Trump's War of Lies: Polls, Panic, and Political Flips

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This is the John Fugel saying podcast.

A new AP poll on the war with Iran reveals that 59% of Americans think Trump has taken

things too far and in too excessive, 45% of respondents worry about the rising cost

of fuel.

Only 45%.

I guess that means 65%.

If you don't drive, TSA checkpoint wait times have climbed to all-time highs.

The ICE officers are inserting themselves into your travel plans, and the Senate is somehow

closer than ever and farther than ever from ending this partial shutdown, but there's

good news, because the gas prices are so high, the postal service is going to start charging

an additional 8% on every package sent to cover the higher delivery fuel costs.

Let's see what we've been saying with this war.

Expect not just gas to cost more, but everything that gets delivered by trucks.

USPS Senate Press released a surcharge will be a temporary price adjustment, because transportation

costs more now.

Meanwhile, the EPA has killed restrictions on the sale of pollution spitting E-15 gasoline

in the upcoming summer months, because they say, hey, that's okay, it'll poison the

air, but it'll help fuel costs.

Yeah.

Here's some good news.

You guys should know, the United Nations voted to recognize the enslavement of Africans

during the transatlantic slave trade as the greatest crime against humanity, and only

three countries voted against it.

The resolution just was asking all the states in the UN to recognize that this was a grave

crime against humanity to consider formal apologies, to consider contributions to a reparations

fund, not that they have to, but just to assert that it was a grave crime, and three countries

refused to call it a grave crime.

Those countries are Argentina, Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel, and Donald Trump's United States.

They will not call slavery a grave crime against humanity, but they'll defend the Confederacy,

and they just put up a statue of Columbus at the White House.

Any questions?

Here at 866-997-4748, let's do a show.

I'm so glad you guys are here.

Let's make some sense out of all of this, 866-997-Grit.

I want to begin by congratulating Donald Trump, because he will now, in the Florida Senate,

be represented by a Democrat.

Well done.

They're better on the economy, Don.

This is good for you.

I want to talk a bit about the slow motion panic attack that man-baby's going through, because

the voters are not just unhappy with this guy.

They're coming for him, and he knows it.

It's not the media that's out to get him.

The voters are out to get him.

The media is just covering it.

And think about the midterms.

Joe Biden's 2022 aside, the midterms are usually really painful for the party in power.

That's just normal political gravity.

What's happening right now isn't gravity.

It's more like a sinkhole opening up under the entire Republican Party, and dragging

them all down to the nether depths.

Since Donald Trump oozed back into office and left a greasy trail on Pennsylvania Avenue,

Democrats have now flipped 30 state legislative seats, 30, red to blue, 30.

Republicans have flipped.

Let me check.

Let me check.

Zero.

And then, you know, the best part of all of this is that Emily Gregory won the seat in

the district.

That includes Mar-a-Lago.

Trump lost his own neighborhood, his own backyard.

It's like his neighbors put a first sales sign on his ego.

Trump endorsed her opponent.

He tweeted and tweeted.

He even voted by mail in that election as he tries to keep you from voting by mail in

your own.

Listen to this clip.

This is man-baby.

He doesn't like it when other people vote by mail.

He doesn't mention here that he just voted by mail himself.

You know, brought to my attention today that we're the only country that doesn't, that

there's mail-in voting.

Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating.

I call it mail-in cheating.

And we got to do something about it all and it's part of Homeland Security.

What?

What?

Part of Homeland Security now?

Let's him try to get ice into your elections.

That's him trying to get his personal masked coward goon squad into your polling places.

And the voters are angry and he knows it.

And the mega voters are embarrassed and they stayed home like they did in 2018, like they

did in 2022.

This is not just Florida.

We have seen flips.

I mean, Tampa last night flips a new hamster.

We Democrat one in deep red arc and saw.

That's not supposed to happen.

It's like Alaska losing a snowball fight to Hawaii.

Democrats winning an arc and saw.

The data nerds are going nuts over this.

I don't know if you saw Harry Enten on CNN, but he's just like, dude, this thing's going

to spread.

I mean, you know why it's happening because voters keep hearing the same rubbish from

this White House.

The economy's great.

The affordability is a hoax.

Of course, Donald Trump doesn't know people who buy their own groceries.

Donald Trump has never had to fill up his own gas tank and pay for it.

Donald Trump doesn't talk to Americans who are now paying rent like rent as a luxury subscription

service.

I mean, you're great.

Please, you want to tell us you're in touch with the American people by telling them

their bills are imaginary?

Keep on doing that through November.

Don't listen to anybody.

You just keep on doing that.

These idiots don't care about governing friends.

And I think y'all know this.

If you listen to this channel, they care about the grift.

They care about wealth extraction as deep and as long as they can.

And that's why they now have to deal with this messy war in a round, all these scandals,

all these economic fears, all this corruption coming out.

And they're responding the only way that matters.

The voters are voting against them consistently across every environment.

And here's where it is interesting to me because when politicians start losing like

this, when the ground really shifts under them, you ever know

this, they don't usually get introspective.

They don't say, hey, this isn't popular.

Maybe we should change our policies.

No, they panic.

And when this guy panics, he doesn't pivot to something more popular.

He schemes.

That's what the redistricting in Texas was all about.

That's what trying to put ice in the airports so they can beta test it to put ice in the

polling places are about.

Trump has spent his entire miserable bloated life treating rules and laws like suggestions

and inconveniences.

So there's voters rejecting him now.

In district after district like a hot blonde at the bar, he can't pay or bribe to find

him attractive.

You think he's going to accept that?

No.

He hates that.

Nothing terrifies a corrupt system more than a functioning electorate.

And so when you're losing in your own district and you're getting wiped out in special elections,

and when the opposition is flipping seats in place as they shouldn't even be competitive,

dude, that's not your party having bad messaging.

That's the voters rejecting you and the rest of the party will pay for it.

They're not buying what he's selling friends, keep the pressure on.

They're not buying this economy spend.

They're not buying the war spend.

He can't gaslight everybody and we're seeing it.

And so now we're going into the midterms led by this guy who sees losing as something

to be avoided at any cost, which is scary because when they start to believe the voters

of the problem, they believe democracy itself is the obstacle.

And right now these voters are being very loud.

They're organized.

They're motivated.

We haven't even gotten to the protest this weekend.

So let's talk about this quick little journey into the Middle East that Donald Trump sold

us for this war.

You know, the war in Iran that's supposed to eliminate a big problem.

Can we talk about that?

290 American troops wounded, diesel averaging 535, a gallon, missiles are flying all over

the region over 1,000 people have been killed already.

