Amanda Carpenter: The Worst President Ever

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Uh, and get your tickets now, thebork.com/events. It's going to be a good one. Up next, we got our old buddy Amanda Carpinders, take around. Hello and welcome to the Boulder podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller, couldn't be happier to welcome back to the show. My former colleague is now a writer and editor

at Protect Democracy. Their sub stack is if you can keep it, you can go to protectemoxy.org to learn more. It's Amanda Carpinders. What's up, girl?

Hey, you know, all the things always a pleasure to be back.

I was having fun following your Coachella adventures and some, you know, you got to do that. We jealous of Carol G while you were parenting. I was seeing Carol G. Well, I don't know who Carol G, but I'm jealous of the fun it

“look like you had. You would like Carol G. You should check it out afterwards.”

I want to chat here about the vibes with you. I think that we're going to we have some serious matters of state and democracy to discuss with you, obviously, and election concerns and corruption. But I'm just, I'm kind of wondering, I live in Louisiana, which is Red America, but I'm in New Orleans. I'm in uptown New Orleans. Like, let's be real. Okay. I'm not around the real-est Americans. You're in like West Virginia.

Okay. You're in West Virginia. You're around real real Americans. And I'm just wondering, like my senses anecdotally, that like the vibe shift is real. Not that Magga people are like, oh, we're Democrats now and we've gone woke, not that. But just like, people aren't happy. Like, with the war, with the Christ's gas, with various things that he's up to, is that what do you think? Is that wish-casting or is the view from West Virginia

that the vibe shift is real? Well, it's not election season, but I can tell you that the trucks flying Trump magga flags off the back of them have stopped. I haven't seen any of those in a while. And I do have yet to meet an enthusiastic supporter of the war in Iran. Like, haven't seen any takers for that. What I do hear people say, they essentially try to make a case for the war that Trump hasn't made. Like, shouldn't we be liberating the people from

the terrible dictators and regime change would be good? Like, people are kind of wanting to get on board with that, but that is not explicitly what Trump is saying, of course. So that's just trying to retrofit it. And I don't know anyone who is a fan of $4 gas. So those seem pretty bad.

“These things are all interrelated, right? And I think that that is to me, you know, why this is”

become like a real political problem for Trump and why nobody privately texts me really doing Republican campaigns anymore. I got a couple hangers on left to still want to talk to me who were Republican campaign operatives, but, you know, it's not like 2017 anymore, but from, you know, friends of friends and reporters and folks that do, like the senses that like the private concerns among Republican strategists are real. And, and I think it's because, like, you know, it's,

shit and the arc to Trump, right? Like, it's kind of like, that can be excused away. That's Trump.

He's a megalomaniac. He put this name on everything, right? But it's another thing if it's like he's doing that while things are getting worse for you. And then it's really another thing where he's like, he's doing that while things are getting worse for you. And things are getting worse for you because he decided to get into a war of choice that you don't really understand the, the rationale

“for. And I think that like, those three topics like all interlink in a way that makes him really”

vulnerable politically. Yeah. And, and layered on top of that, what you do see coming from him, especially on social media, which is where a lot of his supporters and everyone gets the news, is so erratic and reckless. I mean, the Easter tweet, the promise to annihilate, you know,

the country, I don't know who that sat well with. Like, he's always said crazy stuff. But for

some reason now, people are starting to say, what's going on with this? Like, I don't find back people or even like, you know, Republican people saying, this war in Iran is going to be a disaster. But it's more like, what is he doing with like this tone of resignation? And like, it's kind of like settling in like, maybe this is really going off the rails in a bad way. And my friend's mom was setting up the anti-Christ. I feel like that's on the outer edge of,

you know, where three time Trump voters are, but I do think it's real, you know, they're other few look at just mega social media. If you looked at his replies on true social people were very mad about the post. And again, this doesn't mean they're going to meet Democrats. And I think that a lot of them are kind of wishing and hoping and some of them are praying because they do pray to him. I think that he's going to like pull a rabbit out of a hat and like it's going to all work out.

But that doesn't mean that the concerns aren't real. I do take it seriously, largely because Trump is posting images of himself as Jesus. Like, if you are a person of faith, that is going to hit you the wrong way. That is blasphemous on its face. And then you kind of see the other discourse. Like, what is he doing? What is he doing with the social media images? I mean, they are intentional. You have the image of him coming down like Christ and then like there's

“weird demonic figures at the top. And like, maybe you should be like, oh, that's conspiracy.”

But what is that? What are they doing? What inputs did the staff have to put into chat GPT to get that image? Like, I, maybe that's where the FOIA request. I'm kind of, I'm curious. But he is the one who keeps putting out this imagery. Like, I am a god. Worship me. I'm made for this time. And so I don't, I don't know how a few of person at faith, how you can't question that. And maybe it's gone too far to say that he's demon possessed. But maybe that's the

off ramp some people need, you know. I have been there. I think that it's great. If you think that he was demon possessed or that the devil tricked everybody, awesome. I don't literally believe that. But no, I'm not in the run or sense of the devil's work. I'm with you. And we're alive. Yeah, I, I also wouldn't say demons possessed either. But I, I couldn't tell you where the line is between things are, I would say, or evil. Yeah. Enter demon possessed. Like, I don't know

where I am on that spectrum. Right. I'll, I'll, we're tipping over into Tucker territory. I'll set an adeem and bit me and my bed. That's a discovery. There's more on this. Because it was just the one, one tweet. You know, he takes that tree down at real complain. But then the next day, he posts another post, which, it's a picture of Jesus who he recognizes this time. Jesus is in the same outfit, the Trump was wearing on the other one. The American flag is behind Jesus, which is kind of

blasphemous, it's own way. But I, I do think that most a lot of American evangelicals have kind of embraced the American Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. And the flags in West Virginia and, you know, around, I guess parts of Maryland that I drive through would have God guns Trump and against an American flag. Yeah. So I, like, that's not too far. I don't think that's going to turn it down. But okay, it's there.

