Is Pete Buttigieg a C.I.A. Agent?

Katy, Robert and Cody take another look at presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Welcome Together Everything, so don't don't. Hey, welcome back

(00:22):
to the Worst Year Ever, the very first episode of
the actual Worst Year Ever. It's official, so really welcome.
We are, like really just welcoming them to the first
time for the worst year ever, for the worst. Yeah,
we did it. We made it to the very beginning.
I hope you guys had a RESTful holiday. Buckle up. Actually,

(00:45):
so far and boy howdy, it seems like the Worst
Year Ever did not to put it in sex terms,
gross sex terms just just got right in there without
any lubricant. Did you all see the multiple headlines talking
about Bernie Sanders successful fundraising. He is rubbing his hands

(01:06):
together like a Nazi caricature of the Jewish man. They
all used that photo Washington Post. It is wild, heavy hitters.
Congratulations to him for raising so much money, so much
more than everybody else. Yeah, that is pretty incredible, right

(01:28):
for Oh yeah, absolutely, especially considering all of these small
donors and a half million and yeah, the average contribution
was just eighteen dollars. He only had one donor of
over one donation of over five thousand I think was
which was interesting. Yeah, um yeah, as opposed to Pete,
who apparently only raised seven million. Um. I just say

(01:52):
that to ease us into a transition into the actual
topic of this episode, which is, uh, are you calling
it Pete two to judge? It's a Pete two Judge
electric boddha looota jedge. I'm not sure if that's going
to be the official title, but it absolutely Sophie's head. No. Um.

(02:13):
We obviously did a Pete episode last year, but there's
more stuff to talk about. Cody was fired up and
Robert was also interested, and I was like, cool, guys,
we'll do it. Um, but I'm introing because this is
your episode. Thank you, thank you so much, and I'll
try and interject with clever little things. Oh yeah, there's

(02:35):
lots to say. Yeah, uh, you want to you want
to kick us off? Tell us what you prepared in
our pet episode? Yes, our first boodage episode. I think
some people were actually kind of put off by how
it was framed within an old essay of his about
Bernie Sanders and presented in contrast with Bernie Sanders and

(02:56):
as a tool to bully Pete into dropping out and
endorsing Bernie Sam, it's a very cody angle. It's a
it's a goal I still support. But I heard you,
we heard you. Um. We're gonna talk about Pete again. Uh.
And I'm not going to mention the other guy at all,
but not again. I will not say his name. UM.

(03:19):
And so last time before Pete two to Judge Electric
Buddhaloota Jedge the official title Sophie. Uh. We talked about
his upbringing, his schooling, his career, his his glide path
to abandoning Medicare for all things like that. If you
haven't listened to it, it might come in handy this episode.

(03:39):
The original point of this episode was actually a broader
question of is Pete a CIA agent? Uh? And while
there wasn't necessarily enough for a whole episode of that,
we will get to it, I promise. And everything we're
gonna talk about is kind of related to that. Um.
But first, just you know, catching up the year you

(04:00):
know since the episode, here's a hodgepodge of quotes and
incidents that perfectly illustrate Peter Paul Montgomery Pootage Edge. First,
we're quickly going to listen to the short commercial of
Pete speaking out loud for the purposes of recording and
releasing an advertisement for people to see. I believe we
should move to make college affordable for everybody. There's some

(04:22):
voices saying, well that that doesn't count unless you go
even further, unless it's free even for the kids and millionaires.
But the only want to make promises that we can keep.
Look what I'm proposing is is plenty of bold. I mean,
these are big ideas. We can gather the majority to
drive those big ideas through without turning off half the
country before we even get in off. And that I
think is the best governing strategy as well as what

(04:44):
it's going to take in order to win. The Lord
knows we gotta win. I'm Pete Pootage Edge and I
approved this message. Okay, so thanks Pete. Real quick, just
a small thing. The phrase plenty bold sticks out to me.
It's it. You might as well have said it's good enough.
It's good enough. Exactly it is. It's plenty bold. Why
we don't need to come on? Come on, guys, we

(05:04):
don't need to. I like the way you make it
into one word. Cody, Yeah, he plin old edge, um,
but plenty of boy, plenty bolder edge Bolder Jedge, No,
plenty plenty Bolder Jedge. Oh my gosh, look what has happened.

(05:26):
This is gonna be the best year ever. Um. So
I kind of wanted to bring this clip up in general,
because again, this is an official ad from him that
he has approved and spoken with cameras around, and he
really likes to harp on this idea that we're paying
for the kids of millionaires for college. Um. Well, that's
kind of a dishonest um in its framing of the
point of universe education. We've talked about this kind of

(05:47):
thing before. Um, it's also dishonest in the framing of
his own policy. To quote him and his platform on
the website he wants people to read, quote, we can
make public tuition completely free for over seven million low.
We're in middle income students who are eligible for federal
pell grants, including many middle income families with multiple children
in college, and for all families earning up to one

(06:09):
hundred thousand dollars. Now, I don't I'm know like math guy.
I'm not a yang fella, you know, but a hundred
thousand dollars is not a millionaire, isn't. No, that's really
fucked up. Because like, yeah, that would have like when
I if I had wanted to go to college, I
would have been cut out of that. And my family

(06:30):
was not rich. My parents just both made about fifty
grand a year and had a huge amount of debt
uh and very little X yeah exactly, and could not
afford Yeah, a hundred thousand dollars isn't that much money.
It's like maybe two teachers maybe. Yeah. The fact because
it's also it's like a per household number, um, which

(06:52):
is yeah, uh, it's fucked up. I do want to
note that, like when you you first started reading that
Buddha Jedge quote where he was talking about not wanting
to like pay for college for millionaires, I decided to
look up how many millionaires there were in the US
because I assumed it would be a very small number,
and I could laugh at what a tiny number we
were really arguing over it is not there's eighteen point

(07:14):
six millionaires in the United States. Yeah, eighteen point six
million millionaires. Yeah, that's way more than I expected. Uh.
So that's one I was not right on. That is
a lot of people. It is a significant question. Yeah, um,
And I don't know, like personally, I'm fine with paying
for the children of millionaires to go yes in college

(07:34):
because they'll pay for mine. You know. It's when we
talked about this, yes, Um. But I think it's especially
interesting considering that even his own plan is contradictory to that,
Like you're you're not saying like it's it's just very
dishonest framing, I think. And um, I don't know, Pete,
I don't know. I don't know about you. Um it. Yeah,

(07:57):
I mean it's because like a hundred thousand sounds like
a lot of money. It is a lot of money, um,
but not when you actually like look at the way
in which it's being counted for these purposes. But like
it's easy, you know, I think Pete thinks like a
debater a lot, and it's an easy number like to
kind of get to argue face to face with people,

(08:18):
especially if like they're not really prepared to debate it.
I do, like, yeah, I think that's probably why that
number was arbitrarily picked. Yeah. I think there's uh, there's
I mean, there's Mackenzie and his blood. You know, he's
got the frameless things in a certain way to sort
of just to what he needs to do. Um. Speaking

(08:39):
of just sort of things that Pete says. We're gonna
listen to another quick clip of him. Uh, it's recently
been passed around of him talking to some younger folk about, um,
the history of slavery in America. Oh, this will be
good if I know one person who should be talking
about Okay, just play it. Similarly, the amendment process, they

