Rick Wilson

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Rick Wilson, mollly John Fast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Great to be back with you.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You had a nice littifaication we did.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
We went to England and Renee and I spent a
few days in the Costswalds and a few days in London.
When I was over there, their number one story in
the news for like four or five days was that
the Deputy Prime Minister had not paid enough property taxes.
It wasn't did Trump nuke the moon? It was there
something cuckoo.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
There's still time. While you were away, Stephen Miller went
on Fox News and he said some stuff. We're gonna
We're gonna cut to the veile.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
There is a domestic terrorism movement in this country. When
you see these organized boks and campaigns where the left
calls people enemies of the republic, calls them fascists, says
they're Nazis, says they're evil, says they happy removed, and
then prince their addresses.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
What do you think they're trying to do?

Speaker 4 (00:53):
They are trying to inspire someone to murder them. That
is their objective, that is their intent. And when you
see online Sean, as we've seen for the last few days,
tape after tape after tape of federal workers beer A
Cres Staffords in the Pentagon, Educators, professors, healthcare workers, nurser

(01:15):
nurses celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk. These are radicalized people.
There is a domestic terrorism movement in this country.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
I just want to say, you think that the cardigan
is going to make him seem a little more mallow,
but it really it's I guess it's a fleece, like
you want to like a guy in a gray fleece.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Look, I mean it is the It is the sort
of modern day business bro uniform you want to qua
zip or a fleece, and you know it makes you
it seem like you're casual and yet still smart and
sharp and approachable and yet not necessarily rabid bouncing off
the fucking walls. And you know, Stephen Miller is I

(02:00):
will tell in all of this, Steven Miller immediately goes
to it. Oh, they call us Nazis, they call us fascists. Well, listen, Stephen,
if the jack boot fits.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Wear it, well, I don't think that.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
I think that the I think the name calling whatever right.
Nobody has ever been convinced of anything by calling someone
a name. The question I have is, where are these nurses,
where are these federal employees celebrating this brutal killing, because

(02:32):
I have not seen that.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Maybe I'm siloed up, but I'm not seen from did.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
See a few weeks ago Mike Lee and JD. Vance
and a whole bunch of other Republicans laughing and joking
about the murder of the former House speaker in Minnesota.
You know what I did see when Paul Pelosi was
beaten with a hammer by a crazy guy who was
inspired by MAGA. I saw Don Junior making jokes about
it online. I thought it was hilarious, and frankly, we

(03:00):
saw Charlie Kirk hoping that guy would get bailed out
at the time.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
So let's just pull back because Stephen Miller is basically
Trump's chief of staff. So this is not like some
guy on the internet saying this. This is the president's
chief of staff.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Not Molly. It's important to realize not only that Stephen
Miller is the effective head of the both the Justice
Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Right she is controls those things top to bottom, and
one of the things that I think has been really
interesting about this week that we've seen a lot of
is that we've seen people from Trump World and how
they're like, I'm thinking about cash Battel. So Cash Battel
was so worried about the way that this was playing
out in the media, social mainstream, and we have now

(03:46):
Steven Miller going on television, going on Fox News saying,
you know that he's going to sort of we ideal
I mean, the goal what it sounds like to me
here and I certainly could be wrong, but it sounds
like ideological culling of the federal.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Look, I think you have to expand past that. You
have people like Representative Clay Higgins, you have people across
the across the MAGA verse now saying that anybody who
doesn't sufficiently praise Charlie Kirk is going to be targeted.
And I think what you see Miller doing is taking

(04:21):
a tragic moment, a horrible moment of violence, and now
trying to weaponize it into a further expansion of the
power of the executive branch.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
When you have executives here, yes we.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Need the State Department now saying that they want to
be able to cancel Americans passports if they're if they
say the wrong things. This is an increasingly.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Center dark visionship. Yeah, such a ship. It's the use
of the power of the state state to.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Harm the political opponents of the president.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
It's funny because my grandfather after he got out of
jail during mccarthier, they actually did take away his passport
and that's why the family went to Mexico after he's
out of jail, because you could go to Mexico without
a passport. And they actually went to a very conservative
Supreme Court and were given their passports back because the

(05:18):
court said you can't take people's passports away for political reasons. Now,
that was seventy five years ago. Now our court is
significantly more conservative than it was. I mean seventy five
years ago. I mean, I feel like this court, you
give them that question, they might decide differently.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
There's an article in The Times on Sunday about the
number of times the Supreme Court agrees with the administration
and the current Supreme Court. No Supreme court in history
has ever agreed with an administration more frequently than this
one does. So, you know, Donald Trump could say, my
opponents have to have to be branded in the middle
of their forehead with an L for loser, and they

(05:56):
would probably go, well, the executive poe or should not
be constrained. Look, may I think what we're seeing here
these are the kind of things that really show us
who this administration is. And Steven Miller by saying that
he wants to enforce a speech code in this country
and enforce ideological conformity, and to try to use this
tragedy to pinant on everyone who speaks against the president,

