So he did it-- Trump did this to Lindsey Graham, what was it, ten years ago?

I think six weeks after Trump announced his run in June of twenty fifteen, and then in July of twenty fifteen, he, at a rally, he reads Lindsey-- Lindsey Graham was running for president at the time.

I know because I have this very old Lindsey Graham for President twenty sixteen.

It's starting to rust through.

I have a Richard Nixon one that's, you know, five times as old, and it's not all rusty, so.

So he re- he read Graham's phone number, and right when that happened, um, I was working at a, a small publication that's not as, you know, successful and great place to be as The Bulwark is now.

I was a, you know, young reporter, and I immediately go, "We need to do something about this." So I'm like, "What if we take him shopping for a new cell phone and test out new ones?" Quickly decided that was stupid and boring.

How angry are these guys about Trump?

I'm curious if that has come up in your own reporting, talking with some of these lawmakers or the people who work on campaigns for them.

Yeah, so early in the week, I kind of was thinking, this midterm convention, th- the whole purpose of it is to promo- for, for Trump to promote himself.

And so I figured, you know what, who should I ask? The vulnerable Republicans, 'cause this is, you know, they're competing with, you know, NFL opening weekend.

You know, Trump, well, maybe that's by design.

Maybe then fewer people will see it.

But they, they, you know, they get f- you know, free primetime airtime on all the big cable networks, uh, who decide to carry it.

Fox will, so that's their target audience.

[laughs]

Let's start at the top and work our way down, because I feel like there's all sorts of different things going on, uh, with this Ken Paxton fit.

So he's got the Four Seasons Dri-FIT golf polo on untucked, which many men wear golf polos, um, casually.

That's normal, but, you know, untucked, and then clearly probably needed an undershirt.

And then he's got the, you know, slim, ill-fitting pants.

A large object in the pocket.

We'll get to that later when I go conspiracy mode.

And then the shoes, which he is...

No

Long story short, Stacy Garrity running for governor of Pennsylvania, not, not like House, where she's saying, "I'm gonna vote for everything that he wants." Like, she's running for governor of the state ba- saying basically, "Whatever Trump wants, I will do." That's kind of alarming if you get into a situation in 2028 like we had in 2020.

Yeah, you look at, like, um, chain of possession on ballots and things like that or, or managing recounts or deciding whether or not the elections are certified at the state level.

The fact that Garrity is one of five election deniers running for governor right now, you know, she doesn't look like she's poised to win, but it could only take one.

And so it is very concerning to see someone like her.

She got the nomination because Donald Trump told the Republican voters of Pennsylvania, "Make her the nominee." That is basically how he's usurped the kind of state party system.

Yeah.

He lost two Senate races in a row, which usually is, you know, take the hint.

We're not gonna elect you statewide when that happens.

It's hard to imagine them just now letting this piece of legislation die 50 feet from the finish line.

I, I'm a little skeptical of we've seen it floated around on Twitter that, you know, well, if Trump doesn't do anything, the bill becomes law in 10 days.

Uh, that's not true.

Johnson has to present the bill to him.

Johnson is notorious for doing exactly what Trump tells him to do.

So that's up in the air.

In the event he does, if he vetoes it, if Trump vetoes something, which we've seen before, all of a sudden that changes the structure of who's willing to vote for it.

Are they aware of the affordability bill, you know, this, this housing bill even being, uh, on the table? Like, is it, is it just a, a, uh, point of propaganda that has been taken away from Republicans because they could have run on it in the fall, or is it a point of propaganda against Republicans, like voters will actually be aware of this whole drama and will hold it against Republicans? And that I don't have a great handle on right now.

[laughs]

And he just kind of nods and falls down with the plane.

And this is what's happening here.

It happens all the time with Trump, is that he can never fail.

He is only failed by others.

Somebody either willingly becomes the fall guy, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro literally went to prison for Donald Trump, or they become the fall guy because they accidentally walked into it, and then they find themselves With no way out.

