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- [00:00]
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- [01:32]
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- [02:44]
Will Sommer
Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Will Sommer, your host here today, sitting in for Tim while he's beachside in Mexico. Tim is back next Monday. All right, today, I wanna bring you a guest I'm close with, I've worked with before. It's Aswin Soob Sang. He's a senior correspondent at Zadio, a contributing writer at Rolling Stone, and co author of the excellent first Trump administration sort of underworld book, Sinking in the Swamp, How Trump's Minions and Misfits Poison Washington. He's as obsessed with the MAGA underbelly as I am. And most importantly, we used to host a podcast together called Fever Dreams. And I know a couple people have been demanding kind of a Fever Dreams reunion. So we, you know, against his better judgment, Tim has brought us back together. It's Aswin Soob saying, swin, welcome back to the podcast.
- [03:32]
Aswin Soob Sang
I'm incredibly touched that you're having me on right now. And it will be a break from our older days of podcasting together when we talked about basically like the Gateway Pundit exclusively, maybe a little bit of the White House and Alex Jones, but I'm not sure if Jim Hoft is coming up today.
- [03:47]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Is he?
- [03:47]
Will Sommer
Well, you know, this is part of what's fun about the second Trump administration or what's daunting about it to cover is it's a whole new cast of characters. This is the swamp you swim in, as it were. So let's dive right in. This morning, New York Times magazine has a story about trouble at the Heritage foundation, sort of the key think tank in the conservative movement, although, I don't know, maybe not anymore, given the trouble there. You know, folks may remember for a few months now, Heritage has been roiled by drama, fights over everything from, you know, evangelical Christianity versus Catholicism, fights over Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes and how, how close, you know, Heritage is going to be in supportive of that. The, the white nationalists, the gr. Swin, what do you make of this? I mean, there's a lot of Accusations that the right and Trump world is sort of being infiltrated by these racist gripers. I mean, what are you seeing out there?
- [04:39]
Aswin Soob Sang
Well, it's one of these things where we talk about is being infiltrated, could be infiltrated. There is a takeover going on. I mean, I think we're way past the point of trying to talk about this as a hypothetical or something that's going on. Or in my mind, it basically already has happened. Is like, is Donald Trump being the leader of the free world literally the same as, say, someone like Nick Fuentes being elected president of the United States? No, not entirely, not necessarily. But when you look at the people who are running the show right now in the Republican Party, and we can get to Heritage specifically in a moment, but because of how closely linked they are to the Trump White House, you have obviously Stephen Miller just making policy, basically having a blank check to write domestic policy in the United States during the second Trump era. And you have Donald Trump up there doing two minutes. Hate some of the most blatantly racist things I've heard in my entire life. Not even coded or dog whistle, just completely like balls to the wall racist against Somalis and people like that, anytime he wants to, to the cameras in the Oval Office. We have kind of reached a point where in my mind it's like, okay, has the groiperism, has the anime Nazi style racism of the quote, unquote, New Right or the new New New New Right, whatever you want to call it, has that taken over the mainstream elite of the Republican Party? Of course it has. It's kind of immaterial to me if someone like Nick Fuentes is or isn't deputy Chief of staff in the White House. Stephen Miller's there. That train has left the station.
- [06:10]
Will Sommer
That's a good point. Yes. At this point, you don't really need Nick Fuentes in the administration itself. You know, this article from Elizabeth Zarofsky, get Stalinist purges happening at the Heritage Foundation. I mean, I think the Nic Fuente stuff got a lot of attention. But what this article points out is that there's kind of been trouble there beforehand. And because this is such a key part of the conservative movement, you know, typically, like, we wouldn't be like, oh, what's up with the shake up at the think tank? But this is really sort of, as you said, hand in hand with the Trump agenda. Let me read a quote from a former staffer. Someone says people would just get disappeared. There would be a weekend where you'd come in and be like, wait, I'm sorry, how many people are no longer here? Staff members called it the Heritage Hunger Games. I mean, this is cut, cutthroat stuff. What do you make of this?
- [06:52]
Aswin Soob Sang
Well, I like how these things are always described by the right and also the media as Stalinist purges. I, I sometimes make this mistake too, but it's as if this is not a thing that the right wing often does like disappearing their own people. For some reason they have to link it to some sort of like mythical communist aggression or something. But I digress. This has been building for quite some time because there's so many fissures within Heritage Land and other places of the conservative elite where there a lot of like, older types who are kind of trying to cling to this more respectable kind of bigotry, where the veneer, the patina of plausible deniability is still on there. Where the line is, oh, the real racists are the Democrats of the left or the DSA or whatever bogeyman they want to cling to. They are constantly bumping up against these once insurgents and now I would argue, dominant figures who just think that, okay, we don't need any of that veneer, we don't need any of the plausible deniability when it comes to these things that you might consider gauche or bigoted or racist. We're just full throttle embracing it. So of course they're going to be people picked off here and there. When someone like Kevin Roberts, who is very attuned to where the conservative movement is headed, whatever else you can say about his management style or his ideology or anything else, he is someone who understands where the energy, particularly among young Republicans is. So that's mostly what I make of it. When you hear about all of these quote unquote Stalinist purges, they are actively trying to backfill and get on board with where the movement has already gone. Now, we can get more into specifics about this in a moment. Am I saying every single rank and file Republican voter or conservative movementarian is a dye in the wool Nazi? No, of course that's not what I'm saying. But they have reached a point where, where the Overton window has been so completely shifted on these issues of race, dei, immigration. You can go down the entire list where, yeah, like, there's no need for plausible deniability anymore. Does that make sense?