(09:02):
were wise enough to realize that they didn't have all
the answers and that some things would change. A good
example of this is something like slavery or civil rights. Uh.
For it's an embarrassing thing to admit, but the people
who wrote the Constitution did not understand that slavery was
a bad thing and did not respect civil rights. And
yet they created a framework so that as the generations

(09:23):
came to understand that that was important, they could write
that into the Constitution too and ensure true equal protection
for all of us. So thank you Pete for that. Um,
thank you Pete. Robert you laugh that? Would you want
to explain why you laugh? Yes? Well, you know, I'm
not sure if you have the Thomas Jefferson quote available,
But Thomas Jefferson, famed slave owner, repeatedly wrote about slavery

(09:47):
being a horrible evil. It was a repeated subject of
discussion among the founding fathers, many of whom acknowledged, many
of whom who also owned slaves, acknowledged that it was bad.
Benjamin Franklin, uh was a it was not a slave owner,
but was initially pro slavery in his youth. Um and
one of his friends wound up running essentially like a

(10:10):
like a I think it was an orphanage, but like
where they had a bunch of both black and white
kids that they were educating. And Franklin met like young
black kids and saw them being educated alongside white kids
and came to the horrifying realization that he had been
wrong about black people his entire life and became an
abolitionist and was an abolitionist by the time the country

(10:32):
was established. Uh so was the author of common sense. Um,
just like this is stuff that he shouldn't know. He
should They argued about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, if we
know that he knows that, yeah, he said, Um, from

(10:52):
all the people you mentioned, George Washington's got it, John
Adams has got it. Yeah, they're everywhere. Uh. It's interesting
that for a day everyone pointed this out and then
the next day Ted cruises like actually, and he pointed
it out too, But this is sort of like a
right wing reaction of like, we agreed to that Pete's wrong.
But it's especially interesting because Pete graduated from Harvard with

(11:15):
a majored in history pizza history major and clearly wanted
to be president since from a young age. Yeah. Um,
so there's like I don't want to say he's lying. Um,
you know, he's lying. He's absolutely lying. You can say it.
I'm not going to say it. I love Pete. Um,

(11:36):
but if he's not lying, then he's not a smart
man either. One is not a good look. Um. Yeah,
he's lying why he does so poorly with U? So yeah,
so that's a theme. Will revisit His U zero percent
with black voters is another theme, will actually be coming
back to. Yeah, um and uh, because the whole point

(11:58):
is that they did know that it was bad. Um,
they did it anyway, and it was in protection of
you know, the system and capital and power. Um. And
this idea of like knowing something is wrong, right, but
you do it anyway to protect those interests. Um. It's

(12:19):
an interesting lie for Pete to tell. And we'll get
into that later too, Yeah. It's just an example of
a long running Pete bota Um tactic, which is say
whatever will get you the most approval in the room
you're in, yea, and yeah we can, we can. Yeah.

(12:39):
I have some things on that too. Yeah. I guess, yeah,
but we'll Yeah. It's just it's it's Uh sort of
going through these sort of like little mini examples, because
I think they all illustrate things about Pete Uh in
significant ways for several reasons. Speaking of actually exactly what
you just said, Robert, here's another little story. So Pete

(13:00):
ran for d n C chairback in on the day
of the Women's March. While all of the other candidates
were at a retreat about fundraising for the struggling d
n C. He wanted to be chare of He bravely
went to the Women's March instead. And he would bring
this up quite a lot to draw a distinction between
himself and the other candidates. Much of the other candidates
confusion and chagrin um. And he wasn't even saying, like

(13:22):
these candidates they were doing like big donor stuff, but
I was in the streets where they should have been.
He was just sort of saying this thing that made
him different. Um. And he brought this up at a
forum in Houston, and one of the candidates confronted him
about this after leaving the stage, and I'm going to
read a quote from her, Jamu Green, I was reported
in the New York Times. Quote he looked me in

(13:44):
the eye and said, this is a competition. You say
whatever you need to say to win. That's when I
saw who the real mayor Pete was. Yeah, I saw
that floating around. Cool, it's a cool quote. Cool quote.
Yeah that Castro tweeted. Yeah, which is also like wild

(14:05):
who I wish. I wish we'd had time to cover
before he dropped out. I really could have. I guess
I like him a lot too. I think he's again
I'm not a centrist, and I think he more or
less is what a centrist should be ideally. Um. But
I also think he's like a a pretty good person,

(14:25):
which I don't say really ever about political candidates. Yeah,
I agree with you. I like him. Yeah, that's a bummer.
So you know, when I first heard that that quote,
my first thought on it was like, well, this could
just be a lie, which is like a thing that
happens with politicians. I don't like, and I'm always hesitant

(14:49):
when it's like, oh, this is like that story about
Pete Botage that was supposedly from like a friend of
his in score kids in school, like like where he
was like like a piece of ship in the quote,
and like I want always wanted to be president, just
when like it was one of those things where it's like,
well it would. I don't like Pete, so I want
this to be true, but it's also just some guy

(15:11):
saying it everything to a point where it's like, that's
very close to what we think. Yeah, So when I
pulled up that quote, I started looking to see if
I could, like it's the kind of thing I wanted
to know if that was real. I wanted some like
hardcore evidence of him doing exactly that, of just like

(15:32):
saying exactly what was necessary in order to win and
clearly not caring about the actual meaning of his words.
Um And it turns out there's a great Washington Post
article that does just that. Pete Bottagage once boasted he
helped McKenzie McKenzie turn around Fortune companies. Um So. In
the article, it cites a couple of different speeches that

(15:55):
Pete Bottagage gave uh into US and ten when he
left Mackenzie to run for Indiana State treasurer um and
it's interesting as a candidate in a form that September,
he like joked to the audience, which was a bunch
of included a bunch of conservatives from a Tea Party
affiliated group. He joked to that audience that someone had
made a mistake when they'd given him a Rhodes scholarship

(16:18):
um which is sort of like you know, it's again
him like talking to the room. It's like, Okay, these
guys are going to be impressed by me having so
I've got to like play that down um uh. During
a like this group's meet the candidate at night, he said, quote,
I did math for a living around economics, the economics
of energy, the economics of stabilizing very tough places around
the world to make sure there's less violence there. But

(16:39):
I got to thinking, if I'm any good at stabilizing economies,
maybe I ought to try help and help stabilize the
economy right here in Indiana. And so the premise of
my campaign and the state is the State Treasurer's office
could be doing more to help our economic life. UM,
So you can see there that he's saying, like, during
my time in Mackenzie, I stabilized national economies, which is
saying that you had a pretty significant role. And he

(17:01):
had to do this because he was like three years
out of college at this point. We really had to
make a case that he'd gotten up to some ship
in those three years. Um. Now, in a two thousand
and eleven form for my oral candidates hosted by the
South Bend Regional Chamber of Commerce, Buddadigh again bragged about
his background and economics based primarily in his McKenzie experience, uh, saying, quote, well,

(17:21):
the main reason that I'm running, and I know this
sounds a little bit funny coming from the youngest candidate,
but the main reason is my experience. I think I'm
the only candidate who has an economics degree. I'm pretty
sure I'm the only candidate who's been part of a
billion dollar decisions made by a Fortune five companies. I'm
the only candidate who's done economic development for a living.
So there he's adding the brag that he helped make
billion dollar decisions for Fortune five companies. McKenzie absolutely does

