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- [00:00]
A
Hey everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Book. I'm here with Will Sommer for a special ish edition of Maga Mondays. It's Thursday. Also, we're not live, we're recording this, which means it's going to be a more proper buttoned up version of Maga Mondays, but it won't have that high wire act that makes the show so fun. Will, Happy Pre fourth to you, buddy. How you doing? How's Aspen, buddy?
- [00:23]
B
Oh yeah, yeah. I was out at the Ideas Festival and it was good. It was cooler, it was a good crowd. And also just recently we dropped the Four Hour Trio compilation on our YouTube channel, which I didn't expect. So that was a nice treat. And yeah, just overall good scenes and bulwark fans out there.
- [00:42]
A
I'm not trying to say this in any way to besmirch you, but the idea of you at the austere Aspen Ideas Festival doesn't quite compute in my brain. Do you have ideas that aren't Internet riddled and filled with grotesque examples of Maga at its worst?
- [01:00]
B
Well, you know, it's funny you say that during our presentation. I did say I had sort of occasion to talk about like the Richard Nixon fandom online. I was talking about people who call Richard Nixon baby doll and baby girl and make like Charlie XCX edits about him. And so those are the kind of ideas I bring to the table when you invite me to your kind of highfalutin festival.
- [01:21]
A
Yeah, well, we're going to start with a really high minded topic in honor of the Austin Idea Festival. We're talking about John Rocketelli. I think I butchered it he by Manny. You and Tim talks about him. This is the guy who showed up at the Freedom American Festival. Freedom 250, the great American State Fair, whatever we're calling it. And he basically tried to pledge himself to some. What was it?
- [01:48]
B
Acrobats.
- [01:48]
A
They were like Acrobats. Yeah, as one does, you know, just standing there putting his hand in his pants. May or may not have been jerking it. We don't know. I'm not going to get into the specifics of it, but he.
- [01:59]
C
You.
- [01:59]
A
You talked about this with Tim. We have a couple developments as we are recording on Wednesday, but explain before we get to the new developments, just for the uninitiated, who might be like, what the hell are you talking about? What are we talking about?
- [02:12]
B
Yeah, this is breaking news. So basically last week there was this guy at the Great American State Fair, this kind of C tier MAGA influencer who's kind of affiliated with the January 6th people named Manny Rocketelli or Jean Rocketelli. And he was dressed as Uncle Sam and wearing overalls. And he was watching. He was one of five people watching any performance at a. At the state fair. And in this case, he was watching. They have, like, jugglers, this thing called the Cirque Mechanic, and they have jugglers and they have acrobats and people doing the hula hoop and what have you. And now, allegedly, according to the police report, several people noticed him, you know, pleasuring himself, cranking it whatever to during this performance, and he was arrested. And as you said, Tim and I did a video on this last week, but now we have a new development. So as a result, he was arrested. You know, he's been tweeting, you know, I sure triggered those libtards. And it's like, well, that wasn't quite what happened. But he, as a result of this, is facing a stay away order from the National Mall. So they say, just stay off the mall. Alleged creep. Don't come back. But he now has a new filing, and I have to thank Twitter friend anarchy Princess who's been following this case very closely. He has a new filing to get himself back on the Mall. Basically, he's arguing that he was just engaged in protected free speech. And you can't ban a patriotic American from the whole.
- [03:39]
A
All right, okay. So in the court filing, he says it reads this, the stay away order is over. Broad. This is his court filing challenging the order according to DC Code 2313 21. I'm assuming you know that. Well, the court must impose the least restrictive forms of conditions. Other insure. Forms of conditions. Other insurer. Man, they really have typos in this. The defendants return to court and or the safety of the community. All the alleged activity occurred in the vicinity of the Cirque Mechanic stage area. While Mr. John Rocketelli was dressed in a red, white and blue patriotic Uncle Sam outfit, he engaged in political and patriotic expressions of free speech during the day. An overly broad prohibition against him from entering the National Mall entirely constitutes an unnecessary restriction of his constitutional rights. You got the right to jerk it. Come on now. Additionally, Mr. Rocketelli and his wife have purchased plane and hotel tickets to fly to Washington D.C. from July 1st through the 5th to attend the Great American State Fair. He is concerned that in addition to the financial harm, the current restriction publicly brands him as excluded from a major patriotic event and contributes to damaging his reputation. Therefore, defendant moves this court to change the stay Away order to quote no hats, H A T S and caps, or to limit the geographic area to the area in the closer vicinity of where the alleged misconduct occurred. Specifically to the area within 50 yards of the Circ Mechanics Performance Stage located at 12th street in Jefferson Drive. So as I read it, he's like, Look, I'll stay 50 yards from the Circ Mechanics, which, you know, may, you know, that could be the problem here, but I have to go to the fair. And also putting my hands in my pants is. Is free speech.
