Trump Taps 22-Year-Old Rando for Counterterror Role?!

Summary

FYPod: Trump Taps 22-Year-Old Rando for Counterterror Role?!

Released on June 23, 2025 | Host: Cameron Caskey & Tim Miller | The Bulwark

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Introduction

In this episode of FYPod, hosted by The Bulwark's Cameron Caskey and Tim Miller, the discussion centers around President Trump's surprising appointment of a 22-year-old, Thomas Fugate, to a pivotal role in counterterrorism. The hosts delve into the implications of this decision, the qualifications of Fugate, and the broader impact on Gen Z's political engagement.

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Announcement of the 22-Year-Old Appointment

Cameron Caskey kicks off the conversation by highlighting Trump's controversial decision to appoint a young, seemingly inexperienced individual to a critical counterterrorism position.

"Trump just put this, like, weird, dumb 22-year-old with no experience in charge of a counterterrorism effort at a time when maybe we ought to be keeping an eye on terror in the United States."
[00:23]

Tim Miller echoes the concern, questioning the qualifications and readiness of such a young appointee.

"It's totally fake. Totally. Like it could not possibly be something that is happening in the real earth. And yet apparently it is."
[07:19]

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Background of Thomas Fugate

The hosts provide a detailed look into Thomas Fugate's background, juxtaposing his modest career history with his current high-ranking position.

• Educational Background: Fugate graduated from UT San Antonio and interned at the Heritage Foundation.

• Previous Roles: Worked as a landscaper and grocery clerk before his entry into politics.

• Current Role: Leads the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) within the Department of Homeland Security, overseeing an $18 million grant program aimed at combating terrorism and violent extremism.

Cameron Caskey scrutinizes Fugate’s LinkedIn profile, emphasizing the lack of substantial experience.

"He interned at the Heritage Foundation... overseeing an $18 million budget to combat terrorism."
[08:13]

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Qualifications and Competency Debate

The discussion shifts to assess whether Fugate's qualifications are adequate for his role in counterterrorism.

Tim Miller draws parallels between Fugate and fictional characters to underscore his perceived inadequacy.

"Thomas Fugate in what is not a first in this Trump administration. As some might observe, not qualified for his position."
[07:49]

Cameron Caskey counters by highlighting Fugate's leadership experience in Model UN and his rapid career progression within the Trump administration.

"He has leadership experience at the Model U.N. club... he's more qualified business than a lot of the people Trump calls successful business people."
[08:33]

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Impact on Gen Z and Broader Political Implications

The hosts explore how Trump's appointment and his administration's actions are influencing Gen Z's political landscape.

Tim Miller criticizes the administration's recruitment strategies, suggesting they attract individuals with extreme partisan views over actual expertise.

"Trump administration is recruiting from like the bottom of the recruitment barrel... It's much easier than going any other way."
[17:15]

Cameron Caskey adds that this approach potentially undermines the effectiveness of government roles by prioritizing loyalty over competence.

"They pull their candidates from like Xbox live, Modern Warfare 2 chats... whoever is saying the N word the loudest gets the first job offer."
[17:26]

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Social Media and Public Perception

The role of Fugate's social media presence is examined, particularly his Instagram account with MAGA influencer Riley Gaines.

Tim Miller mocks the superficial aspects of Fugate's public persona.

"The hair is a choice he doesn't need to be making."
[09:29]

Cameron Caskey critiques the content shared on Fugate's accounts, suggesting it reflects poorly on his professional capabilities.

"MAGA influencer Riley Gaines... she finished fifth place in a swimming competition and should have finished fourth in her opinion, since there was a trans person participating."
[14:23]

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Internal Challenges Within the Administration

The episode touches on internal dissent, referencing the resignation of William Braniff under Joe Biden's administration and contrasting it with Fugate's rise.

Tim Miller underscores the stark difference in qualifications between Fugate and his predecessors.

"William Braniff... graduate of the United States Military Academy... seems like he's got a little bit more experience as a scholar of counterterrorism."
[12:57]

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Hope for Change and Generational Shifts

Despite the criticisms, the hosts express a glimmer of hope that influential figures like Joe Rogan could sway public opinion and instigate meaningful discourse.