And Trump said nobody could have predicted Iran would retaliate.

No, not the Pentagon, not the CIA, not all the experts.

No, no one could have foreseen that bombing a country might lead to that country bombing

back and resisting.

And now we're in a war with Iran and friends, I'm going to phrase this very carefully because

I don't want to make the wrong people too angry, but it's very possible the ayatollas

are giving more accurate press briefings than your White House.

That's where we are.

I do not like the ayatollas, but I know Trump is lying to us.

And I did not have theocratic douchebag Iranian regime becomes the fact checker on my bingo

card, but this is where we're at now.

Trump keeps saying the war is won, right?

It's done.

It's been a mission accomplished golf cart time while he's saying this, they're sending

more troops.

And then he says that there's peace talks happening and Iran responds, no, that's fake news being

used to manipulate the oil markets, right?

He says we're close to a deal Iran will almost completely surrender and Iran's like mocking

him on the internet.

Iran's like bros negotiating with himself again, sad.

I mean, you know how insane this is like Iran is out here posting on social media in

English.

We want to correct the record.

This man is lying for insider trading.

The ayatollas sound like an SEC whistle blower.

And I love Trump's version of events because you got to watch it closely now.

He's beginning to do exactly what I said he would do throw a headset under the bus.

The reason you hire these incompetent flunkies is so they can be fall guys.

All of these henchmen have targets on their back, but he hired stupid people like Pete

Hegseth for a reason, right?

Trump's version of events.

He says, I called Pete.

I said, we do a war and Pete said, let's do it.

You're not doing like it's Pete's idea that that's well, that settles it.

Okay.

Most powerful military decision on earth and it was like a group text.

Pete Hegseth just tweeted up a thumbs up emoji and that's it war.

It's fantasy football league, but now Trump is like, he's like, I don't just look at

me.

I just suggested the war.

Pete agreed to it.

Listen to this earlier today.

Boy, howdy.

Hegseth is pumped over, totally destroying Iran.

And by the way, we're we're also sending 2,000 paratroopers there and banking our allies

for help.

Bra give it.

Listen.

Thanks.

Well, thank you Mr. President.

You're spot on never in history has a modern military.

Iran had a modern military, a modern Navy, a modern Air Force, modern air defenses, leadership,

massive bunker.

Never has a modern military been so rapidly and historically obliterated, defeated from

day one with overwhelming power, the air campaign that we've conducted, that Israel's

conducted alongside us was one for the history books, truly because we have the President

of the United States that when he sends his warfighters out to fight, he unties their

hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible

from moment one.

And that's why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well.

We negotiate with bombs.

Okay, that's Pete Hegseth who rapes women and then pays them $50,000 to sign an NDA that

they didn't.

Yeah, I'm going to say it every night until Pete sues me because I just want to be here

for the discovery phase.

Want to talk about this insider trading bit of this because it's not really subtle anymore.

They've been doing this for a year now.

This is not conspiracy theory stuff.

This is this is giant glowing Vegas neon sign corruption again, $580 million in oil

futures 16 minutes before truth social post 1.5 billion in S&P futures five minutes before

the same post.

$192 million dumped out of oil right before the announcement guys.

That's not smart investing.

That's not even smart gambling.

That is preloading the slot machine because you own the casino.

Chris Murphy's been great on this man.

He's like, what the hell is going on?

I bet he's on fire about this.

But the answer is, don't worry about it.

We've already defunded the people who would investigate.

This is how they're going to be this corrupt.

When Ken Burns makes his documentary about Trump, it's going to have to be 400 hours

long.

This is the same administration that is systematically weakened the very agencies that

enforce financial crimes.

This is what we're watching.

We're watching a guy rob a bank after he himself fired the security guard and then like

they just replace the security guard with a guy who just yells free market while the

crook's empty the vault.

And meanwhile, the actual war, you heard Hegs have say we're winning.

They've obliterated.

We've killed them all.

I'm so Christian.

I like killing people.

I'm a Christian who likes killing people.

Where's my crusade costume?

Oh, also send more troops rapist.

You can't declare victory and then ask for reinforcements at the same time.

Reporters wonder to loud.

Here's clip A2.

Why several thousand first wave troops are being called into service for a war that

y'all just said is winding down.

Speak of Johnson today describe the conflict as wrapping up, but the 82nd

Air Force division they're typically deployed at the beginning of conflicts.

So does the White House consider this conflict as wrapping up or is it changing shape?

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we are meeting our goals of Operation

Epic Fury expeditiously.

The president likes to maintain options at his disposal.

It's a kind of job to provide those options to the commander in chief for any specifics

on troop deployments, though, I would point you to the Pentagon.

If you need more soldiers, what exactly did we win?

According to NBC News, Trump's not even getting full intelligence briefings.

This is my favorite part of all of this.

Apparently they are just showing him two minute highlight reels of explosions.

That's how the president of the United States is consuming this war.

Not full intelligence reports, not strategy briefings.

He's micro-dosing TikTok videos, friends.

Here you go, sir.

It's some stuff blowing up.

It's really cool.

Shit.

You'll love it.

It's all winning.

We'll look how much we're winning, sir.

This is the commander in chief.

And he's being handled like a kid with an iPad at a chain restaurant.

And throughout all this, the markets are going crazy.

Gas is getting pricier and pricier.

People can't afford groceries, but somehow someone made hundreds of millions of dollars

on a Monday morning because they knew exactly what the United States president was going

to post about a war.

It is state-sponsored day trading with dead bodies.

And if we still had a functioning democracy with an actual justice department, this would

be the biggest investigation in history.

This wouldn't be a scandal.

This would be a controversy.

There'd be an investigation and subpoenas and hearings and people under oath.

But we don't have a justice department.

We have bribe me Barbie, Pam Bondi.

We get silence.

The system that's supposed to hold power accountable in this country has been so hollowed out.

It just echoes when you ask it simple questions.

So this is where it's at, friends.

The war is won and we have to expand it now.

And there's peace talks that only one side knows about.

And these financial markets are like moving so slow.

It's like they're trying not to wake a sleeping cat.

It's like Trump walking down a ramp.

And the president is watching bits of the war, like the ESPN highlight reel.

And the most consistent messaging we are getting is from the damned I got told is this is

not satire.

This is how it always starts though, right?

We've lived through this.

It'll be quick.

It'll be easy.

It'll pay for itself.

Oh, yeah.

Just like your gym membership every January, right?

And again, Trump said no one expected a rant to widen the war.

That's not stupid.

That's a confession.

He is telling us out loud none of us thought this through and you can feel it.

