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The Bulwark
Trump Stumbles in Bible Reading + Possible IRS Settlement NEWS! | MAGA Mondays LIVE
00:25:45
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein here. My man, my partner in crime, Will Summer for another edition of MAGA Mondays. I know you're all wondering. It's top of mind for many people in the comment section. Will Will's Internet peter out and up in this broadcast and will explain to me that it's possible that he can just go dark. It's not possible.
- [00:23]
B
Look, I mean, there were some issues. People said, you know, in the future we want to hear the host. We want to be able to see him at times during the live broadcast. So I've done a lot. I've, I've, I've even considered cutting down the trees outside my window that are giving me kind of a green tint in the past. We're working on it, but. But there's been a total studio overhaul.
- [00:40]
A
Yeah, well, we like to, you know, the thing is, I think you kind of glitching out and having massive technical issues during the broadcast adds to the lure of what we're doing here. Like, it's not, we're not trying to be fancy, not trying to be cable news. If I have to go solo and, you know, tight wire act, I'm going to do it. And that's just that. And you know, your Internet, if it's like raining outside, it might fritz out. And that's just how we roll. And people, people are on for the ride, I think.
- [01:07]
B
Well, I'm, you know, I'm broadcasting from an undisclosed location from a bunker, you know, and you just can't get the best Internet in the bunker these days.
- [01:14]
A
All right, in all seriousness, we, I worry we might go for like an hour today. So if people are, are watching, buckle up. We have so much to talk about. We're going to start with the IRS settlement. There's some breaking news around that, but we're going to go from there to truly remarkable Bible reading that Trump gave yesterday, which was actually a recorded Bible reading from a past Bible reading he did where, let's just say the man's not totally up on his King James Bible. It appears it's got to be nice and tidy in the teleprompter for him to get it right. Maybe some cuts on the video. We're going to be talking about Cash Patel snorkeling with the corpses of the people who were bombed in Pearl Harbor. And we're going to be talking about, of course, clavicular and whether he was mogged by his judge in one of his trials when he shot an alligator. We're going to be talking About Tom Massie maybe doing a little blow and having a little fun. Whatever, who cares? Some dirty tricks being played in the election and then we'll. I'm, I'm. Don't even say what it's about because it's so bizarre. We were talking about before we came on. There's a real treat at the end. Just absolutely mind blowing weirdness involving a threesome and a groi pet. That's all I'm going to say. Did I get that right?
- [02:25]
B
That's what people like to hear. Look, the kicker, it's gonna be we got the groin pet in the back pocket.
- [02:30]
A
Just. So if you're watching this, you have to stick to the end to get the, the story about the threesome and the groipet. Okay, it's worth it, but it may be a while, but it's worth it. So grab your popcorn, strap on in, let's maga Monday.
- [02:43]
C
It's mega Monday.
- [02:45]
A
All right, let's talk about the breaking news. So, irs, look, Trump was sued, was suing his own government, the irs, for the disclosure of his tax returns. He was suing them for what? $10 billion. Tidy little number. You know, it's a, it's a convenient, elegant number. Ten billion, maybe a little bit of money, but whatever. And then there's a lot of talk about last week, a $1.7 billion settlement that they could cut Trump again, cutting a deal with his own government, which he obviously controls. And then there was a little bit of backlash about the idea that there'd be a 1.5 billion dollar settlement slush fund that he would just pay to politic those politically prosecuted by the Biden administration. This came out like 10 minutes ago. And it is a notification that the dispute is now over. They've dismissed the suit. That'll be. Trump and his sons have dismissed the suit against the irs. There's no word about a settlement fund in here, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So I did a cursory read of it. You've looked at it too. What do you make of it?
- [03:48]
B
Yeah, so the backstory here, as you said, I mean, this relates to the leak of their tax returns to the New York Times. And the challenge is that the judge in the case was saying rather reasonably, well, wait a minute, how can you be, you know, both the plaintiff and the defendant? I mean, this sort of seems like, you know, essentially she had said, I want to talk to the lawyers in this case and find out if there has been like collusion or if there's like orders coming from Trump about what's going on here. And so instead, it seems like, you know, we don't know about the settlement right now, but I suspect if there is a settlement, it's going to turn out that basically they said, well, rather, why do we need this judge involved? Let's just cut a side deal. Let's settle the case before the judge can stop us, throw this case out of court and then create this settlement fund along the way.
