Senator Menendez Stuffing Gold Bars Under His Mattress
Don't Forget: We're hosting a LIVE SHOW tomorrow, Wednesday, September 27th, immediately after the GOP Debate. Subscribe to our patreon to tune in: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman celebrate the impending end to the Writer's Guild strike in Hollywood, as well as Joe Biden walking the line for the UAW strike. They pivot to the indictment of US Senator Robert Menendez and the perpetual cloud following over his head as it doesn't look good for him. They focus on the idiotic outrage over the lack of a dress code on the Senate floor, before wrapping up with their predictions for the GOP debate.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It's, you know, a day where I'm asking forgiveness for everybody.
So hopefully you'll forgive me for anything I might have done in the past, known or unknown.
And I'm looking forward to being able to eat a little bit tonight.
Yeah, you're fasting, but you're showing up, you're doing the podcast, you're in it to win it.
That's what we call dedication.
Observing Ramadan, which is what I'm doing right now, 30 days in a row, that's impressive.
That is impressive to do that and to be dedicated like that.
I don't know if I could do that.
I can't do the 24 hours before a surgery.
So I mean, hats off to everybody.
Good work.
Also, by the way, before we get into our main segments today, Nick, we have to, as we always do on this podcast, show solidarity with the working people out there We've got some victories going on.
The Writers Guild took the studios just and demolished them.
They waited them out for five months.
They came back to the table.
They crawled back, begging the Writers Guild to work with them.
We have a deal that has to be approved by the members, but it looks like the Guild has gotten almost everything that they've wanted, including new cash considerations, new compensation, and also new considerations when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Also, Nick, the UAW strike has extended.
It's now in over 20 states against GM, Ford, and Stellantis.
All I can say is solidarity, solidarity, solidarity.
I don't want to rain on your parade a little bit, but it's not like, you know, these kind of things are short-term three-year deals.
I'm talking about the writer's strike agreement.
And it does feel like they scraped and clawed it.
Just the fact that they were able to kind of get them back to the table.
We don't even really know what the terms are yet.
I've been trying, I've been doing my back channels, talking to people, and no one was willing to give up any of this information.
But It did feel like, if you read the variety, that there are, you know, some things where they are going to get some good stuff.
Now, there was this interesting thing where there was a requirement to have a certain amount of writers on each show, so instead of paying episodic like they used to, like a certain amount for each episode, they were trying to hire really, really cheap writers in the very beginning of the process to kind of write a bunch of scripts all in a row, and then all these, you know, well-established writers were getting squeezed out So I think that they're going to have some movement on that, and certainly the AI thing is just good for everybody because we don't want to watch content that's written by AI.
Well, and it also sets a precedent.
One of the things that has happened in this strike is that whenever there's labor action, and we're old enough to remember over the last few decades that whenever there was a walkout or a lockout or a strike or whatever, There was almost always sort of a feeling out in the ether of a lot of people who were like, they just need to suck it up and get back to work, right?
There was like a public perception that like any workers who would do this, like they were stepping on the line and they really should get with it.
I think the studio heads really thought that the moment that they went on strike, that like, that was going to happen, and it was an immediate pushback.
Where we looked around, we talked about the polls on this show, 70-80% of Americans were like, good for you people, good for you, that's what should be happening.
The movement right now with labor is overwhelming.
You everywhere you look, you see it, you feel it.
There's one union after another that's either being set up and or is is becoming more and more radical.
We even have Joe Biden, who, you know, has spent his entire career, Nick, Like saying, you know, he was there for workers and unions and all of that.
Meanwhile, his record has been a little spotty here and there.
You know, let's not talk to the rail workers about, you know, how they feel about Joe Biden or the truckers about how they feel about Joe Biden.
But he felt it politically necessary that he needed to go and walk the line with the striking UAW workers.
That's the pressure that happens here.
It's not going to necessarily be a Joe Biden or a Democratic Party that's going to push this stuff.
It has to come from the workers.
It has to come from the ground level.
And when you start to feel the momentum shift, that's when things become malleable.
That's when you have to start working with this stuff, and it becomes something that people have to deal with.
And we've entered into that territory.
And you're exactly right.
When it comes to the writers, this is a stake in the ground when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Which is coming for all of us.
Eventually we're all going to have to deal with this or have conversations about this.
What's going to happen?
What are the considerations?
This is a start.
You're right.
It's not a total victory.
I'm pretty pumped up about it, but this is a good start.
Well, and before I forget, the biggest victory they had was that there looks like there's going to be some formula for residuals like on Netflix, which is that is the biggest victory.
Now, the problem is nobody's ever transparent.
They're not going to get the numbers.
So they're going to have to rely on Netflix to tell them how many views your shows are getting.
And that's going to be an interesting thing.
It's probably along the lines of, like, you know, is Iran developing nuclear weapons?
We don't know.
Are they, you know, are they being observed or not?
We've got to find out whether or not that's what those numbers really are.
But it is a movement and a victory in terms of that.
On that note, I want to say two things about what you just brought up, which is absolutely perfect.
