Loading summary
Transcript225 lines
- [00:01]
Sam Stein
Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas style games on my phone at the same time. Drink in one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at spinquest. Over a thousand games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get 30 coin packs for 10@Spinquest.com Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited.
- [00:27]
Will
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
- [00:31]
Lady Luck Ritzki
Come to DSW for the shoes. Stay for the fun. Because let's be honest, if shoe shopping isn't fun, are you even doing it right? So go ahead, try something new. Try something different. Good different. Try something that feels like you, you know, the real you. And then definitely brag about it later. Because at dsw, you've got unlimited freedom to play. Find the shoes that get you at prices that get your budget at DSW stores or@dsw.com Let us surprise you.
- [01:01]
Sam Stein
Hey everyone, it's us again, me and Will. I'm Sam Stein. He's Will. Summer Maga Mondays back in effect. Will, how you doing, man? How was the weekend?
- [01:10]
Will
I'm thrilled to be back. You know, if observant viewers may notice, I appear to have gotten tatted up. But in fact, what happened was, let's see, can you maybe like here?
- [01:20]
Sam Stein
Oh, wow. Congrats.
- [01:22]
Will
And so, in fact, I was at a child's K pop Demon Hunter party and I went a little crazy with the temporary tattoos while they were, while they were a hit at the time. I've been paying for them scrubbing on Sunday night and it didn't work. So that's the explanation.
- [01:36]
Sam Stein
So they're not that temporary?
- [01:38]
Will
No, they might be permanent. I'll take it.
- [01:43]
Sam Stein
I want a weekend. That sounds like a thrilling dad weekend. I. I picked my kid up from camp. He was gone for three weeks. I drove up and grabbed him. It was the greatest sensation as a parent I felt in a long time being reunited with my child. So that was wonderful. Yeah, he did not have any tattoos, thank God. All right, let's get into it. So we're going to talk about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez off the jump over the weekend, she put out a video announcing that she was freezing her eggs. Predictably. Well, I'll just note she warned everyone not to get weird about it while she was doing the video. And predictably, everyone got super weird about it. So she was prescient in that respect. I guess. Up front, I want to acknowledge that Will and I are both men and when we talk about this stuff, it's from a place of naivete and probably lack of full information. My credentials are very limited, but I do bring to the table the fact that my mom up until recently was an obstetrician, gynecologist. And so I have been bred, raised in this information ecosystem. I, I know some of it, but I'm going to talk like in total idiot. And if I do, I apologize in advance for the commenters out there. You can scold me in the comments. Will, do you have any credentials whatsoever on this?
- [02:58]
Will
None. And yeah, even less than you have. I think so. So I'm glad to have you here as our expert.
- [03:05]
Sam Stein
Okay. Let's just do our best. But I have, I have some serious thoughts about this. So AOC goes on. She says she's going to freeze her eggs. She's 36. She has had a boyfriend for a while. She is talking about it in the context of the politicization and attacks from the administration on women who want to have children, specifically on ivf. Obviously, Trump has a weird, sordid history around ivf. He promised to be. Didn't he say he's like the grandfather of IVF or something like that? I don't know. And he promised to protect ivf. They have not done so while in the White House. Obviously, Republicans are the party who of anti abortion, the anti abortion faction in the party who have been skeptical of ivf. And then, you know, there's that, that's the context.
- [03:56]
Will
Yeah, they just blocked the Republicans in Congress, just blocked the military from covering ivf. So, yeah, all these different things.
- [04:03]
Sam Stein
Right. So that's the context here. But really what this is about, what, what the reaction's been about is what proper motherhood is and what proper, proper family and child upbringing is and whether or not women should be, you know, con. Encouraged to have children later in life as opposed to earlier in life. And so when you look at the reactions online and we can put up, well, why don't we put up her video first so people can have the context and then we'll put up the reactions online.
- [04:35]
Lady Luck Ritzki
It is of a sensitive matter and a personal matter. And usually I keep my private life quite private, but I have made the decision to start freezing my eggs.
- [04:49]
Sam Stein
Okay. Little clip of the video. She then not in the video, she then injects herself. She starts treatment again. She's 36 and she's obviously got a very full career. And she has also hinted elsewhere that she might run for Senate, maybe even president. So there's a lot going on in her life. And then there's a lot going on potentially in the future. So that's context. Here's some of the right wing reaction to this. Let's put it up. Okay. Okay, now, Katie Miller up in the upper left. Yeah, let's put. Let's pause on Katie Miller on the left, because Katie Miller actually is the more interesting one here. Why don't you take a few of these?
- [05:27]
Will
Well, all right. So we've got. Look, naturally, my eye is drawn to Benny Johnson. He's got a thumbnail that. That is a, I believe, a Photoshop here. I don't think this is actually, like, from.
- [05:37]
Sam Stein
That is a Photoshop. Yes.
- [05:39]
Will
Of, you know, AOC pulling up her shirt and injecting her stomach. And then he's looking like. And it says, AOC shocks Internet, lifts up her shirt to reveal her medical treatment. To run for president. We've got Molly Hemingway. Ladies, get married to a good man as young as you're able and have your babies and do it naturally. It's a very sad public performance. Why don't you take a couple of these bad boys here?
- [06:03]
Sam Stein
Okay. Matt Walsh. She'll turn 37 in a couple months. If she got pregnant now, it would technically be a geriatric pregnancy. Instead, she's freezing her eggs. The desire to start having children late in life is completely baffling to me. I'll have kids in their 20s. I'll have kids in their 20s by the time I turn 50. AOC apparently wants to have a toddler at that age. Totally backwards and ridiculous. Why would she have a toddler at that age if she's in her 50s that Matt doesn't?
- [06:32]
Will
I think if the assumption is that she would get pregnant, she's gonna wait.
- [06:34]
Sam Stein
What, she's just gonna wait 10 more years? Is that the assumption from Matt?
- [06:38]
Will
Okay, that's right.
- [06:39]
Sam Stein
All right, who's the one on the right? I don't remember.
- [06:42]
Will
You don't know about conservative millennial Ali Beth Stuckey? No, she's actually a big deal. She's deep in the kind of like, evangelical mom, conservative commentator sphere. So she says. Well, she's been with the same guy for years. There's no reason she couldn't have had kids yet. She'll require IVF or surrogacy to have a baby. It's very. RA is able to get pregnant after 40. Freezing your eggs is bad for your health. She's glamorized. And most importantly, I think she's glamorizing the lie that women can have at all. You can't Biology is real and how you order your life makes or breaks your future.
- [07:16]
Sam Stein
Okay, let's put it down for a second. I'm going to bring it back up because I do want to read Katie Miller in a little bit. But my reaction to this is get a fucking life. Who gives a shit? Like, why do you care? This is not your life. Let her make her decisions. Why do you care? Also, isn't this supposed to be the faction of America that's encouraging children, people having children and more families? Isn't this a faction of America that says, hey, we should glorify bringing new life into this world? Why all of a sudden are you so up in arms about AOC wanting to do this? I mean, get a life, honestly?
- [07:55]
Will
Yeah, I mean, I think, look, these folks, they hate to see a woman in control of her reproductive schedule, you know, her plans. They. It's interesting. There is, as you said, this is a group that is ostensibly natalist, that wants, you know, more children to be born and yet has a lot of strictures about, you know, they want the mom to not have a job. They want, you know, these women to be having children in their early or mid-20s. You know, there is, though, and as you. As we're going to get into with Katie Miller, I think there is a savvier, I think, more realistic faction emerging on the right that says, you know, like, for example, you could look at like, the maha idea of parenting, which is, you know, no plastics, you know, all this stuff, and saying, well, are people really going to have that many kids if the expectation is that we have these, like, really regimented? Like, I'll tell you, this woman at tpusa says she won't let her kids eat fruit until they're older than two. I mean, is that really. Yeah, that's.
