Michael Steele: Tripped up by Their Own Lies

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast: "Michael Steele: Tripped up by Their Own Lies"

Date: July 16, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Michael Steele (Former RNC Chair, Co-host of MSNBC’s The Weeknight)

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Episode Overview

This episode takes a no-holds-barred dive into the recent Senate confirmation hearings for the new Attorney General (Todd Blanche) and Director of National Intelligence (Jay Clayton) under the Trump administration's second term. Tim Miller and Michael Steele blast Republican capitulation, mockable administration picks, a culture of humiliation and dishonesty, and the erosion of American civic engagement. They sprinkle in sharp-witted takes on contemporary right-wing masculinity obsession, conspiracy-laden Vice Presidential interviews, and efforts to whitewash uncomfortable American history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Attorney General Confirmation: Todd Blanche

• Blanche's Ties to Trump and Arrogance

  • Blanche, formerly Trump’s lawyer, now up for Attorney General.
  • Michael Steele: "These guys just cannot help themselves right now...they have no self worth. I don't care if you're Marco Rubio...you give yourself over in a way so completely and so fully." [01:38–02:54]
  • Discussion of how the Trump administration, enabled by a submissive GOP, rewards only total fealty.

• Senator John Kennedy’s Exchange—The “Kinsley Gaffe”

  • Tim Miller recaps how Blanche awkwardly fumbled questions about his friendship with Trump, exposing ethical conflicts.
  • “Are you and President Trump friends?” “I’m his lawyer. Was his lawyer, and now I’m the Deputy Attorney General.” [01:25–01:34]

• Historical Parallels to Watergate

  • The hosts reflect on how lessons from previous abuses of presidential power have been forgotten.
  • Michael Steele: "What angers you...is that not only do you live through the insurrection...just four years later you say, let’s do that shit again..." [04:45–06:29]

• Republican Complicity

  • The fantasy of a Senator ‘maverick’ moment debunked.
  • Steele: “They will line up and...give Donald Trump exactly what he wants...I just wish our press would grow the fuck up.” [08:39–09:58]

• Cory Booker’s Cross-Examination of Blanche

  • Booker interrogates Blanche about his leniency toward Ghislaine Maxwell:
    • Did your interview lead to new charges/investigations? “No.” [12:56–13:03]
    • Why was Maxwell transferred to a cushy prison camp? Blanche dodges.
  • Michael Steele: “He is so full of shit...his assumption, and largely correct, is that most people don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about...If you are a prisoner...they don't send you to Club Fed.” [14:19–15:24]
  • Accusation that Blanche was protecting Trump-world secrets, not pursuing justice.

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2. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Confirmation

• Jay Clayton as a Preposterous Pick

  • No relevant national security experience—just transactional corporate law and being a Trump ally.
  • Tim Miller: “He was just a lawyer. He did the Barclays acquisition of Lehman Brothers...doesn’t know anything about national intelligence.” [26:34–27:15]
  • Michael Steele: “The statute...states unequivocally that the Director of National Intelligence must...have extensive national security experience. That's who the DNI should be. Not some M&A lawyer who put together a merger.” [27:15–28:11]

• Senator Jon Ossoff’s Relentless Line of Questioning

  • Ossoff repeatedly presses Clayton to admit who won the 2020 election; Clayton refuses, humiliating himself.
  • Ossoff: “You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you asked to lead America's intelligence community. Isn't it humiliating...?” [21:57–22:16]
  • Steele: “…that humiliation you have to put yourself through, that you consciously agree to...I want this job so bad...I will do whatever he tells me to do. I am that much less of a man...” [22:16–23:07]

• Feigned Ignorance on Fulton County Raid

  • Clayton claims ignorance of a major intelligence story.
  • Steele’s analysis: “He did know about it...The best way for him to answer it was to pretend to be stupid.” [24:32–25:02]

• Dangerous Precedents and Project 2025

  • Steele warns these “hacks” are being placed for a purpose: “to execute...Project 2025 plan to rip the election apart.” [28:11–29:08]

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3. Broader Political and Civic Malaise

• Media and Public Desensitization
  • Stories of ICE abuses, shootings elicit public apathy: “It’s just a dull roar from the American people at this point.” [30:44]
  • Michael Steele laments: “Our civic senses have been dulled, deadened. Our aspirations for the future...are seeping away.” [31:38–32:43]
  • The risk: Americans sleepwalk into a constitutional crisis post-election.

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4. Menace and Clownishness Intertwined: Vice President J.D. Vance on Joe Rogan

• Conspiratorial and Bizarre Content

  • Vance floats theories: Epstein as Mossad/CIA, Israel manipulating America into endless war (but not “manipulating” Trump).
  • Michael Steele: “So now you’re saying...you and the President are so damn dumb...that you allowed Benjamin Netanyahu [to] trick you...and you still don’t know how to end it?” [36:39–37:13]
  • The hosts point out the hypocrisy and lack of accountability in Vance’s narrative.

• Hyper-Masculinity and Food Anxiety

  • The Rogan/Vance “corn dog” discussion leads to a laugh-out-loud segment on right-wing sexual insecurity.
  • Tim Miller: "If you can't eat a corn dog and you're thinking about dicks when Joe Biden's eating ice cream, it feels like you might be a 1 or a 2 on the Kinsey scale." [44:49–45:01]

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5. "Manliness" in the Military

• Testosterone Testing Policy

  • New military screening for testosterone deficiency mocked as performative macho pandering.
  • Michael Steele: “These guys are obsessed about what’s between your legs...I don’t need the Secretary of Defense worried about my testosterone levels. That’s between me and my doctor.” [45:57–49:17]

• Racial Dynamics and Exclusion

  • Steele details how “medical” justifications are used to sideline Black servicemembers.
  • “We know what you want to do with getting black and brown people out of the military...now you want to try to play this other game.” [47:11–48:04]

