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The Bulwark Podcast
Carol Leonnig and Will Sommer: The Loons and the Loyalists Running the DOJ
00:51:23
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- [00:00]
Carol Lennig
Having MG can make cooking difficult. But over the years, I've found some really helpful tools and tips that I'm excited to share. Hi, I'm Alicia. I think cooking should always be fun,
- [00:10]
Will Sommer
creative and of course, delicious.
- [00:13]
Carol Lennig
These Black Bean burgers are hearty, full of flavor and MG friendly. You're gonna love them.
- [00:18]
Will Sommer
Check out Alicia's Black Bean burger cooking video and other recipes. Full of tips and tricks for managing common MG symptoms while cooking only at mg-united.com Ready?
- [00:29]
Tim Miller
Let's cook. A vacation rental should come with support, not surprises. That's why VRBO comes with a VRBoCare guarantee and 24. 7 life support from Real people. So if something goes sideways, Verbocare can help. If the host cancels Verbocare if the listing says heated pool, but there's actually
- [00:45]
Carol Lennig
no pool to heat.
- [00:45]
Tim Miller
Definitely a verbo care thing.
- [00:47]
Carol Lennig
If my teenager starts calling me Leslie
- [00:49]
Tim Miller
instead of mom, that's a family thing. Leslie.
- [00:51]
Carol Lennig
That makes sense.
- [00:52]
Tim Miller
Sorry, book with support, not surprises. Verbo Care and 24. 7 Life Support. If you know you're verbo terms apply. See for details. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We've got a double header for you today. In segment two, we go into Magistan with Will Sommer. He's got some fun newsletters I want to share with you all. But first, delighted to welcome back a senior investigative reporter at msnow. She was previously at the Washington Post, a five time Pulitzer Prize winner. It's five more than me. Her latest book is How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department. It's Carol Lennig. How you doing, girl?
- [01:42]
Carol Lennig
I'm good. It's really nice to see you.
- [01:44]
Tim Miller
Good to see you as well, man. A lot happening on your beat, the Justice Department beat. You've also written about the Secret Service a bunch in the past as well. And so I kind of wanted to start just by talking about what happened at the respondents dinner through the Secret Service lens. I see a lot of folks out there critiquing and catastrophizing what happened. Obviously, the Trump administration is talking about how this justifies the illegal ballroom they're trying to build. You tell me. I mean, I feel crazy, kind of because I look at the story and I'm like, things seem to work. I mean, we're in a crazy country where we have too many guns and people bring guns into hotels now, which we'd like to fix that part of the problem. But the, the guy didn't even get onto the floor that the President was on, you know, and so I just, I'm a little bit confused by why everybody is, is acting like this was a big failure of the Secret Service. I'm wondering what your perspective is on that.
- [02:40]
Carol Lennig
So I'm with you. I think that obviously the protective, multiple protective circles that they draw around the President, the President first and foremost, right, outer perimeter layers failed, an important one failed. And that is what is such a big deal. The magnetometers where this guy bum rushed, right, sped right through were not hard to pierce if you can look at those surveillance videos. And that is while the Secret Service is delighted that the guy fell, they tackled him. He didn't make it down to the ballroom door. It's no small thing that he made it inside the site, so to speak, two feet, let's be fair. Inside the site. It's no small thing. And they're going to be investigating that internally because they want to fix that. And, you know, let's also be clear about something, Tim. Lara Trump said it best the other day. The guy, meaning Donald Trump, has had three untrained people try to kill him and get pretty damn close, one of them shooting him in the ear. How many more chances does he have?
- [03:51]
Tim Miller
Look, I understand that. I just, you know, we're in a dangerous world. Everybody's in a dangerous world. I don't mean to minimize this. Obviously, it's very serious. I just, what I'm trying to understand is on the Secret Service side of it, like Butler seems like an obvious failure, as far as I could tell, just like just a clear fuck up the golf course. There's a lot of different reporting on that. But it was kind of like, my understanding was that it was like Trump didn't want the degree of protection that the Secret Service could have provided on the golf course because of ways that would have affected. You can tell me if that's wrong. And then in this case, again, he gets two feet inside the perimeter and he gets grabbed before he even goes down the escalator. We've all been, you and I have been. I guess we haven't all been. God willing, some of the listeners haven't suffered through the White House correspondence dinner.
- [04:37]
Ryan Seacrest
It's brutal.
- [04:37]
Tim Miller
But if you have, it's down the escalation escalator. Like the guy still had to go down a whole nother floor, you know. So anyway, I don't know if you like, look at all those things together. Obviously the Butler thing is just like a massive, shocking failure. And so I just kind of wonder how you See it all, if you put it all together.
- [04:55]
Carol Lennig
You know, it's funny. You didn't write about the Secret Service like I did.
- [04:59]
Tim Miller
Right? Correct.
