Sam Stein: Trump Is Trying to Instigate Unrest

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Sam Stein: Trump Is Trying to Instigate Unrest

Date: January 15, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Sam Stein (Managing Editor, The Bulwark)

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Overview

This episode delves into the alarming escalation of federal intervention and unrest in Minneapolis, examining the Trump administration's motivations, the response from local and national actors, and the broader implications for American democracy and liberal norms. Tim Miller and Sam Stein analyze the political and moral consequences of recent federal actions, discuss the fracturing state of the Democratic response, and highlight chilling developments in press freedom and cabinet politics. The conversation is sharp, irreverent, and often incredulous—reflecting the “Never Trump” tone and the gravity of the moment.

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Main Themes and Purpose

• Decoding the Trump administration's strategy in provoking unrest in Minneapolis.
• Debating the political, ideological, and psychological drivers behind the federal crackdown.
• Assessing local and national Democratic responses, and the consequences for American institutions.
• Broadening the discussion to threats against press freedom, cabinet dysfunction, and global affairs.
• Providing on-the-ground perspectives, personal observations, and calls for moral clarity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Federal Escalation in Minneapolis

• [02:28] The show opens with coverage of federal agents (ICE, DHS) confronting protesters with rubber bullets and gas:

  “This is a major US City that is under siege by its own government… they’ve sent thousands of ICE agents into a city that doesn’t want them… just stirring shit up.”
  — Sam Stein ([02:34])

• Political & Ideological Calculations

  • Trump talks about invoking the Insurrection Act to use the military ([02:40]).
  • Stephen Miller's "ideological project": “Trump loving tariffs and Stephen Miller wanting to deport brown people are like the main two.” — Tim Miller ([04:08])
  • The administration’s crackdown is partly about psychological “control”—wishing they’d been ‘tougher’ post-George Floyd.

2. What’s the Endgame?

• Skepticism that these hardline actions are a political winner:

  “People are turning against Trump on immigration and they’re turning against ICE… majority of the public now wants to abolish ICE.”
  — Sam Stein ([05:06])

• The move may have short-term "news cycle wins" but is a medium-term political loser ([06:28]).

3. On-the-Ground Reaction & Dissent

• [06:45] Notable "man on the street" interview:

  “I’ve never protested in my life… they detain people, cuff them, and then still beat the out of them. … I have friends that got detained, and all they were doing was driving home from work… This is wrong.”
  — Anonymous Minneapolis Protester ([07:05])

• Hosts highlight how ordinary, apolitical people are moved to protest due to the abnormality and extremism of the situation.

4. Skepticism of Official Narratives

• The hosts mock the DHS/ICE justification for the shooting that sparked the unrest, calling it “yakety sax racist Fargo episode” ([09:55], [10:04]).
• Sam jokes about recycled, formulaic DHS statements:

  “Do you think Trisha McLaughlin has a Google Doc with stock answers for things?” ([10:45])

5. State vs. Federal Confrontation & Democratic Dilemmas

• Discussion of six Minnesota prosecutors resigning rather than being forced to target immigrant communities ([12:08]).
• Should Minnesota Governor Tim Walz preemptively call in the National Guard to defend the city from federal overreach?

  “Now there’s a legitimate reason to do it… but that also just hands them what they want…” — Tim Miller ([13:09]) “You would hate to see a situation where they call in the Guard, then they call in the military, and then it’s real fucking tinderbox.” — Sam Stein ([13:39])

6. Philosophy, Federalism, & Conservative Hypocrisy

• Lamenting abandonment of “state’s rights” by supposed conservatives:

  “State and local government knows best... We don't need the federal government telling us what to do... This is not a conservative administration.”
  — Tim Miller & Sam Stein ([16:33–16:58])

• Only a couple libertarians (Rand, Massie) object on federalist grounds ([17:02]).

7. ICE Recruitment Fiascos & Broader Competence Issues

• ICE using AI to auto-screen job applicants leads to unqualified people fast-tracked due to the word “officer” on resumes ([17:43]).
• Both mock the decline in recruitment standards; “I don't think they're sending their best and brightest…” — Sam Stein ([20:19]).

8. Democratic Messaging & Strategy Frustrations

• Ongoing Democratic division over whether to “abolish" or “reform” ICE, and excessive focus on preferred terminology instead of message discipline ([22:08]).

  “Fight ICE. Fight Stephen Miller. ... Talk about how bad ICE is and don’t talk about how bad other Democrats are because they’re using the wrong word.”
  — Tim Miller ([22:45])

• Satire of Richie Torres’s “QR code for ICE” proposal ([24:05]); mocked as technocratic nonsense.

• “No, you just fucking go… If they're sending troops into the street... You don't just say, ‘but healthcare's such a better issue for us.’”
  — Sam Stein ([25:01])

9. Press Freedom & Chilling Legal Actions

• Chilling search and seizure of Washington Post reporter Hannah Nattinson’s home and devices in a leak investigation ([29:34]):

  “This is directly at odds with my interpretation of the freedom of the press. … What this will do... is send an incredible signal to anyone... that you might get targeted by the government.”
  — Sam Stein ([30:29])

• Lack of response from WAPO owner Jeff Bezos and the broader media industry underscores weakness of press protections ([32:38–33:50]).

10. Cabinet Dysfunction Comedy Segment

• Satirical “power rankings” of worst cabinet members; new entries for Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins (“$3 meals” simulation malarkey) and Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum (Greenland meme/imperialist aspirations) ([45:02–52:09]).

  • “It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla, and one other thing.”
    — Brooke Rollins ([45:27])

  • “This is communist shit... 1989 USSR.”
    — Tim Miller ([47:20])

11. Global Affairs: Iran, Protest, and the Ukraine Connection

• Discuss the sick “metrics” for predicting war (pizza delivery and betting markets), the performative nature of Trump’s military posturing, and the ongoing campus protests dynamic ([37:26–41:19]).
• Lament U.S. confrontations with allies (Denmark, France over Greenland), support for Iranian protesters but abandonment of Ukraine ([53:45]).

  “It's horrific that right now we're in a confrontation with Denmark and France, with people in American cities, with our own citizens, and we're abandoning Ukrainians after being attacked by the Russians... and simultaneously, he's like, oh, we're very serious about human rights in Iran. Hard to take that seriously.”
  — Tim Miller ([54:33])

12. Spikes in Anti-Semitism

• Addressing synagogue arson in Mississippi:

  “There's a real radicalization happening predominantly in the online discourse that sees Jews as a real threat to everything... It's a very tense time for the Jewish community right now.”
  — Sam Stein ([43:23])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the White House goal:

  “They’re just trying to create chaos to justify more federal authorities going in there… Trump this morning… is talking about using the Insurrection Act.”
  — Sam Stein ([02:34])

• On democratic confusion:

  “If national Democrats keep arguing about whether or not to say abolish ICE… I’m going to light myself on fire.”
  — Tim Miller ([22:08])

• On media’s precarious state:

  “What this will do in practical terms is… send an incredible signal… that you might get targeted by the government.”
  — Sam Stein ([30:29]) “If Bezos doesn’t stand up… he should sell the paper.”
  — Tim Miller ([34:00])

• Man on the street (Minneapolis):