Cameron Caskey suggests that open dialogues on platforms like Joe Rogan's show could bridge ideological gaps.

"We need Joe Rogan to have the right conversations... you can start to see some minds get changed."
[21:29]

Tim Miller adds that engaging with these platforms could help attract and influence the more moderate or undecided individuals within Gen Z.

"Instinctually from high school... the little mini fascists like Charlie Kirk... it's important to try to attract the ones who are gettable on this stuff."
[22:30]

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with a reflection on the potential dangers of appointing underqualified individuals to significant positions and the need for vigilant public discourse to ensure competent governance.

Cameron Caskey emphasizes the importance of standing up against policies that disproportionately target specific groups.

"Terror is only terror when it's Muslims... when it's any other race, it's something else."
[20:30]

Tim Miller reinforces the necessity of accountability and the role of informed citizens in shaping a better political future.

"I think there's a visceral backlash... I have actually been given more hope for humanity... by seeing people's response to these terrible ICE attacks."
[24:09]

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Notable Quotes

• "Men don't check in on each other's feelings enough." — Cameron Caskey
  [00:23]

• "The Trump administration is recruiting from like the bottom of the recruitment barrel." — Tim Miller
  [17:15]

• "We need Joe Rogan to have the right conversations." — Cameron Caskey
  [21:29]

• "I have actually been given more hope for humanity than I have gotten in a while by seeing people's response to these terrible ICE attacks." — Cameron Caskey
  [24:09]

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Key Takeaways

1. Controversial Appointments: Trump's decision to appoint a 22-year-old to a critical counterterrorism role has raised significant concerns regarding qualifications and effectiveness.

2. Gen Z's Political Shift: The appointment reflects broader trends in Gen Z's political engagement and the administration's approach to recruiting young supporters.

3. Social Media Influence: Fugate's social media presence exemplifies the blending of personal branding with political roles, raising questions about professionalism.

4. Hope for Dialogue: Despite current challenges, there remains hope that open conversations on influential platforms can lead to positive political shifts.

5. Accountability and Vigilance: The episode underscores the importance of maintaining informed and active citizenship to ensure competent governance and protect against biased policies.

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This episode of FYPod provides a critical examination of the Trump administration's strategies in appointing young, loyal individuals to significant roles, highlighting the potential risks and broader implications for American politics and society.

Transcript

[Cameron Caskey]

He has posted videos on his account with MAGA influencer Riley Gaines. She's the one who sucks at swimming, right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. She's the one that finished fifth place in a swimming competition and should have finished fourth in her opinion, since there was a trans person participating. And that finish of fifth instead of fourth now defines her entire career. Hey, everybody, I'm Tim Miller.

[Cameron Caskey]

I'm Cameron Caskey and this is FYpod. The Bulwark show focused on young people and young people stuff. Trump just put this, like, weird, dumb 22 year old with no experience in charge of a counterterrorism effort at a time when maybe we ought to be keeping an eye on terror in the United States. But first, a very important segment to me, brand new segment that I created for this week's show. It's called how are you feeling, Tim? Because the other night I was doing MSNBC and we were talking and I was really anxious about it because, you know, know if you screw up on live tv, you can't have the editor cut it out. And I was just like, how does Tim do this? And then that just put me in the context of Tim's emotional world and his truth. And I'm just like, how does Tim do a lot of stuff? And then I was like, man, men don't check in on each other's feelings enough, you know, And I. I don't know if JV L and Bill Crystal are asking you how you're feeling, but it's like, you're a dad, you're a husband, you're a political commentator at a time when we're provoking war with Iran. And it's like, you know, I love you, brother. You know, you're my fucking boy. And to the end of my days and everything. And I'm just like, how are you doing? How, how you feeling, man?

[Tim Miller]

That's so sweet. You didn't tell me about this new segment. Thank you, Cameron. I am doing pretty good. I am going on vacation in two weeks and I have a surprise for you which I'm not going to tell you about right now, live on air. And I get it.

[Cameron Caskey]

I get to do FYpod with Bill Kristol, right?

