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A
Welcome to the Necessary Conversation midweek edition. I'm Chad Kolchen. With me is my lib sib, Haley. Pop. You're saying now, right?
B
I've always said.
A
Okay, well, that's not true. You told me it was pope.
B
No.
A
Yeah, you did.
B
Okay.
A
Way back when you got married, I said. How do you pronounce this? You said pope.
B
Well, it's changed now.
A
It's pop. All right. We do not have our mom with us today. As you can see, she is dealing with her dad. He's out of the hospital now and back home recuperating. She's trying to help him kind of get back on his feet and everything. So she has this Wednesday off. We will be talking with her on Sunday about a wide variety of issues that, of course, are going on this week. We're going to talk about a few of them right here because there's, in my opinion, maybe the most corrupt thing that's ever happened in either of Trump's presidencies has happened in the past 24 hours. So are you ready to dive in?
B
Yeah.
A
Do you know what's happened in the last 24 hours?
B
The. The DOJ saying that they will never investigate his taxes or audit, etc, and his family ever or his businesses. Right.
A
Which means Donald Trump can now commit tax fraud at will without ever being investigated, which means he never pays taxes again.
B
Right, Right.
A
That's what just happened today. His personal lawyer, who is the head of the doj, currently gave him this deal that basically says all of the open investigations into your tax fraud gone. Any tax fraud you want to commit in the future. Totally. Okay. No one can ever investigate you. It goes for you. It goes for all of your children, your wife and every business that you have. So this also means he can start to be. I mean, he's already, like, super corrupt in all of his businesses, but it can be at an even higher level now because they can never be investigated or audited.
B
Well, never, meaning during his term. So if we have a new president and we have new rules, they can then start investigating.
A
That deal is signed.
B
I'm sure there has to be something that someone can do.
A
What is it?
B
There has to be like this.
A
I don't know.
B
This is not. This can't be like, for infinity, there's no way.
A
Well, I mean, for infinity. How long does he have to live? He's got a couple years left.
B
Right. But his, his posterity, like kids and future businesses, like, there's no way that's just gonna continue to do this, to be there's no way.
A
I'm very curious. I mean, there's a lot of things ramping up. I didn't think, like, when he became president again, that it would be this bad, this quick. This is a year and a half. Ish. A little more than, I guess.
B
Yeah.
A
Or almost a little less than. It'll be a year and a half in, like, a month. And already he has eliminated the possibility that he can be audited by the irs, which was like, the whole thing when he was coming in. Release your tax returns. Every president up to this point has done that. He refused. Somebody leaked them. That's what supposedly then prompted him to sue the IRS for $10 billion. This now is part of the settlement, which is, okay, take your $10 billion lawsuit away, and in exchange, no one will ever audit you again. And the current audits that he was claiming were happening just evaporate.
B
I don't know. I don't know. I. I just cannot believe that this will stand, that at some point someone else will be in office, there will be an entirely new administration, a new doj. This cannot stand. I don't know.
A
I think it might. Do you think that maga, generally, they're seeing this. Do you think anyone believes this is justified? Even his most fervent supporters? Do you think they're looking at this and it's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. He doesn't have to pay taxes, but I do. He doesn't get audited, but I will if I don't pay my taxes. This is really, like, king shit.
B
Yes, but I think, like, ultra MAGA are, like, the dumbest of the dumb. Like, you're so. You're so stupid at this point, if you're still following this. Like, you have to be so dumb. And there are still some people like
A
that dumb or indoctrinated to a point that you don't want to admit that you were wrong or that you got duped. So there's, like, sort of some ego in it too, but, like, just at a base level, whether you're dumb or not, it's right there in front of your face. Now this guy gets to not pay taxes. You have to pay taxes. And if you don't, the very guy that made him immune from taxes is gonna come after your ass and throw you in jail.
B
Right, but you're also talking about he. He implemented tariffs, and now all of our, like, gas is up, groceries are up. They're justifying that. So that also is right in front of you, in front of your face and you're choos to explain it away. So I am assuming they will do the same with this.
A
I don't know. To me this is a step further because with the prices going up and stuff, obviously I don't agree with this, but I can understand how somebody might rationalize, well, it's a temporary thing. It's just until he wins the war. Like mom was saying, we need the war because she believes Iran had a nuclear weapon and we need to, you know, if prices go up for a minute to keep us all safe from the threat of nuclear annihilation, so be it. They can say that they believe prices are going to go back down.
B
He's been like, as transparent as possible with literally saying, I don't give a shit about the American people. Like he said it. And they're, they're still apologetic.
