Sam Stein: We Got Ourselves a Mad King

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: "Sam Stein: We Got Ourselves a Mad King"
Date: December 4, 2025
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Sam Stein

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Episode Overview

This episode features Tim Miller and Sam Stein dissecting the latest, often unsettling, developments in American politics. With their trademark irreverence, they address topics ranging from local effects of immigration crackdowns in New Orleans, the Trumpian approach to pardons ("mad king" syndrome), war crimes in the Caribbean, the economy, the potential pitfalls for 2028 Democratic hopefuls, and the cultural-political meaning behind public figures like Phil Mickelson and Tucker Carlson. The tone veers from sharply critical to darkly comic, aiming to inform, outrage, and entertain the "reality-based community."

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Immigration Crackdown in New Orleans

[02:32-07:26]

• Tim describes the chilling atmosphere and economic fallout as masked, armed men detain Hispanic workers indiscriminately in New Orleans suburbs:
  • Many Hispanic workers, documented and undocumented, are staying home for fear of being targeted, leading to severe labor shortages.
  • Personal anecdote: Tim’s contractor friend reports nobody will work for fear of raids; a standoff occurs with one worker refusing to come down from a roof.
    • “Basically every Hispanic person, legal or not, has completely stopped working in New Orleans.” — Tim Miller [03:09]
  • Sam emphasizes ripple effects: children pulled from schools, healthcare appointments missed, caregiving industry threatened.
• Both hosts highlight the economic cost to Republican business owners and the looming impact on healthcare and construction.
  • “If you’re worried about housing affordability, you don’t have people to construct the homes—that is going to have an impact on affordability.” — Tim Miller [06:37]

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2. Phil Mickelson’s Tweet & The Authoritarian Drift

[07:26-11:14]

• The hosts discuss golfer Phil Mickelson’s now-infamous tweet advocating draconian, foreign-style punishments for illegal immigration, drawing parallels to caning and even execution.
  • Tim is appalled at calls to copy regimes like North Korea or Russia.
    • “You want us to copy the most repressive regimes in the world. You want us to do fucking caning. Phil Mickelson, what’s the punishment, I wonder, for insider trading and illegal gambling? Should we do Singapore?” — Tim Miller [09:03]
  • Sam reads the post as possible AI-generation but concludes, “if this is an honest reflection of how he thinks, like, he’s a disturbed dude.”
• Moral disgust: Both blast the giddiness for cruelty towards "the least fortunate people in the world—a lot of whom came here because they were fleeing the repressive regimes you’re now thirsting over.” — Sam Stein [10:37]

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3. Trump’s "Mad King" Pardoning Spree

[15:36-26:48]

• Detailed walkthrough of Trump’s latest wave of controversial pardons—including Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, wealthy stadium developers convicted of corruption, George Santos, J6ers, and Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar.
  • The hosts express exasperation at the arbitrariness and potential for political corruption—pardoning figures with connections, wealth, or political utility, regardless of wrongdoing, even those that hurt his own party’s interests.
    • “We got a mad king on our hands, folks. Like, this guy’s out of control. He’s handing pardons to drug dealers and drug lords and like, you know, George Santos and shit like that. J6ers. That… fits into the mad king umbrella. Right? So this guy’s just lost his marbles.” — Sam Stein [18:08]
  • They note the House GOP was blindsided by Trump lopsidedly pardoning Democrats, and Hakeem Jeffries’ tepid response.
• The larger constitutional worry: the unchecked scope of presidential pardon power.
  • “A functioning society cannot have one man just undoing all of the Justice Department’s work because he wakes up and feels like it.” — Sam Stein [24:43]

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4. War Crimes in the Caribbean & Lack of Accountability

[28:26-34:14]

• Breaking news: Admiral Alvin Holsey, former head of SOUTHCOM, was pressured to resign after resisting illegal strike orders, allegedly with Pete Hegseth pressuring him to "move out fast and don’t ask questions."
  • “You’re either on the team or you’re not. When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions.” — recounting Hegseth’s pressure [28:36]
• Sam laments the media and Congressional passivity amid ongoing "acts of war" (over 80 dead in Caribbean strikes), calling the lack of oversight "staggering.”
  • Comparison to drone war scandals under Obama:
    • “We spent weeks railing on the Obama administration over these drone strikes... They hated us for it. But we were doggedly in pursuit of the justification.” — Sam Stein [32:53]
  • A historical echo: Democrats/progressives were far more critical of similar executive overreach in prior years.

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5. Economy, AI, & Political Realignment

[35:51-40:14]

• ADP jobs data is bad—private sector employment fell—but the hosts remind that real numbers aren't out because of government dysfunction.
  • Growing economic uncertainty: skyrocketing healthcare premiums, immigration crunch, and AI jobs boom (and hype).
• The Democratic dilemma: Should the party embrace anti-AI, populist rhetoric?
  • Lauren Egan’s newsletter "The Opposition" is discussed; there’s a tension between the donor class (tech executives) and growing grassroots frustration.
  • “I feel like there’s a pundit class Democrat that’s really excited about going after AI...and a lot of traditional establishment Democrats that will be hesitant...Do we need their money?” — Tim Miller [37:52]
• Cultural side note: Posting culture, sports banter on Lane Kiffin and Dan Hurley as avatars for social-media-obsessed America.

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6. 2028 Democratic Primary Hot Stove

[40:14-44:37]

• Miller speculates: Is the public tired of chaos? Maybe the next successful Dem is just normie, happy, handsome, boring.
  • “Is it possible that really politics is very simple and we usually elect the handsomer person and the Democrats really can just kind of go back to like, somebody that doesn't seem crazy?” — Tim Miller [41:01]
• Sam notes the American penchant for pendulum swings—Bush begat Obama, who begat Trump, and Biden, suggesting next may be a return to affability and normalcy.
• But doubts whether such a candidate can animate primary voters who want "fighters."

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7. Tucker Carlson, Milo Yiannopoulos, and the Culture Wars

[46:38-56:36]

• Spotify’s top podcasts alarm Tim—Tucker Carlson’s show is #7.
• Segment highlights:
  • Tucker’s recent interview with Milo Yiannopoulos: an anti-gay two-hour tirade, praising Uganda's draconian laws and pining for the "status quo of 1985," when gay people were dying of AIDS and largely ignored by society.
    • “If you just back off a little bit, we could just return to the status quo of, say, 1985, where, yeah, they're gay people...But they're not pushing gay sex on my kids in school.” — Tucker Carlson, as quoted by Tim [50:27]
  • Both hosts are disgusted by the regressive sentiment and deep-seated projection.
    • “This is someone who wants to explore homosexuality. It seems like it. I don’t know. Does he? Has he talked about whether he’s had a gay experience before?” — Sam Stein [51:42]
  • Milo proposes “Mayor Pete is not really gay”—the hosts mock the conspiratorial absurdity and underlying bigotry.
    • “If we were to take this theory at face value that Pete is pretending to be gay...It's honestly quite the long con.” — Sam Stein [55:24]

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8. Signature Banter & Memorable Quotes

• Banter highlight:
  • “I know I have this like hard candy shell, Sam...but deep down, I’m softy. Okay? I am softie.” — Tim Miller [07:38]
  • “Let's spend 20 more seconds on this word, synecdoche.” — Sam Stein [12:48]
  • “The people like the banter, though.” — Tim Miller [57:08]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On the economic cost of xenophobic policy:

