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The Opinions
Has Trump Gone Full ‘Mob Boss’?
00:40:01
The president’s $1.8 billion slush fund is causing further cracks in the Republican Party.
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- [00:00]
A
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- [00:29]
B
I mean, we should all just. We should all apply. We say that we were at Jan.6. We were there. We were in the crowd. And we feel victimized. We feel victimized. By sleepy Joe Biden,
- [00:44]
A
I'm Michelle Cottle. I'm a political writer for Times Opinion, and I am here this week with my fabulous colleagues, columnists David French and Jamelle Bouie. Guys, it's been a minute since the three of us were together. How goes it?
- [00:57]
C
It's great to get the gang back together again. I'm glad to see Jamel.
- [01:00]
B
Yeah, looking forward to the conversation and glad to be back.
- [01:03]
A
Gotten the band back together. And today we're going to talk about Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund that will ostensibly compensate people who say they were victims of political persecution. This could, for example, result in some pretty big payouts to the January 6th rioters funded by US taxpayers. Then we're gonna unpack some of the recent primaries. So, as always, lots to cover. Let's get to it. Jamelle and David, I know we have talked many, many, many times about Trump's corruption and his chipping away at democratic institutions and norms. Before we get into the specifics, what are you most concerned about with this political slush fund? With the usual caveat that we are taping this on a Thursday morning, and I realize there's lots to choose from.
- [02:01]
B
I mean, yeah, it's like, what isn't there to be concerned about? It's an illegal, probably also unconstitutional, slush fund meant to pay off the rioters that the president pardoned at the beginning of his term. You got guys like Enrique Terrio, former head of the Proud Boys, saying that he's gonna ask for two to five million dollars for this fund. And this is ostensibly for victims of the weaponization of government. And what does weaponization of government mean in this context? It means people being arrested, charged, prosecuted and convicted by a jury of their peers in fair trials like this. Isn't this what weaponization? It's nonsense. And so it's Paying off. It's paying off people who were fairly convicted of trying to overturn a presidential election from money stolen from the American taxpayers, for all intents and purposes. And it's crazy. It is genuinely one of the most insane things I have ever seen. And this is, you know, we're 10 years into Trump, right? So I see it a lot. And this really takes, takes the cake, David.
- [03:30]
C
If, if anything, Jamel just undersold this. Like, if, if he's erred in any way, he has undersold this. And here's, yeah, here's, here's what I mean about it. I think it might be the most purely monarchical thing that he's done yet in an already monarchical presidency. And, and the reason why I say that now, I, I, I fully recognize that this is also a man who unilaterally launched a war on a foreign country. He's going to be, he's been able to look back at sort of past presidential misbehavior in that arena to kind of justify this. And he tries to do that here by looking back at prior presidents who, when friendly groups had filed litigation, had entered into favorable settlements with friendly groups. Now, this is something, a practice called sue and settle. And a lot of those settlements I didn't like. They were too favorable, for example. But that is not this. Let's break down what this is. So what this is is Donald Trump suing his own irs, the IRS that he controls for alleged misconduct that was committed when he controlled the IRS in his first term. So he's suing an agency he controls for alleged misconduct that occurred under his watch. Then the defending agency is supposed to be the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice is also under his control. So here you have, he's filing a lawsuit against an entity he controls. This is absurd. And so when a federal government, when a federal judge looks at this and goes, wait a minute, is this even an adversarial process? Is this a real case and controversy? I mean, this is one side suing itself. And so then what happens is the Trump administration, seeing the looming legal disaster, drops the case, or Trump drops the case. Then his own administration enters into a unilateral agreement with him that doesn't just create a slush fund for non parties to the case. In other words, people who aren't even parties to this at all. There's no judicial oversight. The slush fund is going to be conducted entirely according to his own, at his own discretion, according to his own procedures, with the people that he selects and Then to top it all off, this same agreement grants him, his family, all the parties to this lawsuit, this sort of in perpetuity or this kind of version of a civil pardon. In other words, it has a release of liability against Trump and his family that is extraordinarily broad. And why is this so important? Because Trump has the power to. To pardon. But the power to pardon only applies to crimes. It doesn't apply to civil lawsuits. So if he violated the law in as president, he would be subject to civil litigation even if he pardoned himself. Now, he and parts of his family are immune from civil lawsuit brought on matters arguably unrelated to this very case. And I know it's a lot less consequential than a war in Iran, but. But as far as a matter of assuming power, just grabbing power, and using it just entirely to settle scores, to pay off friends and allies, I mean, this one absolutely takes the cake. And this is an administration so corrupt that as I, you know, I was talking in an interview this week, I said, the Gilded Age guys are angry right now that they were born in the wrong century, because if they really wanted some grift and graft, now is the time in this administration. And this stands out even in that milieu.
