Salad Politics: Filing for Guardianship of Grandpa Trump
Nick Hauselman is flying solo while Jared Yates Sexton is out, so he grabs his buddy Brian Kaplan for a relaxed Weekender that starts as a casual lunch in LA and somehow turns into a full-blown political autopsy. Between salad-fork confessions and talk of suspicious bruises, they dig into: whether Trump needs full time care, why congressional hearings are basically soundbite factories, and how “we all saw it happen” doesn’t matter when a party’s committed to an alternate reality.
From Matt Gaetz and the ethics report mess to the Supreme Court’s consequence-free zone, the conversation keeps circling the same ugly theme: power, money, and the cruelty-as-strength brand that keeps getting rewarded. They also kick around the idea that America isn’t “going back” to anything, it’s stumbling into a new Gilded Age, and the only real rebuild might come from a generation that’s sick of watching the same fossilized leadership cling to the wheel. And because it’s the Weekender, they close it out with something actually pleasant: what they’re watching when the news gets too dark.
Support the show by signing up to our Patreon and get access to the full Weekender episode each Friday as well as special Live Shows and access to our community discord: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast
Hello everyone, it's Nick Halzelman here and Jared Gateson is out of pocket today.
So I decided to have one of my dear friends Brian Kaplan on the show to discuss what's going on in politics this week.
This is a weekender so it's a little bit more of a relaxed atmosphere.
So as a result we were actually eating lunch together and I thought it lended itself to a fascinating conversation in a very comfortable setting.
So don't forget this is the weekender edition and if you want to hear the entire thing then feel free to go over to patreon.com slash muckrake podcast and join our wonderful community of people who are like-minded individuals that have a lot of things to say.
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So make sure you visit patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
And without any further ado, here is my weekender edition with my friend Brian.
I'm just thanking Brian for coming and glad we could eat lunch and talk about politics over the same lunch.
I'm very excited to do this with you and I apologize because I'm told I'm a noisy salad eater and I fork my salad too loudly.
So I will do my best to keep the levels down for your listeners.
The listeners will probably get a kick out of two guys in LA eating a salad lunch, but going like that the whole time.
Absolutely.
But there is a little bacon in the salad, so it's not like it's completely all.
It's good too.
I like that this is a, I guess I'd say an audio medium so people can't see all the bruises we have on our hands.
Just covered in bruising everywhere.
Well, you shake a lot of hands.
That's right.
And that alone, there is certainly no underlying disease or and I also take 10 times the normal dose of aspirin that you should be taking.
But it is worth noting, yes, you saw the picture today of him with his left hand now has some terrible bruising versus the right hand, which is what he'd be shaking with, right?
Well, if he shakes with his left hand, does it count or does that mean he gets to go back on his word when he does that?
Isn't that how it works?
If it's fake with the left hand or.
Maybe he'll start a whole new, you know, you know how we like we fist month now after COVID?
So maybe we'll just start left hand shaking instead.
But, you know, what did you make?
I mean, he was talking, he's had a few different kind of moments in front of the mic, this leak that's been profoundly concerning, I suppose.
What do you think?
Well, yeah.
So I think it's time to take the car keys away from Grandpa.
Yeah.
Maybe.
Like, I don't know.
I've always thought, or I've thought for a while, it would be a fun experiment just to file for legal guardianship of him and see what happens.
Like, go down to a Florida court and make the case that, which apparently you can do as a concerned citizen.
Anyone can file the guardianship is from a concerned citizen.
And this person who has all this power clearly is unable to manage this power.
Like, he's pardoning people who have scammed billions of dollars.
And then the next thing going, I don't know who that is.
Like, she should know who they are if he's pardoning them.
And I think a list of evidence like that would be a good thing to do.
You can also say that he doesn't know the difference between Korean living and Iceland.
That's a big deal.
Like, he needs a legal guardian to ensure that he knows the difference between those two landmasses.
It's a totally novel thing that I haven't heard anybody suggest before.
Right.
The problem is, don't you need to have some sort of standing?
So I don't know if you'd be awarded it.
Right.
But I think anyone could probably file for it with a concern.
You know what?
Yeah.
Like, not Schumer, but maybe, yeah, maybe somebody in the Democratic Party would do that.
Well, John Bank.
File for guardianship and make him their ward and take control of his finances.
That's fascinating.
Yeah.
Now, let's do it.
What else would you get control over besides finances then?
That's interesting.
Well, his medical decisions would be important.
Maybe you could take away his ability to vote.
That would be good.
Sure.
You could determine where he lives.
Yeah, his living situation and make sure that he's got proper care for his needs.
Wow.
I'm better care than Ronnie Jackson.
I feel like there would be some Republicans who I think would think about that too.
Oh my God.
Well, do you think maybe he is a ward?
Maybe he's a ward of like that VOT guy and Stephen Miller.
Maybe that's what's going on.
Does Stephen Miller have legal guardianship of Donald Trump?
He might.
I mean, I think that obviously they're hiding a lot of the health issues anyway, right?
This thing's clear.
Yeah.
And so.
I mean, it's hard to know.
There's this line, right?
