point he's making here

like he talks real fast and he sounds like he took debate club so that's why he sounds intelligent to people he did go to harvard but uh he's also hated by his family his cousin is mora wilson who played, she was a child actress who played, what's that movie? Matilda. I didn't know this. Matilda. Okay.

All right. Yeah. So, and they don't hang out. So, anyway, you just, that's, I guess the larger point he's making is it, Don Lemon is not objective when it comes to Matt, as, but like, if anybody who watches CNN, like, TV news in America doesn't present his up an objective, so I'm not here making that point, too. right yeah and again it's not even like he I mean yeah so do you think that and I don't want to

diagnose Ben Shapiro's popularity but do you think that it the fact that he's like sort of like you said it's he's kind of debate clubby like seems smart and so people on that side they're like will point to anyone is like look see a smart guy we say who thinks the things we think you know it's kind of like they always as soon as a black conservative pops up they all rally around And I was like, see, look at this, look at this. Is that what you think it is with Shapiro? It's also like, like, debate club dudes are like the most. Like, I took philosophy classes in college, so it's probably half this dude.

And I'll, here's the thing, you can be technically right about specific stuff and still be completely wrong in an asshole. And that's what, that's why devil's advocate dudes are so goddamn annoying. He's the king of it. He'll find some narrow point. Like, yes, you can't say the jury system's great and yet object to a jury. verdict if it goes the other way. But yes, you can. I can think something's fucking horseshit.

If it's horse shit, I don't have to, like, I don't have to engage you on your rules. You know what I'm saying? Right. Yeah. Again, being technically correct while still being a horse's ass or whatever is what this entire tweet was. That's what we're talking about here. But let's, before we get fully into the verdict, let's have some honorable mentions

for you for Daily Dumbass. So first up, I believe it's the first time he's ever been honored in this segment, which is kind of odd, but it's the nude. You know him. Ted Nugent, who last week, and I'm sure not for the first time, went live on his pages going on a tirade about how COVID-19 was some bullshit. It was a scam. It was a hoax. He said he went his whole thing. It was like, look, it's COVID-19. We had COVID-1. We had COVID-2. We had COVID-3 all the way up through COVID-18. He was like, nobody ever cared. But now all of a sudden, COVID-19 is supposed to be a problem? So it's like, tell by being tentatively correct and still being fucking stupid. Are you, is your point, Ted, that some diseases are worse than others? Because it's true, is the hemorrhagic fever worse than a flu fever?

Yes, the word fever is not the controlling term here. You figured out there were COVIDs before. Congratulations. This is a man who documented cat scratch favor, right? Yeah. Yeah. So he knows a lot about favors, or does he? Anyway, so he did that.

And then today, this happened, Matt. clip, please. And everybody told me I should not announce this, but can you hear it? I have had flu symptoms for the last 10 days that have just, I thought I was dying. I was tested positive today. Boy, I got a stuffed up head. Body aches, my God, what a pain in the ass. I literally can hardly crawl out of bed the last few days. But I did. I did. I crossed. I don't look like I've been crawling, do I? So I was officially tested positive for COVID-19 today. Haven't taken the vaccine, so nobody knows what's in it.

Actually, some people do know what's in it. And if you can't even honestly answer our questions of exactly what's in it, and why are you testing it on human beings and forcing it upon people as such a short period of time, truth, logic, and common sense. We the people. oh by the way a big salute to uh mike lindell what a great guy in the my pillow i'm telling truth logic and common sense mark like i love how like this is another example of that classic trope with them where it's like a thing isn't real until it affects me personally and

like you do have that going on but also he still isn't like even though it's it's like he's acknowledging it's real because hey I've got it he still isn't backing off of you know the vaccines being bullshit like some people know what's in it's like yeah you know what's not in it COVID-19 like he also Ted

tell me what's in your fucking orange juice look at the label and tell me what those chemicals mean you don't know you don't understand it you if they like I've read up on the vaccine I don't understand what there's like I know vaguely what MRI is filtered through a

scientist press release through a reporter through my brain. It's probably completely wrong. The point is the doctors themselves are taking it. I'll take it. Ted, your expertise is in making a 1970s guitar licks over lyrics about fucking 15-year-olds. That's the limits of your knowledge. Shut the fuck up.

Yeah. Right. But yeah, it's him acknowledging that it's a real thing you can get. And also it's brutal the way he describes it. But then he's still like, but fuck that vaccine, though. Like, yes, it's real.

You might catch it. But don't trust the people who are trying to keep you from catching it. Like just mental gymnastics, gold medal, man. But he ended that with talking about giving a shout out to his homie, Mike Lendale, at My Pillow, talking about how he's really holding it down. And holding it down, he is. Mike Lindell recently, he just launched a 48-hour live stream event to launch his new social, like his new social media platform, Frank, right, which is where free speech lives, he says.

So in 48 hours, he's sitting there for 48 hours doing his thing. And it didn't go entirely according to plan. Matt, you can play the first clip if you have it. Yeah, yeah, well, thank you. Thank you. Hey, hold on. I think I got a reporter beaming in, Scott. Thank you for calling and God bless you.

Goodbye. Hello. Hey, Mike, it's run with the Wall Street Journal. Yes, yes. You're live. Is that okay? Oh, yeah, that's great. But Mike,

I have some bad news to tell you, I'm afraid, and I hope you can share this with everybody. But unfortunately, Alexa passed away just a few minutes ago from a drug overdose. Okay, this is a prank phone call. You see what they're doing, everybody? You see what they're doing everybody. That was an attack there because I brought up this great reporter, and that was an attack. You heard it here. All right, real quick, go ahead and play the next one.

