Angie "Pumps" Sullivan and Phil Gordon: The Dumbest People Are Running this Country

[MUSIC]

Hello, and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. We have another double header today. In segment two, we get real heavy. I'm foreign policy with Phil Gordon, who is Kamla's national security advisor.

A lot of conversation out there right now about what Harris foreign policy would have looked like. You know, in that magical alternate universe. And so figured we'd ask the guy who would know the answer to that. So stick around in segment two for that.

Also just a reminder for everybody. No kings is coming on Saturday. I got an interview coming up later this week with Ezra Levin, who's organizing that for an invisible scheme now for that.

But first, we're going to have a little fun.

She's a co-host of the podcast. I've had it, and I hit news.

“Also in attorney and co-author of the book, "Life is a lazy Susan”

of shit sandwiches." And I just found out in this morning. She's a bullard plus member. So get on board. It's Angie Pomp Sullivan.

Hi. Thanks for having me. Yes. And Bullard plus member. I just thought Auto Renew.

Great. We appreciate your support. And I don't know what the rest of you are waiting for. And it looks like you just lost your earpud into your bra. There again.

I got it up though. Okay. So we're good though. We're good now. If anyone's like me, right?

You do that. You guys have these niche, niche following. So I want to get to politics. Don't get your back story. A lot of people may know you.

Like if they're on social media as the other one on I have.

But because your co-host Jan is always going viral for like calling Trump cancels

McTaco tips or something like crazy like that. Yeah. And so we want to get your perspective as well. But for I saw you guys before that. I was on an airplane.

And enough you do this. I did a little market research. And I look at what podcast we're listening to. As I'm walking down the aisle. And I saw a couple of girls.

Listen to I hip or I have news. I forget. And I was like, what is this? And I asked a couple of the gaze and realized that you had a huge fan based. A couple of them had a lot.

You had a reality show called Sweet Home Oklahoma. I knew nothing about. So for people who are like me. Let's give us your hero origin story. Okay.

So Jennifer and I started being friends like 25 years ago. I hired her to decorate a kitchen remodel. And she came into my house. She immediately insulted my taste. And I knew I had bad taste.

That's why I hired her. But I was like, I know I have bad taste at a. Immediately insulted it. Which just I fell head over heels for that because she is so honest. And that's one great thing about being a podcast person with someone who has.

Total conviction and is fearless. I mean, she does not have any fear. And she's like that professionally and personally. So we developed a friendship.

“And then I think because our lives have been so crazy.”

That we were on a reality TV show. And I was the crazy one on that. Just I was had a glove. The smoke cigarettes with the glove. Trying to hide it from my kids.

Which, you know, doesn't hide anything. But I felt like it did. I'm not used to. Everyone. Just there was a brief moment where she started smoking again.

I think for one year, just a high stress year. And also tried some more strategies. Didn't work. Neither did my strategies hiding smoking from her. By the way, so it's kind of a two way street on that.

I love that creative.

Yeah, oh, no, because here's what happened.

I would have kids. So I put on a robe. I go outside. I put my glove on. Then I go in.

Take the robe off. Wash my hands. Well, the kids still knew. I mean, it's just the dumbest thing on the planet. But anyway, so we had the reality show.

And then I grew up a Republican. I was raised by Republicans that are now maga. And so as a part of my adult life, my entire life blew up. And I had to read examin how I viewed my religion. Evangelical Christianity.

And that spilled over into politics. So I wasn't. Super political, like I didn't watch Fox news.

“But, you know, I registered Republican because that's what my parents did.”

And, you know, all that. And then I will never forget. So vote for Mitt Romney. Vote for Mitt Romney or was that, but he said he switched back then. No, I voted for Bush one time.

But I can't remember. And then it was done. Then that was it. But. But I can't remember which time it was.

I think it was. I voted for Kerry. So I probably did vote for Mitt Romney. Is that right? No, that would be right.

I voted for Bush Kerry. You have a right. You was Bush once in that care. Okay. So that's, you know, I'm not proud of it. But I did. Okay. But so anyway.

Then in 2016, all of this Trump stuff was happening. And I wasn't super engaged politically. But I called Jennifer and I get why.

Are the people surrounding Trump not taking his phone when he starts drinking.

And he starts texting all this on social media.

“She was like, oh, he's an empty toddler.”

And that. And that just threw me for an absolute. I could not imagine that people would see what he was writing and not immediately assume. We were in terrible hands as a country. And then I just got more and more involved and engaged.

Started seeing that, you know, all the back and forth. And then by caught up with me of what he was saying. Versus was doing. And then I just became completely enamored with politics. So you guys were on the TV reality show.

Sweet, I don't know, Oklahoma. Where you were the crazy one. And then the podcast starts and you have a role reversal. But initially, the podcast, like you were just kind of doing like making fun of other reality. People write and like complaining about people who clap on airplanes.

No, it was complaining.

It was just complaining about people like gender reveal parties.

Like of course, you know, it's going to be one of the other like stop. And just complaining about a lot of those things.

“And then Jennifer has always been very politically minded.”

So those conversations just kind of naturally grew. And as the climate became more and more oppressive. And all of these things started happening. It just turned into where we felt like we had to speak out because we did have a platform. So we felt like we had to use it for good.