[Tim Miller]

You never know. You never know what the surprise will be. You can't guess what a surprise is.

[Cameron Caskey]

Everybody comment down what you think the surprise will be.

[Tim Miller]

And so I'm interested to see how my emotional state will be after I go on a real proper vacation, which I've not done in a long time, where I just check out and I just do vacation y stuff. And that's what I intend to do here in July. Because in the meantime, I just work constantly. And, like, when I'm not working, I'm only doing two things. One, I'm either, like, very actively parenting my child and like, playing imagination games where I pretend like I'm a, you know, panda or something, or I am like, drinking with my buddies with my homies. And so, like, I don't have a lot of time to get in my feelings. And that is how I've navigated not getting in my feelings during Trump 2.0. And I don't know if that's actually a healthy way to do it. Just kind of.

[Cameron Caskey]

I mean, the former, the dad one sounds a lot healthier than the drinking buddies one. But yeah, you know, that's how I'm doing.

[Tim Miller]

That's. That's how I'm doing it. That's how I'm handling it. I'm fine for now. It's better than I thought it was gonna be. I was nervous. I mean, I was nervous for the country first and foremost after he won, but I was also a little nervous for myself. Like, how am I gonna get it up for this every day? Like, this is so horrible. And I'm just, I'm just doing it, man. I don't know how are you.

[Cameron Caskey]

Let it be known. By the way, just since Toulouse came up, Tim's wonderful daughter, I asked Tim if he could ask Toulouse who her favorite Disney princess was. And she basically was like, yeah, I'm not really that into princesses. And I was like, if somebody asked me that, I would be like, okay, are we talking about the animated movie version, the Broadway version, the live action version? And then I would give you top five for all of those.

[Tim Miller]

You have a pyramid, you know.

[Cameron Caskey]

Well, it's complicated because different adaptations have given the different characters different things. And we'll do a separate episode, ideally with Bill Crystal, where I'm ranking the Disney princesses. But general, just for those of you who are listening and want to hear us talk about Trump's 22 year old counter terror kid, Toulouse, Tim's daughter has less to say about Disney princesses than his 24 year old co host of FYpod.

[Tim Miller]

So significantly less, significantly less, she said she didn't know she doesn't like princesses, and then walked away and then turned around and was like, does Ariel count? And I was like, yeah. And she goes, I guess Ariel. And then walked away again and started playing football.

[Cameron Caskey]

Completely valid answer, by the way. It's not My answer, but I see demerits.

[Tim Miller]

Totally valid answer. So, yeah, that's what's going on with me. You got to stress out less also about msnbc. It's fine. Once I just realized that the best thing to do on cable news is just let it rip, the better I was.

[Cameron Caskey]

Wait, that brings me to a story that would be a good segue into our main topic, which is I was in the elevator at 30 rock on the way up to the studio, and I was chatting with the producer, this really nice lady who I. Who I really love hanging out with.

[Tim Miller]

Lady that kind of implies that she's like, 55. Was it a.

[Cameron Caskey]

She's probably like. Was it a Grown woman, late 20s?

[Tim Miller]

Okay. Yeah. I don't know if she would want to be called a lady, but continue.

[Cameron Caskey]

I would love to be called a gentleman.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, gentleman.

[Cameron Caskey]

We were talking about just like, oh, how's your weekend going? And she said, oh, I'm on call till 1am tonight, so hopefully there's no breaking news, nothing too crazy. I go up, I do the segment. She walks me out, we have a nice little chat. I enter the elevator, I get to the first floor of 30 Rock. I look at my phone. It's like, oh, we just bombed Iran. That news dropped while I was on my way down from the live segment.

[Tim Miller]

Well, there you go. You're lucky you weren't on there. I'll say this. This is my 1 pro tip for you or for anyone else that finds themselves on cable news, something you forget. This is my media coaching for you. You control what you say. Actually, they can ask you what they want, but if you don't know anything about that or if you're not sure if you're worried you might get in trouble or you're not steeped in that, you can kind of just like, talk about what you plan to talk about and just be like, you know, as far as that's concerned, I'm not sure. But here's the thing that I care about in the news, blah, blah, blah, and then stop.