  • “If you’re worried about housing affordability, you don’t have people to construct the homes—that is going to have an impact on affordability.” — Tim Miller [06:37]

• On Phil Mickelson’s tweet:

  • “You want us to copy the most repressive regimes in the world. You want us to do fucking caning. Phil Mickelson, what’s the punishment, I wonder, for insider trading and illegal gambling? Should we do Singapore? Should we do be handing? Maybe we should be hand—his left fucking hand if that's what he wants.” — Tim Miller [09:03]

• On Trump’s pardons:

  • “We got a mad king on our hands, folks.” — Sam Stein [18:08]
  • “A functioning society cannot have one man just undoing all of the Justice Department's work because he wakes up and feels like it.” — Sam Stein [24:43]

• On Tucker Carlson's anti-gay regressivism:

  • “If you just back off a little bit, we could just return to the status quo of, say, 1985... But they're not pushing gay sex on my kids in school.” — [50:27]
  • “Let's just go back to that status quo, you guys. We don't bother you, you don't bother us, you die. We don't give you health care services, and that'll be fine. And you have to tell me how many people you're fucking, by the way.” — Tim Miller [50:50]

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Podcast Flow & Tone

• Style: Fast-paced, irreverent, deeply informed, punctuated by comic asides.
• Language: Frank, colloquial, often explicit.

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Conclusion

“The Bulwark Podcast” continues its mission as a reality check on 2020s America—a reality characterized by erratic governance (“mad king” syndrome), broken institutions, resurgent bigotry, economic stress, and culture war fatigue. Miller and Stein provide both catharsis and clarity, combining substantive analysis with biting humor.

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For further context or to hear the banter in all its glory, listeners are encouraged to catch the full episode.

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. I'm in D.C. so who else was I going to bring in Here, besides the repugnant, the interrupting, the managing editor of our hero here outlet, Sam Stein.

[Sam Stein]

What an intro.

[Tim Miller]

Thank you, Interrupting. Cal. Sam Stein.

[Sam Stein]

Got you.

[Tim Miller]

As I have been all week, I'm taking personal privilege to begin by talking about New Orleans. The invasion of my city has officially begun. Now, I saw images of the wee little guy. Yeah, little Nazi guy.

The haircut and the hand signals. He was walking through the French Quarter. I gotta tell you, if any of my friends who are like Nader Ds in the French Quarter, you just. You just give this guy the Sarah Huckabee Sanders Red Hen treatment, okay? No. No gumbo or jambalaya for this guy, okay? Anyway, that's the funny part. The bad parts are actually happening. It's mostly out in the suburbs. But I got this text from my buddy that I want to read. Basically every Hispanic person, legal or not, has completely stopped working in New Orleans. My friend. I'm going to redact his name. Can't get anyone to do any work at all. He's a contractor. He's a ton of clients who needs roofs done. All the people he works with at other companies in the city said the same. I don't think anyone's thinking about the impact it's having on the economy of the Republicans here who are trying to run their businesses. Womp, womp. Then he sent me pictures of a random crew that was on a roof in the New Orleans suburbs. Mass dudes jumped out, surround the house for YouTube. Guys, we'll put up the picture here. And Amanda Moore, who is down there's a reporter covering this, saw the same incident. Incident. I asked her what she observed and she said that the only silver lining here was that there was one guy who refused to come down from the roof. And so they just left him up there and brought the other guys in. Which shows you, I think, the limits of their powers here. They don't have a ladder. They did have a ladder. Did you see that? I should have showed it to you. I don't think that these guys actually know how to use a ladder. They had a ladder and they were holding it up and they had guns. The guy was climbing the ladder carrying a gun. This feels unsafe. Like, is this really necessary to have mass dudes drawing down on guys in.

[Sam Stein]

In suburbs regulations up on the roofs.

[Tim Miller]

But there is no probable cause happening as evidenced by the fact that the one guy got out of this. Like, they just are driving through the neighborhoods where there's a lot of Hondurans, mostly Hondurans in New Orleans. But also Mexicans and others. And, and like going up to people doing yard work.

[Sam Stein]

Show me your papers.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Wearing masks.

[Sam Stein]

This is what it, this was, this is like essentially what happened in Chicago. I remember Adrian was there for a couple days where it's not that like they're just grabbing people indiscriminately. They're doing that obviously, but people just stop showing up. Like people just don't show up at their businesses. People stop bringing kids to school. There's a lot of fear obviously. But you know, the ripple effects are pretty astronomical from an economic standpoint because why would you leave your house? Like, what is the. If you, if you could be detained and you can be a US citizen, but you would have three weeks of just absolute horror not knowing what's gonna happen to you. Why would you leave your house?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Or if you're a mixed family. Right, right. You know what I mean? Like you have one person in the family that is, you know, why are.

[Sam Stein]

They in your home city?

[Tim Miller]

Because of that. Because the other little guy, small Napoleon syndrome is I guess your governor, which is appropriate for New Orleans. The French Napoleon syndrome. Yeah. The governor, he just wanted it. Yeah. He's been asking for it. And I think that Trump basically, I think that they did see the limits of what they're able to do in Chicago. Having Pritzke, having Pritzker there did matter. Sure, it was terrible what happened. But like they were looking at places where there are red states where the governor was going to let them come in and act with impunity. And so New Orleans is it.

[Sam Stein]

It's scary stuff, man. And they're just going to go from city to city to city.

[Tim Miller]

It's sort of tongue in cheek. My buddy is texting me about like the Republican business owners who are like, don't have employees. Like the economic ripple effects are real.

[Sam Stein]

Why is that? Tongue in cheek? I feel like that's a very real thing. Right.

[Tim Miller]

These are small and it's like tongue cheeking that. He's like, they're not the real victims here.

[Sam Stein]

Obviously shed some tears for these guys that asked for this. Yeah, I get it. But it's gonna, it will hit them right like this. I remember sort of the first moment that was like semi viral around this stuff was that Fort Lauderdale, the Miami Keys, where the guy like the six time Trump vote or whatever the hell it was like all his construction crew had been taken away from the site and he's like, what the hell, I didn't vote for this. He's like, no, you Voted for this. Like, this is it.

[Tim Miller]

By the way, not to Adam Smith. Like, you know, this is. Have an affordability effort. Right. Like, you know, if you don't have people to. If we're worried about housing affordability, you don't have people to construct the homes. That is going to have an impact on affordability.

[Sam Stein]

I was going to remark that you. Adam Smith. Did you say not to Adam Smith?

[Tim Miller]

It. Yeah. You know, supply and demand does matter. So, you know, economics still works. On top of that, the healthcare. I think I mentioned this earlier in the week, but it's just worth mentioning again, like, you know, you just don't think of all the downstream effects. I was talking with somebody at Thanksgiving who works for a company that does like the dialysis services and stuff. And it's like they don't show, you know, if you are undocumented or have an undocumented family member, you're not. Not showing up for your appointment.

[Sam Stein]

And so I thought, I was thinking you're going a different direction because Cone Jonathan Cohen's been talking about this is like, you know, the caregiving industry.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, yeah, no, that too.

[Sam Stein]

Like that.

[Tim Miller]

That is both ways.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. It's like they're going to be decimated by this. So there's incredible downstream effects.

[Tim Miller]

You know who doesn't care about that? Our buddy, Phil Mickelson.

[Sam Stein]

Lefty.

[Tim Miller]

Lefty.

[Sam Stein]

What a guy.