These, these, these, these lurching whiplash contradictions bombing one minute, then negotiating,

then demanding regime change and then saying everything's under control.

And now watches it unravels.

He's rewriting it in real time.

It was Pete's idea.

Of course it was.

Pete, that's the fall guy.

That's what he was hired to be.

Trump treats these cabinet members like like a drunk treats a slot machine, right?

You pull its lever and you hope it makes you happy.

And then when it fails, you blame the machine and 290 Americans are already wounded.

People with families and lives, all that built on a premise that would not survive five

minutes of basic scrutiny.

This is not strength friends.

This is not leadership.

This is a grifter who thought politics worked like real estate, right?

That's the, that's this whole thing.

Shitty landlord.

You go in, you knock something down, you build something better.

Except countries aren't buildings.

And wars don't come with closing costs.

They come with dead bodies.

And now the bill is due.

Hi, I'm John Fiegelstein, and I'm Professor Corey Brechenider.

And we are here to tell you about the oath in the office, an essential new podcast about

the extremely strange times we find ourselves in.

In the first few seconds in office, the president of the United States is required to take

a note, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

And we're going to hold him to that pledge, despite the fact that he has threatened democracy

and even the law itself.

It's all about hope for what democracy should look like and getting real about what our

democracy does look like from an esteemed constitutional scholar and a deeply unqualified

comedian.

Subscribe to the oath in the office, wherever you get your podcasts.

On the national level, the average price for regular, unleaded gas is about four bucks

a gallon.

But in parts of California, where I'm broadcasting from for the next few weeks, it is already

six dollars kids and higher in many places.

And if this war goes on, you can look for those numbers to rise into this hellscape.

I'm so proud to bring on one of our favorite guests, Bob Seska is the host of the Bob Seska

show, one of the finest politics, one of the finest podcasts about politics and good music.

You will ever hear.

He also co-hosts with our good friend, Mary Trump, Trek Politics, which puts an all-new

spin on Star Trek.

And I just love it.

You probably know Bob from the Stephanie Miller show.

He drops great weekly columns and bonus material at his Patreon at patreon.com slash

Bob Seska show.

Mr. Seska, good god almighty on a pogo stick.

It's good to see you.

Welcome back.

Great to see you, John.

Such a pleasure to be here.

You know, you mentioned gas prices.

And I just happened to be thinking about this story that I saw a couple of days ago about

solar panels that you can put on your apartment balcony.

They're about the size of a like a bath mat about that, you know, about that dimension.

And they plug right into your wall socket.

And you can save, I think, something like 30% on your home energy costs by doing that.

And so far, Utah has legalized them.

Virginia, I think, is about to authorize those devices and a bunch of other states.

A couple of dozen other states are about to authorize the use of those things.

I mean, that's going to be a big deal.

I hope Lee Zeldin can do something about this, Bob.

I hope Lee Zeldin can find a way to destroy those plaguing and get us back to heating

our houses with coal, like God intended, right?

That's right.

So we're all like Bob Cratchett hovering over a candle.

Yeah.

Great idea.

Oh, my God, Bob, I just was talking about Donald Trump or someone in his orbit inside

or trading on his announcements.

And I'm starting to think this story is not going away.

580 million in oil futures, 16 minutes before his social post came out on Monday about

peace talks that weren't actually happening.

One and a half billion in S&P futures, five minutes before his fake post about peace

talks that weren't actually happening.

Someone is really getting rich off of his lies.

And Bob, the Ayatollas are calling him out for insider trading.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely, because it's kind of obvious that that's what he's doing.

I mean, if you go back to, I first started to notice this in 2018, shortly after he began

his trade war against China by, you know, munking around with tariffs.

And this is first term, Donald.

So early in 2018, he started that process of going to into this trade war with China,

which was unnecessary, but he decided to do it.

Right at that point, that's when the stock markets became super volatile.

If you're following the DJIA, following the Dow and the S&P, you notice that from that

point forward, everything was zigzagging up and down.

And I started to think, okay, well, what if I were to correlate?

Some of these pronouncements about the trade war with China, with some of this massive

volatility in the markets.

And sure enough, there was every time Donald would say something positive about the trade

war with China.

Again, to be sure, this is first term.

This is long before what we're dealing with now.

So as soon as Donald Trump would say something positive about the trade war with China, the

markets would go up.

As soon as he'd say something negative, I like China has left the room and they're not

going to deal with me anymore.

The markets would collapse.

And so I began to put two and two together.

This is the kind of guy, Donald Trump is the kind of guy who would notice that his word

moves the markets.

And then the New York Times came out with an article about Donald Trump's, what was referred

to back then, back in the 80s, as greenmailing.

It was a way of exploiting the media in order to manipulate the stock market.

In fact, manipulate specific stock prices.

And Fred Trump, his dad, was his wingman, that's the quote from the New York Times.

They referred to him as his wingman in this greenmailing operation.

And there are several examples in that article where they ended up profiting significantly

based on Donald Trump using the New York media to manipulate the stock market.

I thought I was alone in this.

I thought I was the only one seeing this.

And then I noticed a piece in Vanity Fair by William Cohen, who noticed a lot of volatile

trading on the Chicago mercantile exchange.

Every time Donald would say something, it was the same routine, something positive.

The CMA would jump up.

He said something negative, the CMA would drop.

And so the question then becomes, once again, is this something he would do?

Fast forward to just this past week.

And everyone is now noticing, holy shit.

There was this massive series of trades that took place seconds before he announced some

positive news when it comes to the straight up promotion and fake positive news, Bob.

Fake positive news that the Iranian government said was not true, was not real.

The Iranian government is saying he just did it for insider trading.

Yep.

And that I think is, we can pretty much bank on that occurring.

I mean, the, my rule has always been never give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt

because he doesn't deserve it.

He's done nothing to earn that benefit.

And this is one of those cases where if you suspect that he's manipulating the stock market

and there's a follow on process that needs to take place in investigation that needs to determine

who around him benefited the most from that volatility.

From the rise in the markets or falling of stock prices, maybe it wasn't him specifically.

Maybe he just tipped off his voice or maybe he tipped off some allies in the investment

community and is receiving some sort of kickback for that.

I don't know what the process is after that, but it's very clear that not only is Donald

manipulating the market with the bully pulpit as his weapon, but he's also the kind of

person who would notice something like that, no doubt in my mind.

So Bob, you've got to feel really good then that we have an attorney general like Pam

Bondi on the case who is so intolerant of fraud and has spoken so forcefully about fraud.

I mean, like there should be subpoenas any day now, right?