[Cameron Caskey]

You can also talk shows that there's a commercial break coming, so there's certain conversations we're in where. Where I get pushback on something and I'm totally ready to show up and explain further what I was talking about. And then it's like, oh, we have to cut to commercial. And these hosts, I'm like, how the fuck do these people do this for, like, six hours at a time where they have to engage in these political discussions, and at all times, they're like 90 seconds away from it having to be over.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that's true. The commercial break is a cruel mistress and it comes whether you want it or not. That's true.

[Cameron Caskey]

Speaking of cruelty is my, is my sloppy segue, actually. And speaking of segues, we are going to put on screen this Arrested Development ass picture of one of our new leaders in counterterrorism.

[Tim Miller]

I want to start here. The eyebrow. I keep seeing this picture and Cameron and I were talking this morning and I keep seeing people tweeting about it. It's like this man is in charge of our counterterrorism and he does the eyebrow thing and, and yeah, I mean it looks totally fake. Totally. Like it could not possibly be something that is happening in the real earth. And yet apparently it is. But I've not, I've not brought myself to actually click on any of the stories about this person. It's like been a quiet protest of mine to try not to care about this 22 year old.

[Cameron Caskey]

Well, you've already got like an underqualified, annoying 20something coworker who's, who shouldn't be in the position he's in. Like, do you really need another one?

[Tim Miller]

Exactly. Thank you, Cameron, that's a great point. So anyway, I, I assigned my underqualified 20 something to tell me about Thomas Fugate. Fugate. Fugate.

[Cameron Caskey]

I don't know, I'm going to say Fugate.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, what was the character's name in Zoolander? Mugatu.

[Cameron Caskey]

Got it.

[Tim Miller]

Mugatu.

[Cameron Caskey]

Different. So Thomas Fugate in what is not a first in this Trump administration. As some might observe, not qualified for his position. He's 22 years old. He has no prior government leadership or security experience. He was a landscaper, he was a grocery clerk. And by the way, mad respect to people who work these jobs and are part of our economy.

[Tim Miller]

Such mad respect to the people that landscape that you know, for me, if I was an ex landscaper, I would not want to join an administration where mass thugs show up outside of IHOP and take landscapers and beat their head into the ground and then throw them into the back of the car. It's like something that I would be against if I had been a landscaper and understood the challenge of the job. But that's just me. Sorry.

[Cameron Caskey]

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Thomas did not pay these people much mind. He recently graduated from UT San Antonio. So I guess that's one place where he's more qualified than your co host. Is that shout outs. He interned at the Heritage foundation, which you Know, they're, they're pretty hoity toity over there. And now he is leading the center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, a division of the Department of Homeland Security that oversees terrorism prevention. It is known as CP3. The CP3 works to combat terrorism, school shootings and other hate driven violence. And it oversees an $18 million grant program intended to help communities battle violent extremism. So now let's do what we should always do with our DHS leaders and talk about his LinkedIn. By the way, I don't know if any of you people see this. This is a side note. If you're using AI for your LinkedIn picture, you're part of the problem. Moving on.

[Tim Miller]

The hair is a choice he doesn't need to be making.

[Cameron Caskey]

I will judge anybody for their hair. Not if they're balding or anything like that, but at the end of the day, their haircut. Like, I get bad haircuts. And if you want to give me shit for it, it's like, okay, that's a great note. I'll try to get a better haircut next time. Anyway, needs to work on Thomas forgot their LinkedIn landscape business owner. That probably means he was just like going to his parents, friends places and like, his, his parents were like, hey, my son wants to, you know, mow your lawn. Can you give him 50 bucks? But that's, I guess that is being a business owner. It's probably more qualified business than a lot of the people Trump calls successful business people. I don't know if he's bankrupted any landscaping companies, so that puts him above the Donald. He said at his grocery store he would perform various duties around every department of the store, fulfilling key duties, using the same word twice in one sentence, contributing to store operations, which is a very like, you know, college application LinkedIn way to put. I worked at the store. He. But then he was an advanced team member for Trump 2024. He was a, quote, special assistant at an immigration office at the dhs. And then he got his promotion from special assistant at the immigration office to overseeing an $18 million budget to combat terrorism. While we have a president who is doing everything he can to provoke people who fund a lot of terrorism all over the world.

