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Will Sommer
Foreign.
Sam Stein
It's me, Sam Stein here, my man, my partner in crime Will summer for another edition of MAGA Mondays. I know you're all wondering. It's top of mind for many people in the comment section. Will Will's Internet peter out and up in this broadcast and will explain to me that it's possible that he's go dark. It's not.
Will Sommer
No, I look, I mean there were some issues. People said, you know, in the future we want to hear the hosts, we want to be able to see him at times during the live broadcast. So I've done a lot. I've even considered cutting down the trees outside my window. They're giving me kind of a green tint in the past. We're working on it but there's been a total studio overhaul.
Sam Stein
Yeah, well, we like to, you know, the thing is I think you kind of glitching out and having massive technical issues during the broadcast adds to the allure of what we're doing here. Like it's not when I'm trying to be fancy, not trying to be cable news. If I have to go solo and you know, tight wire act, I'm gonna do it. And that's just that and you know your Internet, if it's like raining outside, it might fritz out. And that's just how we roll. And people, people are on for the ride, I think.
Will Sommer
Well, I'm, you know, I'm broadcasting from an undisclosed location from a bunker, you know and you just can't get the best Internet in the bunker these days.
Sam Stein
In all seriousness, we, I worry we might go for like an hour today. So if people and buckle up, we have so much to talk about. We're going to start with the IRS settlement. There's some breaking news around that. But we're going to go from there to truly remarkable Bible reading that Trump gave yesterday, which was actually a recorded Bible reading from a past Bible reading he did where, let's just say the man's not totally up on his King James Bible. It appears it's got to be nice and tidy in the teleprompter for him to get it right. Maybe some cuts on the video. We're going to be talking about Cash Patel snorkeling with the corpses of the people, people who were bombed in Pearl Harbor. And we're going to be talking about, of course, clavicular and whether he was mogged by his judge in one of his trials when he shot an alligator. We're gonna be talking about Tom Massey maybe doing a little blow and having a little fun, whatever, who cares? Some dirty tricks being played in the election and then we'll. I'm don't even say what it's about because it's so bizarre. We were talking about before we came on. There's a real treat at the end. Just absolutely mind blowing weirdness involving a threesome and a groi pet. That's all I'm gonna say. Did I get that right?
Will Sommer
That's what people like to hear. Look, the kicker it's gonna be we got the Groipet in the back pocket.
Sam Stein
Just so if you're watching this, you have to stick to the end to get the story about the threesome and the groipet. Okay, it's worth it, but it may be a while, but it's worth it. So grab your popcorn, strap on in,
Will Sommer
let's do It's MAGA Monday.
Guest Speaker / Clip Speaker
It's back on Monday.
Sam Stein
All right, let's talk about the breaking news. So irs, look, Trump was sued, was suing his own government, the irs, for the disclosure of his tax returns. He was suing them for what? $10 billion. Tiny little number, you know, it's a convenient, elegant number. 10 billion. Maybe a little bit of money, but whatever. And then there's a lot of talk about last week, a 1.7 billion billion dollar settlement that they could cut. Trump again, cutting a deal with his own government, which he obviously controls. And then there's a little bit of backlash about the idea that there'd be a 1.5 billion dollar settlement slush fund that he would just pay to political those politically prosecuted by the Biden administration. This came out like 10 minutes ago and it is a notification that the dispute is now over. They've dismissed the suit. That would be. Trump and his sons have dismissed the suit against the irs. There's no word about a settlement fund in here, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So I did a cursory read of it. You've looked at it, too. What do you make of it?
Will Sommer
Yeah. So the backstory here, as you said, I mean, this relates to the leak of their tax returns to the New York Times. And the challenge is that the judge in the case was saying rather reasonably, well, wait a minute, how can you be both the plaintiff and the defendant? I mean, this sort of seems like essentially she had said, I want to talk to the lawyers in this case and find out if there has been, like, collusion or if there's, like, orders coming from Trump about what's going on here. And so instead, it seems like, you know, we don't know about the settlement right now, but I suspect if there is a settlement, it's going to turn out that basically they said, well, rather, why do we need this judge involved? Let's just cut a side deal. Let's settle the case before the judge can stop us, throw this case out of court, and then create this settlement fund along the way.
Sam Stein
Now, again, the key here is that the judge was about to rule by whether this whole thing should have been thrown out because of how clear the conflicts are. Trump suing his own government that he's controlling, and then making a settlement, and they just move expeditiously to try to get some. Some resolution here. We don't know if there's a settlement in there. But you've been looking into this, and I don't want to tease too much, but tease a little bit, like, what's coming out of your reporting on this. Yeah.
Will Sommer
So, I mean, the theory is that, you know, and who knows now that the case is out of court, but the idea was, well, maybe if the money was to go towards someone else, like, if it wouldn't go directly towards Donald Trump, maybe the money, they would be okay for him to sue and then take the money and give it to his cronies. And so the idea was that there would be this settlement fund that would go to, you know, other victims of doj, overreach of the weaponization of the Biden Justice Department, such as, for example, various crooks surrounding Trump or supporting him. And the big one, probably the largest group in question here would be the January six rioters. And so now everyone is licking their chops and saying, oh, my gosh, 1.7 billion. Oh, I'd like to cut off a good 30 million for myself. And so this has created a lot of agita. We're going to get into this in false flag tonight. But basically, some lawyers who have quit the case saying, you know, we'll never get our reparations are suddenly back, and they're saying, I never abandoned you, my beloved rioters. And then, and then the rioters are saying, well, it kind of seems like I'll just have to fill out a form. I probably won't even have to sue. Like, what do I need a lawyer for? Why do you need a 30% cut? And so there's. There's a lot of drama that's been created.
Sam Stein
I just. It is so. Well, again with the caveat that we don't know what's in here. And doj, as of now, is not talking. White House isn't talking about what might be the resolution here. But the notion that they just put aside $1.7 billion and then let Trump basically dole it out how he feels fit is insanely corrupt to a degree that I, I don't think people appreciate. I mean, it's just, first of all, where's the money even coming from? Like, how get $1.7 billion if that's indeed what it is? There's like, a little side pocket in the DOJ budget where you can just take this money. I don't understand it. Like, what. Where would the money come from? Do we know?
Will Sommer
You know, we don't really. I'm seeing some supporters of the settlement, such as it is, arguing that, well, you know, we could, I guess there's some amount of money the government sets aside for settlements like this. And so that 1.7 billion, you know, I, maybe again, I mean, like, it's not a great argument. You know, I wouldn't want to make it. I mean, they've compared it to, I think the Times article mentioned that, you know, in the past, there was, like, a settlement with, I believe, Native American farmers who didn't receive farm aid, which is, like, a legitimate thing. And now they're saying, you know, it'll just be like that, except it's a slush fund for, like, Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon.