(17:45):
work with Fortune five hundred companies, so it wasn't impossible.
But obviously we didn't know which companies those were because
at the time, all of Pete Buda Judge's clients while
he was working at McKenzie were covered by an in
d a um now and he made repeated braggs about
like working on Fortune five billion dollar budgets and stuff
like that. Um. Now. Eight years later, when he was

(18:08):
freed from his nondisclosure agreement with McKenzie, and this just
happened at the end of last year, he was allowed
to disclose the name of his clients. UM his Yeah,
he uh number one. There weren't like any Fortune five
hundred companies, uh in the list that he'd worked for,
um like the yeah, um and you know there was

(18:31):
a couple o ye, yeah, he very much down right now.
So before when he had talked about he like he
were one of the club companies who worked for was
Blue Cross Blue Shield. He said that he had to
make extraordinarily tough decisions on extraordinarily big budgets um and

(18:51):
like multibillion dollar budgets. And the only company that he
worked with where his work might have kind of actually
fit that description was Blue Cross Blue Shield. UM. But
once he started specifically bragging about like once he started
specifically talking about his work for Blue Cross Blue Shield
because the n d A. Mackenzie released him from parts
of it. UM. Rather than saying that he'd had like

(19:13):
a major like been making tough decisions about big budgets, UM,
it just said that he analyzed overhead expenditures like rent,
travel costs, and utilities and specifically noted that he wasn't
part of any decision making or in charge of making recommendations.
So in two thousand eleven, Boddages said, we do need
to reimagine our budget for the bottom line. One of
the things I did for a living was just that.

(19:34):
So I remember one client organization that was a large
insurance firm that had grown in such a way that
there was a great deal of duplication, and some people
didn't even know what some of the work what the
people working for them were doing. So that was him
clearly bragging about Blue Cross Blue Shield in two thousand eleven.
But now in two thousand nineteen when he asked to
actually say the name, and it becomes clear that if

(19:55):
he talks about like what he did, Blue Cross Blue
Shield fired a bunch of people. He might be on
the line for cutting a bunch of jobs. So he
starts downplaying his work for Blue Cross Blue Shield. Um,
it's just like this, this again, clear evident, like all
he's doing is saying exactly what he needs to do
to impress the people in the room at the moment.

(20:16):
That great, right, But like this game and a lot
of people see him as this really likable guy, and
so I don't I don't know. I think he's Yeah,
I think it kind of it kind of falls apart
when he's confronted about it, which we will get too.
And there's a lot yeah, more about that Mackenzie stuff
that I think we need to talk about. Um, well

(20:37):
after the break though, because we have to take a
quick break for those things that we have. They sell
them and people buy him. Well said both of us.
He'll be right back together. Everything bend. We're bad. Yeah,

(21:04):
I just wouldn't make it clear. I guess what I
find so sketchy about this. There's a part of me,
the conspiratorial in that is, like I think Poodae Poda
judge when he decided to work for Mackenzie. I think
he might have been making a conscious decision that number one,
like this is a big firm, like they work with

(21:25):
big clients. They also value secrecy, so if I've had
a few years with them, I can basically brag about
anything and claim to have any kind of relevant experience
that might help me get elected, and nobody's going to
be able to check up on it. It was a
calculated decisions, like everything, Like everything in his life, he's
very Again it's a politician. M Yeah, and some of

(21:48):
it is uh a little more I think brazen than others. Um.
Some of him he's been on camera for more often
than others. Um. I think. So h, here's a few
more stories that kind of I think illustrate this, and
we're gonna then we're gonna get into like we're gonna
get into the money issue, which I think it's very important.

(22:09):
So um. At recent event, um, some protesters unfurled an
unfair banner that read Wall Street Pete Right, Pete replied,
I remember when they said the same thing about Obama,
and then he set up the CFPB, put Elizabeth Warren
in charge of it, and delivered some of the toughest
regulations on Wall Street. Ever, now I'm not gonna get

(22:30):
into Obama Wall Street. I'll just point out that there
was a pretty contentious relationship between his administration and Warren
in setting up the CFPB. To quote a political article
called why are You Pissing in Our Face? Inside Warren's
war with the Obama team, quote, one White House officials
suggested to Warren the president would nominate someone else, but

(22:50):
she would be the bureau's cheerleader. It was insulting and
I wasn't going to do it, Warren recalls in an
interview this summer from the presidential campaign trail in Iowa,
dodging weather, she found the suggestion section sexist, which, Katie,
I think that was your reaction there. Um, what about
a special advisor? No, the bureaus public spokeswoman no. Um.

(23:11):
And so contrary to Pete's claim, Warren was not put
in charge of it at all, um and has never
been in charge of it. So that's a weird claim.
Like literally, the only thing he said in that statement
that isn't a lie is that the CFPB was established
under Obama. That is, for everything else's horseshit. Yeah. I
don't want to use the term fake news, but he

(23:32):
seems like a liar. I think yeah. I think lying
is fine. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna get more and more
comfortable with using that word as we go. I think
he seemed pretty comfortable with it. I really do. Let's
keep it going. Well yeah, well, so here's another quote
from October from from Pete. Um, we're going up against
the sitting president of the United States. He has tremendous

(23:53):
amounts of support and allies at his back, and we're
not going to beat him with pocket change. Uh. This
is I think a dig at small donation numbers of
the other some of the other candidates. Um, fine, Pete,
I'll save my change for the meter, think very much.
There you go. I'm interesting that so sorry. Um. He
also talks a lot about his grassroots movement, which I

(24:15):
think is interesting contrast between uh poo pooing pocket change
from small from small donors. I know, Sophie, I've never
said that phrase before, and I'll never say it again.
I'm sorry. Um uh speaking of pocket change. Um, you
know how at the most recent debate, everyone was like,
you got all these billionaires donating to you, Pete, look
at all the grotesquely wealthy people supporting your campaign. Why that?

(24:38):
How come? And they compared it to you know, their
own low average donor number. Um. Well, on Christmas Eve,
Pete's campaign sent out an email and that email reads
like this. All you have to do to win is
donate the smallest amount that nobody else donates. This is

(24:59):
a contest from piece campaign. In other words, suppose you
donate a dollar. If someone else playing also donated exactly
one dollar, you both lose. We'll see if only one
player donated one dollar and one cent and so on
until we find an amount donated exactly once and that's
our winner. So the rules of this game is that
you donate the least amount possible to his campaign. Um.

(25:23):
And it just seems like a little bit of a
sneaky little thing to try to get your average donations down.
I'm just I mean, I'm just cool. Doesn't didn't really
pan out for him. Um, But this again is like
who he is, He's a sneaky little guy. It goes
back to like it's also trying to tell the room

(25:45):
what the room wants to hear. You want to see
that I have a lot of small donations, Well, how
do I do that? Easy? That's the easiest way to
do that. Make a stupid fucking game it. It's very um,
it's very frustrating. But he's been a bit of a
hot water lately for these reasons. But yeah, this isn't
the first time. This is gotten to a bit of
a spat at the debate with Lid with Warren and

(26:06):
some other guy running for president about his fundraising and
how he sure has a lot of billionaires supporting him. Um.
And they talked about the wine cave a lot. Katy,
do you want to describe the wine cave situation? The
wine cave situation? Uh? Yeah, the wine cave, Katie. You
own a wine cave, right, I own many wine caves,
but their actual caves and you have to hike out
to the desert. And that's where I keep my wine.