[Tim Miller]

I want to talk about that, the job part. But just really quick on the LinkedIn. Did you just kind of zoom over there? His leadership experience at the Model U.N. club?

[Cameron Caskey]

Oh, my God. My bad.

[Tim Miller]

Because as somebody who was a award winning model UN participant in the year 2000 Naaman, I received a national Naaman Award the year of your birth, I was winning an award, was a rare Model UN participant who was smoking marijuana and winning awards simultaneously just to show my range. And boy, unfortunately I lost my range a little bit for the following year because I kind of leaned a little bit over too far into the one direction and it hurt my skill set, you know, on the actual debating. So I did not.

[Cameron Caskey]

When I was around that age, I also leaned a little too far into one direction. That's called being queer.

[Tim Miller]

But I'm just saying Thomas and I have that in common. We both have leadership experience. I was the club head of Model UN at Regis Jesuit High School. And so I just don't want. I also want to make sure you didn't miss that.

[Cameron Caskey]

But I even think like Jeb Bush, for whom you were like, you know, the comms director, which is pretty serious position. Like, I feel like he probably wouldn't have put you in like a security role though. You know what I'm saying?

[Tim Miller]

Dhs? No. Hell no. Are you kidding me? No.

[Cameron Caskey]

Anyway, his LinkedIn profile, I'll have Dante throw this up as well, also features a photo taken in front of the DHS seal marked by a Riley arched eyebrow, which I do in photos as well, seemingly reflecting the self awareness of a young man who knows he's on the fucking up and up, baby. A senior DHS official has said that Mr. Tom has performed well in his current role and due to his success has been temporarily been given additional leadership responsibilities in the center for blah blah blah. And this is a credit to his work ethic and success on the job, which I have to say is pretty impressive because you know what they say about fucking Gen Z employees, man.

[Tim Miller]

You guys are tough to deal with. So, a couple of thoughts. I need to issue a correction. I shouted out the antelopes earlier. UT San Antonio is actually the Roadrunners.

[Cameron Caskey]

Misinformation here at the Bulwark.

[Tim Miller]

I want to make sure that we adhere to the highest level of accuracy here at the Bulwark. I just want to note the kind of position, person whose position he took, William Braniff, this person who held this position under Joe Biden. He resigned in protest when Trump won. Shout out you William Braniff. He's a graduate of the United States Military Academy and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. So, you know, it seems like he's got a little bit more experience as a scholar of counterterrorism. Just kind of the type of person.

[Cameron Caskey]

He has less experience in probably. I don't know. I mean, these Days. People of all ages seem to be all about this, but I bet he has less experience in social media. So Thomas Fugate had a political themed IG account featuring the motto, men used to do great things. I believe they still can. Now, I know what you're thinking.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, no.

[Cameron Caskey]

This might imply some gender dysphoria, since he did not say we still can, that I cannot diagnose. But he has posted videos on his account with the. With the disgraced Kennedy center president, with MAGA influencer Riley Gaines. She's the one who sucks at swimming, right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, she's the one that finished fifth place in a swimming competition and should have finished fourth in her opinion, since there was a trans person participating. And that finish of fifth instead of fourth now defines her entire career.

[Cameron Caskey]

Well, also in the esteemed. In the esteemed company of Mr. Tommy Fugate was Greg Abbott and Boris Johnson, which I have to admit, I was kind of surprised to see. But they found an older Twitter account.

[Tim Miller]

As well under the name what kind of stuff? Can I ask you about this Instagram account? Like, what can. So men used to do great things. So it's what, like, pictures of, like, the building of the pyramids? Or like, pictures of, like, Iwo Jima or like, what? Or what?

[Cameron Caskey]

I only read articles. I didn't go to the account.

[Tim Miller]

Keep talking while I try to find this.