Sam Stein
Boy, it's rough. It's shocking. I can't. Part of me wants to believe that Trump floated that. And, like, that's why there were some stories last week. They floated the 1.7 bill just to see if it could, like, pass muster. And Maybe they kind of realized how much backlash they would get. But we don't know. We're going to be monitoring this one
Will Sommer
because, yeah, I'm sure Trump's going to back down on this one. He won't want, he won't want his paws on nearly $2 billion.
Sam Stein
What am I talking about? I'm an idiot. What the fuck? Stupid. Sam, go ahead.
Will Sommer
Yeah, you know, just the other thing I'd add here is that like, the idea of like January 6th reparations has been really like, I think, driving a lot of these people crazy because, like, a lot of them, you know, are often poor. They are, they have struggled to get their lives back on track after going to jail. And so they're just constantly been like, when's my ship gonna come in? And the idea that this is actually gonna happen even, you know, Tim talked last week. He was running through the January 6th criminals who, after being pardoned and one guy was like, like a sex criminal. And he was, but he was promising his victim, don't worry, I'll buy you off with a piece of my reparations cash. So this is like a very big deal in certain parts of the right wing psyche.
Sam Stein
Oh, boy. Okay, well, we're going to monitor this one. If we see news while we are broadcasting live on the details of the settlement, I'll just kind of jump in and try to, you know, give you the news. But for now, it's crazy.
Will Sommer
I mean, you know, it just drives me nuts. It's crazy.
Sam Stein
Will's not normally animated. For now, all we know is that some sort of resolution has been reached. They've withdrawn the lawsuit against the irs. In that filing, there is no details about whether there is a settlement or not. But yeah, it's just a two page filing that was offered this morning. All right. To this weekend. So there was gathering on the mall in anticipation of America's 250th anniversary. This one is a religious gathering. I'm not, I, I wish I had the actual name of the organizing entity.
Will Sommer
I think it's like rededicate 250.
Sam Stein
Okay, rededicate 250, we'll go with that. If it's wrong, God can curse Will for that. Trump. Trump. Now look, I don't think Trump's ever been confused as a big, you know, church guy, although he's, he's tried to, you know, show his bonafides every now and then. Trump literally mailed this one in. Okay. I, I, it's like, I'm not trying to be like over the top. He. It looks like he took an old recording that he had made for the. Some sort of collective Bible reading that they had done a couple weeks ago and just, Just said, just sent the recording. And I just, like, it's lit. I mean, I. Unless I'm missing something, he's wearing the exact same tie. He's reading the exact same verse from the King James Bible. It's just, I guess he said, you know what? I've done this recording already. I'm gonna give them this. It's my best work. I'm gonna give them, Give them the recording. And so they played this video that they had just played a couple weeks ago. Am I, Am I crazy? It does look like the same one, right?
Will Sommer
No, I mean, that's a. Yeah, as you said, I, I believe this video originally was from like a sort of prominent Americans read passages from the Bible series. And it looks like he's like, you know what? I don't know. Send him the last thing we sent to the religious people. We got it in the can already.
Sam Stein
No one, no one bothered to be like, hey, Mr. President, that's the one you did a weeks ago. You know, these people are g. They come out to Washington to hear from me, maybe give them a new. A new verse, a new read, just put on a new tie, didn't bother to do it. So anyways, that's one element of this. We're gonna play the video a second. That was really hilarious. The. The other is the way that he clearly is struggling with it. And look, I, I'm an idiot and I, I don't know the King James Bible. And when Andrew Egger passed us the verse, I pulled it up and, you know, it's a complicated. There's, you know, some tricky turns of phrases in there, so I probably would have butchered it too. But I'm also not the President trying to appeal to a vast swath of religiously minded voters. Here is Donald Trump reading a portion of the King James Bible.
Guest Speaker / Clip Speaker
Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all that came into Solomon's heart to make him the house of the Lord. And in his own house he prosperously affected. And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. If I shut up, Heaven, that there be no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, if my people, which are called by my Name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. Then will I hear from heaven.
Will Sommer
Beautiful.
Sam Stein
All right. Prosperously affected. I'm not sure I knew that one. What do you think, Will? Are you convinced?
Will Sommer
Well, I feel like he could have done a new take, you know, at least it could have been. The first time he came out, they said, oh, we kind of mangled that prosperously. You know, one thing I want to note here is Tucker Carlson was recently saying that Trump didn't swear. Wasn't sworn in at his inauguration on a Bible because he's the Antichrist. And I'll note there that Trump is touching the Bible. He's got his hands all over the Bible. So, you know, maybe that's kind of a rebuttal to Tucker.
Sam Stein
You think he was signaling.
Will Sommer
He was saying, hey, Tucker, my hands do not catch on fire.
Sam Stein
Look, look, I'm touching the Bible, Tucker. It's prosperously affected, folks. Not prosperously. I will note there's a number of different edit cuts in there now that. That screamed to me that this might not have been one. Take time.
Will Sommer
Well, you know, I think we can see here that he. You know, it's sort of like someone's reading something and they're not really, like, comprehending what, because he's kind of just like, I'm just going to read it with the same toad. I'm not going to, like, pause or anything. Yeah. And then prosperously, you know. Yeah. So I do think here he was maybe struggling a bit.
Sam Stein
Yeah, I have a little sympathy, I suppose. I had to do the hosting duty this morning on way too early for Ms. Now, and the teleprompter got kind of janky on me towards. Towards the end, and they just, like, different script was loaded in. It was like, you know, instead of loading actual, you know, teleprompter stuff, it was like an article mixed with teleprompter stuff, and the words just didn't make sense. And I was just reading it like Ron Burgundy and looking like a total lunatic while reading it. And it just. I was just saying words, and, like, they just did not compute. And anyone who's actually listening must have been like, what is Sam talking about? It makes sense. But that was live. That was live. This was clearly not live.
Will Sommer
Yeah, you know, look, I mean, I. I think he's a. He's a guy who. Who has a complex relationship with faith. And with that in mind, let's. Let. Let. Let's dive into Eric Metaxas.
Sam Stein
Okay. Yeah, you set it up who is Eric Metaxas?
Will Sommer
Eric Metaxas is a prominent evangelical. I think he's a talk radio host. He's definitely a podcaster. He's like a prominent evangelical Trump supporter. My. My brush with Eric Metaxas or, you know, rings to mind me. After the first Trump inauguration, the Trump people were out, they were celebrating in the streets, and a guy went by on a lime scooter, and I think he said, like, f Trump. And Eric Metaxas just clocks him or kind of like tries to whack him. Yeah. And so, I mean, totally unprovoked. Did he connect? Oh, yeah. I mean, he whacked the guy. So this is your man of faith here.