Jesus is hugging Trump. And, and the post, it's a meme. And the text on the meme is, I was never a

very religious man, but doesn't it seem with all these satanic demonic child-sacrific monsters being exposed. That I was friends with. God might be playing his Trump card. And so, and then Trump reposted that

“with the radical left lunatics, not like those, but I think that this is quite right. So like,”

it's his him saying, God chose me, which is not really that far from being Jesus, like that I'm God's chosen one. And also saying, this will make the radical leftus, but no, no, that is actually making the evangelical base that you elected you mad, probably more than the radical leftus who

making mad is, there's at least some percentage of Trump's base that actually believed,

que and on, and actually cared about the Epstein files and wanted child-sacrificing monsters to be exposed. And Trump's not doing that. They didn't do that. They covered up the Epstein files. They haven't arrested anybody or indicted anybody. They don't seem to care about it. They seem to care more about blocking information from coming out. So it's like,

“they're not, they're not even doing the stated thing. I think he just wants to put images of”

himself as Christ. Jesus. I think that's the through line here. And then I don't know if you saw what the Iranians are posting back. So there was a, I don't know what you call a clap back on social

media with AI where Jesus comes down from the heavens, slaps Trump in the face and throws him down

into hell. Yeah. So, you know, you're having it's got the AI trolling down. Yeah. Well, it used to be bad that they chanted death to America, but now he's slapping our present in the Freddy's and throwing him to the gates of hell. So I don't know how. Yeah. I would like a farce the expert to weigh in on this. One of our commenters said this to me. I don't know. And this is, I just want to be very clear here. The Iranian regime is awful. Yes. Everything about them is awful.

It's horrible. I wish for the Iranian people that they had a better regime. I was just going

“to interested this. It was a fact point where somebody posted that that in farce the, the translation”

of death to America. I, is really more like fuck America. Yeah. It's kind of, and it's kind of like,

if I say fuck Trump, I don't mean like literally, I want to have sexual intercourse with them. It's just kind of like Trump should go to hell. Even there when I say that, I don't really believe in hell. So I don't like literally mean that Trump is, you know, it's just more of like an expression of distaste. Anyway, if you're a farce, yeah, I'm just come curious. I would like to do a long read on that. But it's not just Trump. Also, that's like talking about himself as God.

And this is a mission from God. The Secretary of Defense was out this morning and had a press conference. And, you know, I don't think you got to look between the lines too much on this metaphor. But, let's play what Pete Heggseth was saying regarding the critics of Trump and the war,

“and who he compares them to. The so-called and self-appointed elites of their time,”

they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report. But their hearts were hardened. Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn't matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him, how to destroy him. I sat there, in church, and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees. So, so, Trump thinks he's Jesus. The Secretary of

war seems to think Trump's Jesus. I mean, again, we're not, we don't take them out of four literally, but it's like if we the Trump critics of the Pharisees, then that would make Trump Jesus. Again, no. It's hard for me to analyze Pete Heggseth's words, but if it's not on paper, because every time I look at him, I'm just like, is every media opportunity a bad attempt at or a farming? You know, like,

I'm kind of in due to this with my son, who's almost 13. It's just like everything is like, he looks in the camera and he's got his little pocket square. Do you notice they may are can flag pocket square? I do. Yeah. And so, then he's just lifting this stuff and apparently making up Bible quotes that he took from pulp fiction. Oh, we got that coming. We got that coming. So, we just do that now. Let's do them back to back. This is different for the press conference.

So, the press conference, Heggseth begins with a monologue about how the assembled media are the Pharisees trying to kill Jesus or trying to condemn Jesus. Yeah. So, that would be bad and that the soldiers are the apostles. Heggseth is, I guess, Peter in this analogy. Yeah, what did he do to deserve that? I mean, he's good. She's like, God, I say, I can rock at the church here, get in compared to a former drunk weekend, talk show co-host. And then

he's a sectarian of war to you, Tim. He, he was, I guess, preaching to the pentagon prayer service, but I'm going to prayer service, soldiers can attend and take sets when up in spoke. They fired Mark Hartling wrote about this couple weeks ago. They fired the military chaplain. So, I guess he'd they've been replaced by Pete Heggseth himself. And he was doing a prayer, and as you mentioned,

side. They, they call it CSR 2517, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 2517. So, the prayer

“is CSR 2517, and it reads and pray with me, please. The path of the downed aviator is beset on”

all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the loss through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper. And the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon you with your vengeance and fear of his angels. Oh, sir. And capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign. He's sandy one. Oh my God. When I lay my vengeance upon me. And amen.