- [09:03]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I think there's this challenge that the right faces, which is that they struggle to, and frankly, sometimes they don't care to. There's no way to like Criticize people to the right without looking censorious. Like you're doing cancel culture. Know, we've seen this with people like Candace Owens, these people with crazy ideas. And then when Ben Shapiro gets up and he says, I don't know if we should be implying Charlie Kirk's widow murdered him, or, you know, people like saying, I don't think we should be getting into, you know, Pizzagate type conspiracy theories, whatever. People say, well, you know what, you know, you're doing kind of like a PC cancel culture situation. And so, you know, I'll give you an example here. So Heritage found this itself in this whole imbroglio after Tucker Carlson, you know, hosted Nick Fuentes on his podcast last fall. And then they did this kind of weird thing where they like took down their page about sponsoring Tucker Carlson's podcast. And then they put it back up and they were like, actually, we love Tucker Carlson. Kevin Roberts put out this weird video. By the way, I have to say, Kevin Roberts, he is like a little like swaggier than the average think tank president in sort of like a MAGA code in this article. He's wearing alligator cowboy boots. He's an interesting character. And so he's asked about this Fuentes thing and why he likes, kind of tied himself to Fuentes and Tucker in a way he didn't even really have to. And he says, you can't have a governing coalition. If you're saying, I'm not even gonna talk to people who occasionally listen to a podcast by someone who's a total goofball. That doesn't mean that we endorse what that person says we endorse trying to convince these people of what's right and what isn't right. So you can see this thing where he's like, I'm not platforming this guy. I'm not welcoming him in. Although you kind of are right when you're saying he's essentially part of this governing coalition. So it's this weird thing and this is where these really like, extremist elements get inside the party. And it seems like these guys don't really care, essentially.
- [10:47]
Aswin Soob Sang
No, totally. And when you just go down the list of people who. Serving in these elite positions, whether it's in MAGA or right wing think tank world or the Trump administration itself, like not just counting the big names, but the more obscure but. But bizarrely powerful figures in Trumpland and in the federal government right now. They are these type of people who are might as well be edgelords on the Internet. I mean, this is just one of many data points that I point to when I try to tell people how bad it is. When I'm constantly reporting on what's going on in the West Wing or what's going on in the bowels of DHS or wherever else in the government, more so than any other noun that I hear when I'm picking up the phone or messaging people working within the federal government right now, the number of times I have to hear the R word on any given day or any given week is intense. Like, I try to do my day to day work as a political reporter without using it, even a censored version of it in my copy, they damn well make it near impossible because they're constantly using that. Not to mention other slurs.
- [11:57]
Will Sommer
That's so interesting. That's very interesting. I mean, just to be clear, I mean, you're talking about like retarded, right?
- [12:02]
Aswin Soob Sang
Yes, yes. Or. Yeah. So retard.
- [12:04]
Will Sommer
Yeah, you know, Ben Shapiro was getting into that just recently. He was saying, you know, if I'm calling you a retard, I'm not, you know, talking about, you know, disabled people. That's, that's very interesting that you're just constantly encountering that in your reporting.
- [12:17]
Aswin Soob Sang
Yeah, yeah. The, the penchant for vice signaling with this version of the Republican Party, this iteration of the federal government is so rapacious, so constant that. Is that a symptom of the policies they're constantly proposing or does it feed into it and intensify it? Either way, it's a very racist snake eating its very racist tail.
- [12:43]
Will Sommer
Well, you know, just before we move on to another topic here, let's give another couple examples. So you have this clash of the Heritage Foundation. You have these guys like from the 80s and 90s who are there to talk about trickle down economics, there to put out white papers. And now they're encountering this new breed. And what has MAGA drawn these younger people? So we got a former Heritage said he's willing to debate policy. What he wasn't willing to do was sit here and discuss whether the Holocaust happened or not. Oh, that's great. He's talked about a new hire who claimed that Ghislaine Maxwell's father, the publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, bought all the history books in the United States and put in essentially a fake Holocaust story in them. So a little Holocaust denial there. And then finally, debates over World War II became popular at Heritage with a lot of quote, rehashing and going through who was the bad guy and who were the Good guys, we're getting this a lot on the right. You know, Tucker Carlson famously had the guy who was like, Churchill was the ultimate villain of World War II. What's up with the rehashing of World War II? What do you think's going on there? I think I can guess, but I'd be interested in your perspective.
- [13:42]
Aswin Soob Sang
First of all, before we get into that, I want back into that a little bit because the former Heritage analyst who's saying, I will debate policy all day, but I won't debate these things, I have to quibble with that. What do you think they're talking about? What they're talking about is very policy related. All of these bigotries, all these insane conspiracy theory mongering things that they're floating out there that doesn't just have a direct downstream consequence to the policies that things like the Trump Vance administration are pumping out, including with its younger sex. That is the policy that translates into it. Like, what is the fundamental or substantive difference between that level of conspiracy theory brained and what the federal government is doing in its entirety under Donald Trump? To try to tilt elections in Donald Trump's favor and tried to corrupt free and fair elections in the United States is all based on conspiracy theory mongering and bullshit. That just is as true as a lot of the other stuff that that Heritage, former Heritage guy was sounding so distrustful of. So like, you know, please fucking spare me. But to your question about, okay, what do I make of all of this World War II revisionism? I don't know, man. Like you and I, we, we're a little naive and a little lib brained here. Consider the bad guys in World War II to be the Nazis. Right? The fascist side. I don't know. Who are they going after, man, during that whole thing?
