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- [00:00]
Sam Stein
Most people would rather attend a corporate team building workshop than search for auto and home insurance.
- [00:05]
Will Chamberlain
Go team. Feel that synergy. That's why the zebra searches for you.
- [00:08]
Sam Stein
Comparing over 100 insurance companies to find savings no one else can compare.
- [00:12]
Will Chamberlain
Today@the zebra.com who's ready for the trust fall?
- [00:15]
Sam Stein
We are live. Will, what's up, man? How you doing?
- [00:19]
Will Chamberlain
Hey, you know, I'm hanging in there. Hello to everyone watching. This is our second MAGA Monday, so very exciting.
- [00:25]
Sam Stein
Yeah, pretty exciting. Welcome to everyone. I'm Sam Stein, managing head of the Bulwark. This is Maga Mondays. We had conceived of this live show, 10am at Monday, as somewhat of a lighter fare where we looked at the Internet and decided what was silly over the weekend and what we can make fun of. Obviously, that's a little bit difficult when you're in the middle of a war. And for those who are going to say, oh, it's not a war, I saw Patrick Graffini and others, but it's not a war. Pete Hegseth called it a war. So we're going to call it a war.
- [00:51]
Will Chamberlain
They killed the president of the country, you know, Ayatollah, you know, that's pretty war.
- [00:57]
Sam Stein
Seems warlike. Yeah. So I will. Just. So we're gonna, in the spirit of the show, which is meant to look at the right wing Internet culture and what's happening over again, we're actually going to look at how maga's reacting to what's happening in Iran and, well, you could correct me if wrong. I, I started the weekend thinking, okay, they're kind of contorting themselves, they're figuring out a way to get to supportive. And certainly there, there are definitely some people who are doing that. So. But what has surprised me, generally speaking, is the degree to which luminaries in this movement have basically said, we don't like this, this is fucked, we don't want this. This is not in the spirit of what Trump is doing or promising. And this is, you know, contradictory to the campaign messages he ran on. So I've been a little bit surprised by how much of that is out there.
- [01:43]
Will Chamberlain
I agree. I mean, I think in the first 24 hours we saw a lot of this, you know, these kind of traditional dovish supposed people, People are saying, you know, Trump's not going to invade Iran, whatever they were saying, you know, I think initial splash and the spectacle, I mean, it kind of recalled the Maduro raid where people go, oh, wow, you know, I guess Trump just keeps winning. But on Sunday, I think we Started to see as after American soldiers were killed and we start seeing more of these missile attacks. I think we're seeing people say, you know, there is, I think a pretty significant voice on the right opposed to the war on day two. Right. And so where is this headed? You know, if they're talking about four or five weeks, I think there's going to be more and more of that.
- [02:23]
Sam Stein
Yeah. I would say the sort of crystallizing video for a lot of people was not actually someone who speaks out all that much. Although if you watch Steve Bannon show, you'll see him regularly. But it's someone who is widely associated with thirsting for wars because he runs private contractors who benefit financially from them. And that's Erik Prince who is been around for decades. Everyone knows him from the Iraq war. He was on, I think it was Banisham I.
- [02:51]
Will Chamberlain
Right.
- [02:51]
Sam Stein
Or I'm trying to remember who it was. He was on Bandon show. And so he comes out and he says this and this was kind of shocking because if anyone's supposed to be thirsting for the war, it's this, these types of figures. So here's Eric Prince.
- [03:05]
Erik Prince
I'm, I'm not happy about the whole thing. I don't think this was in America's interest. It's going to uncork a significant can of worms and chaos and destruction in Iran. Now who takes over. You still have tens, hundreds of thousands of IRGC people that will be positioning for to be number two, to be the next rulers of that country. I don't see how this is in keeping with the president's MAGA commitment. I'm disappointed.
- [03:38]
Sam Stein
Okay. That was mind blowing for me.
- [03:40]
Will Chamberlain
That's, you know, Ares, the God of war there weighing in saying, you know, I'm not so sure about this one. I mean, I do think one thing to note here about Erik Prince is I'm curious about how his golf connections are playing in here. I mean, I think it's, he's, he's been involved with the, the Emiratis and, and folks like that who are kind of caught in the middle here. And so I wonder how much that's roll again where he's kind of, you know, he's like, I prefer these small proxy wars in Sudan or Yemen and that's kind of messing with my paycheck.