- [04:33]
A
Now, again, the key here is that the judge was about to rule by whether this whole thing should have been thrown out because of how clear the conflicts are. You know, Trump suing his own government that he's controlling and then making a settlement, and they just move expeditiously to try to get some resolution here. We don't know if there's a settlement in there. But you've been looking into this, and I don't want to tease too much, but tease a little bit, like, what's coming out of your reporting on this.
- [04:57]
B
Yeah. So, I mean, the theory is that, you know, and who knows now that the case is out of court, but the idea was, well, maybe if the money was to go towards someone else, like, if it wouldn't go directly towards Donald Trump, maybe the money, they would be okay for him to sue and then take the money and give it to his cronies. And so the idea was that there would be this settlement fund that would go to, you know, other victims of doj, overreach of the weaponization of the Biden Justice Department, such as, for example, various crooks surrounding Trump or supporting him. And the big one, probably the largest group in question here would be the January six rioters. And so now everyone is licking their chops and saying, oh, my gosh, 1.7 billion. Oh, I'd like to cut off a good 30 million for myself. And so this has created a lot of agita. We're going to get into this in False Flag tonight. But basically, some lawyers who have quit the case saying we'll never get our reparations are suddenly back, and they're saying, I never abandoned you, my beloved rioters. And then the rioters are saying, well, it kind of seems like I'll just have to fill out a form. I probably won't even have to sue. Like, what do I need a lawyer for? Why do you need a 30% cut? And so there's a lot of drama that's been created.
- [06:04]
A
It just. It is so. Well, again with the caveat that we don't know what's in here. And doj, as of now, is not talking. White House isn't talking about what might be the resolution here, but the notion that they'd just put aside $1.7 billion and then let Trump basically dole it out how he feels fit is insanely corrupt to a degree that I, I don't think people appreciate. I mean, it's just, first of all, where's the money even coming from? Like, how did he get $1.7 billion if. If that's indeed what it is? There's, like, a little side pocket in the DOJ budget where you can just take this money. I don't understand it. Like, where would the money come from? Do we know?
- [06:46]
B
You know, we don't really. I'm seeing some supporters of the settlement, such as it is, arguing that, well, you know, we could. I guess there's some amount of money the government sets aside for settlements like this. And so that 1.7 billion, you know, maybe, again, I mean, like, it's not a great argument. You know, I wouldn't want to make it. I mean, they've compared it to, I think the Times article mentioned that, you know, in the past, there was, like, a settlement with, I believe, Native American farmers who didn't receive farm aid, which is, like a legitimate thing. And now they're saying it'll just be like that, except it's a slush fund for Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon.
- [07:20]
A
Boy, it's rough. It's shocking. Part of me wants to believe that Trump floated that. That's why there were some stories last week. They floated the 1.7 bill just to see if it could past muster, and maybe they kind of realized how much backlash they would get. But we don't know. We're going to be monitoring this one
- [07:42]
B
because, yeah, I'm sure Trump's gonna back down on this one. He won't want. He won't want his paws on nearly $2 billion.
- [07:50]
A
What am I talking about? I'm an idiot. What the. Stupid. Sam, go ahead.
- [07:55]
B
Yeah. You know, just the other thing I'd add here is that, like, the idea of, like, January 6th reparations has been really, like, I think, driving a lot of these people crazy because, like, a lot of them, you know, are often poor. They are. They have struggled to get their lives back on track after going to jail. And so they're just constantly been like, when's my ship going to come in? And the idea that this is actually going to happen even, you know, Tim talked last week. He was running through the January 6 criminals after being pardoned. And one guy was like, like a sex criminal. And he was, he was promising his victim, don't worry, I'll buy you off with a piece of my reparations cash. So this is like a very big deal in certain parts of the right wing psyche.
- [08:30]
A
Oh, boy. Okay, well, we're gonna monitor this one. If we see news while we are broadcasting live on the details of the settlement, I'll just kind of jump in and, and try to, you know, give you the news. But for now, it's crazy.
