Larry Charles: "I Am Willing To Die To Get This Scene"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist – Larry Charles: "I Am Willing To Die To Get This Scene"

Date: March 24, 2026
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Larry Charles (Writer, Director, Author of "Comedy Samurai")

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Overview

In this episode, Mike Pesca welcomes back the legendary comedy writer and director Larry Charles, known for his work on Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Seinfeld. The conversation centers around the nature of comedic genius, collaboration, risk-taking in comedy, the evolution of sitcoms, and the unique path that led to iconic projects. Charles offers candid insight into his fallouts with creative partners and reflects on the thin line between chaos and structure in comedy.

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Key Discussion Points

The Nature of Comic Genius and Collaboration

• Sacha Baron Cohen’s Changing Approach
  • Larry Charles reflects on Baron Cohen’s transition from collaborative brilliance to isolation as his career advanced.
    • "The more successful he got, the less he trusted himself and relied on the opinions of others... And he became kind of like somebody who would really turn to all the other comedy people in the community and say, what do you think? ... And he just stopped doing that at a certain point." – Larry Charles [09:06]
    • Charles believes Cohen’s unique comedic “superpower” was rooted in a fleeting magic that became hard to recapture through sequels.
  • Sequels, according to Charles, can never recreate the spontaneous reaction of the original Borat era.
    • “You can't recapture that magic. That is a magical moment ... and he's been groping ever since then to figure it out.” – Larry Charles [09:06]
• Contrast with Seinfeld Collaboration
  • Pesca points out that both Seinfeld and Larry David recognized their creative interdependence from the start, unlike what developed between Charles and Baron Cohen.
    • Charles: “He wanted to do it all himself, or he felt he had done it all himself. And I think... that was a mistake that he made, in my humble opinion.” [12:05]
• The Bubble of Stardom
  • Charles describes how stardom leads to creative isolation and a loss of perspective.
    • “Stars can easily fall into this bubble without realizing ... they are with people who are telling them how great they are all the time, and they're losing sight, losing perspective, losing context when that happens.” – Larry Charles [12:05]

Comedy as Social X-Ray: Borat and Bruno

• Bruno’s Revelations of American Prejudice
  • Charles and Pesca discuss the increased hostility and violence encountered during the filming of Bruno versus Borat, particularly around issues of homophobia and antisemitism.
    • "In Bruno, we had no idea ... that we were going to tap into a darkness... there was hate. As soon as people saw him, they felt, okay, getting physical with him, getting violent..." – Larry Charles [14:07]
    • Charles believes this exposed a festering anger in the country which has only grown.
  • The films tapped into deeper societal issues, sometimes more than Charles or Baron Cohen originally intended.

Managing Chaos and Risk in Comedy Filmmaking

• Personal Risk and Instinct
  • Charles credits his Brooklyn upbringing for his ability to navigate real-world danger and chaos on set.
    • “I am willing to die to get this scene. Nothing is going to stop us from getting this scene. Now, I don't think I could do that today, you know, but at that time, I was completely committed to the scene, no matter what the cost was.” – Larry Charles [16:00]
  • His “devil-may-care attitude” fueled bolder comedy but required constant judgment between safety and pushing boundaries.
• Chaos vs. Structure
  • Charles repeatedly sought to break boundaries, pushing scenes further than typical, which became his core comedic philosophy.

The Sitcom and the Role of Luck

• Seinfeld’s Unconventional Path
  • Seinfeld’s success was a fusion of talent, luck, and “not knowing the rules of sitcoms.”
    • “There's a lot of luck in the case of Seinfeld ... we were losing to a show called Jake and the Fat Man. We, like, had nothing going for us, but... NBC had nothing else to put on.” – Larry Charles [18:18]
  • The show evolved organically because neither creators nor cast were deeply influenced by contemporary sitcoms.
• Break with Sitcom Tradition
  • Charles, David, and Seinfeld were all more inspired by older reruns and monster movies than by current sitcoms.
    • “We just wanted to do a funny show ... we didn't really find sitcoms to be hilariously funny.” – Larry Charles [20:55]
  • Their aversion to formulaic “likability” and neat morals led Seinfeld to be a unique, “freak-of-nature” sitcom.