First things first, is that much like in Major League Baseball and in other professional sporting leagues, every owner who is absolutely awash in billions of dollars will turn out their pockets and just be like, I don't have anything.
I'm barely able to keep the lights on.
I don't know what to tell you.
Then, all of these streaming giants, right?
They're like, you know, we have the biggest conglomerate corporation monopolies that have ever existed in the history of media.
We just can't figure out how to make it work.
Oh god, you have everything.
You can't figure out how to make it work.
That sounds like a you problem to me.
This is coming from somebody and I don't know how you feel about it.
Maybe it's my TV.
Maybe it's my Roku.
I can't make Netflix work for shit.
It doesn't work.
None of these systems work.
They all suck.
They don't, they don't operate.
They're constantly freezing up.
Like, they can't make this profitable.
They can't make it function.
Guess what?
Maybe you shouldn't have these major monolithic corporations.
Maybe it's, and you're gonna sit here and be like, well, maybe we'll have to break up.
Good!
I hope you do have to break up, like a big pile of Tinker Toys.
I hope your big disgusting corporate monoliths absolutely fall apart and you have to pick up the pieces.
Good.
But that's not what's going to happen.
It's going to be the opposite.
They're going to continue to partner.
Hulu and Disney Plus are going to merge.
You're going to see all this and they're going to charge more for that.
And I'm a little, I don't know why, I don't have a problem with Netflix.
It seems to work fine with me, but I do feel like there are costs that Netflix has incurred, and especially because they're trying to do deals and get all this new content to get more subscribers.
They were spending money left and right, as like a startup would, to get VCs and all that stuff and to pump up the stock price.
And I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately say, we cannot make it work based on the rates it costs, A, for the productions, and B, to deliver it.
It is expensive.
And then C, I think that they're also finding a little bit more of, of a value on buying pre-existing things and delivering it that way.
So, Suits, for instance, is a show that does really well for them, and they didn't have to make it, they didn't have to do anything, they just paid a little money to get the rights to it.
Call me crazy, Nick.
Their inability to create new things and to rely on existing properties, it speaks to the fact that maybe this society and culture should have paid artists.
Maybe you should have paid writers like me and you and other people to create things instead of stiffing us and making us have to figure out how to pay for food and medicine.
And that's where we get to the whole of this thing.
That's the whole ball of wax.
And so the answer is Netflix probably shouldn't be a studio.
Like, they shouldn't be financing and trying to develop their own shows.
They should simply, you know, maybe buy them and then have them on their platform.
But we've gotten some really great shows that way.
And so it's, you know, at some point they might figure it out.
We need some sort of technology shift as well to figure out how to get high quality video across the lines to our, you know, cheaper and faster and all that stuff.
I think if they can figure that part out, we need another round of aliens dropping down and giving us a little extra.
If only, though, we had a system that actually rewarded innovation as opposed to monopolies destroying innovation.
All I can say is solidarity, solidarity, solidarity, solidarity.
Good for the writers.
Let me ask you this.
Biden walking on the line would be the most, you can interpret that very cynically by saying, ah, he's just doing this for a photo op and whatever.
It is good politics.
And he might even believe in the unions, right?
I don't think it matters at this point.
That's the point.
And just to go ahead and push this point further, Nick, we talk about on this podcast, we've been taught to look at presidents as being all-powerful.
They make all the decisions and they do what they do.
No.
They're individuals who get pressured.
They're pushed by political winds.
Joe Biden is on that line because he understands, and the people around him understand, that the momentum right now is with organized labor.
Let me tell you what, the Democratic Party has screwed over unions for a long time.
And they've worked with them too when the wind was behind them.
That used to be the bulwark of the Democratic Party until they moved away from them starting in the 70s and then in the 1980s.
If they're feeling the pressure that they have to align themselves back with the unions and organized labor, that's huge!
And you're exactly right.
It's not just good politics.
That's how you get this stuff to start moving.
It's not like presidents just wake up one day and they decide to do a bunch of stuff.
They are also subject to all these political pressures as well.
Absolutely.
All right.
On that note, speaking of pressures, Nick, boy, howdy.
We got to talk about Dirty Bomb Menendez, the New Jersey senator who is now facing his second indictment.
The Democrat who up until recently was the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee It was found that, after searching his house, they found hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They found gold bars.
They found payments on cars, on houses, many of them originating from business people who benefited from Menendez's, you know, work.
But also, the nation-state of Egypt.
I want to say this again.
The nation-state of Egypt was allegedly giving Bob Menendez, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, God knows how much money in order to make sure that Egypt continued to get aid.
So far, only two Democratic senators have called for him to resign, including John Fetterman and Sherrod Brown.
Good for them.
Menendez is one of the dirtiest politicians in Washington.
We call it like we see it.
We've told everybody if there is a, if there's corruption within the Democratic Party that we will call it out.
This is almost as corrupt as it gets.
He needs to get out and he needs to be drummed out of politics writ large.
I know, but the problem is that the precedent now is who gives?
You can run again if you want and then wait.