So what do you know how that is? In fact, like your because I get a lot of questions about this from people who, you know, our listeners or whatever or a lot of us are former Republicans. So, you know, who are in conservative communities who don't know how to deal with family members or friends or still maga.

I mean, when you started like speaking out on the podcast about politics, I have to imagine you got some negative feedback from your friend group. Here's the thing. What's interesting is, and you're not as old as me. But as you grow older, you become closer to fewer people.

And you just kind of weed out the people that you don't necessarily have the same views with over time. And then might see all my kids are out of the house. So I'm not thrown together in situations with people that I would otherwise not be with. Interestingly about my family because they are died in the wool, triple trumpers, the whole line.

It just doesn't exist for them. The podcast just doesn't exist. Even if it's on Fox News, which I know they watch, it's just, it just doesn't happen.

It never comes to my attention.

It's just like, in my family, it's very easy to compartmentalize and deny what you willfully what you want. But just don't ask, don't tell. It is exactly that. Yeah.

Got it. So, well, I guess that's healthier than, you know, losing your family over it. I do wonder, I do think in this moment where Trump is screwing it up so much. I do see any opportunities for engagement with maga, america, or not quite yet. Okay.

So on a personal level with my, with my family, what I have said is,

“super religious, what would Jesus do about putting people in alligator alcatraz?”

Oh, I think that's what Jesus would do. Like, do you really think that? And they can't defend it. And then on other issues that have come up, it is, I'm sad that you can't have empathy for these people.

That makes me sad. When I was Christian evangelical practicing doing all that, I looked back and I had no empathy for anyone but myself. There was a narcissism to my thoughts that kept me from being able to think about, okay, what happens to a gay couple that once have a child?

Why would I care? I want every child to be loved. Why would it matter? And those kind of things. So it kind of all unraveled at the same time.

But I try to stick to empathy instead of, how can you be so stupid? It's attempting to want to do how could we be so stupid. Just on the empathy thing. This is, this is hard.

Are you ready for a hard thing to do? Yeah. What about empathy for them? What about empathy for the maggot types who either are misinformed or their intentions or, you know, or they have been, you know,

kind of propagandized to or sucked up into a cult? Obviously, in any group, there's some bad people. There's some deplorable. But I've got to be some that are reachable. How do you kind of think about that?

Given that, and you still live there. You're still living in Oklahoma. You know, they're all around you. Yes. Here's the thing.

Like, this is an example. Yes, I went to buy bread. And I noticed that there was a nine dollar loaf of bread on the shelf. And I just thought that is crazy. And there was a moment where I kind of had a little, like,

that maggot people were going to go in and be faced with the nine dollar loaf of bread. It was, it was seconds. And then I saw it. Was it where you had an artisanal bread shop or something?

That was at Whole Foods.

Okay. Well, yeah, Whole Foods is spending. It's spending, but I mean, it was just like a nine dollar loaf of bread. Are you kidding me? I read it about people, you know, taking out of the retirement to make mental expenses. Okay. So going back to,

there's a part of me that because I had a political evolution, and a later in life evolution in general, that I feel like I have to have some empathy towards someone that is like, Oh, my gosh. You know, we saw that everybody saw that video.

I'm an idiot, I guess. Part of me is like, good. Now you know it. You have felt it. But then there's another part of me that is like,

“you have to kind of put your actions with your words.”

You have to stand up and say, this is why I was wrong. These were the views that I had, and I realized that I was wrong. And I don't know that I see a lot of that.

Like, Marjorie Taylor Green,

I've never, ever, ever been to believe that she is not just trying to further her own political career.

But in terms of the everyday person, I would have more grace for that than probably some, just because of my political evolution. But I just think a lot of them, they're just never going to change.

They're just simply not going to change. Well, that I think is the key question in the moment. Is there enough of them that can change? And you reference a video that everybody saw. But just a far-own enjoyment,

like a little, just a little appetite. Let's just watch it one more time. If you could say something to President Trump, and he was going to hear you right now, what would it be? You're a worthless pile of shit.

And you voted for how many times? Three times. That was my bad. Apparently I'm an idiot. Thank you, a man to wrap it.

We love the bloodness there. Okay. But that has to give you a little hope. Right? Like in some level,

there's the shot in Florida. Like, yeah. Okay.

It's nice to hear somebody say that.

Bluntly. I'm an idiot. But in the other hand, it's like, Okay. If that lady devoted three times,

that is probably watching some Fox and some Newsmax, if she can have a break, if you can have a break, if I can, other people have to be able to.

Like, what? How do you think they can be reached? Is it just pain? Do they have to experience pain? Or is there other strategies that would be useful?

I think that in my family,

“I think that the pain would have to be lost”

of, you know, stocks, bonds, portfolios for a one cake. Like, that is where like, it seems the cost to humanity and humans, and law-breaking and corruption.

All of that is fine. The telet affects my pocketbook. And I say this because, you know, I've viewed it all my 56 years on earth,

but you also have to think like,

you've ignored so much by the time you get to, you know, March of 2026 of the corruption and the hatefulness, and I'm glad James, Comey's dead.

All that stuff that like, you're pretty insulated in what I've found. James, Comey's still alive, just to be--

I'm sorry. James, comey is walking me in her. James, comey is walking me in her. James, comey is walking me in her. James, comey is walking me in her.