[Cameron Caskey]

Okay, if you go to the account, the algorithm gets trained to show you more stuff like that. And I want my algorithm to keep showing me Legos and attractive people. Not Tommy Fugate, but an older Twitter account under the name Trey Fugate featured Legos, which I just mentioned, totally coincidentally, Star wars and global humanitarian efforts. That's right. On this account, he once urged Texas politicians to protect the international affairs budget and help the global poor save lives, which doesn't sound very doge. And it makes me think that maybe the counterterror group should have hired Big balls.

[Tim Miller]

That's a good flag. And we should let Kristi Noem know about, you know, maybe the. Maybe this guy, maybe he is like a deep state in their midst. Especially when you consider there's just this New York Times article, which everybody should read from today about just the degree of these USAID cuts. And it's just really horrifying. And to me, like, my takeaway is a guy like, this is probably not a deep state agent hiding in the midst. I think that sometimes people think that this is just like, you know, condescending Ivy League, whatever lib elite types, like, making, like, trying to make fun of regular Folks, and I, and I'm telling you that I'm, that I'm not doing that when I say this. The Trump administration is recruiting from like the bottom of the recruitment barrel. There are just so few people that want to go in to work in these jobs that it's extremely easy to like skyrocket up the career chart. If you just go fully Trump, it's much easier than going any other way, than going any other direction. Like if you are a Democrat, if you want to go work and be the like whatever Homeland Security or national security policy advisor, like a middle Democratic senator like John Hickenlooper or something, like you are competing against other dorks who went to Internet, who graduated in international relations from colleges all across the country. If you want to be the chief of staff for a mid level Republican person, like there's no competition out there. It's very, it's. The talent pool is just much shallower. No, I'm genuinely this, with my own eyes.

[Cameron Caskey]

I actually think that they pull their candidates from like, like Xbox live, Modern Warfare 2 chats. Like whoever is saying the N word the loudest gets the first job offer.

[Tim Miller]

I mean like that is an exaggeration of a point that is directionally accurate. I met a guy, so I was going to write a book on young maggots and it just kind of fell apart because I have to, you know, talk to you fuckers on YouTube too often to actually write another book, at least for now. But I did a couple interviews and I met like this guy who ran a young Republicans club and he seemed whatever, like for magas, he seemed decently smart. But he's like your age, Cameron. He tweeted like 80 times a day about how great Mr. Trump was. And he just got a job as like the chief of staff to a very important regulatory office. Like a serious job, like a job that you would want somebody that has expertise in that industry. And this person just was like a Twitter troll. And so this is happening across the government and I think that it's. Anyway, I don't know what to do. I get asked when I speak to college classes. People are like, what advice should you give me on a career? I'm like, really? If you just want to, you know, have no morals and go as far as fast as you can, you could just, you could just be maga. You can just save your MAGA and you would get hired very easily.

[Cameron Caskey]

Last thing I'll say is that the LEGO posts and the Star wars stuff was two years before the MAGA rebrand His Thomas. The number four Texas account announced that legend has it that Thomas Fugate didn't start the fire. Fire emoji. But that. That it has always been burning since the world's been turning. Now, Tim, people of your generation might not know this. That's a reference to the great Billy Joel in a song called We Did Not Start the Fire.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I've heard you've kind of influenced anyway interest in Billy Joel.

[Cameron Caskey]

I know that. Anyway, should we be scared?

[Tim Miller]

Are you scared? Are you scared about having Thomas Fugante there? Are you. Are you laughing? What are you. What. What do you think when you see this picture? What is the emotion that.

[Cameron Caskey]

I'm hearing things about sleeper cells in the United States, and I'm concerned that some of that might be inflammatory efforts to stoke Islamophobia. And I'm also concerned that there are sleeper cells in the United States because Iran famously is pretty fucked up and funds terror around the world. I don't really know how to feel about it yet, but generally speaking, just with the fear everywhere, I. I think that maybe someone who is not Thomas Fugatt. I think Thomas Fugatti should go back to Legos.

[Tim Miller]

I think there's something very concerning about it. I agree. And I would, you know, I should have. Elizabeth Newman was a whistleblower in the first Trump admin, and her job was assessing domestic terror threats. The shortest version of her story is that she ends up getting sidelined because she wanted to talk too much about white nationalist domestic terror threats and didn't.