- [04:06]
Sam Stein
Yeah. But also maybe I'm not going to discount that people, I mean especially people like Eric Prince are operating out of self interest. That makes a lot of sense. But let me just sort of push back a little bit. Like the Bannon wing of this party, they do seem pretty much committed to isolationism around this stuff. I mean, maybe I'm misreading it a little bit, but this does seem to be something that they genuinely ran on and believed in. And, you know, it's the way that they separated themselves from traditional Republicans, people who supported the Iraq war. It's the way that they go about distinguishing themselves in Trump's brand of foreign policy. And so he's kind of tarnished that. And I do think they're grappling with this or having difficulty grappling with it.
- [04:57]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah, I mean, I think for someone like Steve Bannon, he wants, you know, he wants the deportations, he wants these other kind of populist MAGA things done. And then he looks at what we might consider, like, old school Trump. Excuse me, old school Republican things, like, whether it's welfare cuts or in this case, kind of a classic Middle east quagmire war. And he's looking at that and saying, geez, you know, this looks like something that's going to detract from Trump's political capital. And that, you know, I think, is what it's starting to look like.
- [05:22]
Sam Stein
Well, yeah, but. And it's also like, that's literally everything that Trump ran on in 2016. But that was how he distinguished himself from other Republicans. I mean, it was false. Right? He said, I oppose the Iraq war. He had not. But that was such a focal point for that campaign that became defining from. I also say Bannon is a big horseshoe theory guy. He constantly wants to recruit disaffected liberals. It's how he got, you know, the connections to Kennedy and Gabbard. And part of that is that part of the connective tissue is running against foreign interventionism. I mean, that, that, that is inherent to what they offer. Let's listen to Bannon, and then I want you to react to him on the flip side of it. I'm just going to be brutally frank. If it's going to be a hard slog, I mean, that was not pitched in the 2024 campaign. It just wasn't. We are going to believe support. We just were. I mean, is he right?
- [06:17]
Will Chamberlain
Is that Frank Gaffney? I think so. I don't know. That's like a pretty hawkish guy. Yeah. I mean, I, I like, if that's who that is. I. I think it is. I mean, he's right. I mean, that this look. I mean, it's. It's not even being pitched now. Right. I mean, you know what they had this press conference this morning, and there's. They're asked by very friendly conservative media outlets overall, they're saying, you know, okay, well, like, what's the plan here? What's, what are we trying to accomplish? Fair question. And they say we're not going to get into that. You know, I mean, I think BA Is also reacting to the fact that, as you said, I mean, there's been no messaging on this. There's no sense of why we're doing this. This clearly, this thing that's already unpopular and is only going to get more unpopular.
- [06:56]
Sam Stein
Well, I'm being told that was indeed Frank Gaffney, which is just insane to me. What's going on here. The, the other, the other sort of tempole in the conservative MAGA movement that is, that grew up around being opposed to foreign intervention in war is Turning Point usa, obviously. And, you know, they were grappling a lot with the first Iran strike, and that was sort of a tactical maneuver to take out the three nuclear sites in Iran that I remember. And maybe you could recount this for me because my memory is a little bit faded on this stuff, but that was Charlie Kirk at the time alive, was grappling with that in real time, if I recall correctly, and ultimately ended up being supportive of it. But I can't remember that much. But how is Turning Point now responding to what happened over the weekend?
- [07:47]
Will Chamberlain
You know, it's interesting, I mean, so much in the aftermath of the assassination, and part of this is based on Candace Owens. I mean, it has focused on where was Charlie Kirk in terms of war in the Middle east, where was he on Israel? And so I think people are kind of fighting over that Charlie Kirk legacy after this war where people like Andrew Colvett, who is sort of Charlie Kirk's sort of heir apparent, who is like his right hand, are saying, you know, well, you know, I think I heard that, you know, Iran was building dirty bombs and they were going to get all these crazy missiles from China, but for some reason, the administration isn't saying that. And so people are sort of sifting through these Charlie Kirk clips where, you know, sometimes Charlie Kirk is saying, I trust Trump to do whatever he wants with Iran. And then, you know, people opposed to the war saying, well, you know, here's Charlie Kirk saying, you know, we need to distance ourselves from Israel.