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6. Whitewashing History

• Removal of Slavery References from President’s House Museum
  • The Trump administration has deleted panels discussing slavery and forced breeding from the Philadelphia President’s House.
  • Michael Steele: “Every time a white person walks out the house and sees a black man or a black woman, guess what, you’ve got history right there in front of you...You can’t erase it. You can’t rewrite it...” [51:03–53:03]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Republican Surrender:
  • “They will line up and...give Donald Trump exactly what he wants, and they will give it to him in the way that he wants it.” (Michael Steele, [08:39])
• On the hearings’ absurdity:
  • “They could sit there and shit on the table, and the Republicans would absolutely go, ‘that’s the best shit I’ve seen in years.’” (Michael Steele, [26:04])
• On the state of the country:
  • “Our civic senses have been dulled, deadened...Stephen Miller knows that, and they keep pounding the same thing to the point where you’re like, ‘alright, fine, whatever, whatever, whatever.’” (Michael Steele, [31:38–32:43])
• On GOP Masculinity:
  • “You'd have to be a very manly man to be able to eat a—confidently, confidently eat a corn dog.” (J.D. Vance parody, [41:46])
• On historical erasure:
  • “Every time you look at a Negro, guess what? That story's there. So just get over your dumb shit and recognize the history of the country.” (Michael Steele, [51:03–53:03])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Blanche Fumbles His Trump Relationship – 01:25–01:34
• Steele on the Culture of Surrender – 01:38–02:54, 04:45–06:29, 08:39–09:58
• Cory Booker Presses Blanche on Maxwell – 12:56–15:24
• Jon Ossoff Berates DNI Nominee – 21:30–22:16
• Jay Clayton Plays Dumb – 24:00–25:02
• Vice Presidential Conspiracies and Food Anxiety – 35:10–37:13, 41:45–45:01
• Manliness and the Military – 45:57–49:17
• Whitewashing History/Slavery Panel – 50:04–53:03

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Tone and Style

The conversation is unfiltered, sharp, and occasionally profane; Michael Steele and Tim Miller mix gallows humor, righteous anger, and cultural references to break down the stakes and the farcical nature of current events. Steele’s rhetorical flourishes and Miller’s sarcasm provide both gravitas and comic relief.

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Closing Thoughts

The episode’s central message: the Trump administration’s reliance on loyalist hacks, humiliation rituals, and the suppression of inconvenient truths pose a grave threat to American institutions, norms, and civic life. Miller and Steele’s rapport keeps the tone lively even when the news is dire, reminding listeners to stay vigilant and engaged.

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For a more in-depth look at the pro-democracy conversation, visit The Bulwark.

Transcript

[Ryan Seacrest]

Foreign.

[Tim Miller]

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted. Welcome back to the show. Co host of Ms. Now's the Weeknight, Also a former chair of the rnc. He was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. It's Michael Steele. What's up, Chairman?

[Michael Steele]

What's up, Big Tim? How you doing, baby? Look at you. Looking good.

[Tim Miller]

I'm doing good. Well, you think so? I don't know. I'm at the end of my wic, man. My vacation starts tomorrow. I got one more after you, so I don't know.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

It might be a little rough.

[Michael Steele]

That's all right, baby. All right. Don't worry. We got you.

[Tim Miller]

I'm just trying to sprint through the tape. Sprint through the tape, man.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

There was a lot of shit happening yesterday.

[Michael Steele]

Yes.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

So we're going to play for a lot of people.

[Tim Miller]

There's a confirmation hearing for the new Attorney General, the new Director of National Intelligence. The Vice President was on Joe Rogan's show and had some interesting theories, much to get through. I guess we'll start with Blanche. It feels like the most important story.

[Michael Steele]

Yeah.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

This president's own attorney being Attorney general.

[Tim Miller]

Why don't we just go straight into that? John Kennedy, my senator from Louisiana, just kind of asked him about his relationship

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

with President Trump, and I think it kind of sums up the whole deal. Let's take a listen to that.

[Tim Miller]

Are you and President Trump friends?

[Todd Blanche]

I'm his lawyer. Was his lawyer, and now I'm the Deputy Attorney general.

[Tim Miller]

They called that the Kinsley gaffe for old Michael Kinsley.

[Michael Steele]

The thing about it is these guys just cannot help themselves right now, a lot of them, because they've had arguably a lot of success bullshitting people and pushing through narratives and upending so much of not just culture and economics, but, you know, the political dynamics that. That have always been in a very important balance between Democrats and Republicans, between our country and the world. And now they sit there in their arrogance, and there's moments like that, you know, and it gets better, you know, when the guy's sitting there referring to himself, you know, you know, as the President's, you know, lawyer. Like, dude, this is not how this works. This is not the role you're supposed to be playing, but it is the role Donald Trump wants them to play. And that's the critical thing, I think, Tim, you've talked about it. I've talked about it. All of these actors are in, are on the stage because that's where they want to be, and they're doing what they want to do for one person and one person only. Their self value is zero. They have no self worth. I don't care if you're Marco Rubio. I don't care if you are this guy.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Michael Steele]

The reality of it is you give yourself over in a way so completely and so fully. It's the only way you get on the stage is the only way you stay on the stage. So there were so many revealing moments yesterday between both of those. The dni, the Attorney General nominees, and how they responded when asked very simple, direct questions. That's when you see that butthole clench up real tight. It gets real tight and they get real nervous and they just start hubba da, hubba da, hubba da. And then the truth slips out.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I mean, there are definitely two ways to go there with Ty Blanche.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

There is the psychology of this. Like, why do you want to humiliate yourself like this? Why do you want to be this person like this? And then there is the serious nature of this thing.

[Tim Miller]

You were around Chairman. You were around after Watergate, right?

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

How old were you back then?

[Tim Miller]

I don't want to age you, but.

[Michael Steele]

Oh, Watergate, I was 15. Around 15, yeah.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

So it's kind of like my version of the Clinton stuff. And it's like, look, that's formative. We made all these changes because the President of the United States was corrupt

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

and he was using the power of the Justice Department to go after his political foes.

[Tim Miller]

And that's not how things should work in a rule of law country. And we realized, hey, okay, we got to make some changes.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

There need to be some more rules, some new laws, some new norms, some

[Tim Miller]

new Morris to like, prevent this from happening again. And like, here we are, and John needs to. All these people are still alive.

[Michael Steele]

Nixon's not.

[Tim Miller]

But, like, it's not as if this was a lesson we learned in the history books even. Right? You know, like, a lot of people lived through this and we're just like, no, fuck it, we're going back. And I guess 51 Republicans are going to be like, yeah, whatever.