We had some big-name guests. Sir, breaking news here with a guest. Hello? Hello, yes, I have Mr. Cholpump's standby. Are you ready? Yes. Go ahead, sir. Hello, everyone.

We have the president here, our real president, everyone. Hello, Mr. President. Macomb Show.com, bitches. Okay. All right. Sorry, follow. You see what they're doing. They're attacking us.

They're attacking us. And this is what, I mean, that even came up, they're attacking into our phones that came up that it was a legitimate number. Yeah, somebody, so apparently someone got his phone number, put him in a message board. So the entirety of this 48-hour live stream, which is nothing about people babboo booing to my pillow guy while he's trying to talk about his election fraud documentary and his new, his new social media network, which apparently he launched,

but nobody could get on. And one of the clips, and an actual reporter did call him was like, hey, I just wanted to ask you about the fact that your site launched, but no one could get on it, and they're all complaining

on other social media platforms. And he called the guy a liar and said he just didn't know how to do it right, and yada, yada, yada. Yeah, producer Matt wants us to relate it. Live streaming is very difficult. Yeah, he wants to listen to that's the case. Anybody familiar with their technical difficulties

knows that. but anyway yeah it's like the whole thing like Frank is supposed to be dedicated complete dedicated to complete free speech so all these like conservatives said he won because you get kicked off everything else for big Nazis and uh except you can't blaspheme on my pal on Frank you can't take the name of the Lord in vain so uh you can't even really you can't say fuck them fuck the demoncrats but you can't say Jesus Christ fuck the demoncrats or whatever they want to say

yeah that would be out of line Frank is so you think is that a let me be frank is that where that came from you think yeah i think so probably yeah that's that the extent of their creativity but him just being like him genuinely believing that it was the former president you know in that moment after already having been prank so many times and then after it's over i like he like kind of stopped himself he was like okay apparently that wasn't actually and then he stopped because he was about that wasn't actually the president of the united States, I guess, it called him. Yeah, I mean, I got to say,

even in an abstract, we're moving politics from it, I don't think it's a good idea for a 75-year-old recovering crackhead to be staying up for 48 hours straight, but I'm not a doctor. I'm getting new to you back up there for that. So, our last honorable mention, Chuck Grassley, who has

an odd take on the numbers related to the MLB moving the All-Star game from Georgia. Matt, play the clip. offended by most infamously major league baseball moved the all-star game from alana a move that's likely to cost the city's economy a hundred million jobs and that's affecting the income of uh georgia a hundred million baseball jobs mark that's a lot that's a lot of jobs

i love the population of georgia as a whole not even alana it's 11 million people so apparently the 89 million people were moving to Georgia to work for baseball until they moved the all-star game. So, to be a little bit fair to Grassley, I'm assuming he meant to say dollars, right? Yeah.

And it's like even that, I mean, I don't know. I'm, you know, I'm money dumb. I have no idea. But,

like, I don't know how accurate even that number is. But, uh, yeah, him switching it to jobs and just not even realizing it as he then plowed through the rest of his screen or whatever is, is pretty appropriate.

I guess the math is like, you know, a thousand people come to town and spend $1,000 each or something. I don't know. It's probably a guess something like that. Yeah. All righty. So, uh, let's get into it. The verdict. Guilty on all counts, Mark.

What do you, what, what do you think? So, I mean, I know we kind of touched on this, but yeah, I take it. Were you surprised? Because I was surprised. I was definitely preparing for not this, frankly. Well, what I mean, here's what I thought would happen. And I thought he would get one of the lesser charges, but not get second-degree murder. That's what I thought.

I was like, he'll get off on something. He'll get, like, a lesser thing, and that'll be a problem. But there's no way he'll be held fully accountable, because, again, that's just not how things tend to work in this country. Yeah, I mean, if I had to put money, if I would have had to put money down on a result, it would have been, like, they find him guilty on the least, least included charts, like, third-degree manslaughter or whatever. he serves six months and then his appeals are granted and then it's reduced to probation and he gets out on time served

that would have been what I get these are that half a baby shit you know a big king Solomon type stuff is what they do in this circumstances so do the cops happy and keep his town for burning down

but yeah I mean I mean all this is like it was not a surprise to me they scheduled the verdict reading on 420 that's like it's like we let everybody to get high, they'll read this stuff, and maybe there'll be less people out the streets.

That's, that's me, that's all racist police chief would think. So, yeah, here we got the actual, guilty on all counts, count one, second degree murder, count two, third degree murder, count three, second degree manslaughter. Yeah, I, you know, I know that like in Minnesota and in Minneapolis in particular, like, people were like going home from work, being let off from work early and things like that. Like, people were preparing for it to be some shit. is what I'm saying. And, you know, mentally, I was, too. I, like, I'm just, I don't know. I'm relieved.

But it's one of those things where it's like, it's great that this is the result that we got from this particular scenario. But, you know, I think even today, another unarmed black person was shot by a cop or something like that. Columbus, Ohio. He has a 15-year-old. He killed a 15-year-old girl in Columbus, Ohio. A 15-year-old girl. right yeah shot by a cop so like you know still work to be done obviously now at the same time

it's like you know it's obviously better than the alternative it's the result that was called for and it's the one we got so that's cool but it doesn't mean uh even remotely the end of all this bullshit no uh although uh the people in charge are very much trying to do a lesson learned let's all hug and roll credits type moments for example like let's play this clip of nancy pelosa see if you have it, Matt. Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice, for being there to call out to your mom. How heartbreaking was that?