- [08:33]
Sam Stein
Yeah, there is a lot of that. It's sort of legacy fighting. But, like, honestly, and you know this world better than I do, I mean, what is, what are the. Maybe we don't have a Poll, obviously, but, like, the people who make up Turning Point usa, the people go to these conferences, the people who are officers with the organization, how do they genuinely feel about this stuff? Do we know?
- [08:51]
Will Chamberlain
I mean, I think we're seeing this kind of, I, I, I think there's kind of like an overall effort to kind of whip people into line on the message and support the war. But I think individually, I think we're seeing the same thing we're seeing from Bannon, where it's this kind of, like, reluctance, this effort, this combination of, like, well, I don't really like this war. And also, I think it's really not being messaged. Right. And so, you know, if, if these people who are kind of hardcore MAGA people are ambivalent about it, I think they're then realizing, well, geez, independent voters probably really don't like this.
- [09:18]
Sam Stein
Yeah. So there's a couple clips from Kirk. We're gonna play one I'm gonna actually read one we're not gonna play, which gets to, I think, the sort of, the way in which they could they have been prior to this, trying to, I don't know, contort themselves into figuring out a way to support Trump. So this was obviously a while ago, Kirk was asked or was talking about Iran. He said, Iran is hugely diverse, massive country. Do the people agitating for war even know that? This, of course, is in the lead up to the first strikes against Iran. Because be clear, regime change is war. This is Kirk again, just to understand, regime change is not like changing the head coach at the Chicago Bears. It's not how it works. I'm not sure about that analogy, but whatever. Now, he did end up getting to a place, like I said, where he was like, well, okay, you know, if Trump's going to do this tactical bombing of these nuclear sites, I can, I can support him because it's Trump. So let's listen to where Kirk ultimately ended up on that first strike.
- [10:18]
Charlie Kirk
Two things he said 10 years ago. Iraq war was a bloody catastrophe and a disaster and will never happen again. And Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon. Only President Donald Trump can hold both those things in his hands. Only President Trump with prudence and practicality and wisdom is able to weigh them both, thread the needle and walk the tightrope. President Donald Trump is a man made for this moment.
- [10:46]
Will Chamberlain
Swelling music yeah, well, first of all,
- [10:48]
Sam Stein
absurd, multiple people can hold both those thoughts at the same time. It doesn't take. President Trump is not the only person who can process these two things at the same time. But that did get that did underscore the ability for these people to sort of say, well, you know, in Trump, we trust more or less. Are we seeing that now, though?
- [11:07]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah, I mean, I think obviously that's an old clip, but I think that kind of hits a lot of the messaging we're seeing from the pro Trump, pro war people of essentially trust the plan. And, you know, I think partially that's because they don't really, the administration is not giving them.
- [11:20]
Sam Stein
What is the plan?
- [11:21]
Will Chamberlain
We don't know. Well, I guess trust Trump, you know, Matt Walsh, I believe, at the, at the Daily W. Who. I mean, one thing to keep in mind here is a lot of these Republican pundits that we're seeing now. I mean, they were growing up during the Iraq war or they were, you know, in college, they saw how the W. Bush administration was really undermined by the Iraq War.
- [11:41]
Sam Stein
And so it was 20 years ago, over 20 years ago. They were babies.
- [11:47]
Will Chamberlain
Not like Matt Walsh. I mean, he's like older. I mean. Yeah, I mean, maybe like people are like, like Brylan Hollyhand.
- [11:53]
Sam Stein
Yeah, but let's talk about Brylan a little bit. But go ahead.
- [11:57]
Will Chamberlain
So, but I think these people are saying, some of them are, you know, in Matt Walsh's case, he's saying, like, look like a war in the Middle east is a very serious and complex thing. We've seen this go south relatively recently. Trump is not explaining how it's going to be good this time. On the other hand, you have people saying, you know, essentially, you know, you know, I don't know if we have the Will Chamberlain tweet, but, you know, Will Chamberlain put it up.
- [12:19]
Sam Stein
Let's put it up as good. Here it is. This is the most ridiculous, this is the most ridiculous spin I've, I saw online all weekend here. It is. The point of being against regime change wars was not that the regime change is inherently bad, but rather that our political and military leadership couldn't pull it off in an efficient, effective manner. When the facts change, you should change your mind. It's so absurd.