- [08:44]
B
I mean, you know, it just drives me nuts. It's crazy.
- [08:48]
A
Will's not normally animated. For now, all we know is that some sort of resolution has been reached. They've withdrawn the lawsuit against the irs. In that filing, there is no details about whether there is a settlement or not. But yeah, it's just a two page filing that was offered this morning. All right. To this weekend. So there was gathering on the mall in anticipation of America's 250th anniversary. This one is a religious gathering. I'm not, I, I wish I had the actual name of the organizing entity.
- [09:20]
B
I think it's like we dedicate 250.
- [09:23]
A
Okay, rededicate 250. We'll go with that. If it's wrong, God can curse Will for that. Trump. Trump. Now look, I don't think Trump's ever been confused as a big, you know, church guy, although he's, he's tried to, you know, show his bonafides every now and then. Trump literally mailed this one in. Okay. I, I, it's like, I'm not trying to be like over the top. He, it looks like he took an old recording that he had made for the, some sort of collective Bible reading that they had done a couple weeks ago and just, just said, just sent the recording. And I just like, it's, l, I mean, I, unless I'm missing something, he's wearing the exact same tie, he's reading the exact same verse from the King James Bible. It's just, I guess he said, you know what, I've done this recording already. I'm going to give them this. I, it's my best work. I'm going to give them, give them the recording. And so they played this video that they had just played a couple weeks ago. Am I, am I crazy? It does look like the same one, right?
- [10:24]
B
No, I mean, that's a, yeah. As you said, I, I believe this video originally was from like a sort of prominent Americans read Passages from the Bible series. And it looks like he's like, you know what?
- [10:33]
A
I don't know.
- [10:34]
B
Send them the last thing we sent to the religious people. We got it in the can already.
- [10:37]
C
No, no.
- [10:38]
A
Invited to be like, hey, Mr. President, that's the one you did a couple weeks ago. You know, these people are gathering, come all to Washington to hear from me, maybe give them a new, a new verse, a new read, just put on tie, didn't bother to do it. So anyways, that's one element of this. We're going to play the video in a second. That was really hilarious. The, the other is the way that he clearly is struggling with it. And look, I, I'm an idiot and I, I don't know the King James Bible. And when Andrew Egger passed us the verse, I pulled it up and, you know, it's a complicated verse and there's, you know, some tricky turns of phrases in there, so I probably would have butchered it, too. But I'm also not the president. Trying to appeal to a vast swath of religiously minded voters. Here is Donald Trump reading a portion of the King James Bible.
- [11:28]
C
Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all that came into Solomon's heart to make in the house of the Lord. And in his own house he prosperously affected. And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. If I shut up heaven, that there be no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, if my people which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven.
- [12:17]
B
Beautiful.
- [12:17]
A
All right. Prosper prosperously affected. I'm not sure I knew that one. What do you think? Well, you convinced?
- [12:27]
B
Well, I feel like he could have done a new take. You know, at least they could have been. The first time he came out, they said, oh, we kind of mangled that prosperously. You know, one thing I want to note here is Tucker Carlson was recently saying that Trump didn't swear, wasn't sworn in at his inauguration on a Bible because he's the Antichrist. And I'll note there that Trump is touching the Bible. He's got his hands all over the Bible. So, you know, maybe that's kind of a rebuttal to Tucker.
- [12:49]
A
You think he was signaling.
- [12:50]
B
He was saying, hey, Tucker, my hands do not Catch on fire.
- [12:53]
A
Look, look, I'm touching the Bible, Tucker. It's prosperously affected, folks. Not prosperously. I will note there's a number of different edit cuts in there. Now that. That screamed to me that this might not have been one. Take time.
- [13:08]
B
Well, you know, I think we can see here that he. You know, it's sort of like someone's reading something and they're not really, like, comprehending what, because he's kind of just like, I'm just going to read it with the same tone. I'm not going to, like, pause or anything. Yeah. And then prosperously, you know. Yeah. So I do think here he was maybe struggling a bit.