Call out for your mom. I can't read. But because of you and because of thousands, millions of people around the world who came out for justice, your name will always be synonymous with justice. all right uh first of all did george george floyd did not sacrifice himself for shit he didn't do nothing about this nothing nothing was voluntary about this and this is not a trade he decided to make he did not decide to die so so one racist cop will go to jail he would very much gladly if he had a choice let derrick show went out of jail to be alive again i feel fairly certain about that do you think this is just like an off-the-cuff moment i always think with like high-level

people like this, that nothing is really off the cuff unless they're like, you know, cornered somewhere and forced to say something. And it just seems like such a weird thing to land on saying to me, like, you know, thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing yourself. That's just, it's a wild, it's a wild thing to get through all the various filters and be like, yeah, that's the thing that I should say. Yeah. This isn't like Adam Serber who writes for the Atlantic.

made this point was like this reduces George Floyd's like a secondary character in a movie who is there so the white protagonist can learn a lesson and it's like that's what's and I was like yeah that's I couldn't put into words what was so off putting about that but that's that sort of feels like it's also like it feels like there's this implication of like it was worth it or something do you know what I mean by being like thank you for sacrificing your life it's like the undercurrent of that is like you know because this was something that needed to happen and you made it happen so thank you, which is also kind of fucked up. Because like you said, he didn't, he didn't knowingly do, he just, he got killed by a cop,

you know, he didn't make the choice to do all this stuff. The whole point, I was thinking about to like the, the, the, the 10 minute set that Chappelle put out during the protest last year about this hypothetical, hypothetical person being like, why did you choose George Floyd? Why are you elevating this guy and turning him into a martyr? It's like, well, we didn't choose him. That's the point. George, the whole point is George Floyd didn't get to say any sort of saying this

narrow he was just trying it he was uh hanging out memorial day maybe drank a little too much was trying to buy some shit at a convenience store you know it's something that i've done for sure uh so yeah i don't know so again we talk about yes it's great you know this result was the best result that could have come out of this particular situation but still a whole lot of work to be done and on that point um you know the culture of law enforcement and where it stands right now uh there We've in the news lately we've had the oath keepers, which are a far-right anti-government militia organization composed of current and former military police and first responders who pledged to fulfill the oath that all military and police take in order to, quote, defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. They had a big presence on January 6th at the riots, had a recent interview with 60 minutes. And if you, you know, question the involvement of, like, actual law enforcement or police officers in groups like this, look at this clip here from that 60 Minutes interview with one of the...

Our guys are very experienced. We have active duty law enforcement in our organization that are helping to train us. We can blend in with our law enforcement. In fact, in a lot of cases, our training is much more advanced because of our military backers. Man. a number of red flags in that for me, or, you know, bright red flag. First of all, him's like, we have active duty law enforcement people in the organization, but then also that last part we said, you know, really our training is even better, like, you know,

than cops because we have a military presence too. So there's a lot to be disturbed by in that clip. Yeah. I mean, these kind of organizations, they want to be menacing, so they're going to exaggerate both their prowess and their organizational capability and their numbers. The best, they'll say they have 50,000 members, the best guess by law enforcement is they have 5,000. But it's still scary because they, I mean, they were part of the ringleaders of the Capitol insurrection. If you have to picture who the oathkeepers are in your head, imagine the proud boys' uncles who wear POW MIA hats. All right.

So that's essentially who they are. We show you guys of the Capitol riot. The guys that are moving through the crowd with the hands on their shoulders and the tactical formation and rent helmets and stuff, those would have been the Oathkeeper's teams. And they've been rounding up a bunch of oathkeepers. They haven't gotten arrested in national leadership on like organized crime charges or anything yet. But they did arrest. I mean, we'll get to that a second, I guess. But this first, there's been a national sort of attempt to have a reckoning about like how many white supremacists are involved in law enforcement.

There was a story yesterday about somebody hacked who the donors were to call Rittenhouse as a defense fund. And they found a bunch of like cops and shit, which is correct. crazy because he's a literal murder. And he doesn't deny killing people. He killed three people on the streets of Kenosha. In my opinion, he's a murderer. You might think he's a vigilante. Either way, it's bad and cops should be opposed to him.

But a cop in Virginia Beach, I think, got fired today for donating to his defense fund. So glad that guy's gone. But there was a report last year from the Brennan Center about how much white supremacy and far-right militancy there is in law enforcement. And, I mean, there's a list of, like, 40 states where guys have been caught, like, being members of out and out of white supremacist organizations, which is just, like, insane to me that you think you get to be a police officer and also be on the membership list for Stormfront. I don't understand why you think you can get away with that, but guys apparently did. It's funny to me thinking about how, like, how this sort of reflects on the trope in a lot of superhero comic books. And go with me on this.

of like with Batman how the cops are always very anti-vigilanteism like in every Batman movie or story you know the cops are opposed to him because like we can't have this we can't have this vigilante justice shit out here but Batman is a white dude you know they can tell that much and he seems to be rich as far as they know because he's all his gadgets and stuff so like they would be more than fine with it because you've got an armed teenager right killing people is his form of vigilante justice and they're you know donating to his government fund me and whatnot. So like, you know, I might need to rewrite some of them comic book stories, Mark. I don't know that they're that opposed to white vigilanteism, if that's the right way to say that. I mean, in a comic books, the Punisher was a serial killer who killed cops. And it was the arch enemy was the cops. In real life, cops paint blue flag Punisher logos on the cars. So I don't really know how they, how the fantasy made, they just know the punter. I think they just think the Punisher logo looks cool. I don't know if they really understood anything about it.