- [05:00]
Carol Lennig
You didn't write a book about it, so to speak. Zero Fail is my book. And you nailed all three of those. I would underline it by with this. Butler was a colossal failure of brand new agent in charge of making the advanced security plan and forgetting Secret Service 101 from 1963. Hey, we look at high buildings because that's how John F. Kennedy got killed. Right? That boom. Done. Okay. Hugest failure ever. There were several other small failures, but when you can't remember the lesson from 60 years before, that's a problem. And you can't remember it because you're not experienced. Right. You didn't get training. Your first advance security plan for a huge campaign rally is Butler for the president. I'm sorry, a presidential candidate at that time. Number two, the golf course. To me, the golf course is an amazing success. The screw up was Donald Trump insisting that he has to play at his own golf courses, which makes him a sitting duck. And he's been warned about that. John Kelly, his chief of staff, said, dude, he. You keep going to the same place on good weather days on Saturday. People know if it's Sunday on Saturday and it's springtime, you're at this club in Florida and they know if it's summertime and it's a nice day, you're at Virginia and they know when you're going to be there. And we have pictures of photographer long range lenses taking pictures of your face on the golf course. So we know someone can shoot you. So the screw up is Trump insisting on golfing the way he always has. Amazing. Hats off to the agents who the one particular agent who found that guy long before Trump got anywhere near number three. We're still in the middle of reporting out what happened at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, but it seems to me the real problem is going to be the Hilton presents unique challenges and the guys at the mags weren't paying close attention and the suspect got through and the site is not as secure as you'd like. I don't know that that's a screw up right now, but there's more to report, so I'm not gonna jump the gun, but those are two biggies.
- [07:22]
Tim Miller
Some scuttlebutt about Susie Wiles getting some heat over this since this is in her remit. I'm wondering if you've heard anything about that or have any thoughts on that
- [07:31]
Carol Lennig
Susie Wiles was commissioning a very large review. She wants Sean Curran, the Secret Service director, later this week to give her a blow by blow about how they're going to address security for Trump going forward. And she's definitely sharing and feeling what Lara Trump is feeling. Like, how many more times can we have an assassination attempt by untrained armed individuals and the guy still, meaning Trump still be alive? I'm not trying to be flipped, but we do live in a crazy world. But this is not good. Are we gonna have to have to have him in the White House at all times? It's starting to look that way. And Susie Wiles doesn't want that. She's in the middle of a campaign.
- [08:19]
Tim Miller
You had an interesting just kind of reporting on. There are a bunch of conspiracy theories floating around about all of this. And everybody's been listening to too many true crime podcasts and are, you know, analyzing the different videos that they see. And one of the things that was going around was like, why was Vance evacuated before Trump? And you explained that, and I thought it was kind of interesting. I thought you maybe could share it with the listeners.
- [08:44]
Carol Lennig
So, you know what? I feel bad about this. I'm going to let you into my reporting world. So, you know, lots of times you hear something official and it sounds super sketch and suspicious, and then you realize two things can be true at the same time. So in this instance, a senior official told me that the reason Vance got moved so quickly and Trump just ever so slightly less quickly was because agents all clambering around him and mostly his detail, the shift they were trying to make sure on their radios. Do we have the presidential walk as hardened and all the poststanders, agents protecting that at all of the junctures where someone could get in? Do we have that hardened before we take Trump back through that walk to a holding room? Then the President himself said yesterday that it was a little bit his fault that he got removed a little later because he had a couple questions like what's going on? And that that may have delayed things. Both things I think are true. I think that Trump doesn't like the optics of looking like he's being taken to the bunker. You know how angry he gets about that. He doesn't want to look weak.
- [10:06]
Tim Miller
Got it.
- [10:06]
Carol Lennig
But I think both things are true.
- [10:08]
Tim Miller
This one maybe is going to end up being more of a comment than a question. But I'm so surprised. While we're doing the conspiracy theories, the suspect has been, has been now detained, Right? We have him. We've got the suspect. Right.
- [10:23]
Carol Lennig
Alive.
- [10:24]
Tim Miller
He's alive and in custody. So the idea that he was an agent of Patel or this was a false flag, that Trump wanted this, it breaks down a little bit when he's in custody. Right. Because it's like he's about to go to jail for life. And it seems like if he wanted to get out of that, he could just tell his lawyer, like, hey, this was a false flag attempt. Cash. I was drunk one night and Cash offered and told me to do this, and I did it on a lark. And then I could get out like that. It seems. That seems like a weakness of the false flag theory. Again, more of a comment than a question. I don't know.
- [11:03]
Carol Lennig
Yeah. You know, the problem with you, Tim, is you're so logical. You know, it's hard to talk to such logical people. Yeah. This is not a false flag. This was not staged. Let me repeat this guy. We don't know his mental health status. But I will tell you, every single person who tries to kill a president has usually suffered a mental health devolution challenge and has started getting angrier and angrier. Their rhetoric is ramping up and they believe that they have been anointed to solve this problem and solve it by killing someone. We'll see what happens with Cole Allen and what we learn about him. But I'll tell you what I'm hearing this morning, which is that his family is cooperating with investigators and they are sharing with the FBI that they had seen some signs of him kind of coming unhinged about Trump and his rhetoric getting very scary and, and strange. It is just funny. I mean, you're logical, but also funny. It is just funny that he, he says in his letter writing that the one person he doesn't want to kill in the administration is Kaj Patel. I assume that's because Kaj Patel is a very high profile figure. He read a lot of stories about him and for some reason fixated on that.
- [12:32]
Tim Miller
Or maybe he thinks Cash is so incompetent that it's not worth. Not worth it. You know, he's too drunk to.
- [12:38]
Carol Lennig
Are you commenting again?
- [12:39]
Tim Miller
I'm commenting again. I'm just suggesting. I don't know. Or maybe this. Maybe his family's in on it. I don't know. I'm just joking. This is. It's, it's silly. I think it's important to just kind of. It's one thing, I think for people to watch all this stuff and look at it and say, that looks suspicious, that looks weird, or You. I read this, and this looks a lot. Just seems illogical. It's not what I would write if I was, you know, going to write a manifesto. And it's like, well, you're not an insane person that wants to kill the president, so. So, yes, your manifesto would.