[Tim Miller]

Before I. Before we talk about what a guy is, I gotta say, sometimes, you know.

I know I have this like hard candy shell, Sam, you know, where I seem like I'm a dick, but deep down, I'm softy. Okay? I am softie. And I get. And it allows me to sometimes.

[Sam Stein]

I don't know. I think it's in the inverse. Buddy, you think it's in the inverse? What's the candy with the softie?

[Tim Miller]

Almond Joy.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. You're the nut.

[Tim Miller]

I think I'm an Almond Joy. You're the nut and chicken. Okay. Well, the nougat part of myself did get snowed by Phil Mickelson as a child, I want to admit.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. I was a huge Phil fan.

[Tim Miller]

Huge Phil fan. And he was the guy at the local golf tournament in Denver who'd hang out, sign the golf balls for the kids.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. Well, he probably had an over under bet on how many balls he could sell.

[Tim Miller]

So I don't know if he's changed or if that was just part of his megalomania. This was his tweet yesterday, which was, I think for me, the most appalling.

It's more appalling than anything Megyn Kelly has said. For me, I think I'm putting it below Megyn Kelly in the Dante's Inferno. If we're going to do Dante references.

[Sam Stein]

This week, what level is this?

[Tim Miller]

Here we go. The US Is way too lenient on illegal immigration. Singapore, six months in prison caning, then deportation. Malaysia, one to five years in prison caning, then deportation. Qatar, three years in prison, forced labor, then deportation. Russia, two years in prison, forced labor, then deportation. North Korea. No deportation, just execution.

[Sam Stein]

That's the good stuff right there.

[Tim Miller]

It goes on from there. It's like, what these guys want to be like, oh, we're pro America. Like, usa, usa. Like, this is. You want us to copy the most repressive regimes in the world. You want us to do fucking caning. Phil Mickelson, what's the punishment, I wonder, for insider trading and illegal gambling? Does he think we should do Singapore? Should we do be handing? Maybe we should be hand. His left fucking hand if that's what he wants. He wants Old Testament justice for people. Maybe we should look into Phil Mickelson's.

[Sam Stein]

I was thinking, does he know that these posts go public? Is that like. Is he aware that Twitter is a public posting service? Because it seemed insane. Also, it seemed like probably like some AI generated stuff. He's like, what are the punishments for illegal immigrants?

[Tim Miller]

And all the repressive reviews did seem like a grok.

[Sam Stein]

Tell me how nasty I can be towards illegal immigrants if I lived abroad. I mean, I don't want to make fun of it because it's like, if this is an honest reflection of how he thinks, like, he's a disturbed dude. Like, if you're thirsting over the idea that you can cane somebody because they're here illegally, then you need to, like, go get help. Honestly, just go.

[Tim Miller]

Move to Riyadh.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, yeah, that's the better.

[Tim Miller]

Let's go. Move to Riyadh.

[Sam Stein]

Exactly. You want to be paid by the Saudis. You want to play in their golf courses. You want to, like, yuck it up with them and, like, go. Go live in their repressive regime and have fun like that. Just enjoy it. You can make a lot of money. You can play in a lot of golf tournaments. I'll even lay this. Come back for the Masters. You can come back for the Masters. Okay, I'll allow it.

[Tim Miller]

If you make some bad bets, some bad illegal gambling bets, and you can't pay off your debts, I'm not sure you're gonna like the.

[Sam Stein]

I just wish someone in his life would Just say, yo, you've made hundreds of millions of dollars. You live. You play golf for a living. Like, that's the envy of every dude out there. You don't need to be a dick to like, the least fortunate people in the world, a lot of whom came here because they were fleeing the repressive regimes that you're now thirsting over. So not caning.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I'm interested in caning. Phil Mickelson. You know what else I'm interested in? Denaturalization. That was something that has come up this week. Denaturalization, like the new fad? Yeah, for the Trump guys. What do you think, Mickelson? That feels Irish origin, Scott.

[Sam Stein]

Irish? Yeah, something like that.

[Tim Miller]

Fucking denaturalize him. Go back through. I wonder if all the paperwork was filled out perfectly about his ancestors and we could sort of start looking through that.

[Sam Stein]

The Saudi idea is the best one.

[Tim Miller]

I want to build. If we win again, get back into 2020, I'm going to have a Bill Pulte in the Immigration and National Naturalization Services. I'm going to look at all the maggots and we're going to go through your family history and just. We're going to look through how everybody got here. And if there was. If the T was not crossed on every immigration paper going up through your grandparents, I'm sorry, we're going to fucking have to send you home.

[Sam Stein]

It's a good idea to have everyone. Every party needs their own Bill Pulte. Just a shameless hack willing to use the levers of the government and also be public about it.

[Tim Miller]

Do you have any other immigration takes before I move on to parties?

[Sam Stein]

No. That was a good one to end on.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Sam Stein]

I was really upset by Phil's tweet last night.

[Tim Miller]

Me too. I've been. My blood's been boiling this week over the last 24 years.

[Sam Stein]

Who's your favorite golfer now? Do you have one?

[Tim Miller]

Rory, obviously. My brother from another.

[Sam Stein]

Exactly. Rory's the man.

[Tim Miller]

He also stood up to the Saudis for a while. He got a little weak.

[Sam Stein]

Did he get weak?

[Tim Miller]

Well.

I actually think what happened to Rory. I'm sorry for the non sports people, you can just fast forward a minute. But there's a moral lesson here, even if you're not a golf person. It's kind of a sad statement about our culture, actually. And Rory is sort of a. What's that word? Like.

Synecdy. Synecdoche. Synecdoche. People make fun of me for my pronunciation. People can Google it. Synecdoche.

[Sam Stein]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

For our societal rot.

[Sam Stein]

Let's spend 20 more seconds on this word synecdoche.

[Tim Miller]

Let's build for our societal rot. And that is that the Saudis came in and offered this alternate golf tour where they had to give all the golfers way more money. And a lot of the PGA guys were like, great, let's merge this in. We're gonna take all this fucking Saudi blood money. Rory was like, I think the most vocal golfer that was saying, no, we're doing well.

[Sam Stein]

Well, my favorite Rory Crow was when he was trying to explain why he's like, I have a huge house and I spent all my time in three rooms. Like, I don't need a second house.

[Tim Miller]

We loved that. And then it was like around the time that Trump is running again and getting back in, and basically the PGA just sort of folds to the Saudi live Tour. And Rory gives a press conference where he just half heartedly kind of apologizes for taking a moral stand and apologize to the other golfers for impugning them, saying to them, I was judging you and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, they fucking deserve to be judged. And it was kind of a statement, I think, about what has happened to our culture in Trump 2.0. Yeah, you can't.

[Sam Stein]

You can still be, you know, moralistic and judgmental of them. It's fine.

[Tim Miller]

Especially. No, I'm not judging. I love morality.

[Sam Stein]

No, no, I'm saying he can still be more judgmental of them.

[Tim Miller]

I'm saying virtue Signaling is good. It's one of my best articles I've ever written for the Bulwark People. Go find it. Virtue signaling is good, actually, I think was the. Was the title.

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I've got a section on pardons coming.

[Sam Stein]

Great.

[Tim Miller]

I mentioned this yesterday with Jonathan Lemire, your buddy, but I feel like it just, I feel like it deserves just a little more focus.

[Sam Stein]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

President Trump formally pardoned President Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras Monday evening. The ex president was at the center of what authorities characterized as one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, that was a weird one, but that wasn't even like, the weirdest of the week.