- [12:41]
Will Chamberlain
Isn't this the military that was too woke like a year ago, that was just focused on pronouns, and now it's totally different. I mean, that's, that's kind of the language and the, the, what we're seeing a lot is he's like, yes, traditionally a war in the Middle east is a bad idea. We're going to get bogged down. But you have to keep in mind, Trump's just, just, he's built different, you know, and just too good at it. Yes. And they're just going to do too
- [13:01]
Sam Stein
well how I got to be. And it's not just Chamberlain. So. So this is the. It's like the version of this was the messaging from official government channels. So the House Foreign Affairs Republicans put up this tweet, which. He's ending forever wars. I can't even starting. President Trump is ending the forever war that Iran was waged. Okay. So the. He's ending forever wars by waging war that will end the. For the one war to end the forever wars. Basically.
- [13:31]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah. So it says. It says essentially Trump, you know, he was elected to end the forever wars, and indeed he is now. What we didn't expect was that it would be a new war, but, you know, this is going to be a short war to end the forever war.
- [13:44]
Sam Stein
So. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. I will say this is. This is so this. These tweets, especially that Housewar affairs one. That's where it started. And so that's why when we. When we were initially planning out this week's show, I was kind of convinced that it was going to be a show about how people were more or less figuring out a way to get to. Yes, but that's not really true. And what you're seeing is a lot of anger bubbling up between certain factions. Rivalries that are clearly burning hot. Traditional ones, too. So, like, we have the Candace Owens tweet, Yash Ali and his context of it. Let's show that when we can. Like, this is Candace doing her thing is. Well, that's not the one I was hoping for. I was hoping for the Ashra Ali one. Let's try to get the Yasha Ali one. She basically says that they murdered Charlie for to do this war. And then there's the other one, which is the Marjorie Taylor Greene Laura Loomer feud. So Will, as we pull up the.
- [14:44]
Will Chamberlain
The long one. Yeah.
- [14:46]
Sam Stein
Why don't you explain what's going on?
- [14:48]
Will Chamberlain
Fans of each other. Sure. So basically, Laura Loomer is very pro Israel, very pro any kind of military intervention in support of Israel. Marjorie Taylor Greene, not a fan. She is, you know, kind of in this kind of America first, you know, isolationist mold. And so they're really going at each other over, you know, over this issue.
- [15:10]
Sam Stein
An mtg, like, spent the weekend just basically going after her, calling her names. If we can pull up the mtg. The mtg twee here. Yeah, it's a. It's a opus here, basically. You can see there's a lot of anger.
- [15:25]
Will Chamberlain
Loomer said, you know, you know, thanks to the American soldiers for their sacrifice who died. And then MTG says, this bitch is celebrating. Oh, my. This bitch is celebrating the death of American military members and thanking their families for their blood sacrifice. And then she said, and just two more sentences here. She says Loomer lost two congressional races because no one respects her or values are enough to elect her. But this is who Trump takes late night calls from and laps up her praise and worship. And I think, actually that's a pretty good point from mtg. I mean, she's saying, I think, to other Republicans, look, Laura, Loomer is someone we can recognize as unhinged and kind of a crazy person. And not only is she on Twitter, but Trump is taking her advice about national security. He's firing people on the National Security Council based on what she says. So I think it's a, It's a pretty compelling point.
- [16:08]
Sam Stein
Yeah, I mean, Loomer does have incredible access. She's had incredible sway over personnel. And frankly, she. I mean, if. If this is a MTG versus Lumer bad, I mean, Loomer's winning it, right? I mean, MTG is retired. She was spending the weekend going nuts saying this is a complete abandonment of, of mag. Of MAGA and America First. But she seems to be on the outskirts. Trump is obviously not listening to her. He's went down to her district. He's. Didn't he say, didn't he, like, celebrate her, the fact that she was retiring? Call her crazy.
- [16:36]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [16:39]
Sam Stein
So, I mean, it's hard to argue that Loomer's losing this one. It seems quite obvious that she's winning. The other thing I want you to. The thing that, that I'm kind of curious for your thoughts on is Tucker Carlson in all this. Like, he obviously is opposed to the war. He, he was freaking out about the possibilities that was going to happen. He was at the White House, like, as they were essentially planning this thing, talking to the president. Like, what does that say about Carlson?
- [17:07]
Will Chamberlain
I mean, I think that that says he has no clout, or at least not on this issue. I mean, why invite him to the
- [17:12]
Sam Stein
White House, I guess.