A
But there is a future, theoretically, there is a future for people who are like on his side in this shit where prices do come back down, where this is literally a temporary thing and we will be better off in the future because of what's happening now. This tax shit is like, there ain't no better off future. There ain't no future where it goes back the other way. And he's got to pay his fair share. He literally does not have to pay taxes now.
B
Yeah.
A
And that will be obviously illegal, but there's no recourse. No one can audit him. I don't know, I think this might be very bad for him. That said, we also got some news. This will probably be a topic on Sunday as well, that all these Trump backed people in the primaries and all these southern states basically won their elections, including Thomas Massie lost his. And he was the, the main Republican voice kind of against Trump, at least in terms of Epstein files and transparency and all that. And so I don't, I, I had the number 21 endorsed candidates won their primaries on May 19 across multiple states. Kentucky, Indiana, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana. So the Trump endorsed candidates had like a huge night in the primaries. And I don't know what that means exactly. I, I have like, I'm very conflicted about it. On one hand, I believe. Not conflicted in that I think it's good or anything, but in thinking about how this happened or why, on one hand, I can see how like these are deep red districts, you know, kind of the last bastions of Trump support. And if they're gonna vote for the Trump guy anywhere, it's gonna be in these districts. Fine, I can maybe get on board with that. But so many of them won. And I just keep going back to, like, all those things that we heard in the last presidential election when Elon Musk is like, oh, yeah, we fixed the election, basically. And Trump is like. He knows computers. He knows the voting systems better than anybody.
B
Yeah.
A
Did they do something here?
B
I will never trust voting again until they are out of the fucking. Until they're out of office. Like, I will not. I can't. You can't trust it.
A
Yeah.
B
Yes. They cheated. I don't believe it. I don't believe any of it. I don't know if we'll have fair elections. Like, he's talking about running for a third term. Just saying that out loud. That's. You can't do that.
A
We're gonna see. I mean, I thought you couldn't avoid taxes either. And he's doing it that. There's a new picture that came out today also of the. The ballroom. The White House, basically.
B
Right, Right.
A
Did you see that one?
B
Yeah.
A
So it's like. It's level. Like, they're just digging a giant hole and building a huge kind of underground bunker thing. And he's been bragging about how it's going to have slots where drones can fly out and block all this shit. So it's like, but why is he building that?
B
Right. Right.
A
I think when his presidency is up, he's going in that bunker and he's going to be like, come and get me, motherfuckers.
B
Yeah.
A
And I think the. Another topic I wanted to address with you is the slush fund, the $1.8 billion slush fund that just got set up. That's our money, taxpayer money that he's going to essentially use to privately fund his own militia.
B
Right.
A
He's going to give it to the January 6th rioters, and he's going to say, hey, you want another million dollars? Let's do the fight. Come to Washington, D.C. protect my bunker. That I think is going to happen. I think it's literally the strategy he's setting up.
B
Jesus. I mean, I hope you're wrong, but if you're right, like, I'd like to think that, you know, he has to. He has to set up his own privatized military because our actual military will not go along with this. At least that's the hope.
A
But they kind of are. They're currently waging an illegal war in Iran that Congress never gave any approval for. And they're killing people. They're dropping bombs on schools.
B
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. I don't Know, you know, like, I feel like most of the soldiers involved are just pawns. I feel like all of the, the people in charge are the dicks that should be, you know, cut out. New people in charge. But I mean, I guess put yourself in their position. Like, you serve in the military and you're getting orders from whoever, like your, your head dudes in the military telling you, like, these are, this is what we're gonna do. What are you supposed to do?
A
I mean, it depends on how high up the chain you are. I think if you're just kind of rank and file, obviously you don't have much of a choice. This is your job. This is how you're paying your rent, you know, like, you got to do it. And I don't begrudge them anything.
B
Right.
A
But higher up the chain, when you're getting to, like, generals and stuff, they gotta put their foot down. They gotta say like, hey, did Congress approve this war? No. Well, then we can't do it. That's illegal.
B
Didn't they fire a bunch of those people, though?
A
They did fire some people that were kind of near the top. But I think there are still people in place who could be making these decisions. And that's what the, the whole thing with Mark Kelly and those other lawmakers that made that video that basically said, like, hey, just reminding you, if you're in the military, you're obligated to disobey illegal orders.
B
Right.
A
They ain't doing it.
B
Yeah.
A
And I know there's gray area with like, it was never formally declared a war and it's just a conflict and blah, blah, blah, but now we're in week, like 11 of it or whatever. He said it was going to be a couple of days. We're going on now into three months of it. And it's like there has to be, I think, some dissent among the ranks. There has to be some questioning of his decision making in this, or maybe there's not. Maybe it's like, if you're that high up in the military, this is just what you like to do. Go to war. You get to play with the toys now. I don't know. I don't know. But I feel like, you know, if our last hope is that the military will step in and stop him from trying to take over the country from a bunker that he's very clearly building, that we can all now see him building, that he's bragging about building.