The Allure of the Outsider and Visual Strangeness

• Fascination with the Unusual
  • Charles confesses a lifelong intrigue with physical oddities, which informed his casting and comedic perspective.
    • “Ken was a fascinating physical specimen... he was kind of a freakish looking person ... when you see him trying to look normal, that was comical even.” – Larry Charles [24:53]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Sacha Baron Cohen’s Change:
  “He is a brilliant guy, and he is a genius ... but it may have been like a kind of a, you know, like a temporary sort of magic that ... he lost his superpower to some degree.”
  – Larry Charles [09:06]

• On Pushing Comedic Boundaries:
  “I am willing to die to get this scene. Nothing is going to stop us from getting this scene.”
  – Larry Charles [16:00]

• On Luck in TV:
  “There's a lot of luck in the case of Seinfeld ... NBC had nothing else to put on. They didn't have replacement, really, you know, so they left the show on.”
  – Larry Charles [18:18]

• On Sitcoms’ Influence:
  “We wanted something that actually was legitimately funny, and so we moved in that direction, and that's what became Seinfeld.”
  – Larry Charles [20:55]

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Important Timestamps

• 08:05 – Start of Larry Charles interview
• 09:06 – Discussion of Sacha Baron Cohen's creative evolution
• 12:05 – The bubble of stardom and loss of collaboration
• 14:07 – Social commentary in Bruno and Borat’s impact
• 16:00 – Charles describes risk-taking and “willing to die for the scene”
• 18:18 – The role of luck and chaos in Seinfeld’s success
• 20:55 – Influence of old TV and lack of sitcom tradition
• 24:53 – Charles on casting, fascination with the unusual

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Tone & Style

• Candid and good-humored—Charles is forthright about mistakes and creative risks.
• Playful skepticism—Pesca frequently challenges assumptions about comedy and creative genius.
• The conversation moves rapidly between insider anecdotes, creative philosophies, and larger cultural critiques.

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For Further Listening

To hear more of the interview, including extended insights from Larry Charles, visit subscribe.mikepesca.com.

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This episode offers a behind-the-scenes exploration of comedy’s creative risks, the pitfalls of stardom, and how iconic shows happen by accident as much as by design. Essential for fans of comedy’s edge—and those curious about what makes genius fade or last.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

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[Larry Charles]

It's

[Mike Pesca]

Tuesday, March 24, 2026, from Peach Fish Productions. It's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Donald Trump, he says, is negotiating with the Iranians. I know the joke is who's left to negotiate with? It's not quite a joke given all the dead Iranians in leadership. I mean, I'm sure there's the head of the Pistachio exporting consortium still around. Well, there is an answer to that. He's Abbas Aragji, the foreign minister, I think was out of the country at the time of the bombing. So that means he's alive, probably means he's not in actual contact with anyone who might hold power, which probably in Iran is just who holds the keys to the most underground missiles. But there is an aspect to this that I think conventional wisdom gets wrong. And here a very smart person, Tina Brown, talks about Donald Trump and negotiating on the X Files podcast.

[Tina Brown]

Trump is now sort of drunk on this kind of kinetic action. I mean, he actually, negotiations always bore him. They go on. He doesn't, he doesn't understand the points. So he doesn't want, doesn't, you know, he doesn't want to bother with these negotiations essentially since Venezuela particularly, he really thinks that the answer is to go smash, bang, get in, you know, send the military. The military has become his wonderful shiny toy that he's in charge of. And it's so much sexier than draggy conversations in which he doesn't understand how to kind of resolve.

[Mike Pesca]

See, I disagree. I think Donald Trump loves to negotiate, but he just loves to win at a negotiation. They say a successful negotiation is usually one in which neither side can be said to win. Donald Trump doesn't like that. He likes the negotiations he can win. So when they were trying to negotiate the surrender of uranium or, or the halting of the uranium enrichment program. The Iranians weren't going to give in to that. So Donald Trump said, ah, I have an advantage in these negotiation. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. Okay, you guys are dead. Let's negotiate again. I don't know that this is the smart way to do it. I don't know that anything will convince the Iranians or the seven left and the three who are in contact with the other two. I don't know that anything will convince them to give up their uranium. They the Iranian uranium is so closely linked to the Iranian project. But I do know that if there is to be a negotiation, Donald Trump is very, very gleeful about having reset it on his terms on the show today. Well, I have another show. It is called how to. And on that we talk about protecting one's parents from the scammers of the elderly.