- [17:13]
Will Chamberlain
Well, you know, Dave Rubin speculated that Tucker was being called in to get a scolding and told to be nicer to Mike Huckabee. And perhaps he was right. I mean, I think, you know, I don't know if they give him a token, you know, okay, you get to make one more case against the war meeting. I think it does show that, you know, I Think there's a lot of energy in right wing media for people like Tucker, for people like Nick Fuentes, these kind of Candace Owens, these, these more isolationist figures. However, I think in terms of like who has Trump's ear and who's making decisions at the Defense Department, clearly I think it's in a much more kind of traditional, you know, pro Israel faction of the Republican Party.
- [17:50]
Sam Stein
Has Tucker spoke. I didn't see anything from Tucker over the weekend. Did you see?
- [17:53]
Will Chamberlain
I haven't seen a risk. Oh, no, I, I, I, I, I don't think I've seen a response from him yet, but I expect he's not going to be happy about it.
- [18:00]
Sam Stein
No, not likely. Okay, we do have the Yasha tweet. I want to get back to the Candace Owens stuff because this is where Vera's totally into the conspiratorial Yasha. Gotta hand it to her, the devil works hard, but Candace works harder. In the midst of the war, she keeps things focused on business. So Candace is basically saying Jews murder Charlie Kirk so they could get this war. That's what she's saying.
- [18:21]
Will Chamberlain
Exactly. And as Yasha points out here, I mean, she also has a business objective here, which is for her Erica Kirk series, which we talked about to not be overshadowed by the war.
- [18:32]
Sam Stein
I forgot about the Erica Kirk series. Where are we on that? What installment have we have?
- [18:35]
Will Chamberlain
Episode 3 just launched on Friday. Apparently Erica Kirk's mom's notary had some business issues.
- [18:44]
Sam Stein
Oh, God. If people haven't seen the first video of the series, will Tim and I did a recap of it. It's highly anti Semitic to say the least. Some of the theories don't really pan out, including discussion of Erica Kirk being pictured in a bee outfit as a toddler. And I don't know how to Charlie Kirk's death.
- [19:05]
Will Chamberlain
And it all led up to this. Bombs over.
- [19:08]
Sam Stein
Oh, now it makes sense. Yeah, she was there as a B. One of the feature that I want to talk about before we get to in Miles Chong is just Twitter as sort of an apparatus to, you know, consume more news. I don't know about you, but like, it's really hard. I mean, the outlet is just a flaming mess and there's videos all over the place. Some of them are gruesome and awful and then some of them, you're just like, is this real? And I spent a lot of my time over the weekend just being like, is the thing I'm seeing real? And it's, it's, I don't know. Obviously the website Sucks. But, you know, there's just not really any other real way to consume news at that speed. So how are you. How are you handling it?
- [19:51]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah, I mean, it's really difficult, as you said. I mean, it's obviously the combination of AI. I mean, Twitter itself is just kind of busted. Like the search function, you know, after some of these attacks in Dubai. Once that first broke, I was searching Dubai and it's like, all right, here's a 15 year old tweet about Dubai as one of the top results. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's a mess. And I mean, there are so many of these disinformation accounts that really flourish because in the past, you know, you'd be all right, well, this guy has like 500 followers. It's probably fake, but. And of course, you know, obviously you can buy a verified check mark. So I think it has become a real mess.
- [20:24]
Sam Stein
Yeah. And then you want to get the for you feature because you're. You're not. You can't follow everybody and you're looking for new information. But, like, if you're doing the for you feature, it's just like, is this tweet from today even? And then you look at it and it's like, this account is not. It's anonymous. And, you know, they're telling me something I haven't seen anywhere else. See, then you have to like, this morning, there's one Iranian account that was like, Benjamin Net Young's chief of staff is dead. It's like I had to, like, look for it, and it just absolutely was not true.
- [20:53]
Will Chamberlain
I mean, one interesting aspect, I think, is how Iranians are clearly capitalizing on this. I mean, there are a lot of Iranian accounts that will say, like, they sank the USS Forward or the Lincoln. You know, they've sank it, sank an aircraft carrier. And then you have to kind of look back and obviously that's not true.
- [21:06]
Sam Stein
Yeah. All right. So in the midst of all the horror, and there is a lot of horror, there are two funny things that stood out. We'll do Lindy Lee next, but first we're going to get to Ian Miles Chong.
