← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Sarah Longwell
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Bulwark. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, and I am here with one of my best friends, Bill Kristol. And we have breaking news in this Epstein saga that both Bill and I are following closely. And Bill, I wanted to read this to you because I know you haven't seen it yet. This is from Cash Patel tweeted @226 so within the last hour, the conspiracy theories just aren't true. Never have been. It's an honor to serve the President of the United States at real Donald Trump, and I'll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me. Here's nothing to see. They got. Here's Bill. This is what I think. I think they got to cash. I think they got to cash, too.
- [00:47]
Bill Kristol
He wants to keep his job. What do you think? I don't know. I mean, who's the vae that's good. I like that. Expand, expand on that can. Well, didn't he promote these theories for quite a long time here?
- [00:57]
Sarah Longwell
Never were true. Like, never were true while you were hyping them up to get Donald Trump elected in your self made FBI director. Like I. When was it never true? And so here's the thing. This comes on the heels of a bunch of stuff that I just want to lay out really quickly, which is yesterday, on a Friday where people like to bury things. There were a lot of reports that Dan Bongino had to take a personal day, had to go find a safe space because he was so angry and upset about Pam Bondi saying that there's nothing to see here, there's nothing to release. And sort of walking back everything that she had said when she was hyping all of this up and saying, I've got the Epstein list all on my desk. And there were reports by our breaking news person, Laura Loomer, who now gets all the scoops, that Dan Bongino was thinking of quitting and walking out because he was so irate. And then at Pam Bondi. And so it became this like, either she goes or I go type thing, right? There's a lot of people saying and. And the calls for, for getting rid of Bondi from maga World have grown louder. And, and I mean, all cor. I was watching Charlie Kirk talk to Megan Kelly today. Watching my brain cells atrophy in real time.
- [02:29]
Bill Kristol
That's really a hell of a way to spend your Saturday. You know, this is, this is what we've introduced, reduced us to that one sentence should Be memorialized for Sarah Longwell. I was watching Charlie Kirk talk to Megyn Kelly. Oh, my God.
- [02:41]
Sarah Longwell
And Megyn Kelly is like, Bondi has to go. You know, she is. She is Megyn Kelly. I. Megan, just as a quick aside, it is such a study in the abused becoming the abuser. You know, she gets bullied by Trump, and he just. And, you know, I mean, says horrible things about her. And so nobody has fought harder to get back into the graces of Trump and MAGA world than Megyn Kelly. So she. She does a. A whole rant about how Trump is out there killing it. He's killing it on the tariffs. He's killing it on foreign policy. He's doing all this stuff. And Pam Bondi, she' here not releasing this report. How dare she? And if Cash Patel and Dan Bongino have anything to say about it, we are gonna. We're gonna get to the bottom of this. We're gonna get answers. But now we have Cash Patel coming out also saying the conspiracy theories were never true. Everybody move on. I serve at the pleasure of Donald Trump. It's a weird tweet. Doesn't say a lot other than meaning to shut the door on the idea that Kash Patel, like, somebody went to Cash Patel and said. I presume Trump did, and said, people trust you more than they trust Bondi in MAGA world. So now you got to go out there and tell them there's nothing to see here. Right. Don't you think that sounds like what happened?
- [04:04]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. And you also. You have to be with Bondi. I mean, that. That's what's interesting to me. Right? I mean, Bongino is Patel's deputy. I was gonna say nominally, but I guess really Patel's deputy. And who knows what their relationship really is, but they've been in the My MAGA Fever swamp together for a long time, and Bongino is basically letting it be known and pretty directly. I mean, don't you think Laura Loomer talked directly to him? I presume, yeah, that he's very unhappy.
- [04:28]
Sarah Longwell
Do you think he's. The leak?
