
Loading summary
Tim Miller
Catch the NBA Playoffs on Sling tv, the most flexible live TV streaming service, putting consumers in control to watch games their way with flexible subscriptions. Want to catch one game or a full series on espn? Grab a one, three or seven day pass. If you want to catch as many games as possible, get a monthly subscription with our abc, NBC and ESPN combo package. Either way, Sling lets you watch the playoffs your way with no long term contracts.
Cameron Marley Caskey
Learn more@sling.com this Memorial Day shop one
Advertisement/Announcer
of Avocado's biggest mattress sales of the year and fall in love with sleep again At Avocado, Better sleep starts with better materials. Our certified organic mattresses are crafted without compromise, using high quality organic materials that bring comfort and support into perfect balance. No polyurethane foams, no shortcuts. Just a cleaner, more natural sleep experience that your body will appreciate night after night so you fall asleep more easily, stay asleep longer and wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day ahead. That's sleep with purpose this Memorial Day. Discover what it means to truly sleep well, upgrade and save up to 20% on our award winning mattresses. Shop the Memorial Day sale now and get up to 20% off@avocadomatress.com or select retailers nationwide. Visit avocadomatress.com that's AvocadoMatress.com Ladies and gentlemen,
Cameron Marley Caskey
we've got Tim Miller here. My name is Cameron Marley Caskey. This is the Bulwark Podcast. We got a great day of content coming for you.
Tim Miller
What's going on, Cameron? What are you doing here?
Cameron Marley Caskey
I'm spending the weekend in New Orleans with my friends Tim and Tyler and the wonderful Toulouse and we are hanging out.
Tim Miller
It's so good to have Cameron here. This isn't really a stupid, it's kind of like a little buddy comedy vibe. We're getting pretty close to each other, but it's been nice to have Cameron. I want to do a little weekend potpourri for everybody where I discuss a couple of topics that have caught my eye. But before I just rant to you by myself, I kind of wanted to get Cameron's take on what's happening with Thomas Massie in Kentucky because it intersects with a few interests of yours. First, you have the Gen Z child of Rand Paul screaming anti Semitic slurs at a bar at Mike Lawler.
Cameron Marley Caskey
And Mike Lawler isn't even Jewish. Right?
Tim Miller
Not Jewish. Yeah. So there's that. And his Twitter handle is tasty brew 1776.
Cameron Marley Caskey
That's Rand Paulson's Twitter. I mean, that's like AI generated conservative
Tim Miller
Twitter handle on the nose. Okay. It's also intersecting with you because you're doing some stuff for your boy Ro Khanna, who's been working with Massie on the Epstein Bill and the Iran War Powers Bill. And APAC is big in the race. So a lot of your interests are intersecting in this Kentucky congressional race. I was wondering your take.
Cameron Marley Caskey
It's a very fascinating thing. So for anyone who doesn't know this primary to stop Thomas Massie is now the most expensive primary in history, there is more money that has been dumped into stopping Thomas Massie than ever before. And it's kind of insane. Yeah, it's kind of infuriating because here I am rooting for the most conservative member of Congress, the member of Congress who has cast the most Republican votes. Here I am saying, hold strong, baby. If you're.
Tim Miller
And he doesn't believe that, like, government should exist. He thinks government should, like, basically do, like, roads and military and like, that's it. So for not even really military. That much.
Cameron Marley Caskey
Yeah. For anyone who isn't locked into the Massey of it all, this is the most conservative person you could possibly imagine. So much. I mean, we're talking. This guy's got a farm, he's got patents, he's. He likes. He's the type of guy who you picture sitting on his porch cleaning a shotgun.
Tim Miller
Well, he has the guns Christmas card. Have you ever seen that?
Cameron Marley Caskey
That was Massey.
Tim Miller
Yeah, I remember that, of course, because
Cameron Marley Caskey
I have a gun control background. And I remember seeing that and being like, this is so psychotic, little risky. And here I am being like, well, we need this man to win.
Tim Miller
Explain that.
Cameron Marley Caskey
I think it's kind of a referendum on money in politics. I think that at a time when we are reexamining money's role in politics and how much influence certain interests and organizations can have in our elections. It's interesting. We've got two groups spending a lot in elections. We've got a pack, and we've got AI PACs. And there's really only one space bar dividing the two. So it gets a little complicated. Do you take a PAC money? Crypto. Spending a ton of money. Sports betting is spending a ton of money. And I think a lot of people are looking at this and saying, wait a second, this is kind of fucked up. It's kind of weird that, you know, pro Israel organization can run attack ads on a candidate for their association with ice or can dump. Dump truck money into Illinois 9 under elect Chicago women.