  “I gotta work in the goddamn morning just like everybody else. I’m just here trying to stand up for community. Dude, we’re all human beings here. … This is wrong.”
  — Anonymous Protester ([07:25], replayed [57:42])

• On Democratic messaging:

  “Talk about how bad ICE is… and don’t talk about how bad other Democrats are because they’re using the wrong word… This is a strategic point.”
  — Tim Miller ([22:45])

• On administration priorities:

  “Trump’s not a long game thinker… he’s just living a day at a time, like throwing out whatever random things Sidney Powell told him.”
  — Tim Miller ([06:05])

• On the ‘worst cabinet’ point:

  “This is communist shit… 1989 USSR and the Secretary of Agriculture is like… ‘just have a chicken in your backyard and have a little broccoli garden, and then eat for free.'”
  — Tim Miller ([47:20])

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |----------:|:-----------------------------------------------| | 01:13 | Opening: Overview of federal escalation | | 02:28 | Initial reactions to Minneapolis crackdown | | 05:06 | Polling trends: ICE and immigration | | 06:45 | “Man on the street” powerful protest quote | | 09:55 | Dissecting and mocking the DHS narrative | | 12:08 | Prosecutors resigning; local resistance | | 13:39 | Whether to call in National Guard | | 16:33 | Conservatives abandoning "states’ rights" | | 17:43 | ICE recruitment AI debacle | | 22:08 | Democratic message discipline frustrations | | 29:34 | Washington Post reporter’s home searched | | 45:02 | Cabinet member rankings/bad “$3 meals” soundbite| | 53:45 | U.S. confronting Europe over Greenland and Ukraine| | 57:42 | Closing replay of “man on the street” quote |

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Tone & Language

• Candid, irreverent, incredulous, and emotionally charged: hosts curse, laugh, and openly mock the administration’s incompetence and proponents of reactionary politics.
• Language alternates between journalistic seriousness and sharp, meme-inflected satire.
• Empathy for ordinary people caught up in the conflict is a recurrent note.
• Determination in defense of liberal democracy and journalistic freedom, but also a weary frustration with both the pace and content of political resistance.

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Summary for the Uninitiated

The episode is a deeply engaging, multi-layered discussion of the Trump administration’s attempt to manufacture unrest to justify authoritarian ends, particularly in Minneapolis. It explores how this strategy is failing politically but succeeding in sowing chaos; how Democrats are divided and distracted at a time that demands moral clarity; and how the press, democracy, and rule of law are under threat from both federal action and internal confusion. The program is replete with vivid moments—both from ordinary Americans forced into activism and from the hosts’ own lived experience—making it essential listening for anyone trying to keep up with an America lurching toward an authoritarian cliff.

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For further details, tune in at the provided timestamps for the most impactful moments and direct quotes that bring the urgency and emotion of the episode to life.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I am your host, Tim Miller. It is Thursday and I'm delighted to be here with my friend, the managing editor of the Bulwark, the man Stephen Miller called repugnant, the interrupter in chief at Sam Stein.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Repugnance time.

[C]

Thank you. I'm not going to interrupt you, I promise.

[B]

I don't believe you. I'm going to be interrupting you. We have an insane amount of stuff to cover today. I had, like, a concept of where I was going to do a potpourri.

[D]

Of, like, things that I haven't gotten.

[B]

To that are also in the news.

[D]

But I don't even. We might not get to those today either because I sent you like five.

[B]

I know. We'll see.

[D]

We're going to try to get to at the end. We'll see how it goes. But we got to start with more news out of Minneapolis. Last night around 9 o', clock, federal agents shot rubber bullets and released gas canisters in north Minneapolis as protesters gathered after a federal agent shot a migrant in the leg on a play. Just a little bit of the audio from the scene.

[B]

Oh, I got hit in the head really bad.

[D]

Oh, this is going to be a photographer from Status Coup News. We're going to be playing a couple things from them today.

[B]

I guess before we get to the.

[D]

DHS's story about what happened, I guess. Initial, initial thoughts on the escalation last Night.

[C]

You know, it's getting like. Well, it's well past the point of disturbing, but it's getting really, like, defeating. You feel defeated watching this stuff because this is a major US City that is under siege by its own government. I mean, there's no other way to really look at it. What they've done is they've sent thousands of ICE agents into a city that doesn't want them, doesn't need them, isn't asking for them, and it's just stirring shit up. And it's so obvious what the goal is here is they're just trying to create chaos to justify more federal authorities going in there. I mean, Trump this morning, as we are recording this, is talking about using the Insurrection act, which basically would allow for the deployment of the military. So I guess the question, Tim, I don't really understand is like, what is the end game for Trump here?

[B]

They're trying to instigate unrest. I just think that it's extremely obvious.

[D]

Nothing could be more obvious that that's what they're trying to do.

[C]

But what's the end game of that?

[D]

Well, as you mentioned, he wants to invoke the Insurrection act to control more power.

[B]

Well, it's a combination of things.

[D]

I think there are a few things happen.

[B]

There's like a psychodrama at play here.

[D]

Where Donald Trump and other people involved wish they would have cracked down on protesters harder after George Floyd. And there is a psychological element to this. There is a policy element to this from Stephen Miller. He is just looking for more and more creative ways to try to figure out how he can deport people as fast as possible and menace people. And that is like he has an ideological project. There are only a couple ideological projects in this administration. Trump loving tariffs and Stephen Miller wanting to deport brown people are like the main two bombing drug boats in Venezuela is like a triple bank shot effort to try to get more rationale for deporting Venezuelans. I don't see why this is any different than that.

[B]

And I also think that there's a.

[D]

Political element to this.

[B]

This is the part that I'm more skeptical of. I think they think it's a winner.

[D]

Trump, in one of his press briefings last two days, he was like, chipper.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, more than we've seen him in.

[D]

The past few days.

[B]

He's like, we're feeling good, things are going well. Da, da, da, da.

[D]

Maybe it was the Tony decouple interview that I'm thinking of, and I think.

[B]

That they thought that things were going badly.

[D]

At the end of last year and the Epstein files and economy and just a wide range of things and that this has them on offense.

[B]

Again, I remain a little skeptical that that's going to work, but I think.

[C]

They think that I remain very skeptical. Okay, I'm putting aside the morality of it. Let's just like talk about the politics of it. One and now fairly convincing amount of polling data to show that this is not working out. Right. Like people are turning against Trump on immigration and they're turning against ice. And there's like this YouGov economist poll where they, the majority of the public now wants to abolish ice. That's just one poll. I'm not thinking it's real or anything like that, but whatever. It shows the trends.

[D]

Sure.

[C]

And then two, it's like, let's say they take it to the logical conclusion where they've, you know, called in the military, they've decimated a major American city, they've ripped apart communities, all the Somali Americans are gone, businesses are ravaged, neighborhoods are upended, people are bruised and in the hospital, some are dead. What are you, hey, we won. We did it. Look, I mean, how does that work? I don't really see how that works. What are they going to do when it's all said and done? Hey, we cleaned out your city. You should be grateful for us. No one's going to be grateful for that. I saw the tweet you put up about that dude. And maybe we'll get into it later. Who came out and protested?

[B]

Dude, in one second.

[D]

I just want to say, just really quick about their psychology.

[B]

Trump's not a long game thinker.