- [15:08]
Will Sommer
They don't like Churchill.
- [15:09]
Aswin Soob Sang
They don't.
- [15:10]
Will Sommer
Well, kind of the argument briefly is that like, it's sort of like, you know, if you only gave Hitler what he wanted, there wouldn't have been World War II.
- [15:17]
Aswin Soob Sang
What did Hitler want?
- [15:18]
Will Sommer
Is true. Yeah, right. What exactly was it that he wanted? So, you know, before we move on to it, I do want to say, obviously you've done, you bent a lot of elbows, let's say, at the Maga bars. You've been out in the, you know, with these characters in the past. What is the mood as, you know, as we were talking about these Heritage foundation kind of Trump World characters, Trump World hangers on, you know, whatever. What is the mood in MAGA D.C. these days in the second Trump administration.
- [15:43]
Aswin Soob Sang
Well, before we get into that, I don't want any of your listeners to accuse me of dodging a question. The answer is those people don't like Jews and they don't like communists and they don't like minorities and they don't people like people they label as communists. So there you go. It's a pretty straightforward answer. They're not having an intelligent historical debate of like was Stalin evil? Did Churchill and the Brits behave like the Nazis in India? They're not doing that. I guess that's number one. Did you have anything clever to add on that or does that basically sum
- [16:10]
Will Sommer
it all up so you know, you are familiar, you're someone who's been out in the MAGA nightlife, you know these characters. What is the mood right now in, in sort of second Trump administration MAGA DC?
- [16:21]
Aswin Soob Sang
Well, the thing that looms larger than anything I would have to say is Trump's illegal war on Iran right now. I'll put you like this. For so much of the past couple of years, starting with the 2024 campaign, but also with the formation of the new Trump White House under the watchful eye of Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, there was this sort of self created mythologizing that Team Trump would constantly put out, including in the conversations with reporters, including, but not limited, of course, to people like myself, where they would say it's like, okay, obviously there are leaks in this administration that happens with literally every federal government. But compared to the arterial spray, the geyser of press leaks and backstabbing and backbiting that you had with Trump Term one, particularly within its earliest years, we're running a really tight ship here. Like the people here aren't gossiping as much on each other. There's more loyalty, there's more cohesion. And look at this Trump White House, you nosy reporters. Isn't it a lot harder to get good, substantive, incredibly meaty, real time leaks about this compared to when people like Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus were running the show for the majority of the past year and a half of Trump 2.0? That has been broadly correct. Yes, of course, there have been leaks here and there. People like myself have been able to get reporting and different scenes and certain things you're trying to suss out. It has been significantly more difficult for the majority, I emphasize, over the past year and a half. The thing, not the only thing, the Epstein file stuff did have an effect on this, but the biggest thing that returned the quality and quantity of leaks from senior officials to political reporters in a way that really does remind me of the first year of Trump's first term is the Iran wars, because it broke open fissures and tensions and disagreements within the upper, upper echelons of the Trump administration that not even the Epstein files debacle did. It led to a lot more concern about is this the thing that actually brings down the second Trump presidency? Among the creme de la creme, I'm talking about like the upper crust of Magellan, it led to more backstabbing and leaking against one another when people were trying to say, oh, don't blame me, blame this guy. And that's continuing to this day. So it ramped up not just among Trump, but many of his senior lieutenants and cabinet officials. The amount of paranoia that is kind of like that was only gurgling beneath the surface mostly for the past year and a half. And it's just brought it back in a way that it's like, yeah, okay, you're self mythologizing about what a tight ship Susie Wiles is running. That is primarily out the fucking window. And it has made a lot of these guys super depressed. I know how much Bulwark readers and viewers care about the well being and self care and mental health of senior Trump officials. It has fucked them up in a way that is genuinely new to me of covering this for the past 18 months, however many months it is to the point where, and I've done some reporting about this at Zateo in recent months, no matter how much public bravado these guys put on, if you talk to people like say Pete Hegseth or Stephen Miller or you talk to people who talk to them, if those guys are just going to lie to you through, through their teeth, those people will tell you in the privacy of their own phones or homes or whatever that people like Hegseth, Miller and other top, top senior officials are genuinely worried about accountability. If the Democrats take back power, or once they're out of power and Trump is out of office, even if he gives them a whole raft of preemptive federal pardons, which I think we all know he's going to, he's already had conversations about it internally. They're worried about lawsuits, they're worried about Capitol Hill investigations, local and state prosecutors, the list goes on. It is something they're viscerally worried about. And the Iran war is one of many components that have fed into that. This, this whole veneer of supposed invincibility that the Trump White House has been trying to put forward this swagger for the past almost couple of years. It is built on fiction. Some of these people are scared shitless about that stuff. And again, just ask them. Just ask them if you get the chance.