I'm looking forward to seeing hands-on Bibles and congressional testimony over this.

Oh, no, no, no, no, John, no, of course not.

First of all, it's an open question as to whether this is illegal or not, but what

it absolutely is corrupt and Chris Murphy came, Senator Chris Murphy came right out and

said, this is this corruption, the exact definition of that term.

And therefore, I think at the very least, it's an abuse of power, which is an impeachable

offense.

So we can add that to the gigantic slag heap of impeachable offenses that have occurred

just in the past 12 hours, much less the past year plus.

So again, whether he's prosecuted for this or not, I don't know that we should be holding

our breath, but certainly add that to the list for a year from now when hopefully the

Democrats will have control of Congress.

Indeed.

By the way, folks, we'd love to hear from you on all of this where at 866-997-4748,

Bob, being a comic book nerd, like yourself, I'm a big fan of what we call crossover events.

When the Avengers come and join the Justice League or fight them or what have you, and I

don't know if you're enjoying this ICE TSA crossover comic that we're watching at the

nation's airports this week, you've got the side who is trained and not paid with the

side that is paid and not trained, helping them out.

And there's a lot to cover on this.

I want to play a quick clip.

Caroline Levitt held court on this one today that's going down at all the airports.

This is Clip A3.

Can I ask you about the TSA line?

Are the TSA lines, we've also seen the video of that from various airports, is that going

to be what ends the stalemate in Congress?

We'll see if you get to get to meet a trust fund.

Well look, it's the Democrats who have led to this stalemate over the past six weeks.

The President and the Republican's position has been very clear.

Funded the Department of Homeland Security, and we've attempted in good faith numerous

times, both the President himself and lawmakers on the Republican side on Capitol Hill to

go to the Democrats with reasonable offers, with real solutions, they'll ask for something,

we'll give them that concession, and then they say, oh wait, that's not enough actually.

So I think that's why I said earlier, the cruelty is the point.

They want this chaos.

They want to distract, I think, from the success of our military overseas right now,

totally obliterating the Iranian regime, and it's very important, because there's only

real.

When Caroline Levitt is saying, when Caroline Levitt is saying the cruelty is the point,

you know that we haven't just jumped the shark, Donald Trump has gotten into the tank

and mounted the shark.

Bob, nothing this administration has done is in good faith.

This is happening for a few reasons, namely, that Democrats want ICE to follow the law.

Democrats are saying these thugs have to have warrants before they drag people from their

homes or businesses.

Number two, they're saying these thugs can't wear masks.

Law enforcement has to be accountable for what it does.

And number three, they've got to wear body cams.

In the midst of all of this, I'm starting to think that what's really going on here in

the airport is two things.

And I want you to take on both.

One, they're beta testing us, getting used to seeing ICE in normal places to make it

seem normal when the elections come along and ICE is at polling places, but two, and this

is scaring me even more.

I kind of feel like Project 2025 already said they want to destroy the TSA union.

And what they're doing now is starving the TSA so people will quit.

And eventually they can scrap the entire collective bargaining and replace it with a four-profit

organization.

What do you make of why this is all happening?

No one actually thinks that ICE is going to make things work better in airports.

Yeah.

I think a lot of this has to do with owning the libs.

I think that's part of Donald's decision making, if in fact he was the one who decided

it.

I mean, he said he was.

I don't know if that's actually the truth.

But the fact remains that this move is so immensely dangerous from a number of different

levels, certainly the couple of things that you mentioned where the more ICE is deployed

to common areas like airports, the more accustomed to this that we become.

And I think a lot of people will rationalize that and say, well, it's okay.

I mean, they're in the airports.

I mean, I was okay.

I wasn't doing anything wrong.

So they weren't bothering me or at my airport, there was no real delay.

So whatever.

And that's my concern.

We have a we have a complacency problem in this country very often, John.

And I think that might be the case with having these ICE agents there.

But you know, it's it's I hate to go down this road.

I hate to put this energy out there.

But my sincere worry about this is, as you know, as you I'm sure have witnessed on many

occasions too many to actually number that people are not happy campers in airports.

It is a miserable experience going through an air flown a lot in the last 10 days.

You're exactly right.

Oh, God, yes.

Yeah.

You have to essentially stow your pride and self respect as you go from door to door as

you make your way from entering the airport to getting on the in fact, once you're on

the airplane, you still have to kind of just maintain as much willpower as you can to

not just freak out at the humanity acting poorly.

And so that's the starting point.

That's in the best of circumstances.

You add into the mix, long lines at security and then armed ICE agents who by and large

appear to be populated by proud boys and oath keepers.

I mean, Donald Trump's militias who are itching for a fight with someone.

And so my concern is that someone's going to get shot in one of these airports.

And it'll be what I mean, like the Alex Freddie, we're in a good situation.

I'm deeply concerned that that's what's going to happen.

Once you start putting these untrained weirdo militias in and amongst people who are already

crotchety in the first place, many of whom are drunk in the first place because airports

and drunkenness again go hand in hand in the best of circumstances.

So this is one of the many things that I'm concerned about with this.

And on top of everything else, John, there was a deal on the table.

I mean, Carolyn Levitt was straight up lying on top of just doing a knee or knee or I know

you are, but what am I thing with the cruelty is the point line.

But beyond that, there was a deal on the table.

It wasn't, well, technically, it wasn't a deal.

But John Thune proposed this idea that what they do is they pass DHS funding as a bill,

as a standalone bill without the ice funding in it.

So this way, the Democrats would not filibuster that legislation.

And then after that's passed and ostensibly signed by Donald Trump, then the Republicans

passed through reconciliation, a bill to fund ice, which doesn't need Democrats to filibuster.

There won't be any filibuster in the equation at all with a reconciliation vote.

So the Democrats would then be, you know, hamstrung.

The Democrats would then be handcuffed and would not be able to filibuster the funding

of ice.

At the same time, the Democrats would also be able to wash their hands of the entire ice

thing.

They wouldn't be voting for it.

They wouldn't be voting against it.

They wouldn't be filibustering it.

And guess what happened, John?

Donald Trump refused to do that deal.

Donald Trump refused straight up refused to John Thune, the leader of the Republican Party

in the Senate said, nope, no deal with the Democrats, even though it wasn't a deal and

would have done everything the Republicans want to do.

And the Democrats would have been able to walk away saying, well, we still prevented ice

from being funded.

We just couldn't do anything about the reconciliation.

Because they want to normalize ice in our public spaces before they use Trump's secret

gun police at polling places.

And I'm thinking more and more, they really are serious about breaking the TSA union.