- [13:25]
A
Yeah. I have a little sympathy, I suppose. I had to do the hosting duty this morning on Way too early for Ms. Now, and the teleprompter got kind of janky on me towards. Towards the end, and they just, like, different script was loaded in. It was like, you know, instead of loading actual, you know, teleprompter stuff, it was like an article mixed with teleprompter stuff, and the words just didn't make sense. And I was just reading it like, Ron Burgundy and looking like a total lunatic while reading it. And it just. I was just saying words, and, like, they just did not compute. And anyone who's actually listening must have been like, what is Sam talking about? It makes sense. But that was live. That was live. This was clearly not live.
- [14:09]
B
Yeah, you know, look, I mean, I. I think he's a. He's a guy who. Who has a complex relationship with faith. And with that in mind, let's let. Let. Let's dive into Eric Metaxas.
- [14:19]
A
Okay. Yeah. You set it up. Who is Eric Metaxas?
- [14:21]
B
Eric Metaxas is a prominent evangelical. I think he's a talk radio host. He's definitely a podcaster. He's like a prominent evangelical Trump supporter. My. My brush with Eric Metaxas or, you know, rings to mind me. After the first Trump inauguration, the Trump people were out. They were celebrating in the streets, and a guy went by on a lime scooter. And I think he said, like, f. Trump. And Eric Metaxas just clocks him or kind of, like, tries to whack him. Yeah. And so, I mean, totally unprovoked. Did he connect? Oh, yeah. I mean, he whacked the guy. So this is your man of faith here.
- [14:54]
A
All right, let's watch him.
- [14:57]
C
Hard to believe that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man, to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand. It's extraordinary. We only had to wait 200 years.
- [15:13]
B
I can't believe it took two. The Lord kept the ballroom for us for 200 years.
- [15:19]
A
I mean, what, what are we talking about? God's great plan is for this ballroom to be constructed, clearly. Do people realize how they sound when they do these things?
- [15:31]
B
It's crazy. I mean, I don't know how you could say that with a straight face. I mean, I love that. You know, I guess the previous ballroom argument that it's for safety after the shooting and everything that's been discarded, maybe that didn't have the juice. Now it's like a Noah's ark type type. God said we got to build it.
- [15:46]
A
I didn't thought about as Noah's ark.
- [15:48]
B
That's a good. God said a party's a great party's going to come and you need a ballroom.
- [15:52]
A
You need to be in the ballroom for the flood. That's what's gonna happen. They gotta save and two of each MAGA type has got to be in there so that you can survive the flood. Between this and the big golden Trump statue, it's getting a little bit wild on the conservative religious right.
- [16:10]
B
You know, I do think it's one of these things where like, in retrospect we may be like, that was pretty crazy that maybe something. I mean, they are really. I mean, obviously Trumpism has been a cult of personality for a while, but at the point where you're saying, you know, God picked this man to build, you know, his toy ballro room and, you know, here's the, the golden statue, I mean, it is, I, I don't think the optics are great there.
- [16:32]
A
Well, what's also wild is how they, people applauded. They're like, it was like, you know, cattle. Yeah, ballroom. The other thing, I guess with the bottom. Let's just stay there for a second. So the, the money that they, they tried to get for the ballroom in that reconciliation bill, the $1 billion got nixed by the Senate parliamentarian over the weekend, basically. Long story short, you can only put like budget related matters into those things. And I guess the parliamentarian ruled that this is clearly not related to budget. It's, you know, about Trump's ego. Now I imagine they're going to try to recast it to make it parliamentarian friendly so that it can get in there, but it's no, there's no guarantee that it's going to get passed through the Senate. There might be four Republicans who are just like, nah, we don't need to spend a billion dollars on this. So that's where things stand now. And it left me wondering, like, what if there's just, like, a big gaping hole that's just there for a while? Like, past his presidency is. That's, like, not. I wouldn't put that at a zero probability at this point. I mean, we're talking, like, what, two and a half more years?
- [17:42]
B
Correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't the ballroom supposed to be funded by donors?
- [17:46]
A
Yes, obviously.
- [17:48]
B
And so now they need, like, a billion dollars for it. This is crazy.