And it was very apparent early on this week when details of the deal started leaking, and you could tell senators, most of whom are longtime Iran hawks who probably wanted this war to continue despite the economic pain, that they didn't like it.

JCPOA, one of the worst deals.

I, I'd love to get your take.

So [sighs] I can't even think of how many times I've hit the bench in my life.

Been working out since I was 16, so like 20 years.

When he's going, he's, like, on a tilt from the start, which makes me think maybe he's got some shoulder problems that he hasn't addressed.

And when you're going real fast like that, like, you never see people do that at an actual gym.

That's, like, what troops do when they're bonding or, like, competing with each other, or if you go to, like, a CrossFit thing.

CrossFitters are weird and like to do things, um, that would make injury very likely.

Varies by state.

Um, is that what happened? Is that, i- in your estimation, what happened? Do you think if, if Pete Hegseth had not gone down and Donald Trump had not done that, do you think Massie would have won or do you think the other guy would have won anyways?

So they, they had been...

They, Trump world, had been opposed to Massie for years, but it really took on a new life after the Epstein file stuff.

The fact that he just did not give up and he kept hammering at it and he didn't accept when Mike Johnson said, "Well, actually the oversight committee is gonna do their own thing," he said very clearly, "Anything that, like, James Comer is doing is actually being managed by the White House, so it's not clear, and it's a broken promise and you have to get it released." And the fact that he didn't give up and he was successful and put all of these Republicans, with the exception of one, Clay Higgins, into a bind in which they all voted to release the files, almost unanimous, that really pissed them off.

Because it didn't just, you know, go against what the president wanted to do, it didn't just, like, give him a political wound, it also showed that with enough, like, will and enough coalition building, like Lauren Boebert and Ro Khanna and the entirety of House Democrats, that- that's a weird coalition of people, and it showed that they're...

If he can build it a big enough coalition, they actually can force the administration to do things or not do things, and they have to nip that in the bud right away because they can't allow things like that to snowball.

We've seen a little bit of it-Last week, they got enough signatures for the discharge petition for Ukraine aid, but that didn't get the same kind of media attention or the, um, aggressiveness that doing something like the Epstein files did.

Right?

I mean, surely even though they have sort of cleverly gotten the judge out of the loop here, uh-Congress itself as a body is not powerless to, to touch something like this

Congress can do almost anything it wants, especially when it comes to things like money and where government money is spent.

Something like this, that money's already been appropriated, in which they have money for these large funds, um, settlements that are occur- that regularly occur because somebody is wronged by the government.

People can sue the government all the time, not always successful.

Um, so that money exists.

A way Congress could step in, but won't, is that they could say, "Actually, no, you can't do this.

That money does not apply," or they could pass a law saying, "All of this settlement money for various suits again the g- against the government, uh, no longer apply to this case." They could do oversight things, where they say, "We need to know exactly the name and amount of every individual receiving money from this fund," because [chuckles] there's a very common theme among pardoned, uh, and convicted January Sixers, is that they go and recommit other crimes, um, sometimes more heinous than trying to overthrow the government, believe it or not.

So is there a world in wh- I mean, like, c- couldn't you imagine a world where this s- this thing really does kinda come back to bite Republicans if Democrats end up back in the driver's seat and are constantly wanting to tee up, like, new votes on this sorta stuff to block the ongoing disbursement of these funds? I could see this sort of becoming, like, a millstone around their necks.

[laughs]

...

when he received his nomination.

And the thing about, like, him kind of toning down his shtick after he was nominated, you could tell he started to get antsy or maybe started to read that he was not gonna get his day in front of the Senate when he started, like, ticking back up again and started r- re- like, leaning back into the macho stuff.

Him losing his nomination, too, is, like...

That doesn't happen.

That is not normal.

Um, Joe, do you have a sense of what the opposition was? I guess we don't know, like, i- w- you know, beyond maybe these protests in Malaysia, but beyond what, what it would, would've been like in the Senate.