- [08:50]
Sam Stein
What's the. What's the rationale behind that?
- [08:52]
Will
I think because there's like, sugar, naturally occurring sugars in fruit. And so she. Now she does look. Does she have kids? No, she doesn't have kids yet. You know, she. She's the perfect parent. And so there's all these things that I think are imposed by the conservative view of motherhood that make, you know, parenting actually pretty unrealistic.
- [09:11]
Sam Stein
I don't know. It's kind of bothersome to me that she's getting scolded for this. Right? Like. So let's just back up for a second. She obviously got elected to Congress when she was very young. She's been working in the House, building a career. It doesn't take a Genius to understand. It would have been very complicated, maybe even impossible for her to do this, have this career if she was raising a kid. And maybe people think that that's a trade off that you, you should make and that you should ultimately choose to have a child. But let's say she had a child before when she was in her bartender years and she was raising the kid. Is it possible that she would have not run for office? Yeah, it's definitely possible. And then she would have been, you know, had a different career path and she chose the one that she wanted, so why do we care? And now she wants to have a child, but she maybe doesn't want to have it right this minute. Also, we don't really know the complications. All we know is that she's freezing her eggs. We don't know what other complications there are that come along or associated with it. There might be medical ones, there might be something to do with her boyfriend, we don't know. But the fact that we're not encouraging and applauding this as opposed to admonishing her for waiting is really sort of archaic to me. It does get to a sort of a view that, you know, what was the one who said, you can't have it all, you have to make choices? Yeah, so is that, I mean, also,
- [10:36]
Will
by the way, I mean, many of these women running conservative media empires like, like Ali Beth Ducky here.
- [10:42]
Sam Stein
What?
- [10:43]
Will
Well, well, well, what I'm saying is that these are not people who do not have jobs themselves. You know, I mean, they're very much, you know, another point here, I think we'd be amiss and specifically about aoc, the rights psychosexual fixation on her, right? Because she is a young, vibrant, I guess, you know, good looking young woman that, you know, they, the edits, the, you know, that make her look, you know, bustier or, you know, they'll see a picture of her and they'll be say, you know, can I say something, you know, without offending anyone? Or, you know, there is this aspect of her in particular, and I think we saw that with Benny Johnson where
- [11:17]
Sam Stein
his headline was, there's multiple layers of the Benny tweet where he goes, well,
- [11:23]
Will
yes, indeed, get Dr. Freud. So the, the idea of making the headline AOC lifts up her shirt and
- [11:34]
Sam Stein
Benny's got this phase where he's like disgusted by it. Okay, Benny, that's a fair point.
- [11:38]
Will
That's a fair point. That lawsuit, by the way, against Milo Yiannopoulos for saying Betty is still, still is not dropped. I Guess they're working really hard on it.
- [11:47]
Sam Stein
Okay. My mom's been texting me. I admit I cheated. I called her on the way in. I was like, hey, what do you think of this? She's texting me a little bit about this. It's really expensive, this stuff. There are cases where it's covered by federal health insurance, but that's usually fertility caused by medical reasons, not delaying childbearing. So again, we don't know what's going on here, but it's a hugely expensive cost. And so I think AOC is trying to shine the light on that as well, which is this is, this is not something that you can afford necessarily when you're on a bartender salary. And she's not a rich member of Congress. She's, you know, I mean, I think I don't have the financial disclosures in front of me, but I think she routinely ranks lower in the ranks. So, you know, this is something that you might have to actually wait to do if you're not going to have kids because you just don't have the money to do it. I will also note that, you know, all this focus on, on whether women are waiting too long. And you know, you, you have to have kids early in life. Of course, obviously, as my mom noted to me, you know, it's beneficial to start earlier in life, if only to have more retrievable embryos. You don't want to wait till your mid to late 30s. You can still do it, obviously, and we have all these medical advances, but, you know, it's like early 30s when you want to start the egg freezing process, if you want to do it with more success rates. And even, even if she does retrieve a number of good eggs, like, there's no guarantee it's going to work. So we just have to keep that in mind. I will just say this. There are, there's no attention to men who have kids, elected officials who have kids when they are old. So I didn't have time to do all the research on this. But our helpful AI overview at Google does say that there have been at least three were male lawmakers who've had children while in office or have children over the age of 50. Richard Blumenthal had his fourth child at the age of 52. Mitt Romney's son Josh was born when Mitt was 50. And Representative Paul Gosar had his children later life. His youngest was born after he turned 50. This is according to AI, which is infallible. Definitely never any problems with AI. So no attention to that just going to throw that out there. All right, which brings me to Katie Miller. Let's pull up Katie Miller. All right, so there's Katie Miller. My eyes are failing me because I'm getting old, too. We have historically low birth rates worldwide. If one woman wants to preserve her right to have children, which means more having. Which means more than having none, we should celebrate that. If she inspires other women to have babies, we should celebrate that more women should get married and have babies younger. But too many women buy into the feminist lie and spend their child rearing years climbing the career ladder. When society has more babies and more young women and men are expected to have more babies, there will be more babies. And so. And so. And so, thoughts on that. That was a little bit surprise for me.
- [14:49]
Will
Well, thank you for the woke take, Katie Miller. I will say there's a bit of a barb there where she's. She bought into the feminist lie. She spent her childbearing years climbing career ladder. Later she says, you know, I can't wait to see how motherhood changes aoc. You know, on the other hand, you know, I mean, there is this. I feel like Katie Miller, she's on this journey of being more approachable and kind of like a. More like, kind of like a mom parenting influencer, like with her podcast and everything
- [15:20]
Sam Stein
is the play, huh?
- [15:21]
Will
Well, and I mean, it may be realistic, but it is kind of funny to me. I mean, like, she's very, like, open about, like, having all her family and
- [15:27]
Sam Stein
she just had a lot.
- [15:28]
Will
Yeah. And. And yet her husband is Stephen Miller, which is very weird and off putting. Like, they have the family pictures and it's like, oh, yeah, there's the, there's the deportations guy. There he is looming. You know, I, I do think the certainly more realistic approach, but ultimately I don't think it's the one that will win the day. I think the idea, the right. They love talking about, like, women having, like, empty egg cartons or hitting the wall, I should say the wall is the belief that when a woman turns 30, she's totally unmarriageable and, you know, really an evil troll. They call it the wall. And so like. And ultimately. Right. The dream there for them is the idea that women will panic and get married at 23 to the first guy or the first griper they meet, rather than, you know, building the career, getting a little more independence, having more options, you know, romantically. And, and so I think that is ultimately what a lot of this stuff about, like, you know, you're ruined, you know, your life's over is about.
- [16:31]
Sam Stein
I don't want to get too far afield, but there was a, there was a story over the weekend. It's not been denied that Katie Miller back in the day had a little thing with Eric Swalwell. Does that affect her credibility at all in the right?
- [16:45]
Will
You know, I haven't seen a lot of discussion on the right about the Katie Miller Swalwell thing. I think, I wonder, maybe she's bringing to bear here. She's saying, look, we've all had, you know, we've all had textured past. Let's say we've all made mistakes or we've done things, you know, we spend it with dalliances, whatever. I will say the Katie Villa Swalwell thing, that's, that's one I didn't see coming. And it has, it's changed my view of a lot.
