Bondi Gets the Boot

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25:47Trump didn't make any news in his Iran speech, but he certainly did the next morning when he announced in a phone call to Fox News, as one does, that he had just fired Attorney General Pam Bondi. Follow that up with a true social post where he said, quote, We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much-needed and important new job in the private sector to be announced at a date in the near future. Not for nothing, I just find it very funny that he has to announce her private sector jobs. Does she belong to him forever? I think this is because in the Peter Doocy interview with Trump, It seems like Trump told Peter Doocy that she would be getting another job in the administration.

26:27Oh, so we had to clear it up. He had to clear that up, yeah, because Peter Doocy reported it would be in the administration. And then he got her transitioning wrong. Yeah. So it looks like Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, president's former defense lawyer, personal lawyer, will now be the acting attorney general. During Pam's year plus as attorney general, she distinguished herself by one, weaponizing the DOJ to go after her boss's perceived enemies. Two, executing that vision poorly. And three, bungling the release of the Epstein files so badly that it became a massive political liability for the president that stayed in the news for longer than maybe any other scandal of the Trump era.

27:05Oh, for sure. Not even close. Close to Russia, but Russia had a lot of twists and turns. This was like sustained. This lasted longer than Trump's involvement in an armed insurrection that almost murdered members of Congress. Yes, I do remember that. I recall. It did vaguely happen. not too long before he was elected president again, but it did happen. So I guess my question is why now on Bondi? I remember when we were in Australia in February. Yeah. And that's when she did the big hearing where she talked about the Dow above 50 ,000. Yeah. Since then, went below 50 ,000 and now she's out. So there you go.

27:40That's fair, there you go. But I remember talking about like, is he going to fire her now, whatever. It seems like it's a month and a half later. She hasn't been in the news all that much. Yeah. So I think there are a couple things going on here. First, I think the orderly fascism of Trump's second term has been, has reverted to the chaotic fascism of Trump's first term. He, like, he, he knows things are not going well. He's sort of lashing out all over the place. He's doing sort of crazy things left and right. And I think firing people is, that's real first term Trump behavior is. So that's one.

28:15It's like comfort food. yeah exactly so that's one it's kind of it's his it's his blankie yes his blankie because he's going back to his apprentice thing that's the way he knows you know and then this but I think the second thing going on here is that no one pulls a band-aid off slower than Donald Trump and so what he tends to do yeah there's been stories about him thinking about getting rid of her for like a month and so what he like Christy Noma is what happened with Christy Noma is very similar to what happened to Pampani which is a massive scandal happens Trump Trump sticks with him through the scandal, takes on all the water of that scandal, waits till the scandal is out of the news and then fires them, bringing the scandal back in the news, but getting none of the actual credit for responding to the scandal and holding someone accountable.

28:59Well, like if Trump had fired Kristi Noem right after the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretty and the smearing of them. Right. That would have, he would have gotten a little, he would have seemed responsive to something. He held someone accountable. Instead, he gave him a pat on the back, said he was sticking with him, waited till later and fired him. Same thing with Pam Bonney. I also think the here, the congressional hearing probably helped her. That probably bought her time. I saw some detail in one of the stories that, um, that he actually thought that she was, he liked that she was combative with the Democrats.

29:31After all, they were like, oh, is this going to be the end for Pan Bond? You know, it's like, no, he liked it. Yeah, she knew what she was doing there. I saw, I think the New York Times story said that she spent much of the last day making her case to stay. What a sad, sad, pathetic thing. Just imagine selling every bit of your integrity to Trump. Every bit. Every bit. And then getting fired for not executing on his corruption well enough. Which, I think I'd say this, in Pam Bondi's defense, by the way, like, I do not think she failed to execute Donald Trump's agenda at DOJ just because of her own incompetence.

30:15I'm not saying that she is competent, but like, the problem goes beyond anything that Pam Bondi or any of the stooges he installed at DOJ can fix. The problem is the judges and the juries who are like, these cases are crazy. You don't have a case against any of these people. You just hate them. Yes. On that part of that is true. The other thing that happened in the news recently that probably got her in hot water with Trump again was the announcement that the Department of Justice was going to stop trying the case on the law firms. Oh, yeah. And let all the law firms off the hook who did not agree with the Trump settlement.

