Words Matter: Breaking News: It Matters if the President is a Psychopath

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And... 28. 2. 23. This is Deep State radio.

Coming to you direct from our super secret studio in the third sub basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C. and from other, undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to Words Matter. I'm David Roscoff here.

“Our host and I'm joined this week, fresh from a trip to Chicago to celebrate or to bless the opening of the Obama Presidential Center by Norm Ornstein, How are you Norm?”

I'm still giddy a little bit from yesterday.

It was really an amazing event.

What struck me so much was beautifully orchestrated, every part of it. But you think back to a time when, for whatever major issues we had, we had decency. We had dignity. We had empathy. And now we live in a world of indecency, indignity, sociopathy, psychopathy, greed, grift, and, of course, destruction of everything that matters to the country and the world.

But other than that... Well, other than that, I mean, look, there were certainly more of those things back then than there are now. But I got into a little bit of trouble this morning on the Twitter verse, although I'm not on Twitter, on blue sky and so forth. Because it was this picture of Obama and Biden and Bush and Clinton and everybody was like, "Oh, it's so great. We should be back in the old days with these guys."

I'm like, "Well, how do you think we got here?" I mean, Clinton and Obama were two presidents advancing neoliberal agendas that made inequality worse in this country. There were better people. They were working hard to do something for the country. They were maintaining better standards.

“I think they were actually at their hearts pretty good people trying to do pretty good things.”

But they also contributed. But Bush, you know, I mean, come on, you know, he let a war that 600,000 people were killed in that shouldn't have taken place.

And exacerbated a bunch of this stuff and never stood up to the movement as own party to the right.

I would say Joe Biden probably did more to try to counteract all this than either of the other three. And deserves credit for that. He made some mistakes politically. But, you know, I mean, I get the feels. You know, I was watching it and they're all my friends and I'm talking to my friends. Friends like you, they're there. It's like, "Oh, this is so great." And, you know, if only we could recapture this vibe.

But I got to tell you something. And, you know, I know I'm the lefty and you're the sensible person here. But listening to Mom Donnie yesterday at the next thing, which was given me the feels. You know, if you're like a real walk, the next thing is Mom Donnie gave a speech. Where it was really connecting with the people.

And it just reminded me that what people want today is not ideology or, you know, the left versus right or the old discussions of these old groups. They wouldn't government that actually gets shit done.

And, and he, I don't know, man. I know he's not going to be anything other than the mayor of New York.

“But I'm glad he's there. And you know what else happened this week, Norm?”

Democratic socialist got elected to be the Democratic candidate in Washington. Probably going to win. Yeah. You may get one to win in LA. You could end up at the end of November with Democratic socialist president, New York, Washington, LA and Seattle.

So, sometimes going on here that's of a different era from what was being celebrated at the Obama event yesterday. And I just, I'd be interested in your comment.

So, first of all, Mondami is clearly, and truly a generational talent of that speech was amazing.

And what's clear from it is that he genuinely has been a mixed fan. He didn't have somebody right this that mentioned all the names of the previous players that talked about all of those highlights from the years of Nick's frustration. And he tied it together with the meaning of it in the city of New York. And what it meant for all New Yorkers and how it's a reflection of what New York is all about. It was a brilliant speech.

Only, uh, tarnished by the flourish to put it gently behavior of the utter asshole who is the owner of the New York Knicks.

And a friend of Donald Trump, of course, James Dolan, who has always been an asshole.

Who barred people from Madison Square Garden because they offered mild criticism of him and the way in which he conducted his business for the next. But, Mondami is terrific. And you're right, although I don't think people are voting for the democratic socialist right now,

“because they've examined their platforms and decide what that's what they want.”

Although, of course, when you have Republicans use the word socialist as an epithet. And we know it had a big impact on elections in Florida because the South and Central Americans who were there, who were there, recoil from that word. But this is not about taking over all the means of production. This is about a larger role for government in building equality and because it's democratic socialist. And even if the title of the party is capital D, capital S, it's about small D Democrats who believe in the democratic process.

So, if you think of it that way, and you look at the people who are carrying these banners forward and their dynamic engaging and often charismatic people, that explains it, I think, as much or more as anything else. I would circle back David and give you two cheers, at least, for the presidents you have knocked. It's not as if Bill Clinton or Barack Obama were operating in an environment where they could do what they wanted. They had serious headwinds, headwinds from within their own party, and from the obdoracy of Republicans that goes back before the 1990s.