[Tim Miller]

I know we're going through the rest of them, but I'm just.

How do you do this the same week that you're bombing boats in the Caribbean because they're allegedly drug dealers?

[Sam Stein]

Tim, if there was like, a consistent through line to this.

The only through line I actually can think of is that actually, it doesn't even make sense. Like, he's clearly got like a, like a little addiction to issuing pardons. Like, he kind of likes it and he sympathizes, I think, with if you're gonna say I was unlawfully prosecuted and it was like, you know, a political prosecution, it was rigged or it was a hoax against me, he'll probably be empathetic to your cause. Like, you don't even, I don't even know if you need to now give a million dollars to his pack or like, buy all the crypto his family's offering it' like you and me, buddy, we were both prosecuted illegally. Right.

[Tim Miller]

And there's a, like, how I give the benefit of that to gays. You know what I mean? Like, you have, you have an affinity for him.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. You have empathy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. He has affinity for political crimes.

[Sam Stein]

Is there any gay that you would not give the benefit of the doubt?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Rick Grinnell comes to mind.

[Sam Stein]

And that's like Bob Menendez.

[Tim Miller]

We're gonna get to Bob Menendez. One more thing on the Honduras thing, though, because I've just been thinking about this. If you're Democrats, how do you make the best use of this? Because the argument.

People just don't. I don't know if they care about the hypocrisy again. I feel myself rolling my eyes at myself and I'm like, well, he's bombing these guys, cuz he says they're drug dealers, but he's pardoning this other drug dealer. What a hypocrite. It's kind of like, okay, we're past that. I wonder if the actual better way to go into this is like, this guy got a pardon because he was in league with the fucking oligarchs and he was giving them. He wanted to give them their little bitcoin city in Honduras. And I think this is how you get into the mag worlds. You saw some of this from Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, and Bannon has been saying this, which is like, is Trump looking out for regular people or is he looking out for the tech billionaires that actually hate maga Americans?

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And I think maybe that is. It's a little bit more of a bank shot, but I feel like that's what the Democrats should be, really.

[Sam Stein]

Well, I agree with you. The hypocrisy. No one gives a shit. Like, who the fuck cares about hypocrisy at this point, right? So there's either doing it your way, which I think is probably the smart way, or you just say, like, we got a mad king on our hands, folks. Like, this guy's out of control.

[Tim Miller]

Like, he's just.

[Sam Stein]

He's handing pardons to drug dealers and drug lords and like, you know, George Santos and shit like that. J6ers. Like the J6ers doesn't fit into your rubric because they're not like crypto billionaires. But it does fit into the mad king umbrella. Right? So this guy's just like, lost his marbles.

[Tim Miller]

That's fair. Tim Lewicki.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, this was a good one.

[Tim Miller]

This guy was charged with doing basically insider deals on the Austin. On the new stadium down there in Austin.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. For Texas.

[Tim Miller]

New Texas. Yeah, UT Stadium. And he was indicted by.

[Sam Stein]

I liked his. I read about what he would do, which is kind of clever. He had someone who was bidding against, and he'd just go to them and be like, yo, I'll give you money if you're my subcontract. Just let me win this contract. Brilliant. So easy. Why don't more people do that?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that's a great idea.

[Sam Stein]

Because it's illegal.

[Tim Miller]

You can't do that. Yeah, you just want to make sure you're screwing the taxpayer of Texas, the taxpayers of Texas, as much as possible.

[Sam Stein]

Fuck the competitive bidding process.

[Tim Miller]

Ringing every Cent possible out of the people of Texas. Another time where Trump doesn't care about the MAGA Americans. So we're paying this rich fuck. Indicted. It's worth noting. Indictment by the Trump Justice Department.

[Sam Stein]

Not the first Trump Justice Department. When I read it, I was like, oh, yeah, he was indicted in 2019. And then I looked at it, I was like, oh, wait, no, it was July.

[Tim Miller]

He was indicted in July.

[Sam Stein]

So ridiculous.

[Tim Miller]

By Pam Bondi. And so obviously this is the principle of this, but I'm on, like, where is Doge on this? The amount of money that we get spent to prosecute this person, Our Justice Department goes after this guy, he was robbing the taxpayers. And then we spent. But it's like we kind of compounded the crime. We're spending taxpayer dollars then to prosecute him.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, that's a really good point.

[Tim Miller]

Then we prosecute him and we let him off the hook.

[Sam Stein]

A condition of the pardon should be that he has to pay back all the money we spent prosecuting him.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Do you think that's gonna be in there?

[Sam Stein]

I don't. I have to check the five.

[Tim Miller]

There might. Well, I guess maybe if it goes to the ballroom.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, it's gotta go to the ballroom. Add one more layer or story to the fucking ballroom. Why are we doing this? Why is he doing this? I don't like. What was the upshot of this.

[Tim Miller]

This guy's gonna mad king, but, like, he kind of likes it. It's like one area where he's got actual control. He can't make prices cheaper, but he can make people say, thank you, sir, and he can make rich guys come to the Oval Office and say, sir, you are the greatest president of all time, and I'm gonna contribute to Michael Dell and his weird wife's Trump bond.

[Sam Stein]

The 6.25 billion gift to the Trump accounts. But.

Why George Santos? Do you really need to get George Santos to come kiss your ass so.

[Tim Miller]

He can do a cameo for you?

[Sam Stein]

Five cameos in exchange for the pardon.

[Tim Miller]

George, here's the most interesting one on the pardons, because there's just a lot of.

[Sam Stein]

Do you want to rank your pardons? Like, what's the most outrageous is that.

[Tim Miller]

We should do that at some point, but I'm not prepared for that right now. The Henry Cuellar pardon. He's a Democratic congressman from Texas. He was accepting bribes from azerbaijan. Allegedly. Allegedly. 600,000 allegedly in 2024. Also, there's a Mexican company that might have been throwing them some cash, too, through a wife's LLC thrown at Wife's S corp. Allegedly Democratic Congress.

[Sam Stein]

The wives always get roped in on this.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, like Menendez. Yeah, like South Texas. The political layers of this are. So there's so much to unpack. Why did Trump do it? Just because he's tired of people saying he's biased. Did he do it because like you said, anyone that's targeted by the government now he sees as a comrade in arms. And so he's gonna defend any corrupt politician. The House GOP got cucked by this.

[Sam Stein]

That's the best.

[Tim Miller]

Mike Johnson found out on Twitter. So did Richard Hudson, the NRCC chair. That's the group that is in charge of the campaigns for the Republicans in the House. Hudson said this pardon certainly makes it tougher for the GOP to flip Claire as South Texas seat. Cuz he's gonna run again as a Democrat.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, that was. Everyone's waiting to see what the quid pro quo was here. It's like, oh yeah, surely he's gonna switch parties. And then he like ran it. He filed literally like 10 minutes later and was asleep.

[Tim Miller]

And when he did the filing, he did an attack on Joe Biden. He's like going to thank Trump for the pardon. I'm sure this one wasn't done by the auto pen. You see that?

[Sam Stein]

Maybe that was the condition for the.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe that was the condition. You had to make an auto pen check. But that gives him more credit with MAGA people. I mean, Trump again, it's interesting.

[Sam Stein]

So they do this back to my Mad King theory. What is the point of this?