- [13:04]
Carol Lennig
Bingo.
- [13:05]
Tim Miller
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- [15:56]
Carol Lennig
First, thank you for focusing on this because you're right, we can all start to get numb to like, oh, another firing or, oh, another demotion, another removal. In Maria Medetta Long's case, she was a very senior prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida who just to correct, was removed from being the head of that investigative team. And my sources have told me that basically what she was doing was the job like, look, you want to investigate John Brennan? There was a referral from Chairman Jim Jordan claiming the former CIA director John Brennan had lied to Congress in a 2023 interview about the Russian interference investigation that Donald Trump is so hacked off about. Maria's like, okay, I'll investigate that. I'll look into that. I'll do. Ultimately, she told her colleagues, who later relayed to me that she had said there's just no evidence to claim or to even go to a grand jury and claim that he lied to Congress. We don't see any evidence of that. We don't have a case. And then off with your heads. She's removed from being in charge of that case. And instead they bring in Joe diGenova, who is 81. I don't think his process called for
- [17:18]
Tim Miller
the, called for Chris Krebs to be said. Chris Krebs was a traitor. And, you know, after the 2020 election
- [17:24]
Carol Lennig
and represented Dimitri Firtosh, you know, deep in the, in the Ukraine conspiracies that Donald Trump was drumming up. You know, I don't know how he resolves that conflict. You know, he, he's mucked up in that Russian interference investigation himself in some ways. But he's also somebody who hasn't prosecuted and hasn't prosecuted in Florida, I would estimate 40 years. So it's an interesting choice. But you asked about Todd, Tim. Yeah, Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney general. He knows from his Boss being removed. Pam Bondi, he knows what the assignment is, right? Which is line up every single person Donald Trump wants lined up and charge them. And so we are hearing from sources inside DOJ that Blanche is working really hard triple time to audition for this job permanently and is trying to complete that assignment.
- [18:27]
Tim Miller
Yeah. We have breaking from the New York Post this morning, and I know you haven't confirmed it yet, but it's just interesting on this same topic that they're indicting a Fauci advisor, David Morenz, for FOIA evasion related to Covid. It's not clear to me that this administration is really crossing their T's and dotting their I's on all the FOIA requirements that they're getting. So I think we can maybe put a pin in this now that we know the DOJ can go after people for FOIA evasion. But it's just another example of kind of what you're talking about, assuming that reporting is true. Right.
- [18:59]
Carol Lennig
Well, Fauci, you know, I mean, I'll repeat the obvious, but, you know, you know, it. Well, Fauci is such a hot button for Trump. The president views him as an absolute enemy who embarrassed him about his handling of COVID And he wants to blame Fauci for a lot of things, including supporting research that ultimately led to the Wuhan virus that became a worldwide pandemic and ultimately really cost Donald Trump his reelection. Bill Barr, former attorney General, told Trump in I think it was May of 2020. I think you're going to lose this election if you don't get it together about the wacky things you're saying about COVID I paraphrase. Right. But back to indicting people Trump doesn't like and FOIA evasion. I mean, the Justice Department just, and I mean headquarters just responded to a FOIA and said that they didn't believe there was any public interest, so they were not going to expedite this foia. And now I just forgot what it's about. But trust me, I was interested.
- [20:15]
Tim Miller
This is one more. I'm being inside that building. And justice, you reported recently that Pam Bondi's portrait was thrown in the trash after she left. Not a lot of love there, because we could all speculate on what that is. But was it about management style or what is your sense for what was? Because I don't see much difference between Bondi and Blanche, but that's an outsider's perspective.
- [20:35]
Carol Lennig
You know, there are levels of disdain and hatred within the career prosecutor and career agent world. Towards Bondi and Blanche. The frustration with Bondi was that people didn't think she really understood how the Department of Justice worked. Now people are angry at Blanche inside the career world because they feel like he's such a traitor. He actually worked in the Southern District of New York, worked his way through night school, paralegal, and knew the firmament. And now they're angry that he sort of turned on it. And it has not, in their view, again, stressing, quoting them, he has not complied with sort of the procedures and manuals that prosecutors swear by, including, you know, investigating people without having evidence of a crime at the start. The trash. I'll just quickly tell you a funny story. Funny to me, the day that Bondi was removed by the president and he drove with her up to the Supreme Court and notified her, essentially in the car, look, your days are over. I got a message from a source who was hearing that Bondi was going to be removed and said they better take her picture down. People do not forget when she fired a person in the National Security Division who ran that division because Bondi was walking through offices, ends up in a skiff for the National Security Division. And, you know, the janitorial team hasn't come to replace the pictures. And there's still pictures of Biden and Harris up. And she rips them down, throws them in the trash and fires the guy who runs that division. Memories are long. And so, I don't know, it must have been a couple hours after that person said they better take her picture down, that we started. Ken Delaney and I started getting pictures sent to us of trash cans with our picture in it.
- [22:32]
Tim Miller
Woof. That's rough. I wonder if that's gonna happen to Cash. Do you have any reporting on what the latest is with Cash? The pictures of Cash and the correspondence dinner just kind of sitting there in the chair I thought were pretty damning. And obviously the Atlantic's reporting and others have been, which we've been talking about, but he's not giving off the energy of somebody who's confident about his place and who's in charge of the Bureau.