Amen. Thank you for joining us this month every month. Thank you for for worshiping with us. We believe in an amen. You notice I knew the words to that Bible verse. And so you'll know that it's not a real Bible verse because I knew the words Catholics we don't learn actual Bible

“verses. I know it because I've seen the movie Pulp section 150 times. So that, if he is equal 2517,”

that's not actually it's a fake Quentin Tarantino. The Bible doesn't say you will know me by my call sign. Quentin Tarantino. And doing a prayer to a movie that is all about drugs and murder, causing cheating. So I just drugs, not drugs, not heroin in the movie. And it's just like let us pray as he so fucking stupid that he didn't know or do you think it was clever? What does you think is happening there? He's really dumb. I do suppose that firing the middle of Terry

Chaplin makes it easier to create your own verses and your own Bible to go from and which you can be the hero and savior of your own story. So maybe it's like one of these 3D chess moves that we just fire the guy, we write our own Bible, and we go from there. And Pulp fiction, what a great place to start? Yeah, I mean, doing a Pulp fiction spoof where you turn the military guys into Samuel Jackson would be cringe, but like fine. But this is it was literally

the prayer service. Like he begins with and we pray. He ends with amen. Like just on the list of like sacralages stuff. It's like the president is Jesus. The president is Jesus again. The president is God's chosen one. And the secretary of war is praying to a fake Bible verse that was written by Quentin Tarantino. I mean, it's there's really doing as much as they can to to be in a front to God and faithful Americans. Yeah, I feel sorry for the troops there, but I do need more of a

crowd reaction shot for the people who realize he was not saying the right verse and then try to figure out where it might have been from because you know they were like, that doesn't sound quite right when you get out my phone. And you will know my name is the Bullwark where we lay our vengeance upon the amen. I just, I don't know, I don't know. Okay. Just like you're not supposed to choose your favorite children, you're not supposed to choose your favorite sponsors, but it's

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35 bucks off your first order. Thanks to wildlaskin company for sponsoring this episode. Probleo weighed in this morning. I totally was clever. The board of purpose rate clever,

Cameroon. So maybe there's also, I gotta just be honest. I'm not following the day today of

what's happening in Cameroon. I'm doing my best to keep up with what's happening in our government. Maybe it's a little bit of a subtweet. But he posts this, "Whoa to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth." It's pretty on the nose. Yeah. I mean, with all the spats

“that Trump has started with the Pope, I think it's notable that the Pope has never really mentioned”

Trump in these criticisms. They just seem to know it's about them. I think they could probably take this one the same way. I remember this one that it came funeral. Is it the McCain funeral or the HW funeral? I think that the McCain funeral people actually mentioned Trump. But one of them,

people directly mentioned Trump. But then at the other one, there were just these kind of

odds to selflessness and service and character. And the Trump people went crazy and they're like, "Oh, they're attacking Trump at the funeral." I was like, "No, that's just a ulogy where you praise somebody for their good character traits and Trump doesn't have any of them." And so you think it's an attack. But actually, just any compliment of someone that speaks about their virtues is necessarily also a critique of Trump because he lacks them. Yeah. Well, I look forward to J.D.

Vance, again, reminding the Pope that he should stick to preaching morality and do a better job at it. Yeah. Stick to preaching morality. Yeah. Stick to theology. Have you ever heard of the just war theory? I love that. Although my Johnson also did this. Have you ever heard of the

just war theory? And I was like, I have, actually, we did this in Jesuit school. I was like,

“you know, I think I remember it. I did a little refresher and it's like part one of the just”

war theory is as you don't attack until you have exhausted every other potential option. Like it's more complicated than that, but that's just, you know, the basic element of it. And it's like, we were doing the negotiation and we had your stupid corrupt real estate friend and your son-in-law in the meetings and you just got bored and you knew where that I had told him was because they're having an all-hands meeting and you're like, all right, screw this on the diplomacy. We're going to

start bombing. It could not be more of a violation of just the written text of the judge's war theory. Like, you couldn't come up with one that there's more violation. I guess Russia's a vision of Ukraine. But I mean, you know, these guys, like, they just, they want to be able to act with impunity and insult the Pope, do whatever they want and are on and that'd be not be critiqued by it. And that's just, you know, how the world works, baby. Sorry, JD. No, and I do not take a moment to pause

here and talk about like, what we're doing in Iran, we are at total war with them. I mean, we've gone in with overwhelming force to bomb the crap out of them, even though it hasn't been successful at eliminating, you know, all their retaliatory strikes, which resulted in taking down a couple of our planes. But now we're doing the naval blockade and then last night, Trump and his, you know, best buddy, treasury secretary, best in, are talking about how they're going to do the

do the equivalent of an economic bombing. So in my mind, you kind of have land, air sea, you know, what are we not doing here? And then at the same time, the Senate had a vote last night about whether we'd want to rain in the war powers. And of course, it fell on party lines, it's ever ran Paul and federalmen who switched. So he just has a blank check. This is unpopular. We are at total war, and they're acting like a bunch of goons online trading Jesus memes.

Yeah. Like this is like, can we just like, what is going on here? There's no even semblance of just war theory. We don't know what the objectives are. It's hurting people. And now this morning, the Wall Street Journal was reporting that we're going to be sending troops in there. Essentially,

“I think, as an act of intimidation to try to get a deal, but this is similar to what we didn't”

Venezuela, right? We had all the ships in this sea. We're threatening action and still Maduro was dancing in the streets, mocking us until we win in there and kidnapped him. And, you know, I guess that went okay, fingers crossed. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. Okay, thanks to one power. It's just not going to work. Yeah, that's not the other things. It's not going to work. This has been one of his bleeds that he that has gotten ignored because of,

you know, all of the sectoral. Just one, but he posted this chokehold around could run out of oil storage with Trump blockade, wrecking havoc with its economy. And I just had to laugh about one because it's like, so this is the new strategy. We're going to ruin our own economy until Iran cries on coal. It's like, do you understand how supply and demand works? Like, you understand how supply and demand works? If you put a chokehold on the supply of Iranian oil

are going to have as much supply. So what are they going to do? They are going to turn to either our oil or Russian oil or oil out of the Persian Gulf. But the straight of Hormuz's clothes. And so there's less of that. And so that means that there are shortages. And that means that the Chinese will pay more. And when the Chinese pay more, guess who else pays more? Fucking people, with the Trump flag in West Virginia also pay more because there's not two different prices.