(26:27):
I don't like complaining about stuff. Complaining about it, Yeah,
wine gives me a headache. So I try to keep
it wine and locks it away in the desert and Brusco.
It's a new thing. I like any who, It's a
chilled red wine, a little sparkling. Not the point Sophie
saying she loves it. We're gonna go get it. Um. Now,
the wine cave, you guys probably have more information about it.

(26:49):
But it's Um, this couple and they're you know, in
the finance industry, blah blah blah, and they have this
they're big donors for the Democratic Party, and they have
this wine cave and they host events there and they've
raised a lot of money for a lot of people. Um.
It's hard to be I guess establishment Democrat without having

(27:12):
been associated with this place at some point. Um. But
you know, the woman apparently in the nineties had really
put a lot of pressure to get an ambassadorship and
then did you know, like they've got influence. Um. That's
the thing about these bundlers and these big private fundraisers.
People's issues with the private closed door fundraisers. These this
is how people get ambassadorships. That is how they get

(27:33):
these positions and get favors. Um that Piz says it
isn't gonna happen. Um, But literally, they're talking about the
wine cave of a woman who got an ambassadorship for
donating to Bill Clinton's reelection camp. And they think that
it's been They've been around for a while. Uh, but
obviously there's a movement away from this. We're here talking
about it, and and it deserves to be highlighted. Yeah,

(27:55):
and um again it's uh reading the room. Pizza really
good at the room, um, to quote an article from
the Intercept. During his first bid for public office, a
statewide run for Indiana State treasure in Pete, Buddha Judge
argued that accepting contributions from banks, political action committees linked
to banks or bank executives would amount to a conflict

(28:15):
of interest, and he swore off or in the latter case,
limited such donations too far below the legal limit. UM.
In his bid for president, Booda Judge has gone farther
in some respects, swearing off all corporate pack money and
pledging to refuse money from executives at fossil fuel companies.
But a review of his campaign disclosure records finds that
Buddha Judges presidential campaign is a wash in cash from

(28:36):
bank executives, many of them heavily involved in financing the
fossil fuel industry. So um, he's going to read the room. Um.
He seems to have changed his mind about money and politics.
At a recent event, he was asked by Greg Chung,
a student organizer IOWA Student Action, quote, I wanted to
ask if you think that taking big money out of

(28:58):
politics includes not taking money off of billionaires and closed
door fundraisers, to which Pete replied no and walked away
and speaking of the speaking of this exact topic. UM.
It was recently reported by Axios that one of Pete's bundlers,
h K Park, dangled influenced to donors in an email,

(29:18):
reading quote, if you want to get on the campaign's
radar now before he has flooded with donations after winning
IOWA New Hampshire. You can use the link below for donations. UM.
Now Again, to be fair to Pool, the campaign responded
by saying, quote, the campaign did not see or authorize
the language in this email, but it is ridiculous to

(29:41):
interpret it as anything more than asking potential supporters who
may be interested in Pete to join our campaign before
caucusing and voting begins. UM. I'd like to again highlight
the phrase if you want to get on the campaign's radar? Yeah,
what do you mean by that? How? I want to
get on the campaign's radar? But I've only got ten
dollars to what if? What if? What if? This is

(30:02):
the reasoning right? What do you use a radar for?
If you say a submarine it's so you don't ram whales.
What if Pete's campaign is like a nuclear submarine, it's
so supercharged and we're all helpless whales in the ocean.
And if we don't want to be destroyed by this

(30:23):
runaway nuclear submarine of a politician, we have to get
on his radar by donating so that he doesn't literally
crush us with his unfathomable bulk. That's a theory that
you set out loud, yes, and I can't subscribe to it.
I can't. I'm sorry. I'm trying really hard. I don't

(30:44):
believe you. Maybe if you were a whale you'd feel differently.
I mean, yeah, we're not all we're not all proto
judges out here, um instantly. H. K. Park previously served
as the special assistant to the Defense Department's Chief of
Staff and currently works with the Cohen Group. Both things
I hope you please remember, because we're going to come
back to them later on. Anyway, speaking of simply replying

(31:06):
no and walking away, the day before, he said taking
big money out of politics doesn't include not taking money
from billionaires and closed door fundraisers. After being asked by
a student organizer, he was asked at a press conference
about his closed door private fundraisers, something he's been asked
about for months, and we're gonna just listen to it.
We're gonna listen to him being asked by the press

(31:27):
a very simple series of questions, having a conversation about
opening your fundraisers. And that's a question that reporters have
been asking me from my house. So I'm wondering when
do you expect to be to actually have that conversation
and did like answer on that? Again, I don't have
a timeline for you as as we candidate. Can you
just directorcip? What can you just director from? Yes? And

(31:53):
what have you done? There are a lot of considerations
and not thinking about it, ask questions. Can you get
us an example of those considerations? Thank you, thank you?
And then he walked away. Can you give us examples
of your considerations? I'll tell you what. That couldn't have
felt good? No, I'm sure he's not very proud of

(32:16):
how that went. He just kind of scampers off the stage. There.
If you're a journalist and your questions get a presidential
candidate to walk off the stage because they can't answer them,
you you have done a good job in that moment
you're doing. They're doing pretty well. Even the next day,
he was asked about his private fundraisers, the closed doors, etcetera. UM,

(32:39):
and his response because it was sort of he draws
a comparison between that and releasing tax returns. They're not
the same thing, but he likes to draw that comparison anyway.
I mean, in response to this question about the private fundraisers,
he said that the house is on fire and we
need to take on Donald Trump. Thankfully answer the question.
There was a follow up question, a lot of follow

(33:01):
up questions to this guy doing a really good job.
Here we go on transferparency. Just to follow up on
DJ's question, is there anything personally holding you back from
opening up these fundraisers? Just want to make sure we
do it in the you know, which we approach this,
that we that we do it in the right way,
and again teams working through options and uh one value
to stay tuned in the coming days. We think about

(33:22):
I don't know, possible objects. A lot of mackenzy talk there. Um.
Now it's interesting because Pete wasn't always so not so
transparent about these closed door private fundraisers. UM. It seems
to have really started after an issue with uh private
fundraiser was reported in October by The New York Times
bad publication before we talk about later. Pete Boodha Judges

(33:43):
presidential campaign facing criticism distance itself on Friday from a
Chicago lawyer who tried to block the release of footage
of the police shooting of a black teenager, Lakwan McDonald.
The lawyer, Steve Patton, gave five thousand, six hundred dollars
the legal maximum contribution to Mr Buddhagedge in June and
was scheduled to co host a fundraiser for him on Friday.

(34:04):
After the Associated Press reported on Mr Patten's involvement, Mr
budda Judges campaign said that it would return the money
and that Mr Patten would not attend the fundraiser. Um.
And that's when those sort of pesky like closed door
fundraisers kind of got into full swing. Um. Though, to
be fair to Pete, his campaign has since opened the doors.
Per his campaign manager Mike schmool quote, in a continued

(34:27):
commitment to transparency, we are announcing today that our campaign
will open fundraisers to reporters and will release the names
of people raising money for our campaign UM speaking of
transparency and releasing the names of people raising money for
our campaign. Campaign In mid December, the Buddha Jedge campaign
released a list of his bundlers, the private fundraisers who
collect other donors for the candidate that people were talking about.