[D]

Sam Stein is a long game thinker.

[B]

You know what I mean? I don't think Trump was thinking about what his long term plan was for.

[D]

Stealing the election in 2020.

[B]

He's just living a day at a time, like throwing out whatever random things Sidney Powell told him.

[D]

And I think we're in a similar situation there. He's winning. He sees himself as winning the news cycle.

[B]

Anyway, let's play this guy.

[C]

This guy's great.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And I just think he's so representative of why.

[D]

I agree with you that I think this is a medium term political loser for them. This is also from Status Quo News, so shout out to those guys who are on the ground in Minnesota. And this is just a man on the street interview. And it really made my morning. There's gonna be some cussing if you got some kids in the car. So it's good.

[B]

Have you ever gone out to these sort of things before.

[E]

Never, never. I've never protested in my life.

[B]

My brother. My brother's here.

[E]

He does it all the time. I've never.

[C]

I got.

[E]

Dude, I. Like I said, I'm far enough away, but close enough. And I sit in my cushy house and look at and get mad and I. Yeah, they're just trying to fucking scare people and you know, but, but, but why shoot people?

[D]

My.

[E]

No, you know what really pisses me off is the fact that they detain people, cuff them, and then still beat the out of them. They tell you it's immigrants. Only immigrants. It's anybody. I, I have friends that got detained and all they were doing was driving home from work.

[C]

What the.

[B]

Sounds like you don't fit the definition of the.

[E]

I'm not paid to be here. Like everybody says, what the is I gotta work every goddamn morning just like everybody else. I'm just here trying to stand up for community. Dude, we're all human beings here. I don't give a shit who you are, where you came from, what color you are. It doesn't fucking matter. This is wrong.

[D]

I gotta work in the goddamn morning just like everybody else.

[B]

That's my Rick san. You know Rick Santelli, the tea. The very. That supposedly started the tea Party.

[D]

This is my Rick Santelli moment. This guy, we need to track him down.

[C]

It might be your Rick Santelli moment. And actually the first thing that it reminded me of was there's like the semi viral clip on January 6th of this guy who lived on Capitol Hill. Do you remember this one? And he was like, outside his door and he's like, what the fuck? They're fucking marching on our fucking Capitol.

[D]

What the fuck?

[C]

I was like, yeah, this is. Sometimes you just got to step back and be like, wait a second. This is not normal. Like, what is actually going on here? What are we living through? This is dystopian. This is authoritarian. And I know it seems so silly to focus on this, but he's like, I don't do protests.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's not something. That's the point. That's what's so strong.

[C]

I don't do protests. This is not. I've never done protests. I don't. I look at things on my computer and get mad.

[D]

I don't go outside.

[B]

My brother's a protester. My brother's telling me about protests when he get. When I'm drinking a couple beers, okay, at the kid's birthday party, I will.

[C]

Say, you know, you see them sporadically, but My wife and I were out to go. We're gonna adopt a dog. I don't know why we're doing this again, but we drove out two hours into the Shadow Valley in Virginia. This small little town, like, nobody there. We get off the highway and it's, you know, 35 degrees and raining, and no one should be outside. There was like, you know, a hundred people just, you know, off the highway protesting ice in this small, nothing town. It's all anecdotal. I sound like Tom Freeman right now, but whatever.

[B]

I was in the Shenandoah wine country. I turned to my Uber driver, unhappy. So what sparked all of this?

[D]

Just for folks who are trying to get caught up, we're going to caveat this. That everything that Kristi Noman, Trisha McLaughlin and DHS have said has been a lie.

[C]

Basically, why you don't trust Trisha McLaughlin.

[D]

I really don't.

[B]

But they sent a post about the.

[D]

Shooting that started this, and I do.

[B]

Just want to read a little bit.

[D]

From it because it's such a perfect encapsulation of these guys. It's combining menace and racism and just like, silly incompetence.

[B]

It's like a kind of yakety sax racist Fargo episode.

[D]

So here's what they posted about the shooting that prompted this.

[B]

We found an illegal alien from Venezuela.

[D]

Who was in the country by Joe Biden in 2022.

[B]

In an attempt to evade arrest, the.

[D]

Subject fled from the scene in his vehicle and crashed into a parked car. The subject then fled on foot.

[B]

The law enforcement officer caught up to.

[D]

The subject on foot, attempted to apprehend him.

[B]

And while the subject and law enforcement were in a struggle on the ground, two other subjects came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle. As the officer was being attacked by two individuals, the subject got loose and began striking the officer. Fearing for his life, the officer fired a defensive shot. The initial suspect was hit in the leg. Who knows if that actually happened?

[C]

I think. Hold on. Do you think Trisha McLaughlin has, like, a Google Doc with, like, stock answers for things, and she's just got to fill in a few details because it always reads the same, Right? It's like Joe Biden released this Trend Nicaragua member and he evaded police and they had to fire a defensive shot. Just, you know, mix up a few new details to keep it fresh. Right.

[B]

Well, we need to ask Chat GPT.

[D]

Though, to, like, add in a few Minnesota details.

[B]

You know, it's like we were slipping on the ice we were caught in an ice floe, you know, and he skated away.

[D]

I've done this many times.

[B]

But it's just like, even if their.

[D]

Story is true, it's ridiculous.

[B]

This is not necessary. We do not need car chases through the frigid Minnesota winter to go after a Venezuelan migrant. Like, if you know where this guy lives, then fucking go to his house and bring an arrest warrant. Like, this is not necessary.

[C]

I mean, so much of this is just theater like that, you know, little border patrol dude walking through Target. Some of this I think is them trying to please the boss. Some of this I think is them trying to terrorize people so they just self deport and it's just so unnecessary.

[B]

So the response is the question.

[D]

Now this is a more challenging question, but we'll start with, I think the people that have made really honorable decisions we should just shout out first, which is the prosecutors in Minnesota. There have been six at this point who have resigned because, oh, you didn't.

[C]

See Pam Bondi yesterday?

[D]

I did say, go ahead.

[C]

They didn't resign. I fired them. Sean Hannity, I think they're going to.

[B]

Resign, but they're being pressured, I guess.

[D]

To investigate the widow of Renee Goode and who knows what other ridiculous kind of immigration investigations you're getting at. I talked to a friend who's, you know, has somebody in their life that is a prosecutor in one of these random, you know, kind of districts and they're just like, please don't let there be some immigration thing here or else I'm gonna have to leave my job. It's just the reality right now. You'd maybe think maybe the people in Minnesota were, the prosecutors are thinking, okay, we could be a little bit separate from this. We can focus on crime. We're not exactly close to the border, but here they are.

[B]

So good on those prosecutors. The next step is the big question.

[D]

We talked about this a little bit on the next level, but I'm seeing more and more of a groundswell for this among the Democrats, which is that Tim Walsh call in the National Guard himself first before Trump does.

[B]

I don't know. I don't think that's crazy.

[D]

I would have thought that was crazy a month ago. I think a couple months ago it doesn't feel crazy. Now there's a legitimate reason to do it, given the way that the federal officials are menacing the community. That also just hands them what they want though, which is pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act. And they would do it within two seconds after Tim Walls deployed The National Guard. So you do have to kind of consider a couple moves down the field. But I'm wondering what you about it. If you're seeing the same buzz around.