- [07:36]
A
Okay, so just.
- [07:38]
C
Other than that, we're talking about. Other than that, totally fine.
- [07:42]
A
Other than that. Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like that? So there's a slush fund for his allies. Overseen. There's going to be overseen by his friends. They're already jockeying over who's going to be on the panel that oversees this and blanket immunity for his family. And it's all gonna be funded by us. Right.
- [08:05]
B
One of the things to mention, though, if you are part of the group overseeing the slush fund, you can use the slush fund to reimburse yourself for all your expenses. So if you wanna, for example, take like a nice per diem, get like a fancy hotel while you're doing the business of the slush fund, under the terms of the agreement, you can use the money to yourself, a nice little fee.
- [08:27]
A
So what if I apply? Where are they going to let me? Are they going to let me distribute the such. It's my money. I feel I should be involved here.
- [08:33]
B
I mean, we should all just. We should all apply. We say that we were at Jan.6. We were there. We were in the crowd. And we feel victimized. We feel victimized by sleepy Joe Biden.
- [08:45]
C
By the way, as. As you guys are talking, I'm remembering another big legal thing I forgot in that whole Litany.
- [08:51]
A
Yeah. Oh, throw it in. Throw. I don't want to leave anything out here. I just.
- [08:55]
C
Real quick. This is. This is. I can't believe I didn't have it in the initial screed. But the. I'm so sorry, incomplete screeds are a podcasting sin. I mean that without question. But the. If I'm a normal human being, let's suppose there is Magam Mike and Blue Bop. Okay, so if I'm Magam Mike now, I could have taken my flagpole and used it to beat a police officer, have spent time in prison for assault. Now I'm pardoned. And now even though I physically attacked a police officer, I could file some sort of weaponization claim, maybe claiming I was in. I was poorly treated in prison or something happened in the trial that deprived me of due pro. You know, you just use whatever hook and MAGA Mike who beat a police officer with a flag pole could get half a million dollars. Million dollars. Who knows? Then you have Blue Bob. Blue Bob is protesting ICE in Minneapolis. And let's say an ICE officer smacks him in the face or. Or tasers him or pepper sprays him for no reason.
- [10:01]
A
Or shoots him in the face. Sorry.
- [10:03]
C
Or shoots him. Well, is. Is Bob going to be able to apply to that slush fund? Well, I mean, he can apply, but good luck. But then let's say Bob then tries to get compensation through a nor channel for getting compensation from a federal officer who's violated your civil rights. Well, good freaking luck, because there is this just massive web of immunities that really wall off federal officials from accountability far more than state and local officials. But if you're Magamike and you beat somebody with a flagpole on January 6, there's a chance that money could be flowing into you. So every direction you turn on this, it's terrible. And that's without justifying one iota of the sue and settle practice I talked about earlier.
- [10:50]
A
So I know that there are two police officers who were at the Capitol on January 6th who've already sued to try and stop the fund. Is there a legal path, do you think, forward to stop it?
- [11:05]
C
That's a very good question. I think as far as on the merits, there is absolutely a legal path just grabbing 1.776 billion from General sort funds that were appropriated for legal settlements and use them in cases that aren't real cases. There's a lot going on here legally, but everybody who. Who files a lawsuit has to have standing. They have to show that they themselves have been hurt by this action. And, and as a general taxpayer, I can't say, well, that's 1.776 billion I'm never getting back, or whatever that. That my portion of that one point that doesn't count as standing. And so the question really is going to be who has standing and when is a case ripe? In other words, when is there actually something to sue there? When is, when are there actually procedures to attack? And so that is a. Is a much more complicated question, especially since the Supreme Court has been, if anything, kind of rolling back, paring back, standing a little bit. So it's going to be very interesting to see who ultimately has standing to challenge that. But it's hard for me to see how this fits within any legal structure contemplated by federal law.