30:51And then Trump got very mad about that. And then like an hour later, they had to announce they were going back in to continue to fight that case you see the pro publica story last week too that the uh doj uh has basically under bondi and trump um just stopped prosecuting 20 000 criminal cases because they've spent so much time on all of trump's fucking weird priorities whether it's you know uh getting his you know going after his enemies all the other bullshit the doj so yeah immigration stuff yeah that was that was most of it sorry uh so it's like yeah they've there's still you know good time to be a criminal if you're not uh if you're not an immigrant good time to be a certain type type of criminal right a certain type of yeah white collar criminal for sure yeah there's some reporting that what finally uh did bondi in was an allegation that she tipped off congressman eric swalwell who's running for governor in california about an fbi investigation concerning him now this is a very old fbi investigation from 2015 basically the fbi notified swalwell that an associate of his might be a suspected Chinese spy.

31:51When he was notified, he broke ties with that person. And then the FBI investigated and nothing ever came of it. This was what, 10 years ago now. I guess they were going to release the files. Yeah, it's clearly, I mean, it's so obviously, oh, he's running for governor. Let's release the files. Maybe there's something in the files that will embarrass him because we couldn't bring a criminal case against him. I find this one hard to believe because in the story, it says that there's a, I think it's in the independent I can't remember, but the story says that a source close to the White House says that Bondi notified Swalwell due to their personal friendship.

32:28It's the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's intervening in those matters. The White House wasn't pleased she was intervening due to her personal friendship with Swalwell, the source added. And then it says, it is unclear why Bondi would have intervened, but it is believed that Bondi and Swalwell have a friendly relationship. There is not a chance that someone like Pam Bondi, who would carve out her own soul with a spork for Donald Trump, is going to feel so loyal to Eric Swalwell that she's going to tip him off on something like this. I don't know if I believe that one either.

32:58In Swalwell, his office put out a statement saying, absolutely not. No one tipped us off. No one in the government let us know this was happening at all. And honestly, the best thing that could happen to Eric Swalwell as he runs for governor in a crowded primary in California is being targeted by Donald Trump. For sure. Just ask Senator Adam Schiff how that went for him. I also noticed that the House Democrats are saying she still has to test. She has a scheduled appearance in the House Oversight Committee about Epstein. And they're saying she still has to do it. Yeah, and I kind of imagine that Comer will want that too.

33:27Yeah, probably. Because he had to subpoena her to get her there. Let's talk about Bondi's potential replacement. I've seen reports that Trump wants EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. I've heard Jeanine Pirro might be an option. I saw a report that some Republican senators want Mike Lee. God help us. What do you think the chances are that there will be a real confirmation fight for whoever this is in the Senate? And do you have ideas on why he might want any of the people I just named or who it might be? Well, first, let's start with how long Blanche can serve. Blanche can stay as acting for 210 days.

34:04Oh, boy. Now, here's what I would say to that. One is, I'm not sure who enforces the Vacancies Act, but I'm not sure. Sounds like it's probably Todd Blanch. Yeah, so I think that he could probably stay longer than that if he wants. And there is actually some legitimate questions about whether that 210-day clock applies to the Attorney General, because in the specific language around the Department of Justice, that 210 day is not in there. But either way, in a normal course of business, he could stay for about, in acting secretary, he could stay for about 210 days. Not really sure why Trump wants Lee Zeldin.

34:32um lee zeldin was a jag officer in the military during his career but he's never actually worked in traditional prosecution and law enforcement so he would have very little experience for the job cool um so i'm not sure he would be there's not a unlike the deep wall of experience he has uh with the environment well well he's hated it for a long time so yeah okay um so not really clear it's not really clear what trump wants there it's in all the stories that he has mentioned lee zeldin none of the stories say why he's mentioned Lee Zeldin. I'm sure Trump doesn't fully understand. I'm sure it's how he looks.