[Michael Steele]

Yeah, that's exactly the part. I mean, just the fuck it attitude to me is the most disturbing. And just how easily we slid into it. I mean, it's just. I mean, what. What angers you or dulls your senses about the country so much that not only do you live through the insurrection fermented by the sitting President of the United States and individuals around him, that just four years later you say, let's do that shit again. Let's just Go back there again. And I think a lot of it, Tim, and I've said this from the very beginning, leadership defines. Leadership is an essential element in things that move and shape a city council, a community, a country. When the men and women in power in leadership capitulate and give in, give up, give up on the idea, give up on their own leadership, this is what it looks like, Republicans standing on that stage in 2016. I still, for God only knows what reason, they put Donald Trump's fat ass in the center of that stage. He had no political relevance in the conversation. The only thing he had going for him, that he was a billionaire, purportedly, and everybody started licking his feet and working their way up his legs and the rest of them.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

It's a little early for this.

[Michael Steele]

Thoroughly, thoroughly. In that moment, that give in, that give up set us on a very perilous course. And so now the question is, we sit here and, you know, listen, can we stop playing the bullshit game?

[Unidentified Voice]

All right.

[Michael Steele]

Oh, do you think the Republicans are finally going to break with Trump and not support, you know, the nominee?

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I got a laugh out of this this morning. Chairman, just really quick, just for the record, I want the record to reflect I was watching hearings yesterday, so I'm going to speak in that manner. I said it's early. When you were starting to talk about those people getting lascivious with Donald TRUMP In 2015, you thought I said thoroughly, like I was. Yes. And to you. And I was trying to rein you back in. I wasn't ready for that mental image yet. But anyway, here we are. There's more of that coming.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, there's more coming, baby. I was watching CBS this Morning. I like to check in on what's

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

happening over there on the real news from time to time.

[Michael Steele]

It's still a television station, so I guess they do shit.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

And the reporter, Kaylan Hubern is actually

[Tim Miller]

a good reporter, but she's like talking about how the key vote here is John Cornyn and how John Corden hasn't decided what he's going to do yet because he doesn't have an election anymore to worry about because Donald Trump just

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

totally pantsed him and took away his dignity and supported like a criminal, like, absurd job of the hut looking, cheating, nasty motherfucker instead of.

[Tim Miller]

So anyway, Corn has no reason to do it.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Donald Trump once he actually has good reason to do the opposite. He was questioning yesterday about this weaponization fund blanche and basically saying this isn't dead, though you keep saying it is. It's not. There's no, it hasn't been formally shut down.

[Tim Miller]

And so, you know, they're speculating over there on cbs, like, well, this could

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

be the key vote.

[Tim Miller]

It's just like, guys, I mean, real John Cornyn is going to have his John McCain thumbs down moment right now over Todd Blanche. After a decade, it's just. It's laughing.

[Michael Steele]

Nope, it ain't happening. It ain't happening. I'll be happy to come back on this podcast and need every inch of the words, but it ain't happening. They will line up and they will bend over as they always have, and they will give Donald Trump exactly what he wants, and they will give it to him in the way that he wants it. And so all of this, you know, speculation in our press, I just wish our press would grow the fuck up. I just really wish they would stop. I don't know how much more. Runway, you need to recognize how this administration functions and what this administration's objectives are and how they punk everybody. Everybody, including you. And yet you continue to write stories and tell narratives as if this is George Bush and Barack Obama going at it. This is not that environment that's dead, that's gone. That is in the history books right now. We are living in a new reality politically in this country in which a lot of ugly and very dangerous precedents are being set. And so the concern you should have is not corrective action by the next Democratic administration. Praying for that, but praying that the next Democratic or Republican administration doesn't want to build on this shit and doesn't want to expand it and doesn't want to sit there and say to herself, let me show you how to really do it right.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

We're bringing some competent people in here. We're not going to bring in the president's parking lot attorney to do this stuff.

[Tim Miller]

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[Unidentified Male Co-host]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Unidentified Male Co-host]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Unidentified Male Co-host]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Unidentified Male Co-host]

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[Unidentified Male Co-host]

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[Tim Miller]

I know how it's gonna go, but we'll see.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

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[Tim Miller]

But the political kind of ramifications that

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

could be possible for the Blanche confirmation I think are related to Epstein. And I think that most people don't really know what the Attorney General does. This is not gonna be the swing voter in the Iowa Senate. Racist. Key issue.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe that's not a swing voter.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Maybe it's just somebody who' who's disillusioned by Trump and decides that they're not going to do this, etc.

[Tim Miller]

I want to play the other, I

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

think key exchange from yesterday was with Cory Booker talking about how Blanche moved Maxwell to this Club Fed. After an interview, Booker said, what would you, what would you get out of that interview? Let's watch.

[Cory Booker]

Did Your interview with Ms. Maxwell lead to a Single additional person being charged, yes or no?

[Todd Blanche]

No.

[Cory Booker]

Did it lead to a single new investigation, yes or no?

[Todd Blanche]

I can't talk about whether there's any investigation.

[Cory Booker]

Did you discuss her transfer to another institution? Yes or no?

[Todd Blanche]

No.

[Cory Booker]

Well, just one week after your meeting, Ms. Maxwell was transferred from a low security federal institution to a minimum security prison camp. Were you involved with that transfer?

[Todd Blanche]

When, as I've talked about before, in the time leading up to me going down to meet with her, we learned that she was receiving threats, it turned out.

[Cory Booker]

I'm going to interrupt you for a matter of time because.

[Todd Blanche]

Okay. Well, it's not a question I can answer, apparently, in the term that you're

[Cory Booker]

giving me, sir, I'm going to tell you this because I deal with issues of criminal justice. When people are under threats in a Bureau prison facility, they're put into solitary confinement or protective. They're not moved to a camp.

[Todd Blanche]

That's not always true.

[Cory Booker]

It is. Well, what is true is someone that is accused of child sex trafficking under the Bureau of Prison's own policies is not put in a facility like this. That seems clearly like a reward.

[Tim Miller]

Hmm.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Reward.

[Michael Steele]

He is so full of shit. This is this. I'm glad Corey did what he did because that's just a clear example of how Blanche speaks. And I'll give Blanche credit. He is. He's got a silver tongue of bullshit and he knows how to say the words right. Because his assumption, and largely correct, is that most people don't know what the fuck he's talking about and don't know how the system, the prison system, or the Bureau of Prisons works, what the transfer rules are. Cory Booker does. He was a mayor, right? He's a United States Senator. He deals with these criminal justice issues all the time. So he knows how the prison system works. And he's absolutely right. If you are a prisoner, I don't give a damn what prison you're in. You're in Rikers or the local pokey when you are threatened. They don't send you to Club Fed. They don't send you to the best prison in the country with minimal security

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

like goat yoga, right? You know, got therapy dogs, right?