- [17:10]
Sam Stein
All right, folks, if you're in the comments, help us do a little research for other men, maybe over the age of 45 in Congress who've had children that no one seems to have cared about or noticed. I will note Trump on the trail. We referenced this in 2024, said, quote, under the Trump administration, your government will pay for or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment, fertilization for women. I don't know if that's the quote about him being the godfather of fertilization, but if we can find that one too, that would be helpful. Finally, my last thoughts on this are that and I'm stealing this from someone I saw online, but it did make a lot of sense to me, which is all this talk about, oh man, you know, having a kid is a full time job and you got to have it early because if you're later in life, you can't really be an attentive parent. You're going to miss prime years. It's just going to actually, you know, SAP your career. But you should have that trade off. You should willing to have it. That has the capacity to discourage women potentially from having kids. Yeah. How hard your life is going to be in your, in your 20s if you have a kid. And like, look, this is what I come back to. It's yes, she put up the video on her own and so she invited this conversation. So it's fine to have the conversation. And, you know, I'm glad she did it because I think it's a worthwhile conversation. I think this is what she kind of wanted. At the same time, I can't get over the fact that it's. It's her fucking life.
- [18:39]
Will
Like, let her.
- [18:40]
Sam Stein
Let her live it. Like all these people who are sermonizing about this stuff and being morally self righteous about it. Like, everyone has their own path. Good for her that she wants to do this. You can have an opinion about whether she should have started earlier, but it's none of your. It's not your freaking choice. You know, like, let her do her thing.
- [18:59]
Will
I'm with you.
- [19:00]
Sam Stein
Oh, thank you. Well, I appreciate that, but you also got tatted up over the weekend.
- [19:03]
Will
Well, look, you're letting it bad. It's not all bad. You can get tatted up with your kids.
- [19:08]
Sam Stein
Yeah, having a kid is great, but it is a lot of work. Let's just be real. It is a lot of work. Someone says that John Hinkenlooper had a kid when he was pretty old. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm just reading the comments, so don't sue me, John Hinkenlooper, if we got you wrong. Donald Trump. Wow. Was Donald Trump when Baron was born?
- [19:27]
Will
Oh, my gosh. Let's get it.
- [19:29]
Sam Stein
Let's get 20. Now hold on. How old was Donald Trump when Baron was born? All right, let's see. Okay. If you had to guess, what would you say?
- [19:39]
Will
60?
- [19:40]
Sam Stein
59. According to our AI overlords. No one said boo about that. No one said boo. He's too old. He's gonna be. He's gonna be in his 70s. When Baron's bar mitzvahed. You know, can't have that. Baron's not getting bar mitzvah. All right, apparently we have Trump calling himself the father fertility. Let's play. It became the father of fertility. No, it just made a lot of sense to me. She explained it well. And I hope you tell that story. What happened to you that you were virtually attacked with a bad. With a bad ruling from a court. They gave a very bad ruling, as you remember, in Alabama.
- [20:18]
Will
Yeah. But you stepped in and saved the
- [20:19]
Lady Luck Ritzki
day and made sure that we had
- [20:21]
Sam Stein
nationwide access to IVF and have done
- [20:23]
Will
so much since then. And we are so.
- [20:25]
Lady Luck Ritzki
We had a.
- [20:25]
Sam Stein
We had something passed within two days after.
- [20:27]
Lady Luck Ritzki
That's great.
- [20:28]
Sam Stein
That's really pretty amazing. Okay. Look at that. They're so happy about encouraging fertility, but only, only, Only before the age of 32. Only before the age of 32. After that. Can't do it, right? That's too much. All right, you ready to move on? Are you? Are you? Is this too uncomfortable?
- [20:45]
Will
Well, you know, I do think there are areas where we have. We have a little more expertise to share.
- [20:49]
Sam Stein
Speak for yourself, man. I was raised in this. Malou. All right, we're going to move on. Mom. Thanks for the help with the research. Appreciate it. All right. Max Miller did not drop out. No.
- [21:00]
Will
The bad boy.
- [21:01]
Sam Stein
Okay, I admit, I. I rarely take an L, but I was pretty convinced he was dropping out. I just assumed was gonna happen.
- [21:07]
Will
I agree. You know? Yeah. So, you know, now he's missed the deadline to drop out in time for Republicans to replace him. He can still drop out, but. But he can't be replaced at this point. I feel like, typically, when the whole brunt of the party is brought to bear on someone where they're just like, you gotta get out now, as we saw with Graham, you know, and I think it's even more so for Republicans. They typically do drop out, but he didn't. He's hanging in there. You know, he's. I think he maybe gave a loan to his campaign, and that might be. There was some financial movement.
- [21:38]
Sam Stein
It was that. Yeah.
- [21:39]
Will
That made people like, oh, gosh, I guess he's really not dropping out. So he's in there. Republicans are stuck with him. You know, we didn't talk last month, MAGA Monday, because it happened after. But, like, a lot of the Blue Bunny stuff came out where, you know, he was. He put up these texts where he was like, I was not withholding my daughter's blue Bunny. You can look at these texts where I say, only certain people approved people will be allowed to bring the Blue Bunny back to my daughter. You sent the wrong guy. And so I am withholding it. And it's like, that was your. That was the pro Max Miller case. He's just a crazy guy. He seems to be a very bad dad, and now he's still in the race.
- [22:13]
Sam Stein
Yeah. The reason I thought he would drop out is because I think it's a little bit inaccurate to say the whole bearer of the brunt of the party was pushing him. Drop out. There was definitely. But there was definitely a lot. Like, a couple senators came out and were like, no, no, you gotta go. Marino obviously said he was unfit. You had polling data that showed he had, like, completely cratered in his district. But you also had Trump being like, I feel for the guy. And then you had Mike Johnson being like, let's not talk about this. Which I guess gave him enough wiggle room to stay in the race. And this just is, like, you know, kind of classic in a way, which is this is the Trumpian playbook. And he even said it. He was like, I can't leave. Because first of all, he said, I can't leave because I don't want to admit guilt. Or that would be sort of tantamount to an admission of guilt. And then he also was like, donald Trump gave me the template for staying in office after the Access Hollywood tapes, and I'm going to follow that template. That's more or less what he said. And I feel like that is the now prevailing ethos. If this guy can do it, why can't I?
- [23:20]
Will
Yeah, no, I mean, I. I think we've seen that really ever since the Access Hollywood tape is that, like, you know, there's a good chance you can weather it. And let's say he even loses his election. Well, he can continue to say, you know, well, I'm innocent, whatever, you know, versus dropping out is, as he said. I mean, it is sort of a tacit admission of guilt, even though he's kind of dead to rights here. I mean, there's a lot of evidence against him.
- [23:42]
Sam Stein
Yeah, there is a lot of evidence against him. He has not done well by himself with his public appearances, where he's basically been like, yeah, you know, we haven't talked about this. His whole thing about the. The needles were testosterone replacement therapy needles. Like, why was he doing that at 35? I. I know it's big on the right, but, like, that was a couple years ago.
- [24:06]
Will
But he's just joined the army. You know, Hegseth will give him the trt, you know. Yeah. These guys. One of the most animating issues for conservative American men is that they essentially can't get recreational testosterone. This is a huge problem for them. And this is why Hegseth did it. And now this is why, you know, Max Miller. I mean, these guys love it. And, you know, for him in particular, this is a guy who already has some anger issues, it would seem. And so if I was a doctor, I would say, no way. But, hey, fellas, love it. You know, I'm in the gym. I'm in the gym and I see these guys and are you injecting yourself? You know, I haven't gotten to that point. I'm often accused of being. The gym says, hey, this is not a steroids gym. And I say, I'm not on steroids. It's all natural. They say, there's no way. But, you know, I do see some of these guys and I wonder, you know, and I do think, you know, as our society, we're in A very image.