- [17:51]
A
Well, maybe this is what the settlement is for the irs.
- [17:54]
B
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I would rather the settlement go towards the ballroom, you know, I mean, if they have knocked it down like that, I think.
- [18:00]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, if the. If. If the options are, like, slush fund for the J. Sixers or the Ballroom. Yeah, I take the fucking ballroom share. But I feel like that's a binary choice that I don't need to have. I feel like this. Don't you feel like we should have other options? Like, maybe don't knock down the East Wing and then hope to hope that the money somehow comes up? It's insane.
- [18:22]
B
It's crazy. It's. It's.
- [18:24]
A
I would just say that's the third or fourth time you said it's crazy. And that's got to be your catchphrase now, because.
- [18:29]
B
Well, you know, what can I say? It often is.
- [18:33]
A
I mean, but we could end up with, like, a big gaping hole where the East Wing once was and just no way to figure it out, because Trump's private funds haven't come through.
- [18:43]
B
Well, I think that's right. And, you know, I think the idea. I mean, this is very kind of Trumpian move. And clearly they were kind of trying to make this fait accompli where they, you know, they knock it down and then they say, well, you know, we gotta put it back together. I mean, it's kind of like when they dumped all the potentially asbestos stuff on the. On the. In the East Potomac park, when they just said, here you go, I guess we gotta remodel it because there's a bunch of asbestos on it now.
- [19:03]
A
Or when they started filling the reflecting pool with, like, what they call American flag blue. And then it started changing colors because they're doing it at the wrong time. And, like, I'm all, shit, we gotta keep going because it's only halfway filled, man.
- [19:16]
B
It's crazy. And now they're gonna build a helipad. Did you see that? This was this morning.
- [19:19]
A
Yeah. I will say this about the helipad. It's the one upgrade that I can kind of get my head around. Like, if they're. If these marine ones are actually burning the grass, then. Yeah, get a helipad that. That. I'm not gonna lose sleep over a helipad. That. That makes sense to me. Am I. Am I crazy?
- [19:37]
B
No, I. I just think sort of the renovations, goodwill, the. The property flipper, whatever, you know, he's burned through his goodwill on fixing up the White House stuff. I mean, even, you know, going back to the, The. The Rose Garden. We don't even talk about that anymore. I know they paved that over.
- [19:54]
A
Everything's game paved. And, you know, they, They're. They're changing the parking. The Pennsylvania Avenue right in front of the White House. Al. I guess that's temporary, just for parking now. But. Yeah, I. I was playing this game with my family. Like, what. What's the next thing he's going to renovate in D.C. and you want to know what they guessed?
- [20:12]
B
What's that?
- [20:13]
A
The Martin Luther King Memorial. Making it the Martin Luther Trump Memorial. Yeah, I don't think.
- [20:18]
B
Put Trump right next to him, you
- [20:20]
A
know, two civil rights icons to go share the property. I suppose it's fucked. We'll see if he's got any other designs. At some point, you think he'd be like, all right, I have a few projects, like, going. Maybe I should finish one before I get to the next.
- [20:34]
B
Well, you know, we're still waiting on the arch. Right. And so that's. That's coming.
- [20:38]
A
Well, I. So that was. The other thing is like, maybe it's happening currently because they. They were looking out at the property and there's doing something over there. And a congressman up who, who has some oversight went over there last week to just check it out, and he's pretty convinced that they actually had started.
- [20:54]
B
Oh, my gosh. All right, I gotta go over there. I want to see it.
- [20:57]
A
You know, I was thinking about that someone should go over there, but also someone should go to the asbestos pile on East Potomac and grab a little sample of it and get it tested.
- [21:05]
B
People have done that. There was a test, I think the park service said that there's some chemical stuff in them.
- [21:09]
A
Oh, okay. Never mind. Well, there goes not good. I was going to make. I was going to make Jared go over there and eat it and then see what happened to him.
- [21:16]
B
See how. We'll check on Jared in a week.