- [21:19]
Will Chamberlain
Can I preface this?
- [21:20]
Sam Stein
Sure.
- [21:21]
Will Chamberlain
So obviously, Ian Miles Chong is a. Is a Malaysian man who, through video games, became extremely crazed about American culture war issues. And this is going to kind of touch on the Internet transnational Maga Dubai thing, because people like Andrew Tate as well, they love hanging out in Dubai, but obviously they're under fire here now as well. Why?
- [21:41]
Sam Stein
Why do they like hanging in Dubai? Just, it's Like a pop in city.
- [21:44]
Will Chamberlain
Lots of, I think, extradition, at least in Andrew Tate's case. But yeah, I mean, I think a city where there's no rules. You know, I actually lived in Dubai in elementary school, and so, you know, this was before. Yeah, for a few years. And so this is before it got really crazy. But, you know. But I know a bit of this nightlife as well.
- [22:01]
Sam Stein
Wait, no, you don't. You were there as a child.
- [22:04]
Will Chamberlain
I'm just kidding.
- [22:05]
Sam Stein
What are you talking about?
- [22:05]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah, ye was there before it got too crazy, but. But now Ian's walking.
- [22:10]
Sam Stein
It's in your. It's in your blood. Once you're there, you're just. Obviously, you exude it. So when you watch this video, I just want you to imagine Will's actually slightly off frame. Never actually pictured in the video with Ian. Miles. Ch. But he was there in spirit. All right, let's watch it.
- [22:27]
Will Chamberlain
Google said this look like Blockbuster. The Twitter checks are hitting so good.
- [22:43]
Sam Stein
Okay, so I just want to say you didn't see the text, but the Tweet is it's 3am in a Dubai club right now, and the place is alive. You can't beat this city. Can we play this again? I want to play it one more time because I have.
- [22:54]
Will Chamberlain
I want to.
- [22:55]
Sam Stein
I want to talk over the commentary. All right, let's play. There we go. Can they do a little bit more. Can they get into it a little bit more than this?
- [23:02]
Will Chamberlain
This kind of looks like the budget one, I gotta be honest.
- [23:05]
Sam Stein
Pause it. Wait, can we pause on that guy sitting here? Pause it. No, no, go back. I want to pause on the guy sitting at the table. Does that guy look alive or what? This place is alive. That guy.
- [23:16]
Will Chamberlain
This guy can't even look up from his phone. They've got. They've got dry eyes. Yeah.
- [23:20]
Sam Stein
What is going on on that table? What do we got there?
- [23:23]
Will Chamberlain
I got a bunch of cans of ginger ale.
- [23:25]
Sam Stein
Is that ginger ale? Yeah, it looks like ginger. The people holding up the flames are not into it either. They're just doing this. No, you know, they're dressed like cruise ship staffers.
- [23:36]
Will Chamberlain
What is going on? Like I'm saying, people said Blockbuster employees. I do think maybe Ian is not going to the sort of like the Andrew Tate club. Maybe he's a couple of rungs below that.
- [23:49]
Sam Stein
There's no one there in this poor dude who has to hang out with Ian. And Miles Chong clearly wants to go to bed. He's so tired looking. These staff, they are just like, get me away from this Flame and all that smoke coming off the table. All right, let's keep playing. Let's keep playing. Okay.
- [24:09]
Will Chamberlain
Straws.
- [24:10]
Sam Stein
All right, Pause. Does that look like a man who's just living it?
- [24:14]
Will Chamberlain
This 3M doesn't look like a man who's half dead, you know, chasing experimental medical treatments in Dubai.
- [24:21]
Sam Stein
This place is alive. He writes. Yeah.
- [24:24]
Will Chamberlain
A lot like a hotel lobby. Like that lamp behind him. Like it's not giving, like, crazy nightclub.
- [24:29]
Sam Stein
Oh, my God. Okay, well, there. Look, it's obviously a difficult time for Dubai. I don't want to be there for that reason. But if. Even if it were not, you know, in the middle of a widening Middle east war, this looks like hell to me. I would never want to do that. 3am at that club. Sounds.