Yeah, he announced he's running again probably!
Yeah, he certainly announced he's going to be exonerated.
Now, let me ask you this, Jared, because this is one of those classic cases of stuffing money under your mattress.
He literally explained that.
$450,000.
Not sure if he actually gave us the full breadth of how much it is.
actually were you know gave us the full breadth of how much it is $450,000 in cash in his house and he tried to say that over 30 years of being a public servant he and making whatever money he made he was slowly just saving money just in case I needed an emergency because you know I have you know I have people in Cuba that are in my family I might need to be able to bail out at any one time I I've got to tell you first of all
You know, having anything more than like, I don't know, let's call it $100,000 in cash in your house is absolutely ludicrous because you could be making 5% on that in a money market account with nothing in this day and age.
You know how much money, that's like 20 grand a year or something like that, maybe more.
I've lost track of the thing.
So that's, it's irresponsible of anybody, you know, I'm not supposed to be doing that.
I love that you're giving financial advice to Bob.
But this is what he's trying to do with a straight face.
With a straight face, he's trying to pretend that I've just been stuffing money under my mattress for 30 years, and that's why I had that much money.
You know, if they're going to be able to prove it, I don't know.
But he's always had a cloud over his head his entire political career.
Listen, I don't know if you know this or if our listeners know this.
There are two individuals in American politics that were laughably corrupt.
Everybody has known that dirty Bob Menendez is one of the most corrupt politicians in the United States of America.
The fact that he kept getting re-elected and put in positions of power, quite frankly, is an absolute shame.
By the way, Nick is preparing a clip real fast.
I'm going to bring up the second person.
It's not who I was getting ready to talk about.
The second is Bill Richardson.
I don't know if you know that, but everybody basically said Bill Richardson, who recently died, was one of the dirtiest politicians.
You mean from New Mexico?
Yes.
And, like, oh, it was just well known in these circles that, like, these people were just incredibly corrupt.
But I'm gonna have Nick play this clip.
This was George Soros getting asked if he thought that Dirty Bob should reside.
Oh, careful.
Santos, not George Soros.
Oh, George Santos!
I've got Soros on the brain from the episode the other day, sure.
Yeah, George Santos.
Here we go.
Do you think Senator Menendez should resign?
I don't have an opinion on that.
Why not?
Because I think due process is important and I think he has the right to defend himself.
He's innocent until proven guilty.
The media has to stop acting like everybody is guilty before they're even judged that by a jury.
So no, I think everybody is innocent until proven guilty.
When did we walk away from the fabric of our constitution that everybody has a presumption of innocence before anything else?
I don't think he should resign.
No, thank you.
Man, he was so happy with how that went, wasn't he?
Well, it's one of those, the worst person you know made a good point, right?
So I sent you this link, Nick, and I said, he's both right and wrong.
One, yes, we have a presumption of innocence in this country, which means that, like, you get charged with crimes and then you're going to have a trial and we'll see what happens.
That doesn't necessarily extend to when you are a senator.
Like, when you get found with gold bars that the nation-state of Egypt gave you to make sure that their billions of dollars of aid were going to continue flowing.
Like, Santos, and I love that Santos is just, like, he's getting up on his moral and ethical high horse.
There's also, and you can see this on YouTube if you watch our podcast on YouTube, but if you're just listening to this, one of his aides is in the background, and she is just eating it up.
She's like, absolutely.
Thank you, George, for telling it like it is.
You nailed it.
Like, this is, it's so funny that Santos is coming out, like, in order to stand up for Dirty Bob.
It's incredible.
Of all the people that are gonna you know die on that hill it's gonna he has to be because he needs that too.
I haven't even heard I mean I'm assuming they're still looking into his stuff but like these things have a tendency to just sort of drift away and the public isn't interested anymore and they don't hear about it.
Matt Gaetz could not be reached for comments.
Well, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene might be out there, we're talking about stuff, but, you know, this is actually a mistake by Santos because he's been doing a really good job just sort of being out of the sightlines, right?
Because if he can make it another, you know, until next year, he can run again maybe if the alternate tamps down.
So I would, if I were advising him, I'd say, you know, stay off the cameras as much as you possibly can at this point.
Nick, I want the record to show that in the past three minutes you have given investment advice for Bob Menendez and taking his ill-gotten bribes and making money off of them and telling George Santos how to lay low until the heat cools off.
Yeah, isn't that why we're here?
I don't know.
I mean, listen, what a show we've got going here.
And by the way, Menendez, you know, some people might deserve the benefit of the doubt, right?
They've lived an exemplary life.
They've been, you know, upstanding members of the society.
Just to give you an idea, because, like, Trump is the same way.
like he had all those legal issues in the seventies with renting to people of color and all that horrible thing.
So like he already starts out, you know, on the wrong side, uh, Menendez, you know, it had a, it was indicted and somehow got off, um, when he was actually appropriating money to a special, um, interest group that was then turning around and then renting office space and stuff from the, at him as a landlord.
So he's giving them all his money and then they're pulling it right back into his pockets.