[Michael Steele]

They don't. They gonna give you a kitty. No, baby, that's not how that works. That's how that works, Todd. Blanche did what the. What the deal was. He gave Maxwell what she needed to keep her damn mouth shut. And I guarantee you on the table is some type of commutation or pardon for this bitch later on. Trust me on that.

[Tim Miller]

This is important.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

When dealing with these liars, right, like,

[Tim Miller]

they construct these lies and they construct

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

these fake narratives and fake stories.

[Tim Miller]

And sometimes rather than going at the

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

fake story, the best way is just to roll back the lens a little bit.

[Tim Miller]

And I like that.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Where Corey started there, which is like,

[Tim Miller]

if you were going to go interview

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Jeffrey Epstein's right hand man, you would

[Tim Miller]

think that, like, the point of that would be to get additional information, right?

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

To find the other pervs, right?

[Tim Miller]

And I said, that's where he starts. I like that, you know, because you

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

know he's going to lie about transferring her to the other prison.

[Tim Miller]

But it's like, wait a minute, right? What were you doing? Like, that was your job. You were the deputy general. You're sitting there with the most notorious child sex trafficker alive in the country. You didn't get another lead? Like, I'm in the Big Lebowski. It's like, leads.

[Unidentified Voice]

Nope.

[Tim Miller]

You know, not why I was there. What about the Credence tapes?

[Michael Steele]

I was there to let her know. You keep your mouth shut. You play ball with Donald Trump in the administration, we will take care of you. That's why he was there. He did not go there to get any additional information to find out anybody else's name. None of that. When you are mentioned 38,000 times in the files, trust me, your lawyer is not going there for any other reason but to protect you, period. That's it. And so I agree. I love the way he set that conversation up. You know, the smart ass lawyer fell into the trap because he had to answer the question that revealed the ruse, and that was it. Those two questions. Well, did you get any information? Did it lead to any of the prosecutions? Nope.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Nope, Nada.

[Michael Steele]

Okay. Why the hell were you there?

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

It's a pretty depressing state of affairs. He's gonna make it through. And this is what I was talking with Mayor Pete about on Tuesday. It's like how to. Even once you've moved back to this world where the Department of Justice is just at the beck and call of the president, you get to a bad place.

[Tim Miller]

Back in the winter, I was in the sweater market and I made the mistake of buying a sweater from somebody

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

that wasn't one of our sponsors.

[Tim Miller]

And it looked good. It was kind of a cable knit deal, but when I actually put it on, terrible. Sleeves were a little too long, little cattywampus, neck was too tight, and I don't know. I'm sure you've had this happen. Online shopping can be a little bit of an adventure. You buy something that looks amazing, you buy something that they're advertising to you on Instagram. You get caught up in the moment, looks really good on that hot model, and then comes to your house, you're

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

like, what is this? This is garbage.

[Tim Miller]

Then you're stuck with dealing with returns and shipping. And I'm sure some of you are more vigilant about that than me.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I've got in the back of my closet some clothes I never returned that are just sitting there. They end up going to the Goodwill.

[Tim Miller]

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[Unidentified Male Co-host]

what you're buying online. I want to go over to the DNI as well.

[Tim Miller]

So this is an interesting situation.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

So Trump had appointed obviously Bill Pulte, who is that guy that's like 37, but looks like he's 55 and he's a Nepo baby and he was part of the meme stonks at the GameTalk stock. It's just a scammer all the way down. He had no background in intelligence. He gets appointed to be into dni. It was the one time where some of the Republican senators were like, come, come on. Like, this is ridiculous. There are plenty of hacks that at least went to one class,

[Tim Miller]

did foreign

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

policy class at the Elliott School or something, but then you replace it with another guy. That's a ridiculous choice. Jay Clayton is just a lawyer hack. He had been in the Manhattan DA's office. Interestingly, he was the one that signed the warrant this week going after the New York Times for their reporting about Trump's hand me down plane and how it doesn't have the air defenses that. That you need to keep people safe.

[Tim Miller]

His performance was.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

We're going to play one clip, but I just. I don't know if you had a chance to watch much of it. I mean, it was significantly worse than Blanche for me. It was awesome. And he's a preposterous selection.

[Michael Steele]

No, dude, that was a shit show. Just on the question of who won the 2020 election.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Let's just go straight into that one.

[Tim Miller]

This was. John Ossoff is really good. This goes on for, like, three minutes. I'd recommend people watch the whole exchange.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

You know, we have limited time on the podcast, so I've picked out my favorite part. But Jon Ossoff was just relentless on this. And let's just play a little bit.

[Jon Ossoff]

We've established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with this committee and with the American public, but you refuse to answer a simple matter of fact about the 2020 election. Is that right?

[Tim Miller]

No, that's not right.

[Jon Ossoff]

Then answer the question. Who won the 2020 election?

[Tim Miller]

I have answered the question.

[Jon Ossoff]

Answer it. What is your answer?

[Unidentified Voice]

I've given you my answer.

[Jon Ossoff]

What is your answer?

[Tim Miller]

Just sitting back in his chair now.

[Jon Ossoff]

You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you asked to lead America's intelligence community. Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions?

[Michael Steele]

That right there, for me, that sums up everybody. It goes back to what I was saying a moment ago about all of these assholes that get trotted out, whether they're current members of the United States Congress or the Senate or want to be appointees to various positions. That right there, that humiliation that you have to put yourself through, that you consciously agree to that. I want this job so bad. I want to be in Donald Trump's. I want him to like me so much. I don't want him to say a bad word about me. I don't want him to have a negative tweet about me. I will do whatever he tells me to do. I am that much less of a

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

man

[Michael Steele]

that that's who I am. He is my sun. He is my moon. He is the stars to which I go to bed at night. And the breeze that I wake up to in the morning, that's Donald Trump for me. That's what I hear when these motherfuckers get up and start talking that shit, when they can't sit there and say the basic thing, yeah, Trump lost But guess what? He's president again. That's all you fucking have to say. That is not hard. What is so hard about that?