The price that gets sent to Beijing is the same as the mayor of oil. And so if you do a chokehold on Iran to prevent their supply of oil from coming out, yeah, it's going to hurt their economy. But it's going to make ours even worse. Like, who what? I understand that he didn't read out him Smith. But like, this is not like, what do you think? You know, who do you think is going to

cry on coal first? The people pay in six bucks a gas in America or Iran,

because it's a completely stranglehold on their population because it's an autocratic regime.

“There's not really a question there. Sorry. No, no, I got to commend you because I think you've”

really been on it in a leading way saying this is going to get bad. But let me tell you how it could also get worse. Great. Trump still has not given up on his tariff policies. We got a temporary reprieve because the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional. But they've been working behind the scenes at Treasury to try to go around the Supreme Court ruling. And so I think we're going to be getting a new round of tariff threats or actual policies in June or July. So you can look

forward to that as well. Yeah, I think he's too big of a coward to actually do the worst tariff, such as to put him on China. You can already see that. He kind of wants to be his friend. He's not actually a China hawk, but it could get worse. It's been Theresa and my opinion. All entrepreneurs started a choppy fight. I believe choppy fight has already

been the first day. And the fight will make me no problem. I have a lot of problems,

but the fight is not one of them. I feel that choppy fight will continue to continue. Everything is super simple, integrated and balanced. And the time and the money that I can have to invest in other ways. For all in vaccine. Now costs test on choppy fight.com.

“The best way to win the world is to win the world. The best way to win the world is to win the world.”

The legendary choppy fight is just the choppy fight on your website. It's a bit too social media and over everything. That's a music for your ears. How do you feel about the rest of the world? With choppy fight, you can help to achieve a real help. Start a test for a single Euro promo. I'll choppy five point to eight. Let's record it. Let's go to the democracy stuff. You guys had a big report last month. The executive override report. I want to talk about that. There's

big Republican piece on how Trump's trying to take over the elections. I was on Nicole's show earlier this week with Mara Gay. And I just, I kind of want to start here because she said something that JVL said and others that I think is legit. But I just think they're a couple of different

ways to look at it. And the take was basically, I'm getting concerned because all the things we've

just been talking about for the first 25 minutes. The Trump is not acting like somebody that actually cares about elections. He's not being responsive to whole numbers in the way that he was in the first term. A little bit with the markets. He's talking from time to time, but he's acting like somebody who doesn't care. And the thing that she expressed is that concern is because they're planning to cheat. That's the logical next thought there. I offered some gentle push back to that

which is like, okay, but another way to look at that is that actually Trump doesn't care about the midterms because he doesn't have a legislative agenda. He doesn't actually care about Congress. He doesn't care about anybody but himself. Or another way to look at it is something that Sarah talked about. He talked about maybe not that he's trying to stay in power forever. But he's trying to, that he has legacy on his mind and he's going to do the board of peace and whatever. And so

“why it is a care about middle like things like the midterms. I think that those are all like the”

jitter and they're not, they're a little bit overlapping. They're not next, they're still in each like exclusive. But I'm just wondering before you get into the details, what we think they're planning, like how high you assess the risk are for the election. So like whether you think he really cares about cheating in them. Well, I'm going to point to two things that happened over the past few months that I think point to the biggest set for the midterms and 2022. Well, also keeping all that

stuff that we mentioned in the background that I do think he's more concerned with legacy building and all that stuff as a possible off ramp. But you absolutely cannot ignore these two things. Number one is the executive order that he issued essentially trying to outlaw male and balance. I mean, this is the election takeover where he says, you know, wants to nationalize elections, you know, White House has absolutely no role in these elections. But they are very set and trying to

constrain, disqualify and make rules around male and balance and voter rules so that they can

we've seen bear out. You see that these things happening, you know, with DHS and DOJ,

that is essentially Trump loyalists trying to carry out the mechanics of that order. They haven't been super successful. But there are little task forces inside the government. They're very much intent on trying to do that. So that is like on the front end of elections trying to interfere with the

“process. Then you have to look at the raid that was attempted in Fulton County. I think it's kind”

of good that we got to see that happen in the light of day now because I think it'll be central to how they try to challenge ballots in 2026. And so the point of failure that happened there that we have people preparing for and trying to do education around is essentially that the DOJ and FBI created this search warrant that was based on all kinds of recycled debunk lies in order to

get in the Fulton County when Tulsi Gabbard went down there and they got the ballots. The point of

failure was that the federal magistrate judge that accepted that that green lighted that warrant should have stopped the process there. There is a tradition where these judges give reference to the FBI and DOJ that frankly is undeserved. It was undeserved after 2020 when you saw about how they lied about the election. It's undeserved now because if that weren't what it had the scrutiny it deserved, it would not have been accepted. And so we kind of know that's going to

be the playbook for challenging results after the election because thankfully our elections are so decentralized and state local officials are in charge. The FBI can't just go storming in there. But you know if they produce a warrant that's faulty that's the choke point that needs to be stopped.

And so those are the two things that we're looking at extremely closely.