35:08Yeah. He probably did like one good thing that's stuck in Trump's adeline. And that good thing is an interview on Fox News. Mike Lee, I think that is directly related to Republican senators wanting to spend less time with Mike Lee. That's funny. It's a joke I saw from a lot of it from earlier YouTube, but the same reason other Republican senators keep wanting to put Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court. I mean, well, the Mike Lee thing is funny because I just read a story, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago that Republican colleagues in the Senate are like pissed at Mike Lee because he's fucking crazy.

35:34Yeah, these two things are exactly related. Because you know what you have to do when you're in the Senate? You have to have lunch with your colleagues every single week. Yeah, so definitely promote that person to a position of near absolute power as Trump's attorney general. That's responsible. You know what? It's going to be a bad person under all scenarios. You might as well stop having lunch with Mike Lee. I mean, in terms of the confirmation fight, like you got Tillis who, you know, he's got a very powerful position in this. He's already said, what is he blocking because of the Jerome Powell investigation?

36:06The new Fed chair? The new Fed, yeah. Oh, there's a new Fed chair. That's what it is, yeah. And I think he could stand in the way of this. There's, you know, if it's a real crazy person, does Susan Collins want to vote for the crazy person? I think this is a Mark Wayne Mullin. You think so? I think the next, the person who replaces Pam Bonney is going to get the job the same way Pam Bondi got it, which is being somewhat other than the purpose before then. The only reason Pam Bondi got confirmed easily is because she's not Matt Gaetz. And so Mark Wayne Mullet. He's had a long line of attorneys general that he's been unhappy with.

36:35You got your Bill Bars, your... Who's he? Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions. Yes. Oh my gosh. I forgot that was the original. Yeah, Jeff Sessions to that interim guy to... Do you think it's something that all these people have in common or is it you? Look, it's bad luck. You know, it happens. Well, that's the thing. Lee Zeldin's not going to be able to get the Justice Department to prosecute the people that he wanted Pam Bondi to prosecute that she hasn't been able to prosecute yet. All of this stuff is interesting, but not that significant. We talked about this with Chrissy Noem and Mark Wayne Mullen.

37:12It's probably true that Mark Wayne Mullen is not having an affair with Karori Lunodowski. So that's not going to be an issue in this situation. But other than that, it's still the same policies. But if that's what it took to get the job, he would. Allegedly. Allegedly. It's just my opinion. There was a story this morning in The Guardian that Trump might be looking to fire Tulsi Gabbard next. Since we talked about discussing this one, advisors close to Trump told Jennifer Jacobs at CBS that originally Trump had the idea of moving Bondi to director of national intelligence. Maybe this is what Peter Doocy was talking about.

37:50But now Trump said he wants Tulsi Gabbard to stay in that position. And then I think the White House, through Stephen Chung, just put out a statement that was like, it's all it's a lie. Of course, we want to keep Tulsi Gabbard. Well, if Stephen Chung said it. But it was more it was not like the the lukewarm Pam Bondi statement from yesterday that like she is good. She did a good job. This one. This one was more a little punchy. Yeah, I I'm confident that neither Trump nor anyone around him likes Tulsi Gabbard. I just think the job is fake. it's a job created after 9-11 it doesn't I don't think it really has to matter that much in this situation so if you just want to ignore the DNI as he has done like she doesn't go to anything he doesn't meet with her doesn't talk to her we went to war without speaking to her he invaded Venezuela as she was on a beach a lot of those post 9-11 moves really coming back to bite us in the ass now yeah you mean like the Iraq war yes DHS DNI yeah all of it

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39:45So Trump's reverence for the law and the legal system was on full display this week when he gave himself a literal front row seat to the Supreme Court hearing on his executive order to end birthright citizenship. The first president ever to attend a session of the high court, presumably to intimidate the justices he recently accused of treason. Not sure it worked. Here are some of the conservative justices peppering Trump's solicitor general with pretty skeptical questions during oral arguments. Do you think Native Americans today are birthright citizens under your test and under your friend's test?