- [04:29]
Bill Kristol
Might resign. Right. So he might resign. Bondi's there taking the hits for her. Extremely misleading, shall we say, statements as Attorney General of the United States. And there's Patel in between. He's Bongito's boss, and he's sort of reports to Bondi is a little complicated, the FBI Justice Department relationship. But basically she, you know, outranks him. So who she was. So he's. He's with Bondi, which Means tells me that Trump is with Bondi, which means I guess they'll let Bongino go. I guess they figure he can't do too much damage, even if he's disillusioned on the outside. Well, a might not go. I mean, still, this is a better job that he ever dreamed of having, obviously, in terms of, you know, presumably stature and so forth. And, and maybe they can find other things for him and have him do very well paid podcasts, well paid by friends of Trump's as a way of keeping him in the tent. Trump's pretty good at that. The ones who he fires, who he wants to keep sort of on side, he arranges enough things for them. Right. So that we waltz. They don't really reveal stuff. Someone asked me on cnn, Aaron asked me on Wednesday night, did I think Bondi would be fired. I hadn't really thought about it and I said I didn't. My instinct was no, but she must know a lot. I mean, if you're Attorney General and you're, you know, waiving every case, you know, getting rid of every case, that's against any Trump friend and associate. Trump himself, of course, to you're authorizing, going after for your firing attorneys who did do their job and prosecute Trump and prosecute the J6 insurrectionist. I mean, all the things she's been doing, the, the blind eye to, to the graft, to the grift and all this, I would think Trump would be a little nervous about her leaving. And, and also she's had direct conversations. Presumably Trump has told her to do a lot of these things and she in fact says so all the time. I work directly for Donald Trump. There's not that much of an intermediary bunch, you know, a little lower level. Right. So I think they are circling the wagons around Bondi, which is problematic, don't you think? I mean, she's out there. She was. These other people, they said horrible things when they were doing podcasts and attacked Biden and stupid and they were totally irresponsible ways. It should have prevented any of them from having the job they have now. And if we had more than one or two Republican senators who had any conscience and courage, they wouldn't have the jobs they have now. I will point out both Bondino and Patel were. Bondi and Patel were confirmed by the Senate, but they have the jobs they have now. And I think Trump is nervous about losing, especially Bondi. She said this as Attorney General, it's one thing to say these terrible things when you're in opposition. And you're a podcaster. You don't know all the facts. You can kind of say I was being a little rhetorical. She was Attorney General of the United States. I have the file on my desk. Blah, blah, blah. There is no file. There's no list. Well, there's a file, I guess. There is a file. There is no list. And then I thought we had an excellent piece found by Phil Rotter pointing out how carefully worded that statement, which had no names on it, but from justice and FBI, was about, you know, the. The. The statement which says, well, there is no. Was a client list in quotation marks, which doesn't. I know. Did anyone think that it's literally a list. The question is, were their names in there?
- [07:31]
Sarah Longwell
So it's not clients. This was not like a paid service. This was the raping of young girls.
- [07:37]
Bill Kristol
Right. And maybe Epstein got. Epstein got things in. In. In. In. In return. A business for his fake investment firm or just other things he could hold up for people. Or maybe it was just whatever. You're right. So it wasn't very literal. Client. There's no client list. And there was something else to there that Phil pointed out in his piece that it doesn't really say anything about what's in the files and what is in the files. And does Patel think it's. It's legitimate just to say there was never anything there? Maybe he could explain a little bit. I mean, there's a whole history to this case. Right.
- [08:09]
Sarah Longwell
So I've got. I've got a few thoughts on this I want to run by you, because I. There's one we've. I've been quite annoyed as I watch people sort of kayfabe, as JVL would say, or pantomime the idea of, like, Bondi must go. She must go. Why? So, like, okay, let's just play that out hypothetically. Bondi goes. You replace that person with doj, with the head of doj, Matt Gates. Right. You get a sex trafficker in charge of sex trafficking, or at least an accused sex trafficker in charge of it. Okay, so. So you got somebody with. With personal experience in the matter. Then what, like the presumption there is that the list exists and it is Pam Bondi who is standing in front of its release, the thing that the Cash Patel tweet makes clear to me, but something that I already was pretty clear on, which is Pam Bondi is doing what Trump is telling her to do.
- [09:07]
Bill Kristol
Totally.