Sam Stein
All right, let's watch him.
Guest Speaker / Clip Speaker
Hard to believe that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man, to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand. It's extraordinary. We only had to wait 200 years.
Will Sommer
I can't believe it took two. The Lord kept the ballroom for us for 200 years.
Sam Stein
I mean, what. What are we talking about? God's great plan is for this ballroom to be constructed clearly. Do people realize how they sound when they do these things?
Will Sommer
It's crazy. I mean, I don't know how you could say that with a straight face. I mean, I love that. You know, I guess the previous ballroom argument that it's for safety after the shooting and everything that's been discarded, maybe that didn't have the juice. Now it's like a Noah's ark type type. God said, we got to build it.
Sam Stein
I didn't thought about as Noah's Ark. That's a.
Will Sommer
God said a party's a great party's going to come. And you need a ballroom.
Sam Stein
You need to be in the ballroom for the flood. That's what's gonna happen. They gotta save and two of each MAGA type has got to be in there so that you can survive the flood. Between this and the big golden Trump statue, it's getting a little bit wild on the conservative religious right.
Will Sommer
You know, I do think it's one of these things where, like, in retrospect, we may be like, that was pretty crazy. That maybe something. I mean, they are really. I mean, obviously Trumpism has been a cult of personality for a while, but at the point where you're saying, you know, God picked this man to build, you know, his toy ballro room and, you know, here's the golden statue, I mean, it is. I don't think the optics are great there.
Sam Stein
Well, it's also Wild is how they. People applauded. They're like. It was like, you know, cattle. Yeah, ballroom. The other thing, I guess, with the ballroom. Let's just stay there for a second. So the money that they tried to get for the ballroom in that reconciliation bill, the $1 billion, got nixed by the Senate parliamentarian over the weekend, basically. Long story short, you can only put, like, budget related matters into those things. And I guess the parliamentarian ruled that this is clearly not related to budget. It's, you know, about Trump's ego. Now, I imagine they're going to try to recast it to make it parliamentarian friendly so that it can get in there, but it's no. There's no guarantee that it's going to get passed through the Senate. There might be four Republicans who are just like, nah, we don't need to spend a billion dollars on this. So that's where things stand now. And it left me wondering, like, what if there's just, like, a big gaping hole that's just there for a while? Like, past his presidency is. That's, like, not. I wouldn't put that at a zero probability at this point. I mean, we're talking, like, what, two and a half more years?
Will Sommer
Correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't the ballroom supposed to be funded by donors?
Sam Stein
Yes, obviously.
Will Sommer
And so now they need, like, a billion dollars for it. This is crazy.
Sam Stein
Well, maybe this is what the settlement is for the irs.
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I would rather the settlement go towards the ballroom, you know, I mean, if they have knocked it down like that, I think.
Sam Stein
Yeah, well, I mean, if the, if the, if the options are, like, slush Fun for the J6ers or the ballroom. Yeah, I take the fucking ballroom, sure. But I feel like that's a binary choice that I don't need to have. I feel like this would be like. Don't you feel like we should have other options? Like maybe don't knock down the East Wing and then hope to hope that the money somehow comes up. It's insane.
Will Sommer
It's crazy. It's. It's.
Sam Stein
I would just say that's the third or fourth time you said it's crazy. And that's got to be your catchphrase now.
Will Sommer
Oh, my. Well, you know, what can I say? It often is.
Sam Stein
I mean, but we could end up with, like, a big gaping hole where the East Wing once was and just no way to figure it out because Trump's private funds haven't come through.
Will Sommer
Well, I think that's right. And you Know, I think the idea. I mean, this is a very kind of Trumpian move. And clearly they were kind of trying to make this fait accompli where they, you know, they knock it down and then they say, well, you know, we got to put it back together. I mean, it's kind of like when they dumped all the potentially asbestos stuff on the. On the. In the East Potomac park, when they just said, here you go. I guess we gotta remodel it because there's a bunch of asbestos on it now.
Sam Stein
Or when they started filling the reflecting pool with, like, what they call American flag blue. And then it started changing colors because they're doing it at the wrong time. And, like, I'm all, shit, we gotta keep going, because it's only halfway filled, man.
Will Sommer
It's crazy. And now they're gonna build a helipad. Did you see that? This was this morning.
Sam Stein
Yeah. I will say this about the helipad. It's the one upgrade that I can kind of get my head around. Like, if they're. If these marine ones are actually burning the grass, then. Yeah, get a helipad. That. That. I'm not gonna lose sleep over a helipad. That. That makes sense to me. Am I. Am I crazy?
Will Sommer
No, I. I just think sort of the renovations, goodwill, the. The property flipper, whatever, you know, it. He's burned through his goodwill on fixing up the White House stuff. I mean, even, you know, going back to the. The. The Rose Garden, we don't even talk about that anymore. I know they paved that over.
Sam Stein
Everything's game paved. And, you know, they. They're. They're changing the parking. The Pennsylvania Avenue right in front of the White House.
Will Sommer
Al.
Sam Stein
I guess that's temporary just for parking now. But. Yeah, I. I was playing this game with my family, like, what. What's the next thing he's going to renovate in D.C. and you want to know what they guessed?
Will Sommer
What's that?
Sam Stein
The Martin Luther King Memorial. Making it the Martin Luther Trump Memorial.
Guest Speaker / Clip Speaker
Yeah.
Will Sommer
I don't put Trump right next to him.
Sam Stein
You know, two civil rights icons to go share the property. I suppose it's. We'll see if he's got any other designs. At some point, you think he'd be like, all right, I have a few projects, like, going, maybe I should finish one before I get to the next.
Will Sommer
Well, you know, we're still waiting on the arch. Right. And so that's. That's coming.
Sam Stein
Well, I. So that was. The other thing is, like, maybe it's happening currently because they. They Were looking out at the property and there's doing something over there. And a congressman up who. Who has some oversight went over there last week to just check it out, and he's pretty convinced that they actually had started.
Will Sommer
Oh, my gosh. All right, I gotta go over there. I want to see it.
Sam Stein
You know, I was thinking about that someone should go over there, but also someone should go to the asbestos pile on East Potomac and grab a little sample of it and get it tested.
Will Sommer
People have done that. There was a test, I think the park service said that there's some chemical stuff in it.
Sam Stein
Oh, okay. Never mind. Well, there goes not good. I was gonna make. I was gonna make Jared go over there and eat it and then see what happened to him.