(06:21):
you know, it does show you also something that clip
in particular, that Steven Miller's crazy. This guy has more
than a couple of bolts loose up top. I wonder
in some ways the President looks at Miller and says,
he's the guy who understands my base. I wonder in
some ways, just like with RFK, if we're going to
start reaching a point of diminishing returns with Steven Miller
soon because that stuff he's doing on TV is cuckoo Town.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Well again, I think it's also a question of like,
is it more trouble than it's worth? And that goes
to Chicago, And I'd love to talk about Chicago because
Trump was already to go into Chicago last week and
he chang his mind. That is like when Trump says
uncle about things that is really important.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
It means a lot when Trump. When Trump tacos, it
means a lot. And especially because he really had spent
a in the in the period before the Kirk incident,
he had spent about a week saying Chicago was weak
and dangerous and and the streets were running with blood

(07:28):
and all this other stuff, and you know, and and
people like Miller had been out talking to reporters telling them,
we're gonna go in, We're gonna we're gonna take the
city back, you know, if they if they screw with us,
we'll arrest them. And then he backed off, and now
we're hearing that he was gonna send troops to Memphis,
which needs it, red state, blue city, red state, and
to Louisiana, which also red state, blue.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Cities, but but again needs it.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Is like, is a fake framing right needs?

Speaker 1 (07:57):
You know what?

Speaker 3 (07:58):
You know?

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, you know, I stand corrective, I stand you could
make a better case for it for those communities.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
But you still should not make any case that the
National Guard should be fighting crime because that's not their job.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
And also with the picking them trash.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Right, they're picking up trash, they're planting things. And by
the way, they are furious.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Right.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
National Guard troops are really mad because these people signed
up to save drowning children and fight wars, not to
pick up trash and intimidate their neighbors, which is not
the purpose.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
But I think it's worth just for.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Another minute talking about why Trump did not go into Chicago,
because pritzkerh has certainly has something to do with it.
He went into California that was ruled illegal.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
And then I.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Also wonder about Brandon Johnson. You know, there was a
really united front there.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I think I think he I think he started
to look at Chicago and there was a pussibility there
that the Chicago government and courts and law enforcement would
all say no, not here, bro. And he has been
losing in court a lot, as you know. And I
think that there may have been part of this that said,

(09:16):
we don't want to have a precedent set because look,
in Tennessee and Louisiana, the state governments are going to
say cool, we love mister whatever. But been in Illinois,
I think there was a real chance he could have
been legally and professionally embarrassed by this in terms of
the city might have been able to really, you know,

(09:36):
put up some meaningful obstacles, both legally and otherwise to
this kind of behavior. So I think the window in
which Trump can use the National Guard is closing or
has closed. I don't think it's an effective strategy. There
there is pushback inside the military about it, quietly of ours,
because they're all overdo Trump.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
And it was emailed to a reporter at the Washington
Post that that the was terrible for them and that
they were look.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
A bad look and killing morale in the Guard.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, which I mean. The thing that is so interesting
about this administration is like, at so many points, so
they blew up this boat off the coast, it does
it certainly seems like the boat they blew up, they
don't have a definitive answer on what was in.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
It doesn't strike you that the boat they blew up
might not have really been.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Well, they were turning around, you saw that, right, they
got you know they you know, when people are in
the midst of surrendering, you're not supposed to kill them, right.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
That is the rule that is part of the Uniform
Code of Military Justice. And also the Geneva Convention, a
variety of other practices of war where someone says, hey, okay,
I give up. You're not supposed to just kill them.
And look, I think what you're seeing. Also, and there's
a little bit of reporting about this, You've got Ritt
Grennell and Marco Rubio fighting over control of who's going

(11:01):
to be the Venezuela person. It's an odd fight and
one that I will never see on pay per view,
I presume. But it really strikes me that the one
side is leaking like a sieve, and it doesn't seem
like it's Rubio's side who was controlling this until that moment.
And I wonder what the value added is for the
Trump administration to declare war on Venezuela and to pretend

(11:26):
that they're stopping trendi Agua by blowing up shrimp boats.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yes, but then there's also the larger question of a
lot and I feel like so much news got drowned
out by the by his other stuff. But like Scott
bessen had, yes White House Fight Club, Scott Bessant has
now he's going to beat up Pulty. I'll be very

(11:54):
curious to find out what happens with Bill Pulti because
this guy provided all this evidence of stuff, and now
Lisa Cook it looks like is exonerated, right or not
just a.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Little exonerated, like like completely she said in the filings
when she filed for the mortgage, this is a vacation home.
I'm not asking for a homestead exemption. So I mean,
I think she's got a case against this guy.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
I think you could dragon parents actually did commit mortgage.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Fraud, right, Yes, they correct, Yes they did.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
So they So the irony here is incredibly rich. Bill
Polti has made an enemy out of Scott Bessen, Scott Besson,
who you know, had his last scene focusing with Elon Musk.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
I just want to see these guys, like, I want
to see these guys fight it out.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
You know what's funny that.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
They said they were going to do MMA fighting at
the White House, Remember that?