[Scam Prevention Expert]

And we're seeing a lot of these start on text messages. And you might have gotten a text message that says, hey, what time's golf tomorrow? And you think it's an innocent wrong number. So you write back and say, I'm sorry, you know, I don't play golf. I don't know who this is. You have the wrong number.

[Mike Pesca]

Do you say that for a reason? Because I have gotten those. I immediately know to delete them. Don't play golf and don't care to. That's one literally that people use a lot. Golf.

[Scam Prevention Expert]

Aha. Aha. Golf, tennis. I've been asked what time, yoga classes, whatever it is that's on.

[Mike Pesca]

How to please listen to that directly. And please listen to this, the gist, as in the spiel. I will talk about Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski and a commercial that costs $200,000, a lot of it for horses. But first, Larry Charles is back. He is the legendary comedian and director of the Borat film, a few other movies, many episodes of Curb your Enthusiasm. He wrote some of the favorite Seinfeld episodes you've ever seen. And he really is an honest guy. And you will hear him be very honest about his falling out with a couple of the people who were behind those projects. I just mentioned Sacha Baron Cohn and Larry David. Here is Larry Charles up next.

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[Mike Pesca]

We're back With Larry Charles, who is the author of Comedy Samurai. And in this part of the interview, I wish to ask him about some of the. But specifically, starting off, one of the great geniuses he's worked with. And he's worked with comic genius geniuses like Andy Kaufman and just regular old geniuses, geniuses like Bob Dylan. But when he worked with Larry David on Fridays and Jerry Seinfeld, when Seinfeld was on Benson, and Larry David knew him, he then later worked with them on Seinfeld, it was clear that they maintained their genius. They did not lose their genius. And that brings me, Larry, to Sasha Baron Cohen. So I knew him from the Ali G show, bore out the show before you directed the movie. But it seems from reading the book that between the movie until maybe now, that he has lost his way. But that's not how I think of genius working. Can you lose your genius if substances aren't involved? Because it seems to be the case here that something like this happened with Sasha. Do you think?

[Larry Charles]

Well, that's a very good question that I do grapple with in the book, and I don't know that I have all the answers to that. I think he got caught up in the Hollywood machinery, and I think he wanted a certain level of stardom as opposed to trusting himself. The more. The more successful he got, the less he trusted himself and relied on the opinions of others. And he. And he became kind of like somebody who would really turn to all the other comedy people in the community and say, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? And really, what he needed and what I always encouraged him to do was trust yourself. What do you think? You know? And he just stopped doing that at a certain point. And I think that, you know, he is. He is a brilliant guy, and he is a genius of a certain type of thing that he does. It is unique. It's one of a kind. And there's nobody who had that point of view, you know, but it may have been like a kind of a, you know, like a temporary sort of magic that kind of lost. He lost his superpower to some degree, you know what I mean? And there's a lot of factors that go into that, including the fact that he. And he kind of wound up, believe me, when we did Borat, they wanted us to do a sequel at the time, and we were all like, especially him. We're never doing a sequel to this movie. That's crazy. We're never gonna do it. But subsequently, he has done sequels to the movie because he wanted to try to recapture the magic of those movies, but you can't recapture that magic. That is a magical moment that is like the audience will never have that initial, you know, sort of like reaction to Borat that they had back in the early 2000s, you know, and I think he. He's groping to some degree. He may find it also. Again, he may find something else, I don't know. But he's. He's been groping ever since then to figure it out and trying different things and experimenting, and he's kind of lost the magic that he had inherently in doing that.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, one thing that I was thinking of compared to the Seinfeld collaboration, it was a collaboration, and both of those entities understood, not that there was intention and always will be with Larry David and maybe Jerry Seinfeld also, but they both definitely understood that they weren't the sole genius on the project, that they needed each other. And maybe there's something to Sasha not realizing that or wanting to admit that with you. I mean, he brought you on to direct other projects. But I don't know, and I'm just going by your description, I don't know that he recognized your importance as a true collaborator in the way that maybe Jerry and Larry did.