- [22:55]
Carol Lennig
Without commenting on competence, I will say that the disdain and hatred for Bondi and Blanche pale like a white hot sun compared to the way agents feel about Kash Patel. I had a source I reached out to, to ask a little bit about a subject I'm not going to raise here, and the source said that the place is a disaster because of Cash Patel. That was their language. That's how vitriolic the feeling is. I Don't know what's going to happen with Cash. I mean, we've been hearing rumors since the fall. Right. And then again in the. In January that the president and Susie Wiles were like, we got to change up in the FBI because his flights. And then this hockey trip with the drinking in Milan with the U.S. men's ice hockey League, like, we got to make a change. But that hasn't happened. And we'll see.
- [23:58]
Tim Miller
He has the advantage of being a loyalist. I do wonder on that point. You mentioned Blanche getting the job permanently. It's not like the clock is ticking on that, really. You have a certain number of whatever it is, a couple hundred days that he can be there as acting. But it's kind of ticking with regards to the Senate confirmation process. You know, it's possible that the Democrats take the Senate. And so it does feel like that's a decision that has to come by the fall. Right. I don't know if you're hearing anything about that.
- [24:26]
Carol Lennig
That's definitely a worry for White House aides. They're eyeing the same polls you're eyeing. They're looking at the same information you are studying. And, you know, senators have been squawking like crazy to Susie Wiles. I guess the most strident moment for that was when Alex Preddy was shot and killed by an ice actually a custom and Border Patrol agent in Minnesota. Senators were like, we're going to lose the Senate if you don't address this right now. So there is anxiety about that. As for whether or not there's going to be a nomination next week, four weeks from now, I don't have any good reporting for you. If I do, I'll let you know.
- [25:09]
Tim Miller
All right. Anything else you're working on?
- [25:12]
Carol Lennig
I mean, this shooting is pretty important. Understanding what happened with the suspect, understanding how this individual got through that important final checkpoint. And what we're hearing is that there was nobody manning the stairwells, outside the mags, outside the magnetometer checkpoint. And the stairwell happened to be right at that right place. And he made it through in part because of that and that he was sprinting through, fell down, wasn't tackled right away, but fell down because he was just clumsy. And if he'd gotten any further, he would have broken his neck on the stairwell because if he hadn't fallen down, he was going too fast to actually make the steps. So it's very unlikely he would have gotten to the ballroom. But we're also hearing that the Secret Service has launched a mission assurance review internally to figure out what went wrong and what they can fix. And that started yesterday.
- [26:15]
Tim Miller
All right, that's Carol Lennig. We appreciate your wisdom as always. We'll see you on Nicole or something or the next time you're on the show. Say hi to Sam Stein for me. And up next, we got Will Sommer. Thanks, Gil.
- [26:27]
Carol Lennig
Thank you, Tim.
- [26:42]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [27:13]
Carol Lennig
With VRBoCare, help is always ready before, during, and after your stay. We've planned for the plot twists, so support is always available because a great trip starts with peace of mind.
- [27:29]
Tim Miller
All right. And we're back. He is a senior reporter here at the Bulwark. He writes the False Flag newsletter, and he was the author of Trust the Play and the rise of QAnon and the conspiracy that Unhinged America. It's Will Sommer. What's going on, bro?
- [27:42]
Will Sommer
Hey, thanks for having me back on.
- [27:44]
Tim Miller
Of course. Of course. If people aren't signed up for the False Flag newsletter at this point, literally. What are you doing? What are you doing? Go to thebullwark.com and subscribe right now. We just had Carolina going, and obviously her remit is kind of doj, FBI, Secret Service. And she was talking about just the loathing that agents have for Kash Patel. Basically, she said that people hated Pam Bondi so much that as soon as she was fired, they threw her portrait in the trash can. And, like, the hatred for her pales in comparison to that for Cash Patel. And so I'm just kind of interested in your perspective on that, especially in the context of some reporting you did recently about how Cash Patel ordered FBI agents to chase down a story that came from the Blaze about who potentially had the bombs outside of the Capitol on January 6, and it leads to an actual raid. So real resources are pushed to this cockamamie theory. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about that and what you've been hearing from your friend Kyle Serafin and other FBI agents?
- [28:52]
Carol Lennig
Well.
- [28:52]
Will Sommer
Well, yeah, sure. So, I mean, this is the backstory here is that a few months ago, in early November, the Blaze, which was Glenn Beck's outlet, they came up with this idea that, by the way, one of their Reporters is a January 6th defendant involved in this case. So he may have some other motives here, but they came up with this idea that this Capitol Police officer named Shawnee Kerkoff was also secretly the pipe bomber who put the bombs outside the Democratic and Republican headquarters on January 6th. And this is a case that is really important to the right because they think it was like a false flag operation to sort of ratchet up tensions and lead to the riot.
- [29:27]
Tim Miller
So they think it's a false flag operation, you say?
- [29:30]
Will Sommer
Yes, you know, and that's. I feel like that's a phrase we're hearing more and more, you know, assassination attempts. And so. But their evidence here was really thin. I mean, as I wrote at the time, basically they looked at the. The way she walked, for example, on January 6th, by the way, in full tactical gear, which might kind of affect your walk. And then they said, well, now look at, here's the pipe bomber on the surveillance video. And we found this guy who has a, like a video game avatar, this anonymous guy on Twitter who says it matches. So I think that's case close. But she, she ended up being a security guard at the CIA after leaving the Capitol Police. So in the days right before publication, the Blaze reporter goes around to Tulsi Gabbard's office and he says, you got to look at this stuff. This makes its way to the FBI. And then the FBI raids this woman's house. Her boyfriend, also a Capitol Police officer, totally tossed the house. Bomb dogs, helicopter, all this crazy stuff.