(34:49):
They've usually maxed out at that five thousand six number. UM.
The transparent list from the Buddha Jedge campaign weirdly excluded
a bunch of those private fundraisers from list. A lot
of finance guys, some former ambassadors, some investors, and one
of the bundlers seemingly purposefully omitted from Mr Pete's public

(35:10):
disclosure is h Rogen Cohen, a lawyer and current senior
chairman at Sullivan and Cromwell. During the two thousand eight
financial crisis, he defended bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie may A,
I G. Wacovian, National City, JP Morgan, and three others
I didn't recognize. He has said about the financial crisis, quote,
I am far from convinced there was something inherently wrong

(35:31):
with the system. UM. And you know, like all your donors,
they're not going to necessarily equal like what you think
about it. But it's just interesting that he's seemed to
be ashamed of of these people who are donating, and
there are a lot of them donating, and he doesn't
want you to know about it. The guy who thinks
there was nothing wrong with the economy before the worst

(35:51):
economic crash of our lifetime isn't a guy I want
to be on the radar of a president heading into
what's probably going to be at least another significant recession,
or being the guy who is looking for other people
to be on the radar because that's his goal. Now
he's maxed out. He is finding other people that probably

(36:13):
don't think different things from him, you know, to go
back to my submarine analogy. If that guy is picking
the people who are going to be on the radar
of the Pete Booda Jig submarine, then I worry he's
going to avoid the whales that I don't know, but
hit all of the whales that I do. Is right, Okay, Okay,

(36:36):
you're bringing it back. I like him now, I don't
think he's a liar. Yeah, So we' gonna take a
short break. We'll be back um obvious obviously, and we're
gonna talk about a lot of the things. We just
talked about putting more of it together everything. Hey cool,

(37:10):
we're backing from that at breaking. I can't believe we
did it more Bootigen, that would work great if this
was Halloween. Um what else you got for us? Cody?
Every day is Halloween and the worst year ever I know.
Um So, I remember when I mentioned um earlier that

(37:31):
lawyer Steve Patton who is trying to block the release
of that video with the teenager. Well so, in the
first Bootist episode, we talked about Petzs firing of a
black police chief, Boykins, who the FBI was investigating for
secretly recording police officers in order to root out corruption
and racism. Um Pete sites the FBI investigation is the

(37:53):
reason for the firing, although the Young Turks have released
depositions from from Pete's former and current campaign manager, Mike
Schmool in which he describes telling Pete about the recordings
before the FBI and also makes it clear that the
FBI made no indication that there would be indictments if
Boykin's was not let go. Um So, they weren't pressuring
him to fire him or anything like that. Further deposition

(38:14):
from police employee Karen to paper also fired by Buddha Jedge,
describes numerous racist remarks on the recordings and a plot
by white officers to use Pete's donors to get him
to fire Boykin's, a thing Pete eventually did. Very few
people have listened to these recordings. Um. This is one
of those people who has described them in this deposition. Um.

(38:35):
Not to the point. On the last day before the
worst year ever, it was Pete's last day as mayor,
he handed out the keys to the city. One of
those recipients was Bob Urbanski, big player in South Bend
and a huge donor to Buddha Judge's campaign. Urbanski is
the donor named by name in the tapes as the

(38:56):
donor that they were going to use to get Buddha
Jedge to fire a Boykin's and, according to Jonathan Larson's
reporting at the Young Turks quote in Or Bansky back
to campaign loan for the cop who wanted Boykin's out.
The two other backers of the loan were Buddha Judges
lawyer who oversaw the chief's ouster, and the lawyers still
fighting the release of the tapes. Probably nothing, I don't know.

(39:20):
It's interesting. Um that like four days ago he gave
that guy a key to the city. Very interesting indeed.
But don't worry. I'm not worried. Don't worry. UM. Pete's
been working on his relationship, UM with police and donors
in the black community. Okay. He released the Douglas Plan
for Black America. UM ace his name campaign. UM. He

(39:44):
is a history major. Yeah, exactly, UM. And again since
our first Boodage episode, the Boodagist campaign promoted a list
of endorsements of the Douglas Plan, UM, sending a big email.
These are these are all the the endorsed the endorsements
to people who love the plan. UM. It was like
something like four people. UM. And in the email it's
specified a few specific people. Those people didn't endorse the plan.

(40:11):
They am going to read a quote from Baptist pastor
UM and State Rep. Ivory thig Pen. These do sound fake.
I know. I'm sorry. I'm not sorry. These are these
people's names, UM. Quote. Somebody brought it to my attention,
and it was alarming to me because even though I
had had conversations with the campaign, it was clear to me,

(40:33):
or at least I thought I made it clear to
them that I was a strong Daniel. We might have
to bleep this this name coming up, that I was
a strong Bernie Sanders supporter, actually co chair of the state,
and I was not seeking to endorse their candidate or
the plan. But what I had talked about was potentially
giving them a quote of support in continuing the conversation,

(40:53):
because I do think it's a very important conversation. UM
so funny to do that anyway and not think people
do like hold on, No, I didn't. It's very weird
that they just said it. Maybe I'm missing something, but
I think I think I can explain, might be able
to explain what probably happened there. I can't know for certain,

(41:15):
but it sounds to me like that guy they were
having an email conversation and he said that, like, yeah,
we can talk about I can give like a quote
of support for continuing the conversation and whatever intern its
job was to collect all of these people. He just
saw the words support when he was skimming the email
and said, okay, we got one more through that name
on the list. It didn't actually care about the quote.

(41:37):
They didn't care about dialogue with him. It was just
somebody's job to collect names. The name that's gonna be
my guess. Yeah, that makes some sense. Um, I'm gonna
read one more quote. Yeah, um from one of these
named people on that email, Johnny Cordero. He's a chair
of the state Party's Black Caucus. Quote. I'm not going
to change what I'm going to say. Okay, So actually

(41:59):
this is he was asked like, what was your thoughts
about it? And he asked the reporter h if he
was if he was black, and the reporter said no,
him white. And then he's like, fuck it, I'm gonna
be honest anyway. Um, I'm not going to change what
I'm going to say. It's presumptuous to think you can
come up with a plan for Black America without hearing
from black folk. There's nothing in there that said black

(42:20):
folk had anything to do with the drafting of that plan. Now,
I like Pete, Please don't get me wrong. I'll help
him in any way I can. I think he's an
honest man. I think he's a decent man. I think
he has integrity. I'd like to see him keep running,
but you don't do that. Those days are over and
done with. We're tired of people telling us what we need.
You want to find out what we need, Come and
ask us. What I was talking back and forth with

(42:40):
them about was who drafted the plan. I know Pete
didn't draft the plan. I'm sure he had his advisors
do it, but I want to know who was involved
in this plan such that you can claim that you
speak for black America. The long and the short of
it was, they never sufficiently answered my questions, so I
never actually endorsed the plan. They went ahead and used
my name because they didn't white people to make that plan.

(43:00):
They didn't get two people are considering m to be
fair to Pete also, So like all these people were like,
you know, I don't want to hurt Pete. I'm not
like trying to attack his his his campaign or anything. Uh.
They were all sort of of that mindset. They were
just like, no, here's what happened. And I wasn't going
to like call them, but it was weird. Um It's like,
oh that's weird. Huh why do you use that? Um?