Will Sommer
See how we'll check on Jared in a week.
Sam Stein
Yeah. Document what happens to you, Jared. This is called immersion journalism. All right? Cash Patel, our boy, look, he loves traveling. Our favorite FBI director. That's the other story I wanted to do. We gotta document all the. Cash is living like a great life. He's doing insanely fun things that, you know, if my 20s and wasn't tied down with kids and I had the opportunity to do those types of things, that'd be awesome. Like, you know, go to concerts, check out the Olympic hockey team, snorkel in crazy locations, like all this stuff. But he's the FBI director and it's causing some problems. So last week, obviously, the story broke that he got in some sort of VIP snorkel at the USS Arizona. Now, I would encourage people to read our own Mark Hertling's piece about how sacrilegious this is and how absurd it is. And apparently this happens every now and then. And dignitaries get this, but it's not a great look. Someone compared it to playing like a game of flag football in Arlington National Cemetery. It's just not a little gauche. Cassius, people are really mad about this. Naturally, they don't like it, but the New York Times story kind of delivered the goods. They also had this little nuggie about his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins. What do we call her here? Famous.
Will Sommer
The country music sensation Satan.
Sam Stein
Yes, country music sensation Alexis Wilkins. She went to apparently some fentanyl briefing with him. Did you read that?
Will Sommer
Yes. Well, you're kind of scared. Yeah, I was like reading the article that it's like, oh, there's Alexis at the. The closed door meeting.
Sam Stein
Yeah. What was that about? She said she was. She worked some for some Fenton anti fentanyl group. I couldn't even follow the logic.
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I think that's the argument. I mean, it is just so. You know, one thing that I think is worth noting here about the Hawaii stuff is, you know, he often has sort of a pretext for this. Like, for example, in this Hawaii trip, I believe he also went to Australia and New Zealand to visit the FBI offices there. You know, I'm not seeing a lot of trips to maybe less exciting locations to visit the FBI office in Algeria or, you know, wherever. Like, it's a lot of just, like, you know what? It also coincides with, you know, maybe my girlfriend's country music concert or where she lives or a wrestling match we want to go to. So it's a bit. A bit of a pretext.
Sam Stein
Well, in this case, there was also the. It was a George Strait concert that they went to. I'm trying to get that data.
Will Sommer
Yeah. Yeah. So George Strait. You a big George Strait fan?
Sam Stein
I like George Strait, but I'm not a huge country guy.
Will Sommer
Yeah, me neither. But apparently, you know, Cash is. And so he was in this, like, private box the time said it would have gone for 35 to 50k. I mean, pretty crazy. And it's unclear who paid for it. So it's. Look, as you said, I mean, he's living a sick life. There's no doubt about it. But people will say, what, you don't think Cash should be able to chug a beer with his boys on the hockey team? Not really. I think it's fine. But, but. But he is the FBI director. You know, that's. That's kind of the one. The one wrinkle his defenders often skip over.
Sam Stein
Yeah. And. Well, and that. And then he also had very publicly criticized his predecessors for using their jet for unofficial business. And he's just absolutely burning the jet fumes, going from place to place. And you're right. Like, he's not going to, like, anywhere. That seems kind of unfun. It's like, I gotta go check out. Gotta go check out the Hawaii office.
Will Sommer
Yeah. The New Zealand office. It's going down with the. The Kiwis.
Sam Stein
Yeah. The Milan office needs a visit. Coming up. Gotta do it. I'll be the guy for the job. I don't want to do it, but I gotta do it. I. You know, and if I were him, I guess at this point, with the preponderance of evidence that you're just kind of using this as a junket, I'd stop doing it. I would just kind of like, dial it back a little bit because I don't want to get Caught in another one of these instances, but it doesn't seem like he's really dialed it back at all.
Will Sommer
Well, you know what? He's a. He clearly is a cosmic. He's a jet setting kind of guy. And he loves the snorkeling. You know, you just can't snorkel at the graves. I know people have done it in the past, but. But I think if you're going to be the travel and FBI director, you probably want to avoid that one.
Sam Stein
Yeah, just say no. Like, you don't have to do it. You can. You can just do your job and that's that. And yet he's. He's a survivalist. We talked about this a bunch. He is just sticking around. Others may have fallen, but cash is just keeping on, keeping on. And that's that. All right, let's take a little quick break. We gotta fund this bad boy. So we're gonna take a quick break from our paid sponsor. That would be Zakdak. Raise your hand if you've ever been putting off a dental cleaning, an annual checkup, or honestly, any kind of doctor's appointment. Yeah, hands up right here. That's me. When something feels off, I usually just doom scroll my symptoms and spiral quietly to myself, thinking about all the maladies that await. Does that sound familiar? Well, this year things are going to be different. We're finding doctors we love and we're booking appointments with ZocDoc. ZocDoc is a free app and website that helps you find and book high quality in network doctors so you can find someone who you love. I like using ZocDoc when I need to go see a dermatologist because I'm worried about that little rash on my arm. Just got to figure it out. Or when I need to find a good dentist because God knows it's been a while since I've gotten my teeth cleaned. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com bulwarktakes to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's z o c-o c.com bulwarktakes zocdoc.com bulwarktakes thanks to Zocdoc for sponsoring this message. All right, well, you convinced you're going to go to Zocdoc?
Will Sommer
You know what? I did like you talking about your mysterious rash. You know, and that's why you need a judgment free zone at Zoc, Doc.
Sam Stein
Look, I wanted to properly sell the product. And if you're going to properly Sell the product. You got to be open about what's going on. On and sock talk. Thank you. I appreciate your help. All right, switching gears, there's a primary coming up tomorrow, big one. Thomas Matzi. He's probably gonna lose. It doesn't look great, but, you know, he's fighting a fight. And what's very telling is just he has got the kitchen sink being thrown at him by basically every Trumpist out there. Benny Johnson's taking a real liking to going after him. And it's causing some stir with Marjorie Taylor Greene. We haven't really, really. We, we could talk about. You want to talk about that quickly? Like, that is some fiery stuff there. And then we'll get into the Loomer stuff. Have you been anything?
Will Sommer
Yeah. So basically, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene is very supportive of Massey. She resigned from Congress, as we know. She was on a trip to Costa Rica with her, her fiance, who was a right wing media character, White House reporter and White House reporter.
Sam Stein
He retired.
Will Sommer
Yes, he retired out of love. Yes, it was very romantic because basically, I think it was difficult to be around Trump. And so they, they went to Rica. Laura claimed they had bought a house and essentially fled the country, which, you know, would have made a great story. But Marjorie Taylor Greene claims she has not fled. And then she really got into it with Benny, who, you know, he's going to do kind of whatever Trump world wants him to do. So he was really tearing into her.