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

He won the next one.

[Michael Steele]

He won the next one.

[Tim Miller]

This guy, man, Clayton, he was a prick.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

He was unserious.

[Tim Miller]

In a different clip.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I forgot to pull this, but Ossoff's asking him about the raid on Fulton County.

[Michael Steele]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

He says, I learned about this yesterday in your office. It's like, what, you want to be the Director of National Intelligence, and you're telling me that you did not know the biggest news story of what happened to your predecessor?

[Michael Steele]

Was she there? I didn't know she was in Georgia. I just learned yesterday she was in Jodah. Why was she there?

[Tim Miller]

Nobody has mentioned that to you in any of the briefings for this hearing. You didn't pick up the Wall Street Journal. I don't even ask you to read the New York Times or watch msnl. You didn't pick up the Wall Street Journal. Like, this has been the news. I think it was on Fox, that

[Michael Steele]

whole string of words. I'm sitting there, Tim, going, what the hell is happening here? This man. And see. But the thing about it is, he did know about it.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Well, duh.

[Michael Steele]

They briefed him on it. He doesn't come to this hearing not being prepared to answer the question because he knew his staff or the people preparing him knew he would be asked. So they found the. The best way for him to answer it was to pretend to be stupid.

[Tim Miller]

Well, it's. The Director of National Intelligence. Intelligence is kind of in the word being, knowing in the word.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

What's the.

[Tim Miller]

What's the phrase these days? People like to say monitoring the situation, kind of monitoring what's happening out there

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

is kind of the job, actually, of Director of National Intelligence.

[Michael Steele]

I monitor shit. So I know a little bit about everything. I hear a little bit about everything. Then I get details about the thing I need to have details about. But that wasn't where he was going and what he wanted to do. Again, doing a little bit of the Pam Bondi asshole arrogance, right? Sitting back from the microphone. There is no deference. No deference to the Senate, to the individuals who are making the inquiry, who hold their political appointment in their hand because they know that regard. They could sit there and shit on the table, and the Republicans would absolutely go, that's the best shit I've seen in years.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Make you get me a spoon.

[Tim Miller]

Get me a spoon. Will a staffer fetch me a spoon, man? This is.

[Michael Steele]

And they vote him in.

[Tim Miller]

Honestly, I was apoplectic to watch this. It's just like, how can you.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Tom Cotton is the chairman of this, supposedly the national security guy.

[Tim Miller]

How can you pretend like you care

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

about the country's national security and vote to confirm this person? His performance was clownish.

[Tim Miller]

This is his resume. It's kind of like the resume is

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

slightly more serious than Bill Pulte because

[Tim Miller]

he's just a scam artist and an echo baby.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

And some people kind of don't talk about it.

[Tim Miller]

He worked at Sullivan and Cromwell from 1995 to 2017. His whole career he was just a lawyer. He did the Barclays acquisition of Lehman Brothers. I'm just going through his bio here. He was part of the M and A sale of the Atlanta Hawks. It's like, this guy doesn't know anything about national intelligence. And then after that, Trump put him at the sec. He doesn't know anything about foreign policy. You know, I'm sure he's been to some chateaus in France with the money

[Michael Steele]

made, he's been to a few chateaus, like, that's it. But here's the thing. As part of the job is in the title, right? The statute creating the job is very clear. It states unequivocally, Tim, that the Director of National Intelligence must, must have. And I'm. This is the exact words, extensive national security experience. It uses the word extensive in the description of the job. Extensive national security experience. That's who the DNI should be. Not some M and a lawyer

[Cory Booker]

who

[Michael Steele]

put together a merger or happens to be the buddy of the president. But he's going to the job because come this November, they want to use the national security apparatus. Once they declare a national security breach relative to our elections, that's what the speech tonight by the president is going to be about. They're already setting up the conversation for evidence that China or Russia or some nefarious country, maybe Iran, is interfering or trying to interfere with our elections. And this motherfucker is going to be the one on point to execute on the Project 2025 plan to rip the election apart to help the Republicans hold the power.

[Tim Miller]

That's where your skill as a M

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

and a lawyer does come in.

[Tim Miller]

Because really, what they're trying to do,

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

and based on what we've seen from what they're planning on talking about, a lot of the stuff is that we've known China was trying to get voter data. It's like, well, okay, you could go get the voter roll if you have a couple hundred bucks in a lot of these states, you know, What?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, so the job here as DNI is not to actually learn things

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

or inform things or protect. Right.

[Tim Miller]

It's to, like, take little nuggets of

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

information that can be manipulated to make it seem like Donald Trump's a victim or one of his foes is a bad person, and then put that out, like, that's his job. And that's kind of a lawyer's job, I guess. So he does have experience with that.

[Michael Steele]

Yeah. I mean, look, sorry, lawyers, this is the plan, is why they want to put these people in strategic positions ahead of time, so that once the narrative is set, they start to call the shots they need to call to move the objective along. It's having this fool as the DNI is having Blanche over at the Department of Justice. It is having the players in place. It runs everything from immigration to ice. Uber ICE activity. Look, ICE has killed two people in the last week and a half, two weeks. And I'll be honest, it's just almost a dull roar from the American people at this point.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

That's what I was talking about all day yesterday.

[Michael Steele]

Yeah, it's just a dull roar.

[Tim Miller]

I know.

[Michael Steele]

And these weren't even individuals that they wanted to. These were the wrong people. Yeah, they're killing the wrong people. Right?

[Tim Miller]

Are they, though?

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I mean, they're both brown guys.

[Michael Steele]

Yeah, There you go. There you go.

[Tim Miller]

Do they care?

[Michael Steele]

They don't. They don't give a shit. And the reality of it is the country is like, okay, well, let me know.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I know. I had a meltdown. God love Sarah, man. She did a focus group this week and was telling us about it, was asking people about the Medford, Maine, shooting, and it was just blank stares.

[Tim Miller]

And I get it, man. It's summer, you know, kids are at home, you got a parent in work, you know, you got to go down to the barbecue, go down to the lake.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

But, like, you know, Yep, that's where we are.

[Tim Miller]

Turn on the news.