How does that get addressed just more aggressive legal challenges? And I don't understand how you address it on the front end I guess. I understand behind the back end.

“Yeah, I think on the front end it's going to require a lot of discussion and talk about like”

this is how they're trying to erroneously disqualify ballots. These are all the allies that they tribe in the previous election because they're just recycling the same stuff. I mean this is sort of the good thing is that they don't have any new ideas. They just keep going back to this well of 2020 because they don't have a lot of failed ideas in 2020. Well, they tried a lot of things. But because the election denialism has been so institutionalized in the federal government,

they don't have anything else to go on right now. And so we sort of know the body of evidence and putting in quotes that they'll try to manufacture to get in there again. But also trying to disqualify and throw sand in the gears the mail-in ballot process is something people need to be very honed in on. I just don't understand I functionally what might actually happen with the mail-in dots. I understand that the strategy of we're

seeding the ground that these are corrupt and in states and localities where we have people in charge of elections, when there are challenges or recounts, they're going to be very loose with throwing out mail-in ballots if there is any possible rationale for it. Like I understand that part of the strategy. But like the stopping mail-in balladding altogether part of the strategy, I just don't like I don't see how that's going to work. I mean maybe an individual state they

might do that and I guess there's some red states with their big center races, but like time is ticking on that. I don't know. What is your concern more the former? If they contaminate the idea of mail-in balladding, then in the post-delection process, there will be monkey business that prevents some of the ballots from being counted. Like that is more of the concern that actually

“change the rules on the front end. I think they very much like to change the rules on the front end.”

And that'll be contested in courts and they very much would like to create a voter file of who is allowed to vote with the mail-in ballad. Like there's all these ideas kicking around. I don't think they will be successful. But the framework that we approach the election with about how they're trying to do this and why falls into three buckets. Number one, they're going to try to deceive voters about the voting process. Primarily about mail-in ballads so that people

think that they're a fraudulent and there are problems in the system. So once they have the introduced that election lie, they'll use it to try to disrupt the process, whether that's trying to change the voting process or you know, throw out mail-in ballots. And this is all for the purpose of denying results that they don't like. So it's kind of like 3D framework to deceive, disrupt deny. And you can see how the various lies that they tell fits into that process.

And you know, they don't have to be successful in convincing people about the election lies

getting a warrant to go when and get these ballots. Like they've already disrupted like some things in the system. And so the thing is, it is really stay focused on it. Most of it's going to be fine,

“but we know we know the playbook. And that's what it is.”

You mentioned just kind of the staffing of the federal government side of this. And so in this pro public piece, which we'll link in the show notes if you want to read the whole thing. It was headline inside Trump's effort to take over the midterm elections. They mentioned a couple of things. One, how he's gutted or dismantled every electoral guardrail for 2020, Sissa, as one example, it's what our boy Chris Krebs was running in 2020 to protect from cyber attacks. Trump got mad

because Chris Krebs was saying, no, like we actually did a really good job of preventing cyber attacks in this election. And all of your theories are cocking me. And so rather than putting a hack in charge of that, he just dismantled it altogether, just gutted it. They're a bunch of other agencies that work on election safety that he's gutted. And in simultaneously that pro public have found 75 people across a bunch of these agencies who were doing election work that were either

fired or left their jobs. And they've been replaced by just 24 appointees. And all of them either work to reverse the 2020 results or our associates with people that did. Yeah, I mean, essentially

since Donald Trump came into office a second time, it has been a condition of employment that

you had to go along with the 2020 election lies. And so, I mean, all of these people have pretty much self-selected. But on the bright side, the failures that you've seen from Trump officials in going after, you know, people like James Coney, et cetera, like they're not able to do it. So, yes, the Trump administration did purge a lot of these election peoples and people that work guardrails and holding the line, but they have also backfilled it with people who are just

not very effective. I mean, why is Pam Bondi gone? Pam Bondi is gone because she was unable, not unwilling. She was unable to go after Trump's political opponents as you wish. I'm not like searching for a silver lining, but it's right there. Yeah. The people there putting in can't do the

“job. You know, we should be grateful for that. I think it's so important. I think that, you know,”

you never know, like, and particularly if you end up now in the Senate where it ends up being one state,

I think the Senate now is more of an interesting battleground than the house. Let's say Democrats hold all their challenge seats like George and Michigan. They pick up North Carolina. They pick up Maine. They pick up, let's say Ohio was shared brown. And then you get either Alaska or Iowa or Florida or Texas. Like those are all places run by election denial Republicans. In the Senate, we're important on whether Trump can get any confirmation syrup. I mean, maybe he'll decide if he's

stops doing that. But again, it's decided is in that sense. A more important check in the house. And so maybe they do decide they try to rig just one of those states. Right. Like in it's like, okay, well, we control Iowa, Alaska, you know, root and branch, Florida. I don't know, may run to sanctimonious. I want to go along with Trump after all the main things that he said about them. But Texas should certainly wood, Greg Abbott, and one of those races ends up being close.

You know, they end up being less than 1%. They end up being in a place where throwing out some of these ballots, challenging these ballots, not counting certain ballots means the difference

“between the Senate majority and not. Like I think that is a very realistic scenario that's”

different than some catastrophizing, and sometimes here from our friends, sort of like elections are over. And it's like, I don't know, I mean, you saw in Hungary that that's like not the case, like you can overcome cheating. It doesn't mean that cheating is a problem. You shouldn't be vigilant about it. But you can overcome cheating. But I think that the Senate scenario where it comes down to one red state, I think is is one to really have our eye on right now.

Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. I mean, what we saw in previous elections too, you know, there's a laser focus on Maricopa County. There's a laser focus on Fulton County. The laser

focus on Antrim County. So there always is going to be an opportunity where we can put a spotlight

on what is happening in that locality. And that's super helpful because, you know, to steal an election, whether it's a national election or something like a Senate race, et cetera, because our our decentralized system, you need a lot of accomplices. Like a lot,

election journalists in places of power in places like the red states. But I don't think there's enough of them to steal an election once public pressure and scrutiny is put on them. And Georgia wasn't an example of that in 2020. Yeah, when Pope Brian comes to that. Yeah, my yes, Anna to it is the more concerning, you know, less catastrophic end of democracy thing to

“be alarmed about is like, you need fewer accomplices to steal the election in Alaska, right?”

You need that governor and our, you know, you need fewer accomplices to steal the election in one state where you control everything. And I wonder, as far as the other pushback steps can sort of do anything else, you guys are doing a PD, you want to talk about or just looking at the Democrats now assuming, let's just talk about the house. Like you're assuming at minimum, they take back control of the house, like what are some important things they can do to look

ahead to 2020. Yeah, well, I am interested, you know, there were some stories earlier this week about how the Democrats are creating an anti-corruption task force, which great. Then I looked into the stories and it was like, we'll come up with ideas later. Like, we will have a message about corruption, etc. And so, there will have to be accountability for ever in a position to do it, right? Like, we've saw what happened in Hungary with the opposition coming in and really putting

their teeth into it, not letting people go. But what does that look like in America is very much an open question? And I am sort of, I am of the mind, we can do brainstorming about what

“comes later. But what are we saying now? In order to have an anti-corruption message, you have to”

actually like hone in on stuff. And I see so much talk about, well, the Trump family is just making all this money. Can we get a little bit more granular about why that's happening? Because, guess what? Like, the Trump kids can go make all the money they want. But it's the vector of official action, where they're abusing office that leads to personal profit, where I don't see the Democrats or anybody else really honing in on. Can we get granular about how they're manipulating markets

through official action to their personal benefit, and when it comes to prediction markets, when it comes to cryptocurrency? Like, that's the stuff that I think could be extremely powerful, especially as we go into a worsening economy, the summer with higher gas prices. But I don't see that. And I still see this sort of like, Wormy consultant brain, where it says like, we just have to tie corruption to affordability. Like, okay, yes, but what the hell are you talking about?

Can you get a little bit more specific? Because to me, it's very clear that there are manipulating markets for personal and political benefit. Right? Like, we all see this happening, but I need

people to clearly connect the dots. And then the other big corruption thing, which I have always

“been animated about. And I think is super powerful politically, and also the right thing to talk”

about is the part in abuse. Earlier this week, he was talking to aides about how he is open to pardoning anyone within 200 feet of the oval office, just as a blanket thing and get out of jail free card at the end of his term, which on the other hand, I was like, oh, great. He's going to leave. That's great. But the part in abuse is out of control. There is essentially a lobbying business in Washington where people are making money on both ends of it. And I think that's

been happening out in the open for a long time. And when it comes to presidential debates and things coming up in 2028, you know, it's kind of crazy to talk about a constitutional amendment. But why not? Why are we not talking about a constitutional amendment to constrain the pardon power? If J.D. Vance or Marker Rubio is going to be the next guy in line, have them sit on stage and defend these corruptive partens for the January 6 writers for all, you know, the fraudsters for anyone else

that he's going to give it to. And they could just say, you know what, I actually support a constitutional amendment to limit the pardon power because I would take it away from myself because

it could never be abused again. What is J.D. Vance going to say to that? A lot there and I agree with

like the focus on it. In some ways, I think the messaging part is is maybe the easiest because it's just like, yeah, they're getting rich while you're getting poor. It's kind of, and then you just need a couple of examples, like a couple of data points to back that up. So that's there. To me, it's like the two elements that are more challenging is like the structural stuff. He mentioned the partens. I want to put a pen in that for a second, his J.B. will really get tried about

that this week. And kind of what a more of a long term solution is. But then in the meantime, what the oversight looks like on the corruption, how you demonstrate the examples to people. And I had, maybe we could go or so now Sue Hassub Romaniam on, who is on oversight, Robert Garcia, we've had on, who's on oversight. And I've talked to both of them and they're, they're serious about it.

I suggested them, Altarker, which is down on the record, I guess. All my conversations are basically

I don't go on background anymore. If you have a secret, I could better be a real big secret.

“If you're going to share with me. In this case, this wasn't a secret. This is me talking,”

and now I'm repeating it in public. And I was like, yes, you're maybe talking to a trade gality, or somebody, because there, there hasn't really been a good example of a Democrat oversight. Like the January 6th committee was very strong about a specific thing. But it was a little bit of a different animal than this type of oversight. And if you look back at Benghazi and the Clinton emails, and like, look at how Republicans did that to maximize their political benefit. Like Democrats,

you did be very serious about coming up with a plan for that right now. And like thinking about it. And the corruption tax was just fine. But it's like, okay, where are we going to focus? Right?

Like it's such a huge ocean of possibilities. And obviously the Epstein thing is going to be part of that.

