Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman break down how a deal in the house was forged between Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden, which ended up getting more Democrats to vote for it than Republicans. They then discuss the reports of a leaked audio tape that seems to implicate Donald Trump in the Jack Smith led investigation of Top Secret documents. They finish the episode off by analyzing the conservative boycott of Target and how climate change is causing insurance companies to falter or stop offering insurance altogether.
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Oh man, that got everywhere.
I did not expect that.
That was a little bit of a... Oh my.
Hey everybody!
Welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm Jerry J. Sexton.
I'm here with Nick Halseman after a brief little thing.
My drink went everywhere, Nick.
Here we are.
We took a couple days off.
Technical difficulties and all.
How you doing, bud?
I'm good.
I'm good.
Supposing opening a can like that is a good metaphor, if you will.
It is!
We're in a situation like that.
There's so much that we have to get into.
California is on fire.
It's falling into the ocean.
Target is absolutely capitulating to bigots.
I think they got him, Nick.
I think Trump's going to prison.
We'll talk about all of that.
Also, we have reached a Solution, I guess, of the fake debt ceiling crisis.
Nick, I was on the road a little bit.
I was kind of worried the American economy was going to absolutely collapse and I was going to end up in the middle of nowhere.
I was going to have to take up almost like a Bruce Banner in the original Incredible Hulk television show.
I thought I might have to do odds and ends as I was a transient traveler.
As long as no one made you angry.
As long as no one made me angry and brought out the green behemoth.
But it seems like we have a debt deal.
The House of Representatives has passed this resolution to continue to the debt ceiling and to allow us to repay our debts.
It has passed at 314 positives to 117 negatives.
And by the way, like, most of it was Democrats.
The Republican Party has absolutely shit all over this thing, which we will examine in just a second.
We'll get into the specifics, the reactions, everything that there is to deal with on this deal.
Nick, are you relieved?
Do you feel good?
Do you feel solid?
Is the State of the Union strong?
Well, you know, no one wants to be wrong, right?
I made my prediction and I said that they were going to do this, but I thought they were only going to kick the can down the road by X amount of months.
So, I was way off.
They got this thing passed, you know, this won't come up again until after the election.
That's impressive.
So, good for them for that.
But again, imagine having control of a legislative body and, like, you can't even get what you've come up with as an agreement.
You can't even get the majority of your own people in your party to vote for it.
That's an issue.
But then also, how many fucking congressmen voted to, you know, cast this into a default?
Think about that.
I know, and one of the large things that has happened here is Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House, they got in a room and looked at each other and they were like, what is happening here?
What are we doing?
And Kevin McCarthy, I think, and it's kind of funny how much he wanted this job, Nick.
How much he was willing to debase himself and be humiliated and to follow in the footsteps of John Boehner and Paul Wright.
Both men, by the way, who left a completely unworkable job as a Republican Speaker of the House and told everybody who would listen to them, that is a job you do not want.
John Boehner not only started to pickle himself drinking, but got into legal weed.
Paul Ryan, who I think last time I checked is like 25 years old, was like, I'm done with politics forever.
I'm going to get into banking and into all these special interest things.
Good luck with it.
Kevin McCarthy is the conductor on a runaway train.
He has no control whatsoever on these people.
We'll get into exactly how bad the problem is.
But I think what happened, this has pushed the next debt ceiling situation probably to 2025 after the presidential election.
I think Biden and McCarthy both sat in a room and said, I don't want to do this next year.
I don't want to have to deal with this thing.
And as a result, they gave in, they capitulated on both ways, an absolute disaster of a deal.
I think what's telling, by the way, before we get into the specifics of the deal, I love this in Washington DC, where everybody is carrying around a knife that has blood on it.
And then you can always know when there's a bad deal when both sides come out and they say, oh, our guy was really underestimated in this thing.
Like, that's what Democrats have said about Biden.
Biden was underestimated.
Then you have Garrett Graves, GOP, saying, quote, no question the White House miscalculated.
They misjudged the speaker.
When both sides go out beating their chest like this, they have both gone through it.
And this was not a good situation for anybody involved.
It was bad for the country.
It was bad for the economy.
It was bad for the American people in general.
Well, but I thought like when both sides are angry, then you're doing something right.
is net a dodge you're supposed to stick to here it's it's it's like the tweet please don't put in the newspaper that i was mad you know like it's this is literally both sides of an absolutely unnecessary crisis walking out of this thing being like holy shit we got really close to something bad and all everybody at at the leadership level realizing that this was both unnecessary and also incredibly dangerous and it's also sad
you know not that i ever would feel bad for kevin mccarthy but he couldn't even get this thing out of committee from the republican side because they wouldn't get enough votes to get it into to become a vote for the whole house they're They had to rely on Democrats who let him sweat for a few minutes until they said, OK, fine, we will give you the votes you need.
And remember, Kevin McCarthy is in a situation where only one member of the House, one Can bring up impeachment or not impeachment kicking him out of the speakership so you know and now we know why and there's the threat of that was coming up but no one no one did it they should have I would have loved to have seen somebody maybe they will this week who knows actually you know invoke it because you still need to have the majority of the house And the funny thing is, is the majority is basically the amount of Republicans.
They have, what, five seats?
That's it.
So either he's some evil genius and realized they would never get that, or he's just praying that no one, that someone forgets to file the paperwork properly.
No, first of all, nobody is ever going to in any way, shape or form good, evil, chaotic genius.
Nobody is going to ever use the word genius when it comes to Kevin McCarthy.
I think that this was a baptism of fire for McCarthy.
You know, everybody thinks that getting to the next level of their political career is somehow or another going to be the level in which they're able to change the world.
Right?
They have access to the lever that will go ahead and make a difference.
Meanwhile, and this has happened again, it's not just Boehner, it's not just Paul Ryan, Pelosi's had this situation too.
When you are the Speaker of the House, you are now in the rare air of top leadership of American government.
Like, one of the few who has ever acted sort of against this was Newt Gingrich, which is one of the reasons, by the way, they kicked that dude out on his ass.
Right, eventually.
And you know, most of the time, when you're in that room and you are negotiating one-on-one with the president, and by the way, you're what, number three on the line of succession?
Like, you are part of the apparatus that has to keep this country going.
You, like, if something happens, it's your name on it, right?
McCarthy wanted to go ahead and keep this country from defaulting, but he also felt the pressure from his caucus, from his group in the House, that he had to make a big show of this and get a bunch of concessions from the president.
Well, guess what?
They wanted to default.
They literally wanted to default because they believed it would hurt Biden and that they might be able to take over in some way, shape, or form.