- [20:50]
Will Sommer
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- [24:39]
Aswin Soob Sang
I love the way you ask these questions, as if you're like George Stephanopoulos, as if there isn't just one correct answer. No, you just shove as much money. Look, okay, something that kept recurring to me as I was reporting on this iteration of Trump's Western wing is that different aides and officials would tell some version of the same joke to me over the past, let's just say 12ish months, they've been telling me, you know, a funny thing about this term about Trump 2.0 is that he will Leave the White House. President Trump will leave the White House and be a real billionaire for the first time is in, in his entire life. Meaning what they're referring to is all the different ways, ways that he and his family have been allowing people to and also taking, honestly, let's just be clear, but also allowing so many different powerful interests just to shove as much money as possible into their family coffers and in their pockets simply because of the Trump families proximity to power of the most powerful man in the entire world. And also just Trump just reveling in it. He has told people privately that he was stupid to have left so much money on the table when he was serving his first term. Everybody does it, wouldn't you? There's nothing wrong with it. That's how he thinks. Because of course, as we know about Donald Trump, he doesn't really see a line between the public good and his own good. That's kind of like the morally depraved capitalist we're working at with the game show aristocrat in power. So there are a couple of things I think about constantly with all these people who are just rushing day in and day out to shove as much money in the Trump family's pockets as possible. You remember that stupid meme coin? Was it the Trump meme coin, the Melania meme coin that he did right at the start of January 2025? Basically it was this thing where just in and of that one little coin, you talk to a lot of good government experts and they're not exaggerating when they say just that one action at the very, very start of his second administration made him the most far and away, hands down corrupt president in American history. And that was literally one thing he's done. There's been roughly a billion things in the cavalcade that's followed in the past year and a half. I remember doing reporting on that coin where Trump was telling people at Mar a Lago at that stage in the new Trump Vance era, he was telling people, including Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill that you got to get in on this. It's all a scam, Am. It's all a joke for these people. And not only is Trump and his goons, his family, just robbing people blind, the scariest part of it is that I think the vast majority of robbing they're doing right now, these people are letting them do it. They're happily doing it. Because if you get a chance to pay a bribe, why wouldn't you?
- [27:29]
Will Sommer
I feel like over and over and this is especially the case in crypto, but kind of in Trump world more broadly, there are these people who kind of like, get up to some scheme with someone in the administration or someone in Trump world, and then they end up getting screwed. And they're like, wait a minute, we were supposed to be scheming together. I think of my mind instantly jumps, of course, to the rapper Boozy Badass, who supposedly paid extremely fringe Trump world character Jacob Wohl for a pardon. He obviously did not get his pardon. And now he's best man at your wedding. Yeah. Now he's saying, where is my pardon? And it's one of these things where it's like, wait a minute, you can't be buying a pardon in the first place. You're not supposed to be, but I'm sure in this world, you kind of can. Okay, so this Justin sun thing, I thought this quote summed it up perfectly. So this is from the article. Outside investors, including sun, always seemed to lose, while company insiders always won. I thought, surely these people would not do what they did with such a public profile attached. Says, son, welcome to 2026, man. You know, the idea that, like, I surely thought someone associated with the Trump administration wouldn't do something shady for his own personal benefit, I thought the. The threat of a scandal would hold them off. This is just crazy stuff to me. Sorry, buddy.
- [28:37]
Aswin Soob Sang
No, I mean, it's a perfect metaphor for all the other stuff where universities or different institutions or law firms, firms tried to cut deals with Trump early on in this administration. Be like, oh, please leave me alone. We'll shove these millions of dollars into you, like your fake stupid library fund or something else. And will you please just leave us alone? Let us get in on the con that is the Trump Vance era. And you know what Trump is doing with these guys? He's coming after them anyways with the full weight of the federal government. You can pay a bribe, you can pay protection money. It's not going to keep the racket it from bringing the full weight of abusive federal power on your head. Like, how many times does this have to happen for people to stop throwing money at unbridled fascism? It's appalling.
- [29:23]
Will Sommer
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- [31:30]
Rod Dreher
I had hoped that JD Vance would be the guy with whom you were friends. Yeah, it was an interview I did with him in 2016 for the American conservative that launched his political career. It was an accident, but it went mega viral and boom, he was suddenly a bestselling author. We stayed friends after that. I don't know that we're friends anymore. He cut me off after I went to visit late last fall to talk to him about this very thing. Now I'm not going to disclose our conversation, but I will just say that I pointed out to him, these people, the Fuentes, the groipers, all of them are going to destroy conservatism in the Republican party. And I said to him, because of your background, because of your age, you're uniquely positioned to draw a red line there, say no, we are not going to accept that. And I asked him to do it, but it's not my position to say what he said. But I will say firmly, unequivocally, I do not think JD Vance is an anti Semite, I do not think he's a racist at all. But I've written a couple of things since then calling on him to please be a leader, take a stand, take a stand for your own Christian beliefs, for your own wife. But he hasn't chosen to do it.