[C]

That question as I am, it's definitely escalatory. You know, I guess my inclination is you don't want to escalate anymore. You would hate to see a situation where they call in the Guard, then they call in the military, and then it's real fucking tinderbox. I can't believe we're actually talking about this again. Step back. What is going on?

[B]

Over Nothing.

[C]

I know.

[D]

I did an interview for tomorrow's show. We do a look back to civil rights era stuff. And it's like, okay, well, having a confrontation between local officials and federal officials about desegregating the schools is sensible.

[B]

That's a real thing. It's worth fighting for on the federal level. This is over nothing.

[D]

We would really have a confrontation between state and federal law enforcement officials over imaginary Somali immigrant crime problems.

[C]

If it were over corruption and the abuse of the social safety net by these Somali immigrant communities, which there are real instances of this, then they wouldn't have forced out this attorney who was leading the corruption when he's one of the six attorneys who was leading the corruption cases and had surfaced incredible amounts of grift and prosecuted it successfully.

[D]

And this reminiscent of them kicking out Maureen Comey. It's like we care about pedophiles and so we're going to fire the woman who is like the top prosecutor in the government for going after child sex trafficking.

[B]

You know.

[C]

So back to your question of what is like the play here. Look, I could sit here and make the argument. I'm not saying I believe it. I can make the argument though, that the play here would be for Tim Walls to make a phone call to Donald Trump. I can make that argument because time and again you see, the best way to ramp down things is just a one on one phone call. Like the Columbia president Petro basically calling Trump and being like, hey, you know, let's work together. And Trump being like, okay, cool, we got it. I'm not saying that's the way to do it because obviously you can't. You know, part of me is like, you can't give in to this shit.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

But boy, it's bad.

[D]

And Waltz might be a little bit of a category difference because Trump gets certain boogeymans in his head.

[C]

He'll call him Tampon Tim or something on the phone and just descend into chaos. But like, okay, maybe Klobuchar makes the call. I don't know. It's just. I just don't know. It's like, I want to see this end. Like, I want to see this. And this is heartbreaking to watch a great city and a community that doesn't deserve this have to deal with this shit. And in normal times, a reasonable president and administration would be doing the exact opposite of this. They'd be trying to tamp down the tensions. But we don't live in that every.

[D]

President we've had in our lifetime.

[C]

So, yeah, I don't want to say normal times in any time it's like, would be that case.

[D]

Yeah. And maybe Nixon, Andrew Johnson, a couple others might have been tempted to do something like this.

[B]

But like I should say, as the former Republican on the, on the show, like, adding to the list of all the principles and arguments that were made.

[D]

My entire life that they've abandoned the.

[B]

State and local government knows best.

[D]

We don't need the federal government telling us what to do.

[B]

You know, states rights, like, all the federalism.

[D]

We're a republic, not a democracy.

[C]

This is not a conservative administration. Dude, this has nothing to do with Republicans.

[B]

Is anyone making that argument? Like, the two libertarians, Rand and Tom.

[D]

Massie are the two. So whatever. Shout out to Reason magazine.

[B]

One more thing on ice, there was.

[D]

This great Slate article Jill should read about a woman who, like, tried to volunteer for ICE and had no experience, or I guess she's been in the military, but she had like a huge period of time where she's been a journalist, where she shits on Trump. And so it's like she left that off her resume and just kind of lied and said she was a gig.

[B]

Worker during that period of time.

[D]

And they fast track her to become an ICE agent and they give her a formal offer to become an ICE agent. Meanwhile, there's a story out simultaneous to this, which kind of explains part of this, which is that as ICE is trying to add new officers, they used AI to go through the applications.

[B]

And anyone who had used the word officer in their cover letter or resume was put in the fast track pile because AI just assumed they'd been a police officer.

[D]

Let's say you were a compliance officer.

[B]

For a company, or you had written.

[D]

That you aspire to be an officer.

[B]

You got put in the don't need.

[D]

To vet this person fast track line. These are the people we're sending into the American streets.

[C]

It's remarkable. I have a vision of this that's. So who are these agents? How many of Them are just sort of like former edgelords who've been just hanging in their mom's basement, just looking for a job. Have dreams of, you know, holding a gun, going after brown people. Can I bring up my boy Harry Phones at this point?

[B]

Sure.

[F]

This is Harry Phones, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland security. This week, PHS law enforcement searched over 2,2000 officers and agents to the sanctuary city of Minneapolis to investigate the rampant fraud in the state of Minnesota and conduct targeted immigration enforcement operations. Tragically, on Wednesday, we saw the direct consequences of constant attacks and demonization of our officers by sanctuary politicians. A woman weaponized her vehicle to obstruct law enforcement. When officers commanded her to get out of the vehicle, several times she ignored them and attempted to run over federal law enforcement officers. An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement, and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots at the vehicle, resulting in the death of the driver. He used his training and he saved his own life and that of his fellow officers. Our prayers are with our officers, the deceased and her family. We have been very clear we stand with our law enforcement is they work tirelessly to make communities across the nation safer.

[D]

Okay, there you go.

[C]

So this guy, I mean, I don't want to make fun of him because he'll probably sick ICE agents on me for doing so, but, like, we can't.

[B]

Even see all of them.

[D]

I mean, because he doesn't fit in the screen.

[C]

That's what. I was not trying to do that. But who is this guy? Why is he. Where did he come from? It turns out he was at Hillsdale College or Shocker. Director of communications for the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness and Growth.

[D]

Him and the Andrew Egger were in the same band. I think at Hillsdale.

[C]

He was at the Freedom Caucus. I mean, like, this guy just came up through where he graduated college in 2015. He's young, he hasn't done much in his life, and yet here he is instructing, you know, HHS policy on how to do anti rice rioting. And, like, I don't think they're sending their best and brightest. I just. I get a. I get a whiff of that.

[D]

No, if you do any reading about.

[B]

The 1930s, you find that a lot.

[D]

Of commissars rose to high ranks just out of loyalty, not out of skill. And it's a pretty common story.

[B]

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[D]

A little bit of a drag.

[B]

It can be fun. I love hearing from people I made.

[D]

The mistake of throwing out one of our open job opportunities at the end of a podcast a couple weeks ago and it was unbelievable the amount of people that that nominated themselves and I appreciated hearing their stories and all their emails. But at the same time, if you're running an actual company, which thank God I don't have to do, other people around here running the company, they need a real system. They need something that is going to make that process better for everybody. And I'd recommend you turn to our friends at ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter's matching technology works fast to find top talent so you don't waste time or money. You can find out right away how many job seekers in your area are.

[B]

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[D]

All right.

[B]

I want to do one more thing.

[D]

On the Democrats and the politics of this.

[B]

Because the Tim Walls decision I think is legitimately fraught.

[C]

Sure.

[D]

And it's easy for people on the.

[B]

Internet to be like, call in the guard. Fuck these guys. Let's accelerationism.

[D]

But it's like it's a legitimately fraught decision.

[B]

Some of this stuff's not that fraud.

[D]

And I'm getting a little annoyed.

[B]

And I gotta tell you, if national Democrats keep arguing about whether or not.

[D]

To say abolish ICE and keep giving speeches about whether abundance is a good idea or not, I'm going to light myself on fire.