I mean, it's just, it's so on brand for all of them.

I want to play this.

This is clip A4 because they talked to John Thune today, okay, three days after Trump said

no to the steel.

And earlier, Thune told Democrats, take the plan on the table and move on to the next

fight.

Time to end this, time to end this is now.

The Democrats have in front of them a proposal with legislative text that would allow us to

get DHS back and opened up again.

And it is essentially what the Democrats have been asking for.

And so we're going to have an opportunity to vote on that.

And I hope they will put their money where their mouth is.

And if they are sincere about actually getting DHS opened up again, that they'll provide

the votes and work with us in order to make that happen.

Bob is Thune stupid or is he helping Trump kick the can down the road because they just

want to keep hitting the snooze alarm on this thing over and over again to not have the

problem be resolved?

Yeah, it's a really good question, John.

I don't know.

I know that there is a very specific solution to this problem.

And it was the one I just outlined a second ago.

I mean, that again, they could have had everything they're looking to have.

They're funding for ice.

They get DHS opened up again and everything is fine.

But you know what, the longer they delay, the more and more people are going to blame Donald

Trump for this.

I don't think ice or no ice in the airports is going to move the needle at all.

I think what this is going to do is continue to damage Donald Trump because already you've

seen poll after poll, you've seen interview after interview with travelers and airports

indicating that, yeah, this is Donald Trump's fault.

I mean, it's hard to deny the fact that the Republicans are in charge of all three, all

three branches of government right now.

I mean, that gives them the power to be able to do this and they're not doing it.

And it's causing great pain for travelers.

And yet, and yet, of course, as all this is going on, the war in around continues.

And oil prices are going to go up, which means airline tickets are going to go up.

It's going to become more expensive as the entire process becomes more inconvenient.

I flew to Arizona last week and then I flew to LA on Monday, Bob.

And it's like refugee camps around this country.

I mean, I mean, the people, the lines, the anger that's out there, I don't know how they're

going to blame this on Democrats.

And they're trying really hard.

Yeah, it's impossible.

I mean, Donald Trump, and especially given the fact that Donald Trump is such a micromanager,

the fact that he's got his stumpy sausage fingers in every department, every sub-level

agency.

And that's just, and so that's his style.

But it also, like I've been saying all along, Donald Trump makes things worse for Donald

Trump.

That kind of nitpicky micromanaging guarantees that no matter what happens up and down the

line in the federal government, he's ultimately going to get blamed for it.

And there may be some relief for him on that front if the Democrats take over Congress

next year.

But in the meantime, it's all him and people see it.

This is not, this is undeniable, John.

We got time for a quick call before the break Floyd is calling from Iowa online for Floyd.

Hello and welcome.

You're on with Bob Sester and me.

Welcome to progress.

How you doing?

Yeah, John and Bob, this guy Trump, you can see the guy is not going to make it.

He might not even make it to the end of this year.

But the thing concerning is the people that they've got lined up to take away after he goes

out.

We've got to get somebody like, I'll talk to you about this before, Pritzker, a big guy.

They could step in and lead this nation through an emergency.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

It sounds like you're afraid of President JD Vance.

You think he's going to have the risk to get Maggar on his side?

I think JD Vance is going to make Democrats quake in their boots.

Do you think Vance could lead the United States armed forces?

Do you think so?

No.

No.

No.

I think it would be like George W. Bush with less, I mean, imagine George W. Bush without

Dick Cheney.

That's what it is.

No, he's not.

He has less experience than Bush.

That kind of thought George W. Bush, at least he did have some former military training.

These guys have had none.

Trump.

Well, it's been a long time since we had him.

I think George W. Bush was the last one that actually had any military training.

These are private academies.

That's not the same.

There's nothing to do.

Let me talk to you.

Bush was the champagne squadron, flying decommissioned aircraft to fight the Vietcong

over the skies of Texas, not quite the same.

But yeah, I mean, Bob, what do you think happens?

It's a very real possibility.

I mean, I'm writing a book about this right now and I don't know if Trump's going to be

the president or even alive next year.

What do you think is going to happen if Trump isn't the candidate?

I mean, if Trump's not the president by 2027 or 2028, I mean, I don't see things getting

better with President Babyman at the helm.

Yeah.

No.

I think it gets slightly better just overall in terms of tone.

You don't have Donald Trump being this ongoing attention whore, me, me, me with his

brittle ego.

That gets taken out of the equation and quite honestly, he's the pied piper of the mag

movement.

No one else could fill those dainty little shoes of his.

So there's that, but I also quite bearish on this idea that Donald Trump is going to

die soon.

Yeah.

His parents lived to be in their 90s.

I want to say, I mean, there's a very real possibility and we need to bank on the fact

that we could be stuck with Donald Trump for the next, at least the next two, three years

beyond when he's even going to be president, still a factor, still a quote unquote, kingmaker

inside the Republican party beyond his final term here.

And so I think that's the, I think that's the realistic take that we should bear down

and be able to deal with and not write it off as a sort of coast and say, well, you know,

he's going to be dead soon anyway.

So why are we bothering Bob?

How about that Spider-Man trailer?

You excited?

Does it look good?

Does it look good?

It looks great.

I was very impressed.

I think it's going to be fun.

I haven't seen a Marvel thing in at least a couple of years, but I'm about ready to

dive back into the Marvel universe.

You didn't see Thunderbolts?

Thunderbolts is delightful.

You didn't see Thunderbolts?

Yeah.

You know what?

I missed it.

And I haven't seen it.

And I feel terrible about it.

And I got to watch that thing.

I'm also really looking forward to Vision Quest, keep an eye on Vision Quest, the new TV series

about Vision, which is going to be run by, which is already being run by Terry Metallis,

who did season three of Picard.

And he is just one of the great talents that we have working today.

So I'm really looking forward to that series.

I'm just so grateful you can now geek me on politics and comment books, Mr. Cesco.

What's the best way for our listeners to follow you and keep up with your brilliance?

Speaking of the aforementioned geekism, you can follow my podcast with Mary Trump.

It's called Trek Politics.

We talk about Star Trek episodes.

Right now, we're doing the original series and all the political allegory and commentary

in those episodes.

And that's at trekpolitics.com, also Mary Trump's YouTube channel and everywhere you get

your podcasts.

Bobby the best.

Greetings, daywalkers.

These are difficult times.

And if you believe in justice, progress and democracy, the news you're reading and listening

to can be pretty depressing.

That's why there's a new podcast called Good News for Lefties and America.

Every day, it features positive stories for progressive listeners, because no matter how

disturbing the headlines might get, there's always hope we can build on this for a better tomorrow.