- [32:55]
Aswin Soob Sang
These guys like Rodrier, what movement do they think they've been a part of? Presumably he wasn't born five hours ago and we're not even talking about like the new anime Nazis who are animating the current 17 to 22 year old Amaga College grassroots or whatever. I'm talking about just like the more old school, quote unquote conservative movement that he's been a part of presumably for decades. Does he think any of these individuals are woke about Jews? Does he think the American conservative movement particularly likes American Jews who are by and large super majority left wing or left leaning? It astounds me whenever these guys go up to figures like J.D. vance and say we need to draw a line in the stand and have the conservative movement be super friendly and woke towards Judaism. When literally everything else on the menu, when you're talking about religion, ethnicities, minorities, everything is on the be as antagonistic or at least unfeeling as possible. Like Rodrigo's not, not even Jewish, right?
- [34:03]
Will Sommer
Yeah, that's right.
- [34:04]
Aswin Soob Sang
Okay, so like if he doesn't want to hate Jews, I have very few positive things to say about Rod Dreher. But that is objectively a good thing. What movement does he think he's been a part of for decades?
- [34:15]
Will Sommer
Well, and you know, Roger is an interesting guy. So you know, he's a guy who's down in Louis, Indiana who's a sort of all these kind of like proto fascist, quasi fascist movements have a sort of these eccentric intellectuals who end up kind of being horrified when the brown shirts take over and saying Rod Dreher, he loved Viktor Orban, he moved to Hungary, he had like a very kind of tortured personal saga with his wife because he moved to Hungary because he was. Viktor Orban's administration really embraced him. You don't see it so much anymore now that Viktor Orban got thrown out. But Roger was really kind of the vanguard of America should be like Hungary, which I don't think really caught on. But basically he was living out there. And again, Victor Orban was this kind of extreme nationalist, kind of fascist figure. And now for Rodrier, he was enjoying the European life. His famous picture of him slurping up oysters, making the soy face where you go like, ah, I love it. And now he's left Hungary, there's a new administration, he's coming back to the US and sort of saying, I don't really like what I helped birth. He's the source of this figure that's supposedly Twitter. 20 to 30% of the young GOP staffers are Groipers. One thing I want to talk about is when we talk about the rise of this racism, this kind of, this fuenteism, whatever, in the young gop, it's not necessarily that all these people are watching Nick Fuentes every night, that they're wearing the groiper shirts to bed or whatever. It's that there's this kind of broader. Well, was the Holocaust, Was that all those figures? Was 6 million really the figure? There's kind of this broader racism, you know, joking, plausible deniability, anti Semitism that I think has really caught on.
- [35:55]
Jace Medical Advertiser
Right.
- [35:55]
Aswin Soob Sang
To your point about someone like Rodrier being, like, appalled by the brown shirts taking over. He just wants them to wear a lighter shade of brown like he's been wearing for a long time. Like, I, I don't see that many.
- [36:08]
Jace Medical Advertiser
Like,
- [36:10]
Aswin Soob Sang
the terrain of disagreement among these people is so vanishingly narrow, you can barely see it. But, but to your point about, like, okay, when we try to talk more specifically and less in. I don't know if abstract is the right word here, but when you talk about this kind of like, intense, not just anti Semitism, but all kinds of tolerated bigotries in this new kind of more in your face Trump era form that has taken over elite institutions and sub movements in the Republican Party and conservative movement, I completely agree with you that it's like, okay, are some of them, like, hardcore true believers on this stuff? And that you or I or another reasonable person might characterize as. You're kind of like a national Socialist here. Sure, of course. But I would wager that the vast majority of them sort of perform this sort of like footsie tolerance with it, where they treat the occurrences of it as A college Republican back in the day, like decades ago, a millennia ago, when you and I were high school or college age, where a college Republican chapter might have treated a catch an illegal immigrant or an illegal alien kegger themed party during their time. You know, I mean, like how people got in trouble for that because obviously there was like an insane amount of racism to it or theme parties that might include someone slipping in, in blackface, that person, whatever their politics would probably not be like, okay, yes, of course I agree with all the politics of the original film, the Birth of a Nation, but there was a winking tolerance of that kind of kitschy racism where it was just like, this is, we're almost being ironic about it. Why are you being so politically correct? I'm just doing this to trigger you. I, I'm not, not, I'm not a Nazi, I'm not a Klansman. And you can kind of see where idiot young people come across with that. It's just that the problem is the Overton Window has been moved so far to the far right that their version of that is like flirting with things like Holocaust denial, which I think is a little bit different than cash and illegal immigrant kegger parties, as disgusting as those were.
- [38:29]
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- [40:04]
Will Sommer
Still moving deals forward from your desk.
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Aswin Soob Sang
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Will Sommer
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- [42:05]
Aswin Soob Sang
Well, all true. All true. You said nothing there that I detect is a lie.
- [42:10]
Lisa (Licensed Psychotherapist)
Okay.
- [42:12]
Aswin Soob Sang
I have to admit that in recent years, I have been sort of slow to catch on to the demon craze and the demon panic, which is kind of just feels like a new iteration of the whatever, the, the kind of fake, kind of not fake, satanic panic of like, was it the 1980s or whatever. It kind of feels like a newer Gen Z or millennial iteration of that. I was a little slow to catch on to it and rolled my eyes at it a little bit, being like, okay, I don't think that many people think of this. They believe in a lot of kooky, fake, highly destructive and bigoted stuff. But the demons thing, okay, that's just not, I don't need to pay attention to that too much. You tell me if I am correct in saying that I think I was a little bit wrong and naive about that. I think that there are way too many performative professional right wingers and commentators in the broader MAGA sphere or hard right movements in the United States who throw around demonic possession as almost like a litmus test. Like, if you're speaking the right language in the same way that that, like ultra lefty DSA communities in the United States use the word praxis. It is a thing. Right? Like, I'm not wrong to say that, am I?