- [24:52]
Sam Stein
Sorry, are there steroids gyms?
- [24:55]
Will
Yeah, I'll tell you what. I went to one. We were out. We were out at Indie Fest in Las Vegas and I had. I wanted to go to a kind of a famous gym. I won't say its name, but I went out there and I was like, holy moly. This makes the. The Gold Gym, Capitol Hill look like, you know, a bunch of weaklings.
- [25:15]
Sam Stein
I gotta check these things out. So you don't do testosterone replacement therapy yet?
- [25:19]
Will
No, no, I'm on the old stuff from the 90s. That's like really dangerous. No.
- [25:24]
Sam Stein
What is that? Yeah, yeah. Good luck. So they're gonna lose the sea, huh? There's no. I mean, maybe not. I don't know, but it does seem pretty bad for Republicans. Aren't the people on the right aren't like the MAGA folks being like, hey, you're going to lose?
- [25:39]
Will
You know, I do think there was this push, obviously there was a sense that like. And of course we know this isn't how it really works, but like, if enough people who work for National Review tweet, like, drop out, you know, that's
- [25:49]
Sam Stein
not how it works, buddy.
- [25:50]
Will
No, I mean, Max Miller, he's, I think, a guy who would be willing to do all those disastrous interviews. He's not reading the room, he's not leaving.
- [25:59]
Sam Stein
Who is left defending Max Miller? Is there anyone?
- [26:02]
Will
I mean, only Donald Trump and the speaker of the House. It's like there's few remaining allies.
- [26:13]
Sam Stein
Like, the most low level Internet trolls are like, actually, this is too much. But my chance is like, we gotta let this process play out. Gotta wait for the Ethics Committee to investigate this thing, which is what Max Miller wanted, so he could just run out the clock. I mean, that's the play here, right? Max Miller is just like, hey, this thing's being investigated. I gotta just stay put.
- [26:32]
Will
Yeah, yeah, well, and that was the genius of it. I mean, when people were saying, oh, he's calling for a House ethics probe, what a foolish decision. But we've seen this before. Is that. I mean, these things take a year or whatever. I mean, we saw old Chuck Edwards who just finally dropped out for. For creeping on interns. And. And so, you know, in this case, clearly this, this open, once you get a case open, it was kind of like when they were like, well, we'll have the FBI investigate Brett, Brett Kavanaugh. Once you have these. The case open, you could say, I just defer it. And everyone, when they're asked about it, other politicians, they can Say, I'm just waiting on the results.
- [27:03]
Sam Stein
Gotta wait on the results.
- [27:04]
Will
And it just goes off into the Ethereum. Yes.
- [27:07]
Sam Stein
It's such a classic playbook. It's amazing. What's. What will be the version of that for our newsroom? I can't think about the apparel of our hair. All right, so Max Miller, stick and put. Everyone can have fun with that. It's creepy, it's weird. I don't see how he can continue to do media because every time he does it, he looks worse than before. But that's that next topic. Actually, before we get to the next topic, I've been doing a little bit of side research here. Just going to the first topic for a little bit, some data points, and then we'll get to the next topic. Usha Vance recently had a child, 40 years old. Okay. Melania Trump when she had Baron, 35. So younger than AOC, but not by much. Carol Levitt's husband, 60. He just had a kid. So it seems to be selective here in terms of when you're upset that people are too old to have children. Did any of those influencers get upset with Usha?
- [28:10]
Will
No, not that I saw. And, you know, I. Yeah, Caroline Levitt and her husband, obviously a famous May December romance. But. But I'm glad that, you know, they're, you know, hey, more kids.
- [28:19]
Sam Stein
Why not let them do what they want to do? Let them have kids at their own timeline. It's fine. It's gonna be okay. Sure, there are benefits to having kids earlier and spending definitely spending more time with your children. That's great. You can have that position. I do, too. But everyone has their own journey. Gotta respect it. All right, this one, I. It just kind of popped up. Only because I follow Mike Lee on Twitter and I legitimately have no clue what is going on. But I saw Mike Lee get super mad on Twitter about, well, not really Superman, just Mike Lee being basically my assumption. Now when I see him based, like, Mike Lee tweet and is that he's been kind of like he's been completely convinced by something radically stupid that he saw on the Internet briefly, and he thinks it's real. In this case, he treats Dumb move coke. We put up a tweet. Let's put a tree if you have it. Dumb move Coke. Jesus will win over Coca Cola every single time. And sure, yeah, I would take Jesus over Coca Cola. It's fair enough. But what the hell is he talking about, Will?
- [29:25]
Will
Yeah, so this is an interesting one. Basically, Coca Cola has this way that you can generate a custom can. So instead on the, you know, the side when instead of saying Coca Cola or along with that, it. There's. You can have a message. You can say like, happy birthday, Sam or whatever. But in this case, cool people. And this is kind of a throwback to like, I feel like a few years ago we saw these more where people would mess around with these like custom Nike shoe things and they'd say, well, I can't say Jesus, but I can say something. I can say Hitler rules or whatever. And then they would get like really frothed up about it. So in this case, there's this TikTok, maybe we have that TikTok. But basically it was this guy who. He seems to have just messed around a lot with his generator. And it said, well, you can't say Jesus is good. And there's a lot of things about Jesus you can't say, I think, because, you know, there. Coca Cola is like, look, we don't want to meddle in the whole Jesus thing. You know, that's kind of another sphere. But they didn't put a word ban on like Satan. So you can put Satan is good, but you can't say Jesus is good. Or you can say there was another one. You could say Allah is good. That's what got them really fired up. And this is the origins of this controversy. Now, how on earth would this be an issue? What is the larger implication here? Is it that Coca Cola doesn't like Jesus? I mean, that's kind of what Mike Lee's saying here.
- [30:48]
Sam Stein
It's the idea that someone inside Coca Cola made the proactive decision to have word bands on these customized labels and they put Jesus in the word bin but not Allah. That's the controversy.
- [31:00]
Will
Yeah, I mean, it got. It got people whipped up in a frenzy. Now, I will say, I will say to the conservative influencers credit, it does appear that you could say Jesus is bad, which I, you know, because I thought there was just like a blanket ban on Jesus. Okay, that's fine. That makes sense. But then it is like, well, why Jesus is bad? I don't know. But like, ultimately it's sort of. It kind of reminds me of these things where it's like Candace Owens pours over Erica Kirk's records and she's like, well, here it says she was born this day, and here it says she was born three days later. And you go, oh, okay, I guess that is a little weird. But like, what's the point? What's the import of that? And in this Case it's like Coca Cola is not the famously anti Jesus company. They're not a famously pro Jesus company. And they're kind of just, they make sodas. So it's, it's, it's a weird one,
- [31:45]
Sam Stein
but I guess they're pro Allah. Oh, we have the TikTok that you're referring to. Let's put it up.
- [31:50]
Will
The first entry we're going to try is the devil is king. No issues with the devil is king. Now let's try Jesus is king. Suddenly we get an error. You can see here they say, we worked hard to get this right. Wow, they're fired up. You know, the other thing I would note, I would note here is that Jesus's king is like. And they're going to get mad at me about this. But like, but like, this is sort of a. It strikes number one. It's useful because it's a very innocuous term. You're like, oh, yeah, you're Christian. You think Jesus king. That makes sense. But they're very into like people like Jack Posobec. These other right wing figures are using it as a cudgel against Jewish conservative commentators because they'll say, well, won't you say that Jesus is king? And they're like, no, I'm Jewish. Like, you know, you can do your own thing. It's not my thing. And so they use it particularly. It's kind of like the broader groiper fight. The broader fight over Charlie Kirk. This Jesus is king thing is they're
- [32:50]
Sam Stein
asking just Jews to say Jesus is king. And as like what a test of some sort.