Good news for Lefties and America.

You can listen on this platform at GoodNews for Lefties.com or wherever Fine Podcasts are

heard.

Going to ask me your calls tonight.

We just found out that Pastor December Rose is not able to God squad with us this evening.

It's going to be the white guys with a chip on their shoulder hour with me and Dylan

Neighbor Cruz.

Pastor Rose can't join us.

So we invite you to join the conversation and take her place.

If you have any questions or comments about revultingly fake Christian nationalism, we're

in 866-997-4748.

That's 866-997.

Grit.

I'm sure Dylan Neighbor Cruz can tear this shit up all on his own.

Let me go to Callie calling from Chicago online three.

Callie, thank you for calling.

You're on progress.

Good evening.

What are you doing tonight?

You sound like you need a drink like me.

For starters, yeah, I could use a drink or six.

Yeah, how are you doing?

I'm sorry.

I just, I hadn't had anything about Rachel, but I was listening here and obviously

and wanted to congratulate her on her successes.

I, too, have been through some hardships as I'm sure many of us have.

And I think that transplant from Texas.

So I, my husband and I voluntarily moved up here so we could be.

What was the reason that you guys went from to, I'm so curious.

From Texas to Chicago, did you, did you feel like you were missing out on the most brutal

kind of winter a human can live through?

Like what was the reason for the move?

I'm going to brace it, John.

Well, I mean, the temperature is quite literally and politically.

Plus we have, we have that we had a trans-autor who was moving up through high school and we

thankfully had her in a decent school district and we got through that and once we got

the kids to college, they both high-tailed it out of there and so did we.

I want you to know I have a, I have a little transgender cousin in Texas as well.

God bless you guys for, uh, for, for the future kid like that.

Thank you.

And we're very supportive up here as well to our brethren and then we've been welcome

graciously.

And we love it here.

In terms of included.

Yeah, I got to also say, Cali, you get, you get substantially better pizza.

You know that, right?

There's maybe no greater pizza upgrade than Texas to Chicago like Jesus.

Well, yeah, that's true, that's true.

I mean, I've just known New York, but it'll, but, uh, you know what?

I'm a New York pizza snob and I bow down in humility to Chicago.

They do have the best pizza.

I say that as a New York pizza snob.

I honestly, I still have a lot to explore, so I'll keep you posted on that front.

You can.

I can give you a whole list of the places I recommend.

Go to Giordano's and Geno's East and Lumal Nadis for starters and thank me later.

I, I know there's things about geography that matter.

And Chicago pizza's one of the Chris, you want to weigh it on this?

Well, the real heads will tell you, forget about the deep dish.

It's all about the Chicago thin crust, the bar pot.

Yeah, that's, that's the thing.

Yeah, I can't do the deep dish like in my 20s anymore.

It's good to have options.

You'll see.

And that's the thing, John.

That's the reason why we moved up here because we wanted options, uh, really,

the really, the reason why I was calling because I wanted to just mention everything

that we've been talking about, everything that we all talked about these days.

I was listening to Caitlin Collins today and I love her.

She, I'm a former journalist and I, I just, I pray for her and her, her, just panache.

And, but even tonight, I found her with the talking head trying to just psychoanalyze

Trump on everything from, you know, everything.

And that made me, I just had to turn it because I was like, what are, really,

are we really, are we really here?

I mean, 10 years, John, we've been doing this for 10 years.

10 years playing dumb about how dummy is, yeah, 10 years of, and of course,

Caitlin Collins is in a slightly more awkward position now because you know,

who is going to be owning her, her channel very soon.

So, uh, it's going to be harder than ever for them to be objective.

Pardon?

That's right.

I'm already noticing a shift even in her and she was like my new gem.

Which I'm following on sub sack, uh, religiously him and health bar and Stephanie Miller

and you and Michael Angela, all of you guys, uh, I've been a lot closer

but first time caller to your show.

And thank you so much for just engaging with me.

And I will be calling back very soon.

To get really on the page on the pizza very shortly, please do.

Your husband and your daughter are very lucky to have you.

I thank you so, so much for the call.

Yeah, I wasn't going to say this, but, um, I got bumped from CNN twice last week.

Yeah.

Uh, back, I guess suddenly they got scared of, uh, booking me.

I don't know.

We were at 866 997 47 48.

So tonight our squad is down to one.

Pastor Rose is not able to join us and I am so thrilled to welcome Dylan neighbor Cruz.

Dylan is one of my favorite writers.

He's one of the reasons why I, I, I'm a die hard sub stack addict.

He is a theologian.

He is an author of the theological musings, volumes one and two to books.

It'll blow your mind.

He's known online as the tattooed theologian.

Dylan, you're doing all the heavy lifting tonight.

It's good to have you with us.

Welcome to progress.

Yeah.

It's kind of weird not being, uh, being here without December, but, uh, I'll do what I can to.

Well, I'm as co-dependent as you are.

Right.

Tell me about it.

Well, fortunately, uh, there's a whole lot of what you call fundamentalist, fuck, wittery.

We, we, we have to get to Dylan.

And, uh, I hope you don't mind.

There's, uh, all matter of fake Christian malfeasance.

It, it really does seem like every time America gets into another war.

Um, the fake Christians just find a whole new way to show how revoltingly false their gospel is.

Uh, I mean, Pete Hexeth is a guy who just seems to believe Christianity means bringing in right wing speakers who say that women should be quiet and temple and submit to their man.

And then I think it's a urinating on the teachings of Jesus.

I believe that's what it is.

And, and boasting about how many brown folks you killed today with your bombs.

Yeah.

I, I just saw earlier this evening that the idiotically named department of war posted on threads, uh, a picture of Pete Hexeth praying at the Pentagon and talking about, uh, you know, we're, we're having our services at the Pentagon, praise Jesus.

And the thing is, everything that Pete Hexeth stands for is something that Jesus preached against.

And this clown is too stupid to know it.

He's too wrapped up in his own abusive, narcissistic, violent tendencies to understand anything in any of the four gospels.

And Dylan, don't be so harsh.

You got to be the fairness.

The guy's a sloppy drunk.

I mean, you have some compassion.

The guys with the guys is major alcoholic, please.

Right.

Yeah.

And, and the performative nature of the social media post bragging about how they're having services at the Pentagon.

Just for the love of God, go read one of the gospels and point to me where Jesus says, be performative in public.

Well, I mean, I wanted to ask you about this because one of my favorite Jesus teachings to bring up because a lot of our right wing friends have never heard it is, of course, Matthew 65, where he literally warns us about people like Pete Hexeth or people like Mike Johnson, people who like to pray on camera for the folks who don't know Dylan, correct me if I'm wrong.