And it's hard to know how much of this is just because he spews nonsense and this is what he does, and how much of this is he's actually feeble-minded.
Does he know?
I don't know.
Right.
I mean, he still can speak with some amount of force.
Yes.
Unlike Biden, right?
Biden seems feeble, but his mind is probably still sharper than Trump's.
And it's hard to believe we have to parse that, you know.
Right, exactly, right.
But he was more feeble, yeah.
Yeah.
And so that's why it's confusing.
But like, I think it's conceivable that Trump won't even be alive by this time next year.
Well, I don't, I mean, hatred is a pretty strong motivator to stay alive at a certain point.
You know, like, just keeps him, he's fueled by that.
That's like his rocket fuel is just abject hatred.
So that might keep him going.
But no, you're right.
Physically, he should not be.
It's incredible.
He's still going.
I mean, he's like, right, made up of whoppers.
Well, I mean, most likely has braces on his feet.
Yes.
You know, they're propping him up with drugs so he can stay upright.
So it's like, you know, yeah.
And from what I've heard, you know, people who've gone through this and seen all the Taltale signs say it does happen pretty rapidly.
And it could be like, he seems fine, but within a week or two, all of a sudden it's on, you know.
But that's not even a solution, right?
Well, because who's up next?
I think the damage has been so profound, no matter what, that it's going to take X amount of time beyond the four or five years he's already been five years of an office to like recover, but but I'm not even sure I want to recover to where we were anyway.
Well, somebody's think this is not.
Somebody was telling me about this recently, so it's not my, my idea and it's probably not even his, but it's this notion that, like we are in some new version of a gilded age, right like, where you just have these robber barons running amok and basically doing whatever the hell they want, right like it's, but now it's crypto or whatever, as opposed Railroads.
And there's this idea that you want to go back, right?
Can't Go Back Now00:04:10
Can't we go back to the way things were before?
And nothing ever goes backwards.
Like, what typically happens in this case is that it's going to be a generation of people that don't remember what it was like.
Like, they don't remember what it was like to live in the 90s, right?
Because they're going to be born after that.
And they're going to have to build something that returns to a rational world, but built on a new foundation of this, right?
You can't just go backwards.
You can build something new.
So it's like people, almost like people our age, and we're not that old, are disqualified from figuring out the solution.
So it's like, if you're thinking about like, who's the political voice who's 40 right now?
He's 38, and it's going to be somebody more like the AOC side of things versus the, not the Kamala side, not the, you know.
And they deserve a chance at this point.
Absolutely.
This country has been governed by people older than us for way too long.
Yeah.
This went.
And it's like, and we've already seen like the Feinsteins and the Grassleys and the shoot.
We're like, good God, I feel bad for all of them and their quality of life at the end of their lives are all going to be terrible because they want to grasp power.
Well, how much, like, how many generations of potential leaders have we lost because the stenny voiders of the world, Flesh's heart, wouldn't leave their jobs.
Right?
Like Chuck Schumer didn't step down, that Dick Durbin hasn't stepped down, that Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ruth Vader Hinsberg didn't tip down.
Dick Durbin is stepping down.
What?
In Illinois.
Oh, is he?
I believe, right?
I think it's going to be an opening.
In fact, I had Alexia Junilius on the show on my basketball show.
Oh, really?
And we talked about basketball, but I would suspect that he would be the guy that's going to want to take that spot.
You think?
Yeah.
Again?
Secretary of the State of Illinois run again for Senate?
Didn't go so well the first time.
I'm unaware of how well they did it, not at all.
Who mean?
Didn't he run, and didn't he run in like to take Obama's seat?
Oh, yeah.
But that was, you know, right.
Yeah, that was way.
I mean, that's before he became Secretary of State of Illinois.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so I think it was one of those, like, you know, like Swalwell ran for president, but he was just doing it to kind of get him.
It was never going to win that one.
And meanwhile, now he's going to try and be governor.
Which is another interesting thing.
Do you think he's ever going to live down his relationship with this Chinese spy?
Wait, who?
What?
Swalwell.
What's the relationship?
I don't know the story.
He had a girlfriend who's Chinese, and it turns out, I guess she was a spy, but it was like maybe before she was a spy, and now she's a spy afterworth, and he didn't share any secrets, but it was a thing that stained his China's campaign.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, it's rough because it was like, you know, I'm sure it was a real relationship.
I don't know.
It was like that Russian woman who seemed to be with every single, Maria, what was her name?
It was like every single Republican ever.
The NRA does not seem hard to penetrate if you're a Russian spy.
It's pretty open.
It's like, do you have money and a gun?
Wait, here's our inner circle.
Why limit to the NRA?
Why don't you just win the GOP?
Right, exactly.
We're seeing Jack Smith.
I don't know if he saw any of the testimony today, but I think if we never went back to the way our government runs serves congressional hearings, that would be awesome for me.
What is going on with these congressional?
What do they do?
Can we think of anything positive?
This is a really great point you're making, and I love this.
Is there anything positive that ever came out of a congressional hearing?
I mean, you get the soundbite of Jack Smith saying, we absolutely had him nailed to the wall and he would have been guilty of treason or whatever, right?
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