- [32:54]
Will
Yeah, I mean, it sort of is like, they use it to sort of like highlight that someone is Jewish. And then you have these people.
- [33:01]
Sam Stein
Yeah.
- [33:02]
Will
And what's the point? Who are, who are Christians who are sort of affiliated with Ben Shapiro. And they'll say, well, you guys are saying this as. Because you're being anti Semitic. You're trying to make a point about that someone's Jewish. And they'll say, whoa, whoa, I'm just saying Jesus is king. You guys must be anti Christian. So it's sort of like the okay sign where people would like it had this meaning that they knew. And then when people would say, oh, you're doing that because that's an all right thing. They'd say, whoa, it's just the okay sign.
- [33:29]
Sam Stein
I mean, my brain is pretty broken by this, honestly. And you've explained things very well. You're great at explaining things. But this doesn't make any sense. Like, why would they just go around and be like, hey, Jew, say Jesus is king. Oh, you. You don't believe it? You must be Jewish. Yeah, I'm Jewish.
- [33:46]
Will
Yeah.
- [33:46]
Sam Stein
I mean, that's.
- [33:47]
Will
There's this kind of, like, it kind of gets you bogged down in this thing where you're saying you're like, oh, that's interesting. You wouldn't say Jesus is king because you're Jewish. Everyone noticed this guy is Jewish.
- [33:56]
Sam Stein
Like, yeah, I am Jewish. I don't get this whole thing. Why is Mike Lee involved in this? Why is his Internet adult brain picking up on this stuff?
- [34:05]
Will
Remember a few months ago when the Defense Department said Mormons weren't a religion, essentially, or they were glee flipped out? So he's still. He's still deep in the culture war on Twitter.
- [34:16]
Sam Stein
What's your honest take on him? Like, you've. You've seen, like, people who've been. Whose brains have been broken by the Internet. You know that. You know the type. If anyone could diagnose this, it's you. Like, is. Is he broken?
- [34:31]
Will
I. Yeah, it's my professional opinion that his brain is broken.
- [34:34]
Sam Stein
No, come on now. Honestly, I'm dead serious. What do you think's going on?
- [34:38]
Will
You know, it's funny, like the Mike Lee thing, because I remember when he was kind of like a tea party guy and. And he was sort of seen as like this constitutional scholar finally, like a real, like, we're going to get a real mind in Congress. And then he's like, I mean, to put it crass. Like, he seems, like dummy than Tommy Tuberville. Like, he's just, like, falling for these, like, Internet hoaxes, for these, like, pranks, these, like, insane culture war froth things. So I. I do think as soon as he made his Twitter handle based Mike Lee, I think someone stepped in.
- [35:08]
Sam Stein
Yeah. So you just need people around you to say, hey, like, you've gone too far. And I don't think he has that. Quick programming update, actually, before we go to break, on last week's MAGA Monday, we. We said I believe or no. Was that with the. With Tim. I forget which one it was, but we did say that we were going to get Marjorie Taylor Greene on Cameo. Was that you? Was that a MAGA Monday?
- [35:31]
Will
That was a trio. That was a trio.
- [35:32]
Sam Stein
Okay. So for folks who are watching, we. We did hit the metric of 100 subscribers. And so we are in the f. We are in the process of efforting Marjorie Taylor Greene Cameo. It hasn't been procured yet, but we're Gonna do it. Okay. It's just a matter of like, getting it done. But I, I also like the idea of us setting metrics and giving people an incentive to subscribe. But what I really want you to do is to pay to subscribe because we, we need, you know, money to, like, sustain the operations. We're not broke or anything. We just need money to, like, you know, keep the, keep the operations going. And so if you can do us a favor and subscribe, but not just for free. If you're so inclined and you like what you're hearing, pay for it. I will come up with something that I haven't thought of yet, but I will come up with something truly embarrassing to do on the next Mega Monday. I want 100 paid subscribers. I have a hat that says, did you know this about me? I like Riesling wine. No, I love a good Riesling wine. Everyone thinks it's odd, but I think Riesling wine is delicious. It's very sweet. And I have a hat. People make fun of me. My friends make fun of me. They got me a hat that said Riesling. I will wear my Riesling hat. Is that a good enough incentive for MAGA Monday if I can get 100 paid subscribers on this? All right. With that, we do have to pay the bills. So we're going to go to our sponsor. Let me just scroll forward. Hold on one second, one second, one second, one second, one second. Here we go. Soul. Because we're all high, this message is sponsored is sponsored by Soul. Lately I've been thinking a little bit more about how I actually want to feel throughout the day when I'm socializing, winding down, or just trying to relax. I don't necessarily want to default to a drink. That's why I love Soul's Mood gummies. Soul is a wellness brand that makes delicious hemp derived CBD and THC products designed to make feeling good simple. Soul's new mood gummies have precise dosing, clean ingredients and formulations designed for predictable effects so you can choose how you want to feel while staying in control. There are three different moods depending on what you're looking for. Uplift for a bright, energetic feel. Mellow for a winding down and balance for that easy anytime vibe. I will say this. This is the truth. Dead serious. Sometimes we embellish, but this is true. I had a nice good balance gummy right before I went and I saw the Odyssey and it was great. The Odyssey is pretty good, but only if you're taking balance gummies from Seoul, whatever the moment, there's a soul mood gummy to match. Make today a good day and get yourself some soul gummies. Right now, Soul is offering our audience 30 off your entire order. Go to get soul.com and use the code bulwark takes. That's get soul.com promo code bulwark takes for 30% off. You see the Odyssey yet?
- [38:16]
Will
No, I haven't, but. But now that I know that you recommended on Soul Gummies, I can't wait. Like, they're turning into pigs, man. Whoa.
- [38:25]
Sam Stein
Why does he only have one eye?
- [38:26]
Will
What's going on?
- [38:27]
Sam Stein
I'm really high.
- [38:28]
Will
Holy.
- [38:30]
Sam Stein
Okay. Your boy, James Fishback. When the hell is this primary?
- [38:36]
Will
Well, you know, Brendan here at the office, he's a big fishback watcher as well. And he's just been like, I never want this primary to end. We are really blessed that Florida has this like, astoundingly late primary. I believe it's a week from Tuesday.
- [38:51]
Sam Stein
You believe?
- [38:52]
Will
So
- [38:55]
Sam Stein
we don't know.
- [38:55]
Will
And now we're going to do a segment about it. Yes. So, so basically, James Fishback, look, folks, he's got a. He's got a colored history. He's. He's up to no good. He's 1.5 plus million dollars of debt. He's running for governor of Florida. He's a griper. So there are a couple of James Fishback items. Number one, last week he was saying, I have shocking news about my opponent. The Trump endorsed Byron Donalds, the guy who's almost certainly going to win this race. He's engaged in a felony, some serious crimes. Then he did this press conference and I will say he always does this press conference. It's like some government building. I don't know if it's like the registrar's office or something, but like, you can see people are like filtering in. So there was like a woman pushing like, you know, a stroller with a baby.
- [39:36]
Sam Stein
We have the presser. Should we play it?
- [39:38]
Will
Yeah, let's do it. This investigation has now expanded to include.
- [39:43]
Sam Stein
It's a division of elections, Congressman Byron
- [39:45]
Will
Donalds, who along with Corey Mills is under investigation for federal sex trafficking. So that's the allegation. So wait much?
- [39:57]
Sam Stein
Hold on, hold on. We have to play it again. Just before we play it though, he's pretending like he's a spokesperson for like the government coming out there.
- [40:05]
Will
You know what? You're right. Yes.