And it's a question of whether they got as much as they could have. And I will give Obama a great credit, and it's not just Obama, but Obama also gave some free reign to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to do what was necessary, that getting the Affordable Care Act through, flawed as it was, flawed in part because thanks to the late Joe Lieberman,

“we did not have a public option, which would have been a game changer, I think, in health care.”

But that they got those things done, given the realities of the toxic nature of American politics at the time, and I'll give them more credit than that.

As for Biden, let me just say, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Carlos Lozada, who as the editor of the Outlook section of the Washington Post,

I did before the official publication, and titled that piece, let's just say it, the Republicans are the problem.

“And that caused a firestorm, but it also vaulted us to New York Times best seller status.”

And that was all Carlos's dual. But the piece that he did. Give yourself one credit. The piece that he did in the Times, now he's the New York Times non-fiction book critic, and he's a damn good one. But he just did a piece on a compilation done by historian Julian Zelazer at Princeton, on the Biden presidency,

and just ripped into Biden. I mean, it was non-stop. But I read it and thought, look, we got a lot to criticize. There is no doubt, and also a reflection on Joe Biden's book. But I'll say something that I said here when Biden was president, that I've said many times, and I'll say it again.

If we had been sitting at Joe Biden's inaugural, on January 20th, 2021, knowing that he faced the narrowest majority possible in Congress that he had serious problems within his own party, in particular in the Senate, with a slender majority Joe Manchin and Kristen Cinema, and the threat of the filibuster.

And that in his first year, he would have a sweeping bill that would provide a major undergirding of the social safety net,

that he would get reforms involving chips and technology, that he would get confirmed more judges in his first year, and Democrats who had sweeping majorities, that he would have your dog excited about all of those things that he had done. And that we got actually really huge policy accomplishments that were more on the left than previous presidents, given all of those headwins.

“If we'd been sitting together, I think even David Rothkopf would have turned to me and said, "You've got to be nuts, that could not possibly happen."”

So for all the flaws and all the difficulties and all that led up to that horrific debate in 2024, and that led to the bad dynamic of the Democratic Party's succession process, to the reemergence of Donald Trump,

for all the fact that the people who did these horrible things in the first Trump term,

got off fundamentally Scott free in part because we abided by the added job when they go low, we go high. That put all of that aside, and I think over the long sweep of history, Joe Biden is going to look more favorable than the critics today and on a whole lot of Democrats give him credit for it. I'd hate to interrupt this thrilling podcast, but we have some exciting news at the DSR Network. Our Substack is now live. Our Substack is going to be the new home for free and paid content here at the DSR Network.

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And now there is "Cesbris Angold Kiwi." And Clinton, which I feel is kind of Reagan light, if you will. Deserves the lot of credit. He's going to get a lot of credit. And what's more, during that period you are referring to,

he achieved a great deal.

“And I think his problem, and perhaps the problem that I have most significantly with Obama and with Clinton,”

was a failure to recognize some of the baked in the cake problems we have with our institutions. And in the case of Biden, it led to Merrick Garland, a justice department that did not do what it was supposed to do. And it led to Biden, I think, because he is kind of an old school guy, saying the system will take care of it, and it didn't.

And that was a big mistake. He also made similar mistakes for other reasons with regard to Gaza, for example. He achieved much more than Obama, much more. Clinton had a pretty productive presidency, but it was very neoliberal. And you did have the end of the Glass-Steagall Act under Bob Rubin,

and you did have the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which essentially was a free pass to a lot of these oligarchs for their rise. There were some fundamental mistakes that were made because we still believed in this idea that left to its own devices operating as it should, our system will lift everybody up. And that's not automatic.

“You actually have to have systems that are as mechanics in place that ensure that's the case.”

So I'm not saying these guys didn't do good things, and they didn't respect the presidency and institutions more even Bush, with his relationship with the Obama's and the Clinton's, and so forth, maintained a certain degree of dignity and norms that are worth maintaining. What I'm saying is, unless we recognize the contributions prior even good administrations made to getting where we are, we're not going to fix it.

Now, you know, just sort of going back to your experience yesterday, I watched the speeches and so forth. And I have to say, although I'm not a big fan of that when they go low, we go high at it. I thought Michelle Obama's speech was the home run of the day. Yeah, I'm just wondering what your thoughts were.