(43:22):
Now it responses controversy that nobody seems to bring up
to him, like it seems like something he should maybe
be asked about in a debate setting, Like why did
you fake these endorsements. Um. But his campaign responded to
this by pointing out that, well, you see, so everyone
included on the list was sent an email in which
they could opt out of being on the endorsement list.

(43:42):
And I'm going to read a little bit. That's like
some tricky website where you they have to jump through
who it's some sneaky Pete stuff. Uh, it's like a
cable company, it's like an insurance company. So here's a
little bit of that email. Quote, good afternoon, thank you
for your willingness to publicly support Mayor Pete Buddha Judges

(44:04):
Douglas plan, the Boldest Plan. There's that word bold again. Uh.
That goes into the plant plenty Boldest Plan. That ends
on if you do not want your name included, please
let us know by four pm Eastern Standard time today. Now.
So that's the power of choice right there. You see,

(44:25):
it's the power of choice. You get an email and
you can opt out of being included on that list.
I'd like to point out that the email started with
good afternoon and ended with respond by four pm, so
they gave him four hour period to opt out endorsing
this plan that at most of them. I mean Jesus Christ.

(44:48):
Like Jesus Christ. Nothing nothing works that way that isn't shady.
It's like it's like the shadiest like tactic and like
the responses are even word it just gets worse and
worse and worse. And it's the kind of thing you
might learn about it. Mackenzie. I wis we're gonna talk
about a little bit about mackenzie again. I know we're
all very excited. We talked about Pete uh and its

(45:10):
consulting last time. Today you've talked about it like it's
like you said, at the time, we didn't really know
what his work was was being done. Um, McKenzie's got
a lot of clients. Um. Enron comes to mind from
before Pete worked there. Ice comes to mind from when
Pete was not working there anymore. Um. And now when

(45:31):
you when you say ice, you mean the concept of
frozen water that you chop up and putting beverages. Oh,
my sweet beautiful man, No, that's not what I mean.
Is there some other ice? There's another ice? And they
they they drink people and round them up and deport them.

(45:52):
Don't worry, Robert, we'll talk about this after the recording Yeah,
we will will tell you all about in border patrol
when we're done. I feel as if I have missed
an important story. Yeah, you've got You've got a lot
to learn, buddy. So Uh, as you pointed out Robert, Uh,
he used to talk about this time. We can see
a lot talking about He's he's like a senior decision maker,

(46:12):
you know, part of these billion dollar decisions. Um. But
then he stopped talking about it, and he really downplays
it now. One quote about it, UM that I really
really like is uh to the extent that I was
uniquely qualified on something, it was definitely Canadian grocery prices. Um,
really downplaying Um. Speaking of grocery prices, the company BUDDA.

(46:33):
Jedges is referring to his lab blats a Canadian grocer
implicated in a price fixing scandal to artificially raise the
price of bread. Um not saying he was involved with that.
I'm just saying that he's really downplaying it to Canadian
grocery prices and that happened to that specific Canadian grocer.
Guys think about it, though, Don't you want to see

(46:54):
Pete Buddage and Donald Trump on the debating stage arguing
about the price of act milk in Canada. No, I don't,
I can't. I can't follow this. No, I don't talked
about like we should charge twenty dollars and Trump's like
I thought we did charge twenty and they like, oh, wait,
do you want to be running mates? M yeah, I'd

(47:15):
see that. That's that's a winning ticket right there. Um.
So uh, he's been sort of slowly asked about his work. Um, Robert,
you mentioned his time at Blue Cross, Blue Shield. He
asked about by Rachel Maddow about it. He's he's talked
about how like I doubt I had anything to do
with those layoffs. I don't know what happened in that time.

(47:36):
And as we've heard from from that quote, he did
he did know. He did seem to know and kind
of bragged about it. Um. Well, it's one of two things, right,
Like he either did know and bragged about it, or
he was just lying because he wanted to pretend like
he'd been a big decision maker at a big company
back when that would help him. Like he might be

(47:57):
telling the truth now and have lied back then. I
don't really, I don't really know. It's possible who knows. Um. Yeah,
and he's just yeah, one thing, one thing he's He
has also said about this, um when he's asked about
whether he had something to do with it. It's very interesting. Um. Now,
what I do know is there are some voices in
the Democratic primary right now who are calling for a
policy that would eliminate the job of every single American

(48:20):
working at every single insurance company in the country. Come on,
come on. It's also not the same thing. It's not
the same thing being a consulting firm and getting people
to lose their jobs for the purposes of, like protecting
the profits of an insurance company is not the same
thing as eliminating an industry in order to give people healthcare. Yeah,

(48:40):
I mean, I guess people jobs, but it's just it's
it's a yeah, well, I mean it's a dishonest, dishonest framing. Yeah,
Like we a lot of people lost jobs when the
tobacco industry was find billions of dollars for covering up
the fact that cigarettes GIF. You can't that that costs

(49:02):
some folks some jobs. Yeah, sometimes people there were people
who were yeah, in in the who used to make
a living designing cigarette ads for magazines. That don't have
that job anymore because they can't avert any It just
is a thing that happens. You take care of the
health of human beings. And there's a lot of like
the downplaying is interesting. There's a Wendell Porter. Uh. He's

(49:25):
a former formerly he worked at signa large and sure
um he basically uh he quit. Uh. They wouldn't pay
for a young woman's liver transplant and he was like,
this place is disgusting. I quit. And now he's sort
of he just talks about his time at this this
insurance company. I think we talked about him last time,
and sort of his giving context to the things that

(49:46):
Pete says. I'm going to read a short quote from
a very interesting threat about the language they use and
what they do. Some context on the it was only
three months talking point. Consulting is by nature temporary work.
Often insurance company would hire mckenzy for special projects to
cut jobs and raise rates that didn't take very long.

(50:06):
Pete says he didn't work on stuff he quote had
a problem with. Like Pete, I also worked for an
insure and turned a blind eye to the real world effects.
Eventually I had a problem with a lot of it.
It's hard not to when your job includes denying care
to Americans who need it most. UM. And this sort
of goes back to that quote about UM, I'm not
comparing to slavery obviously, but like knowing something is bad,

(50:28):
doing it anyway, UM, and sort of forgiving that and
not talking about it in an honest way. And so
this blue cross and blah blah. There are two examples
of work he's done. It seems like he is playing
it up, then realizing people don't like it, downplaying it.
It is unclear what he actually did. It seems like

(50:49):
he advised people to do things that maybe hurt people
for reasons that aren't good. Another example, he was on
the team that advised the Post Office and he pushed
for the Post Office to get privatized. So I don't know, Pete,
I'm not sure. I'm not sure about you. But enough
about Mackenzie, I think it's time to really get to
the real question that we've all been wondering. Is Pete

(51:12):
a CIA agent? I like the heading you gave this section,
Central Intelligedge. Yes, the Central Intelligenge Agency. UM. Right out
of college, Pete worked for the Cohen Group in two
thousand four. The Cohen Group is a strategic consulting firm
founder in two thousand one by former United States Secretary
of Defense William S. Cohen. You might remember the Cohen

(51:34):
Group as being mentioned earlier when H. K. Park dangled
influence in front of potential Buddha Jedge donors. Park is
currently at the Cohen Group. He previously worked at the
Department of Defense. Pete seems to have a lot of
friends in the Defense Department, intelligence, intelligence agencies, and so on.
His best man as wedding was Nat Myers. They went
to college together. Um. He's currently at the Office of