40:16I think so. I mean, I'm just going to grant citizenship by statute. Put aside the statute. Do you think they're birthright citizens? We're in a new world now, as Justice Alito pointed out to, where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child as a U.S. citizen. Well, it's a new world. It's the same constitution. Burn. Take that. That's the closest thing you get to, a real burn from John Roberts. Were you surprised by anything in the oral arguments? I was surprised that Trump went. Yeah, let's start there. Let's start there. Like, think about - What a fucking bozo, though. This is my - Like, I saw that, and he's like, this is the worst thing.

40:49But I'm like, you know what? Go for it, man. You think these fuckers who have lifetime appointments are going to be intimidated by the 35 % approval, lame duck, second-term president? It probably - Just let's go through the decision-making process here, which is we're at war. Gas prices are high. People are really mad about the economy. And when you decide that your high profile public appearance that day should be to attend a Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship that almost every legal expert in the world says you're going to lose. You know what I love about it? Is just so crazy it could work?

41:26No. It's that I bet anything that the person who convinced him to do this was Stephen Miller. and I bet when he walked out of that courtroom, Donald Trump, he probably said to himself or maybe said it out loud to Stephen Miller, what the fuck did you make me do that for? Because there's no way Donald Trump left thinking that what he did was that was a good idea. Well, he left in the middle, so. Because he probably listened, first of all, he probably couldn't understand a lot of the words they were saying, but he was, I bet he could tell it wasn't going well. Yeah, even he could probably figure that out and then, so that's the political communications aspect of this decision.

42:01Let's talk about the legal aspect of the decision to do it. Do you remember when the fate of the Affordable Care Act hung in the hands of Justice Anthony Kennedy? And Barack Obama used to make a joke all the time how he was going to mow his lawn, wash his car. And then someone, I don't think they heard directly from Kennedy, but they sort of knew Kennedy, told Obama to stop making that joke because that, like, being seen as if you were trying to. Did he make that joke in public? All the time, yeah. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so or at least in enough places, like not just in the office, he was making that events.

42:34And so enough that it would get back to Kennedy. And so this person who was close to Kennedy told Obama. That's a bad idea, because if it looks like you're trying to unduly influence the court, it's probably going to push them in the opposite direction. And so we stopped making that joke. And that is like a tiny little bit humorous bit of putting your thumb on the scale. Here you have Trump sitting in the front row trying to stare them down like when, you know, in a wire reference, like when Avon Barksdale would go to the hearings and just like look at the witnesses, like same thing. And it's obviously not going to work.

43:06It makes the justices look ridiculous. And so if you're sitting on the fence of your justice, so like, am I really going to go down this pretty ridiculous path? And now it's going to look not only like I don't understand the law, look like I did Trump's bidding because he was there. Not going to work. Not going to work. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's going to go well for them. You know, I think the justices also, especially some of the conservative justices, also asked the ACLU's lawyer some, like, tough questions as well. But you didn't have to listen to much of it or even be a legal expert to know that it was going badly just because, like, the unworkability of what they're asking for here, right?

43:42Like at one point they're like, okay, well, you say that the executive order is perspective so that anyone born from here on out now, there's no birthright citizenship. But like, how do you make that work for all the people before? Like, what do you – so now everyone is just going to have to go prove their citizenship and prove that they were born before. Like what is – this is – it is the most unworkable, crazy fucking executive order. and I just can't, I mean, I'm sure you'll get like Alito or Thomas or whatever, but I don't know, or maybe some partial victory from the dissenting judges, I guess.

44:18But like, I don't know how anyone looks at that and thinks that like, you know, you can just overturn the 14th Amendment. And not for nothing. It's been a while since I've seen polling on this, but when Trump first reposed this last year, it was a 75, 80 % opposition to the idea. I mean, as Robert's asked, he's like, so the cases that you're talking about, which is like birth tourism or, you know, what happens if there's an invading army and a child born from a member of the invading army? Are they essentially, he's like, strikes me as some quirky examples. Yes. It's like, yeah, no, I think that's probably right.