I thought she was spectacular. And it really was the highlight. His speech was pretty damn good as well. And I also thought I want to give props to Valerie Jarrett who put all of this together. Being there, it was so smooth, every part of it, you know, enormous security, obviously,

because of who was there, and because of our times. But the ability of everybody there to get in, to get out, to be seated, to have everything that they did. She put on a hell of a show and the fact that the people who introduced Michelle Obama and Barack Obama were not major figures. They were young people who had been helped by the programs of the post Obama presidency in the Obama Foundation.

And that was both smart and really gratifying to see. But Michelle was absolutely a star for yesterday. Now, I'll say one other just circling back on Obama. I did have a couple of conversations yesterday. And we talked about when I was heading back out of town.

I saw a democratic congressman from Maryland, Gwen Ivy, former prosecutor, very impressive guy.

The plane was late, so we sat down for a while and chatted.

And we were talking about Biden. And I said, you know, the problem there with build back better was one. It's an absolutely meaningless and stupid slogan. That means nothing to anybody. True.

But that the problem was by focusing on the slogan.

It turned it into a horse race for the media.

“It was he wants 3.5 trillion, will he get 1.2 trillion, will he get 2 trillion?”

And what about mansion, who is jerking him around like he's a puppet on a string? And what about cinema? Instead of focusing on what that bill contained, every element of which was wildly popular across the spectrum, free community college.

Subsidized child care, the biggest jobs program we could have right now for all those families struggling to make it a needing to incomes.

And if he had gone, instead of making this about the dollar amounts and a meaningless slogan, if he had gone to Youngstown, Ohio and talked about what subsidized child care could do for working class families. If he had gone to Cincinnati or if he had gone to Morgan Town, West Virginia and talked about what free community college could do for a state where people are struggling. Then the pressure on mansion would have been in a completely different way. But he would have put himself in a position where he was defending something that people wildly wanted instead of something that, you know,

could be caricatured in a different way.

“So that was, I think, a big mistake on the part of the Biden administration.”

They still got the bill. They probably could have done better. But the bill to the public and through the press was viewed as a defeat because he looked weak when mansion was jerking him around. And because he ended up getting less than he'd asked for, which, you know, he still got a shit load of stuff done. So, you know, we got, and we've got a problem now that we have, okay, let's accept that Biden's age and infirmities were a terrible burden.

Biden didn't fall asleep at every cabinet meeting. Biden didn't alienate everybody. Biden didn't show direct signs in the process of doing his job of severe mental decline. This is what we have with Donald Trump. And, you know, we keep this a meme that keeps showing up on social media. Trump at the G7 wandered off from everybody else. He didn't have any idea where he was going. If that had been Biden, 17 journalists would have rushed to call their agents to do a book about it. Instead, it gets shrugged off. Yeah, that just happens. There is such a double standard here. And the degree to which Trump's awfulness is normalized.

Treated like, well, this is just who he is or this is nothing to be concerned about. I find absolutely mad.

“Yeah, I, look, I couldn't agree with you more, and I think we would have been better in all those administrations.”

If we had had you as the Secretary of Common Sense or the Secretary of Spine, because we could use a little more of both of those kind of things. And, of course, the past is the past. You know, I mean, when you watch the Obama thing yesterday, it was hard not to be struck by the fact that Obama came into office 18 years. It was a generation ago. Yeah, it was a very different world, you know, pre, a, a pretty most of smart media, pre, the rise of maga, pre, a lot of things that have developed around the world that accelerated rise of China and so forth.

And so we need different kind of solutions, different generational solutions, but before we get to them, we've got to deal with what we've got. And what we've got is, as you say, a man who is far, far more desecated and then in rapid decline than Biden ever was. Yeah. And, and, and I actually look at this week, and I wonder if you have a similar action, because I feel we're at or nearing a watershed, let's try.

From conception to execution to efforts to extricate himself from it, and the so-called deal is already falling apart today. It's been a Fiasco and it has been such a Fiasco that it is not just to alienate it is critics and not just alienated the world, but the Republican party is starting to be alienated by it.

And there are other shinks in the armor that are forming as a result, Pete Higgs-Seth, who will always be known for overseeing this catastrophe.

Lashed out at NATO over the week during the course of the week and said we're going to look at pulling out and of course Republicans were outraged and they're now turning on. So the right, the left, the center, they're done with Trump. Meanwhile, Trump wanders away, as you say, in the meeting yesterday he did a ceremony with a Medal of Honor winner, where he couldn't figure out how to do the class.

I mean, again, this is one of those things that would have produced a firestorm ride, and he ended up having to tie the thing in a night.