The Punisher, all the Punisher writers and creators have been like, the Punisher was a bad person, and he hated cops. Those two things are not necessarily connected, but how you can like him as a police officer in the book things is very weird to me. Well, right. Well, also, I mean, they were, you know, we had that story when, when it actually happened, the insurrection of police at the Capitol being beaten by rioters who had, you know, the blue line.

flag and like Blue Lives Matter thing just whipping the shit out of police officers because in this instance they were ideologically opposed from them in their minds so it isn't even necessarily about like the shield or what it represents you know or what it's supposed to represent it's just about you're either for them or you're against them basically and even if you are a cop and in any given moment you are against them they're still going to come after you especially if you're a black cop but yeah Yeah, I mean, the symbolism wasn't particularly subtle in January 6th. I mean, police officers were being beat by a blue Loss Matter flag. It's like maybe it could hammering, hammering home. It's little on the nose to the screenwriter. It's like at the end of departed when they zoom it on the rats. Like, oh, yeah, I couldn't trust anybody. You know what it was honest.

We get it. We get the point here, Scorsese. Thanks, Marty. Yeah. Before we get to our guests, I'd like to, Matt, if you've got, I'd like to play the clip of the three old keepers sitting there talking about how they felt about the Capitol insurrection, that one on 60 minutes. I know we're skipping ahead a little bit in the outline, but where they sort of respond to it. So on January 6th, when you see, you know, these people wearing that same emblem storm into the Capitol. what was your reaction?

Some of those people with oathkeepers could have been BLM. It could have been a false flag as far as I'm concerned. You don't think they were oathkeepers? Well, we don't know. So, again, mental gymnastics, I don't. First of all, we know they were there in force, the oathkeepers. But secondly, it's like this would seem to an outsider to be the type of activity that they, you know, directly advocate for. or whatever.

And now they're trying to twist it and blame it on somebody else when you would think like they would stand up and be like God damn right. It's what we were there to do. But they can't because, you know, the FBI will get them or whatever.

But still. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's all that out. It's so weird because the whole reason, like the people they're interviewing that in that 60 Minutes piece are members of the biggest chapter

of the oathkeepers, which is in Arizona, Arizona's chapter. They are currently in a divorceing the national leadership because the national leadership was their own one six and a certain number of at least this one guy who was a founding member of the oathkeepers has flipped in terms of cooperating witness like the mad just threw up the screen grab of

the article up there like he's a so that's the whole reason they're trying to break off on their own is because they can't trust the natural leadership because they're testifying against people for storming the capital so you can't fucking have it both ways right you know yeah the oathkeepers have been breaking their intra-organizational oaths recently, let alone the primary oath. If there's a takeaway from any of this, I'm going to recommend that none of you get involved in any conspiracies to commit crimes with white people. We will snitch immediately. These guys, they call oathkeepers. They literally take an oath means I would rather die than break this.

The guy's been in jail for, let me check my fucking watch a month and a half. And he's flipped faster than any Southside Crip or Pairo blood. People who were just in it to make rent money are more loyal to their friends than this guy who took an oath to die rather than, you know, betray the Constitution. So there you go. There you go. All right. With that said, let's get into our guest tonight. Sam Youngman is a Democratic consultant and the host of Burning Bridges with Uncle Sam, the podcast you can get where all your podcast are gotten from.

Before he moved to LA and became a freak, he was a semi-respected campaign reporter and White House correspondent, covering two presidents and three presidential campaigns. He also is a Kentuckian, born in Lexington, raised in Owensboro, attendee of quite a few of the community colleges around there, and an ultimate graduate of Western Kentucky University, very near to my old stomping grounds there in North Tennessee. Everybody, please welcome Sam Youngman. What's on, what's up, Mark? What's up, Mark? Good to see you. again, buddy. I did Sam's show a couple weeks ago. We had a good time. We liked to commiserate on. So, Sam, I guess to start with just a general question, you were a White House

correspondent for a long time. And then you became, I guess, to put it lightly, somewhat disillusioned with that life and that culture. Can you kind of just start off by giving us sort of your rundown on why that was, what you saw when you spent that amount of time deeply ingrained in the political culture in D.C. and what turned you off about it? Yeah, no, I'm happy to. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a nice mix of intense personal burnout and then just complete disillusionment with our nation's capital. You know, I think after years and years of watching people fight on TV all day and then get together to have drinks together later that evening, you know, you start to look at things a little differently. You start to see a country that's being torn apart

on purpose. Now, I will say, looking back, I think one of the things I got wrong was that there are a lot of people that are trying to do some good. They're just so overshadowed by all the people doing all the back. And, you know, especially after January 6th, I think it's getting easier and easier to tell which is which. So you said seeing people fight about something all day and then go out for drinks that night, does that mean, and I'm not asking you.

you're single anybody out or anything, but that, like, how many of them actually believe the things that they say? Because I'll say, I've been to, like, I've been to, like, Politicon before, and I've been on political panels, and I've been on those with conservatives and people that totally, and in the green room beforehand, everyone's being cordial, you know, because you don't want to be fighting in the green room beforehand, but that don't mean that, you know, that we're homies, that I agree with the shit they're saying. But when you talk about that experience with our lawmakers, like, how many of them are just straight up bullshitting with the things they say versus actually believing it in your experience? I would say it's a very high percentage. Now, let me also say this, though. I was pre-Trump. You know, Trump was, I mean, it was like, you know, the antichrist coming to town. And a lot of people found religion.

