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Hello, Martin Sheen here. And it seems to me that no day of the week is without its endless barrage of bad news. Even on Sunday. For God's sake, let's change that. What do you say? Together, let's make Sunday immune to bad news. Available now every Sunday, Season three of the Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen has begun. Yeah, 10 brand new episodes are already underway. So join me, Martin sheen, for a 20 minute journey as I share my personal stories, a bit of poetry, and insightful reflections that will encourage you to take a deep breath and enjoy a relaxing moment. Of course, it's important to know and understand what's happening in the world. But I also believe there's nothing wrong with taking a step back to find strength and clarity. And Lord knows we need that now more than ever. A moment of thoughtfulness and calm may be rare these days, but it doesn't have to be. So what do you say? Say you want to take back your Sundays. So do I. And guess what? I've already done it with the Martin Sheen Podcast, season three, available now. Don't mess with my Sunday. And thank you for listening.
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Hey, Everybody, it's Friday, May 22, 2026. I'm Alison Gill and this is Beans Talk. Hey, everybody. Happy Friday. Dana's out. It's just me and it's just you, and I am really excited. My. My favorite Fridays are the ones where Republicans wreck their own corrupt shit with even stupider corrupt shit. In this case, they're wrecking their own corrupt overfunding of ICE and Customs and Border Protection with the stupider, more corrupt $1.8 billion slush fund from the IRS. Right, the IRS Todd Blanche special where he's going to pay criminals and terrorists cop beaters there. It's so bad. This thing is so bad, it's pissed off so many Republicans on the Hill that they now want to add provisions into their budget reconciliation bill. You remember Democrats shut down the DHS. They said, we are not giving another dime to ICE. ICE has another hundred plus billion dollars. ICE and Customs Border Protection have $130 billion from the big ugly bill, the obbba. You don't need more money for ICE, so shut it down. Shut down DHS. Right, because you don't need more money. ICE was already funded at double its capacity through 2029 from the big beautiful bill. But Republicans love ICE and they wanted to fund it at five times its capacity through 2029. But we said, no, we're not going to vote to fund anything. So in order to get DHS Open. The Republicans caved for once. The Democrats stood strong and they won. And the Republicans caved and they funded DHS without ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Yay. So then as part of that, Republicans were like, well, we still got to fund ice even though it's extremely unpopular and it's a midterm election year, we still got to fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection. We'll do it through budget reconciliation, which means we don't need 60 votes. Right. We can do it with a 51 vote threshold in the Senate. We don't have to worry about the filibuster. We don't have to worry about Democrats blocking us. We do it all by ourselves. We're going to fund ICE even more. Five times its capacity. Not just two times its capacity. We want to fund it at five times its capacity through 2029. So, okay, they had all that set and ready to go, right? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And jurisdictionally to do this, they went through two committees, the Homeland Security Committee to reconcile that budget and through Judiciary to reconcile that budget. Now, that's why the ballroom provision, the billion dollars for the ballroom, got kicked out by the parliamentarian because that would fall under the White House stuff and administration. Government administration and environmental stuff. Right. The Ballroom building. The ballroom. It's not under the jurisdiction of the only two committees they decided to reconcile. And if they wanted to do that, they would have to go through another committee, which means they'd have to throw the whole bill out and start all over again. And they didn't want to do that. So they stuck with Judiciary and Homeland Security, got stuff like the Ballroom cut out of it. But now Republicans hate this slush fund. The $1.8 billion Todd Blanche, felon to felon, IRS, special slush fund for insurrectionists and terrorists and people like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell making them millionaires. Republicans hate this so much. Enough Republicans hate it so much that they were trying to add to the budget reconciliation bill through the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee. Right. Because those are the two committees, one of the two committees that has jurisdiction here to reconcile the budget. They were trying to add provisions that didn't dissolve the slush fund altogether, but put provisions on it like you can't give it to cop beaters and you can't give it to child molesters, recidivists from January 6th. And, you know, the Five People Commission can't just be appointed by Todd Blanche. It has to. You know, whatever. They were just trying to make it a little more palatable. I guess for us personally, it needs to be completely dissolved, which is the. Jamie Raskin introduced a bill to do that today, which is nice, but they're trying. The Republicans hate it so much, it's tanking their ICE bill. They couldn't get the ICE budget passed. They couldn't get it passed because Republicans hate it so much. It all started with a very contentious, yelly, shouty meeting between Todd Blanche and Senate Republicans on the Hill today. Now Andrew Desadario tells it like this. Look at this news. Nearly two hour meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch and Senate Republicans was incredibly hostile. Per multiple attendees, as many as 25 Republican senators spoke. This is very rare for these meetings, all in opposition to the weaponization fund. Republicans pitch specific ideas such as dictating how the five commissioners are chosen and not allowing people convicted of violence against cops to be eligible payout. So normally during those meetings, everyone's kind of subdued, everyone's sort of quiet. But at least half the Republicans in the Senate, 25 of them, were very, very vociferously opposing and grilling Todd Blanche on this weaponization fund. Then we get this headline from cnbc, Trump slush fund a flashpoint as Senate heads home without funding dhs. Now DHS is funded, it's just ICE and Customs and Border Protection. That's not so. It's a little bit of a miswright there. If I were an editor at CNBC, I would have put funding ICE. And CBP. Donald has set a June 1 deadline for funding ICE at five times its capacity through the end of 2028. But that deadline is now blown because they couldn't get their shit together. And they're now on a week long recess fighting over this $1.8 billion slush fund. That's how unpopular it is. And later Desiderio posted this text from a GOP senator just now, our majority is melting down before our eyes. Many Republicans believe Trump has brought this upon himself, creating more free agents out of a selfish desire to purge Republicans not seen as loyal enough. Yeah. So this sort of domino effect, right? You've got Tillis, you've got Cassidy now speaking out because they weren't loyal enough and they lost their primaries like Cassidy did. And that's impacting and giving a permission structure for other Republicans in the Senate to speak out against this corrupt slush fund. Here's what Republican Thom Tillis had to say on the matter.