- [12:21]
A
Jamel, do you see a. So. So shifting to the political. Do you see a political path forward? Could this be an issue that folds into the Democrats railing against corruption? Could it be effective as a campaign issue? Where do you see this going with politics?
- [12:40]
B
As we were speaking, I saw a poll from the American Research Group, Middle of the road pollster. You know, we're not looking anything crazy. Trump approval disapprove. 65% approve, 31%. I mention that because it seems to me that this weaponization fund, this slush fund, these reparations for Jan Sixers. Quick parenthetical. You know, for a long time, people have been like, reparations for slavery, reparations for Jim Crow. That's crazy. That's insane. Who would, who. How could you ever do that? And meanwhile, with the stroke of a pen, we now have reparations for rioters. It's very exciting.
- [13:19]
A
A protected group. Rioter.
- [13:21]
B
A protected group subject to systematic discrimination. So we got this reparations fund, and I have to imagine that this is wildly unpopular with the public for a couple reasons. The first is that just by, by proximity to Trump, Trump is so unpopular that this becomes kind of unpopular by extension. But the other thing is, it's such a striking example of the President's fundamental indifference to the economic prospects of ordinary Americans. It's Trump saying, I don't care about
- [13:53]
C
that when you're negotiating with Iran, Mr.
- [13:56]
A
President, to what extent are Americans financial situation motivating you to make a deal? Not even a little bit.
- [14:02]
B
And also, I'm only gonna lift a finger to give money to people who helped me do something that most Americans agree was at the very least, a crime and was wrong. This is such a potent symbol of the President's corruption and disregard for the Economic well being of ordinary people and just sort of too clever by half. Trolling. Ha, ha, ha. It's 1.776 billion do. It's like, that's not, that's not clever. That's just rubbing it in people's faces. And I just have to imagine that this isn't going to cause, like, the President's approval to collapse, but it's going to add once again in a very potent way to the just distaste that the broad public has for the President. And, you know, Democrats are already kind of like, you know, really, really running with this. And I think they should. I think it's the right thing to do. But if I were, you know, if I were a lawmaker, I would say something like, listen, even if a court doesn't overturn this, this is clearly illegal. This is. We, we didn't appropriate this money for this purpose. And if you, if you notice, you know, section three of the 14th amendment suggests, or is it section four, one of those suggests that we can't be paying out money to insurrectionists. And these are people who were convicted of insurrection. So as far as I'm concerned, anyone who takes a penny from this fund is liable for congressional investigation. And we will refer, we'll find some way to do a criminal referral, but we're gonna treat this as if you are engaged in a crime. If you take a penny from this fund, just put that out there, just say sort of like it's tainted money. You touch it, we're going to go after you.
- [15:50]
A
David, anything?
- [15:52]
C
You know, I was going to tell
- [15:54]
B
me that that would be against the law.
- [15:58]
C
Yeah, it's probably not criminal to take that money.
- [16:00]
A
The law is all flexible. It's all flexible these days. Like, what is the law really?
- [16:06]
C
Probably not criminal to take the money, but the. I will say you, you know, it's interesting we're seeing this combination of factors happening right now. Trump is doing this at the same time that he has flexed an enormous amount of control over the GOP at the grassroots level with defeating five Indiana senators who defied him on redistricting, getting rid of, you know, Congressman Massie, getting rid of Senator Cassidy, and that there's two things that are happening as he does this. One of them is that he is showing everybody that, and he's putting these Republicans even more in a box than they were. They're in a terrible position for which I have no sympathy. And the terrible position is they, if they defy Trump, they are in all likelihood going to lose their job. In a primary, if not now, maybe the next cycle if they don't defy Trump. They are tying themselves to, as Jamel just outlined, they're lashing themselves to the mast of a sinking ship. So it's either you go down with the ship or you go down at the hands of primary voters. Those are your sort of two options. And why I said they have no, I have no sympathy, is they could have put a stop to all this, as we know, after January 6th, which any healthy functioning political party would have put a stop to this after January 6th, but they chose not to. They made their bed. But you know what? They also made our bed as well. And we're all in it. We're all in this together now. But one of the things that's happening as he's targeted Cassidy, he has made a lot of Republican senators angry. Now, what are they going to do about it? What are they going to see than the Green Room and then continue to do everything that he asks in voting? Or is it some point, are we going to see one or two more people peel away? I can tell you was already peeled away as Cassidy, he voted for the War Powers Resolution. I mean, Cassidy is unchained at this point. But this is, this is the box that Republicans are in and, and the larger American public, independents, and of course, Democrats are running away from them as fast as they can. And MAGA never had enough all on its own to make Trump president. And they are now alienating everyone who isn't MAGA slowly but steadily. You can see the line moving, but it has been uninterrupted downward line since he was sworn in. And this is not going to change that trajectory.