B
Right.
A
I don't think they're going to help us
B
again. I know you don't believe in violence, but I feel like we are reaching that point. I feel like there has to be some kind of revolution that is going to happen because. Yeah, at what point do you say enough is enough? We're not getting fair elections now. You can't be audited. We're not. You're never going to pay taxes. Like you're stealing money from us, robbing the American people blind. At what point does that end? And nobody, you know, the Supreme Court don't give a. Like, Congress, Senate, like, nobody gives a. So it's going to get to a point where the people are going to have to take matters into their own hands. And then it. Because you've seen that movie Civil War. You've seen that.
A
I wrote a movie just like that. Well, like a week after Donald Trump got elected the first time, I was just like, up all night, couldn't sleep, and I was like, let me just write this movie. And it was about basically, a Trumpian figure wins a second term, like, by 90%. Immediate riots in the street. He calls in the National Guard to basically just, like, start slaughtering people. And it was about these five people who flee Los Angeles to go to, like, Big Bear, basically in a cabin to wait it out as the civil war is erupting all around them. But, yes, I did see the movie you're talking about, and they never gave any clear reason in that movie as to why it was all happening, which I thought was a complete cop out. But, yeah, maybe a situation like that, only Trump is going to have a goddamn bunker with military drones and machine guns and protecting him in there. I think, like, he's clearly anticipating a violent revolution and he's trying to inoculate himself against it.
B
I mean, potentially he's also going to die soon. So there's that.
A
Yeah, there is that. Um, there is that. And then, yeah, like, if he. If he dies, let's say he died tomorrow. Are they still building the ballroom? And like, who's at 4?
B
I highly doubt it. I doubt it.
A
J.D. vance is like, we. I still. Now I need the ballroom.
B
Nobody cares.
A
We're gonna put some couches in there.
B
Literally, nobody cares.
A
Yeah, but I mean, they're all making money like this. He's just the one who's at the center of it, at the top of the fucking pyramid. So we see a lot more of it publicly. There was another thing that came out. I think I have it here. I watched this. Do you know who Liz Oyer is? She was the pardon attorney for Biden, and she has A really good Instagram account where she's constantly talking about, you know, just all the. The misdeeds that Trump is doing, basically, and how it's not just breaking norms. It's like, in many cases, highly illegal what he's doing. And she had a thing where she showed there's a form that presidents have to submit or. Or any federal lawmakers have to submit that talks about their trades, their stock trades. And he submitted his form, and it had 3,700 trades on it, most of which were, like, in direct conflict with things he. Or conflict of interest, I should say, with decisions he's making. It's like tech companies, oil companies, you know, all this. When he comes out and he makes a tweet, that's like, good time to buy Dell. He did it a week prior to.
B
Right.
A
He's literally committing criminal activity, insider trading.
B
Yeah.
A
And nobody's doing anything. And then you even get Mike Johnson, when he was asked about it was like, well, politicians only make $200,000 a year, and we've got to feed our families. What are we supposed to do? He basically was just saying, yeah, we all. Insider trade. Fuck you.
B
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I. Like I said, I think it's going to come to violence. I think people are not going to be able to feed their families and live. And at that point, you get. You'll do what you got to do.
A
But what does that look like in your mind?
B
I. I think it requires, like. It requires a riot. It requires some event that is, like, cataclysmic, that. Chain reactions like everything else, but we've
A
had that, and it didn't work. I thought the January 6th riot, I thought for sure that was going to be like, okay, this is over now. All these motherfuckers tried this. They're going to jail. Everybody's out. He fucking won another election maybe. But he's. He's the president now. I thought maybe with the George Floyd protests that would happen. It seemed like people were real pissed off. They took over Portland for a little while. It seemed like things might fucking change. Then, no, just back to normal. Everybody dies down. I think for what you're talking about, like a violent revolution, it has to be organized. It can't be like, one event. You know, somebody gets shot, somebody gets killed. I mean, all the shit that was happening with ICE when they killed Renee Good and Alex Preddy, nothing came out of that. People protested for a minute and nothing happened. And now Trump is, like, not paying taxes, building his fucking bunker, doing all this shit, it's like all of our, our little kind of pushbacks are just ignored. They don't give a fuck.
B
So do you think anyone, is there a politician that is so far left that they would start the revolution?
A
No.
B
Do you think like an AOC would put her ass on the line for that?
A
You think AOC would start a violent revolution?
B
Yeah, that's true.
A
Absolutely not. If they are in Washington D.C. they are playing that game.
B
Yeah.