44:54So Trump sent out his usual bitchy truth about the court right after he left, but he reserved his angriest reaction for another court when a judge appointed by George W. Bush ruled later in the day that Trump can't start construction on his White House ballroom, his pride and joy, the only thing he cares about unless Congress approves it first. The judge said, quote, no statute comes close to giving the president the authority he claims to have. You just say that about anything. Trump presidency. How badly do you want to see Republicans in Congress take that vote? I would love, just love to see them vote on it.

45:27They would flee town to avoid it. Put it in the supplemental. Put it in the$200 billion for Iran when you're cutting health care. Just throw it in that one. I mean, these fucking yahoos who clearly want to be in the minority so bad probably would propose cutting ACA funding to pay for the ballroom. I didn't think that anyone would stop him on the ballroom, but I don't know. I was looking. I'm like, okay, maybe this could be. I assume this is one court order that he might just ignore. I mean, he already knocked down the East Wing. It's a little bit like putting the toothpaste back on the tube. Yeah, we should maybe respond a little faster here, courts.

46:04I'm not really sure what the remedy is here. Just we have to leave a hole in the ground. What is the remedy? Yeah. I guess then maybe the remedy is that Congress would have to approve something. They would have to come to some kind of agreement on what they could build in that space, besides the fucking eyesore of a monstrosity that we saw in the New York Times last week. Yeah, I don't know. But just leaving the hole there for a while will be fun. Yeah, that'll be good. And by the way, I'm now on board with the next Democratic president bulldozing the whole thing. Oh, no, that's no, no. After seeing what it looks like in the Times and the stairs to nowhere and the windows that aren't windows and like the fact that it's like three times as big as the actual White House residence.

46:51Like this isn't like, oh, Trump did it, but it's a ballroom and it's a good space and whatever else and it looks fine. Like, let's leave it. Who cares? This is like, what? Come on, it's the White House. You're going to just build like another White House three times as big stacked onto the side, except it's like super tacky because it's from Donald Trump. Anyway. I don't know. Not top of my agenda. Are you going to make it a litmus test for Democratic primary candidates? Yeah, it's like APAC. yeah yes you gotta demolish the ballroom it's first and foremost filibuster oh yeah we can do a crooked questionnaire that's perfect that's perfect no if you send it in with third eliminate eliminate the filibuster demolish the ballroom uh so trump's other passion project as of late is uh making it harder for americans to vote uh and now that the save act isn't passing congress anytime soon uh he did what we all expected and he just signed an executive order version of the law which isn't how this works.

47:45But nevertheless, the EO directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of eligible voters using Social Security data and send each state their list before every federal election. It then directs the Postal Service to send mail-in or absentee ballots only to the names on that list. States that don't comply would lose federal funding. Constitution explicitly gives states the power to run their own elections. But at the signing ceremony, Trump seemed pretty confident about this move. Take a listen. I don't know how it can be challenged. He'll probably challenge it. You may find a rogue judge.

48:19You've got a lot of rogue judges, very bad, bad people, very bad judges. But that's the only way that can be changed. And hopefully, well, we don't appeal if it is, but I don't see how anybody can challenge it. I don't see how they can challenge it. So Oregon and Arizona immediately said they'd be suing. The challenges happened right away as well. A bunch of other groups, Democratic parties, everyone's challenging it. Earlier this year, Trump said Republicans should nationalize and take over elections. What do you think about this? Like this did not strike fear into my heart. Like maybe it should have, but I was just like, this is going to be immediately rejected.

48:58Yeah. This doesn't strike fear in my heart as well. It seems pretty clearly in line with all the other things the courts have thrown out that Trump has wanted to do. And my general fear about election interference from Trump is not grand gestures from the White House, like nationalized elections, canceling elections, banning mail ballots via executive fiat. It's smaller scale use of ICE or to intimidate voters having ICE do patrols in certain precincts. If the Texas Senate race is closed, you can see ICE all of a sudden showing up in the Latino precincts of Houston or San Antonio or in the Rio Grande Valley counties and all of the above.