- [43:28]
Will Sommer
No, I think that's real. I, I, I think it's sort of a sign of, you know, like, I'm, I'm really, you know, because it's, because it's something that can be made fun of too. It's almost like saying like, abolish the police or something. Like you're sort of, you're, you're putting up a table stake. Right. Like when Roger says, I, I took the demon seriously. And then. And Jeremy Warren says, oh, me too. And I think the demon thing also marked a new level for Tucker, taking it back to the physical realm. We got a new proof of life, supposedly on Mitch McConnell yesterday. We got a picture once again of him in the hospital being kind of right next to his wife, some might say propped up. We'll see. Now Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is demanding verbal proof that Mitch McConnell has the capacity to serve as a senator or he's saying either or he should resign. What do you think of the Mitch McConnell situation? What do you believe about his phys. What's going on here?
- [44:17]
Aswin Soob Sang
Have you ever seen the movie Dead Silence?
- [44:20]
Will Sommer
No, I haven't. Tell me more.
- [44:21]
Aswin Soob Sang
It's been out since George W. Bush was in office. I think if I'm spoiling it for anybody right now, turn off the audio. Now, the twist climax at the end is like the old, elderly, desiccated father has been a puppet operated by his wife the whole time. And that's the twist at the end of the movie. So whether or not that is what's happening in reality right now, it's the only thing I think of when I see all of this, these stupid images and photos of Mitch McConnell, who's clearly not going to be around with us for very much longer. Like, look, I will leave the Senate parliamentarian or someone else who is more well versed in these rules than I am to talk about if what he's doing is, or allegedly doing is procedurally savvy. But Mitch McConnell clinging on for dear life at the end, just so procedurally and tactically he can provide a slight fleeting advantage to the Republican Party elite, is maybe the most Mitch McConnell way he could possibly go out if he is indeed close to being on death's door. The second thing I'll say about it, since you're just asking me about my random thoughts about this whole thing that's been going on, I haven't been thinking about that much, and I am not in the business of celebrating anybody's death. All I'm saying, saying is what I think will objectively transpire on the Internet and elsewhere in the United states when Mitch McConnell finally goes, it will be a dry run and a simulacrum. It'll be a tiny taste of what it will be like. The roars you will be hearing when a certain sitting President of the United States finally passes away.
- [46:01]
Will Sommer
You mean from, from their, their critics from the left?
- [46:04]
Aswin Soob Sang
I'm not sure we've, we're emotionally prepared for the cacophony that we're going to hear when it's finally announced that Mitch McConnell has passed. When it comes to Donald Trump, Idi Amin lived to be like a thousand and two. So I, I, I have been long convinced that Donald Trump will outlive me, you know, but we'll see.
- [46:21]
Will Sommer
On the topic of Mitch McConnell, our colleague Andrew Egger has a theory that, you know, is gaining some traction. People are saying that basically Mitch McConnell maybe is just laying low until the fight over the Save act blows over. He doesn't want to get caught up between John Thune, Donald Trump. What do you make of that theory?
- [46:39]
Aswin Soob Sang
Well, I would like to think that I think Mitch McConnell is a grandfather. I would like to think that he'd be a good enough grandfather that if he had a choice between, okay, my days and maybe even hours are limited. I'm going to spend it with the people who love me instead of kind of trying to figure out with John Thune about, okay, how do we figuratively, I guess, stop the mad king from lopping our heads off because we won't try to rig every single election in the United States to his liking. I would like to think he'd be a good enough grandfather to make that choice.
- [47:11]
Will Sommer
Oh, I think he'll be scheming till his last day. He loves it. You know. I'm sorry. I've got it. That's a very sweet thought.
- [47:18]
Aswin Soob Sang
That's why I phrased it as a hypothetical.
- [47:21]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Man.
- [47:21]
Aswin Soob Sang
I think I'm more on your side on this, but good luck to, to you, McConnell.
- [47:26]
Rod Dreher
Sure.
- [47:27]
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- [48:59]
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- [50:00]
Will Sommer
So on another topic, Andrew and Tristan Tate, the infamous manosphere figures. I know guys who inspired you a lot. You know, they're no, I shouldn't even say that, but they are currently in jail in Florida. You know, they're facing sex trafficking charges, rape charges, you know, even, you know, extreme pornography charges. All this stuff is they await extradition to the uk. These are guys who, you know, twisted way, you know, had a friendship with Baron Trump, with Don Jr. They've talked to them positively. The Trump administration has intervened on their behalf in the past. Now their lawyers are hoping that the Trump administration and Marco Rubio, who's kind of involved here because it's an extradition, will step in and save them. Swin, what are you hearing if anything? I mean, you know, administration's been saying they're essentially going to throw the Tates under the bus. They're not going to help them on this one. What do you think is going to happen here?