[Michael Steele]

That's our country right now. Our civic senses have been dulled, deadened. Our aspirations for the future of our kids is seeping away from us. And they know that. Stephen Miller knows that, and they keep pounding the same thing to the point where he's like, all right, fine, whatever, whatever, whatever. I just want to go back to my book. And that is the unfortunate part. Generations before us, Tim, in moments like this, leaned in, not away from what the country needed, defining real time, who we were in the face of Nazism. Even with homegrown Nazis here in the US Finding a way to push through that not succumbing to it. And today it's just easier to give up. And it's frustrating in so many ways. And look, I know that's not everybody. I know that there are a lot of good people out there.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

It's not, you know, people listening to this. They're suffering through this.

[Michael Steele]

Exactly.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

They suffered through an hour and 20 minutes of me banging the table yesterday,

[Michael Steele]

and they're back today.

[Tim Miller]

You're hearing this.

[Michael Steele]

So, you know, but we're linked, folks. I just want you to know. We are linked arm in arm. We are linked in arm together. And so, yeah, you know, guys like Tim and me, we have. We have that honest moment where it's like, what the fuck, people? Come on. We're not talking to you. We're trying to wake up everybody else who's sleepwalking through this shit. Because I'm telling you, on the 5th, the 6th, the 10th, the 12th, the 15th of November, we could be in some real shit where the every election that a Democrat won in this country is called into question and is called corrupt, because that's how Donald Trump wants it to be. And he's put in place the people who will do that. And so what we're saying is be vigilant now. Waking up on Wednesday going, what the fuck? That's. No, that's not where we can be on this.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Amen to that.

[Tim Miller]

So this is the administration in a nutshell.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Right? It's these serious menacing threats paired with clownish absurdity.

[Michael Steele]

Right.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

So let's go to the clownishness now.

[Michael Steele]

I thought we were dealing with that part.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I mean, again, they're always intertwined.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Intertwined.

[Tim Miller]

You know, and sometimes it's like it's 80% clown, 20% menace, and sometimes it's 80% menace, 20% clown. I felt like the confirmation hearings were

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

mostly menace and a little clown.

[Michael Steele]

They were menacing.

[Tim Miller]

The Joe Rogan interview and the Pete

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Hegseth social media posts are mostly clown. Dealer's choice.

[Tim Miller]

Do you want to go to the Naval Observatory or the Department of War?

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Next.

[Tim Miller]

Who do you want to.

[Michael Steele]

Oh, wow. Okay, let's do Naval Observatory.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, let's do J.D.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

vance.

[Tim Miller]

He went to Texas to meet with Joe Rogan. They talked for three hours.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

So we're not going to do that many clips of that because you can only take so much.

[Tim Miller]

But they did a lengthy Epstein thing. We kind of covered Epstein with Blanche. But, like, JD Is doing this interview with Rogan that's like, I don't know, Epstein might be Mossad. It seems like He's Mossad, and he could be CIA, but probably Mossad, because probably the Jews. And also, you know, he had. He is at the highest levels. He just. He had infiltrated everything. But not the very highest.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Not the tippy top, not Trump.

[Tim Miller]

But, you know, he was in the

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

pictures with them the most, but everybody

[Tim Miller]

else, he was involved. And I just. We just don't know. And it's just like, guys, you've been in there 18 months again. It's back to plans. You haven't had a lead.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

You haven't had anyway.

[Tim Miller]

So then it's not. The Mossad isn't just behind Epstein. They're behind the failed war plan that

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

he's working on as well. It seems like. Let's listen to them talk about that a little bit.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

But my sense is that the way that all foreign influence works in the United States is people try to manipulate American public opinion. And then from manipulating a public opinion, they try to get the outcomes that they want. This thing is a very good example of this. There are some people within their system we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

That's Israel he's talking about. They're manipulating us to keep the war going on.

[Michael Steele]

Wait a minute. Before that last little bit, he just described the Trump administration. He just described the fuck what they're doing every damn day. They're manipulating information to get the result that they want.

[Tim Miller]

It's bad when the Jews do it. He's saying that Israel is manipulating. The telling part is that they are doing that to keep the war going on and they're succeeding. And it's like, bro, I mean, sure, like you invited him to the Situation Room, so you kind of started this, but it's like the war's going on because you guys don't know what the fuck you're doing.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Like, that's why.

[Michael Steele]

So basically what you're saying is you and the President are so damn dumb, are so gullible and stupid, that you allow Benjamin Netanyahu trick you or manipulate you into going to war with Iran, and you're still so damn dumb and stupid that you don't know how to end it? That's what you're telling me, Mr. Vice President, that you're that stupid?

[Tim Miller]

That's his pitch?

[Michael Steele]

That stupid that you allowed yourself to be pulled into a war in which 14American soldiers were killed? That didn't happen with Barack Obama because Barack Obama wasn't that stupid. Barack Obama actually negotiated A deal. And that pissed off Israel, really, Because Benjamin Netanyahu couldn't manipulate Barack Obama. And over two years, not one soldier died. There was no inflation. There were no high gas prices. Beef was not at 16% over what it cost. I could buy some hamburger, but y' all were so stupid that all these things happened. That's what you're telling me?

[Tim Miller]

That's his pitch. And it sounds bad when you say

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

it, but you would say that.

[Tim Miller]

But, like, that's his story that he's telling Joe Rogan. It's like, you know, we're getting manipulated. And it's like, I don't know. And it does go on longer than that. And he's like, you know, we gotta hit them back when they hit us. It's like, okay, well, you were saying how cool they were two minutes ago. It is the most feckless thing imaginable. And I do think it's important to

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

call them weak and stupid and feckless

[Tim Miller]

and all this, because that's what the Republicans would be calling a Democratic president that was doing this, that bungled their way into war and was too weak to try to win the war, but too feckless to get out of the war. That's their situation.

[Michael Steele]

Deb, you just nailed it, baby. That's exactly it. That is exactly it. This is our storyline. Here's the irony of ironies, is that when they come out with the piece of paper that has the deal on it, it's gonna look exactly like what Barack Obama did.

[Tim Miller]

Worse.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Way worse, actually.

[Tim Miller]

That'll be the baseline. But then there's gonna be other shit that Iran wants on it. We gotta pay him more money than Obama paid him. Lebanon, I mean, you knew that the first Treaty of Versailles was not going to work when point one had the

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

word Lebanon in it three times.