[Larry Charles]

I think he was encouraged to stop thinking that way, and not only with me, but with the writers also. He had these incredible writers, these three guys from England, and they also were very much a part of who Borat was, who Bruno was, and who Ali Gee was too, for that matter. And so I think that he slowly started to isolate himself. You know, actors or stars, let's say not actors, but stars can easily fall into this bubble without realizing, oh, my God, I'm in a bubble. And in that bubble, they are with people who are telling them how great they are all the time, and they're losing sight, losing perspective, losing context when that happens. And I think that he started to have contempt for the people that were very much part of the success of these things, the formula of success. And that included the writers, and that included me as well. He wanted to do it all himself, or he felt he had done it all himself. And I think that was a. He was encouraged to think that way at that time. And I think that was a mistake that he made, in my humble opinion.

[Mike Pesca]

So some of what he does is to try to expose America's racism, sexism, and anti Semitism. And I remember at the time, that scene, which wasn't in the movie or other scenes, there was a scene in Bruno about anti Semitism. I remember saying, maybe this is more real or true to Sasha's experience, more anti Semitism in the uk, But I don't know that it's so true in the United States. I think there are a number of reasons other than, you know, a deep seated hatred of Jews, why people might be pulled into that sort of circumstance. But now in retrospect, I don't know. I'm beginning to rethink that. Do you have any thoughts on that? If he was really exposing things like an X ray that maybe I at the time attributed to. Oh, just people going along with the gag.

[Larry Charles]

Well, I think Bruno is a very good example of that. Even more so than Borat, because Bruno, we had no idea when we started Bruno, that we were going to tap into a darkness. In Borat, as we talked about a little bit before, people have patience, people had tolerance. People tried to give him a break, even though he was saying these terrible things and things would come out and that would be very, very funny. But in Bruno, it was like right off the bat, there was hate. As soon as people saw him, they felt, okay, getting physical with him, getting violent with him. And there was a lot of violence and darkness that we saw in America that we didn't see as much in Borat. And it kind of like ripped the lid off of this thing. And I think you see that has festered not necessarily because of Borat, but. But the country has kind of allowed itself to fester this hatred and this anger to the point that we're at in our country today, you know?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah. And so your job was to show us some of that, but also keep Sasha safe and not have things go off the rails. Our listeners are probably thinking, yes, the bear episode exemplifies that. Take it up to a point, but keep things have some controlled chaos. So how do you learn how to do that? No one had really directed a movie like that. And one can have instincts, but if your instincts are wrong, someone could get really hurt. So you might think, I'm going to default to more safety and less risk. Yeah, that's my question. How did you find your way on the chaos to structure to safety ratio?

[Larry Charles]

Well, first of all, every day was a challenge. I mean, there's a lot of answers to this. One is that I grew up in Brooklyn.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Larry Charles]

And I grew up in Brooklyn at a time when there was a lot of rough people around. And I was constantly either, you know, I got beat up a few times and I eventually learned how to talk my way out of trouble. Like, I'd be walking down the street and 20 guys would be coming towards me, and they would stop me. And there's really nothing stopping them because they were pretty sadistic guys from just beating my ass. And I would somehow tell them that I was innocent. I didn't know anything about what they were doing. I just was trying to get to the train station, whatever it was, and I would be able to sidestep trouble. And I got very good at that. So that's something I just sort of carried with me from growing up in Brooklyn, then working with Larry David, and just kind of my comic sensibility was about pushing. I always wanted to push harder and harder and harder. And when I did Borat, I got into a mindset of, like, I am willing to die to get this scene. Nothing is going to stop us from getting this scene. Now, I don't think I could do that today, you know, but at that time, I was completely committed to the scene, no matter what the cost was. I didn't think about the risks, and I think that sort of devil may care attitude helped. Always on Curb, but especially on Borat, push further than the scene might have gone, you know, And I. I wanted, you know, Larry David and I had said, and Sasha and I had said, let's make the funniest show we possibly can. And for me, that was the way to do it. Keep pushing, pushing past any line or boundary that had existed before, see how far we could go until we got stopped, you know, and that is sort of like my philosophy of comedy, essentially.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, so you write. It's always good to know the rules before you break them. I. We talked about Mel Brooks, one of your heroes who you worked with. Certainly true with what he did. But then you also note that that wasn't the case with Seinfeld. They didn't really know the rules. They did break them. And it's arguably, I'd argue, the funniest sitcom of all time. So how'd that work out? Were they just luck or so good that they could have succeeded by breaking rules they didn't even know?