So I would say, I would venture to say that you've got a lot more true believers. than con artist these days. And I might even say that the true believers are more dangerous than the con art. You know, if I can go up on a tangent for a second, they're talking about bringing back earmarks. And earmarks, if you don't know, used to be called, you know, pork barrel spending

or, you know, this wasteful spending. I think this is the greatest damn idea that I've heard in forever. Because I tell you what, Washington, D.C. needs a certain amount of legalized bribery, a little bit of grease to make those wheels turn. Because if you're negotiating and you say, hey buddy come along with me on this and I'll go through a bridge that you can work with that

but when you took away the earmarks you took away that incentive and Washington hates a vacuum and that vacuum got filled with the crazies it got filled with ideology instead of transaction and so I say yeah bring back the earmarks make that motherfucker work again let's send the crazies home let's get some new roads let's get some new bridges let's make government work and Sam I've been I've hammered this point before on this on this stream you're absolutely right and like like it's like without any horse trading it's all ideology and ideology is too stubborn to get anything accomplished like if you're like if you can't pass a health care bill by giving a Republican a new community college in his district then nothing's ever going to

pass yes it goes their corners and stays there yeah yeah said it man and horse trading is the perfect word for it too all right we're uh joined by former white house course correspondent, podcaster Sam Youngman, so, Sam, so you think, and I know you, you know, you left the game, like you said, pre-Trump, but looking at from the outside, looking in, you talk about these ideal logs that are up there right now, and you said you think they're more dangerous than the sort of like, you know, political agents, you know, that used to exist up there. Do you think that, um, do you think we can pull out of that nose dive with these people and get back to? this place that we're all talking about where you know horse trading still exist and things still happen or like how do you feel about the general uh prognosis right now with the way that you think we're going to dig further in to our you know our poles that we have on either side of the spectrum or can that actually 20 it's 420 i know a lot of people are smoking up and the last thing i want to do is be like the world's biggest fucking bummer uh i'm going to do it anyway

No, hard's our bus, Sam. Yeah, I'm going to do it anyway. I'll be honest with you. I have, I never run out of hope when it comes to America because I think we, I think we've got the goods to be great, even though we constantly fall short. January 6th and the reaction to it, the days that it followed have really dimmed that hope for me. If a goddamn terrorist attack on our capital, you know, remember the plan, the plan.

that went down in Pennsylvania was to stop an attack on our capital. And if we couldn't come together after this and say, hey, shit's gone too far, hey, we're supposed to be on the same team here. If we couldn't do that after this, then I don't know, I don't know what it's going to take. I mean, the body count's getting higher every day and we're getting further apart. I want to say, I think we can get around it. I think we've got the right president to try and do it. I mean, if there's one thing Joe Biden does, it's lower the temperature. I just, I'm not as hopeful about it as I'd like to be. I'll put it that way.

Well, I tell you, I mean, I agree with what you just said. Here's the thing I tell myself is that at the end of the day, we will be able to outnumber them enough for it hopefully not to matter as we continue to move forward. And I'm talking about like the hardcore people at the capital on January 6th. Like, no, we're not, I don't think we're getting those people back. I don't. But I think, I hope that the rest of us or enough saying people will still exist in this country, that hopefully it won't matter. And I know they'll still be able to do their crazy bullshit if they want to.

And yes, that's scary. But I mean, on a macro scale, maybe we can just move on without them as opposed to trying to get them back because I don't see that happening. Well, I mean, the filibuster is what keeps it all even though, right? I mean, you know, we've already got the numbers. it's just that the deck is just stacked against us. And until we start, you know, really taking seriously state house raises, until we start, you know, caring about things like redistricting as much as we care about the presidency, then, you know, that majority is always going to be tenuous.

We're always going to be in, you know, facing this existential threat that comes with minority rule these days. You know, where you, I mean, can you imagine a Marjorie Taylor Green as the chairwoman of a committee? I mean, that's a real, that's a real possibility of these days. so yeah i mean just we've got to be on guard but at every single level right um mark i thought you were gonna oh um what is the uh rolled off there like a sports right no no no that's my fault so uh what what um what is the habit of the white house press corps the washington press that like irts you the most for me it's when they ask a series of questions about nothing no actual would ever care about.

Yes. Yeah, no, that's a big one. It's like they're having their own conversation, and they forgot to invite the American people. You know, I'm an asshole about this stuff. I really am. I wrote a whole magazine piece about it. I am not, I am persona non grotto back in the DC press circles.

When I fly into DCA, there's a bunch of fucking nerds standing there waiting to throw me out. Yeah, Matt put up a screen grab of it. Y'all should look up and read that article because Sam ain't lying. He really does go out of the end on those people. I'm not at all surprised that they don't want you around anymore. You roasted the hell out of them, which I appreciate it. I promise I won't do that to L.A. You know, I think the thing that happens all too often is you pull a punch because you know the person or because you need to be able to talk to them later.

You know, I look at somebody like Lindsey Graham, Lindsey Graham who, you know, called Georgia's Secretary of State and tried to have votes thrown out, tried to have Americans votes thrown out. And the reaction was just sort of, oh, that rascal. And, you know, I have this idea that, you know, if you're going to have a press conference, you need to start sending a designated hitter. Don't send the guy who goes to the parties with the guy he's covering, you know, don't send the guy whose kids go to, you know, school with that person. Send somebody who's never met Lindsey Graham who doesn't need him for anything and can just straight up asking, you know, what the fuck were you thinking trying to have millions of votes thrown out. That and just, you know, when it's just too insular, when you have a whole press conference and the. in a pandemic where thousands of Americans are dying a day and not one reporter ask about the pandemic.

You know, that's a bad look. That's a bad look. All right. So I want to ask for sure, you're a Kentucky and got to bring up, got to bring up old deadhanded Mitch McConnell, right? Yeah. I feel like every election cycle we get, we on the left get told like, you know, got a new up and comer, got a real shot.