By the way, one of the main antagonists against McCarthy, and Nick has this clip for us, this is Texas Representative Chip Roy, who is basically just an absolute idiot who has been brought up within the Freedom Caucus as their quote-unquote intellectual leader.
Let's hear from good old Chip.
To my colleagues on this side of the aisle, my beef isn't that I don't understand the struggle with the negotiators against that kind of reasoning.
My beef is that you cut a deal that shouldn't have been cut.
Literally, all that Roy wanted from this thing was for the crisis to go forward.
It was the idea, almost, we're in like a speeding car heading for a cliff of certain disaster, and Roy and the Freedom Caucus, who have no actual like concern for governing, they have no actual plan for how any of this should work, all they have is an internal belief that if they just pushed it further they would get something.
They don't know what that thing is.
They have no idea what would happen.
And if you listen to anything that Roy has put forward over the past couple of days, the only thing that they say is the deal should have been better.
They do not have an actual political agenda that can be articulated.
They couldn't ask for anything.
There was nothing that they asked for from the administration that basically wasn't given to them, and they could not articulate anything because they had nothing to articulate whatsoever.
Well, you know the guy, like, in high school that likes to just do shit just to see what would happen?
Like, let's throw this big plate glass window off of a third three-story roof and just see how much, you know, what will happen to it.
Nick, by the way, I've had that friend.
You've had that friend.
And I'll go ahead and I'll make this a little bit more relatable because that's a very guy thing.
I agree there.
Like, let's throw this off of this place.
It's also the person that like, I'm sure everybody's had this at some point, you're driving in a car, you're like down the street, you're doing like 30 miles an hour, and they pull the emergency brake.
Yeah, right.
Yes.
I've had the guy be like, hey, just T-bone that guy.
I've had you guys do that too.
A wild card!
And then I had to explain to other people in the car what T-boning means.
They didn't know.
And basically, I'm like, yes, he wants us to die and to find out what would happen if we die in the car.
Yeah.
And so I feel like part of that are looking around going, jeez, like, I wonder what would happen.
Let's find out.
That sounds fun.
It is oppositional defiance up the wazoo, where they simply cannot make a deal.
Like, that's the pledge, right?
The pledge they got out of McCarthy was, you cannot make a deal.
I mean, even if they got whatever concessions they wanted, Now, I love the fact that they can sort of save face, quote unquote, by saying, well, we we kept spending at one percent, which doesn't rise beyond the level of.
Thank you.
You know, inflation.
Thank you.
My goodness.
Now, here's the irony about that, though.
So supposedly Biden blew the inflation up, you know, it's as bad as it's ever been.
And it allows this to pass because they can keep his spending at 1% increase.
But it makes it sound like they're not increasing any more of the money, of the spending.
So in some weird, twisted way, you know, obviously they're not, Biden didn't do that on purpose, but because the inflation went up, they were able to get this through.
Yeah, and again, like, there was nothing... If you listen to Roy, literally, he said, like, we're not going to default if we don't do this.
Like, you know, they'll figure out how to pay the bills or whatever.
There is actually no idea whatsoever of how any of this would take place.
There is only... And of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene is not an ideologue.
She doesn't have actual beliefs, right?
Like, whatever she's being fed, whatever it is, this is why she was a QAnon adherent, right?
She's just reacting to things.
It's an emotional reaction.
The idea was, oh, I'm sure it won't end up being that bad.
We'll figure something out and we'll win.
Also, by the way, the catharsis of the economy imploding would actually be very enjoyable for this self-destructive group.
Meanwhile, let's get into the nuts and bolts of what happened here.
We do have an inflation-adjusted reduction of Social Security and Medicaid.
Supposedly, the cutting of the IRS increase.
For those who don't remember, there was an $80 billion increase towards the IRS.
I want to go ahead and set the table for people who aren't aware.
Listen, I don't like the IRS.
You don't like the IRS.
We understand.
It sucks to get a letter from the IRS.
The IRS is woefully understaffed and unequipped and incapable of going after some of the biggest tax cheats at the highest level of income that you can imagine, whether it's corporations or individuals.
This increase was supposed to make it to where they could actually go out and get these taxes taken care of.
This includes a $20 billion decrease of that increase, which means that the IRS is, again, being undercut.
Supposedly, that $20 billion is going to help stabilize Social Security and Medicaid.
We'll see how that happens.
We also go ahead and, this is fun, Nick, because they're all so worried about the economy and they're all so worried about the budget inflating, there's actually a military increase in here.
We love it!
We love how this country operates because there's no way whatsoever you could ever talk about taking care of military increases.
We also, and this is lovely, we now have new work requirements for food stamps, which means that hundreds of thousands of people might have their assistance cut off.
We also have people in their 50s who now have to work extra years in order to qualify for certain assistance.
Hi, France!
We see what you're doing.
We'll be with you very, very soon.
And, of course, we have student loan payments that are going to restart here pretty soon.
All in all, a conservative push.
Nobody should be patting themselves on the back.
Both sides actually didn't get what they wanted in any way, shape, or form.
It sucks.
Oh!
Actually, Nick, there's one person who got what they wanted, and we'll talk about them very soon.
Yeah, but I believe it's bonjour if you want to say hello to people in France.
And you know, the cost, the increase is not as high as it was going to be for the military.
So it's like, it's this weird thing where you can say, oh, it's a win because we're not gonna spend as much as they wanted to in those trillions of dollars or whatever.
And then on the other side, oh, there's no increase in spending, even though there is, but it's like less than it was supposed to be.
Yeah, everyone just kind of, we're like at the end of The Graduate.
We're all sitting on the bus, having gotten on, and just as it's pulling away, just wondering what the fuck happened.
That's, you could not be more right.
Because going back, and by the way, I told everybody where this was going.
The writing was on the wall that they were going to tap dance over to the edge of the cliff, and eventually they were going to get back to the original deal and do that.
These people are not in charge.
That's just what it is.
It's a bunch of people who are sitting around that have designations that they're supposed to be in charge.
They're supposed to have the power.
They're supposed to be the leaders.
Meanwhile, none of this has anything to do with them.
You're not going to go out and hit the bully pulpit.
There's no deal whatsoever that McCarthy is going to make that's going to make the Republican Party happy.
The only thing that's occurring here is that the experience in America is being rolled back.
The quote-unquote goodies that you're supposed to have, the assistance you're supposed to have, the programs that are supposed to be there, they're being ate up like Pac-Man, eating pellets one at a time.
And in all of this, you're exactly right.
People today, as this is being passed, are sitting around, looking around, being like, Oh my God, what the hell just happened?