[Tim Miller]

They have this whole plot to rig Texas. This whole gerrymandering thing is all based on this corrupt plot to rig Texas districts in the mid cycle redistricting. This was one of the seats that they were trying to steal. They made it more Republican in South Texas. And now Trump pardons the guy that is the most likely to win it for the Democrats.

[Sam Stein]

It doesn't make sense. And he didn't tell Mike Johnson.

[Tim Miller]

I'm mad. It's like you're being a bad criminal. I was like, at least I'm upset. It's like, if you're at least gonna do this, at least do it pure so I can look the evil in the face. It's so incompetent.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, no, maybe now I'm coming to the belief that he did it so he could like avoid the criticism that it's purely Republican. Like he needed one Democrat and they found this guy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah, but why not Menendez then? Menendez would have been a better person for that he's not gonna win in New Jersey?

[Sam Stein]

I don't know. God, you're asking me to get into this man's head. I have no idea. It's wild. Menendez might be coming. We don't know. You can't just. The other thing is, you can't just do them all at once. You gotta kinda like, you know you have it. If you're like, you got an itch, you gotta scratch it, but you gotta wait until it starts itching again.

[Tim Miller]

I have to pick on Hakeem Jeffries just a little bit.

[Sam Stein]

That's fine.

[Tim Miller]

He's on CNN yesterday on this, and he says Cuellar is a beloved member of the House of Representatives. The indictment was very thin to begin with, in my view. I think the outcome was exactly the right outcome.

[Sam Stein]

You didn't need to say that. That's not right.

Now you're giving cover to what is an absolute abominable abuse of pardon power. Like you cannot. That's just not appropriate. And frankly, look, we're joking a lot about this, but I've talked to the ex pardon attorney at the DOJ who was fired because she wouldn't give Mel Gibson back his guns. That was why she was fired. And like this. Yeah, this was early Trump second term. They pushed her out because they wanted to restore Mel Gibson's gun rights.

[Tim Miller]

I missed that Bullard shake with Sam Stein. I don't know.

[Sam Stein]

It was a great one. She was. She was like, why are we doing this? And they're like, go. So we were talking a lot about.

[Tim Miller]

We'll link to that in the show notes. So I can remember to go back to that.

[Sam Stein]

This is like a real problem because this is a constitutional right. There's no one who's arguing that he can't do this, but everyone basically with the sane mind thinks that they have to fix this. Like, there's no. Like, a functioning society cannot have one man, like just undoing all of the Justice Department's work because he's like, wakes.

[Tim Miller]

Up and feels like there is constitutional ways to do it. I forget who I'm stealing this from. So my apologies.

[Sam Stein]

Are there. Wouldn't you have to do an amendment to the Constitution?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, yeah, but I think it was. I think it was Jonah Goldberg. If it wasn't Jonah, I apologize to whoever I'm stealing this from. But he made the point that, like, when the pardon power is put into the Constitution, saying that because he can only do federal pardons. Right. Like simultaneously to why he's doing all these pardons, he's ranting about my boy Jared Polis for not trying to get.

[Sam Stein]

Tina Peters out, transferred to a federal.

[Tim Miller]

Prison partner, and Polis isn't doing it good on him. And Jonah's point, I think it was, Jonah was saying that, like, when this was put in the Constitution, there were like three federal crimes. You know, it's basically like treason, you know, not paid. I don't remember what the other two are.

[Sam Stein]

But forcing a soldier to live in your home.

[Tim Miller]

And so it's like, are there ways to kind of do pardon reform that kind of just like defines within the Constitution, like, what constitutes it? I don't know. There's probably some lie out there who might argue. Yeah, look, the point, I guess, with Jeffries is like, it is just from a fundamental moral, ethical standpoint, like what Trump is doing with the pardons is horrible. And he should not be doing anything to make it seem like he's doing justice. Right. Also from a political standpoint, to the point of what we're getting to earlier, making the case against him on corruption is critical.

[Sam Stein]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

And so this is, it's a minor thing, but it's undermining it in a minor way. And it's like, I understand that Hakeem, I understand that Hakeem has to manage the conference. And to me, it's kind of like, you know, call Henry if you need to. If you're on CNN talking about this, you're like, I spoke to him privately and you know, we're gonna, we're looking at it. You know what I mean? You can avoid it.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I agree with that.

Y'.

[Tim Miller]

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A little bit on Pete Hegseth. We've been talking about this a bunch this week. There's another new data point in this whole conversation about the war crimes in the Caribbean. The Wall Street Journal confirmed something that but we've kind of suspected for a while. Back in October, Admiral Alvin Holsey was, at the time they said, resigned. He was the head of southcom, which was overseeing these attacks. He's only one year into his command, so raise some eyebrows. The Journal is reporting that Hegseth asked him to step down. Hegseth met with Halsey on a secure video conference and according to notes from a participant on the call, told the admiral, you're either on the team or you're not. When you get an order, you move out fast and don't ask questions. So I think that brings some interesting context also to the conversation about the Mark Kelly and these congressmen who are saying why they're encouraging people to not follow legal orders. Hegseth has basically said to him, you will follow an eagle order and if you won't, you should leave. He's out left.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And I do think that's pretty interesting context around the whole Mitch Bradley discussion and what's been happening with the when.

[Sam Stein]

Are they going to call this guy before the Hill? Wouldn't that make sense?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Have you called Roger Wicker about that? Have we asked Roger Wicker?

[Sam Stein]

So I asked, was it Kelly, Mark Kelly about it, or was it. It was either Kelly or Mark Warner. I think it was Warner actually right when it happened. I was like, are you guys reaching out to this admiral? And they were like, we can't get in touch with him. That was a couple months ago. So we'll see. I mean, obviously this Is like I keep saying, like I gotta stop saying that. This is a really serious matter. And it's been interesting to that followed around this double tap strike. So obviously we want to know if they are doing something illegal, if they're committing moral crimes. That really does matter, obviously. And there's been another slew of reporting that's added more nuance to the situation. But I think we're losing a little bit of the force for the trees here, which is that we are engaged in acts of war, but there's not really. I mean we are actively.

[Tim Miller]

It's not a war, we just need it out. Really.

[Sam Stein]

Not really. There's no war.

[Tim Miller]

There's no war. We have a pretend war.

[Sam Stein]

We've killed 80 people. We have killed 80 people and there's been almost no, we don't know who.

[Tim Miller]

Any of them are.

[Sam Stein]

We don't know any of them are. We don't actually have like really good evidence for why, whether they were smuggling drugs or just supposed to take the deity's word that there's drugs in the boats. And maybe there were. The sheer lack of inquiry, oversight hearings, explanation briefings is staggering to me. This is going on for months. 80 people are dead. We've launched multiple missions. Now we have a highly controversial double tap strike that we don't really know about. We have an admiral that left. I mean this is not minor stuff at this point. The piling up of very important stuff to get to the bottom of is now mountain high. And I can't think of one actual hearing that's happened. Maybe I missed it, maybe I just don't know. I've not seen any be held to account for this. We have a Pentagon press corps that's filled with like, you know, MAGA bloggers. Yeah. And they asked interesting questions, but we did they. Well, some of them were interesting. Yeah, they were whatever it was in their own genre.

[Tim Miller]

What about the guy doing the selfie with Pete Exoth?

[Sam Stein]

That was not interesting. Okay, we don't need to get.