Uh, At the very least, if that's not illegal, it's simply the most unethical behavior you can have as a senator.
He's incredibly unethical.
And you know, our audience is a very special group of listeners.
And so if you're listening to this podcast, I have to assume you're sitting at home or in your car, wherever you are, you're on your run, and you're like, you know what, I'm glad that they're calling out corruption in the Democratic Party.
I want to say something to anybody who's like, come on, don't go after Democrats.
Like, let's not talk about this thing.
You have to get this poison out of a party.
You cannot have this.
I'm sorry, but this is like, this literally is like the highest level of corruption that you can really imagine outside of, I don't know, Nick, let me just think of an example off top of my head, trying to overthrow an election.
Or working with a foreign government in order to attack democracy.
Which, by the way, he was working with a foreign government and taking bribes from them.
This is high, high-level corruption.
And if you want a better world, if you want a better country, you want a better future, you get this out.
You call it out, you call it where you see it, and you get it out.
And the Democrats need to grow a spine and tell this guy to hit the road.
He needs to go.
Yeah, and for what it's worth, like, when it comes time to indict someone who's in Congress like this, or indict a former president like we had, you know, they are not going- they don't want to do it.
There really aren't like it's really unlikely they are going to do it.
And unless it is so slam dunk and they can prove all these things, they wouldn't even get close to doing indictment.
So you have to understand, like in the context there, like when you see those those numbers, indictments tend to be, you know, 90 percent, whatever they get their convictions.
It's because of that.
And so you have to imagine they would never got close to this with Menendez.
They didn't know there's there isn't a shred of he's not getting off on this one.
You know, we've talked so far about some really important things, including the need for organized labor in a time of historic inequality.
We've talked about just ghastly corruption that hurts America.
Nick, it's time to talk about the real issue.
Like the real hard-hitting issue, the thing that we have to discuss today, which is that the Senate has relaxed its dress code because John Fetterman wants to wear hoodies and shorts.
I tell you this again, John Fetterman has led to the Senate relaxing its dress code.
It has unleashed hell, Nick, People are losing their minds of all political stripes.
They think this is ghastly and awful, and yet here we are.
John Fetterman has relaxed the dress code in the Senate.
I assume, like me, you are horrified by this and you demand satisfaction.
I have gone actually a couple different ways on this as I've been thinking about it.
My first instinct, which is perhaps the one you're supposed to listen to, right, is the first one was, eh, whatever.
Whatever!
But, um, I do feel like, um, I do feel like, you know, you probably should have to wear, you know, even if it's just business casual, you should have to wear at least that.
Why?
You know, it's a good question.
You know, like, you know, what's interesting?
Somebody parked their car in front of my house on the street, and they put a cover on it.
And I was like, I was like, outraged.
And it was there for like, five days.
Apparently, there's a law that says you can't park more than three days in a row within whatever.
And I had and I finally said, Well, why?
Why do we have this law?
And no one could really come up with a really great answer for that.
And so I had to kind of shrug.
So this is the same idea.
You're right.
Why do they have to look nice or dress nice, according to Our standards of the day.
I don't know.
It kind of feels like, you know, there's the hallowed halls of the Senate.
You probably should, shouldn't look like you came from the gym.
I don't know.
The hallowed halls of the Senate.
Do you know what has happened in the Senate?
This is, this is basically this, the, the, the, the hallowed halls of the Senate are just on this side of like the Illinois penitentiary where every governor goes immediately after they're done serving their term.
Like, this is the biggest rogues gallery of corrupt and detestable individuals who have been, like, on a conveyor belt of privilege to hold up white patriarchal male supremacy since the beginning of this country.
So what you're saying is we don't need to pretend anymore.
We need to stop pretending that these people in any way, shape or form deserve our respect or that they are somehow or another higher than the rest of us.
We need to stop hiding behind these vestiges of privilege and power.
I'm glad Fetterman's out there.
And for the record, Nick, I'm happy that he's triggering people.
I love that Rand Paul came to work in a bathrobe.
I love that every channel is talking about it and talking about all this.
I'm glad, we're going to read from a couple of articles here in a second, I'm glad people are having to come out and absolutely show that the only thing they care about is the appearance of actual power and respect and they actually don't care anything else.
The Senate is where Power goes to destroy bills.
That's the place where we're going to make sure that people aren't going to get aid and health, where seniors are going to have to basically eat dog medicine in order to try and survive, and children are going to be thrust into poverty.
Like, there's nothing here to respect.
I said this on Twitter.
I wish they were made to wear outfits that displayed the people who own them, the people who pay their money and their dark money.
Like, I would be a lot happier if they came to work looking like NASCAR pit bosses.
Well, you know, what's funny is that I was going to say, you know, if you're listing things, people who are struggling and really need help and why the government should be focusing on that, the media should be focusing on that.
The media, you know, people are losing their jobs left and right.
They can't keep newspapers open.
And yet, We're going to talk about an article, right, that was written where a guy tries to go to the fanciest New York restaurants dressed like Fetterman to see what would happen.