I didn't have any control over that thing.
My name's all over it.
Joe Biden, Kevin McCarthy.
My name is next to it in the paper.
And the paper still says, Oh, Joe Biden did great.
And Kevin McCarthy did great.
Joe Biden won.
Kevin McCarthy won.
No, they didn't.
They just survived it.
That's it.
Nobody had any agency in any way, shape, or form in this.
Except one.
Except for one guy, the Highlander, standing at the end of the movie after cutting all the heads.
That's right.
The most non-winning situation in, I don't know, the past couple of months.
Except for one person.
And that, of course, is the King of Coal, the Duke of Gas, Joe Manchin.
Walked out of an absolute hurricane without even getting a drop on him.
Based on this package that went through, they have now expedited the Stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline, a methane gas line that's going through West Virginia and Virginia.
It pushes through the EPA, the clean water stuff.
It absolutely just fast tracks it.
Because nobody profits off of these situations and the intractability of American politics more than Joe Manchin.
I got to tell you, and I'd be interested what you have to think about that or what you think about this.
I think he's the most consequential senator probably since Ted Kennedy.
I think when you look back on this era with what has happened and how these things occur, Joe Manchin has brought himself to a point of power That is pretty much not even like, nobody even comes close to it.
I mean, Mitch McConnell, you could go ahead and make the argument, but Mitch McConnell was actually a negative influence in terms of like taking away the power of Congress.
Joe Manchin has figured out how to win in losing situations.
It's almost unprecedented.
Yeah, you know what, my brain, you heard my brain trying to figure out anybody else, and you're right.
Maybe McConnell, but I cannot think of anybody else, and it couldn't have happened to a worse person.
It couldn't happen to a worse person, and I think one of the reasons, and of course, in the midst of this no-win situation in which hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people are going to be hurt because of this bill, You look at this when, of course it's for, you know, polluting gas.
Of course it's for something that's going to hurt the environment and it's going to knock us back and it's probably going to cause an ecological disaster.
Like, what we're watching here is America spinning its wheels.
We're literally watching a superpower that should be proactive and moving into the future, and with every single movement, all it's doing is moving backwards and being more aggressive in its backwards movement.
Well, you know, let's think about this for a second.
First of all, they knew that this was going to happen because this was the promise that Manchin got for giving them a yay vote on the Inflation Reduction Act earlier.
Remember, that's the only way they got him to do it.
So this was already set up.
This was an easy thing.
Manchin could sit back and relax, have his seat up on the desk, knowing that this was always going to be put into there.
And of course, there's a last-ditch effort.
Maybe they'll get it out.
But you know what's frustrating is like, think about what is required here.
To get this pipeline through West Virginia to Virginia, you have to adhere to the laws, the environmental protection laws.
These companies, the developers could not do that or would not do that.
That's the whole thing.
And that's what's so frustrating.
So this way they get to just break the law, you know, with impunity.
It makes no sense that this is allowed to happen.
It does not.
When you put it like that, it sounds bad.
You know, listen, I understand red tape and bureaucratic issues, whatever, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that a lot of these things are done for a fucking reason and people die when you don't adhere to these laws.
Or ecosystems get destroyed and then people die.
It's like, it isn't just, oh, we're gonna inflict some pain on you, we're gonna make it, put our hands out and collect all this extra money just so we can do that.
No, there is a rationale behind most of these things.
No, and I gotta tell you, I can't wait for this new era in America where, like, one of these pipelines- and we know it's gonna cause an ecological disaster.
You know, we know that!
Like, that's how this stuff works.
I can't wait until one of our trains derails.
Like, when we have conflicting crises, you know what I mean?
Like, there's, like, a super storm that hits and, like, a railway, like, jettisons off and just goes right into it.
I'm excited.
that thing when you put them all together and the drops and then it rolls and then it hits something else.
And then the, uh, a, uh, something machine, you know, like the, you know, the, the ball rolls on a Rube Goldberg machine.
That's what it sounds like.
It'll be like the, the board game mousetrap, except for there will be so many more people hurt and so many more ecosystems destroyed, but it is, it's, it's so horrific to really take a look at the way that this happens.
And, and I'm sure you were like me, I was looking into what the deal ends up being, and then this is just at the bottom of it.
You know what I mean?
It's just the little tag on the story, and it's just like, this guy, Joe Manchin, his ability to push America backwards and to take advantage of the collapse of the American empire, it's unbelievable.
I really, truly, it's like Kaiser Sosei.
Like, it's just a person who is capable of just absolutely wreaking the kind of havoc that is, like, something that belongs in old mythologies.
Well, that's what I'm hoping is going to happen, because you know how young basketball coaches, for instance, they can't behave now like Bobby Knight or Tom Izzo.
They get fired pretty quickly if that's how they behaved.
But if you're older than a certain age, you're still allowed to behave that way.
And eventually, as they go away, we're not going to have that anymore.
So I have to imagine that at some point, this is the last that we're going to see of guys like this doing this bullshit, I would hope.
But I don't know, man.
Everyone seems to be getting into politics these days because of the grift.
That's right.
And that's what's so frustrating about this.
It's not supposed to be that way, but maybe it always was.
You know way better than I do.
Maybe that's always how it's been.
Hey, welcome to the House of Representatives.
Here's the checklist of things you're going to get to do now.
I mean, I don't know.
Well, the old era of the party machinery, I mean, that spoils system was I mean, that was some really, really crazy stuff.
This is... I don't know.
This is like something... It feels a little bit unprecedented.
The way that this guy knows the angles.
You know, the way that he has positioned himself, he's perfectly in the place between the Republican, where the Republican Party ends and where the Democratic Party begins.
And like that sort of leveraging has put him and by the way, to to have him be the head of this, you know, this lobby of dirty coal and gas and like this old, antiquated, destructive stuff that should be relegated to the ash heap antiquated, destructive stuff that should be relegated to the ash heap of It is it's a it's a really incredible thing.
Well, Nick, I got to tell you, so you you had reached out to me with this of what was going on in the the case against Donald Trump and the classified materials.
And here's the thing.
I want to go ahead and tell people this.
I want to go ahead and set this up.
And then I want to go ahead and, if I'm wrong about something, I apologize.
And I own it.
And so here's what I'm going to say.
This story has come out.
CNN has found out that federal prosecutors have gotten a hold of an audio recording.
And when I heard about this, and I'm going to go ahead and just tell you what happened, and then we're going to get into the specifics and why we're talking about this.
CNN heard that federal prosecutors had gotten a hold of an audio recording that was said to incriminate Donald Trump in the classified documents case.