- [09:07]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, so either. Either she was lying before about and hyping it up much like they were with no reason. Bongino a cashpill. I mean, nobody talked more about Epstein on podcasts than Cash Patel. And frankly, I think the reason that both of them are in these jobs that they are wildly unqualified for is in large part because of Epstein, because they had earned the credibility of the MAGA base in that we will, you will trust us to be the ones who are going to overturn the deep state. We're going to show you the truth. We will be transparent. And I think it's possible that what happened is they hyped everybody up so much, everybody came to believe it. Now everyone's like, no, no, no, you need to show this to us. Right? I think that's a big part of it. But, or, and maybe they got in there though and they actually looked at it and there was like, oh no, there is nothing in here. And so like, or, or there's a cover up going on and Trump is saying to Bondi, you're my heat shield. You got to go out there and tell them there's nothing. That immediately then shifted people over to Cash and Bongino being like, no, no, you guys are going to tell us the real truth. It's Pam Bondi covering it up. And Trump was like, now she's just doing what I tell her. So Cash, you got to go out there too and say there's nothing to see here because it's creating a rift in MAGA world, right, where they can blame Bondi because God forbid anybody blames Donald Trump. God forbid anybody actually like understands that Donald Trump is the one controlling this. And so this to me is the interesting piece right now is that Trump is the one saying, put this Epstein thing to bed and he's got. And so like, if Bongino quits, it will be Bongino who probably hates this job, cuz it's a real job actually. I know you think it's prestigious, but I think he wants to go back to podcasting conspiracy theories and he can't maintain his street cred on this issue if he says nothing to see here.
- [11:04]
Bill Kristol
You've thought a lot about this where they don't. You and I had the same instinct on this, I would say four, five, six days ago, which is, this is bigger than people think. A lot of our friends were in the. Well, this is a disreputable conspiracy in the first place on the part of MAGA world and now it's kind of blowing up in their face and we're sort of amused by that but there's nothing really to talk about. I think that a underestimates, you know that she was Attorney General of the United States when she said. I mean in a normal world even if your party controlled Congress, you would have to go testify and explain why did you say that then what change. Explain to us without revealing names you can't reveal or whatever that are just mentioned in files. You know, explain to us what. What you. What is and isn't there. You can't. You don't get to have one sentence. It was a real case. I mean so I'm tomorrow Sunday bull work which is I guess live on substack of 10 and then they'll be on YouTube. I'm having Julie Brown who was the Miami Herald of war who really broke the case really with great courage went after Epstein again in 201718 and caused after Robin that plea deal, that cushy plea deal 10 years before got him to be and they had to indict him again and that then led to his presumably his suicide and the conviction of Maxwell and all this. So she really knows this case. I don't really know what the history but I talked to her just very briefly get for tomorrow, praying for tomorrow. I mean people are being a little. There are massive. This is a big investigation. There are massive files now. It is not appropriate incidentally to release every piece of paper they conducted. It could mention all kinds of people who were totally innocent. Someone was on the plane, someone had lunch with Epstein because he was doing financial work. I mean there could be false accusations by people, you know trying to get revenge against other people about them being involved. Still it is in a. In a case of this magnitude, the idea that you don't put out a something that explains what didn't didn't happen. I'm thinking like of comey with Hillary Clinton. Think of something like that which is not comfortable in a 5 million ways. But you know what I mean? They put out a statement. They said well she did this. This was probably right. You know what I mean? There are plenty of things you could say about this case. It has been in this respect and I think Julie will say this tomorrow. It's been kind of cloaked in more mystery than one. The fact that MAGA made it a huge conspiracy theory made probably people on normal people shy away from saying this has been pretty weird all along. The lack of knowledge in transparency for a major case. Right. You don't have to prosecute every single person who's mentioned you might choose not to Prosecute the guys who did after all the rape. Basically, these, these girls, I mean, it's horrible that they seem to be. No talk about going after any of them. Maybe they don't have evidence, whatever. But there's more of it there, there than I personally, for example, realized, I would say, a few years ago. And I just wasn't paying much attention. And everybody who was talking about it was a lunatic. So, you know, you think, okay, well, but the other point, and this is the point that you just made, it's about Trump, the whole Bungino versus versus Bondi thing. You know, I almost think that's designed to be kind of a distraction. Let's have an interesting. They have no autonomy in this. They both work for Trump. And it's only. They're not like Jim Mattis or someone who worked for Trump but didn't really get along with Trump, but had kind of an arm's length relationship. They are total Trump loyalists. Trump talks to them both. He know, knew them, knows them both very well. He talks to them all the time. Zero chance, zero chance that Trump has not been following this at every twist and turn, that he knows exactly what Bondi said in February and he knows what other people are saying now. So the question is, what did, what did, what does Donald Trump know and when did he know it? And that's what we need to weave it. I mean, I think that's what people need to focus on much more than getting a little bit distracted by the internal, you know, Bondi Bongino kind of alleged shadow war. But I don't. Does that make sense? Then explain the, the Patel thing. You've thought about that. That was smart, what you said about Patel. I mean, what is the, how does the Patel tweet fit into that? What we, what I just said. If you agree with what I just said.