Sam Stein
Yeah. And she tore right back. But the, the, I mean, this is all part of like, what is just an absolute avalanche of appa being thrown at Massey right before the election. It's, it's usual stuff always, almost always involves some sort of weird sex scandal and things like that. In this case, I think we alluded to this last week, but there's a woman named Cynthia west who was in a relationship with Tom Massie after Tom Massey's wife of like 31 years passed. And suddenly, a week or two before the primary, she comes forward and says all these things about Massie and the husband, the husband of Cynthia west has old tweets being like, hey, stop having sex with my wife and stuff like that. And anyways, Loomer now apparently is talking to Cynthia west and has some incredibly wild accusations. This is Laura Loomer. So take your salt shaker, rub it all over them. But Will, can you give me the, the top lines?
Will Sommer
This is an interesting one. So, yes, as you said. So Laura claims that she's interviewed Cynthia West. She's gonna be debuting the video I think later today, one thing, there are clearly like a lot of like kind of political operatives in the background here. You know, Cynthia west claimed to have visited Mar A Lago a few months ago.
Sam Stein
So yes, she tweeted it. So this is not new. She had tweeted that she was on her way to Mar A Lago.
Will Sommer
Guess who's headed to Mar A Lago, Parentheses to spill the beans about my ex boyfriend, Thomas Massie.
Sam Stein
Yeah.
Will Sommer
And so the. So there's something going on here. But basically now she's talking to Loomer. And so in the initial video she put out, she was like, I broke up with Thomas because I was uncomfortable with some sexual things he wanted me to do. Do.
Sam Stein
Now, look, I don't know.
Will Sommer
But now Loomer claims, Lumer claims that it was like sort of like some. He wanted some like, kind of like dirty talk about like having sex with like a 19 or 20 year old. And then he wanted them to meet up with a couple that Cynthia felt were swingers and maybe cocaine users. And so, I mean, look, this, this is like, you know, this is like baseline stuff for a libertarian, right? But, you know. Yeah, let's see here. This baseline stuff, this is Loomer. I asked her if she was suggesting Massey was asking her to engage in and swinger meetups, and she said yes, they were going to meet up with the couple. He demanded that she sexualized in stories while they were infamous, intimate. And then when she said, no, I'm not into that, he said, you are selfish for not satisfying my needs. It is, It's a strange situation. And they're really, you know, like we talked about before, this is. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong here that Thomas Massie did, but it's sort of, again, not what you want coming out right before your kind of desperate battle for reelection.
Sam Stein
I mean, I'm just blown away that she did a, what she's calling a two hour exclusive. Two hours. Like, how do you build out two hours of material off this? We're at 31 minutes and I'm exhausted.
Will Sommer
I'm. I'm just really curious about what is motivating this woman to do it. I mean, because she. At the point where you're like sitting journalistic integrity.
Sam Stein
Laura Loomer just cares about the story.
Will Sommer
I mean, I know it's motivating Loomer, but. But what, what is? You know, that she is now just so like on the circuit. It. Because she started out with this kind of Kentucky activist lawyer. It was very Weird. And now she's, like, plugged in. I'm going to sit down for the Loomer Unleashed interview.
Sam Stein
Yeah. Okay, so the idea here is that Tom Massey likes to talk DY and watches maybe porn and potentially did a little blow and had sex. And, I mean, okay, he's into the,
Will Sommer
the pineapple culture, as they say.
Sam Stein
Is that what they say? What? King.
Will Sommer
That's a swinger code word. Like, if you ever are on a cruise and you see people with, like, a room decorated with pineapples, you know, that's what's going on there.
Sam Stein
Well, we did that whole MAGA cruise story. We never mentioned that on the MAGA cruise story.
Will Sommer
I should have clued them in.
Sam Stein
Why did you not? I mean, I don't, at some point, like, I would like to believe that people see through this type of. Right. This happens all the time right before an election. There's always some shoe to drop. You know, Hunter Biden laptop was, like, right before the election. It just, this stuff is constant. And, you know, this one is particularly transparent where this woman is just out of nowhere coming forward. But, like, is the accusation that Massey did something terribly wrong or that he is, like, kind of a kink? Like he's got some kinks for, like, you know, swinging?
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the latter. I mean, look, I, I do think that this is somewhat of a judgmental group. I don't think these are people sort of like, you know, whatever gets your rocks off, particularly.
Sam Stein
Why are they judgmental? They're the king.
Will Sommer
They're the. Well, they're often the most twisted of them all. Yes.
Sam Stein
I mean, give me a break. Like, we've gone through the transcripts. We have the text. These guys are freaks. We're going to get into one of
Will Sommer
the Laura Loomer memorably, you know, talking about, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene with the Arby's in the pants. I mean, these are some, these are some twisted characters, but, you know. Yeah, I mean, look, I, I think it also kind of dovetails with, obviously, we know Trump was really hitting Massey, feeling that he got married to, by the way, another woman, you know, too soon after his wife died. I think it was like a year. And so now you say, well, Thomas Massie wanted to go to allegedly a sort of a swingers, cocaine swingers party, you know, two, three months after his wife died. You know, I, I, it's, it's a little, you know, unpalatable.
Sam Stein
What do you think's going to happen here? I mean, Massey looks like Massey's kind of sputtering a little bit. And then. And combine that with what happened in Indiana with the state senators who got just annihilated by Trump, and then Bill Cassidy this weekend, who obviously lost to Trump. MAGA must be, like, flexing their shit right now.
Will Sommer
Yeah, I think they're pumped. And, you know, he would be a big, big head for them to chop off. So I think they're. And, you know, look, I mean. And, like.
Sam Stein
And the Boebert thing, We didn't talk about that. Bo. He went up. Trump went after Boebert.
Will Sommer
Yep.
Sam Stein
Let's get her a primary challenger happened to be that. It's like. Like two months after the filing deadline. But whatever. I mean, it's just, you cannot. Again, if you are. It doesn't matter. You cross the guy once and you are just done. Now, Massey's crossed him a bunch of times, but no one's arguing that Tom Massey is, like, unprincipled here, you know, it is.
Will Sommer
It's pretty good dirt, though, I have to admit. It's pretty salacious.
Sam Stein
Oh, yeah. That's why we're talking about it. I will say Lumer. Look, Lumer, this is her. This is her bag. We're watching a master at work.
Will Sommer
Yes.
Sam Stein
And if she know, she knows what it's like to be caught in the moment. And we can play a little evidence of that. Let's do.