And you have to wonder to yourself, why would you ever waste any money as a news anchor on something like that?
And you know what?
I was thinking later, I'm like, it probably will get the most clicks that day.
Yeah, so this is from the New York Post, that bastion of journalistic integrity.
This is an article called, The Post tried eating at New York City's finest restaurants dressed like Senator John Fetterman.
See how it went.
This is by John Levine.
John says, quote, Senator John Fetterman may be allowed to dress like a slob in the halls of power, But it's still a capital offense in New York City's finest restaurants.
Intrepid Post reporter John Levine learned that hard truth this week when he crisscrossed the Big Apple's culinary landmarks wearing Fetterman's trademark hoodie, gym shorts, and sneakers and tried to gain entry, only to face scorn and mockery from maitre d's with more common sense than Congress.
He would not be permitted here, sniffed at Metru D at Daniel on the Upper East Side where a 7-course tasting menu runs $275.
She admitted she didn't know who Fetterman was.
And then from there, Nick, it's just like tasting menus and 10-course meals that cost thousands of dollars, to which the entire point of this article is that John Fetterman doesn't belong in the Senate.
He's not one of them.
He's not one of the elite.
And the fact that Pennsylvania deigned it to put him in there in what was basically a landslide.
Like, it speaks poorly on their part because the Senate is supposed to be for elites.
And that's the entire point of this article.
And it gives up the game!
It gives up the game about what the Senate is and what it has always been and what these people actually want from it.
I mean, part of me feels like it's the tan suit all over again, to some degree.
But it's also right.
I mean, by the way, I'm real fascinated.
I want to point something out.
The problem wasn't that Obama wore a tan suit.
It's that Obama had tan skin.
That was the problem.
Like, it wouldn't have mattered what he wore.
It was the fact that he was a black man who became president of the United States of America.
You know, it was a tan, but also there wasn't, it was a tan suit.
It's a specific time of year, right?
It wasn't even like you couldn't wear a tan suit when it's before late.
I don't even know what those rules are.
They don't exist anymore.
I don't even think there are rules on that.
Yeah.
So I, I agree.
I mean, listen, I am the guy that lives in Los Angeles and I can, I can go in a hoodie and, uh, and shorts to almost every nice restaurant in LA.
There might only be, there's like, I can't believe there may be more than a few tops, a couple that would maybe I want to be honest with you.
because we don't have dress codes like that out here.
But I hear you.
I don't know.
Part of me feels like, yeah, maybe they should wear a little bit, something a little bit nicer than just the gym attire.
But I hear you.
I'm not going to push back on it.
I want to be honest with you.
I reached a point, and this has to do a lot with my disgust with systems of power and a lot of what they expect out of people.
When I was a professor, I reached a point where I was like, I'm done wearing ties.
I'm not gonna wear ties anymore.
I'm not gonna wear a jacket anymore.
I started showing up in flannels and jeans.
I started showing up in t-shirts and jeans.
And I was just like, you know, if people don't respect me like this, fuck them.
Like, literally, I don't need to do something for you.
And that's actually become, like, sort of a thing.
Like, before I go to something, I think, why am I dressing the way that I am?
You know?
And when it comes to the Senate, I feel like this this hysteria that's coming out of Fetterman.
I'm going to read something from a Washington Post article which made me literally nauseous.
I think what is emerging is that a lot of people are looking around and they're realizing that the arbitrary nature of symbols of power, when they're challenged, they don't like it.
This is one of the reasons why people have trouble with, like, trans people.
You know what I mean?
It's like, how dare you step out of line and do something that is not expected?
How dare you, like, feel comfortable doing that?
And it's like a lot of people, and this is, I think, one of the root cores of conservativism, And by the way, you can be liberal and be conservative.
I want to make the record clear on that.
I think one of the root causes of conservativism is the idea that other people need to conform.
And if other people don't conform, your conformity is somehow or another challenge.
Does that make sense?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And it kind of plays into the whole, you're destroying the way of life.
You're destroying the culture, what we've built.
You're letting all these people into this country who are not from here, and it's going to change what you, what we've built.
All of those things.
And it's like, I hate to tell you that all this culture you're talking about was formed as a melting pot of a whole lot of other cultures together.
This isn't some special American thing that you think it is that you have to protect.
It's been a constant mixture of things that are coming in from everywhere.
And that's the beauty of it.
So it is, you're right, that is a really great way to put it as well.
And it's, you know, it's funny, I was a teacher as well in high school, and I used to wear cargo shorts, and I'd wear a t-shirt and maybe a button down short sleeve shirt or something like that.
And there was a teacher who got a feature done on them at our school in the LA Times, who wore a tie and a nice slacks every day.
And it was dripping, and I know he was writing it about me, like I, or me, and like there are a couple other of us who dress like that, and it was all about how, you know, you really can't get, you know, control of a classroom unless you're dressed nicely, and he's doing all these different things, and I was like, well, you're welcome to come into my classroom if you want to, you know, if you think that there's out of control stuff, you know, welcome to check it out.