- [14:49]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, the tell tweet is an, is an enormous addition. It's why we wanted to make this an emergency pot about it. Because that, to me is Trump saying, we got to shut this down. They trust you in a way. They don't trust her because you talked about this nonstop. You go tell them there's no there there. And I think that it's not just that this is about Trump. Okay, like this story. Here's the thing. I actually don't care. I didn't pay attention to the Epstein thing beyond. I read Julie's story in the Miami Herald. It was harrowing and awful and disgusting. And when Epstein killed himself, I assumed, yeah, like, this guy is about to face the most horrific charges he is going to be. There's going to be a lot of pressure put on him by people who traveled with him to these places, as we know people did. I think there is a lot of people probably who could have been implicated in those things who did not want to see Jeffrey Epstein talk about it. And so it was always weird that he killed himself in jail at a time when a minute's missing from the tape. But this is not for me that, like, kind of substance to, like go deep on that, to spend a lot of time reading and going through the files. That just isn't the kind of thing that's going to grab me. Here is what grabs me. The highest law enforcement official in the country came out and said they were sitting on her desk. Donald Trump. Pam Bondi, Cash Patel. Kristi Noem, JD Vance Just about every member of the candidate of the cabinet made it a cornerstone, a significant part of what they talked about. It goes to the core of Trump's notion that there is a deep state. It goes to. And I think it's because I listened to so many voters talk about the deep state. The Uni Party, the elites, how they protect things like this is. And I think it's why the left misses it, is that they don't participate in this the same way they haven't been following it. And so they do treat it like a MAGA sideshow to laugh at. But it is not Donald Trump's biggest donor. Number one adviser, who was in the American government's computer systems for the first five months of this, of, of this, you know, this term, said Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. Like, this is bizarre and it is not. These aren't bit players. This isn't just Laura Loomer. This is all the members of the Cabinet. And so I want, and I don't understand why more people aren't, are more people, why aren't people going to Elon Musk and saying, hey, you, you have a bunch of government contracts. You are in a, you are an enormous person in the United States government, in the technology that we have in this country. We have lots of contracts with you. Were you lying when you called the president a pedophile publicly? Or is he covering something up like it feels like people should be more curious about this. I don't understand why there is not more pressure on these people and why it's just coming from the folks in mega. This isn't just a wedge strategy. I'm not just getting engaged because suddenly I'm like, ooh, this is a fun way to wedge off the MAGA base. Although I do think it is that thing this is about. These people have done something and I want to know what it is. I want to know what's going on here.
- [18:17]
Bill Kristol
And they could explain much, much more without violating confidentiality of the files. To fear Frandamus, he didn't quite say that Trump was a pedophile. He said Trump is in the files. I think that's unquestionably true. That is to say, I mean, just think you and I. Well, thank God. I don't think we're directly involved in major FBI investigations, but it's inconceivable they didn't do a lot of research on, on, on Epstein and who he had hung out with. Trump is a very visible figure in that. I wonder his plane.
- [18:47]
Sarah Longwell
Like that's in the logs, like that is a no.