- [24:46]
Will Chamberlain
There is actually an interesting wrinkle here, which is that was investigated in his native Malaysia because it's illegal to support Israel, even rhetorically. And so at one point, there was a police. Yeah, because after October 7th, he tweeted like, you know, I hope Israel gets revenge. Someone filed a complaint. There was a police complaint against him. So in some ways, this is all kind of, you know, he's been very enmeshed in this. Maybe that's why he lives in Dubai now. Maybe.
- [25:12]
Sam Stein
All right, the other funny thing that happened over the weekend, I guess, funny only to me and you. Because she fascinates the two of us. Oh, no, she's. It's funny for everyone who works in Democratic politics and probably a lot of old Biden staffers. Lindy Lee, before we. Before. Before we do this, set up who Lindy Lee is, because.
- [25:28]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah. Is a sort of longtime Democrat or was a longtime Democratic fundraiser who, I think it's fair to say, sort of exaggerated her importance. People would. She would often be like. It's like, you know, big time Democrat. You know, she would get in all these Twitter fights. And after Trump was elected, she did a sort of. The Democrats have gone crazy. I'm a Republican now. This pivot in that moment where it was sort of like it looked like Trump was going to rule for 100 years. And so now she's become a conservative pundit.
- [25:54]
Sam Stein
Yeah, she was on. She was on Fox repeatedly as the ex Biden official who had turned on Biden or turned on the Democrats and had become a Trumper. Anyway, she came up and, you know, this week and she was not happy. We're going to put the tweet up of her to show she's not. She's not a fan of this war. Charlie Kirk is so Missed today. I am so America first. That I am America only now because of our own house is not in order. I spoiled President Trump Brown on in 2016. 2020. She did not in 2024. No regime change wars. Praying for our beloved country today and for our valiant troops. If you lost Lindy Lee, this is like, you know, it's like Cronkite moment probably for Trump, I'm guessing.
- [26:39]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah. I mean, this is someone that even a lot of people on the right are like, this lady's a grifter. You know, she's clearly just going with wherever the wind blows. And as a result, I think that it's a sign that she. She's abandoning ship.
- [26:49]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Now who's the. Like, I forget his name already, but who's the wannabe Charlie Kirk, the who
- [26:53]
Will Chamberlain
wears all the Ryland Hollyhand we've written
- [26:58]
Sam Stein
about Brian a fair bit. He. Bryland. Sorry.
- [27:03]
Will Chamberlain
He. He was.
- [27:03]
Sam Stein
He. He was getting into. He was getting into, like, a lot of war cheerleading this weekend and talking about how great it was. Right?
- [27:12]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah. I think he's a big pro war guy. He's putting out the video saying, you know, brace yourselves, America. I mean, now that's a guy who definitely did not. Was not alive rack war. You know, I mean, it's. It's kind of an interesting thing about him because clearly he's doing this kind of like, old MAGA punditry or even, like, old, like, you know, old.
- [27:30]
Sam Stein
It's not even maga. It's repug. It's like, yeah, freedom isn't free. And, like, that. I did like, how everyone basically responded to him with a. A link to, like, go enlist. Yeah, yeah.
- [27:41]
Will Chamberlain
No, I mean, it is like, this guy's like, I think, like, 22, 23. I mean, prime age.
- [27:46]
Sam Stein
What are you doing, buddy? Stop making videos. Yeah. He'll be like, yeah. He's like, we're gonna hunt him down. This is awesome. Rah, rah. It's like, yeah, here you go. Coinless, buddy. All right, but in all seriousness, just to wrap it up, we're gonna. We're gonna finish on Sneako. An Internet personality extraordinaire does a lot of streaming. I. I want to wrap this up in a serious way, because, look, this is Trump's bait. Not sneak up. But, like, MAGA online personalities really did rally around Trump, and to the degree that they are discomforted by what's happening over the weekend, it really matters. This is a huge component of his political support. They don't seem to be on board with what's going on? This is of course happening when traditionally support for the operation should be at their highest. Right. We took Khomeini, there is early success. It's only going to get messier from here. And so if they are not comfortable with what's happening now, then I would argue that Trump is, I don't know, in a little bit of trouble. And so that's why I think this is important. He has a lot of political capital with his crew, so we'll see. But this is not, it wasn't a particularly great development for him over the weekend. I don't know if you feel the same way.