So I remember that too, and this is a long time, this is 20 years ago, but There is that notion, that same kind of thing you're talking about.
Do you want to know, and listen, before we get to this article, because I think you just touched on something which is really important, and this is, I promise you, this is related to right-wing conservativism authoritarianism.
You know this as well as I do.
Teachers like there are several ways to be a teacher.
You know what I mean?
Like you can go into a classroom and like you can have a classroom that if they will respect you if you respect them.
You know what I mean?
Like if you go in there and you respect them they'll respect you back and you cannot be like a domineering teacher.
Do you know what I mean?
Like you can you can have a give and a take and like you can you can even test the boundaries of power sometimes.
Right?
Because they you have control and they can feel it.
The authoritarians in a classroom, the ones who are cruel to people, the ones who embarrass people, the ones who are sarcastic and mean, they are the most insecure of them.
They go in there and they have to they have to tamp people down and attack them because they're dealing with their own insecurity.
They're dealing with their own fear that they wouldn't be able to do something about it.
In this case, with all of these people, and I'm going to read here in a second something really, really fascinating and also nauseating from the Washington Post.
Nick, by watching someone like Fetterman come into the Senate dressed in a hoodie, It's a lot of people.
And Federman, by the way, has worked his ass off to get where he's at.
It's a lot of people who are in suits who have been given everything.
You know what I mean?
And they feel like they shouldn't be there.
Federman doesn't have to put on airs.
He's not interested in doing that and playing whatever game they want with symbols of power.
That scares them.
You know what I mean?
It says, guess what?
You are just an idiot in a suit.
And the reason you have to wear that suit.
And there's nothing wrong with wearing a suit.
Sometimes wearing a suit is great.
But if you have to wear a suit in order to somehow or another project power, something has happened.
You know what I mean?
And Donald Trump, who gets mentioned in this article, that's exactly the thing.
He can't go anywhere without wearing a suit.
Because he has to have that power in order to maintain that superiority.
Because the inferiority runs deep.
Right.
Well, I mean, the dirty little secret is he can wear a suit with a tack and it kind of hides.
That's also true.
That's also true.
So this article from the Washington Post, this is by Kathleen Parker.
This is called dressing down for the Senate is just bad manners.
It goes, quote, let's stipulate that many serious issues demand our nation's attention, which is incredible, by the way, because she has an article in the Washington Post.
She could address anything she wants, but this is what she chooses.
A looming government shutdown is surely one.
Whether to continue funding for Ukraine is another.
Lower in importance is the Senate's unwritten dress code, which effective immediately no longer exists.
All may come as they are, or in John Fetterman's case, worse.
Fetterman, who proudly outfits himself as the biggest schlump ever to enter the Russell Senate office building, reported to his job dressed in sweats, top and bottom, Frankenstein's monster would be offended.
As little as I have loved Republicans in the past few years, coinciding with the rise of our own little autocrat, at least Donald Trump knows how to dress.
I can't imagine that even he would demean his office or his country by dressing down, as is now the code for senators.
Nick, she literally is saying that Donald Trump is better because he doesn't dress down.
Like, and he wouldn't demean his office.
He would just demean his office by, I don't know, the vapid corruption, the cruelty, the disgustingness, attempts to overthrow the government, but at least he wore a suit and coat.
You know, it's, again, why they write these things, who knows?
They're probably AI, you know, idea-generated, right?
Like, they have these AIs who'll say, hey, you should write an article about this, and then they'll just, then they'll actually write it, but You know, I kind of want to hijack this for a second, can I?
Do it.
Have you seen the picture they use on the very top that ends up being the one that's embedded on Twitter and all that stuff, right?
It's a picture, okay, remind me, who are we talking about again?
She's going after Fetterman.
Going after Fetterman, right?
Fetterman, Fetterman, Fetterman.
But the headline doesn't say anything about Fetterman.
It says, dressing down for the Senate is just bad manners.
And the picture they use is of three black senators.
Why?
It's weird.
Why is Warnock, Booker, and the Goose, you know, sort of front and center on this top of this thing instead of the person they're talking about?
Maybe I'm a conspiracy on this one, but that is, can you give me some information or some insight into that?
No, it's kind of a strange little dog whistle.
It's strange.
It's a really odd choice.
And that's one of the things is, like, when you get articles like this in the Post or in the New York Times, like, there's so many conflicting ideas in it that it's almost like the person who chose the article picture, it's almost like they were like, OK, you're going after Fetterman, but we're going to go ahead and put some well-dressed Democrats on this.
And by the way, to boot, they're African-American.
It's odd.
It's a really strange article.
Now, the sentence right after the one you finished said, clothes might not make them man or woman, but they do tell us a great deal about them.
Now, that's a trope that we've heard for a long time, and fill me and remind me, what is that usually related to?
What are they talking about when they frame clothes to giving you insight into people like that?
It's about getting jobs and getting access into power or dressing for the job you want.
All right, because to me, I'm thinking like starter jackets and, you know, bandanas around your head, like all that stuff when you see people on the street.