- [50:50]
Aswin Soob Sang
I think there's a very high probability that they do do that. I mean, they've got a lot of stuff going on, a lot of alleged and real crimes to cover up for. I think this ranks pretty low on the priority list, at least right now. But we'll see what happens. I'm willing to eat my hat on that prediction. I think the scandal is twofold that they already reportedly intervened on these guys behalf like some significantly powerful offices in Trump's federal government. This wasn't like a little thing that was done in the past. I don't think we have time to rehash the TikTok of that right now. But it's, it's truly appalling. I encourage your readers to look it
- [51:30]
Will Sommer
up and I mean, I think we can get into it. I mean, basically they're Paul and Gracia, their former lawyer is, is a guy who's in the Trump administration in various roles. He also had a, you know, speaking of griperism, kind of a pro Hitler text message leak. That kind scotched his Senate confirmation to a roll. But he's still around and he had intervened to get them their devices back after they were seized last year when they went to Florida. So they've helped them in small ways. But I guess you're saying that you think stepping in on an extradition is probably going to be too much.
- [51:59]
Aswin Soob Sang
Sure. But now the more I say it, the more I'm reminding myself of every time I say, oh, there's no way President Trump or this gang will do our thing. Probably 8 to 9 out of 10 times I'm proven wrong. I'm like, why did I ever, ever, you know, say that? But look, whatever they do or don't do, the scandal has already occurred and it's twofold because number one, them lifting a finger at all for these guys in the corrupt, measly MAGA way that they did, it's both completely shocking and completely in keeping with the pattern of everything that the Trump Vance administration does basically every minute of every day. And I think the other side of the coin of the scandal is that, that I guarantee it, that as plugged into politics as your subscribers are, that there's a good chance many of them, if not most of them, don't really know what we're talking about or haven't really heard of it. That's largely because in national media it has gotten a shockingly thin amount of play just because there is so much other objectively worse stuff going on. It's wild that this thing, which I think would have over run the priorities and agenda of basically any other administration, it'd be broadcast on cable news constantly, it'd be a massive, potentially White House dooming scandal, is just another day Ending in Y. Another minute, ending in the letter E. You can say that about so many outrages and abuses and policy debacles of this administration, where you and I can just go down the list and be like, how is this not leading the networks and the papers every single day? Oh, that's because it's buried under a mountain of literally dozens of objectively far worse things. And whenever I think of the Trump administration and the Tates, it definitely falls into that category for me. And think about it. When we were working together at the Daily beast in Washington, D.C. covering the first Trump administration, don't you think you and I would be talking about this and be invited to talk about this on CNN or MSNBC a lot more than we have been. If this happened in, like, 20 years, 2018. It's just remarkable.
- [54:00]
Will Sommer
It is striking that. I mean, these are like. And the New Yorker, New York Times have done a lot of reporting on this relationship. It is striking. These guys are like the worst of the worst, really. Among all these allegations. I mean, these rape allegations, choking women until they pass out and then raping them. I mean, twisted, truly twisted stuff. And yet the administration has helped them. Rick Grenell spoke to Romanian officials. Suddenly, the Tates were allowed to leave Romania. I mean, really vile people who are getting help from the administration. You would think it would be a bigger scandal, but as you said, there's so much going on. I wanna talk about the tweets Andrew Tate has supposedly been sending from jail. Now, look, I think someone is kind of freelancing these tweets for him. I don't think he has a phone in there. He claims he's in jail next to a cannibal. Seems a little. Seems a little untrue. I know, I know, I know. Poor cannibal, right?
- [54:48]
Aswin Soob Sang
Is the guy hungry?
- [54:49]
Will Sommer
Yes, exactly. Oh, yeah. You know what? Then this other one had me cracking up on Monday. He's. He said for the people holding signs outside the jail, it's very high up here, and the smaller signs are hard to read, but I can feel every word. Thank you. As though, number one, it's a little like, thanks for showing up with the signs, but could you make them a little bigger? Could we get a couple people to hold a big sign so I can see it? But what's striking here is, in fact, there was one guy that tweet would suggest for the mobs of fans. And I read that and I thought, really, Is there a big contingent? No, there's nothing. There's one guy, I think a sign says that Tates are heroes. And even then, Andrew Tate's like, your sign's a little beta, buddy.
- [55:28]
Aswin Soob Sang
You know this world better than I do. What could the Trump administration beyond just aberrant vice signaling, which is perhaps their top policy concern nowadays? Besides that, what could they possibly have gotten for kind of hitching themselves to the Tate brothers wagon and doing them any favors in past era and administrations, like when the Reagan administration did horrific things, covering for, like, the butchers and serial killer style generals of, like, El Salvador, that was horrifying, but made sense because they got something out of it. There was a policy move in that part of the world where they wanted them to help consummate. What do they possibly get this administration looking out for the take, brother?
- [56:16]
Will Sommer
I mean, basically, I think probably there is a shared misogyny, as you said. I mean, as you said, there is no true policy benefit, let's say. But I mean, I think there is. The administration clearly has an interest in promoting a culture of impunity when it comes to crimes against women or sort of the idea that certain people are above the law. I think we've seen that with the pardons. We've seen that obviously Donald Trump has faced sexual assault, rape allegations. It doesn't really make sense and yet they've done it before. I think also there's kind of a unique thing going on here with the uk, where for so long there's this obviously very close relationship with the American and the British, right? And there's this sense that the UK justice system is, like, illegitimate somehow. Like they didn't look into enough immigrant sex crimes and that they punish free speech and all this. So I think kind of specific to the uk. I mean, we've seen this Republican Congressman Abe Hamade from Arizona, the fellow with the very fancy office and the photo shoots with his interns. I think he's headed for a couple more interesting storylines. He came out, he's close with Rick Grenell. He said, the Tates, you know, we have to have this presumption of innocence. Paul and Gracia, currently in the administration, came out and said, you know, we got to, you know, we have this presumption of innocence, so we can't extradite these guys. I guess the links are a lot more than you would like to see. Even if, even if Rubio ultimately doesn't step in here.