[Larry Charles]

Well, as you. As you know from the book, I talk about luck a lot. Luck plays a massive role in all of this. You know, there's a lot of luck in the case of Seinfeld, the show could have easily been canceled anywhere along the way. It was dying in the ratings. We were losing to a show called Jake and the Fat Man. We, like, had nothing going for us, but they had nothing else. NBC had nothing else to put on. They didn't have replacement, really, you know, so they left the show on. And the show kind of also luckily, because the talented people involved evolved and kept getting better and better as we kind of figured out what is a Seinfeld. We didn't know what a Seinfeld was when we started. You know, we were kind of groping for what that is, what are the elements, what do we need, you know, that's why Kramer becomes more of a major character. Julia becomes more of a major character. The great casting of Mark Hirschfeld to bring those people in and have those people have that chemistry, all of these things is a combination of talent, instinct, and luck, you know, and that's what kept that show on until it finally clicked with the audience.

[Mike Pesca]

So much I want to ask you about, and yet I have these stray questions that I must put to you. One is this. You say you never watched Taxi? I can't believe it.

[Larry Charles]

Not. Not before we, you know, I would say since all of this. I have seen episodes of Taxi, of course, you know, but no, I was not watching sitcoms at that time. I was not that influenced by sitcoms, except as I talk about in the book, and I think this is true of Larry and Jerry. Also earlier sitcoms from our childhood that were on mostly in reruns in New York, you know, like Abbott and Costello, like, you know, Sergeant Bilko. Those were the shows that we watched, you know, and that kind of stuck with us over the years. Burns and Allen, the Jack Benny show, shows that were done long before we were born but had a big impact on us. And the. And the kind of like the current sitcoms were not as interesting to me, and I just didn't wind up watching them. I was looking for. I looked elsewhere for my entertainment.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, and you'd watch Million Dollar Movie. Right. And those bad monster movies and whatever they put on Channel 9. War Secaucus at 6 o' clock on a Saturday.

[Larry Charles]

Million Dollar Movie was on seven or eight times a week, and I would watch it.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, they paid $1 million for it, Larry. They got to get their money's worth. A million dollars.

[Larry Charles]

Right. It was a lot of money. And I would watch those movies every single time they were on. And they'd be on a lot over the course of a year. And, like, they would repeat those movies, and I would eventually memorize those movies because I watched them so much. And so that's the stuff that really had a major impact. Cartoons, you know, the things that were sort of outside the mainstream to some degree because, you know, when you're a kid, you're also being forced to go to sleep early or whatever it is. And so I didn't see a lot of that stuff anyway. But when. By the time Taxi came along, I was just into a different trip, you know, I wasn't. I never liked sitcoms, really, which was. I think one of the keys to the success of Seinfeld is we were not big fans of sitcom. We just wanted to do a funny show, you know, and we didn't really find sitcoms to be hilariously funny. We wanted something that actually was legitimately funny, and so we moved in that direction, and that's what became Seinfeld.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, you're probably right. With your average or even maybe successful sitcoms, I don't think that Different Strokes or Facts of Life were going to influence Seinfeld. But you do mention, and as one must, well, Taxi gets mentioned because Andy Kaufman's there. And also that one sentence, which I couldn't believe, and Mary Tyler Moore, because the death of the clown is the first time death is experienced on a sitcom.

[Larry Charles]

Right.

[Mike Pesca]

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants. That was a great one. So, however, Seinfeld's not an evolution of the sitcom. Maybe this is the reason for some of the reason for its success. None of the creators of the show could have evolved from where the sitcom was because this. There's this lacuna in the gap, this gap in your understanding of the sitcom. And you go from this 1950s monster movie information to this thing you want to create, and you don't even. Even if a sitcom was great, like the James L. Brooks sitcoms I mentioned, they didn't have that much effect on you. Fascinating.