[Tim Miller]

But you get my point. I do get your point. I wanna actually one thing, your perspective from back when you were doing, you know, full lib journalism. Yeah. Full lived journalism at HuffPo. You might have some insight on this, but some of the defenses I've seen of this Dan Crenshaw was out basically being like, we do war crimes all the time. He's like, we always kill people, do double taps. I don't know if that's a great defense, but that's where Crenshaw was. Then you see other People trying to do the. But Obama defense, which was what about the drone strikes? Al Awlaki and was it his kid or his nephew, whatever it was his family member that was killed in the drone strike. And it was like, well this wasn't a big, you know, there wasn't big oversight over this. And I was like, I was like. My recollection is that this was a massive scandal at the time. There was Democrats on the Hill that were calling the administration over.

[Sam Stein]

Rand made some like major speech on the floor. I think he shut down the Senate for a while. It's funny that you mentioned the sort of liberal perspective at the time. So I was at HuffPost during this.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

And. And this was our cause celeb. Like this was like the thing that. And it was mostly led by Ryan Grimm who was sort of intellectually consistent about this stuff. But we spent weeks railing on the Obama administration over these drone strikes. We went after Holder incredibly hard. We were doggedly in pursuit of what the justification and rationalization was for doing this. And but Obama White House hated us for it. They hated us for it. And so yeah, I mean obviously we had a perspective politically at the time, but we were very much willing to just stick it.

[Tim Miller]

There were some Democrats. That's what I'm trying to remember. It's hard for me to remember that were also.

[Sam Stein]

There was definitely. So look, of course there's some deferentialness in the party to the president and you're gonna get lawmakers who rally around him and defend him. But there were people speaking up at the time who said that this is an abomination and also potentially illegal. And wasn't this guy running as someone who was gonna end the wars and all that stuff? There are some analogies.

[Tim Miller]

Actually I had it right. It was Al awlaki's son, his 16 year old son that was like the biggest because he was American. And there are other examples of that, but that was kind of the most memorable one.

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Okay, I want to do. We'll just do any. Just a brief economy talk. Not great. Payroll processing company ADP's latest jobs report is out. We don't have real numbers. I know, I know. I want to hear you caveat, adp. That's what I'm asking you. But we should just say private sector employment, according to ADP, fell by 32,000 in November 3, decline in four months. There's some issues with ADP, but usually we're able to compare it to government data which we don't have because of this government.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I mean even if ADP is off, and they're almost always off, it's obviously the situation's not great and it's going to get worse like that. I think people are kind of. I mean, I don't want to. You can hold me to it, whatever. I said it. But people are going to about to have if health care premiums Just skyrocket. Millions of people are about the health care premiums skyrocket because Congress can't figure out what to do about this stuff. You mentioned the immigration stuff. That will matter. I mean, that will matter. And then of course, everyone's just sort of waiting around to see how much of this economy is just propped up by artificial intelligence and people blowing smoke about how important they are. What we really need is we have to get EJ and Tony at the bls. Because if there's one way to fix this, it's by finding someone to fix the numbers.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah. And if he pulled him, they pulled him. Who? Do they have a replacement for him yet?

[Sam Stein]

No. Why would we need that?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we don't need numbers. You mentioned the AI. I want to talk just a little bit on the Dems, then I've got some funny stuff we can get out of here. But the funny stuff is, I always say it's funny. And that's kind of like. It's dark.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

It's darkly. It's macabre. But anyway, we'll get to it.

[Sam Stein]

That's my specialty.

[Tim Miller]

The Democrats, just because you mentioned AI, it sparked a thought about our colleague Lauren Egan's newsletter, the Opposition, which is about this. It feels real that the Democrats are starting to. I feel like there's like a pundit class Democrat that's really excited about the idea of going after AI and these AI executives and thinking that that's going to be a useful political tool. And then I think that there's a lot of traditional establishment Democrats that I think are gonna be very hesitant to.

[Sam Stein]

Do we need their money.

[Tim Miller]

Well, you just said it's also hard, I think, when a lot of the jobs are being created that way. I think that this is gonna be real tension in the Democratic Party. But how to engage with that, I don't know what you think the tension's.

[Sam Stein]

Further by what we were just talking about, which is if they're all aligned with Trump or if Trump's rewarding them or how do you then say, hey, we like you too.

I read Lauren's pieces a little bit sort of broader than, hey, we're gonna go after these tech oligarchs. It's also like phones and schools. Right. It's the idea that our lives are just being sucked into our screens and that maybe there is a sort of nostalgia for a life when we weren't just doom scrolling all the time. I don't have any nostalgia for it. I want to scroll more.

[Tim Miller]

You're a poster.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Which is why I'm so excited about Lane Kiffin. People are like, are you upset about LSU's doing Coach Lane Kiffin? And I was like, lane Kiffin, after Ole Miss beat LSU this year, posted from the locker room, shitting on us three minutes after the game ended. And I was like, that guy's my soulmate.

[Sam Stein]

Well, so I don't. He's not Lane Kiffin because He's not texting 19 year old girls. But Dan Hurley has got a similar vibe. We just beat Kansas. And he tweeted afterwards was the Ted Lasso guy in the tennis. Because Jason Sudeikis had gone to the last Kansas UConn game. I was like, this man's in his 50s and he's just, just. He can't help it. He needs to ship us back to the point. No, that's me. Yeah. But I think the idea here for Democrats is that maybe there are parents who are really worried and they should be honestly about funds in schools. And maybe there are people who are really worried about AI companies taking over all the energy in their town and building these database systems. And you're seeing sporadically here and there that this pops up in campaigns. Could you tie it holistically together and can you put it under this populist umbrella where it's like these guys are full of shit and they're promising the world and in fact they're taking all your energy and they're, you know, poisoning your kids brains and we need to be different. Sure, I can see that.

[Tim Miller]

I can too. And I, despite being a poster at heart, I am very sympathetic to that point of view. And it's interesting that seems right now, I guess, is like way more popular in the liberal podcasting class like us than it is among politicians. And it'll be interesting to see how much politicians actually like really embrace it.

[Sam Stein]

Someone actually told me they're like, you know, there's been a lot written about these data centers and it's really not a big deal. Like it's a couple places where they actually exist, but it's not, you know, it's not.

[Tim Miller]

I think it will be a local issue in those places for sure.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

I'm not like, the next president's not gonna run enough.

[Tim Miller]

Hey. But maybe they might. And I guess. And that takes me to the other hot stoves I wanted to talk to you about with the Mad King. I'm reticent to do 2028 hot stove. I don't want to do it. I know, I know. I just want to make one point, though, because I've been thinking about this, and it's related to how the Democrats should act. And it's a little bit counter to what I think has been the bulwark, conventional wisdom on what we want from Democrats, which is like fighting, fighting more fighting.

[Sam Stein]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

And it's like, in the contrast to the mad King.

There'S an Atlantic article in Josh Shapiro. Maybe the case is people are looking for stability. I was thinking about maybe a different way. Tim Alberto wrote that article. It's quite interesting. I bumped into West Moore at the airport, and guy is just like, happy, happy, handsome, nice, friendly, able to talk.

And I'm kind of wondering. We do all this and it's like, well, gosh, the Democrats are really going to need to take on the oligarchs. So the Democrats are going to need somebody, like, really as backbone going up to Trump. And I do wonder, just at first, Blanche, like, what is. Is that right? Or, like, is it possible that really politics is very simple and we usually elect the handsomer person and the Democrats really can just kind of go back to, like, somebody that doesn't seem crazy. It seems stale, seems happy, affable, can go in the bro pods. And it's really not much more complicated than that. It's just a counter theory I'm throwing out there.