- [30:23]
Tim Miller
A helicopter?
- [30:24]
Will Sommer
A helicopter. Yeah. So she's. She's outside her house and FBI is like, hey, we're going to come interview you. And she said, okay. And then suddenly the helic comes in. The guys with the SWAT team with the guns pile out, I think, in her suburban Northern Virginia home. And she's like, what is happening here?
- [30:40]
Tim Miller
I'm sorry, that's not funny. That's horrible. And they're terrorizing this poor woman. These people that are Capitol Police officers that were attacked, frankly, by the people that are accusing them, they had to go through that. And now what do your neighbors think? I don't know. It'd be pretty embarrassing.
- [30:56]
Will Sommer
Oh, yeah.
- [30:56]
Tim Miller
I mean, it's traumatizing, really.
- [30:58]
Will Sommer
There was a high ranking FBI official on the scene, and she said to him, what are you doing here? It's odd that you're here for like a search warrant. And he said, look, this is all orders from higher up. So, you know, is that Cash Patel? We don't know, but, I mean, certainly pretty high up in the FBI.
- [31:13]
Tim Miller
And, you know, it's like in any other organization. I'm sure there are some agents who are like, gung ho about this sort of mission, but, you know, you've got others that have got to be like, this is. This is preposterous. I mean, you're making us go after this poor lady's house based on a gate analysis by some random blogger, you know, far right blogger. I mean, among the many other things about Cash, these kind of complaints do seem to be bubbling up from particularly among the X agent set.
- [31:48]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I think there's clearly a lot of internal criticism of him. You know, this is how the New York Times presumably found out that Cash, you know, they were investigating a New York Times reporter for stalking for, you know, noting that his girlfriend uses all these FBI resources. So, I mean, yeah, I think there's a lot turmoil there. You also have to figure in the case of the pipe bombing, a month later, they arrested the person they say is the actual suspect. So there were probably FBI agents who were like, well, I. I know what you heard from the Blaze, but there's kind of a guy. We've been reviewing his Amazon purchases, but I guess if you want to toss this house, I guess we have no choice.
- [32:20]
Tim Miller
Insane, truly insane that this is the folks in charge of our government.
- [32:26]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [32:57]
Tim Miller
I want to, like, broaden it out and talk to you a little bit about, you know, the ongoing podcast to Stan wars, you know, between Ben and Megan and Candace and Laura, and, you know, we'll get through it all. And there was a period of time a couple months ago where, like, my view on it was, it's funny to watch. You know, we can get some entertainment about it. Like there are some fissures there that are real, but it's Kind of helping all of them, really. Like, they're all boats are being raised by, you know, these sort of feuds. Like, I was joking for a while that I need some. Somebody to feud with. Like, I need a fake feud with someone in order to help, you know, get attention for oneself. Since that's how things work in podcast world, my view on that is starting to change. Like, and I think that as the Iran war drags on, I think that potentially we're seeing fissures that are so deep that it causes real damage to some of these political figures, some of the podcast figures, some of the institutions. I mean, it's not. It's just one thing, but like, the empty Turning Point event at UGA to me says something about the fact that, like, you know, Candace's attacks on them or the Erica memes or who knows, some combination of everything has created, you know, a little bit less excitement around everything. Anyway, I'm just wondering how you kind of adjudicate that as you watch all this, like, you know, the difference between kind of these fake feuds in order to get attention and what seemed to be like some real potential fissures that could be hurting the MAGA movement.
- [34:32]
Will Sommer
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Politico had an article recently saying that some Republicans are really pinning their midterm hopes on Erica Kirk and hoping that Erica Kirk can unite the party and be seen as this kind of rallying figure. And, you know, good luck with that. But, yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I think there has been this question, like, how much of this is sort of drama to drum up clicks and views and whatever. But I think it is just the feelings are so bad out there. And in particular, when you start talking about, let's say, Turning Point usa, an organization that's a big kind of get out the vote machine for the Republicans, that is kind of a key part of their effort. And then you have people saying, you know, they murdered Charlie Kirk, all this crazy stuff. And look, I mean, I think we're. We've seen at least two chapters disaffiliate themselves now. I think the, the sense is that, like, the Turning Point brand is just kind of weird. I mean, they're saying, you know, this isn't what the students are saying. This isn't what Charlie Kirk would have wanted. And I think a lot of that is being driven by this podcast fighting, obviously, particularly by Candace Owens. I think, you know, let's say you go to the Turning Point America Fest conference and you're expecting to Hear about, you know, these darn liberals and get fired up and then Ben Shapiro and Megyn Kelly get up and they start saying, you know, you little pip squeak, you know, you don't talk that way about Tucker Carlson, you know, And I think the reaction is from the average person.
- [35:45]
Tim Miller
I was like, what?
- [35:46]
Will Sommer
You know, why am I in this kind of like Internet blood sport?