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, why not just go all with Well, maybe.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
It's already happening. Maybe the MMA fighting is.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
The hand along the way, right.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Or maybe it's just the it's just Scott Bess and
beating up different people from the administration.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Soayday Sunday, and it's a lot of thrills and spills
the fans we'll see in here is white House Fight Club.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
White House Fight Club.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
So, and the first rule of white House Fight Club
is that Scott Besson does in Scott.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Be the apparently the White House Fight Club is you
leak it to Axios right well.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
And the second rule of White House Fight Club is
if you're fighting with someone who has more than seven jobs,
you're probably gonna get fired. So like, yeah, Marco has
had fights with people and he's gotten their jobs. Scott
Besson has had fights with people and he's gotten their jobs.
So I could see a world in which this is
the end of Bill POULTI yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Mean, I don't think Bill Poulty is a guy that
Donald Trump wakes up in the morning and says, my god,
what will I do without him?

Speaker 3 (13:54):
But it is interesting, like that's just another guy, rich
guy who Trump was it. I mean, the barrier to
entry in this administration continues to be any golf, right,
do I like you are the vibes good? Right? He was.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
He was a developer. I know them, I am one,
I love them all.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
I think the real question, though, is just the idea
that you have a guy who is just sort of
putting people in the cabinet. It is the one thing
that I think is different from Trump one point zero
is we're not seeing like the wall of firing, which
means all of these people are staying in the administration. True,

(14:37):
tak me through that, because that seems like I feel
like Scott, like firing your your head, your director of
Defense might have been a better move than keeping him in.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Well. I think Trump looked at the things that hurt
him politically in the first administration and determined he was
going to take that sort of Roy Cone approach from
now on. My people never do anything wrong. They're always right.
Screw you. If you criticize them, you're criticizing me. And
I also think there's something that's changed inside the administration

(15:14):
is he's willing to move people laterally, Like Mike Walls
was National Security Advisor until the Laura Lumer well, and
didn't he.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
As oh Laura Lumer, okay, yeah, yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Laura Lumer fired all of his staff and then Trump said, well, Marco,
you can be National Security Advisor. And and but Mike
Walls didn't get humiliated. He got the United Nations job,
you know, So they play it a little differently this time,
because Trump doesn't want to be seen as losing any battles,
and so it's going to take a lot to fire
even sect drunk Pete hegg Seth.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
But Pete egg Seth is still like adding people to
signal chat. I mean, maybe he's not actively doing it,
but clearly the problems have not gone away.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
No, and look, petexeth is is a singularly destructive Secretary
of Defense. And at no point should the folks who
are on the current Joint chiefs of Staff ever wake
up and think I'm serving this country effectively by working
for petex Seth. They will not be replaced by somebody

(16:21):
better or more responsible.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
They are.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
They are in a deep hole with this guy because
he is, i mean, without like being funny or exaggerating,
peterexeth is mentally incapable of doing this job. They will
put somebody stupider in the job when peterxeth goes.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Rick give us like a reason to not despair about
the state.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Of Donald Trump is a failing president. His poll numbers suck,
and they suck hard by the way they are bad.
Donald Trump's numbers are now in the high to mid thirties.
He is not a popular president. His policies are failing
almost across the board. Everything he does, almost every single day,
is mediated by the fear of revelations on the Epstein

(17:11):
matter that he has been permanently branded as being a
friend associate running but however you want to describe it
of an infamous sex trafficker and an infamous pedophile. He's
talking about freeing the woman who ran the operations of
that infamous sex traffickers pedophile child trafficking ring. Yeah, nothing

(17:34):
about this is good for him. Donald Trump is also
now an international laughing stock, and he knows that the
world knows it. The tariff move has absolutely empowered China
more than almost any other country on Earth. The United
States is a laughing stock in foreign policy because no
matter what Vladimir Putin does, Trump will say, yes, sir,

(17:55):
three bags full? Can I go wash your car?

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
He's a terrible president. His presidency is failed and failing.
He is doing awful things, but that ability to do
these awful things is now diminishing with a weaker economy.
It's diminishing with an administration that is obsessed with one issue.
Jeffrey Epstein behind the curtain. And as much as he

(18:21):
can do evil and do wrong, he's also eighty years old,
and he's not in good health, and the time is ticking,
and the actuarial tables are undefeated. And I don't think
that we should look at Trumps as powerful as he
would have been if he'd come back in twenty twenty one,
either from reelection or through January sixth. He's physically and

(18:45):
mentally off his game.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
He's slipped. Yeah, he seems tired.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
It's going to catch up with all of us eventually.
But he is not the guy he was six months ago.
You can see it, you can feel it, and he
doesn't have the same instincts and the same ability and
the power. Is the Republican Party still his bitch? Of
course it is