But the family's got to be part of it. The crypto business. What else? Where can you go? And one thing Suehouse brought up is like, you know, they're worried about, well, I don't think that the administration is going to play ball with us on documents or stuff. And it's like, okay, well, then who might? Well, private businesses are have to. So go to the businesses that are doing deals with the Trump families. Maybe that's the place to start, because those guys are going to be worried

about the Democrats being charged next time. They have to respond to subpoenas. They're not going to have a president backstopping, you know, their decision to to duck a subpoena. Getting serious about

“that right now, I think is really important. You know, one thing I would like to see more discussion”

of in a very clear and focused way that I think is absolutely open corruption that you don't need subpoenas to prove. And that's the fact that he's slapping his name on every thing that he possibly can in Washington and beyond. Yeah. Here's white matters. Yes, it's a vanity project. Yes, it's what Trump does in this private business. You know, with the Trump towers and all of that to me, the way I view it, he is seizing public property as personal branding opportunities. The American

people did not ask for Donald Trump to put his name on the Institute of Peace. They did not ask to put his name on the Kennedy Center. He do realize that he's going to be putting his name on our money. Oh, yeah. Next month is a part of the youth. Yeah, a little stupid signature. Yeah, America 250, which essentially the way I see it, the America 250 celebration is turning out to be a giant party that Trump is throwing for himself. I was thinking maybe put his name on the money because he

figured people would burn it and then that would create some deflation. But I don't know. The way the value the dollar is going, it might be kind of a symbolic thing. But it's not just on the currency, which, you know, traditional, we have the Treasury Secretary has their signature on it. But now Trump is going to put his name on our money. That's after the Trump coin, that's after if you buy a national park pass right now, Donald Trump is there with George Washington, the arc, the Trump

that we talked about earlier, Trump RX and which, you know, people have to or he would like people to go get prescription lifesaving drugs, their website named after him, the Trump accounts. There was another a battleship class that is apparently going to have a special 47 designation after Trump. I mean, there is a very long list of things that presidents don't traditionally put their names on that somehow because he thinks it's his property. He's putting his name on it.

“And so I think that's a form of corruption because you didn't earn any of this. Nobody asked for it.”

And there's a huge economic benefit. Like, it's, you know, I do think there's an authoritarian angle as well, is that when his name is on everything over giant banners at the Justice Department, he makes his name an image and escapable, right? Like, he is sort of in charge of all this in a way. Like, if you just go to apply for your Trump baby account or whatever it is, like you kind of have to engage in this transaction with Trump. And so I think there's a lot to that.

It also feels on American. I agree. I think that it feels on American. I mean, I'd feed it also,

which is why it can resonate. Because it reminds me of who I was younger the first time I visited

like a foreign country, you know, in Latin America or somewhere where they have like you land at the airport. And that's like the big posters of El Presidente or everywhere. And you're just like this feels wrong. This isn't right. Like, this isn't how we do things. And I've got to tell you the Trump banner over the Department of Justice. I know everybody is seeing it. But I was with my kids over spring break. And we were doing the museum thing. And we just happened to cut across that

way. And we walked under it. And it was such an eerie thing. Because I had seen the pictures of it. I knew it was there. But you know, sometimes you're in a place. You're like, oh, we're right there. It's like, oh, I'm right here in the corner of this thing. Yeah. And there's tourists walking by, and I, I made a point of loudly saying, that's, you know, that's supposed to be there. Like,

But it was just such. I love that grass roots for it. Probably the game to work to get out of it.

The biggest one by I might catch a catch, catch a little bit of it. Yeah. Even though I knew it was going to be there. And I had seen pictures of it being under it was such a disgusting feeling.

“Yeah. And so I think we're tearing that fucking thing down. That's one of the first things”

we're doing 29. Jayville wrote about this this weekend. And we'll have many, many, many podcasts to come on this. So I just, I'm just, give you a chance to do your quick, canny response. And then, you know, we can go longer on it later. But the article's really important is about how to drive a steak through the heart of Tripism. And he's talking about Maggar and what we've seen already in

Hungary and how they're doing both reform and accountability. And he lays out a bunch of stuff. And

the accountability stuff is mostly about the will to do it. Like having the political will to say, "Hey, we're going to go after these people to broke the law." And then the reform stuff is harder because there are a lot of rules that limit it in the Supreme Court is going to be hostile to, you know, big structural changes. And so he kind of like lists out, like what are some things that are, that are legal and allowable by the current letter of the law. The Supreme Court

wouldn't stop. And he talks about getting into the fellow bus tour, maybe expanding the Supreme Court, statehood for DC prohibitions on things like schedule F. And so I assume kind of in your NGO world, like this stuff is already being talked about and worked through. I'm just kind of wondering what you think. Yes, absolutely. People are starting to think about what reform would

“look like post Trump. Maybe it's because of just my communications background. But I think it's”

largely because of how I see Trump positioning himself post presidency. You mentioned earlier that you sort of think like he has an eye towards legacy building, which I think is absolutely right. They're already talking about the Trump library, which I've used a good sign because it means that he is leaving office. The board of peace, where he is the lifetime self-appointed chairman, that says that he wants to have a presence for the rest of his days. And so

there has to be some kind of counterbalance. It can't just be that Trump leaves office and he gets his golden parachute. If you believe, as I do, that he is the worst president, that America has ever had. We need to start talking about him like that in having the reasons why. So that if we are lucky enough that he leaves office, we have a clear understanding of why he's gone and why everything he did was so bad and requires such a sustained rebuilding

effort that makes people more trusting of our democracy. And I do think, you know, this needless reckless war that he's leading in us into will be a big part of that. But just the way that he treats