This is where he warns everybody.

Don't trust those people who are praying on the street corners so they can be seen.

And it's where Jesus gives the instructions to the our father and says, you're supposed to pray in secret as your father is in secret.

I mean, Dylan, that's not him coming out against, you know, praying in church, but that's Jesus seriously coming out against praying in public outside of temple, right?

Yes, absolutely. It is, it is similar to, I thought, is it an Amos? I can't remember where the prophet says that speaking for God says, I hate, I despise your festivals.

I don't want your praise and your worship because you're doing all these other stupid things and you're not taking care of the people who need to be taken care of, but you're doing all this performative bullshit over here.

So Jesus is just kind of reaching back into the teachings of the Hebrew Bible and he's saying, look, if you're, if you're standing on a street corner, you've had your reward.

People got to see you playing piety.

That's it. That's it. And I mean, that's all this is like, like, like, I'll never pretend to be a holy person, but prayer is supposed to be your private personal communion with God.

Not somebody's thirsty public audition for America's next top Christian. Is it fair to say Dylan that Jesus comes out against public prayer in Matthew 6.5.

I think he does. Yes. So if you're doing it for the reasons that Pete Hegseth seems to be doing it. Now there is, there is a Christo fascist Christian nationalist element to this.

And yeah, and, and you know, that's a whole separate thing, but it's this posting it on social media. Look how pious we are.

We're at this place that's known for killing people, but we're going to stop and have a sermon and some prayer.

And it's just performative pandering to Christian nationalist and to people who don't ever pick up a Bible and actually read it.

But then we'll tell you that Jesus, you know, that they bow for the cross and stand for the national anthem.

That's it. Right. Yes. When I saw that photo of Mike Johnson and these other Republican congressmen praying on the floor in the well of the house, where the cameras are, where the cameras are aimed so that they could be seen being so humble and so proud about how humble they are on their knees.

It's like you bitches could have gone into a goddamn private office and prayed, but you wanted to be seen. You wanted it on camera.

Is it? It is inherently performative, which to me means it's inherently blasphemous, because when you're a politician praying in public in front of cameras, that's, that's, that's you using God as a prop, right?

100%. Yeah. It is. Look, look at our piety. Don't look at what we're doing. Look at what we're pretending.

Right. Because Mike Johnson is the guy that said, Oh, we're going to cut health care for millions because the free market demands that.

So his, his, he's bowing down to the golden calf on one hand while simultaneously protecting multiple sexual predators and then pretending his piety on the other hand, or he's lying about the separation of church and state and talking about how that's confusing.

It's not fucking confusing. And then, you know, doing this performative, everything I believe comes from the Bible nonsense, which I have seen exactly zero evidence for from that particular person.

Yeah, I want to ask you about that because Pete heads up, of course, has this tattoo on his body, dais avult, right, which is means Latin for God wills it.

This is not a Jesus quote. This is a crusader quote. This is the phrase that the crusader armies used as a slaughter Jews and slaughtered pagans and slaughtered Muslims in the first crusade. God wills it. It's nothing about Jesus. Again, this is all power. This is all army.

This is all Constantine looks in the sky, allegedly sees a vision of a cross floating in the sky and decides, hey, that make good branding for my shield and my helmets. And so these guys are in no way endorsing Jesus, right.

All this crusader cosplay because I want to get to Andy Ogles on this. But when, when they, when they do this in this crusader imagery,

that's got nothing to do with Jesus, right. That's that's got to do with with European slaughtering people and ultimately losing because the crusaders were losers, right.

Yeah. Well, that particular quote comes from Pope Urban II in 1099, I think it was. And, and he was calling, you know, he got this letter from the emperor by the Byzantine emperor.

And he's like, hey, I need some help. And so they're going to try to fix the breach of the great schism of 1054, where the Eastern and Western Church is kind of split.

And Urban had the temerity to claim that the crusade that was going that he was going to call for, that Jesus demanded it, which is absolute nutter horse shit.

Because you can read all four gospels as many times as you want. And you will find exactly zero versus where Jesus is calling for any kind of a holy war.

Jesus's whole thing is love your enemies, turn the other cheek, put your sword away for he who lives by the sword will die by. There's no Jesus based argument for war, right.

Just war theory is Augustine, but it's bullshit, right.

Yes, I mean, Jesus's eyes, I mean, Jesus never says death to the Romans.

And or death to her, you know, not the great, because her, it's great was dead when he got to be an adult, but, but to her, it's progeny. He didn't say those things.

He said, love your enemies, bless those that curse you, turn the other cheek. If somebody impresses you to go a mile, go a second mile.

If somebody says, I want your cloak or your, you know, give him your shoes too. He, he's this, this whole thing with Urban the second was because the Pope had so much power at that time.

And it was that wedded, wedded, uh, conflation of empire and church that happened on the Milvane bridge with Constantine, maybe or maybe not converted, but did, as you say, throw some, you know, branding on his, you know, by the symbol we will conquer is, is what that was.

And it's, it's ridiculous. Yeah, but that's what happens when, when the message of Jesus is anti domination.

Whether, what are you believe in the divinity of Jesus or not, you can't read the gospel narratives and come away with Jesus wants you to dominate anybody. Yeah.

And that's what these clowns want. And the funny thing about Pete Hegseth having that tattoo, right, which is a stupid tattoo to have and I'm, I'm, I'm big fan tattoos. I got 13 of, but that's a stupid tattoo is that it's a Catholic slogan.

And his idiot pastor, Doug Wilson, has gone on record saying that when we're in charge, Catholics won't get to have public displays of their idolatry and all of that stuff.

Because he is ardently anti Catholic, but his number one most famous follower has a Catholic Pope's words tattooed on his body.

What a, the irony of that is, and a nasty cross to boot. And yeah, and, and definitely, you know, the crusader cross, which is used in white supremacist circles, everything about Pete Hegseth's just shouts.

Horrible human being.

I agree. I want to get to some of our calls on this and I invite you guys to call up. We have a lot to cover in 866 997 4748. But you mentioned one Jesus quote that I want to ask you about that whole thing where Jesus says if someone asked you to walk a mile with them walk another mile.

My understanding is in ancient Judea under Roman military occupation that the imperial law was if a soldier, if a centurion walks up to you and says, Hey, Jew, carry my armor from you by law had to carry it for a mile that anyone could be conscripted anyone who was Jewish could be conscripted by the occupying military force to have to walk with them for up to one mile carrying their gear. That was a law.