- [40:07]
Sam Stein
He's pretending like he's a spokesperson for the government saddened to announce these horrible charges. And like the crestfallen look on his face. He's never dressed that fancy anyway. But now he's dressed up and he's like, I'm so sorry to say that these allegations. Let's play one more time. It's so short. This investigation has now expanded to include
- [40:29]
Will
u. S. Congressman Byron donitz, who along with Corey Mills, is under investigation for federal sex trafficking. God, he's like, holding back tears. So what this allegation is is that he claims he, a whistleblower, I guess, from the justice department, approached him and said, obviously, Corey Mills, folks, one of the most notorious serving members of congress. All of these various allegations, domestic violence, all these things. So he has some kind of friendship or did with Byron Donalds. There are pictures of them hanging out together. So this is kind of dogged Byron Donald somewhat. There is, you know, he's not a guy you want to have a lot of photos with, but there was never an idea that this was like he was implicated in some crime. So now fishback is saying he heard from the justice department that Byron Donalds is part of the Corey mills investigation that they've kind of cottoned on to, you know, something involving Corey Mills here. And so that is the allegation. He doesn't really get into it, but he says, you know, this is sort of a more in sorrow than an anger situation. He says, you know, I've instructed my campaign, don't run any ads about this. As though there's any money to run ads in the fishback campaign.
- [41:40]
Sam Stein
Unbelievable.
- [41:41]
Will
At all. So. So that's where we are. And then the justice department themselves weighs in.
- [41:46]
Sam Stein
Okay. Yeah. So the doj puts out this tweet that says, can we put it up on the screen there? All right.
- [41:51]
Lady Luck Ritzki
False.
- [41:52]
Sam Stein
Accusing someone of being under investigation is a dangerous form of weaponization. This claim is not true. Congressman Byron Donald is not under investigation. Deirdre normally doesn't do this stuff. Obviously they threw. They threw Donald's a big bone here.
- [42:04]
Will
But yeah, and they did this actually last week for Anna Paulina Luna as well, another republican woman from Florida. There was a wall street journal article, I believe it was the journal that had a story. It was like, about the concept of, like, insider trading on, like, cal and poly market and congress. And there was some suggestion that, like, she had helped someone, you know, make a bet and that basically DOJ put out a thing. They gave her a letter that said she's not under investigation. So this, I feel like if it was a democratic lawmaker, I think they'd say, you know, why don't we let you just enjoy that cloud of suspicion.
- [42:35]
Sam Stein
Yeah, they would definitely not intervene for that, that's for sure. Very selective. Okay, election is on August 18th. We have the date. Finally it's going to get done. We'll be rid of this nonsense. I don't think Fishback's gonna win.
- [42:50]
Will
I agree.
- [42:51]
Sam Stein
I know, I know, I know. I have been like a little bit nervous about it, but now I have the right to change my tune.
- [42:56]
Will
I don't think he's gonna win this one. His polymarket chances really went down after this.
- [43:01]
Sam Stein
Oh, I was just gonna ask you, what do you think is Polymart? So, okay, I have two different, I have two different Calcia. I'm a Kalshi guy. Okay, okay. Not, not polymarket. What do you think the going bet is right now for him?
- [43:16]
Will
Is he down to like 3%?
- [43:18]
Sam Stein
I asked you, what do you, you're don't, you're not supposed to ask me. I'm asking you.
- [43:23]
Will
Well, I think he's down to like 3%.1 1%.
- [43:25]
Sam Stein
You think 3? Yeah, I think 3.1.5.
- [43:29]
Will
Okay.
- [43:30]
Sam Stein
He was at, he was at 3.5. He was up at 3.9 July 19th and that. But he peaked a long time ago. He's been going steadily down. He was at two point, you know, a week ago, he's a two. No, two days ago he's a two. It's falling. So he was, his height was at 25.6, but that was December 2025.
- [43:54]
Will
That's crazy.
- [43:55]
Sam Stein
People are idiots. There is one other though, and this is more interesting bet. What percentage of the primary vote do you think he will get? Now they say there's a couple options. What do you think? People say he will get at least 10%. This is a crazy bet. Like 40%, 57% believe he'll get at least 10% of the vote. Maybe 27% think he'll get at least 15% of the vote. Well, I don't know man.
- [44:29]
Will
If I could share the other Fishback story which is also.
- [44:31]
Sam Stein
Go for it.
- [44:32]
Will
So Fishback famously once ran an anti woke debate startup. He allegedly groomed one of the high school students involved there, went on to get engaged to her, you know, blah blah, bl. So now there's a new lawsuit from one of the. Another high school student involved who by the way Fishback, she says was texting her a lot, which I, you know, I was involved in debate in high school. I was not getting texted by the head of the debate program saying oh you gotta keep doing debate but anyways, she was the national champion of anti woke debate. And overall in the scholarships she should have received $11,000 from Fishback's organization. Now look, this guy's in debt up to his eyeballs. His campaign thought the couch was going to get repossessed. The cars are getting repossessed.
- [45:17]
Sam Stein
I forgot about that.
- [45:18]
Will
I'm sorry. You're a high school student who got ripped off by James Fishback. You're at the back of the line.
- [45:22]
Sam Stein
You're not going to get paid.
- [45:24]
Will
So now she's suing for the $11,000 that he owes her in scholarship money. And I have to say reading these text messages, it is so crazy where she's like, okay, I won, I'm ready to get paid now. And then it's like two months after the scholarship was supposed to be delivered and then he says, well oh yes, actually if it's over $10,000 that's delivered on a semester by semester basis. Oh that's great, I'm just trying to pay for college. And then all of these texts where she's saying hello again regarding that scholarship and he's like, oh hey, hey, you know, she said I texted you last week and he said that's a Sunday, we don't work on Sundays.
- [45:58]
Sam Stein
Oh, okay.
- [46:00]
Will
You know, and it's all these and it's just over the course of like a year where he's just saying like, oh, you're not gonna get paid bank account stuff any again, you know, three months after that. And you know she eventually got she three grand out of him but I think he still owes her eight grand. But I mean it's just such a, like this poor high school student who's saying I don't want this to affect our friendship. And then he says I can't believe you've got a lawyer involved. And I mean it's just really the idea of bullying like an 18 year old is just crazy.
- [46:31]
Sam Stein
I feel for her. She ain't gonna get paid though.
- [46:33]
Lady Luck Ritzki
All right, hey everybody, lady luck here. And we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now all summer long I'm going to be celebrating by playing on spinquest.com which is an American owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com. get yourself a 30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.
- [46:59]
Sam Stein
Spin Quest is a free to play social casino, Boyd.
- [47:01]
Lady Luck Ritzki
Where prohibited.
- [47:02]
Sam Stein
Visit spinquest.com for more details. We got some, we got like three other things we got to get through here. So let's start with the one that got my goat. Donald Trump serial online poster really ripping through him over the weekend as he tends to do in between golf. He posted this about Joe Biden. Okay, Biden isn't even a 100 handicap and he has a picture that's not obviously it's pretty sure it's AI of Biden taking a whack. Maybe the world's. It's definitely the world's largest divot leaning over and, and hahahah. Okay, just leave it up for a second. It's not abnormal for Trump to post mocking things of Joe Biden mocks Joe Biden all the time. It was the timing of the post that really got to me and I'll tell you why. So that post was made on Friday night, August 7th at 10:16pm as you can see right down there in the bottom right. And the reason I thought that was obnoxious is because it was just a couple hours earlier, maybe about five or so hours earlier, where Hunter Biden did an interview with the BBC. It was a tweet about at 5:19. So about five hours earlier where the BBC notes that the interview. And in the interview, Hunter Biden talked about how his father, Joe Biden, how his cancer has spread into his bones, metastasized, and then he's living a life of abject pain. And it's difficult and obviously I think we can infer from that that Joe Biden is obviously dying. And it takes a real lack of humanity and the true absence of sensitivity to mock a guy for his bad golf game when you are hours after his son reveals that his cancer has spread. And I just, I got me thinking and I don't want to go there necessarily, but I'm nervous at what Trump will say when or if Joe Biden dies while Trump is still in office. I fear for what that statement looks like. Hope he can figure out how to just either not say anything at all or muster up something decent. But the Rob Reiner episode really comes to mind. And I thought about that when I saw this. I just want to get that off my chest. You don't even have to say anything, Will, if you don't want to know.