49:38I'm worried about them seizing the machines. Yeah, on the back end. I'm worried about most of the back end stuff. Yeah, and the thing that I worry about a lot is, and this usually would have to be a very narrow, narrow house majority for it to matter, would be the failure to seat a member of Congress over. Like this is to the extent that this stuff matters, it's all the claims of fraud leads to an environment where they can say that in this close race, there's enough clouds that we, the Republican majority, won't see the one individual who would give Democrats the majority. But that's a very black swan event to get to the one seat holding us from the majority.

50:16Yeah. I feel like this will be struck down in short order.

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51:48Quick update on what appears to be a fittingly stupid end to the partial shutdown of Department of Homeland Security that's caused chaos at airport security lines. Last time we checked in, House Republicans had just rejected the Senate's plan, which passed by unanimous consent, to fund all of DHS except immigration enforcement. Then Congress left town for a two-week recess, and then they were followed around everywhere they went by TMZ. Now, just a few days later, House Republican leaders apparently decided to cave. Oh, notice I said of House Republican leaders apparently decided to cave, saying that they'll go along with the Senate's partial funding plan and then try to fund ICE and Customs and Border Patrol with a budget reconciliation bill, which only needs Republican votes, which was, of course, the Senate's plan all along.

52:32Only problem is the Congress is still in recess until April 14th. So Trump announced on Thursday that he would, quote, soon sign an order to pay all of the incredible employees, the Department of Homeland Security and not just TSA. today of the right before recording i heard that um mike johnson on a call with his caucus he's just facing an uproar hardliners moderates everyone else everyone's just pissed because mike johnson called it a crap sandwich um before just last week and now he's saying i don't know what else we can do sometimes you have to eat the crap sandwich that's part of being congress yeah that is true do you think like how did they fuck this up so badly mike johnson's the one person in America who could make Kevin McCarthy look like a competent legislator.

53:14I mean, he's just, he's, Mike Johnson is both dumb and weak. Yeah. Like what's worth remembering, he's an accidental speaker. He wasn't even particularly high up in leadership or had any real role. He just happened to be a guy so inoffensive that you could get an exhausted majority to vote for him. Yeah. And so you end up with lowest common denominator leadership. And so he listened to the far right, rejected this thing, had no plan for what came next. It was obviously the only way to solve this problem was to do what the Senate did. And instead he decided, you know what? I know the Democrats are the ones who shut down the problem of Homeland Security.

53:53I know that there are lines everywhere. People are really pissed about it. I am going to take full ownership of this and then go on recess. I'm wondering now if he can put down the rebellion that he's or just like quiet the anger right now because like again i don't know how else they would fund dhs if they don't go along no there's no there's no there's no other plan this is it they're gonna have to do it they went through all the iterations and and if they don't do it it just they're not i mean i think the reason why they that johnson caved is like they tried to blame this on the democrats and were like senate republicans who who went along with this plan i think they're having regrets now i think they're having second thoughts but like there's no way to pin this on the Democrats.

54:35Yeah. So they would just own the shutdown. Yeah. I do think like the Democrats won the shutdown, right? Yes. I think it's fair to say Democrats won the political battle over the shutdown. Yeah. They, what they said from the beginning was fun. One, we're not going to fund ICE unless you do reforms. We will, however, fund the rest of DHS and do that. Do that. They probably said, no, we won't do that. We won't do that. We won't do that. Democrats won that battle. The thing that they have not won our reforms to ICE. Right. Right. So like politically, which again, is not surprising because like you can't, the only way you can reform ICE is if you have the votes to reform ICE and we don't have a majority in either house.

55:15So all we can do is say, if you don't make our reforms, then we're not going to vote to fund it. And which is what we did. And what matters in the end here is that we win the majority and therefore have a ton of leverage because a bill can't leave the house without a speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, allowing it to come to the floor. Yes. We win the house. this is a completely different dynamic, even if it's over the same general issue. Yeah. And I do think just, it goes to show both Trump and the Republicans' weakness. Just imagine this scenario a year ago. Yeah. Seven months or whatever it is before the election, the Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security.