- [35:49]
Tim Miller
You know, one thing I was thinking about this morning, I was watching some of the clips from Fox over the past few hours from this morning. What are they covering? And the propaganda machine, you can see how it works when it's well oiled and around the ballroom question this. Oh, a shooter coming to get Trump and almost getting down the escalator. It shows why we need this ballroom. And that message is just pervasive on Fox this morning. It's like every guest is coming. My governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we're last in the country and everything. But he's on Fox this morning talking about how Donald Trump needs a ballroom in order to feel safe. Everybody's on. And that efficiency really helped Trump over the last decade. He could put out some cockamamie nonsense and everybody would just echo it, no matter how silly it was. And while that is still working in the Fox world, it does feel like that's broken down completely in the online echo chamber. And obviously there are some people tweeting about the ballroom and like, there are some people echoing him and you know, he's got Eric Doherty or Benny Johnson or whatever that'll say whatever Mr. Trump wants. But like a bunch of these other associated kind of Bigfoot shows are just like, maybe they'll say something about it, but it's like they have other business that they care about more, whether it's Iran war, whether it's Epstein, whether it's Koss, whether it's, you know, whatever. Like, you're just seeing a lot more of the kind of right wing propaganda figures starting to kind of break off and be like, you know, I'm not gonna just, I'm not just spouting the party line today. I do think that's a noteworthy change.
- [37:36]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I think that's a good insight. I mean, I think we're seeing like, in a way, I mean, it's just more competition, I think, among these figures. This idea that, like, I'm not gonna talk about what the Trump line is. You know, I think back to when Charlie Kirk got a call from Trump and he said, stop talking about Epstein.
- [37:50]
Tim Miller
And he said, okay, you got it. Yeah.
- [37:52]
Will Sommer
And now I think that would be less likely to happen because Trump is less popular. You know, and to be frank, I think the emergence of these figures, whether it's, you know, Nick Fuentes, Megyn Kelly, these people who are more willing, Candace Owens obviously more willing to break with Trump and in a lot of cases really directly go on the attack against Trump. I mean, Tucker's saying Trump is the Antichrist. I think that makes people like Benny Johnson, Eric Doherty, it just makes them look lame. When you have another option, like one of these kind of griper guys calls these people, like take sellers. Because there's this idea that these guys are just like, here's your slop today, you know, here you and like people like Jack Posovic, for example. And when you have that, when you see that coordinated messaging. And then on the other hand, you have these kind of wild and woolly things coming out from Candace Owens or whoever, like, oh, Brigitte Macron did what? You know, I think that, you know, unfortunately, I think the audience is flocking a lot more to that kind of like innovative crazy stuff rather than the old tired crazy stuff.
- [38:48]
Tim Miller
Another signal that is being sent is that you can succeed by doing crazy stuff that separates you from Trump. Just remember what happened after the 2020 election where Fox was not going as full bore for the stop the steal stuff as Trump wanted. And then Trump started attacking them and Fox's ratings goes crash and Newsmax's ratings skyrocket. There's that period of time where Newsmax is almost catching up to Fox in the rankings for two weeks around Christmas before the January 6th insurrection. You're not seeing that now. Like, I just, I just pulled up the podcast rankings right now. It's Megyn Kelly Tucker. Like they're at the top. Candace Shapiro is also still there, but it's like they don't seem to be suffering at all in any way, audience wise for their apostasy. And that like sends an incentive out there that says, hey, you know, we don't have to do this anymore if we don't, you know, if we don't want to. Yeah.
- [39:46]
Will Sommer
And I think because these figures are so big, that also ripples out into Congress potentially. I mean, these various Republicans, I mean, people like, like Megyn Kelly, I mean, that is someone who, you know, she, she's going to stay on the right side. She's going to go with where wherever the audience is going. And I think it's telling that she's saying like, you know, I need to be saying, you know, I'm just sick of these dumb Trump tweets, why doesn't he shut up? You know, as she said about Iran. So I think when you start having people break ranks, I mean, obviously that. That I think encourages more people to do the same.
- [40:14]
Tim Miller
One of my favorite parts of the podcast to Stan wars has been Laura Loomer versus Candace Owens. Laura Loomer is more on the pro Israel side, pro Iran war for Trump, no matter what. I'll go down with the Trump ship, so to speak. Candace is more on the recent lawsuit
- [40:38]
Will Sommer
thrown out about
- [40:42]
Tim Miller
Candace. Obviously not on that boat. Has been attacked by Trump recently. He called her stupid. He put this picture up of her. That felt kind of racist to me. I don't know. Like, it was, like, about as ugly of a picture as you could possibly find about Candace, trying to make her look like she was a ghetto thug or whatever. So, anyway, so Candace and Laura on opposite sides of this Loomer Unleashed this week, I thought was interesting. And I want to play you a couple of clips from Lumer Unleashed to give you a sense of how things are going in the Real Housewives of Magistan. Let's listen.
- [41:15]
Laura Loomer
And one time when we were hanging out and I was sleeping over at her house, she was wearing these really short shorts, and she had this crop top on, and she leaned over to pick something up, and she had a tramp stamp. She actually had a tramp stamp on her. On her, like, lower back, above her butt. And I was like, oh, wow, you have a tramp stamp. I was kind of, like, teasing her about it, and she's like, yeah, someday I need to get it removed, though. So now Candace all of a sudden is like, talking about how, oh, Milo's a credible source. And, oh, Milo says this, Laura. Milo says that he allegedly had sex with. Sex with Candace's husband. Candice says that Milo's vindictive. Milo says that she's so stupid. And then let's show the other post that he said, too, because you have to understand, like, how Candace operates, right? I don't know if she's being blackmailed by Milo or what it is, but you. You can't go from saying that somebody is a vindictive liar and a sociopath to then saying, oh, Milo said this about Laura. And Milo wrote this fan fiction about Laura that's already been debunked by Laura as family. And Milo's credible. When Milo's on the record, literally, this is like, two years ago saying. Less than two years ago, actually saying, I want to make something very clear, Candace, When I said, your husband was gay. I wasn't looking at him, I was looking at you.