A
And they're all losing. Trump is like winning that game, has won that game potentially. He can never be beat. I don't know. That game to me is like a busted game. And he has proven it. You can cheat to win and you can cheat so brazenly that you can change the nature of the game so that you're the only person who can win. And he's done that. And the whole MAGA right wing has done that. Stephen Miller Project 2025 it worked, they won. It's over now. I don't know how democracy comes back from this. You literally have a king saying, I don't pay taxes and you can never look at my tax records.
B
So does this bleed into other countries? You think other countries are going to start doing this?
A
I mean, we've already kind of seen that, the authoritarian rise in other countries and stuff. And certainly there are, you know, like, look at Russia, it's been this way for a long time and you see kind of like the, it's much further along in its progression of this type of a thing. And so I think we're looking at a future where Trump dies, his children inherit everything he's done and, and they're going to become more powerful than he ever was. I don't know that they'll be explicitly like forward facing politicians. I don't think they will be. In fact, I think it'll be much more nefarious, just like back room shady. I mean they never can be audited again. All their whole lives now. And how old are his kids? 40s.
B
I don't.
A
Yeah, I guess something like that. They got 40 years of just brazen financial corruption that can never be legally prosecuted, can never even be investigated.
B
I just, I don't think that's going to be true. I think with any new president that gets ushered in, that's a completely new cabinet, we have new people coming in and it's going to be quite liberal and quite democratic and they will hold these people accountable, but it always is
A
going to go to the Supreme Court and those motherfuckers are people.
B
Then you stack the Supreme Court with more members, they're not going to cover your agenda.
A
Look, we've talked about this, kind of. Till we're blue in the face. We know exactly what to do. All the talking heads on every news program know exactly what to do. Stack the Supreme Court. Guess how many Democratic presidents have done that? None. They never will because they are bad at the game. They thought that the game had, like, integrity, that it couldn't be railroaded by some fucking maniac. Well, guess what? He did it. Now you're fucked. And so all those years of, like, upholding norms and playing by the perceived rules, it's now been proven those rules never existed. And it was a fucking lie. In my opinion. That's. That's kind of where we're at with this.
B
So we just need a liberal, a liberal maniac, a socialist maniac who's willing to break all the rules.
A
But, like, that doesn't exist because most of them are taking money from the same companies that give it to Trump.
B
Right.
A
And that is. I mean, the real game is the corporations own all of them, and they're letting Trump do his thing and, like, whatever, because it causes chaos. They're also making money off this shit. When Trump comes out and he's like, buy Dell stock right? The week before when he bought it, guess what? He also told Bezos and Zuckerberg and all those motherfuckers to buy it. They're benefiting greatly off of this. Just seeing too, like, kind of the. The brazenness of these billionaires. I saw a recent interview with Bezos where he was like, billionaires aren't the problem. You think we're the problem? We're the innovators. No, no, no, no, no, no. And it's like Elon Musk is like that. That billionaire class right now is really up their own asses. And just like, we are the saviors of humanity and everybody else is a fucking plebe.
B
And.
A
And I don't know if that ever goes away.
B
I think once you reach a certain level of wealth, you're just not a person anymore. You can't even live, like, among people.
A
Yeah.
B
You don't even. You can't even comprehend what it's like to, like, be an average fucking person, like, ever again. Just so out of touch. So, you know, why do people matter? They don't. It's then. And it's not even about the accumulation of wealth anymore to them. That's not even what it's about.
A
Yes.
B
Because they've got more money Than God.
A
It's about bending humanity in a direction that you think is the best direction.
B
Yeah, yeah.
A
That's what they're all doing with space travel, with coming up with technology to live forever.
B
Right.
A
Ushering in an AI God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And all of them, by the way, instead of leveraging their money to make the world better, they build bunkers, just like Trump is doing.
B
Right.
A
They are anticipating a collapse of society, and instead of trying to change that, they are just trying to survive it. And they have enough money, they believe, to do that by building their bunkers and, you know, buying real estate in places where they think it will survive global warming and all that kind of. They're not trying to help humanity.
B
Right.
A
They want to, I think, speed up its demise so that they can rebuild whatever they perceive it to be in their bizarre images. That, to me, is the scariest thing. Trump is just like a. A crazy egomaniac. I don't think he's as malevolent as, like, a Peter Thiel or. Forget the dude's name. Who's the guy that runs Palantir. I think those people really are like, we know what's best for humanity, and we're going to steer this species in the right direction. Trump is just like, put my name on more things and give me more money. He's a very base, level narcissist, in my opinion.
B
Yeah, it's scary. I don't know. So, like, what's the future? Can you even outrun it? Because things like Palantir, like AI, you can't outrun that. You can't move to any country and get away from that.