[Cameron Caskey]

Want to focus on Muslims.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, and. And maybe I'll have a. I'll do a separate little YouTube with her to talk about, like, the seriousness of the threats and what it's like to have these.

[Cameron Caskey]

Well, as we know from the Trump administration and the Republican Party as a whole, terror is only terror when it's Muslims. When it's any other race, it's something else.

[Tim Miller]

All right, well, before we lose you in the spirit of our monitoring of the manosphere over here, Cameron, I've got some good news. We might be making some progress with the. Well, I guess this is not a young man, but an old man that is influencing young man. Let's watch Joe Rogan.

[C]

Ice rays are fucking nuts, man. Watching this protest on television, it's like.

[Tim Miller]

Do you think the raids are nuts? Yeah, I think the protests are false.

[C]

Well, I don't think if they. The Trump administration, if they're running and they said, we're gonna go to Home Depot and we're gonna arrest all the People at Home Depot, we're gonna go to construction sites and we're gonna just, like, tackle people at construction sites. I don't think anybody would've signed up for that. They said we're gonna get rid of the criminals and the gang members first. Right. And now we're seeing, like, Home Depots get raided.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[C]

That's crazy.

[Tim Miller]

What do you make of that, Cameron? Does that. Does that give you. Are you joining Yell at Joe Rogan? Are you encouraged by the growth? Any other thoughts?

[Cameron Caskey]

It's the same thing with, like, when Ro Khanna goes on the Ovan and gets the Ovan saying some kind of woke stuff. And it's like, I think that when people with that much influence are saying the right things, we shouldn't just jump on them and be like, well, you made MAGA happen in the first. We should fucking take what we can get and we should let them cook and let them keep going. And people say, we need a Joe Rogan on the left. And I have two responses to that. Number one, Tim Miller and Cameron Caskey. Number two, you can change Joe Rogan's mind on shit really fucking easily. So we just need Joe Rogan to have the right conversations. He's. He's not as much of a fascist as his advocacy might suggest. Like, this is some guy who has sympathy for other human beings. And it's like, if we keep having Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn and all these guys talk to the right people, Andrew Schultz talking to Pete Buttigieg, shit like that, like, you can start to see some minds get changed. I think we should encourage that.

[Tim Miller]

I agree. And I think that this is ripe for that. I think that my assessment of these guys is they, like, the way that I relate to them is like, high school Tim. A lot of them have not really, like, read that deeply. And so in a lot of ways, they're kind of similar to me. Instinctually from high school, I think back to my closeted self, and there's maybe some Joe Rogan elements in my brain back then. And we, you know, contrarian bro, guys do not want. Are not cool with, like, the government coming in and snatching people. Like, it's just. It's. It goes against their whole instinct, right? Like, the. The whole thing was they want to have free speech and don't tread on me, and we should just be able to say, and you guys can get off my back. And what I don't want is some fuck. You know, once you start getting masked thugs, like, coming around, grabbing people who are maybe listeners to their podcasts off the streets. I think that these guys are going to get very queasy about it. And I think that they are very different than, like, the little mini fascists like Charlie Kirk, who are like, super happy to go along with Stephen Miller on all that sort of stuff. And I think sometimes they get lumped together. And I think that it's important to try to attract the ones who are gettable on this stuff. And I think that immigration, in a weird way, might be a place to do it. And I think there are a lot of, like, smart people that are like, oh, no, focus on Medicaid cuts or whatever. I'm like, I don't know, man. I just think it's visceral. I think that there could be a visceral backlash among some of these guys over this.

[Cameron Caskey]

I will say, in a terribly hopeless time, I have actually been given more hope for humanity than I have gotten in a while by seeing people's response to these terrible ICE attacks. I actually, if you had asked me beforehand, would not have expected people to stand up for folks the way that they have. And this really seems to affect people, and it should. Anyway, Tim sort of compared Joe Rogan to his closeted high school self. So you heard it Here first on FYpod. Joe Rogan is gay, everybody. I'm Cameron Caskey. It's my pleasure to be joined by Tim Miller, and we'll be seeing you later this week.