Tim Miller
Right.
Cameron Marley Caskey
And I'm just like, I feel like, there's room for some transparency here, for sure. But again, Thomas Massie is really like the hardcore conservative of yesteryear. This man built like a national debt ticker. Like, how would you describe it? You know, I'm talking about.
Tim Miller
He's got like. It's like a lapel pin, Right?
Cameron Marley Caskey
Well, it's, it's, it has. We'll throw a picture of it up on the screen. Thomas Massie's beard, by the way, is doing a lot of heavy lifting. He looks pretty bad ass with the beard and pre beard, Thomas Massie, I
Tim Miller
just saw the ticker. He's calling it a debt badge.
Cameron Marley Caskey
Debt badge.
Tim Miller
Yeah. So there's the pre beard. Thomas Massey right there with the debt badge. Yeah.
Cameron Marley Caskey
It's got a digital element to it. And he made it himself. He's a very. He's clearly got a lot of technological skills. I mean, he has dozens of patents which, you know, how many do you have? I don't have any patents. I have the Gen Z activism industrial complex. That's my patent.
Tim Miller
So we have debt man. We've seen this face now has updated the beard. Go back to the beard. What are you thinking about the beard?
Cameron Marley Caskey
I mean, it's just a very great beard. It's the type of beard that does a lot of work for you in politics. I think there's some people where maybe the beard is not the option.
Tim Miller
Yeah.
Cameron Marley Caskey
Other people, where I see it working either way, to be honest, I don't have an opinion on buttigieg. I think the beard looks fine. Yeah, I think I like shaved buttigieg a little more.
Tim Miller
I'm 50. 50 as well.
Cameron Marley Caskey
It's fine.
Tim Miller
I wrote an article last week people can check out@the board.com about. About Roe and Massie and how it showed like this different model. Like the old model of getting shit done in Washington, right. Was, you know, you, you work the inside game. You go into the Ways and Means Committee, you go do a bipartisan bill with someone on the other side, you know, and they're both establishment figures and like meet the middle and you give them some pork and they give you. Like that's how shit worked in politics, in the movies. And like there hasn't been any bipartisanship lately. Like there's basically nothing. And Rowan and Massey like offered this new model which is kind of like an outsider's bipartisanship where they're both basically like f the leadership. Like we're going to press forward on these two things. Epstein and the Iran war vote that we know that the people are for. But that's getting blocked. And I don't know, I'm kind of, like, interested by that model. And like. And like, Massey might be, like, basically the opposite of you politics wise, but, like, that is an appealing part of it for me.
Cameron Marley Caskey
Yeah. I mean, I think that Epstein and Iran are actually maybe the quintessential examples of the types of things that when we talk to conservatives, we can get them to say, yeah, this is too much.
Tim Miller
Yeah.
Cameron Marley Caskey
And, you know, horseshoe theory leads to a lot of people becoming crackpot maniacs. But there's also a degree to which, when you're thinking that outside the box, you can horseshoe into finding some things you agree on.
Tim Miller
Yeah, right.
Cameron Marley Caskey
And a lot of Republicans. I talked to a guy pretty recently about this. A lot of Republicans wanted that isolationist Trump. They wanted that Trump who's not going to get involved with all this war. And these are people who don't necessarily listen to Bulwark or read any similar things and don't realize how bad we're getting. Fucking dog walked.
Tim Miller
Yeah, Right.
Cameron Marley Caskey
But they're sick of it and they've had enough. And I think what Roe and Massey have done is recognized that not only are they gonna find these things we agree on, they're also going to do such as someone who is like a chair of the Bernie campaign and someone who wears the debt badge.
Tim Miller
Right.
Cameron Marley Caskey
So it really goes to show, a lot of things in government that don't happen that I think people want are actually not happening because there just isn't the political willpower to do it. Nobody's making people do it. So, for example, before what Roe and Massie did on the Epstein files, if you had asked me about it, I said, well, there's nothing that can be done.
Tim Miller
Yeah.
Cameron Marley Caskey
And here they are doing it.
Tim Miller
And in the article I read, the Polymarket was like, 11% likelihood that it was going to get released last summer.