A
But Palantir and AI are two different things. AI is just a tool. It's how people are using it. And. And, like, Palantir is using it nefariously, obviously.
B
Correct. And you cannot outrun that.
A
I agree. You can't. So it has to be. I mean, we're at kind of a break point with some of these companies, I think, especially because none of them are being regulated. And even if they were, our Congress, our lawmakers are too stupid to understand how any of it works.
B
Yeah.
A
And that's always been the case. I. I will forever remember. There's a clip of an old senator back in the. The early days of the Internet, where he's like, what is the Internet? A series of tubes. Do you remember this?
B
Yes. Yeah.
A
And it's just like, these people are grade A dumb fucks that are making decisions about all of this. And I Think with AI, a lot of them are just getting greased by the AI companies, just like, here's your money, shut the fuck up. And they don't understand it anyway, they're too old to care, etc. Etc. Etc. And I think that's a big problem. But I will say I was enthused this week by Luigi Mangione.
B
Mangione.
A
Did you see this thing where they threw out all the shit in his backpack? Cannot be used as evidence.
B
Yes, I think he might get off me too. I think he might get out and then.
A
Do you think he will kill again?
B
I mean, I mean, yes, if you, if you do it once, if you did it once, like there's something within him that like propelled him to do that and that's not gone.
A
Wasn't it a personal thing though? Didn't United Healthcare over one of his family members or something made some decision about kicking them out of a rehab like they just did with fucking dad or whatever?
B
Yeah, I guess I didn't know that. I didn't know that part.
A
Google this real quick.
B
Yeah, I hope he gets out. I really do. Luigi Mangione. It's a Luigi time. It's a matter of time away.
A
I, I don't know that he would do it again, but I'd be interested to see him run for something.
B
I mean, yeah. Cultivationality. Is he old enough? Can he. I don't know.
A
I don't know how old he is. Social media posts show he underwent back surgery. Da da da da da. He also reportedly dealt with frequent back pain and brain fog. His motivation appears to have been more ideological than personal diary entries, etc. Etc. I thought for some reason that he had a family member or something who got like denied health care by United and so he's like this. But I think like that type of a thing. I know we were all. I mean, I won't say that I was necessarily like, hopeful. I don't like seeing anyone get executed or killed or whatever. I think it's like that's when society starts tearing itself apart, basically, when you have those kinds of things happening. But it, the message was like clear and direct and like, basically these billionaire can't control us anymore. And it is these people, the CEOs of these giant companies that are making all of the decisions for how we're treated basically as people.
B
Right. And, and the reason that that message was clear was because it was a violent action. So I, you know, I also don't like people getting murdered, but like, how are you going to Articulate what you're feeling. How are you going to end all this madness? Because billionaires aren't going to fucking stop. They're not going to stop.
A
Right? Yes, I. I totally agree. And now we're also at a point where it's like the. The kind of stupidity of the MAGA movement in Project 2025. And maybe to your point here is that when you keep carving away rights, freedoms from Americans, they become more desperate. When you have nothing to lose, it's like, then that's when you see some like this pop off. And so now they've. They've carved out. All these blue districts in these red states are gone now. So your vote is gone. The one thing that they always tell you is, like, this is how you affect change. Get out and vote. It's like, well, that's meaningless now in those states if you're not a Republican. So that's gone. Your health care is fucking gone. You're looking at this king sitting on top of a mountain of billions of dollars. He's made more money during this presidency than he has made in all prior years of his life combined. That stat came out today, and now he doesn't have to pay taxes on any of it. And now he's building a bunker, and now none of his family has to pay taxes or can ever be audited again.
B
Yeah.
A
It's absolutely insane. So there's. They're doing things, I think, to enrage people and make them feel desperate enough that maybe some shit like that will pop off. But I'm also like, we've seen what happens when it's, you know, not organized. Like the guy at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Whether that was real or not, I don't know. I tend to believe it. It was real enough. Meaning. I think that Trump has people who are actively trying to radicalize whoever they can find online that they might be able to push over the edge.
B
Sure.
A
Just so that they can fire these people in at Trump. And if they get him, great. We now use that martyr momentum to, like, give past the torch to J.D. vance and Steve Miller and whoever else.
B
Yeah.
A
And if they don't, it just, like, makes him, you know, at least in magazines, even more revered because he survived all these assassination attempts. But those don't work.
B
No.
A
It changes nothing. If anything, it gives MAGA more power.