I mean, it was like bizarre. Doesn't he have a staff to come up to him and say, let me help you Mr. President. It was, it was bizarre, but he is fatter. He is tireder half the time it looks like he's had a stroke and half his face is slumping to one side. He has no control over his emotions. He doesn't know the difference between his own lies and the truth.

“He's railing at his party for things it won't give him like the Save America act and so forth. I think Trump's done.”

And I think this is, you know, I mean, it's, you know, he may be around for another two years. Personally, I'd be interested in your view, but personally, I wouldn't, I won't take the upside on that bet. I, you know, he may not be around for two years, but, but, but I think it has another consequence, which is so much of the dialogue and the democratic party probably that you heard in the corridors yesterday is Trump, this trump that trump the other thing. I think Trump's over.

“I think the issues to go back to what I was talking about before are who can unreg the system? Who can actually provide services for people that help them feel like their lives are better?”

Who can actually make the case that they're going to use power for the people who need it rather than for the powerful?

And it seems to me that we're, we're approaching a watershed on this, maybe I'm just being, you know, the Cheerioid optimist, you know, me to be, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are. You're being the Cheerioid optimist. I, so just a couple of thoughts on this, you're certainly right that his standing his deteriorated, I did something this morning saying when you've lost Miriam Adelson, which he has. And you're now getting even the Republican Jewish coalition, which has been at the top of the Licks Middle List for Trump, all based on the idea that he will unleash BB and let him do whatever he wants.

Now, having second thoughts and Republicans in the Senate criticizing the deal Roger Wicker doing a very, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who's responsible for Pete Hankseth as much as anybody, ripping it apart. But having said that and all the talk about how Senate Republicans are furious with him. He pulled a bait and switch on them over the director of national intelligence. First, he said he's going to put Bill Pulti, a thug, utterly unqualified, no intelligence experience, no security clearance.

As the acting director, the Republicans went nuts, he quickly said, okay, I'll pick Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, at least competent, also an election denier.

“Turned around and said, no, you should not, after John Thune, the Senate majority leader had tried everything, including pressure on Democrats, let's get Clayton's nomination through, so we don't have to have Pulti there.”

Trump says, oh no, you pull back that confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, so I can have time with Pulti in there, who will fire a number of the people in the intelligence operation and begin to manufacture evidence to show that there was foreign interference that turned the 2020 election so that he can send the FBI into raid offices and seize.

We're going to hold the confirmation hearing because you nominated him, they said, okay, so we're still dealing with a group of people who are loyal to the cult, even if privately they're bitchy.

And the question is, when and if will there be a tipping point where they finally realize that sticking with this malignant narcissistic psychopath facing serious health issues mental decline, physical decline, maybe this is not what we want to do.

“We're not there yet. The second and very important point is Trump is still in charge of the forces that can devastate America and he will not go quietly into the night.”

He will, as his yet as he gets weaker, lash out even more at everybody he views as a critic and will not hesitate to bring the entire country and world down around him if he is going to go. The third point is watching those who will replace it, if he's gone, J.D. Vance, who lies, I mean, truly one of my favorite epithets, every word out of his mouth including A and B is a lie.

“Thank you, Mary McCarthy, for pointing that phrase about Lily and Helman, and is A moral at best, immoral, more likely.”

Marco Rubio, who is one of the most vial characters I have ever seen, responsible for the deaths of over a million people by presiding over AID and lying about his own role.

And that continues and basically taking positions that are the exact opposite of what he has believed in, trying to cloak himself in moral authority, a shapeshifting, horrible human being. The other one who will be in charge of Trump goes, so please, let's hope we no longer have to deal with the malignant narcissistic psychopath, but to imagine that this is going to lead us to a better place. And there was also a very interesting column today by Paul Krubman, as almost every day brings one, about how Trump now is going to be the leader of the Green Energy Revolution.

“Why he is now spending even more taxpayer money to bribe wind producers who have wind farms about to go turn key saying, "No, I'll give you hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars just to stop doing that."”

And blowing up any opportunity for solar, but what's happening around the world, Spain is the best example, but what everybody is seeing is, with this closure of the straight of hormones, with the disruption and the economy with fossil fuels. Why do we need to rely on those so much anymore? Let's double down on what they can't blockade. They can't blockade the sun, they can't blockade the wind, and if we put more of our resources into expanding solar and wind energy, we're winners here. And instead, the U.S. is going to be a gigantic loser. So he's still doing this shit, even if his standing is declining, if his people are privately grumbling, we're not out of the woods by any stretch, even if he goes not quietly into the night.