- [18:33]
A
And it's not done. I mean, we've, we've seen a lot of news in the last couple days how Trump, you know, cleared the boards with his revenge campaign. And it's, it's not done. He's already teed up some more victims that he'd like to target. He's mad at. I think it's Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania who has not been all that keen on some of his projects, like the ballroom or whatever. And then basically the same day that Massie went down, I think Trump was endorsing Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate.
- [19:06]
C
That made people very angry.
- [19:07]
A
And this is one of our favorite races, David, and that has absolutely gobsmacked Republican senators who have always viewed Ken Paxton, who has such a long list of scandals attached to his name and is a very flawed candidate. They've always viewed him as the weaker opponent for James Talarico, the Democrat who is trying for this seat. And now they're just like, what is the president doing? But I have to say I'm right with you on this. It's just like, this is too little, too late, guys. This is what happens when you allow your party to be hijacked by a guy who wants to be king. Jamel, have you thought, what are your thoughts on the primaries that we've been watching?
- [19:54]
B
No. I mean, I think Trump's main concern in all of these things is not so much the viability of the Republican Party in November, but just sort of, can he punish people he dislikes and should they hold on? Can you have people there who will be even more sycophantic and willing to defend him and shield him and make Congress as bootlicking and supine as possible? That's his only real interest. Because, frankly, Trump's autocratic aspirations are not possible without a totally acquiescent Republican Party. It's just sort of a Republican party that showed 30% more fight and a willingness to defend its own prerogatives and to defend its sensible ideals would render Trump inert as a political force. Massie has just been outright defying the president in numerous places, and Trump can't let that stand. Because if Massie were to, if he had won his primary, it would just send the signal to other maybe wavering Republicans, hey, you can do this and hold on. The president's grip on the Republican base isn't that strong. But as far as winning elections, you know, I think a lot is already baked in. And if you were a Republican concerned about holding onto the House and Senate, the time to act was back in January. It was back in February. Now it's too late, and we're likely in for a hot, expensive summer that people are going to leave very irate into a fall where the price of goods will continue to be high, where we might be entering an actual economic slowdown. And under those conditions, there's really not that much you can do to save a House majority. Even the recent gerrymandering, the Supreme Court decisions, all those things, I think, are quite bad, but they, they, they help you hold the House in a neutral national environment where all things are equal. They do not help you hold the House when the president's approval rating is reaching the bottom for a post World War II President and when the generic ballot is showing. Our recent New York Times Sienna poll had Democrats up 11. This is in May. If the generic ballot is showing like 12, 13, 14, 15 points in October, there's like, there's nothing you can do.
- [22:20]
A
And it has been so notable. You know, Trump has been out there bragging, literally, like, we've won all our races this month. He's talking about racist against his own party, against his own incumbents, in which his vengeance monkeys have spent literally tens of millions of dollars in races that were going to be red and we're going to be with conservative candidates. These are not rhino squishes. He was launching this against. So he's doing this victory dance, rubbing everybody's face in this. It cannot be good for the party, just strategically.
- [22:57]
C
Oh, Michelle, can I coin the term vengeance monkeys with proper attribution? Oh, you may.
- [23:03]
A
You may have my term. Yes, you may have my term.