You're going to get Moscow Mitch out of there, whatever, but he just sticks. around. And so, you know, as a Kentucky and a political reporter and everything, what's the, so how, like, beloved or just popular, whatever, is he really in the bluegrass state? And where do you see his career going or ending up? Sure. Okay. So you know that access junkie? I was just condemning. Well, that's exactly who I was with Mitch McConnell in 2014. I covered him up close. Is Mitch beloved in Kentucky? Absolutely not. His favorable numbers are always in the 30s. But what he does really well and maybe better than anybody is he makes you hate the other person more, which is, you know, it's easy to do in a conservative state where every television is on Fox News. You know, I watched Mitch campaign up close and he is he is damn good at what he does. You know, there's a reason, you know, he's been there as long as he has. I tell this story about his campaign staffer told me she was, She, they were at a parade. We were all at a parade. They were Mitch and Elaine Chow were sitting in the back of a convertible. And this staffer was putting, was handing out stickers, campaign stickers to kids.

And McConnell called her over the car and he said, no, no, put the sticker on the kid's chest. That way their parents have to take them off. And I was like, man, that is some old shit. But that's how he does it. Damn. You know, he raises a ton of dark money and just beats the livid shit out who are, you know, dares to opposing. For sure. there was a somebody made this point and it was like I've seen the matrix for me but like if you're like a conservative California donor there's no point donating to like Kamala or whoever's like opponents in California Senate races but if you give the Mitch McConnell who's a Senate Majority leader and help him stay in power then he can make sure that you're most of your interests are protected so it's not even really a state by state thing he gets national money because he's so powerful yeah and it flows both right that's people

who hate him and people who like him. And it's coming, you know, it's almost all coming from out of state. Yeah. Do you think what could be done to actually dethrone him there in your home state? You know, I think you've got to do, you've got to have a Stacey Abrams, right? You've got to have somebody who's willing to do the work to build the party from the ground up. I think in a lot of states like Kentucky, you've had a state party that was treated like a political football, you know, almost an intramural fight for, for years while, you know, Republicans were getting stronger. I don't know, you know, Kentucky just elected a Democratic governor right after I moved out here. I felt like that was personal.

But, you know, if you ask me if they're ever going to unseat Rand Paul, who's a completely unsirious, you know, you could very easily describe him as a traitor of the United States. Are they going to beat, are they going to retire him? Probably not. I have hope for Kentucky, but it's sort of like my hope for America. It's not as bright as it used to be. dude i look i mean you know i'm a tennessee and i'm your neighbor to the south there and i like not that long ago even though we had a republican governor and stuff we had some things

happened in tennessee that i was actually proud of like we were the first state to make community college free for for residents of that state you know and i thought there was a time where i thought things were like trending in the right direction for tennessee and you know i hate to say it but i could not feel more the opposite of that than i do recently with bill Lee and Marshall Blackburn and dying black and all them and how I just like you said I all I you know I think this is a trait that most progressive Southerner share is like we hold on to hope you know it's like all we have even though we know better yeah right even though we know better exactly it's like I do still have hope but I don't I can't sit here and say I'm feeling great about the way it's going right now I love it for what's happening in Georgia and all that but as far as like Tennessee goes not feeling good about it and I guess it's the same for you you in Kentucky? Well, I mean, what reason do we have to be hopeful? Are the media patterns changing? Are people changing the channel from Fox News? No. Is education getting better funded? No. Are people getting out? You know, is there more diversity? Not really not in those places. I mean, there's just no reason

to think it's going to change. And I tell you some, Trey, I'm going to date myself here a little bit, a little bit, but I covered the Tennessee State House. I lived in Nashville, and I covered Governor Phil Bretteson, an actual Democratic governor of Tennessee. And, you know, I was there when they passed the lottery. And the lottery was, you know, to fund education. But yeah, it was, I think it was a time when you still had coalitions in the south of Blue Dog Democrats. So you had states like Tennessee and Kentucky where, you know, Bill Clinton won both those states. And, you know, you could do that shit back then. And buddy, we are through the looking glass. Those are not the same states anymore. Right.

I mean, everything's so blindly tribalized. Like, I saw somebody make this point, like, during the election about, like, it was like, I'm not sure people are persuadable by arguments anymore. Why even have the debates? And it's like, well, if that's the case, then what's the argument for democracy? Like, what's the point of having elections if you can't convince people of anything? And I guess the hope is, right? As long as we're talking and we're not shooting, then that's where you want to be.

And, you know, I guess, I guess where I'm at is I'm just, I'm more fearful. of violence than I have been in the past. It just, you know, most of my career as a political reporter, we just didn't even consider that. It was, it was unthinkable, you know, just unthinkable. You wrote phrases like peaceful transition to power, and you didn't give it a second thought. It was a good day.

And that's just not the case anymore. All right. I'm really glad I came on to be so uplifting. Well, actually, I was about to say, to try to lighten the mood a little bit, and look, if you don't, if you ain't down with this, it's fine. And I certainly am not asking you to name any names, but you did the White House beat the DC beat for a long time. Do you have any kind of good, wild-ass D.C. stories for us.

And I don't, you know, not necessarily, necessarily, but sure. Yeah. Let's get a little hot guys if you got it. Yeah, lots of code. Dead hookers. You know, I would love to tell you some of my most scandalous stories. I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. Right before I checked into rehab, I was drinking down in the White House basement every morning at 8 a.m. in the Fox News White House booth because my buddy there had a full bar. But yeah, D.C., I tell you, I don't know if it's like this still. I assume that it is, but it used to have a bit of a wild streak. And I contribute it to it mightily. But yeah, I tell you, the off the record bar right there in the basement of the Hay Adams, that was my stomping ground. and I had basically what was a prolonged multi-year VH-1 behind the music right there in that bar. Well, yeah, well, you know, hell, I'm glad, you know, glad you got it all figured out, but also got to experience of hell.