I had a moment of optimism there, it's normal. You know, my role here. I knew obliterated it. I can make you feel worse because Bill Coltty, as of today, is the director of national intelligence. So this thug, idiot, tool is running the intelligence community, tells the gathered by the way, on her way out, took the time to take a shot at Fauci and vaccines and so forth, which was just, you know, unbelievable. These people are competing to do as much damage as they can.

I do think one of the interesting twists in all of what you said is, you know, the left first and then the right have become impatient with net Yahoo and the Lakood.

But I never thought Trump would be the one to put the knife into the relationship, but Bibi is now fucking him over on this Iran day.

“And, and that's why it'll send in these others are freaking out.”

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because they still are like pro Lakood, pro Israel at all costs. And it, you know, Trump, Trump could be the one who's just saying, no, we're not going to deal with these guys anymore.

And the suffice that say the message, the people of Israel needs to be this, this is not your father's U.S. Israel relationship anymore.

Every single group that supported you no longer supports you.

“And if you go and do it, you say you're going to do, which is replace net Yahoo, somebody else who has the same policies, it's not going to get any better.”

So, you know, you've got to wake up and smell the coffee because I don't think they have politically either.

You know, it's, it's interesting, Israelis almost across the board.

We're thrilled would Trump got elected because they saw him as, here's the guy who did the Abraham Accords. Here's the guy who moved the embassy to Jerusalem. And he's got our back no matter what. And it's only a matter of time before they say, you know, Biden was actually better for us than Trump was, but there's one thing I'm hoping out of this statement. An advisor to Netanyahu, a little while ago said, "Baby, back into a corner is going to release the Epstein files." And we've always speculated that Epstein was an agent of the Mossad and also an agent of Russia.

And that both Putin and Netanyahu have the full Epstein portfolio, which, and we saw from some of the, it's not excerpts, but the discussions of what's in this new book by two New York Times reporters Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, that they were completely freaked out in the White House. When the demands that they had made in the campaign to release all the Epstein files suddenly were coming to fruition, and they had meetings in the situation room to discuss what they were going to do about it.

Imagine if Trump having screwed over baby, baby gets the final revenge by sending out the Epstein files that show definitively what depredations Trump did on these young women or who knows who else. You know, turn about as fair play here, Norman. I just want to say, "You're trying your best to paint a dark picture." But let me tell you the picture you've just paid it. Donald Trump is going to lead to revitalization of green energy around the world. Donald Trump is going to lead to the United States rethinking the relationship with Israel, which a crown to toxic point. Donald Trump is going to be the person who motivates the release of the Epstein files despite all of his efforts to obscure and hide the.

Donald Trump probably is a result of many of the other things he said is going to usher in a period of massive reform and government and massive anti-corruption reform, much like took place in the late 70s in the wake of Watergate. James Tallarico running in the Senate Texas has said this will be his first his first goal. I think it's the first goal of a lot of these people. So Trump leads to government reform. Trump leads to less corruption. Trump leads to green energy. Trump leads to more rational foreign policy. Let's regard to Israel. You love Trump. You love Trump. You think he's an actor for positive change in the world.

“And it has made you all starry. I'm happy. That's what I see. Okay. So let me say there are some bright side positives here having said that leading the green revolution around the world means leaving the U.S. behind for the moment.”

Yeah, we are. However, regaining our foothold in the next administration assuming there is one and assuming we have elections is going to take a lot of effort and time and money to even get us back to where we might have been. That's what that's true norm, but that's why we're here. Yeah. That's why we're having these conversations every week. So people can go and take notes.

He said if the Democrats are elected, they're going to change the number of states change the structure of the Supreme Court. He's listing. He's afraid. You've got him running scared.

Yes, you know, scared and cornered, a feral animal as at least it's cornered, but that doesn't mean there won't be damage along the way. Yeah, but let's be honest. If there's a fair scared lion in the corner of our house, there's something to be afraid of. But if the lion looks like he's on the verge of a stroke in a heart attack simultaneously, maybe of less to be afraid of.

“Do you think Trump's going to make it out of this term a lot?”

I think it's unlikely given everything else. Now, there are two other things that I want to raise here before we go. Okay.

One is the reflecting pool. Nice, it's to go. How's that going? Great. Did you see the picture of the dude?

“Yes, I did. So we've got an utterly corrupt, convicted felon running a company that has no qualifications whatsoever to do this for a job that was supposed to cost a couple of million.”

Trump gives him a no bid $14 million contract says paint this the blue that I want, which of course any sensible company would have said that's going to reflect the sun and it'll create a problem with algae.