[Larry Charles]

Yeah, I think. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I think that what. You know, it actually annoyed and scared the NBC executives because it didn't fit into the mold, you know, and so if you notice, it's not. It's been very hard to replicate the vibe of Seinfeld. You know, there may be a couple of shows, and maybe because of cable or streaming, you may see more of that kind of stuff. But at that time, it was all about likability, as we've been talking about, all about morals, all about, like, happy endings. And these were things that really, we were repelled by, really, because they were so fake. And we were really committed to, like, well, that wouldn't happen. What would really happen, you know, if this. And that was a kind of like a bold question to ask in sitcoms. We didn't need tidy sort of like structure. We wanted it to be chaotic. We wanted it to reflect, even though it's a sitcom, and we wanted it to reflect real life in a kind of interesting way and still be broad enough and farcical enough to be hilariously funny. So it didn't fit into the mold that most of the networks wanted for their sitcoms. And so they did not encourage other people to do shows like that. This show was kind of an accident, like a freak of nature in the sitcom world at that time, you know.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And speaking of freaks of nature, here's another stray question I had at one point in the book you write, and this wasn't shocking, knowing, getting to know you, that you've always been fascinated by missing limbs, especially eyes. And then 200 pages later, you talk about the audition for Asimat and how fascinating Ken's misshapen head is. And I'm wondering if you ever connected those two things that you love, the misshapen. And there Ken comes in with his audition and blows you away.

[Larry Charles]

Ken. Ken was a fascinating physical specimen. You know, he had like a hair transplant, which he's very open about. And. But it was like an early hair transplant, so it was very clearly like a hair transplant. You know, it was like, nobody has hair like that. And it was. It was dyed jet black. And his body also was like. He was overweight, but he was overweight in a kind of interestingly misshapen way. And so, yes, I've always been fascinated by. He was a freak in the. And he's a sweet guy and I love him, but he was kind of a freakish looking person. There was nobody who I'd ever seen who really looked like him. And he was wearing this oversized suit on top of it when he came in, which is what he wore in the movie. So his whole presentation was very bizarre, you know. And when you see him trying to look normal, it was. That was comical even, you know, he could not look normal. He always looked like Ken. He couldn't that, you know, and he. So, yes, I was attracted to that kind of thing very much. Always, even as a kid.

[Mike Pesca]

And for more of Larry Charles, our conversation went for over 40 minutes. Because when you talk about such an interesting guy who knows interesting people and is very willing to say interesting things, you want it to continue. So to subscribe go to subscribe.mike pesca.com Become a Gist plus subscriber that is 9 99amonth and for a year I'll give it to you for 100 bucks. So you could buy the show without any ads but also without any bonus content. It is the best way to help the show. Subscribe.Mike Pesca.com. Foreign is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers

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[Various Commercial Announcers]

So when I ask what is Odoo? What comes to mind? Well, Odoo is a bit of everything. Odoo is a suite of business management software that some people say is like fertilizer because of the way it promotes growth. But you know, some people also say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it grows with your company and is also magically affordable. But then again, you could look at Odoo in terms of how its individual software programs are a lot like building blocks. I mean, whatever your business needs, manufacturing, accounting, HR programs, you can build a custom software suite that's perfect for your company. So what is Odoo? Well, I guess Odoo is a bit of everything. Odoo is a fertilizer, magic beanstalk Building blocks for business. Yeah, that's it. Which means that Odoo is exactly what every business needs. Learn more and sign up [e-mail] that's od o o.com.

[Mike Pesca]