- [49:30]
Will
I mean, I was going to bring up the Rob Reiner thing as well. I think you're right to flag this issue. I mean, I think after, you know, Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered, you know, in the most just insane way and just awful, terrible stuff. The idea that Trump you know, I think less than 24 hours later was saying, you know, wacko Rob Reiner or whatever. You know, I think we can only expect the worst when Biden does.
- [49:52]
Sam Stein
It's awful. It's unbelievable that we actually have to even think these things or that they're fairly legitimate possibilities. I, I, I, I can't fathom it. But here you have this dude just mocking Biden for being bad at golf, which he's not by the way, but mock him for being bad at golf and hours after his son says his cancer spread. Nice guy. All right, on to a more light hearted thing. Dean Cain, he seems to be like a little bit perplexed that Abdul said played high school football. Dean Kane, let's put up a tweet. Has anyone seen the photo of Michigan Senate candidate El playing high school football? Says he was captain of the team but I can't find a single phono Internet. Please do your thing. There was a follow up tweet as well that he put. And here we go. He had to show off that here he is in 10th grade playing football in 1981 at Santa Monica High School. Someone please get post a photo of. And he uses LCD's full name playing high school football. Twenty years later his website says he was captain. There must be photos if this was the case. Any tags? Elsa, just for the hell of it. Is this the new birtherism?
- [50:59]
Will
I think so. I think this one's going to catch on. You know, people love, you know, kind of finding some, something, you know, I'm sure if a picture does emerge they'll say oh it's not true, you know, Dean Cain, just go on yearbooks.com, you know, do a little digging. I have to say, you know, obviously I think you're right that Dean Cain kind of just wanted to show he had a cool looking football picture there. It's very action oriented. You know, there's no great virtue in playing high school football. I myself played, I was this.
- [51:27]
Sam Stein
You did?
- [51:28]
Will
Yeah. My school had five football teams. I was on the freshman B team, second and a half string as a defensive tackle. So you know, at the end of the year when I went to turn in my equipment, the coach was like who are you, what's your name, whatever. So but you know, look, I, you know, obviously didn't make me the man I am today, of course, but you know, nonetheless I don't go around touting it.
- [51:49]
Sam Stein
That's funny. I'm now looking at the replies to Dean Cain's tweet where people have Posted a mix of AI photos of El Said in, like, weird uniforms and dresses, but also the actual high school football photo of El Said. So it does exist. It is. You know, it's not birtherism so much as. You remember how they always were, like, where is Obama's transcripts? Or like, they, like, they were convinced that he didn't actually get good grades, and they were, like, demanding that he release his transcripts.
- [52:18]
Will
Yeah. And it's also, like, sort of an attack on El Said's Americanism. Right. Because how foreign could he be if you know, similarly with Obama, like, how foreign can he be if, you know, he. He was a high school football team captain. Isn't that great? But in fact, you know, there's no way, you know, he was at the. He was at the madrasa or whatever.
- [52:34]
Sam Stein
Right. So that's that. Well, I have a feeling this one will get resolved fairly quickly. I've been noticing Elsa likes to clap back at these folks. I think Dean Kane's probably a little bit too low on the totem pole for him to care or give a. But he did go after Trump a couple times. I don't know if you saw his videos. Do you see that?
- [52:49]
Will
Oh, no, that's where.
- [52:50]
Sam Stein
There's one where some reporter was like, trump says, you're full of. And else it's like, well, at least I don't let mine out in the Oval Office. The joke is that Trump pooped himself. Oh, yeah. Oh, there we go. That's where we're at. Okay. Last but very much, not least, you got to take this one, because I tried reading this article honestly.
- [53:10]
Will
Yeah.
- [53:11]
Sam Stein
And I couldn't make it through. It was too hard to follow. Yeah, you do it.
- [53:17]
Will
Jared and Ivanka, resort update. You know, this is. This is one Maga Monday is the leading Albania turmoil podcast based in the United States that runs on Monday.
- [53:29]
Sam Stein
No one covers this like us. It's true. So.
- [53:31]
Will
So, the Wall Street Journal. So a few weeks ago, we got the introduction of an interesting character named R2. She who an Albanian, but transnational allegedly criminal who owns. Who claims to own the land that Jared and Ivanka are trying to build their resort on that has caused so much turmoil. Turmoil almost brought down the Albanian government, caused all these protests. Now, the Wall Street Journal, thankfully, did a deep dive into his history. Now, this is a gentleman. There he is. Looks like a trustworthy guy. Can we. Can we get the picture? The other picture we have of him. This is him from the 90s. Oh, my gosh. There he is. He looks like he's on a speedboat. Now it's good that he's on a speedboat because allegedly, among his other misdeeds, he was smuggling goods and immigrants in between Italy and Albania. This is a guy with a rap sheet a mile long. He allegedly ran a gelato, like a gelato restaurant with the Italian mafia. Now he's actually based in the United States. He's, you know, accused of, you know, being involved in a scheme to smuggle cocaine through fruit shipments.
- [54:34]
Sam Stein
And this is the guy I thought stuffing the coke in the watermelon.
- [54:40]
Will
A literal one maybe. Stuffing the coke in his neck. Look at that neck. So, so this guy, he's an interesting character, Jared sort of in business with him. They've allegedly paid him $240 million for the land. The land. That money's been frozen. Now what I also find interesting here is supposedly he may not even own the land. You have a lot of villagers. There's a tiny little village related to this Flamingo Lagoon. They, you know, this all dates back to the Ottoman Empire. I, the Wall Street Journal has given me a history. Things are very complex in old Albania. I would personally not try to build a multi billion dollar resort there. So basically there's all these land issues. This guy has been accused of essentially money laundering by claiming he has this land, forging documents that date back to the Ottoman Empire. So this is like the grand vizier stamped this. There's a court case where they erase the name of the guy who actually owns the village land and write Arthur share whose grandfather's name on it, or great grandfather. So it's a huge message. This guy seems untrustworthy and yet he's Jared and Ivanka. They're, they're in up to their next, as you might say.
- [55:48]
Sam Stein
Why would they. So just so I understand, Jared through his fund gave him 240 million. He like did all the due diligence.
- [55:56]
Will
Yes. Who are also involved in this. Yes. It may be a form of title fraud, essentially because the villagers say, well, it's our village.
- [56:03]
Sam Stein
As I read it, the villagers tried to reach out to Jared saying, don't do it.
- [56:07]
Will
Yes, yes. The villagers said, look, because this is a decades old court case with this alleged gangster and that the villagers are saying, you know, this guy, this gangster is trying to steal our land. And you know, don't trust him. He doesn't really own the land. Jared went ahead anyway. I'm sure from his perspective it's probably easier to deal with this gangster, you know, so it's, it's A complex case. And I'm starting to believe this. This resort may not come to fruition after all.
- [56:32]
Sam Stein
Well, the flamingos are grateful for this. Is this guy. Where do we know where this gangster is now? Like, is he physical location.