And again, I want to give. We've all become algae specialists in the past week. Well, I want to give props to my friend John Jack Pitney who said, "Well, I have a new term for Trump, algae hiss."

But now, it's not just that they've created a feted swamp in the reflecting pool that doesn't reflect.

“It's that the paint that they've put down is now peeling and coming up days after it was installed, God knows what additional taxpayer money is going to have to go into just repairing this mess.”

Also, they've been desperate to do something about it. They poured in a hydrogen peroxide. They're putting in toxic chemicals. And to anybody who's been down at the reflecting pool, it's also a place where swans and other birds go. So they're going to kill a lot of the wildlife along the way. And it's just another example of the the grift that's involved. I know you have another point you want to make, but first of all, I urge everybody to go find a picture of this dude John Caffarrow who is the, the sleaze bag behind this thing because he is a cartoon character, but to just add the sort of cherry on top of that particular feted mess.

You know, his company is called Greenwater Services. Yeah, it takes me back to when I was a consultant for V. And we'd have these scripts that had, you know, what satire is supposed to do taking reality to an absurd limit. And then we'd have to rewrite the script because what was absurd and happened. Yeah, you could, you could now do a deep today that would take the reality. No, what we, we, I just did a podcast, which will come out on Monday with Mike Damascus, our friend, who's the editor of the new public about his book,

killing baby Hitler. And he projects out into the future. And he wrote this two years a year in Africa, and and he was talking about this bad new government taking over the Lincoln Memorial and turning it into like a martial arts thing. And he's, and he wrote this in the book and they just like, but it's all happened. It's impossible to stay ahead of the curve on satire these days. Yeah, it's very hard days for satirists. So the, the other point, which has a few prawns, is the G7. First, we have Trump, speaking, yeah, we have Trump, speaking from France. And of course, the irony that he signed this member of understanding at first sigh is not lost.

If any previous president and some did had said something that appeared even mildly critical of the United States while abroad, everybody would have jumped on them and stomped them.

“Instead, he says something utterly outrageous and it goes past it, but the bigger point to me is Trump comes out of it and says of the Italian Prime Minister Maloney. She beg me to do a picture. She beg me.”

And then Maloney says, it's a total lie. I would never want a picture with this horrible person, in effect. And it, and it resonated with me for two reasons. One is, of course, the guy is such a serial liar that sometimes you wonder if he could ever say anything truthful.

But the second point is Maloney, who everybody expected was going to be one of his closest allies because she comes out of the right.

Now has become one of his strongest critics, but it's also a sign circling back to where you started with Republicans going against him. That our allies now have had enough that instead of trying to modify this guy because it's the United States and it's rich and it's important recognize that unlike something that BB missed along the way, you kiss this guy's ass and he will destroy you at some point down the road.

“And it will not protect you. It will do exactly the opposite. It kind of reminded me there was a soprano's episode where Tony develops this really nice friendship with a neighbor.”

The guy is terrific. He thinks that they're doing so well together. Dr. Kusimata. Yeah. No, so he insists on being in a poker game with Tony and the other mobsters. And Tony says he really shouldn't do this. He says, oh, yeah, I want to do this. And the guy loses by a huge amount and figures my friend Tony, he'll take care of this. Tony takes care of it by destroying this guy taking over his company taking his house away, leaving him on the streets. And as if any smart person wouldn't have known that just because you think you have a friend here, it ain't going to work that way. And Tony soprano far less corrupt than Donald Trump.

“Absolutely true. But we're making friends with the psychopath. It always comes back to heart. You are a source of wisdom as always and uplift and I feel uplifted and I hope everybody else does.”

I hope everybody has a good weekend and of course we'll be back next week with more of this work. Just we'll be just days away from the 250th anniversary of this country norm. And so we probably should do our annual where you read that your declaration of independence out loud where I home. Yes, the battle him other public in the background.

Yeah, by the way, before we go speaking of which Jennifer Hudson's rendition yesterday of the star-spangled banner was absolutely amazing.

And for those who didn't watch the Obama library ceremonies, the music was itself pretty special. Watch that at least. It'll make you feel better about the country. Yeah, and you know, on a year or two, Obama the musical. It's going to be a huge hit. Norm is going to disappoint. It'll be one of those feel good musicals. But like a jukebox musical of all the great music from the mid teens. Yeah, anyway. All right, everybody. Thanks very much. Thank you, Norm. We'll be back with you again next week. Bye-bye.