Because, like, Hollywood, here's my personal experience, and that people might think I'm lying, I'm not. Hollywood is also purported, but you just walk into meeting rooms and there's mountains of Coke and whatever, and I guess apparently that used to be the way it is, but it's all super corporate and fucking buttoned up and shit now. You know, and I'm not saying like, where's my coat, God damn it? I missed it. I'm just saying it hasn't been, it hasn't been the wild and crazy party time that it's sort of presented to be sometimes. And I guess maybe D.C. is sort of the same way. Because I feel like it does have that reputation also, like behind closed doors, it's just, it's just debauchery. Well, I mean, I think it's probably both right. I mean, you know, I think we paint with a broad brush. I mean, there were, you know, I wasn't alone and being a lunatic werewolf running through the streets of D.C., but I wouldn't, you know, I wasn't the norm either. I mean, you know, it's funny, actually, I, you know, I came up reading Hunter Thompson and reading all about the 72 campaign. Really, one of the reasons I was attracted to journalism was because I was kind of a fuckup.

I liked eating acid, but I also kind of like politics. And so I was like, well, shit, I'll just combine the two and be a journalist like Hunter did because, you know, he's from it. What was I saying? Oh, no. Yeah. You're making all kinds of sense to me, buddy. All right. So, I'm sorry.

So anyway, it was all debauched, and I really got into that. And then later, it wasn't like that at all. It was like everybody was, you know, in law school or something like that. Everybody was really straight-laced. And instead of going to the bar, they went to the gym in the morning. And then anyway, it just seemed like the time would pass me by. The 72 campaign just, you know. Right.

It's a high-gone era. Sorry about that. There was a man apart from time. Yes, sir. That way of stuff sometimes. Like, it's like, something like, because I used to be in journalism, too. and then I worked in comedy. And so I always thought, like, that old image, both comedian and, like,

journalists, it seemed like it was better back when guys always had whiskey and a gun on them at all time. Right. And I think, you know, it's amazing how much damage I did trying to chase that, you know, that myth, I guess. But, yeah, I will say this, the Tennessee State House felt like, felt like a sort of a time machine trip back to that era. I was like the youngest guy there, like 20 years.

and I don't know. We smoked at our desk. You know, we drank while we wrote. It was like, you know, it was Jack Burden and all the Kingsmen. Yeah, that very much checks out. So, Sam, let people know how they can check you out, follow your stuff and all that. Man, I really appreciate it. And I appreciate y'all having me on.

Yeah, we got a new podcast. Burning Bridges with Uncle Sam, get it, you know, wherever you get podcast. We drop a new show, my co-host, Ruby and I, every Tuesday. You can catch us on Twitter at Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam Pod or on Facebook at backslash Burning Bridges Pod. And I've even got a newsletter, bigstuff.us. That's a lot. I'm not great at the self-promotion.

I'm going to have to work on that. You did a hell of a job, buddy. All right. Well, thanks, Sam. Good to see again. And again, once things get, you know, even further back to normal, let's have that bear out here. May you and my mind.

I really enjoyed this, you guys. I appreciate it. Yeah, you too. Thanks, Sam. Thank you. I'll take care. Youngman, everybody. It is a weird vest.

Like we're just talking about how used to be cooler when people, I mean, it's weird how like America became less like more class rigid and more like, you know, less meritocratic, more inheritance kids, you know, second generation people and somehow became more like buttoned up. It's a weird byproduct that doesn't make any sense to me where everyone got more straight laced and health conscious in the same time that their positions became more secure. I don't know. Yeah, I know the two aren't necessarily tied together at all, but I feel like a lot of people might be like, yeah, you know, that's back when like straight white dudes with power or money or whatever could just literally do like whatever they wanted to, you know, like the things like probably kind of go hand in hand, raining in these lunatic egos that enabled all that type of stuff for so long, you know, those type of cultures. and like and that sort of connected with um you know allowing yeah i'm not actually have because like dude you think about all this thing we're talking you're like yeah used to be and i'm not i'm not trying to fucking shit on you when i say this but you're like yeah used to you know back when back when a guy just had a whiskey every day for lunch or whatever else it's like yeah that was

hitting real hard for me and you mark or our grandpas you know or whatever but like the secretary wasn't having a great time. No, yeah, but I'm not, but it's not clear to me while getting rid of one getting rid of the,

I agree with you. Right. You can, I agree with you. I'm not trying to bring back. You can be broken party. You can be broken party. Yeah,

but yeah. No, you don't have like, like you read, read the stories about like SNL in like the 70s and 80s where they were like, I mean,

they still pull all nighters and stuff, but there, anybody that works there now, it's like, it's very straight-laced and corporate and there's no, Pete Davidson probably sneaks a little well, when he doesn't do it, he's supposedly clean now, but like, you might be able to sneak a joint a couple times a week, but not the all-night wall-to-wall party, like it was.

All right. Well, first of all, Matt, you got some questions and comments for us, put them up there, whatever y'all think about the verdict or whatnot. But I want about SNL, yeah, it didn't know, because like you said, people in this business, you know that they do still keep those hours, like you said. They do still do the all-nighters and all that type of stuff and come in in the afternoon and work all night and everything. but there's not coke anymore and it's like my understanding is they keep doing that because that's what they've always done you know and it's like dude recalibrate a little bit like either either put the mountain of coat back out in the in the break room right and make people still pulling all-nighters or make it a little more of a fucking decent human being type of schedule that they have and I know the rigors of what they're doing I mean you got to work a lot of hours, but it doesn't mean you have to work them at the hours they do. They just keep doing that. I know no one else gives a shit about this. I just wanted to

say it. No, I'll connect it to this. Charlie Warzel wrote this piece about how obsessed Americans are at work and like how destruct, like, works destroying all of our lives in ways that like we don't even think about because it's like a, you ask a fish what water is, but you compare the way