Laura Loomer
All right. People want to put me in a gas chamber because they're obsessed with the dudes.
Sam Stein
I don't. I think they're just memeing on you. But it's okay.
Laura Loomer
It's okay. I don't care. I love it.
Sam Stein
It'd be like that sometimes.
Laura Loomer
I know they're just jealous because I had big tits and an Ashkenazi iq.
Sam Stein
Yes, that's what it is. You got it.
Laura Loomer
Anyway, next time you're in New York, let me know. We'll hang out. Bring your girlfriend to New York sometime, and we'll all hang out. We'll go to, like, really cool restaurants and hang out and have a blast.
Will Sommer
Yes, I will bring my girlfriend.
Laura Loomer
Yeah, I want to meet what's.
Sam Stein
Becca.
Will Sommer
Yeah, yeah, of course. That was Laura hitting on future eco fascist Mike.
Sam Stein
Ma. Bring your girlfriend, Mike. We'll hang out. Let's see. Maybe Massie will bring that back up. All right, we got a few more to rock through here. This, this. They're all good. Let's just very briefly want to talk about Matt Walsh. An incredible post about Rosa Parks, and I'm a little bit worried that Matt is just discovering US History in real time and just figuring that no one else has made these discoveries. But this is what he had to say about Rosa Parks. Civil rights act
Matt Walsh
park story you were taught in school was fake, too. This was not just some woman on her way home from work. Civil rights leaders thought Parks would make a sympathetic face for their lawsuit and then told her, a longtime NAACP volunteer, to create a situation where she'd be arrested. This gets sold to the public as totally organic, when actually it's play acting to create ideal conditions for a court case or scandal. The iconic photo of Parks on the bus was staged months after the incident as part of a press campaign. The white man sitting behind her in the bus photo was a journalist, which you probably didn't know.
Sam Stein
Wow. I did know.
Will Sommer
You know, that's pretty messed up. I did know to put some planning into your campaign to desegregate buses. That's. It was all fake.
Sam Stein
Oh, my God. Who knew that about Rosa Parks, that she was actually an official at the naacp? I had no idea.
Will Sommer
You know, that's a big. A big Matt Walsh thing. Is he, you know, he goes on these campaigns to, like, you know, I'm gonna, you know, tell the real civil rights truth.
Sam Stein
Does he know about Iwo Jima in the photo there, do you think? Or should he. Should he blow that story up, too, for us?
Will Sommer
Let's tip him off.
Sam Stein
Geez, who are these people? All right, Clavicular.
Will Sommer
Clavicular.
Sam Stein
What can we say? Give us. Give what? Actually, why was he in court? Who is this judge? What happened? This is. This is your canvas here.
Will Sommer
Clavicular. You know, the famous looks. Maxer. He's facing a lot of allegations, but most recently, he was in court last week on charges of discharging a. You know, illegally discharging a weapon after he shot a dead alligator while on a swamp boat ride with another guy. Who's that? You know, I. I can't even remember. He's a crazy name. It's like Atlas or something. And. And. And so it's like two looks maxers on a fan boat. And look, things are going to get a little crazy. And so they discharged their weapons into the alligator. And so then they were brought up on charges, and they met a very handsome judge.
Sam Stein
Well, what's the. So the judge is where, in Florida?
Will Sommer
Judge is in Florida? Yes.
Sam Stein
And he's determining whether clavicular has to do, like, community service.
Will Sommer
Yeah, yeah. So clavicular entered. Entered a plea to avoid jail time, and then the judge is going to sentence him to like probation or community service.
Sam Stein
Clavicular is really, you know, he's, he's got nine lives, this guy. He is avoiding jail time left and right, but he is coming close.
Will Sommer
Well, you know, clavicular and we'll get to the chud the builder situation shortly. But like, but basically clavicular is one of these guys who he is, he's living life on a razor's edge, right? I mean he had the overdose as we wrote about. He's cozying up with affiliates of the Israeli mafia. So he's sort of headed to what one imagines as sort of like the lengthy prison term that will bring everything to a halt or perhaps worse. But you know, for now, you know, he's living that lifestyle.
Sam Stein
I thought he said he was going to try to clean it up a little bit. Or is that not true?
Will Sommer
Well, you know, the things I've been hearing from the clavicular camp suggests that, you know, and not a direct comment on the drugs but just sort of that, you know, he's unlucky. You can turn on his live stream@clickkick.com. you know he's, he's still having fun out there.
Sam Stein
Definitely is. All right, so this judge comes in and he, he puts him into, gives him probation or whatever it is and immediately the, the commentary is oh no know this judge, this judge is good looking and he just mogged the out of clavicular and it's not great for clavicular but clavicular fans are like not having it and they are dissecting this judge's jawline in ways that is, I will say fairly homoerotic but maybe that's just me. Love it.
Will Sommer
Like yes.
Sam Stein
Yeah, they, I can't even read it. What is, what are they saying here?
Will Sommer
Yeah, so, so the thing to understand just the face of picture. So, so yeah, so they have all these like kind of like symmetry and plotting and they're, there's, they're saying, you know, like how far are his eyebrows apart? I mean this is something if you ever. There are these guys on Reddit who are very into this and like if you post your picture and it'll be like a good looking person or like sort of a classically like thought of as a beautiful actress and they'll say yeah, she's like a five because they have these like very specific ways of like analyzing. They're saying like brow line balanced. Good.
Sam Stein
Yeah.
Will Sommer
Philtrum length. So the filtrum being the area under your nose. They're kind of hitting the judge here. They're saying his filtrum is short. He has a minor asymmetry on his face. I mean, they're saying he's like a pretty handsome guy. There's no doubt about it. But they're saying that clavicular mogs him any day of the week.
Sam Stein
Yeah, I'm looking at what they say is bad, and I guess the eye width is average, which is fine.
Will Sommer
I guess this is what we call predator, eyes versus prey eyes. So I think if you have the eyes far apart, it's a predator. If you have them too close together, it's prey. Right.
Sam Stein
Face length, width is ideal. What else? Chin height proportionate. He's got some good scores. Chin.
Will Sommer
Chin projection is ideal. Overall pleasing facial harmony. So they're not saying, look, I mean, he's certainly handsome for a judge, but is he handsome enough to be a looks maxer or be mogging? You know, maybe not.
Sam Stein
The symmetry analysis. Left, right division is minor symmetry. That's not great. You don't want that. You don't want that. I think he's a good looking judge. I feel like you mogged him.
Will Sommer
Well, you know, it was smart of the judicial system to pick this guy because I don't think clavicular would have taken normie, a high tier normie. He wouldn't have respected that person. But like, I think if you have another mogger in there, clavicular is going to say, okay, maybe I do need to clean up my life. Leave the gators alone.