And now the spiel. Cacocity is ruled by the worst people, and there's no greater caca crat over the years of Trump's power than Corey Lewandowski. From the physical threats to the charges of sexual harassment, Lewandowski has gone in and out of power and in and out of Trump's favorite last landing at Homeland Security. He was supposed to be a temporary adviser, able to work only quote, for a period not to exceed 130 days. But he would sidestep with a scheme so clever it could almost be considered dumb. Maneuvering past guardrails so sturdy they could almost be considered nonexistent. For instance, according to the New York Times expose today, people familiar with his activities said that he didn't use his badge to enter the building. He'd slide in with Kristi Noem, and in the minutes of official meetings, he would write the chief instead of Corey Lewandowski. Better, I guess, then big dog. Lewandowski also is not just having an alleged romantic relationship with the now ousted head of Homeland Security, Noem, but he was also perhaps benefiting Financially from his role as unpaid senior adviser. NBC reported that Lewandowski had asked for payments from Geo Group, a major contractor that runs private detention facilities. I'm going to conclude that the payments were not granted because further down in the article, the Times reports that Geo Group and Core Civic, you know, they're serious. There's no space between Core and Civic. They have long dominated the immigration detention market as vendors. They didn't get many contracts during Lewandowski's tenure. The whole tenure, not just the titular 130 days. The reporting indicates that Lewandowski was angling for less qualified companies who might pay him more on the back end. Who knows where he got the idea that that could work given the guardrails around swiping in when you went through the front door. Now, that seems to have all been rectified. Tom Homan, who is now running Homeland Security before Mark Wayne Mullen gets in, is a former employee of Geo Group. So thankfully, the immigration detention industrial complex has been reestablished. Other reporting in this Times article says that Lewandowski, according to department officials, created a culture of fear. Well, I got to say this was clearly the intention of DHS and ice. They wanted them to be feared throughout the country. And we all know that culture starts at home. And there was some further criticism of this kind, that he intimidated and punished officials in Washington. This does comport with the effect of his department in the field, which was an increase in aggressive, high profile detentions. I can't say just from the Trump administration's perspective, that that part of how he did the job came into conflict with how they wanted the job done. Now, speaking of the culture and the impressions that he gave, within the last couple days, there have been a number of documented reports about a TV commercial that Kristi Noem cut. She was riding a horse and it supposedly got her fired. Here are the first 10 seconds of that commercial.

[Various Commercial Announcers]

Why do I love these wide open spaces? They remind me of why our forefathers came here. Not just for its beauty, but for the freedom only America provides.

[Mike Pesca]

You can, if you make it out, hear the horse going clippity clop in the background. According to documentation, Noem spent $20,000 to rent the horse. She is, in fact riding two different horses in the commercial. From what I could see, they are pretty, pretty horses. Though I don't know that $20,000 is a fair price for a one or two day shoot. Noam also spent $3,781 on hair and makeup. And the money's all up there on the Screen. As they say, she looks great. Her main rivaling the steeds. But there was another detail in the documentation of her excessive commercial that caught my eye. There is an unaccounted for $500 that gnome is said to have spent at a South Dakota magic shop. What is she buying at a magic shop? I searched this shop, Magic Makers, and I've narrowed it down between the Phantom Vanishing Kit or the Magic mystery pen, perhaps to sign Corey Lewandowski in and out of the department. Magic Makers will also give you, and this is right there, prominent on their website, a free secret hand, a 2497 value with $49 in order. So this means Noem qualified for 10 free secret hands, meaning she and Lewandowski can be sufficiently underhanded and have their hand out to vendors with more hands to spare. Magic Makers is a pretty odd site. They have these little videos for most of their tricks, and they are, let us say, not very well made. And the actors in the commercials, you know, seem like they should be in a South Dakota magic shop commercial. They're doing a great job, actually. Here's a very naturalistic scene from one. Hey, man, over here. We was just talking about you. This the guy was telling you about. He has mad magic skills.

[Amazon Music Announcer]

Really?

[Larry Charles]

Can you show me a trick?

[Mike Pesca]

That conversation happens all the time. I guess Lewandowski watched it and said, I am excellent at sleight of hand. So, one serious note about the attention paid to the commercial that got her fired and the $200,000 that she spent in the hair and the makeup and the horse. No, what got her fired was her lack of control over the department, which resulted in the shooting of two innocent Americans and the denial of reality thereafter. Let us not allow the secret hand with purchase of a ball and tube mystery plus a crazy coin funnel distract us from that nomen. Lewandowski will no doubt pick themselves up, become talk show hosts or employees and future Trump administrations. They are, if nothing else, resilient. You have got to hand, hand, hand, hand it to them. That's it for today's show. Cory War is the producer. Jeff Craig runs our video. Ben Astaire is our booking coordinator. Kathleen Sykes runs our stuff substack. And Michelle Pesca is the CBSO of Peach Fish Productions. And thanks for listening.

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