(51:56):
Transition Initiatives, part of the United States Agency for International
Development Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance. It is
UH developed to provide fast, flexible, short term assistance to
take advantage of windows of opportunity to build democracy and peace.
And I'm just gonna let listeners or you guys just

(52:16):
sort of interpret that however you want. Um, let's see
sounds above board. United States Agency for International Development, Bureau
for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance looking for windows of
opportunity to build democracy. Yeah, that was the part I
should have reread. Yeah, yeah, windows of opportunity, Uh, is

(52:42):
not a great yeah to build democracy and peace and peace. Yes,
we all love democracy and peace. We all love choice too.
We all love choice, right folks. Um, Now you might recall,
but probably don't not as being the co author of
a New York Times piece in two thousand. Okay, well
you're going to remind me. I might remind you a

(53:03):
little bit. Um. Then. The piece in the New York
Times was about him and his college buddies vacation in
Somali Land, famous vacation spot that we all love. Right.
Oh yeah, I mean I've I hear it's a great
place to go and meet with local elected officials for
purely recreational purposes. I've heard that too. I've heard it everywhere.

(53:28):
When I was in college, all my professors like, you
should do this after you graduate. Well, everybody I knew.
Spring Dude, for spring break, we'll go to Somali Land.
We'll meet with local officials. It's gonna be lit and
absolutely sounds lit. And I and so luckily Nat and
his college buddy whose spoiler alert was Pete buddhag Edge. Uh,

(53:48):
they wrote this piece about their their vacation in Somali land.
That lasted for twenty four hours, and they spent time
talking to local officials. Nerves these twenty seven year old
it's going to Somaliland for twenty four hours on vacation.
Here's a interesting quote. UM, now that we've got a
little more context about about that UM quote, Remarkably, throughout

(54:11):
the many years the international community has funded, fed and
sought vainly to stabilize Somalia, it is dutiously ignored the
peaceful and democratic polity to Somalia's north. Uh. The article
seems to be pointing to, like the America needs to
really needs to do something in Somaliland. It's like it's
like it's like Open for Democracy is using that they

(54:34):
should take advantage of um windows of opportunity to build.
It seems like maybe maybe, UM, I'm just saying it's
it's an odd thing from twenty seven year olds on
vacation for twenty four hours, That's all I'm saying. It
seems like maybe, Okay, I just looked it up. Do
you know where the pet would have been flying out

(54:55):
of at that point? Um, I mean it would have
been like it would of in America, but like it
was it like somewhere in the East Coast. I'm guessing, um,
probably d C because he was at the Cohen Group, right, Okay, yeah,
I'm looking at that right now. In the most direct
flight if you assume that they got him the easiest one,
uh is a sixteen and a half or sixteen hour

(55:18):
and fifty minute long journey. Um. Usually it's thirty three
hours to get there, go, you get there, and then
there's like, uh several hour journey um through various terrain
in areas to get to where he actually went. To admit,
that doesn't sound like much of the vacation to me, doesn't.
So yeah, he's it's it seems weird to spend thirty

(55:41):
four hours in the sky, um in order to spend
twenty four hours on the ground, unless you have a
very specific goal in mind, talk to local officials and
then write a piece about in the New York Times.
I do love talking to little I mean like, and
that's the kind of thing. Like if I were to
go to the New York Times or any other publisher
and be like, hey, I traveled to this country for

(56:03):
a day and talked to local officials, I'm gonna almost
guarantee you that they would. There would be a lot
of question why only a day time to gain an
understanding of what you're writing about. That's very weird. That's
not enough time to vet people to like. Collective writing
is like getting to where you need to be after

(56:24):
you land. I feel bad about writing something about a
country spending a week there, right week? Yeah right, you're
not like, yeah, you'd feel bad pulling a berry wise
going to Australia for a week and then writing about it. Um.
So there's a land of contrasts um. Anyway, So so

(56:47):
then Pete trained to be a naval intelligence officer, and
then he worked for Mackenzie and then became mayor, and
there's some other things we've talked about. And now he's
running for president the thirty seven. And while he's been
running for president, Pete's contracted Patriot Group International to run
security for him. Um. Actually this is odd. Um. Security

(57:08):
is usually done by local municipalities. Um, like a black
Rock style private mercenary group. And it's it's really funny.
I found an article that was like very clearly pro
Pete Buddhagedge, comparing him to like build a blassio in
the city, which is like I think at local New
York site. Uh and yeah, the title is Budda Jedge

(57:31):
pays for own security as the Blasio bills New York City. Um.
And it quotes Liz Smith, press secretary for Buddha Jedge,
who confirms that, uh pete, Buddagedge does not make his
constituents foot the bill for security. Quote. We pay for
security from the campaign, she said, noting that Buddagedge does
not employ a cuttery of South Bend cops to shadows
every campaign move, but hires retired cops or ex secret

(57:54):
service agents and only for some events. Now, according to
Open Secrets, his campaign has been to minimum of five
hundred and sixty thou dollars hirings. Current International, a group
on whose website bragg like features pictures of predator drones
and who has had multiple employees killed in places like
Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, they're not for this, Um, it's

(58:16):
very Their mercenaries say that it's not paid for by
its supporters, it's paid for by the campaign. Where do
you get that campaign money? Where do you get that
campaign money? Um? Well, they're they're saying, you know, he's
saying he's not he doesn't make his constituents for the
building if he's not making the city of bag According
to the Patriot Group International, UH their website, they provide

(58:37):
services for quote clients within the intelligence, defense and private sectors.
None um, none of which he is. Um. It's just
it's weird. Most of their clients, like you said, they're uh,
these sort of defense contracts overseas. They also stopped doing
political work in there's an instant it with new gengers

(59:01):
security detail like a Ron Paul supporter try to attack him,
and they just don't do that anymore. So since they
have not done and now they're doing. Um, I don't know,
it's very interesting. Um. I'm sure there's no sketchy reason.
There's probably no sketchy reasons. Um. He just seems to
have a lot of support from folks in the intelligence

(59:24):
and defense community. A lot of his donors come from there.
But I mean, um, a lot of World Bank, Black
Rock folk. I mean, but you know, when we're when
we're looking at you know, people point out the fact
that Bernie Sanders has gotten like more individual donations I
think than any candidate in recent memory. And how that
means that you know, presumably he has a lot of

(59:46):
electoral appeal and could get a lot of votes in
the general And I think we have to make the
same point with Pete that it looks like based on
his his resume, he could really lock down the mercenary vote.
And that's a critical demo, is it? How big? Is
that big enough? There's tens of them in the country,
But like, what do they have numerous packing you know,

(01:00:07):
there you go, I mean, I mean guns, Katie filthy unacceptable.
I know they're packing a ballot for Pete bood Jedge.
The reason that's um he is if you look at
the donations of all the candidates from UM like Intelligence,
Community Department, Defense, Justice Department. Uh, he overwhelmingly has the

(01:00:31):
most money from them. Um if you include the military,
that's actually not true because well because the military folks
in the military overwhelmingly support the person. Not allowed to
talk about Bernie, thank you. Um So, if you include that,
it's not true. But um so, I guess all these