B
I don't know. I'm gonna maintain. I. I want to see it all burn. I want to see it burn to the ground. All of it, Everyone. It's all corrupt. The entire political System is fucking corrupt, it's damaged, it's nothing but crooks. They're literally stealing from us every day. And at some point even Maja I think is gonna have to wake up because like I said, they, you won't be able to feed your kids. Then what do you do? And if you're a parent, like it's, it's tenfold, you know, when, when you need a kid to go to the hospital for something or a baby that needs formula or diapers or whatever, like that desperation will make you act. They're with like the entire American population and a lot. And we're all, a lot of us are normal people, you know, the billionaires, the billionaires. And then it's everyone else. And at some point everyone else is going to have enough. And I think it's going to come to, I think it's going to come to a physical revolution. I don't know how it will manifest. I don't know who's going to start it, but at some point it's going to get violent because we are all desperate.
A
I like Physical Revolution. It sounds like the title of an aerobics class.
B
It is in 85 and it will
A
be welcome to the physical revolution. Get your leg warmers on and let's do some jumping jacks to warm up.
B
Yeah, yeah.
A
I mean, maybe I, maybe I just don't see it because even as bad as it gets, like, I mean we're talking about these primaries, these fucking maga. Republicans swept them. What? Everybody who's voting for them in those various counties is feeling the same stresses and stuff you're talking about. And they voted for them. They voted for more of it.
B
Did they?
A
I don't know. But we're also in this place. Like you're saying you'll never trust an election again. We don't trust the news. And that also is a symptom of what Trump has done. He has made you distrust every element that used to hold up kind of the, the American societal structure. You now question it all. I do too. I do too.
B
I don't think we will ever have a fair election with him in office. I really don't. Yeah, I think it's all rigged.
A
How, how drastic would a, a Republican victory in this next election? Let's say that Trump does not run. Let's say that it's J.D. vance or whoever. How one sided of a victory would it have to be for you to be pretty sure it was rigged?
B
If, if it's actually JD Vance running
A
rigged and he wins it all rigged?
B
Yes. Yeah. Like, I. I really think that. That at this point, the majority of the American population will not vote a Republican into office. I really don't think that that's even a possibility because it's just a repeat of the same horseshit that we've been living for the last year and a half.
A
Well, but let me throw this on there for you. Let's say. I mean, I think Trump is going to try to run, first of all, but if by some strange measure, he does not, and he agrees. Yes. Time to pass the torch. J.D. vance is the guy, or whoever the next Republican may be. They kill Trump. That's the October surprise. They assassinate him. The Republicans do. Then they've got his martyr momentum going into November.
B
Mm.
A
You don't think that works?
B
No, no.
A
All right.
B
I don't. I. I think that if we do not have a Democratic president next time around, it's fucking rigged.
A
Interesting. So that's exactly what mom and dad said about Trump. If Trump loses, it's rigged. So you're saying whoever the Democratic candidate is, if they lose, you feel it's rigged?
B
I can't say whoever. Like, if it's Gavin Newsom or some shit, like, oh, God, yeah. Like, I. You know, that's. That's maybe believable that. That he would be beat. But if it's. If it's somebody worth a. There's no way a Republican is winning, especially J.D. vance.
A
But, I mean. I mean, this gets into the weeds a little bit, but I felt the same way about Kamala Harris, like, when she became the nominee, and obviously everybody's pissed off. There were no primaries. We didn't even get a choice. They just kind of said, here's your nominee, we get it. I really liked her. I thought she was going to win. I think a lot of people did. She raised more money than anybody in a shorter amount of time, had all this online support, and then lost. And I know you and I both feel like that might have been rigged, etc. Etc. But let's say it wasn't. Trump beat her after January 6th happened.
B
I don't think he did. I think it was rigged. After all that shit that Elon Musk said and Donald Trump said, they tampered with the voting machines. Like, I don't believe that that outcome was true. I really don't. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I don't typically, like, dive into that, but, like, listening to them talk about this, there's no way she didn't win.
A
Yeah. I felt very similarly. But it then comes down to, like, well, who's doing those investigations? And the answer is no one. And that's a failure of the Democratic Party, in my opinion. And that's why it's like, I can't. I don't want to vote for them either.
B
No, I don't.
A
Obviously I have to.
B
But, yeah, I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. Like I said, I want to burn it all down. I don't believe in our policies anymore, our politicians anymore. I don't believe in this government structure. I'm neither of those things. I actually think Democrats are fucking weak as shit. This whole, like, when they go low, we go high. No, that, like, they're just playing dirty left and right and Dems are just rolling over and taking it. That's why we're in this predicament 100%
A
we are looking at. I mean, again, these are conspiracy theories. We have no evidence other than the little. The little bubbles that come to the surface and pop. And you're like, wait, what did he say? What the fuck did he say? Oh, this happened. There was some investigation going on with, like, those voting machines that they got bought by Peter Thiel's company and Elon Musk put new software on them like, a week before they, like all that, and then that just kind of evaporated.
B
Yeah.