And I read that.
And immediately, I rolled my eyes.
I was like, why are we even talking about this?
This is another Trump thing.
Nick, this story Is bonkers.
I love this for so many different reasons, and I don't know what's going to happen with this, but for anyone who hasn't heard of this so far, they literally have a recording of Donald Trump saying that he has a document that he knows is secret and classified that is covering the possibility of an attack on Iran.
He apparently maybe even moves it, and it even He even wrestles it!
And during the recording, Nick, he says that he knows that he doesn't have the power to declassify it or otherwise he would tell everybody about it.
By the way, it wasn't like someone had a wire on.
They were recording this meeting Through Trump's own people.
It is literally him admitting that he knows that he has committed a crime.
This is, and again, I have been sitting around looking at this with just a slack jaw.
This is, for all of Donald Trump's criming, this is some really, really top-level criming.
I'm just worried, though, that the tone of your voice indicates some notion that you actually believed Trump before when he said that he didn't know or didn't intentionally or whatever.
Like, that's the problem.
We know this.
This would just be like, yes, of course, you know?
But you're right.
It is startling to actually read about a tape that we haven't got to hear yet.
We will hear it, I'm sure.
It'll get leaked or whatever.
Had you seen Trump's lawyer, though, getting out there on the internets and TV sets of America?
It's hilarious to hear him trying to spin this one.
But again, they're not arguing this in the court of law.
They're arguing this in the public opinion.
And I can tell you, this lawyer will not sound the way he's been sounding in a courtroom or else he'd get disbarred.
So the bottom line here, though, is yes, this is the thing.
Oh, and the reason why I brought it up, you know, because two days before this, right, before this news broke, I asked you, I said, have you heard anything about Jack Smith?
Because all of the right-wing chatter was about Mueller.
And then it kind of folded into Jack Smith, too.
And I'm like, why?
Jack Smith worked for Mueller?
So there was some weird preemptive smearing going on to sort of, you know, whatever, dismiss what the report that was going to come out, which was this, that, you know, Jack Smith clearly has him, if he wants him, on charges.
Well, a couple things.
First things first.
Mia Culpa.
When I hear Trump lawyer, or when I hear Trump investigation, or I hear Jack Smith or Robert Mueller, I think I disassociate.
I think for my own mental health and well-being, I just, I go catatonic.
Do you know what I mean?
I just, I just, I'll look forward.
It's like when you're out to dinner with somebody and like, they're just not there.
You know, I'm just, I can't do it anymore.
I, I'm done.
I don't have it in me.
There's so much trauma there that I just can't do it.
And it's like the Jack Smith thing.
I don't know if you see this, man.
Sometimes in like democratic Twitter, the, the, the Robert Mueller, James Comey obsession with him is right there.
There's like a guy pretending to be him.
And like, You know, the walls are closing in and like, hey, get your popcorn.
It's getting ready to happen.
I don't, I don't have it anymore.
Do you know what I mean?
I don't, I never really believed it in the first place and I don't have it now.
So there's like a part of me that just has to split.
I can't do it.
I can't deal with it.
There's a way to help that.
You can download the picture of Jack Smith looking into the camera that we all know and then make that your, like, screensaver or whatever on your phone.
Like, that might help.
You know, like, exposure therapy?
Listen, you know what?
The year of the muckrake, the summer of the muckrake, it is all going to coincide and I'm going to become a big Jack Smith guy.
He's coming for you, Don.
I hope your little fingers are trembling.
Jack Smith is coming for you.
I'm going to become his number one fan.
But you're right.
Nick, what's funny about this, and what's also tragic about this, is I don't know that they're going to charge him, but literally, I don't think that there has ever been better proof of a crime.
It sounds like, if it is what it sounds like, I'll love it in the summer.
Like, this is possibly one of the best, most ironclad pieces of evidence that has ever existed in any case whatsoever.
But this is also the person who admits his crimes on television, live on NBC News.
Well, you know, it's funny because, you know, the same could be said about the Georgia phone call.
You know, so it's almost like, you know, that's why everyone felt like the pressure is mounting and things are going to close in on him.
But I have been saying this is the one.
By the way, I went back and forth at some point.
I was like, this is the one.
The Jack Smith case.
They have him.
It is it is ironclad.
It's the espionage act if they want that at the very least obstruction of justice.
And then I kind of went the way of the catatonic Catatonia?
Is that the word?
So I thought, yeah, you're right.
Nothing's going to happen.
He's not going to do it.
But I think that this is the moment where perhaps as they get close to charging, they begin to prime the pumps, if you will, and things get leaked a little bit just to kind of get everybody ready and on board.
Almost like, you know, Roe v. Wade got leaked and we were, you know, getting prepared for that.
So, yeah, the only question then is, I mean, listen, you know what the penalty for the Espionage Act is, right?
I can't even say it because it's so bad.
I just, I just, I'm thinking about the like, social media and it's just like, they're already making memes of it like in an electric chair, you know?
It's like, I love that.
Like, I love that that has become the expression of the frustration of the American political system.
It's just like, undoubtedly there's been AI pieces made of this.
When people aren't making Wes Anderson Star Wars videos, they're making Donald Trump being put to death for espionage.
Isn't there a choice of firing line?
Never mind, that's too mean.
Either way, prison?
Prison?
That sounds good.
I'd take prison.
Some version of prison.
Let him run from prison, that's okay.
Whatever.
Yeah, this is the one, I think, and I think this guy, you know, certainly seems like he's got plenty, and I have a feeling that it's just the beginning, but again, we've all been burned, I hear ya, and no one wants to get, you know, don't fool me twice.
Well, fool me 17, 18 times.
I will say, and this is something that I keep putting forward, and we're not going to cover it on this episode, I'm sure in the next couple of episodes we'll get into it, The vibes around the Ron DeSantis for president campaign are getting weirder and weirder and stranger and like there's so much happening there and I go back to what I originally said which is the system does not want Donald Trump to run for president of the United States of America.
What form that takes, I don't know what it is, but they do not want that.
Also, speaking of law enforcement and Republicans being held accountable, Nick, could you play a quick little clip for everyone?
This is Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, appearing on my favorite network, Fox News.
If you take a step back and look at the FBI from a policy and ideas point of view, it's clear that it's become politically weaponized.
Ask Mark Hauk in Pennsylvania.
Ask the pro-life activist who's being hounded this weekend, probably as we sit here, Shannon, by two FBI agents.
Ask anyone who's a reasonable conservative and you know that this is an agency, and I mean this very intentionally as a policy objective, it needs to be started over from scratch and rebuilt.