Joe, what's going on?

So Tony Gonzales, and this had been brewing for a while, the allegations that he had an affair with one of his own staffers, um, with a subordinate, which is another layer of, you know, unethical behavior.

But then the staffer, she committed suicide.

She set herself on fire, died.

More text messages came out in which it was revealed that he was pressuring her and really pushing her to send illicit photos and really pursuing her aggressively, and he was refusing to bow out of his race.

Um, he was refusing to resign.

And then he just came out and he said, "I'm going to be not seeking re-election." This was after his primary, primary already advanced to a runoff, so now the other Republican's just going to walk away with it.

Or like what, what happened between the point where he comes out and does this apology and then his resignation?

Are there others happening right there, or is that less of an issue now, as he basically succeeded in, in getting the, the House in his shape?

Yeah, he took a, a House member, Julia Letlow, and said: "You should run against Bill Cassidy in the Senate, uh, 'cause I hate Bill Cassidy," um, which stems from Cassidy voting to convict him after January 6th impeachment.

That's pretty much it, but then again, like, he can just wake up one day and hate somebody again.

Um, there's been times where he's really hated Chip Roy.

Chip Roy is another, uh, congressman who's leaving this cycle to run for attorney general back in Texas.

So, you know, a lot of these guys have taken the memo, and a surprising thing here is that a lot of these retirees are members of the Freedom Caucus.

These are guys who should be...

What, what's up with her these days?

Um, did you get a sense from any Republicans that there was like a sense of relief that they were able to vote for this?

You saw a lot of them trying to spin it in the hours leading up to it.

Um, you could see that a lot of them, this was becoming personal, uh, if we recall months ago when they were getting yelled at at town halls over it.

Um, so it is a little bit of a weight off their shoulders.

I could say though that in the debate process leading up to this, they were still kind of resisting it in the ways they wanted.

They had someone like James Comer who's leading the oversight investigation speak where he, you know, called this political and partisan.

They denied allowing Thomas Massie to speak on the Republican side, which led to Democrats letting him speak on their side, which is very rare.

Yeah.

Joe, what do you make of what you heard in those two audio clips?

clips?I think there's obviously the frustration.

He doesn't like being contradicted on what he either says or believes is the truth.

But this kind of trickles down now in the GOP, and we saw that, I certainly saw it on the Hill this week talking to these members of Congress saying, "Should this cause alarm?" And before votes even started, before I could ask them, they were already starting this narrative that it was just blue states voting for blue candidates.

That's what we expected.

I was talking to Rick Scott from Florida, and I said, "Well, that's not exactly the whole picture." If you look at, you know, Atlanta metro area, you saw places like Cobb County go from Harris plus 15 to Democrats plus 45, and then you had red areas, uh, like Forsyth that were Trump plus 30, finished only, you know, Republican plus 12, I think.

And so th- those kinds of things and trends happening.

Is that what Republicans think? Do they think that they can bank on those gains?

Joe, what do you make of what you heard in those two audio clips?

clips?I think there's obviously the frustration.

He doesn't like being contradicted on what he either says or believes is the truth.

But this kind of trickles down now in the GOP, and we saw that...

I certainly saw it on the Hill this week ta- talking to these members of Congress saying, "Should this cause alarm?" And v- before votes even started, before I could ask them, they were already starting this narrative that it was just blue states voting for blue candidates.

That's what we expected.

I was talking to Rick Scott from Florida and I said, "Well, that's not exactly the whole picture." If you look at, you know, M- Atlanta metro area, you saw places like Cobb County go from Harris plus 15 to Democrats plus 45, and then you had red areas, uh, like Forsyth that were Trump plus 30 finished only, you know, Republican plus 12 I think.

Is that what Republicans think? Do they think that they can bank on those gains?

It's gonna be tight, for sure.

I mean, yeah.

We're already seeing it trickling in and, and you mentioned like the 2028 contenders.