55:47Probably because I was, and I would have been for it, you know, and you would have been like, you're an idiot. Yeah. Well, then it would have been true. But to defund, not defund, but like they shut down Department of Homeland Security over ICE funding, would have thought that that was the Democrats doing the dumbest thing possible. And they end up with the political high ground here. It says a lot about just how the politics have changed. All right. Two final, very important items to discuss. The first is a huge update that I'll just let you hear about from trusted newsman, Brett Baer. Kristi Noem is asking for privacy and prayers tonight.

56:23She's said to be devastated by a report alleging her husband has been what is being called a cross-dressing double life. Senior International correspondent Rich Edson has details tonight. Good evening, Rich. Good evening, Brett. Daily Mail alleges it obtained hundreds of messages between Brian Noem and three women involved in a site where men cross-dress. The Mail posted several of these photos and writes, Brian Noem allegedly sent women in the community$25 ,000 in virtual payments. The publication says Brian Noem did not deny the explicit conversations, but says he never put national security at risk.

56:56All kinds of stories today.

57:03I had not watched that clip. I saved it for this and fuck, that was good. All kinds of stories today. Absolutely. So since the release of the Daily Mail's reporting on Tuesday, at least one performer specializing in, quote, sissy sub and bimbofication has publicly come forward to claim she was paid$5 ,000 by Bryon. Her name's Bryon, but it's B-R-Y-O-N. I heard Tim Miller calling him Brian the whole time and now I can't get out of my head. Over the last two years, telling the Daily Beast, quote, there is no way in hell that Christine Ohm didn't know. Per the Daily Beast, Brian Ohm wanted the performer specifically to, quote, instruct him to bend over Archer's back, spank him, oh, you guys didn't need to put all this in.

57:50And show off what she describes as the largest prosthetic breasts she's ever seen on a client. Okay. A lot of different ways we could take this.

58:01I've told you before, I would not kink shame you for bimbofication because I know this is a thing for you. A word I learned from you this morning. You didn't know what it was before, right? No. I didn't even, I... I read the story, I was like, what is this? I don't believe, is this a thing? I knew that there was a cross-dressing scandal with Brian Noem via some texts I got because I was not really reading the news. Just not like... Not before the story, bro. No, no, no, no, no, no. Are you the source? Yes. In the last 48 hours or whatever it was. But I did not read any of them. Oh, yeah. And then just when I looked at the outline for this morning, it just had a subcontinent that said bimboification.

58:41And I was like, I didn't know it was the same thing. So I learned about it in real time. I will say my take on this is you're the spouse of a Homeland Security secretary. And you're getting into stuff that if it's public can embarrass you, your spouse. Opportunity for blackmail. Blackmail. Even if it's just like public embarrassment, like you're you just you can't be doing that stuff, you know. But aside from that, you know, she's the one who she's going to put him in this horrible. She's been clearly cheating on him, allegedly. Yes. And we're almost having to drop allegedly at this point. But she's like for just openly the whole country knows for years, for years.

59:22She was asked about it at a hearing where he was sitting right behind her. So he's dealing with that. And now he's dealing with this. So you get you feel a little bit for for Brian. Yeah. But not so much Christine Ome because like she I want her to be more. What about thoughts and prayers? She's the one who really sucks. Yeah. She's the one who like, you know, sent people to a fucking torture chamber in El Salvador and then fucking posed for a picture in front of it. Yeah. I have some questions about the vetting process at the White House and the FBI and the Senate. Yeah. I was going to say that the FBI.

59:53I guess they did. I don't think they did background checks. I think the Trump would not let the FBI do background checks on his nominees. because he thought that they were too anti-insurrection. I'm not entirely sure. Wow. Trump was asked about it too, which is, I would love to hear someone explaining bimbofication to Trump. So if you're that mole who's posting the live streams, can we get one of those? I would like, yeah. He was asked briefly about it and he was just like, it is interesting how like Kristi Noem and everything, like I'm asking for prayers and privacy at this time. Yeah, what about him?