Americans work and the way we think about our jobs. And like, he's making the point that like, when a company tells you that we're all family here fucking run right because that means they expect you to spend holidays with them yeah and be and to be dedicated to them over material stuff like you're with your family like I would die for my wife I did not sign it to take a bullet for my boss that is not part of the transaction here right like so what do they when they try to tell you we're family here what are they trying to say it's like this is a transactional relationship I give you a percentage of my time and

effort you give me money that's the end of the whole thing right i should not be here nights and weekends helping like helping the company make deadlines i should not be missing my kids place you know it's like yeah so anyway to go just like the it's like but people think like this goes to the s and l thing too it's like oh i it's like a like a badge of honor like i work 48 hours straight it's like right for what for what what exactly we glorify that type of shit when really it's like no it's a god damn shame that people have to work that much like it's not it's not worth being glorified over. Kathleen Dolores says verdict was great for that case.

Meanwhile, Adam Toledo and Kyle Rittenhouse. And yeah, you know, we were, we alluded to that earlier too. I mean, yeah, you're right. Like it doesn't, and I don't think anybody's saying that it means this, but like this doesn't mean that like, all right, fix that. You know, moving forward. Yeah, like, all right, here we go. On to the next thing.

But still, it's just there had to be a verdict in this case. and the one we got is the one that we all wanted. So that's at least something, you know. And the Adam Toledo and Colorado. And Brian McGuckin says the same thing. He says, I'm glad of the verdict, but damn,

I can't actually celebrate. There's so much still left to do. So, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of which, we wanted to, producer Matt did a little, we got some actually breaking skews news.

Producer Matt broke some news. He got leaked this document from an Iowa sheriff. For background, Fair is a far-right anti-immigration group. They're labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And they've been trying to organize sheriffs as a resistance to Biden's immigration policies. And Matt got a hold of a letter from a Massachusetts sheriff, I believe, trying to organize other sheriffs to come together to sign up for, yeah, it's a letter on the left. So Matt tried to pass along to some reporters, hoping to get some coverage of it there.

But, yeah, they, sheriffs have a lot of power and a lot of freedom to, and discretion to govern their areas as they see fit. And anybody's familiar with the constitutional sheriff movement or whatever probably knows that it's, they're overstepping their bounds. They did stuff like there were a bunch of sheriffs refused to enforce statewide COVID guidelines. There are sheriffs who say they will not enforce statewide gun laws. There's a lot of shit going on like that. Dude, that shit, it's like, it reminds me when gay marriage got legalized and there were just. judges in like in the rural south in particular that were like I'm not doing that

I refuse to do that and it's shit like that kills me because it's like you don't have you don't have the right to refute I mean obviously they have enough power to refuse to do it but it's like that's literally your job this is the law now you have to enforce the law that's your whole

job but they have the ability to just say no fuck that I'm not doing it just because they don't want to and that just flies in this country I hate that shit. So a lot of these meathead right wing guys are like half illiterate constitutional scholars

and they come with their own interpretations of the shit. And it's kind of an offshoot of the sovereign citizen movement. There are a bunch of people who read the Constitution to say that county sheriff's the ultimate arbiters of law. So, and so the county sheriff thinks that a gun law is

unconstitutional. If he just merely his opinion, his belief, he doesn't have to enforce it. It's kind of like how like you don't have to pay. Not the Supreme Court, the county sheriff. And if you're from a county like I'm from, when you think of your sheriff, but yeah, he shouldn't be in charge of constitutionality. Yeah, I mean, the sheer number, I read a story about once a week about a guy who's under indictment is still serving as a county sheriff. Like, it happens a lot. Those are clearing houses for local power hungry

people who want to be able to be able to get away with anything. And like, there was a guy in Louisiana who was like, I guess the state, the state law gave him absolute discretion over his county jail budget so he was just paying himself with the jail budget and nobody could stop it because he was like he was like it was like budgeted so much money for food he would like literally just give the prisoners white bread and pocket the rest and they caught him doing it and he's like yeah i did it so what and they're like yeah technically he can do that it's like if i don't know it's crazy god damn so producer mac giving himself a little shine here because he's comment from jason ruderman hey he deserves it jason says i love when you call him producer mad and give him so much respect hey he is the he's the he He's the backbone of the show, guys. He's the one that holds it all together, producer Matt. I mean, if a guy coached football 20 years ago can go on a postgame show and still be called a coach, we can call him Matt. He produces the shit out of this thing. Yeah, producer Matt does.

Yeah, I've, uh, fuck, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah, cops and all the dude in my hometown, there was a high level elected official that was like arrested outside of our county with a shitload of cocaine in the, 90s and unless he's retired by now because I haven't been back home in a while obviously served in that same exact position for 20 more years after that happened and you know it didn't matter because yeah in those positions like you said you get a lot of power and it's like at that level it's not it's not a high enough level for like the major powers that be to even give a shit but it matters greatly to all the people who live in that area and you can just hold on to that shit for fucking forever and just rule with an iron

fist and do whatever the hell you want to. There was a story three or four months ago. It was the craziest goddamn thing. This sheriff, a deputy who happened to be black, recorded his co-workers, including the sheriff using a bunch of race lepathets

and turned it over to like the county HR department or whatever to try to be like, hey, this is fucked up. And the sheriff got arrested after that for trying to hire a hitman to kill his own deputy. He paid bail and went back to work. My God.

So, yeah, still a lot of work to be done on the law enforcement in America front. But that's it for this episode. Thank you all for joining us. And we'll see you next week. It'll be a good time. I'm Trey. That's Mark. So you love you back.