- [05:27]
B
Let me eat the melted ice cream. Let me see some Fox News broadcast with a dozen people, whatever. But basically, and I should say, when he says no hats there, that's a reference to this idea. You can get a kind of restraining order that is like, specifically, it's not just about space. It's saying you can be in this person's vicinity, but you can't harass them, assault them, threaten them. That's the hats. And so he's saying I should be allowed back, but as long as I behave myself, essentially.
- [05:55]
A
Is that acknowledging that he didn't behave himself? I don't think he's doing that right.
- [05:58]
B
No, he's saying it should be less restrictive. So rather than saying, just don't go anywhere near there, he's saying I should be allowed back, but the rules should say I can't be a bad boy.
- [06:06]
A
Do you think this constitutes a constitutionally protective free speech, what he did?
- [06:10]
B
Well, I was struck by the fact that he's arguing he was only engaged in patriotic free speech. It certainly is a freedom of a kind. I don't think it's legal, though. And so it's the idea that he's like, I just have to go back to D.C. with my wife to the scene of the crime.
- [06:27]
A
Oh, man. Is he still a cause on the right? Like, I know they were initially rallying behind him, but now that they know more information, do they seem to be reassessing their priors?
- [06:37]
B
Only sort of his hardcore fans, I think, the people who really tuned into his live stream. I mean, to be clear, I had never heard of this guy before this happened. I guess he's associated with, like, Jake Lang, the J6. Really anti Muslim, anti Jewish guy. All these guys. The guy also the guy who was, like, touching women's hair on the Metro J6 guy. So, like, a lot of unsavory characters this guy associates himself with. And obviously now he's, you know, purportedly become one of them.
- [07:01]
A
I'm a little bit. I want to know more about Cirque Mechanics, like I've never heard of them before. I was thinking Cirque du Soleil, but it's not that. Is this just a bunch of trapeze artists and gymnasts? Is that it?
- [07:15]
B
Yeah, that's right. I mean, kind of like a lot of performances at the state fair. I don't think there's a huge fan base that goes along with them. You know, I, I think, yeah, it was kind of like I caught a little bit of it. I think there were some jugglers. You know, it's kind of, you know, certainly from this gentleman's livestream, you know, he watched the trapeze or the acrobats and then when the fellas come on he goes, oh, who cares, let's go get some pizza or whatever.
- [07:40]
A
I mean, I'm looking at some images of them now and I don't want to get too gross about it, but like it's not in any way sexual. I just want to point out it's
- [07:50]
B
not like a burlesque situation or something like that. And I mean, so it is. We'll have to see what the government says. But I could see them arguing like, well, you know, even though this activity particularly occurred around the circus, you know, perhaps we don't want you repeating that activity at another one of the stages or.
- [08:10]
A
Exactly. That was my point. It's like it wasn't like this was a risque show that like he couldn't control his urges. This is like it takes a real deviant to, to, to put your hands in your pants at, at the Circum Mechanics Show. And I don't think like just restricting him to the 50 yard radius around them is, is the solution here, but I might be a prude or a libtard, so who knows? What's the vibe around the. We've had now like three straight days, four straight days of just absolutely brutal coverage of this fair because no one's there. And now, I mean, we're sitting here now. It's going to hit 99 today in D.C. with a heat index of 100. How are they? What is the vibe here? Like, surely they can't continue to pretend like this thing is a success.
- [08:55]
B
Yeah, I mean, you know, people have described it as like a liminal space, like the back rooms. People have described it as hellish. You know, it is. Have you been down?
