← Bulwark Takes
Loading summary
Transcript22 lines
- [00:00]
Unknown Speaker 1
Get the Angel Reese Special at McDonald's. Now let's break it down. My favorite barbecue sauce, American cheese, crispy bacon, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun, of course. And don't forget the fries and a drink. Sound good?
- [00:13]
Ryan
I participate in restaurants for a limited time.
- [00:15]
Unknown Speaker 2
Step into the world of power, loyalty, and luck. I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse with family. Cannolis and spins mean everything. Now you want to get mixed up in the family business? Introducing the Godfather@Champacasino.com you luck in the shadowy world of the Godfather slots. Someday I will call upon you to do a service for me. Play the Godfather now@chumbacasino.com Welcome to the family. No purchase necessary. VGW Group void where prohibited by law, 21 + terms and conditions apply.
- [00:46]
Tim Miller
All right. Hey, guys, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. I'm back here with Andrew Egger. There was this news item out of the White House that I think is worth all of us kind of focusing on what. What it is that they're doing and why they're doing it. It's related to Andrew Tate. He's a self described misogynist influencer. He's kind of like the worst of the bros in the manosphere. And he had been arrested in 2022. He was charged with human trafficking, sexual misconduct, and money laundering, as well as starting an organized crime group. He denies wrongdoing, but since then he has had travel restrictions. As a result of these charges by the Romanian authorities. And the Trump administration today decided that they wanted to get involved with that. They're pressuring the Romanians to lift the restrictions to let Andrew Tate free to spread his bile. Andrew, what do we. Andrew Egger, not Andrew Tate. What do you think about that? Your namesake?
- [01:43]
Andrew Egger
I mean, this is one of those that's just like, can we get one story out of this White House that is not just like the stupidest, vilest, most, like, cruel, most evil. I just like. So this. This guy. I don't know. I don't. We were talking a little about this. I don't know like, how much you have paid attention to Andrew Tate, but I mean, like, like, truly, truly, like the worst of the worst is a kind of person who, like, is. Is just truly vile on a personal level in terms of, like, his own life, and then also, just like an insanely toxic presence as, like, a member of the public life is. He's a former kickboxer turned, like, in his own estimation, drug pusher for a While who then you know, stood up a webcam business and insane amount of money basically pimping out women that he would like pick up across Europe. Like, like poor women who he would like kind of entice into a supposed life of, of like luxury and just better things than they were accustomed to, who he would then basically like entrap into these abusive relationships and, and make do webcam modeling for, for his company and make him a bunch of money. I mean like, it's like a bad, bad person who then kind of became like, like you say this manosphere influencer whose basic like message to, to a bunch of like to an audience of high school boys is basically like all of the things that are good about society are actually just shackles for you to cast off. You know, no, you shouldn't work, you shouldn't like, like have a respectable normal life. You need to realize that those things are constraints on alphas like you. And you need to, to, you know, like just go out and like be horrible to women and be a terror to your society and just sort of like let your 14 year old ID, like determine the rest of the course of your entire life. I mean, it's just like a bad person.
- [03:26]
Tim Miller
I'm a realist. When you're a realist, you're sexist. There's no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist. Women are intrinsically lazy.
- [03:33]
Andrew Tate
You can't slander me because I will state right now that I am absolutely sexist and I'm absolutely a misogynist. Not only should women clean up, women should clean up unprompted. If you're the kind of person who feels like they need therapy, you're useless. Never say you go into bed. Go into bed is immasculine by masculine standards. The majority of beautiful women are loser. I like Trump. He's grabbing bitches by the P. I like that guy.
- [03:53]
Tim Miller
There's no such thing as being an independent female. If you're going to be an alpha, you should be spreading your seed as wide as possible, not just with one woman. I mean this is just a taste. I don't have it in front of me in this article. But I feel like he's also been kind of like anti. Anti ephebophilia.
- [04:08]
Andrew Egger
Well, no, I mean that's a big part of the kind of like actual like criminal stuff against him is that some of these girls that he was in a personal relationship with and then making performance form for his company were underage at the time, you know, and, and Yeah, I mean, just like, so maybe probiophilia.
- [04:25]
Tim Miller
Maybe I was too kind to him to say.
- [04:26]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, yeah, but, but also, like, in his own personal. I mean, he, he has talked about all this stuff on podcasts and stuff. You know, it's in his own voice, all over the place. And like, you just, you, you continue to scratch and scratch, and it's just vile thing after vile thing. It's his whole brand. He's been doing it for years. Anyway, the one other important thing is that he kind of likes Donald Trump. And so, like, that's, that is kind of like the main thing here, right? Is like, he's kind of like a test case, like an edge case maybe, for, like, is there any human being in the world who would embrace the Trump train, who Trump would not be, like, good enough for me? You know what I mean? Like, that's kind of the, like, clearly now, if, if, if Andrew Tate were Andrew Tate, you know, down to his bones, but also weirdly, like, coconut pilled in the last cycle, I don't think he'd be getting the call. Maybe you disagreed him, but, like, I think. Don't you think that's kind of the main thing here is like, he, he's just posting about Trump all the time. And you know that, that, that, that, that gets you something in this day and age.