- [18:49]
Bill Kristol
And there's all the video and all that and Trump saying in 2002, whenever that was. He's a. Jeff's a good friend of mine. We know he likes young women. I mean, I can't believe, incidentally, this would be a Julie Brown question. I mean, did they not interview Trump, incidentally? I mean, let's say in a comparable case, X is arrested for, I don't know, let's just take away from the child sex stuff. It's so sickening. But I mean, let's just for a major, you know, theft, you know, crime. And this X has a very good friend who he's been hanging out with a lot. And this crime's been going on for 20 years. And there's a guy who's been spending a lot of time with him. Who's. Why That's Donald Trump. They would interview why. I mean, the idea that he wouldn't be in the files would be kind of insane. Which does get to the bigger question of how much of a reticence there was about really pushing this case from the very beginning. And again, I don't want to sound like one of the Maga people now, but whether in 2018, 19 and then afterwards, the Biden administration, they didn't seem to be real eager to go find all these people who had engaged in horrible behavior and perhaps see what they crime, what they could accuse them of. But leaving that. So that's one question. But. So what does Trump know? I mean, what does Trump know about those files? Did Bondi look at the files? Is Trump in the files? Here's a very simple mic. Is Donald Trump in the Epstein Files, we do not know the answer to that. Am I right about that? Trump has never really said he isn't right. I mean, he doesn't maybe, he doesn't maybe say, I don't know, I haven't looked.
- [20:10]
Sarah Longwell
Donald Trump was on Epstein's plane multiple times. He's in those logs of flight logs, right? So like, yes, he's in the Epstein files. And so your point about Elon is sort of well taken, that Elon could have just been messing around. I mean, like saying something that, that he knew and that other people knew that Trump was in there. That to me, though, what to me is, it's like, it's the lack of curiosity about what all of these people are doing. And either, and the thing is, is there does need to be accountability for one of two things. Either because to your point about the Biden administration. So Merrick Garland was in there. Like, I am 100% willing to believe that there's no there there on the Epstein files. Like that it is exactly what it looked like. Or not what it looks like, but like what they say it is, that he killed himself because the wrath of God was about to come down on him. He's about to spend the rest of his life in prison facing these horrific charges and he offed himself, maybe.
- [21:09]
Bill Kristol
Okay, that's one part of the no there there. The other part is the failure to seemingly go after the guys and gals involved in a massive sex ring. And it turns out no one else gets prosecuted except Maxwell.
- [21:20]
Sarah Longwell
Right. Which is somebody who's a little unusual.
- [21:22]
Bill Kristol
Maybe they have explanations for it. Maybe they couldn't prove stuff. Maybe these other people wouldn't have known the girls were underage. Maybe the statute of limitations, I have no idea. You know, but, but again, that's the kind of stuff you could easily explain. Right? I mean, and, and at least in summary, so to speak to me and you, you really can't get away. We couldn't in any comparable case get away with saying there's no there. There would be, as if, I don't know, after Iran Contra, they just said, well, there's no there there for Reagan. No, they have a report. Now, they may have tilted a little to give Reagan a little more deniability that he should have had. But they, they explained, well, he knew this, but he didn't know that. And, you know, that would be what you would have to say. Yeah. And also, what do you make of Trump's. The fact that Trump was so angry when he was asked about it. Don't you think that was maybe psychologically a little revealing there?
- [22:05]
Sarah Longwell
Yes, I think all of this is revealing. I think Cash's tweet is revealing. I think Donald Trump's intransigence and him trying to shut it down. And I think Trump thought that if he kind of quashed it, that would be the end of it. I think he thought he could put it to bed. I don't think he expected to keep it going. Like, the brevity of Cash's tweet is very notable. The, the fact that they are, every thing that they do is designed to shut this thing down. Well, they either lied about before or they're lying about it now. And we should pursue which one it is. They are caught between lying now or lying then. And they, I want to, I want them to cop to one of them. And I've only seen Jamie Raskin, maybe there's some other people on TV today, but I saw Jamie Raskin go out and say we needed to, we need to keep pushing on this. We need to keep looking into it. But I think that Democrats think that this is gutter politics and that it, that it lessens them to engage in it. And I just, that is really wrong to me. I understand the instinct. And Bill, you and I know each other, actually, I do shy away very much oftentimes from sort of the tawdry elements of that Trump pulls us into. But this, it's sort of like the Stormy Daniels thing, where if a crime was committed analytically and from a reporting out the facts and from a public awareness in terms of what our public servants, whether they were lying to us or not, like these things do all matter. And I think people should be pushing really hard on this.