[B]

I'm seriously, I'm looking into self immolation right now because it's like, what the.

[D]

Fuck are these people doing?

[B]

Are you awake? Why is Elizabeth Warren giving a speech.

[D]

Engaging in Internet fights and taking sides in Twitter wars? Why are memos being put out about exactly how Democrats should talk about ice? Fight ice.

[B]

This isn't hard. Fight Stephen Miller. Fight ice. Fight Kristi Noem. Go after them. Highlight the things that are unpopular. If some Democrats want to say abolish ice, fine.

[D]

If other ones want to say reform ice Fine. But like, talk about how bad ICE is and don't talk about how bad other Democrats are because they're using the wrong word. And that is true across the coalition. This is a non ideological point. This is a strategic point.

[C]

This is how you reveal that you were a former Republican and have never really been a Democrat. Because this is so. This is so normal in the, in the most important moments where that require the most moral clarity. Of course, Democrats are kind of bickering about what the best path is. This is what they do.

[B]

Are Republican senators and House members going on the Ben Shapiro podcast and are writing memos that are like, should we be saying Renee Goode rammed the ICE officer, or should we be saying she endangered the ICE officer? No, but I'm saying you can have.

[D]

A little bit of focus.

[C]

I've been basically, you know, ripping my hair out watching it happen, because it's like the effort to try to find, like the perfect manufactured proposal that will not offend the most people, but also show that you care is. Is downright hilarious. The best one was the Richie Torres one. I don't know if you saw this one. Yeah, put a QR code.

[B]

We're gonna put QR codes on the ice cream.

[C]

What the hell's gonna happen here?

[B]

I saw somebody tweet that. I was like, this is the most.

[D]

Third way coded shit I've ever seen in my life.

[B]

And I' that's fine.

[C]

How would that work? Yesterday when the Verizon phone outages were happening. Hold on, sir. My Internet's not coming. I can't upload the QR code.

[B]

At least Richie is targeting ICE and.

[D]

Not nitpicking a tweet that some other Democrats said. I truly can't imagine what might motivate somebody in this moment to use their energies to try to adjudicate, you know, language arguments.

[C]

It's not even like disagreement over how to do this in this moment. It's a larger disagreement over what the right tactical approach is to Trump. And this has been going on forever, which is, do you fight every battle or do you try to focus on certain battles because it's more friendly turf?

[D]

Where's a lighter?

[B]

Get me a lighter.

[C]

It's very clear to me. It's like, no, you just fucking go right. If they're sending troops into the street or ICE officials and then potentially troops. Now, you don't just say, ah, man, but healthcare is such a better issue for us. How do you live with yourself at that point?

[B]

Strategists are at fault. And the strategists talking to our friend Lauren Egan, like, oh, well, this isn't the point of this.

[D]

ICE polling has changed dramatically because people can see things with their eyes, okay?

[B]

So focus on the bad things people.

[D]

Can see with their eyes. Talk about that, and fight your factional internal battles over which side of the party should be more powerful in the fall of 2027, please, because we're in an urgent moment.

[B]

I try to minimize the media criticism on here.

[D]

I do think part of this, though, is also driven by, if you're doing.

[B]

A TV interview with the Democrat, this.

[D]

Is the question you can ask them.

[B]

You can say, isn't this terrible what ICE is doing? But then you want to seem balanced, and so you're like, are the Democrats.

[D]

Mishandling their pushback in this moment? And that injects things into the convers a little bit.

[C]

I will just say this, though, not to get into meta media commentary here, but if ever like this, you know, showed the sort of not irrelevance, but the diminished power of, like, program news, it's a story like this. Like, everyone is just basically seeing livestream coverage or clip videos and reacting to it. That guy who went on the street, who never protests, he didn't go out there because he was watching, you know, the morning segments on msn.

[D]

No.

[C]

Or Ms. Now, he went there because he's probably being fed algorithmic videos showing his own community getting fucked up. And Democratic lawmakers should recognize that. That, you know, this is where the conversation is right now, and this is how people are consuming their news.

[D]

Okay, deep breath.

[C]

I will say I am outraged. Like, every night I go to bed and I'm streaming through these videos, and they're all horrible. And you just can't really sleep that well. And then you wake up and you're like, oh, Trump's now threatening to use the Insurrection act and just to start all over. And it's exhausting, but it's outraging, too. I find myself just being completely maddened by this.

[D]

It's brutal. That's why I needed that guy. Our friend, the protester, the resistance, Rick Santelli.

[C]

We got to find him, get him on the pod.

[D]

Yeah, we do. The videos of the attack on the protesters came in at, like, 10:00pm last night, and I was just like, really?

[B]

I'm just trying to watch the end of the nuggets Mavericks. A lot happening around here. One of the mailbag questions the other day was about how where do I.

[D]

Find the time to do chores? My answer was, basically, I'm not really doing chores. Chores are falling through the cracks. And one of the things that I.

[B]

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[D]

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[D]

I want to move on.

[B]

We dinged the msm. So credit where due real reporters doing.

[D]

Real journalism out there, including Hannah Nattinson at the Washington Post. She's been gathering sources inside the government, people that are being fired, various other elements. And FBI agents searched her home on.

[B]

Wednesday as part of an investigation into.

[D]

A government contractors handling of classified material.

[B]

And this is exceedingly rare, like even in investigations of classified disclosures for federal.

[D]

Agents to go after the reporter's home. It'd be one thing to go after.

[B]

The suspects of the leaker's home. Right. But to go after the reporter's home is very rare.

[D]

A 1980 law actually bars search warrants.

[B]

For reporters work materials unless the reporters themselves are suspected of committing a crime.

[D]

And they did confiscate the reporters work materials in this situation, you know, I think there's just a straight story about the autocracy and then there's also a media story here. So just go with whichever one you want to take.

[C]

For people in the industry, it's really chilling. You know, I think the public would say, well you know, whoever this person was potentially leaked classified information, she's not the subject of the probe. It makes sense to me that they would try to find out and try to get the information back. And maybe so, but it's an incredibly chilling and aggressive move that is directly at odds with my interpretation of the freedom of the press. We have the right to collect information that we then report on. This reporter has been doing incredible work. I've been very jealous of her because when we were doing a lot of the DOGE reporting and we were getting a lot of people coming to us talking about what life was like in the federal government, I kept looking up and seeing the Post getting great scoop after great scoop after great scoop. And what this will do in practical terms is it will send an incredible signal to anyone who's doing this type of reporting that you might get targeted by the government. And it will also send a signal to every source out there, potential source out there, that the government's gonna come after you. I think that's obviously what the administration wants.

[D]

Again, that's why I mentioned the 1980 law.

[B]

It's an attack on the First Amendment.

[D]

That the government is doing here is very chilling.

[B]

This is not unprecedented like some of the other unprecedented stuff Trump has done. Other administrations have done this, but still it's a total affront and it's crazy to confiscate her phone and her computer when she's not a suspect. That is, that's totally wrong in the.

[D]

Type of stuff that you see in countries that have far less speech protections than we do in our country, 100%.