- [09:03]
A
No, I have no desire.
- [09:05]
B
Well, I would get down there if I were you, but I think for the average person, you stay away. You know, it's. Yeah.
- [09:10]
A
Why do you want Me to get down there.
- [09:11]
B
Well, you know, I feel like you're kind of my. You know, we gotta experience these things together, you know, so that we can.
- [09:18]
A
That's why we do this broadcast, so I can just live vicariously through you.
- [09:22]
B
That makes sense. But overall, I went. And it wasn't even that high. It was in the 80s, and I felt just really trapped there. There was truly no point. One thing that struck me is it seems tactically unwise for the president, someone who is so obsessed with crowd size. Already there's not that many people there, but then you're stretching it out over a period of two weeks, so each day there's just not gonna be that many people. And you also have all the attractions on. And then in the center, you have the National Mall. And so even if I think some days there's, like, a decent amount of people there for like, maybe like a local mall or something. Certainly not the National Mall, but, like. But then in the center, you just have this huge empty space, because you
- [10:05]
A
can't get into the center without going through some sort of checkpoint, basically.
- [10:09]
B
Well, there's just nothing to do in the center. So, like, because all the staterooms are off to the side, and so it's just like, well, are you going to go stand around in a grassy field? I mean, certainly some of these videos where it's like a band of, like, you know, they got, like, the Polyphonic Spree, essentially, they have a band of, like, 30 people to come out, and then you have two people standing in the audience.
- [10:25]
A
Yeah, it doesn't look too great. I. I'm not going to check it out. It's 100 degrees out, and it feels like 110. And, you know, they only have, like, four hydration stations there. And I just. It doesn't seem appealing to me. It has nothing to do with Trump. I just. I just don't want to go down there. Speaking of, like, maga's odd sort of sexual proclivities and weird relationship with sex and all this stuff, have you been following the reaction to the birthright citizenship, where people are going after women and reproduction and all that stuff?
- [10:55]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's getting to really sort of the sort of the sexual, the genetic essence of the American people. But I know you've really been diving in here.
- [11:04]
A
Well, it's like, on the one hand, it's just pure misogyny. Right. They're like, oh, we gotta stop having women justices on the court. It's awful because they all hate Amy Coney Berra. Even though she was just one Robert's cast of O2. And then you have the Shaun Davises of the world saying, oh, we gotta have forced fertilization of immigrants, which is like, truly. What are they sniffing into federalists?
- [11:28]
B
Forced sterilization. Yeah, yeah.
- [11:30]
A
That's why I said forced sterilization. What do you think I said?
- [11:32]
B
I thought you said forced fertilization.
- [11:34]
A
If I said forced fertilization, I got that one wrong. That's not what they want. And then you had Stephen Miller talking with Jesse Waters last night. I know we talked about this on other programs, but I want to bring this up because I. An interesting Twitter exchange with Stephen Miller's wife off of this.
- [11:51]
B
But let's play what Stephen Miller said podcast Impresaria.
- [11:54]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Has she been purchased by Ellison's outfit yet or.
- [11:58]
B
No, I'm not sure about that. I know they were talking about that.
- [12:01]
A
Yeah, they're stitching. All right, here we go. Stephen Miller on Jesse Waters talking about whether we should ban foreign pregnant women from entering the country so that, you know, they may have babies while they're here and therefore their kids might become US Citizens. Let's watch.
- [12:14]
C
So you have to.
- [12:15]
A
Are we banning pregnant women from America? Are we banning foreign pregnant women?
- [12:20]
C
Women? Well, what I'm saying, Jesse, is that you have to now think very carefully about who you let into your country, even on a temporary basis, because the possibility, as you said, for birth tourism. Right. The idea that people come here just to have babies on American soil, and that baby gets to be a citizen for life. So you have mothers that come in fully pregnant, have a baby, go home. And again, that baby gets Medicaid, and that baby gets welfare, and the baby gets cash assistance and can send. Leave the baby with a cousin, a relative, whatever, and then to send welfare checks back home. You can support a whole family.
- [12:56]
A
What do you think? Should we take a hard look at that?