This is not a law enforcement agency.
It's a political weapon.
Yes, that traditional left-leaning woke organization, the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
I love it.
I think that this is completely an earnest appeal that isn't meant to legitimize political prosecutions in the future whatsoever.
Right, well, this is all, you have to read what, you know, he's preparing us for what we were hearing and what Jack Smith is going to do, what the FBI has been doing to Trump.
It's only political when they have a case against somebody in their own party.
I mean, it's so weird because it wasn't like this during Watergate.
Although, you know what?
Scratch that.
We didn't know at the time who Deep Throat was, right?
But again, and I said this before in the show, They were.
They were the deep state.
They saw what Nixon was doing and how illegal it was, and they're the ones who said, we got to put an end to this in a roundabout way.
We're going to start leaking to Woodward and Bernstein, right?
Think about that.
That's what Mark Felt did.
It's number two in the FBI.
So, you know, if he hadn't done that, where would we be, right?
And so it's almost like, does the FBI have that same DNA that they still feel that way?
But I don't know.
Either way, as scrutinized as they are, and they do screw up a little bit, it just seems like, how is it possible that you'd be able to pull off whatever they're accusing them of?
I want to point out real fast, because this is always something we could talk about Watergate all day long.
One thing that always gets sort of left out in the deep throat Mark Felt story is that he was passed over for a promotion.
Like, everybody else in Washington, D.C.
absolutely hated Richard Nixon.
So like, yeah, did he want to save the republic?
That was probably one of the ideologies that kept him doing it.
But also, that was a scorned person who was wanting to take down Richard Nixon.
That being said, the FBI, along with the CIA, along with nearly every institution with prosecutorial and or extra legal powers in this country, is at its heart conservative as shit, and always has been.
This is the group, the FBI, which spied on American citizens, which undermined every leftist movement that has ever existed, whether it was real or imagined, That harassed Martin Luther King and tried to get him to kill himself.
That being said, there are plenty of people who have thoughts on that as well.
We have one black leader after another who has been killed, one labor leader after another who has either had their rights trampled on, you name it.
This is a conservative institution that has always been there.
Kevin Roberts and the Heritage Foundation, which is, this is their new push.
This is not true.
They do not believe that the FBI is a woke institution.
They're doing this, first of all, to try and play the refs.
They know within the FBI that there are conservatives who want to go ahead and pull back on investigations of conservatives who don't want to go after someone like a Donald Trump, who don't want to go after, you know, Republicans who are part of the grift that you were talking about earlier.
So they want to go ahead and try and bolster the conservatives who are within the FBI to go ahead and start making sure that Republicans and the right groups aren't going to be gone after.
It also, by the way, is a threat, which is we will build an apparatus that is expressly a political weapon.
If we get the opportunity, and if we don't see these things going our own way, we will go ahead and weaponize the law for our own purposes, which is what the Republican Party wants to do anyway.
That is the finality of this entire operation and this movement, is to go ahead and take those institutions and reverse them and turn them into political weapons.
Right.
And again, they would they would not think twice if they could get anybody on the other side like you know Hillary for instance a good example of that.
I'm old enough to remember how that played out with the before the election so it is.
I mean listen, we need the FBI right we needed some sort of a.
Of a domestic investigatory agency, right?
Well, first of all, I just want to go ahead and say, you know, in a rare moment of bipartisan support, Kevin Roberts, I'm with you.
Let's tear the FBI down to the studs.
Absolutely.
Let's have a conversation.
Let's talk across the aisle.
Let's destroy this institution and figure out what we should have instead of it.
Like, I mean, literally, the FBI should have been disbanded decades ago.
The Church Committee.
The Church Committee, in the 1970s, whenever they figured out that the FBI and the CIA were violating constitutional rights left and right, both of them should have been disbanded and replaced with something else.
So, yeah, you have to have some group that's, like, looking after this stuff, but yeah, they should have been done away with a long time ago.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, it's weird because, like, yeah, I would be against it, too.
I would never want to be investigated by the FBI.
I would be worried about all that stuff.
But then again, you know, there are... The propaganda is good out there.
There's some good movies about the FBI, man, that make you realize that we need this institution.
And, you know, again, listen, I mean, it's like, I think the proof is in the fact that, like, how about this?
Mueller was investigating Trump, and based on, like, one text message exchange, They got rid of people on the investigative committee, like, you know, struck and paged.
That was all it took, you know, and there wasn't any covering it up and it wasn't, you know, hidden or hushed.
It was, you know, it was transparent.
So when things like that happen, you kind of think, OK, like there's some screw ups or whatever, but they're on top of it and there is some transparency and they take care of it.
Either way, this is so transparent, and this is what they've been doing this whole time, which is setting up the public to just simply not believe when, you know, like, by the way, Trump could be indicted, Trump could be prosecuted, he could be found guilty, and no one will believe it.
They'll just simply say, it's the system, it's the judge, it's the jury, whatever, and that's what they've done.
That's exactly right.
They're preparing people for that.
And God help us if a Republican gets in control, because it is going to be a culling of the so-called deep state.
Because what they're going to do is they're going to go ahead and try and turn all these institutions into their own political weapons.
By the way, everybody, happy Pride Month.
We hope our friends out there are having a decent start to it.
Let's go ahead and talk about one of the pitfalls of this thing.
Target, the retail giant, is celebrating Pride Month by having shirts and goods and all of that with You know, LGBTQ-friendly sayings and things on that.
Except for a line of clothes that have been put together by transgender designer Eric Carnell, which have been removed from Target after a bunch of right-wing confrontations, including, by the way, a bunch of idiots who are going in there and taking photos and pictures for social media, pretending to be upset about things.
They have gone ahead and said that this is a, quote, volatile situation.
And we'll talk a little bit about what Target has said, but here is another situation in which hard pressures are being used to go ahead and force corporations, who don't really care about this stuff, to go ahead and make a stand and to align with conservative forces.
You know, here's a problem.
Matt Walsh believes in this stuff, right?
I have a feeling that those guys do, and Shapiro.
This is probably the first time, but you've talked about this a lot, about how corporations aren't woke, but it's in their best interest to sound woke and look woke and all that stuff.
I have a feeling I should go check.
If I went to the Target near my house in LA, I'm pretty sure I will see rainbows on shirts, right?
I am fairly certain that Target is going to be selling this stuff in your neighborhood, yes.
Here's the problem.
Do I hold Target responsible for removing it?
Because when you do see the videos it is the kind of experience that none of their customers should have to deal with.
And a lot of times the only solution that is fine, we won't put it up or whatever.