Cameron Marley Caskey
I'm sorry, real quick, why do you have the geese on your laptop?
Tim Miller
Oh, because I like the geese.
Cameron Marley Caskey
Oh, you're just on geese Reddit while we're talking about Iran and Epstein.
Tim Miller
Yeah. Can I not be on geese?
Cameron Marley Caskey
No, you can be on geese Reddit. For anyone who doesn't know, I'm very able to.
Tim Miller
I'm like, I can multitask.
Cameron Marley Caskey
My bad, my bad. Yeah. Fun, fun. Behind the scenes. Fypod fact. Back when Tim and I had our duo show, if there was a guest who you thought was bad, and, you know, I mean, there were some guests who I think were pretty organic on camera. And pretty fun to watch, but weren't necessarily that insightful. I mean, it's hard. Like being organic and comfortable on camera and having something insightful to say are not the same thing.
Tim Miller
Yeah.
Cameron Marley Caskey
And there are some people who really work on screen and have no depth and people with a ton of depth who just don't work on screen.
Tim Miller
Right.
Cameron Marley Caskey
And when we had a real stinker when we, you know, we can't hit them all, you know, not. Not every episode is going to be. Our only two time guest, Terry Sisson. We would be texting each other like there were multiple episodes where we were like, what the fuck do we even say here?
Tim Miller
We're doing our best because we want to create good content for you guys. You know, we want to make it good. All right, so Tuesday, you're with the debt badge, man. Call your MEMAW. Everybody call your MEMAW. If they live in Kentucky, 4 Massie is winning with voters under 64 and getting schlonged by all the senior citizens. And it's a problem.
Cameron Marley Caskey
Yeah, I think it's one of those elections that means a lot more than just the election. It's one of those elections that is a referendum on something. I think it's going to say a lot about money in politics and it's going to say a lot about spending. Because one thing that I think gets left outta certain conversations is that Harris outspent Trump, I think three to one. And the way that social media works, I think that what money and politics means and how necessary it is in certain ways, it's just shifting a little bit. So Massie's getting outspent to the gajillionth degree. And I guess we're about to learn if that still works. All right, everybody, we got a great show for you this week. Talking about some bull. I'm gonna let Tim go ahead.
Tim Miller
I have other people. You go do a puzzle at Toulouse. Okay, we're gon finish the potpourri with everybody. Hey, everybody, look at Cameron Caskey. Isn't it nice to have him down here with me in New Orleans? Let's chat a little bit more about what else is happening out there in the news. Two things I just wanted to talk about. One is the ballroom and the other is what we're seeing again with the spike in oil prices. All right, a couple things in the ballroom. First, we had a big ruling from the parliamentarian. The parliamentarian still matters in the U.S. senate. And basically, essentially the ruling was that they cannot do the funding for the ballroom within the Reconciliation package. The sickos who have been following this stuff closely know that reconciliation is like the one budget bill a year that the Senate can push through going around the filibuster. Based on the current cockamamie system, you can do one budget bill a year. But the elements of that bill have to fit certain rules. And the ballroom funding, it was ruled, did not qualify. And so that means that in order to get funding for his ballroom, he would need 60 votes, which means he would need Democrats and not just John Fetterman, but some other Democrats. And so that is a hiccup for Trump, at least for now. We'll see what they do next. The thing though, that I really wanted to show you about the ballroom and just about how sick the MAGA Christian nationalist movement is at this point. I wanted to show you this video from Rededicate 250 event. Let's watch.
Cameron Marley Caskey
It's 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.