- [05:21]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I do. I think it's not a test, it's an affirmation of the fact that there is, like, not like, there's no level of awful. You could be that Trump and his and his cronies would not make apologies for you as long as you put on the maga hat. I think that, that, you know, that theory has been, has been tested and proven true over and over again at this point.
- [05:41]
Andrew Egger
To me, we're not even learning anything at this point, right? It's not like, oh, this shows us something new. It's just, it' are kicking the balls. Everything sucks. They're going to reward the best people or the worst people just for. Yeah, it's not great.
- [05:56]
Tim Miller
The thing that I think is, I don't know if we're necessarily learning it, but I think that is interesting and maybe telling about the next few years of the Trump administration. And I think it's potentially a political vulnerability for them at some level is this, to me, shows two things. One, that they are going to be uber responsive to the desires of, like, the most online maga bros, right? Like, if you are super, you know, if you're, like, posting 80 bleeds per day on Twitter, or on Truth Social. And if you like know all of the characters in the extended MAGA universe, like your opinion is going to be heard in this White House. And I think that that eventually becomes a vulnerability because I do, I think that there are a lot of more casual Trump supporters who like didn't sign up for all this. Not that they're going to be offended by the Andrew Tate thing in particular. And micro, I just mean like is a mindset. It, it, it, I think it's going to lead them to focus on some things that probably won't be politically advantageous. And the related is like just kind of obvious to your point. You've been, you've been kind of on, you've been on paternity leave here, so you have like a little bit more distance. So I'm curious your take on this but like they, you could have imagined a first month of the administration where Trump is like really digging in on econ stuff, right? Where he's like, and like he's doing, he's picking his culture war fights over and he still is going to do immigration and stuff, but picking cultural fights over economy related things. You know, doing the type of thing he did like a little bit of the first couple days, like having press conferences with rich guys about how they're going to invest into the economy and you know, doing all this talk about how people are going to get rich and the stock market's going to go up and like he's not really doing that. Like they've been spending most of their energy on Gulf of America and like, like shit like this. And I think that if the economy doesn't improve, right. Like, like this is not a short term thing, but I think that if people's lives, if they do not feel like their economic lives are getting better, like eventually, not with the core weirdos but with kind of the broader public is going to be kind of like, why are you guys doing all that? Like, why aren't we focused more on the actual material needs? And, and I think that that becomes a little bit of a vulnerability for them over time. I don't know what you think about that.
- [08:22]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, I mean, I think that, I do think that's true. Like, I think that, that you know, if the question is like does Trump retain or does he lose the median voter that he won over in 2024? I think a lot of that stuff ends up, you know, and it at least has the possibility of coming back to hurt him. But I don't know, I've been thinking about this stuff a lot, actually, while I've been kind of like, out and just kind of turning it over in my mind because. Because it seems like all the normies in my life, one are just either not noticing it yet, you know, like, not paying attention to really any of this stuff. And it's weird. It's like. It's like a. It's like an intensified version of what's. What was going on in the. During the campaign where he would say. Where he would just promise to insane stuff. And by the time it kind of filtered down to the normal level, like people. People couldn't almost believe that he'd even said those things because, like, well, that'd be crazy, right? So, like, at some point in the chain of information, it must have gotten a little garbled and like, probably he said something that I would have. I would have agreed with, right? And now he's actually doing the things and it's still kind of the same, right? It's still kind of like, well, you know, they're out there, they're trying to find the waste and the fraud and, you know, all that stuff. And I guess you're right. Like. Like if, if. If the economy doesn't improve, that's a thing that cuts through those narratives and maybe has. Has a chance to shake people loose. But I do think, like, I don't know, I don't know how far Wiley Coyote can run off of the cliff and just keep pedaling. Maybe he flies now, maybe it's just. Maybe he just never plummets. And it's just, just, you know, this is just the way it is from now on. I'm dooming a little, you know, maybe I'm doing too much. It's my first day back, you know, I'm just kind of crabby.
- [09:56]
Tim Miller
You are very. You're uncomfortable company for dooming here as we have again, one of. I'm talking a lot about how the worst Americans are in charge now. And I guess Andrew is technically an American because he was born here, then he moved overseas, but like, one of the worst world citizens. Yeah, one of the worst. What did I say?
- [10:15]
Andrew Egger
Well, I just thought you meant me.
- [10:17]
Tim Miller
When you said, oh, no, Andrew Tate. Yeah, no, I'm not including you as one of the worst world citizens. Andrew Tate, One of the worst world citizens potentially getting a bonus from Donald Trump getting in and having his travel restrictions for again, human trafficking, sexual misconduct and money laundering lifted. So we'll see how that shakes out. We'll keep monitoring it. Andrew Egger, thanks for hanging out with me.
- [10:44]
Ryan
It is Ryan here and I have a question for you. What do you do when you win? Like are you a fist pumper?
- [10:50]
Andrew Egger
A woo hooer?
- [10:51]
Ryan
A hand clapper? A high fiver? If you want to hone in on those winning moves, check out Chumba Casino. Choose from hundreds of social casino style games for your chance to redeem serious cash prizes. There are new game releases weekly plus free daily bonuses, so don't wait. Start having the most Fun ever@shambacasino.com no purchase necessary.
- [11:10]
Unknown Speaker 2
VGW Group void we're prohibited by law. 21/ terms and conditions apply.