(01:00:52):
things are interesting. All these things um are odd. He
does seem like he's a bit of a liar. UM.
I wouldn't say he's a CIA agent or a CIA asset,
but these are interesting weird stories that Uh. I am
surprised he has done, given how he frames himself and

(01:01:14):
presents himself. These are the Somaliland story is wild. I
don't know why he did that, um, but I think
more than anything, that's the most baffling and creepy thing.
Starting some donations and get on his radar. I do
want to get that. And the and the Patriot Group

(01:01:36):
International are two things. Whe'm like, but why, but why?
And he was like he's always very uh like a
lot of Obama people were very supportive of his campaign
for mayor of South Bend, which is weird. Um. And
then he like quit the Obama working for the Obama

(01:01:57):
campaign at one point to join the Navy to become
a naval intelligence officer, and then he came back. It's
just a series of events. Well, it's all very calculated, weird,
We've known it. That's one of those conspiracy theory thinking

(01:02:17):
is like a disease that is UH doing incalculable damage
to the body politic right now. And like I hate
like jumping into these two stuff like that, but also
like it's so fucking sketchy. It's what is the explanation
for the Somali land trip that isn't sketchy as hell?
What is the explanation for hiring Patriot Group International that

(01:02:40):
isn't sketchy as hell? Presidential campaigns don't hire mercenaries for
crowd control, and those mercenaries don't get hired. Commented on it. No,
it seems like something to be brought up, um like
that we've got on his radar. I just like, it's
so hard to not sound like to be in fact

(01:03:01):
a conspiracy theorist when you talk about this guy. But
there's so much of it that just screams fucking spooks,
like yeah, yeah, yeah, his behavior is spook like and
spooks love him and that's and that's how it is, um. Yeah.
And at least you know, you can make maybe he's
just a well rounded guy. You know, maybe he's passionate

(01:03:26):
about price fixing and uh, Somalilands local officials, the cost
of bread exactly, and he's just really craves security. Yeah,
you know, he needs he needs better security. You're all
a little unsettled these days, and he just wants to
feel safe. Yeah. Just so uh, to sort of circle

(01:03:48):
back to my original desire for him to drop out
and endorse Bernie Sanders. Um I still stand by that.
I was thinking about, like, oh yeah, endorse him and
then like become his running mate. But that's like, this
areious thing to me because then you have like but
then the CIA will kill the socialist and then Pete
will be the president. So I don't want him to
do that. You're really going down a rabbit, I know.

(01:04:10):
But how can you not? How can you not? It's
very weird. It's very weird. It's weird. I've been both
first into the worst year. I wanted to lay all
this out and be like very level headed, wanted to
do that, but I think we should. I think we
should highlight here that we all decided we needed a
Pete Booda Judge episode, and Katie and I expressed, oh shit,

(01:04:34):
we're so busy getting some of the other stuff done.
I don't know how much research will be able to finish,
And then before either of us finished that sentence, Cody said,
Oh no, I've already written eight pages on him. So
that's the story of this episode. I've got strong's been,
He's been every every time there's a silence when we're

(01:04:54):
working on any project, he'll be like did you see
this thing about Pete. He's been brooding over for months.
He's such a liar. So we needed to get this
in for Cody sanity, thank you, And we needed to
do there than some yarn and some pieces of paper
with facts about Pete Bota John create the Peppe Sylvia

(01:05:15):
scene from Always Sunny. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm just very
passionate about Pete Um and he's a liar. Um. I
think that quote of him saying, say you need to
to win is very telling and like uh impervious, Like
it's like it's in it's in his soul, it's in
his bones, Um in a way that is unique. Yeah,

(01:05:37):
Like whenever you whenever you call a politician like called
them out for lying, it's easy for like the response,
especially for people who like that particular politician, to be like,
you know, if they can't deny that the lie happened,
Well they all lie, there, politicians. And it's true like
Barack Obama told lies, Tonteald Trump has told quite a
few lots, like like like Trump is the one that

(01:05:59):
like usually where this it's like, well, they all lie,
and it's true that Obama led, It's true that Bush
light it's true that Clinton and Reagan led. I think
the difference but both with Trump and with a guy
like Pete is the consistency with which they lie. Everything
he says is disingenuous. Everything he says when you dig

(01:06:20):
into it is skewed differently than like he portrays it,
or is an outright fabrication or is like it's like
you look into like like this stuff with them having
people sign on, like trick basically tricking people into endorsing
his Ferguson or not. For Douglas plan Um is like

(01:06:41):
it's it's it's such a consistency, so like like every
politician lies, not every politician is like fundamentally at their
core a liar um. And yeah, that's what I see
with Pete Boudags someone who Yeah, I I when people say, like, well,

(01:07:01):
he's a politician. I mean I've said that, but I
don't say that as a dismissal of the fact that
he's lied. I hate that about politicians. I want the
politician that's the least politician e you know, uh yeah, um,
it's yeah, it's a very unique thing for Pete, I think. Um.

(01:07:24):
And that's the frustrating thing because it happens quite a bit,
very consistently, and he's not really confronted about it in
a way that other politicians would be, like on a
debate stage and things like that. Um, the media sort
of lifted him up as this like, oh, he's the Obama.
He's like a smart guy, and he's he can he
knows all the languages, and like, I think that's weirdly true,

(01:07:44):
Like he can like hone in on like here's how
you speak. I'm gonna try to talk to you like this,
I'm gonna lie to you. Um, he's good at the
he's good at language in a lying way. If you're
the nine or ten people who are fans of trans Metropolitan,
which is a comic book series by Derrick Robertson and

(01:08:04):
Warren Ellis that I quite enjoy. Um. It's about like
an election, and there's a character, um politician, a guy
running for president, the smiler and and Buddha Judge reminds
me a lot of him. Um. Yeah, it comes to
mind this guy who doesn't who says all the right

(01:08:26):
things and believes in none of them. And that's how
I feel about Pete Bouddha Jage. Yeah, and I think
that it speaks to why all that all the all
this money from these various places are are funneling into
him because they know that about him and they know
what they can get out of it. In conclusion, make
Pete Buddha Jedge not the President, didn't judge Judge. Well.

(01:08:54):
So next week, guys, we're gonna be dropping the first
part of our much anticipated for episode. Uh and we're
really excited to share that with you. Uh. I was
going to be an audio visual extravaganza, extravagan without the visuals. Um.
I can't speak for either of these two guys, but

(01:09:15):
I hope you had a good, happy, safe New Year
that you can't. I can't speak for you. I can
speak for me. Everybody liked me. No, I don't hope
that actually, So I'm glad you didn't speak for me.
You've never mentioned that in passing, So I how I
would I assume that you thought that you hoped for

(01:09:37):
everyone's health and happiness. Um, and man, I'm not going
to say it's good to be back, but we are back.
We are we are we are still here and um.
You guys can find us online at Worst Year Pod,
on Twitter and Instagram. Etcetera. There's merch out there. Um,

(01:10:03):
and you can find the worst year ever right now
in your life currently because it's here and you can't escape.
It's in your ears, in your mind, you're bringing your heart. Um,
we'll get through this year. Yeah, I'm gonna make it.
We might not, though nobody can promise that. At this point,

(01:10:24):
I ran out of steam. You got to post it
on the last day of the year, so you know, like, no,
it's like twelve hours. I'll be fine. Everybody does, all right,
we'll be back next week. Thanks guys, Hey bye. Every

(01:10:48):
Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.