Maybe we'll take it down for a week and then they'll go away.
But this is somewhat powerful.
And this is somewhat of a dunking that we keep seeing politically in real life that gives them that dopamine rush.
And this is what's most scary to me, is that this is going to inspire a lot of people to harass and go to these targets.
And then, by the way, it's endless.
They don't start, it's Kohl's, it's Target, it's It's so stupid.
north face you know what i mean uh blood light is already started with so they've got a taste for it it's kind of like when you get taste for blood um and the only question now is can the corporation just sort of wait it out a little bit and then they kind of move on to something else maybe it probably but again do we need to get into a conversation about like rainbows on kids clothing and what that's supposed to mean it's so stupid it's it's it's it's it's child bullshit what's And I want to point out, by the way, Nick, this goes to what you were saying.
Like, they have figured out in this economy, these corporations understand that the majority of people with disposable income, the demographics that they want to shop and spend their money at these places, and by the way, the vast majority of Americans, they don't care that people are gay and trans.
They don't have a problem with this stuff.
That's where the money is.
That's why corporations, quote-unquote, care about this stuff.
They're not woke.
These aren't their actual principles.
They just understand that this is where stuff is going.
The problem is that right-wing conservative people, they can't boycott this stuff in any meaningful way because they're such a small part of the market share.
Like, by the way, Bud Light didn't just go down because they gave, like, Bud Light to, like, a transgender person.
They were already going down.
We covered this thing.
There's a reason why Modelo is now, like, going to be the number one beer in America.
Which, by the way, Ding Ding Ding also belongs to the same company that puts out Bud Light, but that's neither here nor there.
Now, what comes along with that is this.
They cannot influence the market with their money the same way that liberals can and the tolerant majority of the country can.
They cannot influence it.
The only thing they can do is use violence.
So what ends up happening?
Target is not only having one fight after another, like one volatile circumstance after another.
They're having bomb threats.
They're having their employees threatened.
And eventually, it's the same thing that happened, we covered this, when Walgreens stopped carrying, you know, the pill, like, they finally, they just say, well, we don't want to have to deal with this.
And what do we see?
The CEO of Target comes out, this is Brian Cornell, and like, just an absolute pudding soft spine statement, comes out and says, quote, One of the hardest parts of removing items is thinking about, quote, the well-being and psychological safety of gay people.
That's great, man, because I understand why you're saying that, because you're trying to cover your own ass, but what is happening is you are capitulating to people who are holding you hostage with violence.
And Nick, I don't know about you, I don't think that that works out in the long run.
I think once you give in to these people, it sort of starts a feedback loop that gets worse and worse and worse.
Well, let's talk about these people for a second because, you know, you mentioned like they, most people sort of, you know, can tolerate it and usually what you hear from the right is, we just don't want it in our face, right?
Like, somebody on Instagram posted something on Twitter, there's a rainbow, it says, everyone's welcome.
And someone posted that and said, can you just get this shit out of my face at least?
When it's like, all they're saying is everyone's welcome, but that's what's so horrible about this, right?
Let me read Ben Shapiro, his tweet, because I thought it was also- Do we have to?
I want to do his voice.
I guess you're better.
I got to practice more so I can get as good as you are, but here's what he said.
He goes, any society that isn't normatively based on heterosexual family formation is definitionally doomed to collapse.
Pretending that society ought to be apathetic about such matters, or even worse, condemnatory of the presence of traditional norms, is civilizationally suicidal.
Now, talk to me a little bit, Jared, because you've done a lot of deep dives into past civilizations.
How have all the heterosexual civilizations, or excuse me, quote unquote, normal heterosexual civilizations done?
How have they done, you know, traditionally in the past?
You look at them between start and finish.
Has anyone ever lasted?
You know what's weird, Nick, is that the Greeks and the Romans could not be reached for comment on this tweet.
Who, by the way, are supposed to be the basis of Ben Shapiro's entire intellectual architecture.
You know what's weird about that, too?
In The Midnight Kingdom, I was doing research, and it's weird because what he says, almost word for word, is what was said about the quote-unquote tides of color that were coming to take over white supremacy at the turn of the 20th century, which is why we got eugenics, it's why we got the Nazis, it's why we got genocide.
And by the way, that's also, strangely enough, what they started saying whenever women started having birth control.
It was going to lead to civilizational collapse.
Isn't it weird, Nick, that every time that we deviate from something that white, straight men want, society's going to fall apart?
It's almost like, and hear me out here, that they see any threat to themselves as a threat to society writ large.
That is almost what it is.
You're so close.
We're so close.
And by the way, one last thing we got to talk about before we get to what we're watching.
And by the way, the succession final, Nick and I boofed it.
We didn't know what was going on.
We have no idea at any given moment, our predictions were completely off.
That's neither here nor there.
Nick, California.
I don't know what to say, man.
There is word coming out of the Golden State that apparently the number one insurance provider, State Farm... By the way, some of the worst commercials on television.
They've gotten so bad.
I laugh at the bippity boopity.
One, unfortunately.
But yes, I hear you.
I mean, listen to the background, the whole thing.
AI will take care of that.
Don't worry.
Oh God, don't get me started on AI.
I got some thoughts on AI right now.
But in California, the number one provider, State Farm, has stopped new applications and acceptances of insurance within California.
Based on climate change disasters, this is a situation that has been developing around the country, particularly in states where climate change is making them basically uninhabitable.
California, though, is a landmark moment.
They cited, quote, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, which is corporateese for shit's bad.
How do you feel about this?
This doesn't feel good for your state, bud.
I mean having living in the concrete jungle where the fires or nothing are not a fear it's strange to me but but then again you know it's gotten close enough where we could smell it and feel it whatever so yeah I get it um but yeah it's a problem when the biggest yeah and this is homeowners homeowner's insurance which by the way you're legally required to have to own a home uh but there are places in America I was kind of shocked reading the article where they pulled out and it's like especially in poor neighborhoods
Because, basically, the cost, it just wasn't worth it, and the people wouldn't be able to afford the insurance they'd have to charge, and I'm assuming they just claimed some sort of mathematical formula to calculate what that is, and the people that live there aren't wealthy enough to pay that, and so they simply will not offer it, and people are living in these homes without insurance.
I don't know what to make of it, other than, you know, this industry will probably have to be subsidized by the government.
Oh, isn't that weird?
Isn't that weird, however, like the free market just says that they don't want the government around, but then they always end up needing the government to subsidize them?
Isn't that strange?
Yeah, you know.
I mean, it's weird because for so long, for so many years, people made their livings doing insurance, right?