- [29:00]
Will Chamberlain
Yeah, I do. I mean, I think we're seeing this. You know, I think you hit the nail on the head there in terms of the fact that these right wing media figures are very influential. And if you start this drumbeat of like we hate Trump, Trump got us into this forever war, they probably toss in some anti Semitism. You know, he, Sneako was the guy doing one of the Hail hit Hitler dance with clavicular back.
- [29:19]
Sam Stein
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
- [29:21]
Will Chamberlain
And so, you know, I think particularly with Gen Z Republicans, there's going to be this, this, this alienation. And I think it could be a real problem for Trump. I mean, particularly, I mean we, obviously we have the midterms coming up, but I think what we're seeing sort of throughout this video is this, this dissatisfaction among a lot of different swaths and factions on the right.
- [29:40]
Sam Stein
Yeah. So we, we've touched Bass in the middle place, Nick in a second. But Steve Bannon, Eric Prince there, you know, that faction really came out forcefully. We didn't play him. Alex Jones did come out and was, you know, we're talking about the real nutters. Then you have, you know, the Candace Owens Turning Point USA types. Obviously they're at loggerheads, but Candace, again, conspiratorial nutter who wants nothing to do with this. But the TPUSA folks were not on board. Totally. So that's a couple factions already. Then you have Marjorie Taylor Greene warring with Laura Loomer. So then you have factionalism there as well. And then you have, have the kind of like not totally political, heavy focused Internet personalities. So let's play Sneako here. Again, highly problematic character. But this is him just, you know, people listen to this guy. So let's play what he said.
- [30:29]
Sneako
He's 80 years old. Trump is 80 years old and would rather sacrifice his own citizens. He would rather bring us into another war in the Middle east identical to the others that we've seen from over the past several decades. Because he does not want his reputation to be tarnished by the blackmail footage being released from Epstein Island. That's what type of man is in charge of our country right now.
- [30:56]
Sam Stein
The Epstein thing was a little while. But look, there's nothing, literally nothing. I mean, not literally nothing, but there's not no real evidence to say he's doing this to distract from Epstein. I mean, anything could be a distraction from Epstein. But this is how people in that universe view this stuff. I'm very curious to see where Rogan, for instance, picks up on this stuff. Stuff. Or Andrew Schultz or any one of those people.
- [31:14]
Will Chamberlain
That's right. I mean, like, I. I think these kind of manosphere people are going to be very dissatisfied with it. I mean, look, I mean, you know, I hate to say Sneako has a point there, but I mean, when he's saying, you know, that, you know, he's sending people off to die for this war that they haven't really even explained, you know. Right. They don't feel that we deserve a justification for it. I mean, I, I think, you know, he. He's right on there. And, you know, I do think, just briefly, there was this. Because this is the manosphere people, I think, are going to be flaking off. And the people who watch these comedy podcasts, I think, you know, there was this California Republican, you know, this is good. We need a purge. We need only the loyalists supporting Trump. And at that point, you know, when you're saying it's good that you're losing support, I don't think things are working out for you.
- [31:52]
Sam Stein
It's not good. And I'll just note Trump's been making these phone calls to reporters. First of all, I'm going to. I'd be very interested to see if he starts calling into these. To these personality shows. Right. Because that would be a single day.
- [32:05]
Will Chamberlain
Call into MAGA Monday.
- [32:07]
Sam Stein
I would love that. Donald, come on. But he called the Post and he's just like, look, I don't care about the polling. I'm just doing what's right. When you're saying that to your point, it means, like, you know, things are not going to go great, and we'll see. I mean, we will see if you're start. If you're starting out where basically a good swap, a solid chunk of your base is not happy, and, and they're just holding on and trying to make rationalizations like, you know, Chamberlain did, which is that basically only you could do this. You know like that then you're in a bad, you're in a bad place. So anyways we'll be following it. Will's going to be writing about this folks, so you should be subscribing to his newsletter already. But if you're not, it's false flag. Subscribe subscribe to our YouTube feed to support our Maga Mondays. I, I hope this is worth it. It's a good way to start the week. I assume you learn things like Will is was raised in the mean streets of Dubai and that's why he's a, you know, a clubhound smoking Luke at 3am party of his life.
- [33:10]
Will Chamberlain
All right.
- [33:11]
Sam Stein
Well thanks for doing this man. I really appreciate it. For those who do who are watching, thank you for tuning in. It's an early show but we love it. Hope you support it. Subscribe to the Bulwark and we'll keep bringing you this type of interesting fair. Take care.