- [23:36]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. And just. And again, it really was the Justice Department of the United States under Donald Trump. Well, it was the, I guess it was the one district, well, part of the Justice Department indicted Epstein after Julie Brown's reporting forced them in a way to go look at the stuff again and realize that the original plea deal did not take account of the hundreds, I think, of cases here. So there's a massive record of what the Justice Department assembled in order to get this indictment and what they would have had to present to trial. And again, I don't expect them to send us, but make 10,000 pages available to us. But we are entitled to know a little more. The guy killed himself. Let's just, let's even leave the murder suicide thing aside. Let's just say he killed himself. You still are. The public still has some Right. To understand. And then Maxwell was convicted in 2021. I think the public has some right. Trump has been hanging out with this guy. Many other prominent people. Yeah. I think it's not crazy to say, well, tell us what, what's. Reassure us that justice was done. The justice was done for these maybe more than a hundred, a couple hundred girls who were just treated horribly and used by Epstein and Maxwell and that maybe you couldn't get anyone else to be part of this, you couldn't indict and convict anyone else, but at least explain in a general way what was done. And now that it's become such a controversy anyway, I agree. Now, if Bondi had never said anything, if Patel, if it had not been an issue from 2021 to 2024, maybe we would all just let the sleeping dog lie. We would have some worries that maybe they didn't investigate it as much as they might have after Epstein killed himself. But that was five years ago. But they were the ones who kept it alive. And as Attorney General, this is, you mentioned this is very important, made people care about it. And then as Attorney General, United States Bobby said what she said, not as some citizen kind of speculating, you know.
- [25:26]
Sarah Longwell
Yes.
- [25:27]
Bill Kristol
So, yes, I really do think people are very entitled to just ask for the facts. And, and again, a, and B, this is the point you and I think are both a little obsessed with. It's Trump. It's not Bondi, it's not Patel, it's not Bongino.
- [25:42]
Sarah Longwell
Yes. And stop letting them act like it is. I think there's, there's this weird way in which people are playing along with the, the sturm and drawing of the internal machinations and drama. And it's like, no, why are you. It's like Trump tweeting about Rosie o' Donnell today. He's going to revoke her citizenship. Trump is like a laser pointer and everybody are just like cats and he's just trying to get people to chase other stuff. And to me, the Rosie o' Donnell was another little data point. And Trump does not want to keep talking about Epstein. He does not like this storyline. He would like to change it. And so don't let it go. Don't let it go. We, we deserve answers to why the highest law enforcement person in this country was lying to us, because she is, one way or the other. So just tell us which one it is. All right, Bill, thanks for jumping on and, and, and turning this over with me and, and going over this breaking news with cash priority tell guys, don't Miss Bill's conversation tomorrow with the Miami Herald reporter who broke all of this. Her name is Julie. Sorry, I forgot her last name.
- [26:42]
Bill Kristol
Brown. Julie Brown.
- [26:43]
Sarah Longwell
Julie Brown. Julie Brown. It's. It. What time is it again? Say again?
- [26:46]
Bill Kristol
10 o' clock, live on substack. But then it'll be on, obviously on our website, on YouTube, a few hours later. So you can anytime tomorrow afternoon or evening. And I. I'm really just going to ask her. She knows so much about it. What. What does she think is the case? What is. She would have much better sense than you and I would of what might be in these files, but I'm not going to. She's not going to want to speculate about individuals, I don't think. But the more you look at it, the worse it seems. I mean, and the more we deserve some clarity and the more we deserve to understand Trump's role or. Or lack of role, if you want, in the whole thing. But he certainly does not want people talking about it. Right. He does not want anything coming out. He wants one sentence from Cash Patel to cut to on Saturday afternoon to be sufficient. But isn't the Saturday afternoon thing, incidentally, revealing?
- [27:31]
Sarah Longwell
So telling.
- [27:32]
Bill Kristol
Yes. Don't you think? Little panic there, Maybe. Yeah.
- [27:35]
Sarah Longwell
Yes. Also, rolling out the. The Bondi stuff. What? At the. It was kind of like at the end of a long weekend, right?
- [27:41]
Bill Kristol
You know, like we're July 4th. Yeah.
- [27:43]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. No, seems like something they don't want to talk about, so we should keep talking about it. All right, Bill, we'll see you soon. And thanks to all of you for listening to another Bulwark take Go and subscribe like our stuff. Subscribe to us on you on bulk work plus to get all the deep dives. Me and JVL went super deep on this on the secret pod yesterday. We'll catch you guys next time.