It's true.
I want to say, and by the way, I need people to pull over.
I need people to sit down, call a friend over.
I'm going to say something that's going to shock some people.
Insurance is one of the biggest scams going in this country.
The way that that industry has screwed people over and turned it into a science of screwing people over.
It used to be a situation in which the government made sure that insurance companies had to work for people and serve people.
Now I'm not even talking about health insurance at this point.
Like health insurance is a whole different thing.
That shouldn't even exist.
That should be done.
Thanks, Joe Lieberman.
Thank you.
Compromises of a little while ago.
Well, when you say that, you mean fuck you, Joe Lieberman.
Just so we're on the right.
Fuck you, Joe Lieberman.
One of the most detrimental people who has been a part of the modern political system.
Wait, this is re-enacted the Ted Lasso scene from last week.
All right, go ahead.
So in all of this, the government used to make insurance companies provide insurance.
That used to be what they did.
In the era of deregulation, we have now created a terrible, terrible situation where the market is not actually serving people.
It is self-serving.
It needs to be reined in.
Surprise, surprise, it's not going to be.
In the midst of all this, you're exactly right.
What's going to end up happening is the government is going to have to pick up the tab on some of this stuff.
I don't see how it does.
I don't see how that goes forward.
But it's important to point something out.
Even though this country largely denies that climate change is a real problem, and even the people who believe that climate change is a problem, they're still not advocating solutions that will actually make any of it better, because we are largely in denial that our way of life has to change.
This is where you start to see recognition of it.
It's the people whose economic Incentives are to understand what is coming.
And they understand very, very well that climate change is real.
It's going to lead to financial, social, political crises.
This is where, like, it's almost like one of those smoke alarms.
This is the type of stuff that lets us know that things are getting to a point.
The people who understand things, because it's their business to understand things, know that this thing is coming down the pike.
Well, I will, I'll spend 30 seconds having a little bit of sympathy for the homeowner's insurance companies because places like Florida, when they get hit by the hurricanes, you know, it makes sense to me that they could cover claims and then they would need a year or two years where there isn't severe storms to kind of get back whole and all that stuff.
But since, what was it, in 2017, I think, or 2018, they've never had a break.
And so I totally get it.
That's bankrupt of these companies because they simply don't have enough money to cover all the claims when it's that severe.
And I got a hit for everybody.
It will get less severe.
That's going to keep getting worse.
You know, I don't I can't talk about California without it superstitiously because of what hasn't happened in a long time.
and what will probably happen is maybe they know something, which is why they're pulling out now.
What does State Farm know about something that might happen that's going to be terrible in California, and they're not going to have families?
I'm telling you, this is the conspiracy that would happen, right?
It happens like next week.
So I understand how that math can work.
And if there are enough of these natural disasters that keep hitting these coasts and whatever, obviously the solution that has to be, those people can't live there.
So imagine a future in society where they're simply going to X off the whole sections of the map, where they're not going to allow you to live under the guise of safety, which I kind of get, but also because insurance companies won't insure any houses there.
I'm sure that won't intersect with right-wing authoritarianism and oppression whatsoever.
I'm sure people will just go about their business.
They'll give up their places.
They'll go where they need to go and there won't be any violence.
Or they'll get rid of that regulation and you will be able to live in a house without insurance.
And the first disaster that hits, that's it, right?
That will get rid of a whole subset of our population.
And by the way, Nick, am I mistaken here, but if California was its own country, wouldn't it be the fourth largest country in terms of numbers in the economy?
It's something wild.
Yeah, the economy, right.
The economy size, yeah.
And it's huge.
It's a lot of people.
Break it up.
And anyway, it's just that they're not going to have any insurance.
Right, right.
This country is going gangbusters.
This is great.
Well, it's just the one company right now, but I can tell you they're all looking around at this, right, and thinking, hey, gosh, you know, we could maybe make this work.
Our numbers... It's not even a big company, just State Farm.
That's wonderful.
All right, before we end this show, Nick, what have you been watching?
Well, we had a double whammy of the Ted Lasso finale and then the Succession finale.
Oh, I didn't watch the Ted Lasso one yet.
Did you watch the one from last week when his mom came to visit?
No, I guess I'm two episodes back.
It was uneven, right?
We understand that.
There were some bad episodes, there were some really good ones, and his mom comes to visit, which, you know, we had had one of the more, you know, what's it, I guess, dramatic episodes about Ted Lasso and his father, what happened with him.
We had never really heard about the mom before, so they have this meeting of the minds or a confrontation that kind of deals with, thank you, fuck you.
That's what I was referencing earlier, which you didn't get, but It was really good.
You know, it was sad.
I was kind of crying.
And part of the reason is even though, you know, some of the episodes, you know, kind of lost their speed as I guess Bill Lawrence had kind of separated himself for the last season, but It was important.
Ted Lasso did something really important about communication and about coaching, also.
That I'm only praying had the kind of effect that it had on me, at least, as far as the way it should be done.
And so, that was a really sad moment to know that it's not going to be on anymore.
Wait, is it done?
Is that official?
Yeah.
I mean, there's almost nothing to be made, but no, that was the finale.
That's really odd.
I didn't hear any hubbub over it.
I guess Succession just sort of like swallowed up the air in the room.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not going to ruin it for you, but the way that Ted Lasso ends is... I mean, listen, soap operas always change the endings, whatever, but like, you know, it's over.
Did Bobby Ewing come out of a shower?
Yeah, right.
Well, no, there might even be a snow globe, though, that he shaved.
All right, wonderful.
I love it.
Okay, so feeling good about that?
You enjoyed that?
I mean, I enjoyed it, but I was kind of teary-eyed.
It was really sad the way they wrapped it all up.
It's sad.
I'm going to miss it.
All right, wonderful.
Well, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to give people, we're going to have another little quick moment where we don't want to spoil succession for people, and we're going to have a quick little conversation about that.
So right now, dead air.
All right, now, succession finale.
We're going to talk openly about it.
If you don't want to have that spoiled, whatever.
I thought a really good episode of television.
I thought really, really moving psychologically.
I thought it was dead on.
I felt haunted by it.
I watched it last night.
I've walked around the past few hours thinking about it, really collecting my thoughts.
I thought a fantastic finale of television.
I mean, we all have those friends that maybe aren't as self-aware, they don't really know who they really are, what their foibles could be, and their issues.
And to witness when they actually, when that moment comes, and I think Shiv sort of finally was the one, right, who ends up just really just sort of getting a handle on who they really are, and how vapid they are, and they're not really who they, you know, they thought.