[Sam Stein]

People have always pointed out that the. The more telegenic candidate almost always wins. I don't know if that's like causation, correlation. It probably has something to do with our mediums of communication. Right.

[Tim Miller]

I think it's unimpeachably true up to 2016. I just. I don't know how you judge who's more telegenic between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. No. And Hillary, because they were both in the basement. I feel like 2020 doesn't count because of the COVID election. Then 24. It's like, I think Kamala's objectively more telegenic than Trump, but it's like.

Are we counting Biden also as part of it?

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, okay, fair enough. But up to 2016, the other theory that is at play here that you're talking about is how this is all reactive. Right. And I've mentioned this a million times, but George Bush begets Barack Obama because Obama's not.

[Tim Miller]

Well, you go back to Clinton, begets Bush, sure.

[Sam Stein]

Right. But Obama, I mean, people, I don't know if. I mean, the Obama allure was we're tired of all this shit, like, we don't need to be in the Middle east, but Also, we don't need to have politics. That is just cutthroat. I'm gonna be a reconciler. And then of course, Obama begets Trump, which is the, you know, Absolutely. We need to cutthroat. Like this lunatic's actually Muslim.

[Tim Miller]

And then, you know, Biden does that.

[Sam Stein]

And so it's all whip. So if you look at it from that perspective, then, yeah, you want someone who is just. Oh, you're normal.

[Tim Miller]

Affable.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, affable. And I can like not have to be staring at my phone every two minutes to wonder who you pardoned. Right. So maybe that is the case. I think the. And I can't believe we're already talking 2028, but does that get you through a primary? I mean, that was the issue. Obama was able to get through that 2008 primary not because he was promising a new type of politics, but because enough new voters believed that you could get a new type of politics. And I don't know if that's the case now where, you know, let's say Josh Shapiro Westmark comes in and said we gotta do politics differently. Are like the youth gonna get jazzed about that? I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

No, probably not.

[Sam Stein]

Probably not.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that's a tension. I'm with you on that. Wanted to do this earlier. I have a job for a listener, whatever listener wants to do this. I'm giving myself like a buzzer where I have. I get like 10 minutes a week allowed to talk about talking about 2020 and that's it. And once we hit the 10, I get buzzed.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, I think that's a smart idea. And then when we get to the year 2026, you can go to 15 minutes and we'll just keep it. You don't want to overdose. You got to up in gradual increments here.

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[Tim Miller]

All right, we're going to end with Tucker.

[Sam Stein]

Great.

[Tim Miller]

Somebody sent me a text.

[Sam Stein]

I've not seen this.

[Tim Miller]

Just to be in. You've not seen this? First I just want to pull this up. This is pretty alarming. I'm just going to pull this up live here. Everybody had their Spotify raps out yesterday. You can see mine on my Instagram if you want. I'm obviously an indie gay, so it's pretty. The trendy indie gay music is what I'm listening to. But in the rapt, they also have the top 10 podcasts in the US. I'm not on there yet. We're working on it.

[Sam Stein]

Thought you were.

[Tim Miller]

No, not there. We're working on it. We're going up. Rogan, Theo Von Collar, Daddy, blah, blah, blah. Number seven, Tucker. Okay.

[Sam Stein]

Are you surprised by that?

[Tim Miller]

No, it's just. It's alarming.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Well, yeah, this is why. That's why you gotta tell your friends about this podcast. We gotta make it. We gotta go up the list yes.

[Sam Stein]

Tell your friends.

[Tim Miller]

Tireless. It's a pretty alarming list. Amy Poehler. Good. Hang with Amy Poehler's number 10 so she seems sane. But the rest of the list, it's a little shaky. Tucker, last night, get home, back to the hotel. Scrolling as I do. Had the Nuggets game.

[Sam Stein]

You and me both.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe Nuggets game on the tv.

[Sam Stein]

Phil Mickelson said what?

[Tim Miller]

Scrolling on the phone, I see Chuckers has his new drop. He's got Milo Yiannopoulos. Remember Milo? He did the Dangerous Faggot tour back when you were at HuffPost. That was his big thing. Then he got deplatformed. It was like the only actual successful deplatforming.

I think ended up the whole deplatforming move was a failure with the exception. He's the exception that proves the rule. It was the one deplatforming that worked.

[Sam Stein]

I don't know. Do you remember that woman who made the terribly offensive AIDS joke when she was boarding a plane? She was deplatforming.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, but we didn't know her before. So deplatforming. It didn't make any difference to society. Success. When did she land? That's what that was. When.

She land.

[Sam Stein]

That was a really horrific joke.

[Tim Miller]

Anyway, Milo. Tucker's trying to bring Milo back. And they did two hours on homosexuality.

[Sam Stein]

Oh my God.

[Tim Miller]

And so I was like, I gotta watch this, obviously at 2x speed. And you went 2x? Oh, yeah, it's. Well, it was 2x with just Tucker 1.5. Well, yeah, no, with just Tucker it's 2x. And I like doing it, especially because his laugh is even funnier at 2x. It's really funny at 2x. So I do like him at 2x. But then Milo talks really fast so I had to move it back down to 1.5. Anyway, the premise was about the Ugandan interviewer who was like, why are you gay? And about how that person was correct. The Ugandan interviewer and the anti gay Uganda bill. Tucker's pro that now the death penalty for certain gay acts. So Tucker explains why he has issues with homosexuality. Then Milo explains his. I want to play the Tucker one first. Tucker's trying to demonstrate how he's being reasonable, but how he's not really into gay. He just wants to bring us back to a different year.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, let's listen, let's listen.

[Tim Miller]

And what does it mean to live as a gay person in the United States? What exactly does that look like? Like, what's your life like? How many People do you have sex with? How are those unfair questions? Since you're the one throwing it in my face and telling me I'm not allowed to be against it, maybe I'm allowed to ask the questions I don't really want to ask. Don't really want to know the answers to. But since you've made it the north star of our moral system in the United States, since you're willing to starve an African country because they disagree with it, maybe it's time me to ask those questions because you push me to on this and a lot of other issues. If you just back off a little bit, we could just return to the status quo of, say, 1985, where, yeah, they're gay people, they're great, they're off, you know, whatever here, they're there, whatever. But they're not pushing gay sex on my kids in school.

1985, we're just going to go back to the glorious. I was listening to it.

[Sam Stein]

Those are. Those are the best years.

[Tim Miller]

I had to do the rewind because I was like, did you he say 1995? Because at least we can start as a. Like, we'll have a debating point. I'd have some disagreements. I couldn't have my family in 1995, so I'd be opposed to that. But 1985 is what he choose to say when gays were dying from AIDS and nobody was helping them.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, no, that was like, let's just.

[Tim Miller]

Go back to that status quo, you guys. We don't bother you, you don't bother us, you die. We don't give you health care services, and that'll be fine. And you have to tell me how many people you're fucking, by the way.

[Sam Stein]

Well, sorry, I couldn't. At one point, I was having trouble just following who he's talking about. Like, who is telling him he can't talk about gays or AIDS or something?

[Tim Miller]

No, he is saying that he is arguing that the gays. We're all pushing it on everybody's face and that we've made gay the moral cause of it.

[Sam Stein]

So we cannot critic.

[Tim Miller]

He's upset because we can't make it a moral good. If it was a moral neutral, we would.

[Sam Stein]

Tucker is upset that we cannot ask questions about gays, basically.