- [56:41]
Will
He's based in the United States. I believe he claims asylum here. This is crazy. The people who get asylum here versus who doesn't. He claimed he was being hunted by communist gangs in Albania in the post Soviet Albania. I mean, I will say that the. The mess that is Albania, you know, in terms of its properties, because it's like you're dealing with all these different empires you're dealing with, with, you know, the Soviet or post communism, all these post collectivization. So it seems really unclear who owns a lot of the land there.
- [57:14]
Sam Stein
Jesus Christ, what a mess. Is he gonna get his money back? Not that I care, but I'm just sort of curious.
- [57:20]
Will
I don't know, you know, I mean, Victor Shea, who's Artur Shea, who's an interesting guy. I. I could see the government just being like, you know what? Maybe we'll hang on to this.
- [57:29]
Sam Stein
Yeah, probably.
- [57:30]
Will
What's up, everybody? It's Bretzky. And America is turning 250. And I can't think of a better way to celebrate that than playing on an American owned social casino. Spinquest.com with all of your favorite games. Live crabs, bubble craps, live blackjack. There's no better place to play for free and win real cash prizes.
- [57:51]
Sam Stein
Spinquest.com Spin Quest is a free to play social casino.
- [57:56]
Lady Luck Ritzki
Boyd. Where prohibited.
- [57:57]
Sam Stein
Visit spinquest.com for more details. All right, and last but not least, I gotta go to Roger Stone. So. Roger Stone, first of all, if you don't know who Roger Stone is, just do a little Googling. He's the grandfather of Rat. He the ultimate dirty trickster in politics, and he stuck around. I mean, he's a Nixon character and he's got to be, you know, how old do you look this up?
- [58:19]
Will
Probably in his 80s.
- [58:20]
Sam Stein
Roger Stone Age. No, he's 73. That cannot be.
- [58:27]
Will
Wow. Godfather of swinging as well. Big time swinger.
- [58:30]
Sam Stein
He was born in 52, which means that in the Nixon era, he was just in his, like, early 20s.
- [58:36]
Will
Wow.
- [58:37]
Sam Stein
And he was doing all that anyways. I was gonna say he looks really good, but he's young. Anyway, so he put up this post on Twitter of his new. He likes to fancy himself a fashion icon. He's got these good suits and all this stuff and. But now he's like doing what looks like horseback Riding garb. I really could not tell what it is. What do you make?
- [58:55]
Will
I'm sure there's, I suspect there's a fetish at play here, if I'm being honest with you. You know. Yeah, he's wearing knee high horse riding boots and, and black leather gloves up to, you know, his forearm. Yeah, I mean, you know, he puts out the worst and best dress list. He certainly, I will say though, I mean, you gotta hand it to him, he's pretty fit.
- [59:17]
Sam Stein
Yeah. I'm assuming he's doing the same Needles.
- [59:20]
Will
There may be a little, there may be a little touch up work going on here.
- [59:24]
Sam Stein
Maybe a little is understating it. Yeah. So what we have here, just as Will described it, he's got leather boots up to his knees. His pants, which are kind of MC Hammerish in terms of their width, are tucked into the boots. And then he's got these weird gloves that go up to, you know, fairly up his forearm. And he's, you know, got a white polo tee that's tucked in and he's found the perfect amount of sunlight to cast a shadow at some balcony. And he's advertising a site called stoneswank.com I have not visited it yet and I don't plan to, but if people want to take a look and say, you know, suggest some outfits for me and Will. Oh, it's a fashion blog, according to our producer, Matt Marshall. Great. People should go check it out. And if they want to pick out an outfit for me, if we get to 200 paid subscribers, Sam will wear the gloves. New deal. 100 paid off of this video. I wear my Riesling hat on the next pod. 200 paid off of this video. I get some 250 paid off this next video. I get some outfit off of stoneswank.com and I put it on for this next pod. All right, well, we couldn't find a picture of you playing football while we were on air, so we can't confirm whether or not you did.
- [60:43]
Will
That's surprising to me. It was a legendary run.
- [60:46]
Lady Luck Ritzki
Yeah.
- [60:47]
Sam Stein
But we did find a picture. You mentioned you don't go to the steroid gym, that you go there. We did find a picture actually of you at the steroid gym. Let's put it up.
- [60:55]
Will
Well, that kind of. That's what it looks like, honestly. Look at that. Yeah.
- [61:02]
Sam Stein
Well, are you the type of guy that just skips legs days and just goes for the shoulder chest?
- [61:06]
Will
You know, I'm often tempted. I certainly do prefer my arm days
- [61:10]
Sam Stein
and yeah, who doesn't prefer arm days.
- [61:12]
Will
You know, speaking of looks maxing, Sam, if I could make a brief point regarding the arc of this podcast or this show. You know, look, I know clavicular coverage, it's beloved by the listeners. There's a vocal minority who's critical of it. But we recently became aware of a 10 year old who is tuning into Maga Monday for clavicular updates. That is his main interest. So I just want to say, you
- [61:32]
Sam Stein
know, wait, I'm not aware of this. Who is this?
- [61:35]
Will
I thought you were on this text thread. Someone, someone told me they know their, their 10 year old. It's like a friend of a friend. I heard that their 10 year old is really into tuning into Maga Monday because he wants clavicular updates. So, you know, look, do we have one this? You know, not at the moment, but I just wanted to give a shout out and it shows me that Mega Monday's demographics, obviously we have some older listeners. I think we're big in that key 18 to 34 demo, obviously for the advertiser sake. But now also 10 year olds are getting into Maga Monday. So I think what a wonderful community this is.
- [62:09]
Sam Stein
Yeah, it's a great community. It is honestly one of the best. I love, I love our audience. I love the ability to do this with you every week. That said, I'm on vacation next week as well. Okay? So there is no as of now folks, there will be no Maga Monday next week. Will and I are off. Which means you gotta subscribe now. Build up the anticipation for our triumphant return in two weeks time. Will appreciate you, buddy. Folks, again, just going to reiterate. 100 paid. I wear my Riesling hat in two weeks, 250 paid. I get some item off of stoneswink.com for the next episode in two weeks. There's a lot of people saying no and boo in the Thailand. What am I supposed to do? I'm on vacation. What is Will supposed to do?
- [63:00]
Will
Well, I will say there is a, there is a Maga Monday tie in to my vacation. I will be in Orange County, California, very close to Richard Nixon's favorite Mexican restaurant. And I've been before and I've sat at the booth, I've ate, I've eaten his preferred, I think stuffed pepper. And so, you know, stay tuned if I make it back and I'll certainly get a picture.
- [63:19]
Sam Stein
I came in, take pictures.
- [63:21]
Will
The last time I was there, the rest of the family was busy and I was like, well whatever, I'm going to Richard Nixon's favorite Tex Mex. And I went in and I was like, can I sit in the booth? And they were like, this is the most disturbing customer we've ever had. A lone man asking to sit in the Richard Nixon booth.
- [63:35]
Sam Stein
That's right on brand though. I love it. All right, we're gonna, we're gonna have great reports from vacation. I apologize to the listeners. I'm sorry. We do need to take a break every now and then. We will be back in two weeks time. I'm watching those stats, folks. I'm watching those stats. Subscribe to the feed. Subscribe to YouTube. Peace.
- [63:53]
Will
Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait.
- [63:56]
Lady Luck Ritzki
Lady luck Ritzki. I got you. I've had so much luck on spinquest.com they have all of my favorite games, slot games, live blackjack craps and bubble craps. You can even get a 30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.
- [64:10]
Will
10 bucks for 30. I'm headed over to spinquest.com right now.
- [64:14]
Sam Stein
Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.