- [13:00]
B
I think we should take a soft, maybe minimal look at that. You are seeing this. I feel like this is a reaction we see regularly from the right whenever they lose a court case or something. And then it's just like, well, now it's really good. Now you've made us mad. We're gonna do the most draconian measures. I mean, I saw people saying, we can't let women under 55 into the. Anyone who could remotely give birth to a child. Something like that. And so, I mean, it is this. I don't think they're going to do it. It sounds like a lot of work, but I do Think it's something we're seeing more of.
- [13:29]
A
Well, it's worth contemplating what they would do if they did do it. And I posted on Twitter that Stephen Miller. I was joking about this. Said Steven Miller is furiously drafting an executive order outfit. Custom station at the US Airports with sonograms under the Defense Production Act.
- [13:44]
D
Ha.
- [13:45]
A
And then I didn't even see it until his wife responded, and she said, you actually just need a rapid pregnancy test sold at all drugstores. Which makes me think that they kind of have envisioned an idea here where it's like, you got to pee on a stick if you want to enter this country. And, you know, I could see them potentially flirting with it or at least contemplating it. It doesn't strike me as crazy for Stephen Miller to make some sort of play for that. Right.
- [14:12]
B
No, I think that sounds believable as something they would at least float. And, you know, when we talked about this earlier, saying you weren't sure if Katie Miller was joking. I mean, I think it's. It sounds like she's not joking. I mean, I think she's kind of figuring out.
- [14:22]
A
She was quick on the. She was quick on the reply. It was like she had. She had thought this through. I felt.
- [14:27]
B
Yeah. I mean, she's. You know, again, I mean, there's a good amount of talk about this on the right.
- [14:31]
A
Why don't they make the men entering have vasectomies?
- [14:35]
B
You know, what that is, is. Is a good take, I think. Should we. Is that the liberal compromise?
- [14:43]
A
We're gonna do it. It's gotta be equal, equally born by men and women. This is misogyny. To just demand that the women have to bear the brunt of this now, this is madness. This is like, you know, these people spend their every waking moment thinking about how immigrants are destroying the country. They have this incredibly warped view of immigration in this country. It feels like it preoccupies the Miller household all the time.
- [15:08]
B
Yeah, I could imagine at the Miller household, there's been a lot of ranting and, you know, ideas here. I mean, it is also crazy. I mean, it's like birthright citizenship, obviously, has already been the law. And so this idea that now we have to take these draconian measures because of this emergency situation, you know, is just really bizarre.
- [15:26]
A
That's a good point. It's been the law. Trump's been the president. They could have dealt with this at any time with their sonograms and pregnancy tests, and yet they haven't, because it's insane. And no one Wants to force women coming into the country to pee on a stick for your pleasure. All right. There's a couple of random topics that you were all hot on a little bit of outside of my wheelhouse. But I'm excited for you to explain this to me. I did see this pop up on the Twitters about Scott Pressler up in North Dakota. Scott Pressler, for folks who don't know, is the get out the vote guru for Republicans. He's got extremely long hair. He's been running around the country for several election cycles now talking about getting Republicans registered. He was big in Pennsylvania. He's kind of an Elon ally in the last election, he's taken it on the chin a little bit. And from my sense that people don't, people kind of think he's kind of a charlatan a little bit. But he does show up. He goes places. And then he went into North Dakota and something happened that I'm not really following.
- [16:30]
B
Yeah, so. So, you know, basically his, as you said, his thing is like whenever there's an election, he'll go to a battleground state and he says, like we're registering a big one, is that he's registering the Amish in Pennsylvania. There's all these, like, the rap on him, the criticism that we see more on the right is that, you know, he kind of just goes somewhere and if they lose, he goes, oh, well, I tried. And if they win, he goes, you know, a huge victory for the Scott Pressler voter registration Army. And that's, you know, his. He also goes by the name the persistence, because he's like the opposite of the resistance, as you said. He's got this huge shoulder length locks of love grown out hair.
- [17:06]
A
I think it's past the shoulder now.