- [23:05]
C
Okay, okay, go for it. That's tremendous. Very vivid. But, yeah. Chamele has called these gerrymanders potentially dummy manders, which is a phrase that I really like. And what he. What Trump has done is he sort of cemented the momentum of these dummy manders, which when Shane Massey, the senator from South Carolina, I wrote about him over the weekend, got up and refused to go along with the gerrymander that would have. That would have eliminated Jim Clyburn's seat in South Carolina. And the hope was to turn South Carolina to have, which is about a 65, 35, 60, 40 red state, turn it into seven Republican members of Congress and zero Democrats. And he stood up to oppose that. You know, he made two arguments. One was very principled, which is the one I focused on, which is, we don't jump. We don't say how high. When a president, United States, tells us to jump, we. There is a separation of powers here. But he also made some pragmatic points, which are when you do these gerrymanders, and we've said this before, you lower your margin for error. And in my home state of Tennessee, they gerrymandered Memphis just lickety split after the Calais decision. And now there is. Memphis has been divided up. But if you look at the margins, these margins, they really decreased. So it is not beyond the realm of possibility that you could have, instead of the eight, one, you could have three, six or two, seven because of this. And so again and again, what you're seeing, the common theme here is just a monumental amount of hubris that we can do whatever we want to whomever we want, for whomever we want, and we will not pay a price. And they can be forgiven for thinking that because the January 6th president won an election which has led them to believe that they can do anything. And now, you know, it's like mask totally off. He's not even pretending to be in the sanitation business anymore. He's just like, yep, I'm a mob boss, that's what I do.
- [25:11]
B
I want to go to that point about just that they can't imagine political consequences. I really think this is downstream of something that really has taken off, took off on the online. Right. And kind of like part of online reactionary conversation which just referring to people with NPCs non playable characters. Like I think there's this pervasive sense of that your political, and I've written about this before, that your political opponents aren't real. That you know, that the protests in 2020 were the product of Soros or whatever, or that whatever the elections you lose are because of fraud and mass illegal voting or your political opponents are. They don't really believe anything. They're just being funded by nefarious forces. Like a really pervasive, I think, actual belief that the only people who are real, the only political world that is real is MAGA and everything else is fake or an OP or something. And I do think that there's a basic, you know, lack of psychological understanding of, of the existence of other solipsism
- [26:19]
A
is what you're telling us.
- [26:20]
B
Right, right. Olympic. Olympic grade solicism is exactly right. And just from a purely kind of strategic perspective. That's how you lose wars, right? Notably, that's why we're losing this war. But that refusal to see the people on the other side as people making decisions and people who have an agency and can take actions leaves you profoundly ill equipped for when they exercise that agency. And you see this again and again with this administration. You saw it with Minnesota, you saw it with the reaction to the National Guard deployment. Like I said, you're seeing, you saw it with the Iran war, which they did not imagine that the Iranian regime were like actual actors who could make choices. And I think that the, you know, there's a pretty good chance they're going to see it in November when after insulating themselves for two years from any kind of public response, they're going to be shocked when there is quite a strong public response against the behavior of the administration. And it's going to lead, I mean, we all know it's going to lead to accusations of fraud to claim to the election.
- [27:31]
A
Oh, they're laying the groundwork.
- [27:32]
B
They should be disregarded. All this stuff. They're going to claim again and again that this is all Fake and should be, should be ignored.
- [27:40]
A
Okay, so what we've been seeing in the primaries is actually a highly energized, mobilized Democratic primary electorate, including in states like Texas. It has the Republican Party freaked out and a lot of questions about, well, what can Trump do to turn it around? But as best I can see, Trump doesn't even really seem motivated to focus on things that could turn it around. I mean, he's doing his ballroom and his arch and the reflecting pool and his war, and maybe he's going to invade Cuba and he's making statements about how he doesn't care about Americans affordability crisis. What, I mean, what am I missing? What do you guys see that he is aggressively investing in that suggests he gives two figs about, you know, turning this around. Besides rigging the game, of course, but that's different. Rigging the game is how he likes to play. But in terms of actually accomplishing or telegraphing that he's focusing on something voters actually care deeply about, I don't think
- [28:52]
B
there's any evidence that that even crosses his mind. I mean, I, I do think that it's two things. First, that sort of, he himself lives in a world defined by the power of positive thinking, right? So as long as he is like, everything's going to work out, he genuinely believes everything's going to work out. From the other thing is that he has organized his White House in a way that he does not receive contradictory information. He does not receive anything. But the rosiest possible p. He's like, well, I'm 100% with Maga, right? He has no sense. First, like, he, he, he does not.