[C]

Now, it's important to get to the press response, because you are right, it's not unprecedented. There have been cases in the past, including during the Obama administration. My recollection is that during the Obama administration, when this did happen, there was a big outcry from throughout the industry, including from conservative publications, about what was happening. And so much so that the administration then put in place some standards outlined by Eric Holder, the attorney general at the time, that would more or less police how the Department of Justice could go about doing these things and gave some protections to reporters. Those were, of course, not law. They were standards. And so Pam Bondi undid them. But I'm not seeing that type of reaction now. There's no sympathy for the press, obviously, in the public, but also the people who you would expect from within the industry to say, hey, this is wrong. Some of them have spoken up, but not everybody. And obviously the most conspicuous absences. Jeff Bezos, who is the publisher of the Washington Post, has incredible amount of business before the government has sucked up to Trump repeatedly because he needs those government contracts and doesn't want to be targeted by him. But he is the publisher of the Washington Post. His employee had her personal computer confiscated by the government. If he believes in the First Amendment, if he believes in the institution of the Washington Post, he should speak out, but he's too much of a chicken shit right now to do so. And that's obviously disappointing.

[D]

Yeah. There's already some reporting that the Washington Post employees are like, where is he? In a moment like this.

[C]

Oh, I know they are saying, where is he? I know I've talked to some of them. They had been waiting all day yesterday to see anything, and they were hopeful that he might say something. And now they're hopeful that when he's asked about it at his next press availability, they assume he will be asked about it, that he'll say something. But that's like such a horrendously low bar that at some point in time down the road, Jeff Bezos might say something.

[B]

You know, the Salzburgers at the Times.

[D]

They'Re not like the Jerry Joneses of media.

[B]

Right.

[D]

They're not. Don't have their hands and everything over there in the day to day.

[B]

But, like, in these big moments, they.

[D]

Spoke out, you know, and, and the leadership at these, at these outlets spoke out and a lot of times showed a lot of courage, pushing back against various administrations, including the first Trump administration. And like if Bezos doesn't do that now, he should sell the paper. He should sell the paper. Yeah. I don't really kind of understand what the point is of owning it anyway at this point. For him, his initial conceit for it was that he wanted to have influence in democracy and he cared about Democracy dies in darkness. And he cares about all this stuff. He obviously doesn't anymore. And he's not making any money on it. And it's not doing his job of covering Washington that particularly well. And there's some good reporters there for sure.

[C]

They cover Washington. They cover Wash.

[D]

I mean they've been, they've been totally dominated in the Hill by Fishbowl and now we're getting to like media.

[B]

Punch Bowl. My buddy Jake Punchbowl.

[D]

Sorry, I wouldn't leave that in.

[B]

We were fully dominated by Fishbowl Jake.

[D]

Sherman Punchbowl and like they're getting dominated.

[B]

And it's not like the first term again, they're good reporters over there.

[D]

It's not like the first term. The number of scoops and stuff that are coming out of the administration.

[B]

Like what is he doing? What's the point of having this paper?

[C]

I don't know. He should sell the paper if he doesn't want to do the bare minimum of standing up for his own employee being targeted by the government. And remember he was supposed to revamp the editorial page to be libertarian minded. If you can't get your backup for the government taking your own employees personal computer, I don't think you can call yourself a libertarian at that point. Sorry, I don't think so.

[D]

Yeah, Liberty. Yeah, the editorial page. Elijah Bose is going to focus on liberty now. Economic and personal liberty. What about the personal liberty of your own reporter? Just for the sake of. Let's just say back in our day, we were coming up in our 20s, there was an outlet called Fishbowl DC that did gossip.

[C]

I remember that one.

[B]

It'd be like so and so was.

[D]

Really drunk at a party at Ron.

[B]

Bonjean's house and when they named it Punch Bowl I was like, that's like a little close for me to fish. And so anyway, I love Jake and.

[D]

They'Re doing great work but I think they brought it on themselves.

[C]

They should think about a name change. Yeah, Fishbowl.

[B]

I just think that that millennial DC.

[D]

Types are going to sometimes get them confused. The Iran what it say it from.

[B]

Nice pivot.

[D]

From Fishbowl DC to Iran.

[B]

So we talked about this a bit.

[D]

With, with Heartland yesterday and I think we'll leave the military strategy to him. But I want to talk about the politics. What's happening with Trump. There's a moment yesterday, I mean, like Drudge had 24 hours, you know, on a banner headline. Those really Nasori that had some sources that Trump was going to actually start attacks within 24 hours. Maybe between the time we taped the Senate post. They do. But, you know, the protests in Iran are ongoing. The crackdown is ongoing, but it seems like the protests are somewhat dissipating space on reports in the region. There's obviously some limited ability to do that. The crackdowns are escalating from the regime. Trump said something to the effect of we're only going to do this. It can be a clean hit. I don't want to get into a broader war from the anti Iran hawks like our friend David Frum and others on social media. They are sensing that they might be backing down a little bit from engaging. What's your sense of where we're at? Or maybe we don't know. Maybe there's no way to get a sense. This is just all like Trump whim stuff.

[C]

Well, first, a commentary on how sick our society is that we are looking at a couple metrics to figure out if we're gonna go to war. One is pizza orders in and around the Pentagon and the other is weird poly market wagers are people swooping in to take the over on the war in the next 24 hours.

[D]

And if so, how does poly market look right now? What does Kelshi look at? I'll look at that while you talk.

[C]

There was some, there was some major, like, money moving on, the wars happening soon. And everyone's like, oh, someone's got inside information and they're trying to make a buck. And it's like, we have problems here. We got to get clean. So that's my commentary on that. On the issue of Trump and what's happening, two stories that stood out. One was the one you referenced, which.

[B]

Was, I will say, just as some.

[D]

Evidence, the will Khamenei be out as supreme leader is tanking now in the markets. So the markets, prediction markets, are thinking Trump's not gonna try to get rid of him. So there you go.

[C]

If you look up, Tate orders in and around the Pentagon to see how.

[D]

Accurate it is, I don't have that. I don't have that handy.

[C]

So the clean strike story, I thought that was the most important one. Obviously, Trump has a sort of preferred type of action when it comes to military campaigns, which is very narrow, very dramatic. Lots of visuals and very little follow up. I mean, time and again he likes the active war, but not the war. And I think that's basically what's happening here. And the story was that he's being presented with options from the military, but none have said, oh, this could be quick, tactical and you'll be done. I think he has real reservations about doing anything that would involve a prolonged U.S. operation. That's just that I have no inside information, but that's just my read on it. And the other one was that the Iranian regime decided to not execute this 26 year old protester. That had been planned. They were backing down. It looked to me, reading between lines, like a very clear effort to try to, you know, give the Trump administration some sort of fig leaf to say, okay, you know, hey, they've responded to our pressure, we can at least pumped the brakes a little bit. And now of course you've noted the poly market wagers, which convinced me there.

[D]

That was an interesting story because Aran was saying that the deal was done, we're going to execute this guy. That is a notable shift. Just one little side element of the story I just have to get off my chest and I feel like I'm a good messenger for this because I share the Iran hawks hatred for the administration and I share their support for the freedom of the Iranian people. And I even share some of their annoyance with the fact that there were a lot of people that were engaged in the Gaza protests that really only seem to care about bad stuff when Israel happens. I share that annoyance.

[B]

But the talking point of where are.

[D]

The campus protests of Israel is so stupid.