Sam Stein
All right, well, what's next for Clovicular then? He's got you service.
Will Sommer
Yeah, I think, I think he's facing some community service. You know, he's got to stay on the straight and narrow by the standards of clavicular. You know, he's, he's got a, you know, maybe when he's, when he's doing
Sam Stein
service, does he live stream it? Is he, is he not allowed to do that?
Will Sommer
That's a pretty good idea. They probably wouldn't let him. But I do think if his probation officer, someone could be a character. If they, if he could do the chain gang and then they could send in the super chats, you know, and say clavicular, there's trash over there. Pick it up. Might be a good idea.
Sam Stein
Idea. I mean, it would probably be a public service. You mentioned CHUD the builder. We talked about him. Or you wrote about him last week. This dude shot someone because he's a racist and goes around trying to provoke racist racial clashes. What's the status of his case, situation, etc?
Will Sommer
Yeah, this Guy makes clavicular look like such a good guy, like a boy scout. But basically, as you said, this guy's whole deal really unpleasant. Like, one of the worst people I've ever covered. I'll just say that.
Sam Stein
Yeah.
Will Sommer
And he just goes around and he, you know, says the N word to black people, and they get mad, and he goes, oh, you know, here. This proves what I'm saying, folks. And so ultimately, this climax with an incident on Wednesday at. Outside of a courthouse. I think he had a civil date, and he showed up, and then some guy, you know, their dispute began, and then Clavicia, or excuse me, Chud the builder shot the guy. Unfortunately, the guy survived. He got life flighted. But, you know, as you can imagine, a shooting outside of a courthouse, people are also freaking out.
Sam Stein
Out.
Will Sommer
Chud also shot himself. You know, sort of grazed himself.
Sam Stein
And so now deliberately or accidentally.
Will Sommer
Accidentally. Accidentally. And so he's facing attempted murder and some other charges. And so the big. The big moment was his bail was set at 1.25 million. And he said, oh, no, he looked. But basically, we're seeing, unfortunately, a real groundswell of support for Chud on the far right. You know, he's raised 200 grand just since the shooting. It's really awful. There's, like, a Free Dalton. That's his real name. There's.
Sam Stein
Isn't this. Isn't this why they made the IRS settlement?
Will Sommer
Oh, man. This is all going straight to Chud to bail him out.
Sam Stein
Whatever's not left, whatever left over from the ballroom construction goes to Chud. Fuck. Don't get any ideas. All right, so is he gonna make bail now? He's only got 200,000.
Will Sommer
Yeah, well, he's only got 200,000. And there. There, I think, are some efforts to prevent him from using the gofundme or the. I shouldn't say gofundme. The give to go to. To bail himself out. I think we have video of Chud hearing his bail in court at 1.25 million
Sam Stein
based upon the fact army people
Will Sommer
were in the courtyard courthouse. We got it. There's. There's just a moment where he's like,
Sam Stein
I want to do it. I want to do it. Say that
Will Sommer
this is a guy who everything. I mean, it was truly crazy. Like, he would walk around, and then when people mad at him, understandably, he would say, like, watch out, or I'm gonna shoot you. And, like, you know, and as we talked about, he had tweets being like, can't wait till I can shoot a guy in Self defense. And, you know, I think a lot of his fans were convinced that there was a big loophole in the law that allowed you to murder people willy nilly. And it turns out that's not true.
Sam Stein
You can't just shoot people, provoke incident, shoot people.
Will Sommer
Being on the. I would say that there's, there's news reporting that has come out since then suggesting that he had the gun before the guy attacked him. So actually the guy was the one acting in self defense.
Sam Stein
Okay, well, look bleak. Yeah, not a great situation. Of all the stories we've talked about, that is the worst. And we've talked about some bad stories. All right, we're 45 minutes in time finally for the dessert. So, yeah, I'm gonna, I, I, I'm not gonna be able to keep it together, so just go ahead.
Will Sommer
All right, all right. So this one, this one is a collision between Groiper, so Nick Fuente's fan, and sort of the Miami, Miami, what they call, like dating podcast scenes. So this is like a lot of live streamers. Clavicular is kind of in this world.
Sam Stein
I want to put on our comments section because I want to watch people just absolutely become sort of enthralled by this and also mesmerized by why you walk in these waters. Go ahead.
Will Sommer
So this is a, this is a world where people may have seen these clips. Whenever I say people may have seen these clips, people go, no, I haven't seen those clips. Clubs. So they get like a bunch of women, women who are, you know, kind of like nightclub ladies, maybe, only fans ladies. And then they, they, they. And then they have guys, like, there's one called Fresh and Fit. And so they have a guy named Fresh and Fit. And then they, they say, like, what's your body count? Or like, how much do you want a man to make? And they'll say, a million dollars. And they'll say, but you're a hoe. It's really like, enthralling content. It's great. So, so then there's a guy named Sneako who's a very popular live streamer, who's kind of part of that world. He, I believe, was in the clavicular Hail Hitler nightclub incident. But it's okay. So there's that set, right? Then also we have this woman named Amy Dangerfield who is a gray pet, and that's a lady griper. And so she had the conference a few weeks ago. We talked about that was like, Nick Fuentes disowned it. It was the guy with the daft punk mask. And so the fallout from this now is that there's another woman named Xena the Witch, and she. She used to date. I think she dated Sneako. I think she dated fit, maybe from Fresh and Fit and. But basically. So she is kind of like. She's kind of a loose cannon in this world, even by the standards of this. This whole universe. She and I have been in touch before. She's always threatening to, like, blow up the scene. I was looking at my DMs with her, and there's a lot of her just, like, not answering me, being like, hello, Xena the Witch. Like, I'd like to chat sometime. But basically Xena said, well, Amy the groipet, who's now married to another guy to her podcast producer, basically, she said, amy and I had a threesome with Sneako. Now, look, I want to. Again, let's get out the old Laura Loomer salt shaker here. But Xena posted some text messages where basically she's saying, hey, Amy, reminder, don't tell anyone about our threesome with Sneako or Sneako's. And then she goes, I'll never discuss our threesome with Sneako. And then there's another one where she says, you know, Sneako just mentioned. Mentioned our threesome on his podcast. And she's like, what? So. So this is like. This is like the drama that's playing out. And also, Xena says that she had threesomes with a couple other trad girls. This is also kind of part of, like, the Elijah Schaefer, Sarah Stock universe. So let's just say there's a lot of trad talk going on, but there's. There's also, you know, when the. When the sun goes down in Miami, you know, some interesting things maybe happen. Happening.