- [29:27]
A
Like my parents. I'm 100% with my parents. They love me. Yeah, right.
- [29:30]
B
He doesn't understand himself first, as like president of the entire country. So, like, broad approval ratings just don't matter to him. And second, you couldn't, if you, if you were in the White House, you can't, if you're Susie Wiles, you can't tell him that anyway because he doesn't want to hear it. It's bad, it's bad information. It doesn't sound good. So he hand waves it away. This is his thing. When any, when anything, when any, whenever anything is negative, he's like, well, it doesn't really exist. And so that just means that there's nothing that's going to turn this around. Back last November, after the elections in Virginia and New Jersey, I made the point somewhere that for things to turn around for Trump, you have to imagine him being capable of taking actions that can respond to public discontent. And I said at the time, there's no evidence he's capable of doing that. And this is. It's still true. There is no evidence whatsoever that he is capable of taking actions that respond discontent. So I think that what we should expect over the course of the summer is he's going to continue to, you know, dither and dather and double down on his mistakes in Iran. He is going to maybe try to look for some shortcut to deal with rising fuel prices. I won't be surprised if they try to repeal the gas tax, which incidentally would be great for the president's fossil fuel donors. They can make some more money. But there's not going to be any meaningful effort out of Congress or the White House to deal with what I think will be quite rapidly rising prices over the summer. And we're gonna enter the fall and I really think it's gonna be a speedrun of George W. Bush's second term. We're gonna be in the fall of 2008 with this president pretty soon.
- [31:25]
C
The playbook here is not, I do not believe the playbook here is provide voters with things they like. The playbook is going to be to try to rerun all of the previous playbooks in the most in recent history against the Democrats trying to freeze the party in amber around 20 run again against wokeism, etc. You're seeing this with, you know, Talarico, for example. Talarico now is a real contender. I, I'm still of the belief that it's that. That Texas is sort of the final boss of the Democratic Party's quest that they, they. It's very hard to get over the hump in Texas for Democrats even with this matchup. But I think Talarico has a far better chance against Paxton than he had against Cornyn. And but the playbook is going to be.
- [32:15]
A
This is your wait, no, this is your opening. You have to do your standard Paxton synopsis. Why does he have the best chance? I just, every time, David, I need it, I need to hear it.
- [32:25]
C
Michelle. The multiple times adulterer, corrupt, impeached by his own party, Attorney general of the state of Texas, who is an election denier and who is actually one of the most famous, most loathed political figures in America by his peers. It is very difficult to find anyone who would say, yeah, Ken Paxton, great guy, just awesome guy, but you know, the instant and the impeachment, when he was about, he was headed for impeachment and conviction in Texas. And then his rescue became a cause of maga. And ever since then, he has become a MAGA darling. And I don't think in spite of all the scandal, I think because of all the scandal, in part, I think the more transgressive he is, the more parts of MAGA really like him. And so the playbook is not going to be Ken Paxton, great guy. The playbook is going to be James Tallarico. Woke, woke, woke, Vegan, woke, vegan. Woke, woke, woke. And that's going to be the playbook across the length and breadth of the country. And what's interesting is when you talk to some Republicans, MAGA Republicans, they feel, you can feel that they still seem very confident that when they unleash sort of the woke barrage on the American people that they're going to win. And that there's this conviction that they have that as much as the American people may hate Donald Trump or may be discontent with Donald Trump, they dislike the Democratic Party more. And so look for this campaign to be, not look what we did for you to make your life better, but look at it to be, do you want those awful, woke, woke, woke Democrats? Have I mentioned woke before woke Democrats in office. And that's gonna be the way the campaign is gonna be run.
- [34:15]
A
Okay. And I like to think that that doesn't work as well when people are actually dealing with the economic incompetence of this administration. But that's just me.