[B]

The point of a protest is to protest stuff that you can affect change. And the Israel protest started because they.

[D]

Didn'T like that their universities were engaging in investment or in shared classes or whatever with Israel.

[B]

Now you can think that's a stupid thing to protest. Okay, we already hate Iran.

[D]

We're not doing any business with Iran.

[B]

You can't protest our government. We're not sending weapons to Iran. There's nothing to protest. So the stocking point is all over Fox.

[D]

I'm seeing it everywhere.

[B]

It doesn't make any sense. The talking point is made by people.

[D]

Who don't understand what the point of protest is. So anyway, that's that. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

[C]

The only thing I would add is, you know, just the people protesting Biden on Gaza intellectually should have been protesting Trump on Gaza.

[D]

Right?

[C]

Trump was talking about.

[D]

Sure, yeah.

[B]

Now that's an apples to apples.

[C]

However, my point is, the reason they didn't is because instinctively they know that Trump doesn't give a shit about them. And they know that Biden probably does. And though he was frustratingly slow and.

[D]

Changing, and because they're annoying, you're switching to the other side now. They should have protested Trump too. This is.

[C]

Well, they should have. They should have. But I'm just saying, they know that Trump doesn't give a shit Want to.

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[B]

Well, we're talking about Jewish material with you.

[D]

Jewish news.

[C]

Oh good.

[D]

The other bad news in the anti Semitism space is this horrible story out of Mississippi.

[C]

Oh God, yeah.

[D]

Which I haven't mentioned all week. I just wanted to like the synagogue gets set on fire, I guess by a 19 year old.

[C]

You don't have to guess. It was set on fire. Yeah, it was arson and it's horrible. It's the same synagogue that was attacked by the Ku Klux Klan. I don't need to go on a limb, but there's not, I'm assuming, a huge Jewish population in Mississippi. This is a tight community that's probably incredibly scared right now. And I haven't done enough reading on it to speak authoritatively about it. But the guy, apparently I can speak about the guy.

[B]

He's a 19 year old suspect who.

[D]

Posted an anti Semitic cartoon on Instagram. He had a scripture backed fitness Persona on Instagram. So that's where his perspective was coming from. And I guess he. I guess his parents tried to talk him down from his views.

[C]

Yeah, well, the father turned him in.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Look, this is a real problem. I think there's a real radicalization happening predominantly in the online discourse that sees Jews as a real threat to everything. And it's only logical that they take what they see online. I mean, they're being pumped with shit from Candace Owens saying like, you know, Mossad killed Charlie Kirk and all that stuff, and then they run with it. And it's very tense time for the Jewish community right now. Not great.

[D]

Not great. That's the reason why I want to keep talking about this is like that pipeline is very real and it's a two way. You know, people that are conservative that then are watching Candace and Tucker and then start getting into Nick Fuentes and start getting into more like real anti Semitic griper shit. And same with the thing I've talked about with Chris Hayes and others, which is like lefty protester types who start listening to Tucker and Candace and saying.

[B]

They'Re really making sense on Israel.

[D]

And then people are going down this radicalization pipeline and this is the results. Just this tragic story in Mississippi. I want to do a cabinet update with you. Oh, yeah, we have a running kind of bit. People that are not following our YouTube page or audio only do subscribe to us on YouTube where Sam and I kind of rank the worst cabinet members.

[B]

And two of the kind of lesser known cabinet members in the last 24.

[D]

Hours have really made a bid to try to get themselves up into that.

[B]

Top tier with Scott Besant and Kristi Noem and et cetera. And that's our Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, and previously our highest ranked cabinet.

[D]

Secretary, Doug Burgum of the Interior.

[B]

Why don't we take Brooke Rollins first? This is Brooke Rollins. She has some thoughts about grocery prices.

[D]

And why people should feel good about the trajectory we're on.

[H]

I think the question you're asking, and it's a really important one, is while we're asking Americans to reconsider what they're eating, are we actually asking Americans, especially those who are living on the margins, are we asking them to spend more on their diet? And the answer to that is no. We've run over a thousand simulations. It can cost around $3ameal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, you know, corn tortilla, and one other thing.

[B]

Piece of chicken, piece of broccoli, corn tortilla. And one other thing. Ran a thousand simulations. I've ran one simulation and I'm still hungry as fuck after eating that. Okay, that is a rabbit's meal.

[C]

Like what, what did you choose for your one other thing, though?

[B]

A Snickers bar. I chose a Snickers bar to try to fill my stomach. Hungry. Why wait?

[C]

This morning, for my breakfast, I took the tortilla and I had a broccoli, chopped it up, and a piece of chicken. My one other thing, My one other thing was also a Snickers bar. I put it in the tortilla, microwave it, I ate it, I threw it up because it was so disgusting.

[D]

But I felt, yeah, we call that.

[B]

A Cajun enchilada, you know, down here full.

[C]

Because I had the Snickers bar in there and it was only $3 so I could do it again for lunch.

[B]

What do you think?

[C]

She really ran a thousand simulations. I mean, what are we talking about? Do you think there's people back there being like, what if we pair this with this?

[B]

Yeah, I think it's the same AI that like made anybody whose resume said the word officer on it a fast track for a roll at ice. You know, I'm surprised it was only a thousand simulations.

[C]

Take the cup of milk, a slice of cheese, a scoop of peanut butter, mix it together. What the hell are we doing?

[D]

This is communist shit.

[B]

This is communist. Okay? This is like food rationing. This is communist. We are in 1989 USSR and the Secretary of agriculture is like, you know what, guys? I'm tired of these libtards out there talking about how the price of groceries is increasing. If everybody would just have a chicken in their backyard and have a little broccoli garden, they could eat for free. All they'd have to do is go to Costco, buy one of the super sized packet tortillas, and then they'd have one tortilla morning, and then they would go kill the chicken that they have in their backyard.

[C]

The thing that really made the clip was when she said a piece of broccoli. Because you just have this image of just one solitary piece of broccoli. But they got to work on those talking points.

[B]

I think if you go back to our rankings for the end of the year, I had Brooke Rollins as a sleeper.

[D]

I do want to say that I think that people are missing sleeper good or bad? Bad.

[B]

Sleeper bad.

[C]

You were right.

[D]

Yeah. She was higher on my list than yours.

[B]

We both have liked Doug Burgum. It's guys named Doug are likable. Just to name Doug, he seems relatively inoffensive.

[D]

But then he had to go and do this yesterday. He put up this meme that is.

[B]

A picture of the new interior of.

[D]

America and it includes Greenland. And the meme shows how in the.

[B]

New interior, actually the flight to Nuuk.

[D]

Greenland is shorter than the flight to Alaska. And so we should just seize it.

[C]

I guess just to be clear, when you said the flight to nuke Greenland, you meant the capital of Greenland, not the flight to go nuke Greenland. I just. The people who are listening, I wanted to clarify 10 point. And Doug did not say I want to take a six hour flight to Nuke.

[D]

Good clarification.

[B]

Some problems with that. I mean, it's quicker, for example, for.

[D]

Me to get to Bogota from New Orleans than it is to get to get to Anchorage.

[B]

I don't think we should seize every piece of land.

[D]

That is a shorter flight than the flight to Anchorage.

[B]

I think you get from D.C. to Portugal, you could get onto the European.