[Tim Miller]

Well, he's upset that we. That we are doing. Yeah, he's upset you can't ask questions about, like, why.

[Sam Stein]

How much sex you're having and how.

[Tim Miller]

Much sex you're having. Because that's rude. He's upset about that.

[Sam Stein]

Why does all.

That I don't. This is like the most obvious.

[Tim Miller]

I can send Tucker my body count if he wants.

[Sam Stein]

This is clear projection, right? Like, this is someone who wants to explore homosexuality. It seems like it. I don't know. Does he? Has he talked about whether he's had a gay experience before? Has anyone asked him?

[Tim Miller]

Someone should ask him.

[Sam Stein]

It seems like an obvious question. It's like, hey, you seem utterly obsessed with homosexuality and your desire to be mean to them. Have you ever tried it? Is that why you're upset?

[Tim Miller]

I feel. I know. Prep school.

[Sam Stein]

I'm not trying to be Freudian about it, but it does seem like perhaps one of the reasons he can't get over this and wants to go back to a time where gays were dying from an unknown disease and didn't talk about it. Like, maybe it's because something happened to.

[Tim Miller]

Him, makes him uncomfortable. Yeah, maybe. Or maybe he's just being a prick.

[Sam Stein]

Well, that too. Those can be totally related. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I think it's interesting. There's a substantive element of like, just like, how he's mainstreaming anti Semitism. He's like, trying to bring this back. He's like, okay, you know, he's.

[Sam Stein]

What do you think his booking process. Yeah, what do you think his booking process is? Like, no one told him he had to bring Milo on. I'm sure Milo's not like the most. You know, I don't think Miles getting him huge numbers, but I don't think.

[Tim Miller]

It'S actually that hard, if you look at his recent guests, to figure it out. Tucker wants to. He's like, what is the thing that everybody says I can't do and I'm gonna do it. He's like a baby. And so that's why I'm like, I don't know if it's actually, but maybe he had a gay sex experience in prep school. We should ask him. But I think it's less about that than just like, I'm a brat. Tucker is real. The prep school element of him is like, I'm just embracing my 17 year old self. And I'm gonna say what everything is because, like, he's done.

[Sam Stein]

It's been like that forever, right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, he's done like 9, 11 stuff recently. Hitler was the good guy in World War II, obviously. Pro Putin, you know, I mean, like at chemtrails recently. I believe that he did that one.

[Sam Stein]

I understand.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Now it's like, why are people gay? So anyway, Yeah, I don't know. I think that's a good follow up. For him, maybe it's. We do a trade. Maybe I'll send him my body count if he tells us if he ever had a gay experience. Because he does seem interested.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, seems fair.

[Tim Miller]

One more thing that they went up, that's. Sorry, we're gonna be up to our 10 minutes because it's slightly related to 2028, but we're gonna end there. He asked Milo his thoughts on Mayor Pete. I mean, isn't Buttigieg just the most interesting character of our age?

[Sam Stein]

Like, I mean, he doesn't look like.

[Tim Miller]

He looks like an intensely boring homosexual.

[Sam Stein]

Like it's everything gay people shouldn't be.

[Tim Miller]

But it's so interesting the fact that, I mean, clearly he wasn't gay, like at the beginning. Well, he had girlfriends, right? So he wasn't gay, but he made himself gay. I made that point because actually I had gated men who worked for me who were more in tune with this than me. I'm not in tune at all. I'm not at all.

[Sam Stein]

Again, I'm telling you, something's going on here.

[Tim Miller]

They said he's not really gay and I was like, no. So what does that mean? Well, his sexuality, like all, like all.

[Sam Stein]

Homosexuality is a function, a product, a symptom. What is his homosexuality a symptom of? It's of his vaulting ambition. Buttigieg timed it perfectly. So that post Obama, the gay guy.

[Tim Miller]

With the black kids, perfect presidential candidate.

[Sam Stein]

I'm not sure Miles got his finger on the pulse of the public.

[Tim Miller]

The timeline is also a little off there. Yeah, the gang with the black kid, I mean, his kids are like two.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

So, I mean, when he ran for president, he didn't have black kids actually. So, I mean, I'm just. So if we were to take this theory at face value that Pete is pretending to be gay, he's pretending to have sex with Chastain just because he's so ambitious that he's like, I've gotta do it.

[Sam Stein]

It's honestly quite the long con.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it really is.

[Sam Stein]

At this point you can break character.

[Tim Miller]

And the only way to do it is to adopt kids. It's really. It's sick. And then they go on to do a lot of negative stuff about gay adoption, which is really sick and disgusting.

[Sam Stein]

I'm not saying I feel a little icky about this. Like these people are not well. And, you know, again, I think a lot of this is just projection. The idea that, you know, of course Pete Buttigieg would like engage in this decade long fake cover up where he's Gay and has black kids and it's because he wants to be the president. It's because you think in this way. Not everyone thinks like this.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that is right. That is right. And you know, it is interesting. Tucker's like, I'm gonna have a gay sex expert come on and work, and it's gonna be like, well, if he had girlfriend.

[Sam Stein]

But what's a gay sex answer? I do get credentials.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I don't know. Bring on Dan Savage, baby. I had girlfriends before. That means that he must be faking it. And I can just say, yeah. No one's ever.

[Sam Stein]

No one's ever had difficulty figuring out.

[Tim Miller]

Their sexuality about it. I know. I know that you don't really know. I know you don't know at all. At all. I know at all. You don't want to care about this. You don't have any issues. But I just want to say, I also had a girlfriend once and. Whoa. It's not fake.

[Sam Stein]

Wait, is this fake right now?

[Tim Miller]

I'm gonna do it. It's all I know. It's just a rise in the podcast podcasting charts.

[Sam Stein]

Exactly. Straight to number six. And then he can finally get back to being straight.

[Tim Miller]

That's right. This is why I was beating Michael Steele on the podcast charts. Okay. Michael Steele had pretended to be gay. Okay. Then he would have clutched all the buttons. We love you, Chairman. That's amazing, Sam. Anything you want to leave us with?

[Sam Stein]

No, I gotta go.

[Tim Miller]

I gotta go.

[Sam Stein]

We gotta go. We got big business today. Come on. You know that.

[Tim Miller]

All right, well, the people. Just the people like the banter, though.

[Sam Stein]

I know. All right, well, I love being here.

[Tim Miller]

Everybody else, I don't know who the guest is tomorrow, so hopefully they'll be good.

It might be, Sam. We gotta figure that out. But I promise you, we'll do a great job with it. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Appreciate you all. Peace.

[Sam Stein]

Peace.

[Tim Miller]

I was young we're almost superstars.

She brought my hair put my lipstick on In a glass of purple dry.

There'S nothing wrong with loving who you all she said cuz it made you perfect, baby.

So hold your head up, girl Then you'll go far There's a mirror to save I'm here to fall in my way Just I'll ignore mistakes I'm on the right side baby I was falling this way Don't I still regret this Love is still very dead I'm on the right track baby I was falling this way Fall this way There ain't no way baby I was on the way Baby, I was on this way.

There ain't no Runway Baby, I was born.

Baby, I was born this way don't be a drag, just be a queen don't be a drag, just be a queen don't be a drag, just be a queen.

Give yourself prudence and love your friends Subway care rejoice.

[Sam Stein]

You'Re true.

[Tim Miller]

In the religion of the insecure I must be myself Respect my you.

A dispreneur is not saying.

I'm on the right track Baby, I will fall asleep.

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.