Tim Miller
That is Eric Metaxas. He is one of the MAGA charlatan pastors. We don't call them pastor around here, we just call them Eric. Mr. Eric. And yeah, Eric Metaxas thinks that, I guess God's divine will is being served by this ballroom. He believes that it took two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man who could bring that ballroom finally to stand. I mean, what, the loaves and the fishes, the water into wine? That God, that God's using his energy on Donald Trump's ballroom right now. And the other previous presidents did not have the Lord God at their back because they did not successfully get the ballroom. And like, these people are fucking nuts. How do you even do this with a straight face? Who's even listening to this? Like, even the craziest evangelical MAGA has got to be like, I, I mean, I want President Trump to succeed, but I'm not praying for the ballroom. A ballroom that finally needs to stand where it needs to stand. What? What? What in Jesus teaching made you think that he cared about fancy ballrooms? And this is just a total affront. This guy is such a frickin clown. It's embarrassing, really. I saw him walking around TPUSA one time and I don't know, sometimes you can just sense it. I just looked at him and I felt like he knew there was a sadness inside him, a desperation for recognition and a sadness. That's Eric Metaxas. So the ballroom news. The Lord might be with Trump, but the parliamentarian is against. And as of right now, point to the parliamentarian. We'll see how that shakes out. The other thing I just wanted to mention here overnight, and obviously this stuff is dynamic with the markets, but Trump once again told Iran that the clock is ticking. As a result, oil prices surged to above 107 bucks a barrel. Another spike, not as high as we thought maybe it could have gone. But again, we're getting way outside that landman range of 60 to 90 bucks. Now we're back into the 107 territory. You can see the little green line popping up there. This is just going to be so hard for them to unravel. I don't know why the markets are so responsive to Trump's threats, because he's just been doing the same thing over and over again for weeks now. We almost got a deal. We almost got a deal. If we don't have a good deal, I'm going to kill you. If we don't have a deal, I might skin your face. If we don't have a deal, I'm going to take the Iranian soccer team and send them to Guantanamo. If we don't get a deal, then I am going to bomb Tehran, the only city whose name I know in Iran. Like, he keeps doing the same thing. It is unbelievably weak and humiliating. Over and over again, Trump is doing this. He is just making these empty threats that he refuses to back up. And as a result, the strait stays closed, prices keep going up. And there is, you know, in the good news side of things, there's additional pressure happening on oil prices now because of Ukraine's successful offensive, going after more oil refineries in Russia, in Moscow, because so, like, the global oil market is in tatters. And what Trump is doing right now is clock is ticking. It's like, hasn't it been ticking for months? What it was? It's just, it's so embarrassing and feckless. All right, everybody, hope you enjoyed a little weekend potpourri, a little bonus time with Cameron. Appreciate Cameron for popping on here in my, like, not made for guest studio. I'll be back obviously on Monday with Bill Crystal. I did let do a show with Cameron one time. If you want to go back in the Fypod archives, it is a classic. I'll have Bill Crystal on tomorrow discussing all this and much, much more. So see all that and subscribe to the feed. Thank you.
Date: May 18, 2026 | Hosts: Tim Miller & Cameron Marley Caskey
On this episode of Bulwark Takes, Tim Miller and guest co-host Cameron Marley Caskey dive into several timely political stories with their signature wit and irreverence. The show centers on the intersection of political money, the wildest congressional race in Kentucky, the jaw-dropping embrace of Christian nationalism around the “Trump ballroom” push, and lingering drama in the oil markets driven by Trump’s saber-rattling with Iran. The conversation mixes political analysis, behind-the-scenes stories, and plenty of humor, providing both laughs and insight for news junkies.
[01:44 – 10:53]
[10:54 – 13:30]
[13:30 – 15:00]
[08:50 – 09:51]
On Money in Politics:
“Wait a second, this is kind of fucked up. It’s kind of weird that, you know, [a] pro-Israel organization can run attack ads on a candidate for their association with ICE or can dump... dump truck money into Illinois 9.” — Caskey [04:34]
On Massie’s Political Identity:
“This is the most conservative person you could possibly imagine... He’s the type of guy you picture sitting on his porch cleaning a shotgun.” — Caskey [03:27]
On Bipartisanship in the Trump Era:
“Roe and Massie offered this new model which is kind of like an outsider’s bipartisanship where they're both basically like ‘f the leadership.’” — Miller [06:15]
On MAGA Christian Nationalism:
“I mean, what, the loaves and the fishes, the water into wine? That God, that God’s using his energy on Donald Trump’s ballroom right now.” — Miller [12:44]
On Trump’s Threats and Oil Markets:
“If we don’t have a good deal, I’m going to kill you. If we don’t have a deal, I might skin your face. If we don’t have a deal, I’m going to take the Iranian soccer team and send them to Guantanamo.” — Miller [13:45]
Miller and Caskey combine unfiltered political skepticism, informed analysis, and sardonic humor throughout. The episode skewers political excesses—be it financial arms races, MAGA idolatry, or performative brinksmanship—while cautiously hoping for new models of cross-partisan action. It’s a must-listen for anyone bemused by the headlines and looking for smart, no-BS commentary.