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I think it's stupid on stilts.
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Why?
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Because it will invariably put us in a position where your taxpayer dollars and my Taxpayer dollars could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer, admitted their guilt, got convicted, got par pardon, and now we're going to pay them for that. That's absurd. The American people are going to reject this out of hand. When you take money from me to give to a purpose that I vehemently disagree with, that's tyranny. And that's what that account is.
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Yeah. Wow. And now check this out from Mitch McConnell. Quote. So the nation's top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops. Utterly stupid, morally wrong. Take your pick. You know what's utterly stupid and morally wrong, Mitch McConnell, about people who stormed the Capitol and beat cops, is that you didn't vote to convict Donald Trump after he was impeached for the coup. You didn't vote for that. Had you, you could have put a provision in the conviction saying that he can't hold public office again. That's one of the only ways you can constitutionally block someone from running for president. I mean, outside of the. You've served two terms, you're not over 35, lived in the United States for seven years, naturalized citizen. Those are the only, like, requirements. And the only way to block somebody from running who meets those requirements is through a conviction after impeachment. Mitch McConnell, you had the chance. You didn't. You are utterly stupid and morally wrong. None of this would have happened if you had done the right thing. All right, some more interesting polls before we get out of here. And you know how I feel about polls, but we're going to go over them anyway. This one is from Latino voters in Texas. They put Talarico ahead of Paxton 57 to 25. 57 to 25. Man, I am so glad Trump endorsed Paxton in next week's Republican primary runoff. That's Tuesday, that runoff. I do hope Paxton wins. Remember we talked about on the show, Republicans in the Senate are pissed that he didn't endorse Cornyn, that he endorsed Paxton instead. And it's got to be because Cornyn couldn't kill the filibuster, couldn't get the Save act passed. Anyway, loyalty to Donald Trump gives you nothing. You sooner or later get thrown under the bus. And this poll right here puts Buttigieg up against Vance and Rubio in 2028 for president. Look at this. Buttigieg leads Vance by four points. I'm surprised it's that close. Nobody likes J.D. vance. It puts him ahead of Rubio by two points. Now, I know the presidential race is still two years away. My dream candidate is AOC. As you all know, my candidate in 2016 was Bernie. My candidate in 2020 was Elizabeth Warren. My candidate in 2024 was Kamala Harris. My candidate in 2028 is AOC. I hope she runs. I know she said she's looking to do something bigger than titles and positions. Presidents, she said presidents and senators come and go, but universal healthcare is forever. Right? So, but we'll see. She might run for Senate. She might run to get Chuck Schumer out of there. I'm sure she'd be a shoo in. But she is my dream candidate. But you know, that's again, it seems like it's far away, but it will go by faster than you think. I mean, the midterms are already upon us. Remember when we woke up that November morning after the 2024 election and the midterms seemed so far away, so out of reach, a distant dream. And now it's here. We're here we are just a couple few months from early voting for the midterms. So let's keep the pressure on. All right, everybody, I'm off to watch Game 2 of the Cavaliers and also the final episode of Stephen Colbert later tonight. Right after that, I'm going to cancel my CBS subscription. I think everyone should do that if you can. Also, there will be a new episode of unjustified with Andy McCabe and me this Sunday, along with a new episode of the Breakdown on the Midas Touch network at noon Pacific where I'm going to be chatting with Brenda Ballou, the lawyer behind Harry Dunn and Danny Hodges lawsuit against the $1.8 billion slush fund. And Harry Dunn is going to join us for that as well. And I'll be back here on Monday. Thank you so much for. I need some, I need some relaxed time on the weekends. Boy, I'm glad. You know, I was going to say I'm glad it's a three day weekend, but in all honesty, I'm still coming to work on Sunday to record all the shows for Monday. So I'll see you then. I'm Alison Gill. This was Beans Talk.
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Hello, Martin Sheen here. And it seems to me that no day of the week is without its endless barrage of bad news. Even on Sunday. For God's sake, let's change that. What do you say? Together, let's make Sunday immune to bad news. Available now every Sunday, season three of the Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen has begun. Yeah. 10 brand new episodes are already underway. So join me, Martin sheen, for a 20 minute journey as I share my personal stories, a bit of poetry, and insightful reflections that will encourage you to take a deep breath and enjoy a relaxing moment. Of course, it's important to know and understand what's happening in the world, but I also believe there's nothing wrong with taking a step back to find strength and clarity. And Lord knows we need that now more than ever. A moment of thoughtfulness and calm may be rare these days, but it doesn't have to be. So what do you say? You want to take back your Sundays? So do I. And guess what? I've already done it with the Martin Sheen Podcast, Season three, available now. Don't mess with my Sunday, and thank you for listening.