Sam Stein
Oh, my God. Okay, so the threesomes now public record, I guess.
Will Sommer
I mean, public to the extent that Xena posted about it, it hasn't made it to a court case yet. But I think it's. I mean, it's. Let's just say, I mean, the Groipers, the Gripers are eating today and they're even leaving no crumbs.
Sam Stein
I. Well, I thought Gripers were, like, not into this shit or been. Is it just like, maybe.
Will Sommer
Well, they like. Well, because they don't like Amy because they feel that she tried to overthrow Nick Fuentes as the leading griper, right? Because. Because she gave a speech or she gave a quote to the New York Times where she was like, nick's just podcasting. I'm out Doing real stuff. And, buddy, turns out, you know, allegedly,
Sam Stein
you were doing something else.
Will Sommer
It's real. All right.
Sam Stein
It's real. It's definitely real. Oh, my God. All right, I gotta read some comments. This shit's too real. All right? An Bridges says, losing brain cells listening to this one.
Will Sommer
Well, so.
Sam Stein
As well. Super. Bruce says, I'm here for Lady Groiper. He also says we'll need a live show called Ladies of the Griper. Someone's mostly mom says hello. Xena the witch is diabolical. We also get Douglas Trapaso 344, whatever. Who are these people? And then my man Joe Mullen, who I think I've read a comment from Joe before. I have to say, he just writes, I hate my life. And Joe, let me tell you, I'm with you.
Will Sommer
I don't like this, but, you know, sometimes Xena. Xena the witch has the receipts and that's when. That's when you gotta tune in.
Sam Stein
All right, we gotta keep on this story. This is too good. All I'm saying is, like, if Loomer's gonna go after Massey, she's got to turn her fire on. On Xena the witch. Obviously. I mean, the.
Will Sommer
Just seems, you know, Laura. Laura wades into this territory occasionally and she's sort of, you know, I think she's been on fresh and fed and she. She doesn't like what she sees, you know, I think she sees it as sort of a decadent community.
Sam Stein
Robin with a Y says, honestly, I often feel bad that Will has the job. He does. Will, do you want to address that?
Will Sommer
Yeah. You know, a lot of people say, oh, Will, I feel bad for you. The Bulwark. Should you give you a raise, which, you know, whatever. Fair enough. But like. But broadly, like, you know, that Will's like, you know, pickling his brain and formaldehyde or whatever. But. But, you know, I. You know, my wife was talking about recently because someone said, oh, Will, how do you do it? And she was saying. She was like, he loves it. You know, he's just like, you know, I'm just a pig in my mud. And. And I, you know, occasionally I bring some stuff out for y' all to enjoy.
Sam Stein
Yeah, you do. Certain love. Let's just be real about it. And I have to read this because it's a 10 question. Although I have no idea. This is from 1022, so it's a while ago, but Desert Navy says you should wear an orange suit to the fight. Will, I'm not sure what that's in reference to. But she did pay $10 to maybe the UFC fight.
Will Sommer
I'm not sure why we didn't.
Sam Stein
We didn't mention the UFC fight today, so we didn't. Can't be about that. All right, look, we didn't make an hour. One day, we're going to make an hour on one of these Mega Mondays, but we just didn't do it today. But I'm proud of you because you didn't. You didn't have any technical difficulties. This is a big step forward for you.
Will Sommer
Yeah. You know, it's held together with. With bailing wire and, you know, whatever else.
Sam Stein
We pulled it off so good. All right. Hey, also, folks, if anyone's out there in San Diego or the nearby by towns and cities, you might not know this, but Will's coming out to do the live show with us. He's gonna be there. It's gonna be me, Will, Tim. So the trio, along with Sarah Longwell, we got the mayor of San Diego joining us, too. He's gonna weigh in on Xena.
Will Sommer
I'm assuming he's dying.
Sam Stein
We gotta ask the mayor. Mr. Mayor, what do you make of that threesome that Xena was in? See, Xena the witch? Just to be clear. No, we're not gonna ask the mayor back about that, but it's gonna be a great show. So if you haven't got your tickets yet, now's your chance because it's happening on Wednesday in San Diego. And if you're in la, it's happening in la. Although Will's not going to accompany us there. We have too many people on stage already. You can get tickets@thebullwerk.com events. That's the Bulwark.com events. And one last time, thanks to Zoc Dock, we love our sponsors, and I just want to give them a shout out. Thank you, zocdoc. That rash. That rash is. It's done. No need. No. No more need for Zocdoc for me. You guys did your job. Appreciate that. All right, Will, brother. Looking forward to your fantastic falsified newsletter this evening. He already teased it for us a little bit. It's about the slush fund. That may or may not be happening. With this IRS settlement and the race to lawyer up and get their hands on that money, we'll be watching for that. And for those who tuned in for all 53 minutes, really appreciate it. We promise one day we will get to an hour, just not today day. Take care. Peace.
Will Sommer
Thank you, everyone.
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Bulwark Takes: Trump Stumbles in Bible Reading + Possible IRS Settlement NEWS! | MAGA Mondays LIVE
Episode Date: May 18, 2026
Hosts: Sam Stein & Will Sommer
This MAGA Mondays edition from The Bulwark dives into a chaotic week in MAGA world, focusing on two headline-grabbing stories: the mysterious wrap-up of Trump’s $10 billion IRS lawsuit (and rumors of a $1.7B slush fund) and Trump’s awkward, recycled Bible reading for a major religious gathering. In classic Bulwark fashion, Sam and Will unpack these stories with a mix of incredulity, amusement, and insight, weaving in a barrage of MAGA drama—from GOP sex scandals and grifter drama to right-wing Twitter wars and Miami influencer beefs. Strap in for a fast-paced, wide-ranging ride through the latest right-wing news cycle.
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The episode is irreverent, fast-paced, and sarcastic—a mixture of exasperation and bemused fascination as Sam and Will try to make sense of ever-escalating right-wing antics and scandals. With their hallmark mix of snark and sharp analysis, the hosts let the outrageousness of MAGA world speak for itself, while pausing to marvel and sometimes mourn the state of American political culture.
Ideal for anyone looking to catch up on right-wing news and MAGA movement absurdities—without suffering through the chaos firsthand—this episode delivers a digestible (if sometimes jaw-dropping) tour of everything from Trump’s opaque financial maneuverings and Bible illiteracy, to the latest in right-wing influencer feuds, Congressional dirty tricks, and the “swamp” of Miami’s MAGA-adjacent dating scene. As always, The Bulwark’s MAGA Mondays distills the week’s wildest MAGAsphere developments with insight, skepticism, and humor.