But real fast, and I think this is an important thing that you just brought up, Nick, because even the New York Post article, which is talking about Fetterman wouldn't be allowed into these restaurants.
You know what you see if you go to these restaurants?
And I know that you've seen it.
You've seen it in, you know, places like Los Angeles.
There's always a sign that's like, Jacket required.
No athletic wear.
No, uh, you know what I'm talking about?
No low-hanging jeans, right?
No low-hanging jeans.
No jerseys.
The entire point is that these arbitrary decisions about, like, what is being allowed in the halls of power, it's a quiet and subtle way to say, we're just upholding standards.
But really what it's about is holding the riffraff out.
You know what I mean?
It's saying there are certain people who deserve to be here, and there are choices that you make that either allow you in or don't allow you in.
You can either assimilate and be part of the club, or you're on the outside and you're ostracized from power.
John Fetterman deciding to wear just what normal human beings wear out in the world, it is More or less, one of the bigger offenses that they can imagine, you know?
And that's right.
It is about withholding power and gatekeeping.
That's what this whole thing has always been about.
Yeah, and we can't get away from it.
It's really frustrating.
It's awful.
Finally, before we finish this episode, Nick, we got to talk about we are going to be live on Wednesday night following the second Republican debate.
It starts at 9 p.m.
Eastern.
Again, it's going to be at the Reagan Library.
It's going to have Air Force One.
It's going to be so disgusting.
There are going to be quotes from Reagan.
I'm not excited about it.
But we're going to be broadcasting immediately after the debate, giving you our analysis, our takes.
Before we get to Wednesday, though, I wanted to talk a little bit about what to expect coming into this debate.
The first one was a fascinating watch.
It told us a lot about where the Republican Party is going, what is happening.
I think we both agreed coming out of it that Vivek Ramaswamy sort of stole the spotlight while giving sort of a glimpse of what the Republican Party might become.
Ron DeSantis kind of quote-unquote won by not crying all over himself and not totally embarrassing himself.
Mike Pence had moments.
It was quite a strange little situation.
Going into Wednesday night's affair, Nick, what are you expecting?
Who do you think has to show up?
What are your initial thoughts and predictions?
Well, what's interesting, at least in the way I've been observing since the last debate, it's Vivek has been the guy who's maintained his position in the news, constantly being interviewed and getting soundbites out there.
They're doing a really good job.
They've been doing a great job since he started, really, from a guy who really had no political background.
DeSantis, I haven't heard from him.
I haven't seen anything about him.
Nothing's bubbled up in my view.
Nothing ever bubbled up with our former vice president either in a way that I'm not surprised.
But again, nothing.
So this is going to be the desperation, I think.
These are going to be your, what's it called when you do the long cast when you're looking for a fish?
I don't know.
Like, really hard.
Is it a cast?
You cast your line really hard.
They're gonna throw as far as they can.
It's like a miracle cast, if you will.
It's like a Hail Mary, if you will.
I would expect more contentiousness.
I would expect more interaction between everybody.
You know, who's hosting?
Do we know?
I couldn't even begin to tell you.
So it's going to be really hard on them to try and get the moderator to keep this on track.
I doubt they'll do it.
And so it'll be more of that and worse.
That's what I'm expecting.
How about you?
Ramaswamy is... I...
I firmly can tell you, and in the conversations I've had with other people, I totally have come to expect this.
He's going to get the literal shit beat out of him, is what's going to happen.
He spent way too long, you know, hogging the spotlight in the first debate.
Of course, he got the obligatory media spotlight for a while because he made for good copy.
You know, he could go on Meet the Press.
Which, by the way, we haven't talked about how terrible the Kristen Welker interview with Donald Trump was on Meet the Press.
Repulsive.
Absolutely repulsive.
And if you have if you had any hope of Meet the Press getting better under this new regime, I'm sorry.
But Vivek is going to get the literal shit knocked out of him from all sides.
I'm guessing Chris Christie is going to come after him hard.
Mike Pence hates nothing more besides Vivek.
And he's going to come after him really, really hard.
The question now, because you brought up DeSantis about the fact that, like, he is just almost completely disappeared from any discourse.
The only thing that's out there about DeSantis right now, Nick, is that his major donors, who have been, like, making noise in, like, Politico articles about possibly, you know, drying up their donations, they've stopped.
Like, it has stopped.
The spigot has stopped.
The money train has come to a halt.
DeSantis is not getting the donations or the support, which means He either is going to come out and reignite his campaign or those donors are up for grabs.
It's a jump ball, right?
So I think you're going to see a lot of people who are going to try to come out and establish themselves as the Trump alternative.
I think DeSantis has to do something to light a fire back under his campaign.
The problem is he's not a talented politician.
There's not a lot of room or avenue for him to get that done.
I would not be shocked if Nikki Haley comes out swinging in this thing, trying to capture some sort of a headline frenzy.
Tim Scott is basically cooked at this point.
Vivek will do Vivek things.
Chris Christie is just going to attack him constantly, I think.
It's going to be ugly.