[D]

Continent quicker than you can get to Alaska.

[C]

Don't give them ideas.

[B]

Don't concern them.

[C]

Don't give them ideas.

[B]

I know the Canadians got mad at me for doing this yesterday, but I was like, I would like to hear somebody like Doug, if Doug would come on the show.

[D]

You're invited to come on the show.

[B]

Secretary Burgum, what is the rationale for.

[D]

Taking Greenland that doesn't apply to Canada?

[B]

Because if the rationale is security in.

[D]

The Arctic, Canada has a lot more.

[B]

Territory in the Arctic. It's a lot closer to Russia than Greenland. If we're worried about threats from Russia.

[D]

I can't really think of a rationale for taking Greenland that would not apply to Canada. And there's no rationale based on flight length that would not apply to the European continent and much of Central America.

[B]

They're serious. But this is the thing.

[C]

They're very serious.

[B]

A goof. No, this is not a goof. They're serious about this.

[C]

Totally serious. I'm going to stick by Doug. First of all. I just, you know, he's a Doug. Sometimes you got to do these things. But the Greenland thing is very serious. And I don't really understand it.

[B]

Once you go in full imperialist.

[D]

I'm off the board on Dougs. Sorry.

[C]

That's fine.

[D]

You're a bad dog now.

[C]

There is no such thing.

[D]

Doug Christie is a horrible coach. Kings. I think there are bad dogs out there.

[C]

Maybe one or two. The Journal article about Greenland was like, this is an economic wasteland. There's like, you think there's minerals to mine and all this great natural resources. They're like, no, it's ice and it will take decades to make it profitable. And the people there basically are welfare recipients because they benefit from the Denmark economy and their social system. I understand, I guess in theory that Trump looks at a map and he sees a big island. He's like, I want that. But other than that, I have yet to see a really convincing explanation for what the motivation is here. Because you're right. If it is about Arctic security, if it is about economic vitality, if it is about pushing back against the Russians, Canada is better. Canada's better.

[B]

Do you know the i5 killer was named Douglas Gretzler and the Sunset Strip.

[D]

Killer was named Doug Clark?

[C]

Did you just look up bad Dougs or something?

[D]

Douglas Franklin Wright was an Oregon serial killer active in the late 1960s all the way to the 1990s.

[B]

30 years of killing an organ from.

[C]

Doug Fair point, you'll have a few bad apples, but I would just argue and I wrote an article. People can go look at it. I wrote an article on Dougs for Politico, so I'm pretty well steeped in Doug.

[B]

Did you include Douglas Baptista, known as.

[D]

The Sal Vincente Maniac?

[B]

He's a Brazilian serial killer who drowned at least eight children.

[C]

I must have missed that in my research. But I would argue that per capita there are few bad apples with respect.

[I]

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[D]

Sending troops to Greenland.

[C]

Not just France, other countries. Denmark I think Germany is, too. Are we going to have open confrontation with the European countries? Are they going to be shots fired here? Wouldn't rule it out.

[B]

France is doing military exercises on Greenland to deter us, not Russia. US Hertling was good on this yesterday.

[D]

On the Ukraine thing, by the way.

[B]

And I just want to let this.

[D]

Go because the, as I will continue.

[B]

To repeat, totally on the side of the Iranian protesters.

[D]

If there are things that we can do to be helpful to the protesters, I think we should do them. But Ukraine is an ally of ours. They were invaded. Russia is bombing their energy sources right now so people don't have heating. It's going to be negative degrees in Ukraine this week, and people are freezing to death. And amidst that, Donald Trump, when asked what the holdup is on his Day One peace deal, he blames Zelensky again this week.

[C]

He blames Zelensky back to the beginning here.

[B]

And so fuck this guy.

[D]

And it's just horrific that right now.

[B]

We'Re in a confrontation with Denmark and France, we are in a confrontation with.

[D]

People in American cities, with our own citizens, and we're abandoning Ukrainians who are freezing after being attacked by the Russians. And simultaneously, he's like, oh, we're very serious about human rights in Iran. It's kind of hard to. Hard to take that seriously.

[C]

I can't believe we're back now to square one again with Trump and Zelenskyy. I mean, it's like, well, I guess I should be able to believe it because this is how it always goes, right? Starts talking tough on Putin, and then out of nowhere, it's like, actually, no, it's Zelensky's fault. And here we are again.

[D]

All right, last thing. I didn't get to my potpourri. I have to get to a flight.

[B]

The end gag of the potpourri was.

[D]

Going to be that. The other thing I haven't mentioned all.

[B]

Week on this podcast is the Epstein files. And I'm not one of those that.

[D]

Thinks that this is all attentional distraction. And I think that flooding the zone with shit is Trump's natural state of being always. And so in some ways, it's a bonus that it's a distraction for sure. I just don't think that's a motivating factor. I listed the top the three motivating factors for what he's doing in Minnesota.

[B]

But it's pretty fucking noteworthy that they.

[D]

Haven'T released a batch of the Epstein files since December 23rd.

[C]

Oh, it's crazy. It's crazy. I mean, it's shocking to me. They were required by law to release these things and they then dribbled it out a little bit, just made sure all the Bill Clinton photos got out there and then decided that, oh, wait, we discovered a million more in the Southern district of New York. And then we're like, we can't get to this. All while saying they've been devoting hundreds of people towards the project and countless hours to scrub these things. We haven't seen a single file in weeks. Right. I mean, when's the last drop we had?

[B]

December 23rd, I think. I think it was December 23rd.

[C]

Yeah. It is a flagrant violation of the law. And are they gonna get away with it? What are the remedies here?

[B]

I don't think so.

[D]

Is the good news, because Robert Garcia has been great about this and oversight, and if the Democrats take back the House, which I suspect they will, this could be at the top of the agenda. But who knows what the.

[B]

I don't know what kind of other.

[D]

Cover up stuff they're doing in the meantime. We don't know.

[C]

It's crazy. You can't trust them to put out any of these and you can't trust what they put out to be the full story. Right.

[B]

Good news is Dan Bondino's back in the podcast space, so I'm sure he'll.

[D]

Be holding the administration accountable on this.

[B]

Shout out, though.

[D]

You salute people now at the end of news programs. And so I do want to salute the man on the floor of the Ford factory who shouted pedophile protector at Donald Trump. He gave him the stumpy little middle finger that he's got the President dead. In addition to saluting our friend on the street of Minneapolis that was saying, this is nuts. What the fuck is going on?

[C]

We gotta find it.

[D]

We do. We're gonna take it out with him one more time.

[B]

We'll play him for you guys.

[D]

In lieu of our outro song today, we're gonna play our real American hero, the man on the street in Minneapolis. I appreciate you, Sam Stein. We'll be back for a great MLK weekend podcast tomorrow. We'll see everybody else then.

[E]

No, you know what really pisses me off is the fact that they detain people, cuff them, and then still beat the out of them. They tell you it's immigrants. Only immigrants. It's anybody. I. I have friends that got detained and all they were doing was driving home from work. What the.

[B]

Sounds like you don't fit the definition.

[E]

Of the I'm not paid to be here like everybody says. What the is that? I gotta work in the goddamn morning just like everybody else. I'm just here trying to stand up for community, dude.

[B]

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie.

[D]

Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.