That was, yeah, it was kind of devastating.
Did you read the whole thing about Jeremy Strong?
I think I saw a couple tweets, and I believe it, where, you know what his instinct was when they filmed the last shot?
Was to jump in the water.
I thought for sure he was going to.
I think that's what he was kind of really wanting to do, as his method is very method.
And that would have probably been also interesting, although that, you know, the notion of him doing that is like suicide, like he's not going to make it.
it looked like he did jump in the river, right?
You're not going to die from that, but, uh, certainly I would imagine, let me ask you this.
Do you think that, uh, Kendall Roy would be alive in another year?
Would he be able to survive this?
Well, I will say, and I was thinking about that too.
In turn, I hadn't heard that strong had said that, but I got the feeling that he was looking at the water, both contemplating whether or not he could live or not.
Um, and, and, and for people who don't remember, there was the episode a while back when he hit rock bottom, where he was going to drown in a pool, uh, But he survived and, you know, the desperation that he should... Man, what an incredible actor.
The desperation where he's just like, if I don't do this, I think I might die.
Like that moment that when the kids are in the room trying to make the decision about what's to happen and Shiv is not going to vote for him.
Wild, wild television.
So incredibly acted and also so telling.
I mean, that it reached this point where, you know, it could come to that big of a climax between all of them.
Unbelievable.
Also, great scene, Tom with Madsen, where he is basically selling Shiv out emotionally in order to get the job as CEO.
Incredible.
When Logan Roy comes on the screen in the video, I thought that was, I knew that he was going to be in the last show.
I knew that that was going to happen.
Really, really incredible.
The mom, the relationship between the mom and the children, it just keeps getting deeper and deeper in terms of how failed all of these children were.
Like, this is a story about trauma.
It's a story about people who have been failed by their parents, failed by everyone around them, and the deep, deep wounds that take place there.
And I just thought it was... Like, when they got... Nick, this is actually one of my favorite scenes in the entire show.
When they make the decision at their mom's house that they're going to vote for Kendall to be the head of the company, and then they talk about their making of a meal fit for a king, they were so childlike and loving towards each other.
And that was a moment where I was like, oh my God, this is a healing moment for them.
They're going to be fine.
And for that to be taken away, I thought was both tragic and sad, but so appropriate.
I thought it was poetic. - A tour de force in acting because they were kids.
They became the kids that they had been doing.
I'm sure they had done that when they were kids.
We're gonna throw all this crap in a blender and we're gonna make you drink it.
And then I'm sure they've taken turns meal for a queen and for a king.
So that, you know, the one, probably the last time they ever had a childhood was that moment whenever that had happened and they were able to rekindle that.
So that was terrific.
I mean, we got our graduate ending as well with a shot in the limo with Tom and Shiv, you know, in the hands.
Did you notice, by the way, when they, so there's this moment, it's very, very powerful.
Tom puts his hand out almost as a peace offering.
She puts her hand in his hand.
But did you notice that neither of them clasped?
Oh yeah.
Like her hand just laid in his hand and like it just sat there.
That's a great... I mean the way they framed it too.
So obviously they were aware of this.
It wasn't like they didn't talk about it.
And I'd love to know how that evolved.
I mean could it very well this been the actors deciding it and then when they notice it, okay we have to make sure we see that in the foreground.
But either way just a terrific everything.
You get what you want.
And, uh, well, actually, you know, Tom does, and he doesn't seem very happy at all either.
So it's like you realize, just like in The Graduate, it was really poetic.
And I guess, was it fitting to have, it's, uh, the last shot is Jeremy Strong, right?
Yep.
The last shot is Jeremy Strong being guarded by his dad's bodyguard, looking out in the water, contemplating who he is and what happens.
Again, a reminder that hypercapitalism, particularly even the winners, are hollowed out by this shit.
It's awful.
It's poisonous for the soul.
Intergenerational trauma is real.
I think it's, overall, almost a perfect series.
I'm so glad that they only did four seasons.
I'm so glad that they kept it tight and got to where they were going.
I think more shows need to learn from that.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I came way late, so we got to binge probably the first two seasons without having to wait at all.
And that was, again, another way of watching a show, which radically changes the way we digest these things without having to wait a week in between.
And so I think it changed the way I looked at the whole series overall because of the first half I got to watch all in a row.
Also, I want to point something out, and this is for any writers out there, for anybody who's into like writing TV shows, movies, books, whatever it is.
One of the powers of succession, and I think with the finale, like it's the last episode of a series.
I think your impulse is that everything needs wrapped up.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, we have to have an answer on everything.
What's going to happen to everybody?
What's going to happen in all situations?
By the time that episode's over, we know that Tom's taking over.
We don't know if it's a good situation for him.
We don't know if their marriage is going to be okay.
We don't know what's going to happen to Kendall.
We have no idea what's going to happen to Roman.
Like, Roman is at a bar, he has a brief moment of a smile, and then just, like, just looks absolutely crestfallen.
On top of that, we don't even know if Minkin's gonna be president.
That's, like, still up in the air.
Like, it gives you so much room, as a viewer who cares about it, to fill in the spaces for yourself.
And that is one of the secrets to an ending, is give people enough, but don't give them too much.
So that must mean that you're loving all these AI, you know, when they take the famous... No!
And then you expand it and they're filling it in.
No!
You don't like that?
You'd rather have that?
Do you know what I do?
I fucking hate it.
It makes me so mad.
This flourish of AI bullshit.
It is some of the dumbest stuff I've ever seen.
It makes me angry.
For what it's worth, I downloaded it and I fired up a picture of Nikola Jokic from the waist up and I said, okay, add the legs.
So, it didn't do a terrible job, they're way too small, so whatever, but it gave him knee pads.
So I was like, oh my god, it looks so hilarious.
I don't know if you saw, we didn't cover it today, but did you see the Ron DeSantis AI generated picture?
Well, I don't know.
Which one are we talking about?
So, on his campaign site, there was a picture of him, like, standing next to a boy at, like, a rally or an event, and, like, somebody noticed that, like, it was AI-generated because out of the sleeve of his coat was, like, a second hand.
What?
I didn't see this.
Yeah, so they're already generating shit, like, for campaigns.
All right.
Well, I can't wait to look it up now.
I can't wait.
I can't wait for Ron DeSantis's terrible politics to be made up for with AI technology.
That must explain the white boots.
That was AI then.
Yeah, that's why it was the decision for the white boots.
All right, everybody.
We're so glad to be back, and we're going to be back on the Tuesday episode.
In the meantime, if you need Nick, you can find him at Can You Hear Me?