I'm also seeing a lot of the Democrats who are outside of the Senate but who are running in primaries to get in, uh, are against it.

Mallory Mc- McMorrow in Michigan, Angie Craig in Minnesota.

So they're all very quickly saying, "This is a cave.

This is a bad deal." Bernie's basically...

I don't know how much this actually will impact anything.

The long game.

Yeah, it kind of cancels out the idea that, you know, this could be planted.

Um, the original drop, we saw the birthday book.

Um, we got that earlier this month.

Um, and this was part of the effort that House Democrats on the Oversight Committee, you know, s- managed to get this thing passed.

So, and then Mike Johnson was like, "We're not doing this anymore.

Cancel votes.

Well, somebody should ask Elon about this.

Uh, did I, did I basically cover the state of play there?

Yeah, so everyone knew this was coming.

Massie and Khanna announced this, like, weeks ago.

They were like, "Day one when we're back." Technically day two, 'cause it'll be tomorrow.

"Uh, we're gonna have this big press conference.

We're gonna have the accusers, we're gonna unveil our discharge petition," which is a process by which as long as there's 218 people, Democrats or Republicans, they can force a vote even if Mike Johnson doesn't want it.

Uh, Mike Johnson's tried to misdirect on that.

Right, sure.

Yeah.

Um, to the point that he latched onto a bit of a fake or misleading story.

So I guess in Dundee, Scotland, a 12-year-old girl, um, was arrested for carrying a chef's knife, like a kitchen knife, and a, and a hatchet.

She then, I guess, claimed that it was to, to defend herself from migrants, but police said there's no evidence that migrants were following her, like they have no clue.

So they just arrested her, 'cause she's...

You know, there was an incident with another couple, I guess saw her with wielding knives up and down the street.

That's all, you know, sad and whatever, but Elon Musk and others quickly latched onto it as, you know, this story, story about, you know, someone standing up to these migrants that are taking over Scotland, despite it not actually happening in this case.

Obviously, um, not, uh, but can you talk about, like, what his reputation is on the Hill for this stuff?

Yeah, I was going to ask, are these people, alleged people, even a cause of waste or abuse? No,

and we would see that if all of these dead people and this massive population of people were no longer living, were receiving social security checks, the number of beneficiaries, it would be safe to assume that those would exceed the living population of people over 65.

That's not true.

There are several million fewer people receiving benefits than are living right now that are over 65.

So the idea that there's this mass fraud occurring and all this money going out the door hasn't been backed up by the facts.

But this method of saying, oh, well, I found a person who was 300 years old on Social Security, it's just sort of cherry picking to justify.

mentioned before was waste, fraud, and abuse.

So when will any of this get through to lawmakers?

Joe?

I mean, there's been a pretty bad response to this email demanding that you say five things that you did this week.

Some of the members of Congress that I've spoken to, they've said, you know, once you're a confirmed cabinet secretary, it's up to you about whether or not they have to respond.

But the fact that they're not all on the same page about this really just shows how, you know, it's hard to compete between the two, Musk and Trump, but they're not doing it well.

Joe, are you seeing a wider pushback to this that matters or is it still too early to tell?

I mean, in the current makeup in Congress, the pushback is pretty tepid.

But as we've seen back in those town halls that you showed earlier, I mean, they are very panicked.

And the closer you get to an election, the more panicked they get.

Joe?

I mean, there's been a pretty bad response to this email demanding that you say five things that you did this week.

Some of the members of Congress that I've spoken to, they've said, you know, once you're a confirmed cabinet secretary, it's up to you about whether or not they have to respond.

But the fact that they're not all on the same page about this really just shows how, you know, it's hard to compete between the two, Musk and Trump, but they're not doing it well.

Joe, are you seeing a wider pushback to this that matters or is it still too early to tell?

I mean, in the current makeup in Congress, the pushback is pretty tepid.

But as we've seen back in those town halls that you showed earlier, I mean, they are very panicked.

And the closer you get to an election, the more panicked they get.