[Tim Miller]

And so it's like, oh, okay, so the vice president saying that Israel's manipulating

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

us, which, okay, I mean, like, you

[Tim Miller]

did this, all right? You're a big boy, and then now you strike a deal. Just think about this. He was appointment on the deal, right? And so he's worried about Israel's influence. But then he struck a deal where the fleet first point on it was like, it was incumbent upon Israel to not attack Lebanon.

[Michael Steele]

There you go.

[Tim Miller]

He put together a deal that allowed

[Michael Steele]

Israel and who served by that interest Iran. So, okay, Ben, put your shit down. Don't hit them anymore.

[Tim Miller]

All right?

[Michael Steele]

That's the first part of the deal. You can't go out to Lebanon anymore.

[Tim Miller]

So just stop, defend yourself.

[Michael Steele]

And oh, by the way, Ayatollah Badass. Okay, all right, fine. Here's 300 million. Just take it. Okay? Just go ahead and take it and we won't worry about that. You know, Barack Obama was stupid. He only offered 150. But that's all right. We, we're going to double that.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, 300.

[Michael Steele]

We'll double it to make it 300. Okay. The straight. We going to control the straight. Oh, hell, fuck it. You guys continue to control the straight, but we'll charge a fee. All right, fuck it. You guys control the straight. We won't charge a fee now either. Okay, so that's our best offer. This is where we are, people. That was that stupid. I hope we gonna talk about a little testosterone.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, yeah, that's coming up. We got one more though, because I have to get.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I have to do this one because it's so strange.

[Tim Miller]

Look, here's the thing. I do sometimes like to be a

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

little bit more generous to people who are on podcasts and other podcasters who get talking about weird stuff because it's

[Tim Miller]

like, that's the point of this. It's a free flowing conversation. Sometimes the word doesn't come out exactly right. You're shooting from the hip. You don't have an editor while you're talking.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I get it, I get it.

[Tim Miller]

So you're gonna sit down with Joe Rogan, talk for three hours.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

You're going to cover some weird stuff.

[Tim Miller]

This though, I just, I can't let this one go past and they're discussing what. Let's just listen.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Actually.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

Yeah, you'd have to be a very manly man to be able to eat a. Confidently, confidently eat a corn dog.

[Michael Steele]

I don't know that I could do it, Joe.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

I eat them. They're good.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Yeah, but they taste good.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

Are you. I love corn dogs.

I've been photographed.

I've been photographed eating a corn dog.

I'm sure someone has.

[Cory Booker]

What are you.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

I've eaten corn dogs.

[Michael Steele]

The odds are much more interesting life than I've led.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

I try to eat my corn dogs.

[Michael Steele]

That's between me and my kitchen.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

I'm not scared to eat a corn dog. I just think it's funny that people just, they're so afraid of being anything that looks like a dick. You can't. Bananas corn dogs.

The thing I couldn't get over Biden is just bad staff work, man. The way that he ate ice cream. I mean, it's like, you know, we could bring some of this stuff up, but it's like they would get him eating ice cream in the most ridiculous suggestive way imaginable.

[Tim Miller]

So J.D. vance saw Joe Biden eating ice cream and he started thinking about.

[Michael Steele]

Apparently got turned on by it.

[Jon Ossoff]

I don't understand.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

He got horny.

[Tim Miller]

He started thinking about.

[Michael Steele]

He's so horny for the ice cream. I don't understand.

[Tim Miller]

What was he. I don't even know. What is the suggestion when Joe man is insecure?

[Michael Steele]

Eating a banana or corn dog and. Have you been to a state fair? Have you been to a state fair? Just walk around the state fair. There's not a man who's sitting there going, shit, I. I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna go in the closet and eat this.

[Tim Miller]

Let me go into the bathroom.

[Michael Steele]

Find your corner corned off room somewhere where I can just go have my corn dog in private.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

J.D. doesn't have the self confidence to eat a corn dog.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

And he.

[Tim Miller]

And he watches Joe Biden lick an ice cream cone and he thinks that's kind of like whipped cream. Apparently.

[Michael Steele]

I spent time, Tim, watching Joe Biden

[Tim Miller]

eat ice cream, thinking about it getting

[Michael Steele]

going, that he's formed an opinion.

[Tim Miller]

Hot and bothers. It never occurred to me. I don't know. Look, I'm a sexual being, Michael. I think about it. But I've watched Joe Biden eat ice cream. It never occurred to me that there was something erotic happening.

[Michael Steele]

No, there was nothing erotic about eating ice cream. And there's nothing erotic about eating a corn dog. And unless you eat it suggestively. Unless instead of just putting it in your mouth and biting it. Biting on it. Right.

[Tim Miller]

I can imagine a suggestive way to eat a corn dog. But you don't have to do it like that. Here's the thing. I'm sorry, you don't have to reply to this.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

If you don't want. Michael Steele.

[Tim Miller]

So you can just sit there silently if you want. But I always thought, you know, are you familiar with the Kinsey scale?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

So it's, you know, I forget which way it goes.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

If you're like a six, you're. It's just all gay. If you're a zero, you're just also.

[Tim Miller]

But like he, you know, he interviewed a lot of people. I always felt like the person that was like a one or a two, they're just like a little bit gay. That's kind of challenging, you know, because you're still grappling, you know, you can't be your true self, but you're grappling

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

through this thought that goes from time to Time. And some people are, you know, are,

[Tim Miller]

you know, some men handle that well

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

because they have self confidence.

[Tim Miller]

Other men can't handle that. I look at the JD and I'm just kind of like, if you can't eat a corn dog and you're thinking about dicks when Joe Biden's eating ice cream, it feels like you might be a 1 or a 2 on the Kinsey scale.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

For me, that's just me. You can say that with that.

[Tim Miller]

Speaking of manliness, the Department of War has a new manliness policy for 30

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

plus for geriatric war fighters. I don't even have an intro. We'll just listen to that too. This was a social media post from Pete Hagg south yesterday.

[Unidentified Voice]

But while we invest heavily in our weapon systems, platforms and ge, our most decisive tactical advantage will always be the individual warfighter. We have a sacred duty to maintain that advantage, which is why we must constantly look for new ways to optimize your performance, your resilience and your long term health. And to meet that commitment, today I'm authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members, ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best.