- [42:32]
Tim Miller
Well, I've been flirting around with various things, like, you know, thinking like, do I mention Jon Favreau's tramp stamp or do I not as part of a feud? Do I. Do I out any of the pod Bros wives as being a lesbian? But no, that's it. That's. And you know, that's where they're going at this point. Laura's like, candace's husband is gay and she has a tramp stamp.
- [42:55]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, you know, they are, first of all, Lumer Unleashed. I mean, famously the show where she ate dog food. As you said, there's always something exciting going on there. I mean, so what happened when she ate dog food? I believe it was sponsored by her.
- [43:06]
Tim Miller
Her.
- [43:06]
Will Sommer
You. Her. Like kind of sort of YouTube knockoff channel. They had a brand of dog food. And so she said, this is good.
- [43:13]
Tim Miller
I don't ever see Loomer Unleashed very high in the rankings. X seems to be more her natural platform than audience, I think.
- [43:20]
Will Sommer
So I think it's an acquired taste. I do think she gets paid a good amount from it. So I think that's why she keeps doing it. So in this case, you can see how bad, how personal it is where she's saying, we were having a sleepover and I saw your tramp stamp. Or in this case, she and Milo, of course, they. Milo once dressed up as her in drag and they did a rally together. Oh, they were the best of friends. And now they've turned on each other. So, you know, the knives are really out and they know all the dirt on one another.
- [43:51]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, Laura did famously save me from Carrie Lake because she had a bone to pick with a different homosexual and that was Milo. And then they went and screamed at each other outside a bar in Phoenix. So this has been kind of a long time beef between Loomer and Milo. Before we get to your newsletter for today, do you have any. Is there any favorite beef that you're monitoring? You know, oh my God. Season two on Netflix right now. So just.
- [44:14]
Will Sommer
Oh my God. They should do beef season three about something like this. That would be a good idea.
- [44:18]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I do agree.
- [44:21]
Will Sommer
No, you know, I mean, it is. It's just sort of an all fronts war. I mean, you know, people will. There is kind of like a general alliance, but then they'll, you know, Nick Fuentes, hate Candace and you know, vice versa. And then they'll go at each other. So I think there's a lot to watch For? I mean, you know, Laura, you know, as I mentioned, she just got her defamation suit against Bill Maher thrown out. So, you know, maybe there's room for another lawsuit on the play it.
- [44:42]
Tim Miller
I'm intrigued. Okay.
- [44:44]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [45:15]
Tim Miller
Your newsletter today is about my friend, Clavicular. I assume everyone at this point, if they're listening to this podcast, has been briefed on Clavicular. One of our colleagues posted into our slack a text from somebody whose mom had been talking to them about Clavicular. They're like, mom, how do you know who Clavicular is? They're like, well, I listen to Tim Miller's podcast, obviously, so in case you're not like that mom, and you've missed it, he's the looks maxer who does bone smashing on his face and dabbled a little bit in right wing politics, but kind of has been more just, I think, generally kind of a force for trying to get young men to pretty themselves as much as possible. I don't know, you can maybe expand on that, Will, but I'm curious what you're reporting in the newsletter and what we're learning about the latest from Clavicular.
- [46:05]
Will Sommer
Yeah, so as we dive in here, I want to stress this is real. Everyone I've told this story to has said, this can't be real. You're making this up somehow or this is a rumor. No, this is real. It's backed by federal documents. So here's the deal.
- [46:16]
Tim Miller
You're sure?
- [46:17]
Will Sommer
Oh, it's real.
- [46:19]
Tim Miller
Okay. Wow, I'm really racing. This is a big windup. Will you better deliver now?
- [46:24]
Will Sommer
The State Department, the DEA, the U.S. attorney. So anyways, here's the deal. So Clavicular obviously overdosed about two weeks ago. He does enormous amounts of drugs. There is a lot of, you know, this created a shakeup in his organization. Various people were purged over alleged allegedly giving him the drugs. And as a result, there's kind of a power vacuum over who controls Clavicular who controls.
- [46:46]
Tim Miller
It's kind of like an Iran situation. Exactly. Clavicular guard the leaders. And now there's a fight between the revolutionary guards. Yeah.
- [46:54]
Will Sommer
One of them claimed that there was a threat to call ICE on one of the Australian influencers involved. So it has now emerged that Clavicular has incredibly close ties and has gone into business with a man who's very close with Israeli organized crime and is sort of seen as, as, according to an indictment dropped last year, as arguably the most fearsome Israeli organized crime associate in the United States.
- [47:20]
Tim Miller
So the Tony Soprano of the Israeli mob is back in Clavicular.
- [47:25]
Will Sommer
I mean, the Tony Soprano, the Lucky Luciano, I mean, we're talking big, big, big. So this guy's name is Hai Joachnin. And you know, we have to keep in mind, right, Clavicular used to hang out with all the anti Semites. He was doing heil Hitler in the club with Nick Fuentes. Now he's hanging out with this guy with like a Hebrew letter on a chain. So the deal is Clavicular and this guy have invested in co club together called Baccarat. And this is because Clavicular was banned from all the nightclubs after the Hail Hitler thing. And obviously a lot of his content revolves around kind of making out with random women in clubs, live streaming it. So he had to get a club. And so now they have a club. The issue is Clavicular in Miami, in Miami beach, it's called Baklava Baccarat. And the opening was the night after the overdose. Clavicular literally pulled the IVs out and they said, no, don't leave the hospital. And he said, I gotta go to Baccarat, you know, and satisfy high here. I can't miss my appointment. So the issue for Clavicular is that Hai has a history. Let's say he's been tied to several murders. He's pleaded guilty to extortion related to money laundering efforts, regarding Israel threatening to, you know, allegedly threatening to kill people's children and wife to get the money back. And I think what's maybe most interesting is that he supposedly, he has boasted on Israeli television he had a kidnapping for ransom thing that he eventually got out of because the witness never showed that he has boasted about cutting his victim's ear. Now, the documents don't make clear if he cut it off or kind of just cut it a little bit. But either way, if you're a guy who wants to look good, that's not maybe who you should be hanging out with.