- [57:33]
Aswin Soob Sang
I like it where the presumption of innocence is deployed when it comes to the Trump events, administration, like the people for which they're like, oh, that to be presumed Innocent due process for some reason. It exists for basically no one else, especially if you've pissed off or annoyed Donald Trump. But, oh, for the Tate Break brothers,
- [57:50]
Will Sommer
if you're a guy on a boat in the Caribbean, you know, it's shoot on sight. But for the Tate brothers, who have had literally, you know, these allegations in multiple countries now, you know, hey, let's hold up, you know, as though they can't get a fair trial in the uk, you know. On another note, you recently posted on Blue sky, where you're very active, about a guy named Imam Ayman Soliman who the Trump administration tried to disappear. Tell me about that story.
- [58:12]
Aswin Soob Sang
Okay, so he was a guy who, by the way, I live in the Cincinnati metropolitan area.
- [58:17]
Rod Dreher
Area.
- [58:18]
Aswin Soob Sang
Go Bearcats. And this was a guy who worked at Cincinnati's Children's Hospital for quite some time as a Muslim chaplain. He had a reputation in the area over years for being someone where people worked at the hospital, people worked in different communities, interfaith, etc. Etc. They would constantly say, this guy is the real deal. He's there for parents. Parents and people, you know, oftentimes their very worst situation when it comes to their children's or babies at Children's Hospital. Like, I would talk to people about this and so many different people would say, like, he's a living saint. They would use extreme terms like that. So in 2025, at an ICE facility that I didn't know was basically walking distance from where I'm sitting right now, he went in for regular check in. They gave his him no opportunity to appeal or deal with in ways that other governments and other administrations definitely would have given the situation he was dealing with. I don't have to rehash it now. It's going to take too much time. But basically they just said, okay, no, we're taking you to Butler County Jail, which is a somewhat nearby Ohio jail, and keep it there because you. They didn't say it in these terms, but all of these different ICE offices have their orders from Washington. They have their orders for Stephen Miller's quotas and their arrest. Quotas. Quotas. They gotta take them in. So the community or certain communities, I don't want to speak about it as if it's a monolith, but in the Cincinnati area, so many ordinary people organized constantly to stand up to the Trump administration's efforts to try to disappear this guy back to Egypt, saying, he is someone we consider even a pillar of our community. We love him. You are not taking him without a fight. And the Fight went on for quite some time. He was jailed at Butler county for extended period of time. I think it was about two months. I forget exactly how many weeks Congressman Greg's landsman and people like that were looped in and did get involved pretty behind the scenes on this. And this was a guy who the Trump administration, via their public communications from the Department of Homeland Security and also their arguments, their lack of laughable, shitty, thinly sourced arguments in court. We're throwing so much at this guy, trying to paint him as a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer, as someone who needs to be cleansed from the United States. They put a lot of effort and legal and political resources into getting this guy out. But the backlash and the resistance from ordinary Ohioans and others was so sustained and so strong that the administration did cry uncle. I'm not saying they might not come back to him later, but as of right now, now he's been a free man for several months. And he told me last night that as of April of this year, he has been working again as a chaplain for Tri Health, doing what he loves, doing what he thinks that his faith and his God has put him on this planet to do. So the reason I've been following and reporting on this story so closely, because it is just one of so many instances across this country, the vast majority of which you and I are probably never going to hear, hear about showing that resistance works. Trump, J.D. vance, Marco Rubio, all those guys control the federal government. They're going to win a lot of battles. But it is an example of how when ordinary people just stand up across the country and say, you will not get away with this without a fucking fight, it can work. And it does work. And it's, it, it's such an interesting story of how community, when they come up and stand up for each other every once in a while, you can beat back the fascist behemoth, whether briefly or permanently.
- [62:00]
Will Sommer
You know what? I would love to just kind of end it on there. A rare bit of good news. That's a happy story to hear and thank you for your reporting on it. You know, Swin, can you tell people where to find you?
- [62:10]
Aswin Soob Sang
I am very active on bluesky. I don't tweet anymore. My account is kind of on Twitter X whatever, zombified. But at swin24 you can find me on bluesky. I post way too much there about the off campus TV and book series. So come, come for the Trump hell world reporting. Stay for the OC stuff as I like to call it. And@zetao.com where I'm the senior political correspondent, you can find my reporting there and the rest of the great work from Mehdi Hasan and the rest of the Zeteo crew. And of course you can find me on my revamped version of Fever Dreams, which I'm plotting to cut, will summer out entirely. Just to see. I'm gonna see if I can host it with Tom Hanks instead of Willson.
- [62:55]
Will Sommer
Wow. Well, that would certainly outshine me in star power. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you everyone for listening. Tim will be back on Monday. Thanks everybody.
- [63:15]
Aswin Soob Sang
Everybody like.
- [63:22]
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The Borg Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [63:34]
Shannon Maldonado
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- [64:03]
Aswin Soob Sang
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