- [34:26]
B
And also when you're dealing with a different electorate, I mean, I think it's like when Trump is in the ballot, a lot of low propensity voters come out, come out in hopes that voting for Trump is going to make them more prosperous. But if two years later that hasn't happened and in fact the opposite has happened, and then you have a bunch of very angry college educated voters who are leaning Democratic coming out. I think it's sort of, yeah, you can run a woke, woke, woke campaign. I think what's likely to happen is it's just going to be a general collapse in Republican turnout and a surge in Democratic turnout and that. But that doesn't get you any place good if you're a Republican.
- [35:04]
A
Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna land that there. And it's time. Recommendations? Jamel, we've missed yours. Hit us.
- [35:13]
B
Sure. I watched recently for the first time Warren Beatty's 1998 film Bullworth. And how do I say this? It's insane that it got made. It's a Hollywood production and Warren Beatty, obviously a huge star and it is simultaneously extremely cringeworthy and also sort of daring and brave in ways and. Did I say insane already kind of an insane movie. And I don't know quite what I think of it, but I do think it's worth watching both as an artifact of American politics in the late 90s, both as something actually quite prescient about the sorts of concerns that are going to animate politics 20 years later, and as I think a showcase of Beatty in particular, who I think is one of the most fascinating stars of his generation. He is obviously extremely handsome and quite smart and savage savvy, but he often plays these characters who I could best describe as himbos who become self aware and then lose their minds. And I just, I. It's, it's. That's, that's the character in bore. A. A kind of vacant guy that should
- [36:40]
A
go into his obituary whenever that, you know, just.
- [36:42]
B
I'm just saying who. A kind of vacant guy becomes self aware of his own vacancy and then loses his mind and. Yeah. So watch. Watch Bulworth. Very strange movie. Glad I saw it. Don't know what I think about it.
- [37:00]
C
Okay, David, man, it's always hard to follow Jamel's because mine are just so basic, but here is. Here is your basic enjoyable streaming recommendation of the week. Do you remember the show Jury Duty that was, you know, you had a. A guy who's a normal guy.
- [37:18]
A
But I do remember.
- [37:19]
C
Oh. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, I have a double recommendation, Jury Duty from a couple of years ago. And then the next one, which is Jury Duty, presents Company Retreat. And here's the premise of both of them is you take one person who's a normal person, they think they're, they're part of a documentary. This is a documentary about a small business making a transition from company from father to son, and you bring in a normal guy and everyone around him is an actor who's literally insane in just crazy funny ways.
- [37:51]
A
And I'm saying sanity theme this week
- [37:55]
C
they're always riding this line between absurdity that's realistic enough to be funny, but absurdity that's so unrealistic that the guy kind of wakes up to it and realizes he's in something they've both times selected just like good guys, like just good solid people who are sort of like the island and the storm around them and, and it's so. It's both laugh out loud hilarious, but then sort of oddly heartwarming that there, that there are folks out there who just are good folks trying to do their jobs with integrity as kind of the world crumbles around them. So it sort of feels like a metaphor for, like, I don't know, America. But it's fun. It's fun.
- [38:37]
A
Okay, I am gonna go with Netflix's how to get to Heaven from Belfast. I know you think that I have, like, some kind of some Irish obsession. David, you may be right, but I'm listening.
- [38:50]
C
You've never led me wrong.
- [38:51]
A
This one is a comedy slash mystery about three millennial women who were childhood friends who get this message to return back to their tiny hometown because their fourth girlfriend had. Has mysteriously died. So you start from there, and it is a. It spirals. There's conspiracies, there's twists, there's turns. It is simultaneously exciting and kind of creepy, but also just drop dead hilarious. It's. I don't know if any of you watch Derry Girls, but this is the same folks, and it is. It is absolutely brilliant. I highly recommend. So go forth. And with that, I think we're going to end it. Let's land that plane. As always, guys, thank you. We've solved the world's problems. I will now be going to prepare my application from the slush fund and I'll let you know how that goes.
- [39:50]
C
Good luck, Michelle.
- [39:54]
A
Jamel, say goodbye.
- [39:55]
B
Oh, yeah, I should say goodbye. Good luck collecting your reparations.
- [40:03]
A
Michelle, I choose to reject your patronizing tone.
- [40:30]
B
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- [40:35]
A
I thought it was safe.
- [40:36]
B
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- [40:58]
C
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