- [49:01]
Tim Miller
Looks maxing. Well you know, maybe Clavicular could be sort of a trendsetter on that front, where just maybe kind of like a little ear nick kind of becomes kind of like Cindy Crawford in the Mole
- [49:16]
Will Sommer
or like a dueling scar in pre war Germany where maybe it shows that you have a little bit of organized crime connection.
- [49:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah, like a dueling scar. Yeah.
- [49:25]
Will Sommer
If I could make just one more point here, Tim, before we move on. Hai Joaquin, also moving on. According to an indictment dropped against his brother last year, his brother has been accused of involvement in, or at least using some extortion schemes around firebombings of celebrity poker games in Los Angeles. And so that high is also involved in kind of threatening shaking down operations. And these witnesses were talked to, interviewed by the FBI and they were like, I can't even say hi's name. The government alleges he uses the Mexican mafia and the Crips as his enforcers. So, you know, these are, you know, clavicular. What's he getting into?
- [50:01]
Tim Miller
What is he getting into? It seems like he's making some bad choices, like with the meth and the bone smashing and getting involved with the Israeli mob. What does the Israeli mob want to do with Clavicular, I wonder?
- [50:11]
Will Sommer
You know, it's a good question. I could imagine a couple things. They certainly. Hai is certainly overseeing Clavicular, signing a lot of contracts that he maybe is not ready for. Interestingly, Hai actually previously took a football player under his wing and provided him with a lot of money. But then when that guy failed to make it to the NFL, that, that guys, the football players started packing an assault rifle, saying that he was afraid for his life. So there's kind of a history here of young men being sucked into this guy's orbit in potentially perilous ways.
- [50:42]
Tim Miller
Boy, poor Clav. I heard something was going around that said that Clav was going to be a father. Is that true? Has he impregnated a woman?
- [50:49]
Will Sommer
You know, it's a good question. I think there was this video. Yes. Of this gal he met 10 days earlier. And I mean, not to get into it, I think that the math wouldn't exactly work out there for them to know within 10 days whether she was pregnant. On the other hand, I do know that Andrew Tate did a sort of intervention for Clavicular. And he said, you know, you gotta have kids, man. And Clavicular said, whoa, I gotta have kids. And so, you know, like, I don't think he's really in a state right now to do that, but it seems like it's maybe something he's pursuing.
- [51:19]
Tim Miller
I'm kind of torn. You know, he doesn't really seem ready to be a father. On the other hand, as a natalist, I do think it's important that people procreate and continue the species. And, you know, maybe. Maybe fatherhood was exactly what he needs to kind of bring him back to reality. Once he has to care for a vulnerable little baby, maybe he'll decide that the methamphetamine is not really maximizing or maxing his potential. Maybe he's not potential maxing. Maybe he needs a child to help him. Potential. Max, what do you think about that?
- [51:53]
Will Sommer
There is a little kid who's been in some of his videos lately, kind of hanging around, and it's my understanding that he's maybe babysitting a friend's kid to get used to parenthood. You know, he may be paternity mogging soon enough.
- [52:09]
Tim Miller
Well, thank you for this. We needed a little break. I heard some feedback from the audience that the correspondence dinner story is not really everybody's favorite. Okay. You know, it's just. It's a drag. All right. It's a drag. Anything else? Anybody else you're monitoring? Any other fun gossip you have?
- [52:27]
Will Sommer
Oh, my gosh.
- [52:28]
Tim Miller
Anything that you think we should be keeping our eye on?
- [52:30]
Will Sommer
Yeah, you know, I think. Let's see. You know, I just think the feuds are going great. I think there's a lot of beef. I mean, I, like, couldn't even pack in all of these different things. Fighting over clavicular, supposedly over some tire cleaner that was ordered off of Amazon. And maybe what did that lead to? So there's a lot of drama out there in the right wing Internet and, yeah, I'll be following it.
- [52:53]
Tim Miller
I'm happy you're monitoring for us. That's Will Sommer. We appreciate him. We also appreciate the seriousness of Carol Lennon. Not that your reporting isn't serious. You know, obviously you're covering some weighty matters like the Israeli mob and the bone smashing. But we do appreciate the Pulitzer Prize reporting of caroling as well. I don't know. The way the world is going, you might be. Your clavicular reporting could be a Pulitzer.
- [53:16]
Will Sommer
I want my clavicular, nightlife, underworld reporting Pulitzer.
- [53:20]
Tim Miller
Yes. It could happen for you. Everybody else, I'm on the next level today. So we get some more politics coming your way. We're going to talk about JD Vance quitting Twitter for Lent. We're gonna discuss other political matters. So check us out on the next level, and we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. We'll see you all then.
- [53:39]
Carol Lennig
PE.
- [53:59]
Tim Miller
The Bork Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
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Ryan Seacrest
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Carol Lennig
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Tim Miller
For joy.
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Will Sommer
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