- [17:08]
B
Yeah, no, I think that's fair. But basically the reason he's beefing with John Thune right now, the Senate Majority Leader, is that he wants them to pass or just like Donald Trump, Scott Pressler wants the Senate to pass the Save America act, which is including all these voter restrictions. And obviously, Scott Pressler's thing is voting. And so in this case, last week he shows up at the South Dakota GOP convention and he was Persona non grata. Let's take a look.
- [17:37]
D
Hey, guys, this is Scott Pressler. I'm here at the South Dakota State Convention. I have a ticket and they are saying that I can't come in. So we're gonna find out very shortly why I am not being allowed as one of the biggest supporters of President Donald J. Trump.
- [17:54]
E
I'm big on Facebook too. And I'm the saying, you can't come in because guess what? You're posting this little piss and moan session on Facebook. So you just get the hell out of here. Thank you.
- [18:07]
D
You see? You see how that. You see how the grassroots are welcomed in Senate Majority Leader Thune's territory? Interesting.
- [18:17]
A
My friends, first of all, I aired and said, North Dakota. It's South Dakota. My fault. But man, that woman's face was amazing.
- [18:27]
B
She got like a cowboy hat on. So basically, it seems as though Scott Pressler showed up here. And John Thune, being from South Dakota, I think it's fair to assume he has the state party on lock. And that then people were like, it's Scott Pressler. He's here to cause trouble. Now, this guy here is the sergeant at arms of the local of the state Republican Party. And it's a little unclear if he went rogue. Scott Pressler is also interesting because he has these legions of fans, and he's one of these guys who, if they take a video of you and you throw it up saying, this guy was rude to me, everyone's gonna be like, who's this guy rude to? Scott Pressler. But this guy who busted him or kept him out, kind of an interesting figure himself. Can we throw up his Facebook bio? Matt Bruner. His bio is outlaw biker, Norse warlord, stoic cowboy, sharp dressed gangster. Pick your fighter. I was around motorcycle clubs before that show Sons of Anarchy aired, and he's got a very elaborate facial hair situation. This is a guy who's a colorful MAGA personality in his own right. Certainly not as big as Scott Pressler.
- [19:31]
A
I like the Facebook pict.
- [19:33]
B
He's got a cowboy hat on and he's like, kind of tipping up. Maybe like a espresso cappuccino or, you know, espresso martini. This is what happens when you hang out with the Norse warlord and the stoic cowboy.
- [19:46]
A
Yeah, this guy didn't give a shit. He's like, I'm on Facebook too, motherfucker. He's got 12.5k followers. That's fine. That's a good amount. I mean, if it's not Scott, presto level. But it's fair enough.
- [19:57]
B
I think probably in the South Dakota gop, people were like, oh, oh, that's the outlaw biker.
- [20:01]
A
Yeah, that's our Norse warlord.
- [20:05]
B
So however, as you suggest, Matt Bruner did not have the. I don't know if the motorcycle gang bet clout to fight Scott Pressler. Ultimately the head of the Republican Party there apologized. It looks like this Matt Bruner guy is going to be in some kind of local politico trouble for daring to challenge Scott Pressler and his hair.
- [20:24]
A
Did Pressler get into the convention?
- [20:26]
B
I don't think he did. Ultimately, there was some. Like I said, Scott Pressler has a lot of enemies on the right. And people were saying, well, what was he doing there? Is he just there to stir up trouble? And I think the answer is, yeah, but then people are kind of trying to make this into a. Like, John Thune hates Scott Pressler, which he probably does. But this was some, you know, Thune world said, don't let this, you know. Oh, actually, wait. Sorry. To that point, there was a picture from the convention that supposedly showed the security staff with a sheet of paper that had Scott Bressler's face on it that supposedly was like, do not let this man in. So, you know, there may be something to the idea that this was kind of like a broader.
- [21:05]
A
Scott brother's not like o' Keefe type. He's not. I mean, yes, he causes trouble, but I don't really recall him, like, publicly stirring shit up in viral videos like this. So it seems a little different to me, so.
- [21:17]
B
Or like, like a Laura Loomer like Alex Stein who's going to stand up and just. But I don't know. I mean, they. They really want that Save America Act.
- [21:25]
A
Yeah, they do, and it's not happening, and they're freaking out about it. Okay, well,