[Michael Steele]

Here we go with the dicks again. These guys, these guys are obsessed about what's between your legs. They're absolutely obsessed. Well, what is going on with this? I don't need the Secretary of Defense worried about my testosterone levels. That's between me and my doctor. If I'm so concerned, if I'm not concerned, I, I can still bench press. I can still do shit that I want to do that has nothing to do with my ability to fire a gun or to push a button on a drone. For a drone. What the fuck is this man talking about? Would you stop obsessing about this Aryan military that you want to create? Because that's all this is. That's all this is. They're dragging black people out of the military and now they got this dumb ass policy that if you can't find a solution for the bumps that you get on your face, because that's a thing in our culture for some black men, they, the rate, you know, You've heard of razor burn, right? So the reaction from the razor blade on the skin causes these bumps to form. Right.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Is it because of the coarse hair?

[Michael Steele]

Right, yeah, coarse hair. And some of the hair grows back in, which causes the bump to form. It's a medical condition. It is something that we deal with in the community. Oh, really? So now that's something that they want to go after, but it only applies largely to black men, let alone the fact that you've denied more black officers who are moving up in ranks advancement in the military. So we know what you want to do with getting black and brown people out of the military. So now you want to try to play this other game. I guess you're going after young white men who somehow don't have the right testosterone level. What the. I don't under. I don't. I don't know what we're doing here. What do you think this military is going to look like?

[Tim Miller]

You know, Kinzinger talked about this yesterday. It's kind of. This is one of those things where it's like. It's such performative fake masculinity nonsense.

[Unidentified Voice]

Thank you.

[Tim Miller]

Just like, okay, I don't know, whatever. Maybe to be on Seal Team 6, you know, it's better to performance max

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

and, you know, make sure your levels

[Tim Miller]

of various things are the right. That's not me, man. I just. I sit here in my hole and just talk. Okay, that. So it's fine. Like, I'm not a performance max.

[Michael Steele]

Or was it a problem before Tim Hick said took his ass off the couch and sat it behind the desk, Was it a problem in our military? We would show me the report, the report out of the DoD that said, you know what? We have a testosterone problem with our military. There. There was no such thing. This is all made up bullshit. Because what he. What? Donald Trump and he. When they look at the review of the troops, they don't want to see anybody's belly over their belt. They don't want to see anybody walking slower than anybody else or someone. Here's the thing. Who may look a little bit more feminine, who's. Whose face and jawlines may be a little bit more soft. You must have a testosterone problem. What the fuck are we doing here then?

[Tim Miller]

Text him at the next checkup. That's the whole thing. Like, do we have this. That's going to make a big announcement about it. It's just. It's. It's. We're just going to leave there.

[Michael Steele]

I can't do any more sticks. That's all I can say.

[Tim Miller]

The poor people. Some people listen to this podcast on school.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Well, we're in the summer, but, like

[Tim Miller]

on pickup, you know, for camp, on carpool. And so I just.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I want to apologize to the moms and dads out there that are doing carpool duty.

[Tim Miller]

It's just. This is what the news has given us.

[Michael Steele]

This is the news. It's not like we were seeking this story out.

[Tim Miller]

All right, we went deep on this

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

on the by the way, what he's doing to the military when it comes to black folks with Clinton, Clinton Smith on our fourth of July episode. If people missed that because you're on holiday, go check that out.

[Tim Miller]

Last thing here.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

Just, just on that point. This is another kind of related news item and it's same as it ever was, but I just wanted to mention it. The Trump administration has replaced exhibit on slavery at the President's house where Washington lived as president in Philly. They removed the Dirty Business of Slavery panel which referenced how the liberty of the Constitution was intertwined to slavery and the number of slaves increased through forced breeding. There's another panel about Washington controlling the lives of 300 plus enslaved people at Mount Vernon that was also removed.

[Tim Miller]

Just a related point to this, showing my ignorance.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I was listening to a different podcast but a week or two ago where I learned about Owna Judge. I don't know if you know her, she was the escaped slave of George Washington that, that he tried to track down anyway. And it's like on my book reading list for vacation, kind of the story of owner Judge because I didn't know anything about it. And so like, you know, this is.

[Tim Miller]

They want to make sure people don't

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

just learn the basics about what happened to the founders.

[Michael Steele]

Well, that is true. But I'm sorry, every time a white person walks out the house and sees a black man or a black woman, guess what, you've got history right there in front of you. Because if you make any level of inquiry about that person, it's all going to come back to how they got here. They didn't come on the same boat that your ancestors did. We were on a different boat. And you got off. Your folks got off with coins in their pockets and they found their way to New York or Chicago or wherever they found themselves. We got off the boats in Baltimore and Annapolis and in places like the Caribbean in chains. And that's the story. You can't erase it. You can't rewrite it, because every time you look at a Negro, guess what? That story's there. So just get over your dumb shit and recognize the history of the country. Embrace it. It's who we are. It's not what we do now, thankfully, although Stephen Miller and others would probably like to do that. That's not where we are. And it's going to be up to us to stop this stupid shit. You can't dumb us down. We've already read the books. We are already living the experiences. We have too many videotapes on YouTube and everywhere else of what happened in the 50s and the 60s. We know such a thing called civil rights, right? We know this. And if you know this, guess what? Your kids know it too. So while you sit there trying to drum black people out of your life, you may want to go upstairs and talk to that white child of yours who's trying to emulate what black people do. How we talk, how we express ourselves, how we live, what we eat, how we dress. Right? So if it's that fucked up for you, go talk to your kids and have them explain to you why you're wrong.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

We'll just leave it there. That was wonderful.

[Tim Miller]

Thank you, Michael Steele, and we'll be seeing you soon.

[Michael Steele]

Yeah, baby, go get that break, my friend. Go enjoy time with your family. You know, love to them. And just spend some you time and us time and let this shit roll a different direction for however long you're away.

[Tim Miller]

I'll catch you on the flip. I'm gonna be refreshed. I'll have my shit kickers on.

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

I'll be ready to go. All right, that's Michael Steele. Everybody else, we got one more.

[Tim Miller]

We'll see you back tomorrow for another

[Unidentified Male Co-host]

edition of the podcast. Bye.

[Unidentified Voice]

Here comes the ice cream man part till the end of the road. With a swish of his magic whip all the people in the party froze. Screwball chocolate chip umbrella in his white glove hand shade from the sun was his intention.

[Tim Miller]

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.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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