- [21:20]
A
Yeah. Doc, what happens to you, Jared? It's called Immersion journalism. All right. Cash Patel, our boy, look, he loves traveling. Our favorite FBI director. That's the other story I wanted to do. We got to document all the. Cash is living, like a great life. He's doing insanely fun things that, you know, if I were in my 20s and wasn't tied down with kids and I had the opportunity to do those types of things, that'd be awesome. Like, you know, go to concerts, check out the Olympic hockey team, snorkel in crazy locations, like all this stuff. But he's the FBI director and it's causing some problems. So last week, obviously, the story broke that he gotten some sort of VIP snorkel at the USS Arizona. Now, I would encourage people to read our own Mark Hertling's piece about how sacrilegious is and how absurd it is. And apparently this happens every now and then. And dignitaries get this, but it's not a great look. Someone compared it to playing like a game of flag football in Arlington National Cemetery. It's just not a little gauche. Cassius, people are really mad about this. Naturally they don't like it, but the New York Times story kind of delivered the goods. They also had this little nuggie about his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins. What do we call her here?
- [22:35]
B
Famous country music sensation Satan.
- [22:37]
A
Yes, country music sensation Alexis Wilkins. She went to apparently some fentanyl briefing with him. Did you read that?
- [22:45]
B
Yes. Well, you're kind of scared. Yeah, I was like reading the article that it's like, oh, there's Alexis at the. The closed door meeting.
- [22:51]
A
Yeah. What was that about? She said she was. She worked some for some Fenton anti fentanyl group. I couldn't even follow the logic.
- [22:59]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think that's the argument. I mean, it is just so, you know, one thing that I think is worth noting here about the Hawaii stuff is, you know, he often has sort of a pretext for this. Like, for example, in this Hawaii trip, I believe he also went to Australia and New Zealand to visit the FBI offices there. You know, I'm not seeing a lot of trips to maybe less exciting locations to visit the FBI office in Algeria or, you know, wherever. Like, it's a lot of just like, you know what? It also coincides with maybe my girlfriend's country. Country music concert or where she lives or a wrestling match we want to go to. So it, it's. It's a bit. A bit of a pretext.
- [23:35]
A
Well, in this case, there was also the. It was a George Straight concert that they went to. I'm trying to get that data.
- [23:40]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So George Straight, you big George Straight fan?
- [23:43]
A
I like George Straight, but I'm not a huge country guy.
- [23:46]
B
Yeah, me neither. But apparently, you know, cash is. And so he was in this, like, private box the time. Said it would have gone for 35 to 50k. I mean, pretty crazy. And it's unclear who paid for it. So it's. Look, as you said, I mean, he's living a sick life. There's no doubt about it. But people will say. What, you don't think Cass should be able to chug a beer with his boys on the hockey team? Not really. I think it's fine. But he is the FBI director. That's kind of the one wrinkle his defenders often skip over.
- [24:16]
A
Yeah. And that. And then he also had very publicly criticized his predecessors for using their jet for unofficial business. And he's just absolutely burning the jet fumes, going from place to place. And you're right. Like, he's not going to, like, anywhere. That seems kind of unfun. It's like, I gotta go check out. Gotta go check out the Hawaii office.
- [24:36]
B
Yeah. The New Zealand office. It's going down with the. The Kiwis.
- [24:40]
A
Yeah. The Milan office needs a visit. It's coming up. Gotta do it. I'll be the guy for the job. I don't want to do it, but I gotta do it. And if I were him, I guess at this point, with the preponderance of evidence that you're just kind of using this as a junket, I'd stop doing it. I would just kind of like, dial it back a little bit because I don't want to get caught in another one of these instances. But it doesn't seem like he's really dialed it back at all.
- [25:09]
B
Well, you know what? He clearly is a cosmic. He's a jet setting kind of guy. And he loves the snorkeling. You know, you just can't snorkel at the graves. I know people have done it in the past, but I think if you're going to be the traveling FBI FBI director, you probably want to avoid that one.
- [25:22]
A
Yeah, just say no. Like, you don't have to do it. You can. You can just do your job and that's that. And yet he's. He's a survivalist. We talked about this a bunch. He is just sticking around. Others may have fallen, but cash is just keeping on, keeping on, and that's that. All right, switching gears. There's a primary coming up tomorrow. Big one. Thomas Matzi. He's probably.