A
And. And that's also a part of, like, the Ellison family buying up all the media. I mean, we've seen it on Tick Tock, or Tick Tock used to be our number one platform where we put out our clips and stuff. Since the Ellison family took it over that nosedive, Tick Tock is a ghost town.
B
Yeah, I don't even.
A
It's terrible.
B
Like, we post on it just because, you know, we cross post on all social media at this point. It's like, Tick Tock, whatever. I go there for, like, funny content during the day. Now it's not even a. Yeah, still
A
pretty good cat videos.
B
Yeah, there's cat videos, but Tick Tock is done.
A
Yeah, I. I was very surprised to see that Instagram really hasn't censored anything. I find that interesting. Like, Zuck is still kind of like, whatever, I guess he doesn't give a. But that idea of Trump and his allies have taken control of such a big chunk of media. Finance, obviously, the military, all this kind of stuff, I don't know how that ever goes back normal. Like, even after Trump's gone, the Ellison family is going to own everything that you watch.
B
Yeah, I Don't know. But then the propaganda has to change because it's no longer Donald Trump. It's no longer my job. So, like, what is it? What is it? Because once he's dead and gone, that ends, like, my jaw is done and Ellison's are, are. It's a business. They just want money. So wherever whoever is.
A
I don't know if that's true. These billionaires have a different thing going on. Like you're saying it ain't about the money for them. Once you hit a certain point where you can literally engage in any behavior possible to be engaged in by a human being, including flying into space if you want to.
B
Right.
A
The money doesn't mean anything.
B
Right.
A
At that point, it's like, how can I put my thumb on the scale of, like, humanity and change the direction of this? You, you start to believe yourself to be a God, that you alone or you in a small group of people are so influential that only your decisions matter and everybody else is just cattle to be moved where you want. Bezos is like that. Zuckerberg is like that. They're all like that.
B
Sure. So what is. So what is. So if the Ellison family is trying to feed us propaganda, because that's what it is, then what does it become when mahja is over? What. What are they trying to achieve?
A
I don't know if it, if it changes because I think the Ellison family is authoritarian as well. I think they want to control what we think through media. And I think they are right wing. I think they're true believer, like Christian nationalists, kind of pieces of.
B
And so I don't think 2025.
A
Yes.
B
Yeah.
A
Project 2025 is like Trump is, is like a tool for them, but he's not part of it. He didn't write it. He doesn't believe that, doesn't care. He, of all the billionaires that we're talking about, is the one who most cares about money, right? And, and status. And the other ones don't really. They've got the money, they've got the status. They're playing a bigger game. That Trump is actually a chess piece in that game to them. They're going to use him as they see fit to do whatever they need to do to pull the levers of political power in America and globally. And then once he's dead, they are going to recede into the shadows and be even more nefarious, in my opinion, because Trump's just out there fucking doing it. Like Elon Musk is in the White House with his Kid. And the kid's like, you're not the president. They're not going to be doing that shit anymore. They're going to slink back into the COVID of darkness and be pulling the strings from where they used to do it, you know? And that's even, like, scarier to some degree to me, I guess.
B
Well, I will fight to the end. I'll fight it to the end. I'll do my part. I'll do what I can. I don't know. It's every day, you know, I contemplate just cutting and running and moving to Amsterdam or some. Some. But ultimately, it's like I feel like I've made a difference in my town that I live in. And so that, you know, it makes me want to stay. It makes me want to stay and fight and do what I can, because if it's not me, it's nobody. And then where do all the people here, you know, like, they. They look to us for, like, a voice in a community that's, like, super red. We used to just be a little tiny blue dot, but now it's like, we're big. You know, there's more of us. And so, you know, to cut and run feels wrong, I think. And. And you have to ask yourself, you know, like, you read it all the time, like, who would you have been in the Holocaust? Like, how would you have been in the Civil War and. And, you know, like, during segregation, all that. And, you know, I. I think that. That you know exactly who you are, because we're going through it right now. Like, I know exactly who I am and what I would have been during all of those times in history. And so I think you have to really make a stand and. And be who you are. So I simply cannot cut and run.
A
Yeah, I can't either. I. I don't know at what point it happened for me, but I definitely made the. The kind of psychological decision that I'm going down with California, come and get me. I ain't leaving. Yeah, my town.
B
Yeah. I mean, I'm encouraged by specifically Texas, because there is a lot of momentum behind Gina Hinojosa beating out Greg Abbott for governor of Texas. There's a lot of momentum behind Telo. Like, Ken Paxton is a sack of shit. There's all of these people in office that I think most Texans want out. And so if we are given fair elections, I think it might happen. Like, we haven't had a Democratic governor since Ann Richards, like, 91 to 95. So since 1995, this has been a red state.
A
Yeah.