I think it's going to be fascinating to see if there are any sort of alliances that start to come out or any new tactics that come out.
I don't see them moving away from Trump, which is, you know, just a faulty decision on all of their parts.
They have to figure out something that differentiates themselves.
But yeah, I see this being basically a demolition derby.
Yeah, that makes sense to me.
I wonder if Nikki Haley will be less appealing to me after this one, having realized that, you know, she was a bit progressive.
I gotta tell you, it was an interesting strategy to come out in the first Republican debate in 2023 and be like, climate change is real.
We need to do something about it.
Like, that is an interesting strategy.
I'll just say that.
Yeah, so I suspect you might see a little bit of a walk back on that, the hard lines and things.
But yeah, it should be fascinating.
Again, no Trump.
I guess Trump will not participate in any of these debates, unfortunately.
Or unfortunately, I'm not sure, because you're right.
I started listening to the Meet the Press thing, and I saw a bunch of the clips, and it was just like, The answer is you shouldn't have them on those things, but if I am running a business and I have a chance to get a lot more views than I would normally do, that would make more money, then it's like a judiciary obligation to the shareholders of NBC or whatever.
You have to have them on, and it sucks.
Yeah.
And really, truly, because Trump is the frontrunner.
He's the one that's setting the policy agenda, you know, in the race.
Like, who agrees with it?
Who doesn't?
That means, and this is something that we're going to talk about in the near future, We predicted he was going to become more and more desperate and violent.
And what he said is these indictments started rolling in.
Nick, what has he rolled out?
General Milley should be executed for treason.
MSNBC and CNN should be reined in by the government and maybe destroyed.
I mean, it's It's getting not just unhinged, it's getting violently unhinged.
Do you see that he was in South Carolina buying a Glock handgun?
I mean, like, it's taking a turn, which means, really, as the frontrunner, the conversation at this debate should be people having to respond to this and say if they agree with him, which will only sort of create more and more of an echo chamber going forward.
I mean, it's...
There's no jumping off this crazy train at this point.
It's only going to speed up.
And just to give you some context for this, you know, the First Amendment is so important to the right, right?
They really want that right back.
They feel like it's being, you know, stymied because they can't say what they really want to say.
But are you aware of the order with which they're laid out, which freedoms you have in the First Amendment?
I mean, it's religion is first.
Press is second.
And then speech.
So the press is supposed to have that freedom.
And that's why it was so dangerous when the norms were changed, when Trump comes in.
And maybe before that, when people started smearing like CNN as the fake news and that kind of stuff.
You know, anybody who read that who's a Trump fan, and there are a lot of them, would instantly say, of course, CNN needs to be sanctioned or needs to be put out of business and MSNBC, all those things.
When in fact, if what they're arguing for, they should be arguing to protect all of those to report the news and have the freedom of the press that we're supposed to have.
Um, it just sort of exposes exactly the hypocrisy of what they're talking about.
I mean, listen, would I love to see Fox News go out of business and being dismantled?
Yeah.
Uh, next, next best scenario is they had to go to coordinate a settlement to pay three quarters of a billion dollars, which was, you know, Indicative of how bad they were.
So it's a real problem.
And I don't think there's no self-awareness.
They have no idea they're actually arguing against their own platforms.
Well, no, I mean, none of it makes any rational sense whatsoever.
It's just violent whipping around.
Right.
And that's what the Republican Party is there.
There's no like actual center of gravity.
It's it's just violently attacking in a rage in all directions.
That's all it is.
And that's basically, there's no ability to have a rational conversation.
I have to assume they'll talk about, you know, invading and declaring war on Mexico at some point.
You know, they'll probably get in a debate on how to best kill immigrants at the border.
I mean, that's where this stuff is going.
It's only going to become more and more fascistic.
And you're going to leave behind all of those rights and liberties.
Those things are on the chopping block.
And they're not, it's not just by accident.
They're on the chopping block by design.
That's what they're looking for, and that's where all of this rage leads.
But this is, it's going to be a mess.
And again, you're going to want to come over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast in order to watch our post-debate coverage.
I'm going to tell you, and Nick, I think you agree as well, and I think the listeners who know, know.
We are doing coverage and analysis that blows everything else out of the water.
You watch this other stuff, it's really stale and cliche and it doesn't get deep into what's going on.
This type of stuff, I know the Republicans are hard to watch, It's important to keep track of what's going on and what they're discussing.
We told everybody where the next couple of weeks were heading.
We knew it!
We knew what was happening with Vivek.
We knew what was happening with the Republican Party, what was going to be the headlines.
You gotta come over to Patreon.com slash Montclair Podcast in order to watch the analysis post-debate.
Again, that starts at 9 p.m.
Eastern.
When that thing goes off, we are going to be over on the Patreon.
Come and join us, and we'll go through the whole thing together.
All right, everybody.
That's going to be it for today.
We will be back again Wednesday night following the Republican, the second Republican debate.
That's patreon.com slash MyCorrectPodcast.
In the meantime, you can find Nick at CanYouHearMeSMH.