“people has to be part of the larger theme because that's what powers so many of these other terrible”

policies, what it comes to the schedule of projects, et cetera, just the indecency in which he has approached this prestigious job in the way that he's tarnished our image. And so, you know, I think people should think about talking about Trump openly as the worst president ever, as we ascend him, his goodbye. Yeah, there are no monuments to Andrew Johnson. We have just started discourse about whether he's worse than Andrew Johnson or not. You know,

you can kind of have a bad conversation. Yeah, let's have that debate. Yeah. Speaking of indecency, two more things really quick. One of this, I just, I can't let this go by. I told you,

yeah, I would have referred the whistleblower, whose complaint led Trump's first impeachment

over the Ukraine call, as well as the Inspector General who deemed that complaint credible to the Trump justice department for criminal prosecution. To me, this is so both pathetic and disgusting at the same time. It's like Tulsi Gabbard knows that she's out of Vogue with Trump that Trump is not happy that she is not a team player on the Iran war, at least fully on board with it. And so, in order to get into his good graces, she is going to go try to ruin the lives of two people who

were just trying to do their job, who are public servants. I mean, talking about indecency. It is terrible. On the other hand, they've been so unsuccessful about going after all the promised political opponents. The way I read this story is like, well, they're working their way down the line. I view this in tandem with the story that Hermit Dillon is going after poor Cassidy Hutchinson. Like, how far down the line are you guys going? Absolutely. It's terrible. Those people are

suffering through undeserved harassments. But they're pretty desperate to bring Trump back a little scalp. And the other bright spot was that Trump was talking about treason against the Democratic

now with the threat and annihilation of Iran. He hasn't been successful intimidated them either.

“If anything, he made that military community stronger. There was lots of generals that came out”

with different kind of a Mickey and support of Senator Kelly. So there are some good things that happen amid the terrible. It's true. They're going to fail. And yet, Hermit Dillon and Tulsi should still be just absolutely ashamed of themselves for what they're trying to do to people who are just doing the right thing. Okay, final and decent topic. That really sure what there is to say about this, but it wouldn't be the bullet podcast if I didn't mention it. And November 11th of 2001

in a diary entry, our Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy described driving

down the highway with his wife and kids in a minivan, like a typical suburban father,

when he spotted a dead record and pulled over his car. If you're at this, I was standing in front of my parked car on I684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how we're at some of my family members have turned out to be. My kids waited patiently in the car. I had to read that sentence a couple of times because I was like, who's weird? Bobby was grabbing a road kill raccoon dick and what was going through his mind was like, my cousins are

getting a little strange. And it's like maybe maybe I might be time to look inside. Maybe some and as I'm reflecting on your interior life and that might be. So our health and human services Secretary has a thing for dead animals. Right, straight up. So there's this raccoon story, which by the way, it's really, this is one of my pet peeves. If I had like lots of money to do PSAs, I would do one about how people shouldn't pull over on the side of the road to do stuff because

it's so extremely dangerous. And other cars are whizzing by. And the fact that you pulled your family over to go find a raccoon penis, which you knew where it was, you knew what you were after. Like, what did you store it in? What did you put it in? Do you have a specimen cup

“that you carry around with you? I highly doubt it. But like, he had the whale thing, right?”

Is the bloody penis is now in the car with your children? Yeah, where do you put it? Do you make them hold it? Other cars are whizzing by on the highway. Yeah. So you have this thing, you take it back to the car and then they go on vacation? Where's he put it? In the fridge at the Airbnb? There's no Airbnb, is there? But this is line up with him. There's two thousand one. It's two months after 9/11. But he hasn't done anything. We've talked about this. There's the bear,

the bear, the whale that he beheaded and put in top of the car. I mean, these are some fun road trips with RFK. And then I don't do remember this when his cousin Carolyn Kennedy, I had to go back and look at this. She was trying to stop his Senate confirmation and she talked about how he was grinding up baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his falcons. And then she, I wrote this down. She had a connection. It's no surprise that he keeps birds

of prey as pets because Bobby himself is a predator. So that was her take on it. I, can, can we get a take on the raccoon penis? I hate about it. I'm standing in front of my park car cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon thinking about how weird some of my family

members have turned out to be. What a sentence. So some of his defenders say he's always been interested

“in animals. And that's why he picks up the road kill. But those two things don't go together.”

Yeah. Usually if you like animals, you don't mean to late them after they're done. I think. Well, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to think that the type of person that would pull over on the side of the road to deal with a raccoon penis would also be the type of person that would oversee policies that would bring measles back. It does seem like there's kind of some of them. Does he? Does he? Does he? Does he? Does he? Does he? Does he? Is he there, huh?

Yeah. Does he? I hope his kids are. Amanda. You have any runs coming up? Do you have anything else anything that you want to share with the people? No, I'm doing a 10k in Winchester for the Apple Lawson Fest coming up. I don't know how that's going to go. But I'm, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Apple Apple Apple. All right. It's a, it's a cute deal out here. Everywhere is everyone wears pink in green. And you say happy bloom to each other. It's the bloom. So it's not a fun.

Well, happy early bloom to you. And to the listeners, we'll be back tomorrow. Maybe it's slightly late. My daughter's got to play. She's Romeo. Oh, which is great. She's thrilled to be Romeo.

going, you know, certain roles, but she's thrilled to be Romeo. So I'm launching that in the morning

“saving the pot a little late, but it'll be out on Friday. So no worries. We have a weekend”

pot for it. It's going to be a good one. Thanks, Amanda. Thanks. Everybody else. We'll see you back

here tomorrow. Peace. Stay away from the raccoon penis.

“The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper,”

associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Loots and audio engineering

and editing by Jason Brown.