1:00:25Yeah, it's very, like, why not all of them just be like, no, we're not responding to the story, like, get away, nothing, and just, like, leave it at that. This is her chance to bring her Corey Lewandowski-alleged relationship to the forefront. Maybe it was Lewandowski that pushed this whole thing around. Allegedly. Theoretically. We don't know. That's why I said maybe. Maybe. Anyway, we'll just leave that there. Yeah. Poor Brian. Finally. Should the title of this pod be Brian's song?

1:00:59so you may have seen the viral videos of kid rock saluting and clapping on the pool deck of his mansion outside nashville as two apache attack helicopters hovered just overhead apparently attempting some kind of counter programming to the no kings march happening nearby um those helicopters appeared to be from fort campbell an army base over the border in kentucky and the army immediately said it would look into it later announcing that the two crews had been suspended. As the investigation continued, Kid Rock told local reporters, I think they're going to be all right. My buddy's the commander-in-chief, of course.

1:01:34Sure enough, Trump got a question about it in the Oval Office, said he'd take a look because they like Kid Rock. I like Kid Rock. Maybe they were trying to defend him at his mansion in Nashville. A couple hours later, Pete Hegseth posted, Thank you, Kid Rock. U.S. Army pilot suspension lifted. No punishment, no investigation. Carry on, patriots. with an American flag emoji. What a fucking asshole. Such a goober. I don't know. What do you think of this story? I, like, it did not register as a big deal to me until Reed wanted us to cover it. And then I started reading about it. I'm like, yeah, this is really fucked up and crazy.

1:02:11And the fact that it barely registers, including with me, someone who talks about the news all the time, just goes to show, like, how down the rabbit hole we are. I would just say as a piece of advice to Kid Rock, those helicopter pilots all on the right, that if perhaps your response to a rally that suggests that Trump wants to be a king and dictator should not be a show of military force. Yeah. Also, what kind of goobers were like, we got to find Kid Rock. I think his mansion's up here. Let's like fly by and maybe he'll wait. Is that what the thing is? That it was like, they just, they were just hoping he was on the pool deck.

1:02:49It was like a Hollywood star tour? He was on the pool deck. They thought, I was hoping he was on the pool deck. Yeah, like what if he wasn't there? But did he know they were coming? That's what, I don't know. I'd love to know all about this. You know what, actually? Democratic majority. You think this is a good one? You know what? I'm going to send someone to South Dakota. I'm going to send someone to Nashville. I'm going to get to the bottom of all this. I did on this South Dakota thing, did see, there was like a clip of the Reason podcast, I think, like expressing libertarians, expressing some sympathy for Byron, Noam, on this.

1:03:21And then Dave Weigel quote tweeted and said, it was right sympathy that helped fuel Hillary Clinton's run for Senate in 2000. There is an acting governor of South Dakota right now, Larry Rodin. Oh, they could not. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's because it's replaced Noam when Noam. Oh, interesting. So maybe Byron can get his sweet revenge by running for governor. You know what? But I hope he has another turn to the wheel as a MAGA influencer. Or maybe not. It would be nice if he came over to the good side. But I hope that Byron found some kind of happiness. I hope he can live his life. The thoughts and prayers for Byron.

1:04:00It is true that I heard some people say this. You can't feel too bad for him because he stayed married to Christine Ohm as she went on this reign of terror as the ice queen and never said anything. as people's rights were being trampled. So there is that. Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying he's a perfect... He did show up at the hearing to support his wife. Well, I was going to say sitting in the cuck chair, I feel bad. The guy's just... Yes. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. We're done. Kid Rock, bad. Byron, eh. Okay. That's our show for today. Love will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with Senator Cory Booker.

1:04:41You think he's going to ask Senator Booker about bimbification? given the volume of laughter happening outside the studio as we were recording perhaps he did perhaps it was raised yes well tune in Sunday to find out have a good weekend everyone bye everyone if you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast Substack YouTube or Apple Podcasts also please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production Our producer is Saul Rubin.

1:05:15Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Cherlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellaviv, David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.