B
And it just keeps getting worse. Like with education, with health care, like all of it, it's in the gutter right now. I think we were ranked like in the top 10 for education back when Ann Richards was governor. Now we're like 40. I think Oklahoma is like deadass last.
A
I think so too.
B
You know, like, when you look at things historically like that, as a Texan, you have to kind of question like, what the are we doing, guys? I think that, I think we have a good chance of, of going blue.
A
Yeah.
B
That Beto was kind of an indicator of that. Like, people came out in droves and even though he lost and people want to on him and all this, like, it was close.
A
Yeah.
B
Okay, that was close. So I, I think, like, if we just keep chipping away at it, eventually we will turn blue.
A
All right, my final question to you before we wrap this up is you have said that you believe violence is the answer. Tear it all down. What would it take for you yourself to participate in the violence?
B
Yeah, I suppose like something quite personal. Something with either myself or my children. I would be all in at that point.
A
Okay, interesting. I think for me it would only be like a self defense kind of measure, like if, you know, Trump's goons were at my door or something like, I'm not going to jail.
B
I mean, also, that. Yeah. You're not taking me anywhere.
A
Correct.
B
I'm not going to a second location.
A
Yeah. I'm not going to a first location. That.
B
Yeah, I'm not doing that.
A
That's probably what it would be for me as well. And now that he's got his $1.8 billion to fund his personal gestapo.
B
Yeah.
A
That may not be so far fetched. Time will tell. But thank you for joining me, Haley, in absence of Mom. I love you. Thank you for doing this. And I'm very proud of all the that you're doing. I know that you're building a huge liberal community there and about to expand it even further. That's going to be very exciting. So I love you. Thank you for doing this. Mom, if you're out there, if you're watching this, I love you. I love dad as well. And I hope you guys are, are pulling through the best you can right now. I know it's very difficult.
B
Yeah, yeah. Mom, dad, if you're watching, I love you, Chad. I love you. Still haven't done my, my sessions. What are they called? The thing that you sent me to.
A
What are you talking about?
B
The, the, the astral projecting.
A
The gateway.
B
I still haven't done it yet, but
A
I do one tonight.
B
I. I have been very busy at night.
A
Hey, ain't we all? It's 30 minutes.
B
Yeah, I'll. I'm gonna astral project this evening.
A
Okay. Let me know what you see.
B
Okay.
A
All right, thanks, everybody, for joining us. We'll be back on Sunday, hopefully with our mom to talk about some of the things we talked about here. I'm very curious to see what mom says about the Trump being completely exempt from all taxes or tax law. Absolutely fucking insane. But thanks for joining us, and we will see you on Sunday.
Date: May 21, 2026
Hosts: Chad Kolchen (“A”) & Haley Pop (“B”)
Theme: Family Therapy Through Politics – A Sibling Deep-Dive into the Latest Trump Tax Immunity Scandal and the State of American Democracy
This episode centers on an explosive new development: a Department of Justice deal granting Donald Trump and his family lifelong immunity from tax audits and investigations. Siblings Chad and Haley, without their usual co-host (Mom), process the implications of unchecked presidential power, MAGA politics, primary results, and the future of American democracy. Their conversation moves between outrage, disbelief, and dark humor, questioning not only the Trump administration but also the institutions and structures enabling corruption. The tone is personal, exasperated, and unfiltered.
“Donald Trump can now commit tax fraud at will without ever being investigated, which means he never pays taxes again.“
— Chad, 01:16
“He doesn’t have to pay taxes, but I do. He doesn’t get audited, but I will if I don’t pay my taxes.”
— Chad, 04:19
“He’s clearly anticipating a violent revolution and he’s trying to inoculate himself against it.”
— Chad, 14:06
“He has to set up his own privatized military because our actual military will not go along with this. At least that’s the hope.”
— Haley, 09:51
“At some point it’s going to come to a physical revolution. I don’t know how it will manifest… but at some point it’s going to get violent because we are all desperate.”
— Haley, 30:26
“All those years of, like, upholding norms and playing by the perceived rules, it’s now been proven those rules never existed. And it was a fucking lie.”
— Chad, 20:02
“Trump is just like a crazy egomaniac… the other ones, I think, are like, ‘we know what’s best for humanity, and we’re going to steer this species in the right direction.’ Trump is just like, put my name on more things and give me more money.”
— Chad, 22:55
The episode is a raw, wide-ranging diagnosis of American democracy in crisis, painted through the lens of family political therapy. Chad and Haley’s dialogue moves fluidly from scandal to existential threat, from satire to seriousness, making for an engaging, illuminating listen.
Next Episode: The siblings plan to bring their Mom back for further discussion on Trump’s tax immunity and on-the-ground perspectives.