So my understanding always was when Jesus says if someone asked you to walk a mile with them, go a second. It was Jesus's way of killing them with kindness. It was Jesus's way of saying, you know what? I'm going to walk a second mile because fuck you.

Is that a reasonable interpretation based on the laws at the time or am I peering propaganda?

Now, I've read that too. And it's another one of those areas where Jesus is turning domination on his head. He's saying, yeah, look, just exactly kill him with kindness. Don't, don't rise to the bait.

Show them another way. Jesus was radical in his day. Yeah, two of the disciples were called zealots, if I'm not mistaken, at least one of them was. And zealots at that time were the like the people who wanted to continue the macabee and revolt style zealotry kill the Romans, you know, they had knives that they could seek

you know, secretly carry and then just start stabbing people and and ghost through the crowd afterwards. And Jesus says, no, that's not what we're doing here. This is all you don't bring about the kingdom of God through violence.

But that was the thing, right? The Jews of that time 2000 years ago were waiting for the Messiah who would lead them in violent revolt against their Roman occupiers. And so Jesus doesn't meet the criteria of the Jewish Messiah. He's something clearly very different because he was there to say, no, bless the people who persecute you, which must have been very confusing the folks who were looking for, you know, the uprising.

Yeah, I mean, there were multiple views on what the Messiah would be. And the violent warrior king, like King David was certainly one of them. And it was, it might have been the majority view. But Jesus was radically different than all of that. Yeah. And and and he was also different in that he said, look, the law.

If it if it's not taking care of people, then it's wrong. And and you know, you have heard it said, but I say to you. So there, there's there's so much about Jesus that looks absolutely nothing like Pete Hegseth or that clown Andy Ogles, which is where I tell all of our listeners, even if you're atheist, we're not asking you to believe any of this stuff is literal fact or to believe in Jesus's divinity.

This is just according to the book that we all are living under. And again, I don't think religion should control our government, but here we are. According to the book, they're using to force their version of this religion down our throat. They don't follow the guy the religion is named after. Let me go to Mitch and Kent state.

On line one, Mitch, good evening and welcome. You're on with tonight's squad of one, Dylan, they were crews. How you doing? Thank you, John. Good to hear you Dylan. Make all you don't know that correct. I know you must call him Miss Cruz, but that's a whole other story. Go on.

Only that one time and on Halloween in 2009 when I dressed as a flapper girl. Look, I understand you needed the right home. It happens to all of us. What's on your mind?

John, you know, grow up a Catholic. Okay. When I'm going to tell Rico, I think he took a page from your book, John. I really do.

He betterized it in the damn book. I nailed it to him. I hope he did.

But I'm just kind of kind of doing the comparison thing. I was, you know, in second grade when John Candy was elected. And I remember

the whole Catholic thing going on, right? I don't, you just, it was a whole unusual and different. You know, it had been the Catholic running for time. I can imagine.

And I don't tell Rico. I know he's not Catholic, but kind of going through the same. I don't know. He is his beliefs and his, his north star as far as, you know, right and wrong and good and bad.

I think there's some similarities there. It's got to be a little bit, especially come up from Texas, you know, and Candy, my God, you know, talking to the Dixie crats down there and trying to get his point across.

So I think there's a comparison there with the two. You can be, you know, be moral and yet be open to other, you know, ideas and other people.

I'll look on politics and how it, there's maybe us a little bit, but we was with religion and faith in there.

It's a little difficult there, but I got to be honest, make sure for a second. I thought for a second, I was confused because I thought you said you were a kid when John Candy was elected president. And I thought, wow, I missed all of the times. I was like, I don't know.

I remember John Candyman president, but the first Canadian, not just Catholic, first Canadian, yeah.

Yeah, but I don't know. I'm just, you know, just throwing an idea out there. But I, I, I, my telling me was, you know, he's, you know, yeah.

Look at how Taloriko is freaking these frauds out, Mitch, because all he's doing is quoting Jesus directly and they are literally praying for his death.

Dylan, we played that clip last week on the show. They're, they're literally, Hegseth's pastor is praying for his death.

Donald Trump is saying he insults Jesus. All the guy does is quote Jesus directly. And it proves what I said for a long time that the democratic party needs to do, man.

Take Jesus back from these frauds. They can't stand it. Imagine if more Democrats did it. I mean, Raphael Warnock does it, Pete Buttigieg does it.

The black church has done this for a long time, but I'm kind of thrilled to see skinny Caucasians like myself getting elected to office talking about this.

Yeah. And, and the idea that a man who shits on a golden toilet is saying that Taloriko embarrasses Jesus is just mind blowing to me.

That, you know, that Donald Trump says that about a person who Taloriko for those who don't know is a seminarian as well.

He is pursuing a master of divinity degree to be ordained if I'm not mistaken, but he isn't seminary and, and he does that. And that's the kind of thing that got me invited to leave the country by people in my family.

Quoting Jesus. Quoting Jesus. When I, when I left fundamentalism and my first marriage dissolved because I couldn't do the fundamentalist book. What are anymore? I couldn't do the militarism anymore and all of the things.

I was invited to leave the country and told that I would be given a ticket to anywhere in the world provided I never came back. And the reason that happened was because I started quoting Jesus. And my ex wife said I was doing that hippie Bob Marley ship.

Oh my God. I'm so sorry. And she was a pastor, a chaplain in the army when she said this, but the fundamentalist world. It's so wrapped up in right belief.

And every different, you know, whether it's Pentecostal fundamentalist or Southern Baptist fundamentalist or these reformed bros like Joshua Haymes and and podager who were saying, you know, James Taloriko needs to die. And then ha ha ha. We don't mean it literally.

Right. All of that stuff. It's all about they think their doctrines and their theological conclusions are correct. And nobody else's is. But here's the thing. All theology is speculative.

Sure. That's yeah.

All of it. They're true. Yes. It's all guesswork. No one knows anything. That's why when atheists and believers alike claim certainty. I'm like, you can't do that.

I mean, you can go ahead. You can look at the Bible and say, OK, here is what Jesus placed the most importance on because that's what the words on the page say, right.

But then you can then speculate as I did in my first book, go golden what those words mean for us in modern times. That's what doing theology is.

Right. But these clowns think that they've got it right like Doug Wilson saying we're not going to have any Catholic idolatry, you know, parades and things like that.

It reminds me of the Gordon riots in England that Dickens wrote about in Barnaby Rudge, one of his lesser known works. They had these violent riots, no popery and all of this stuff because Protestant Protestants think they know it all.

Yeah. Mitch, thank you so much to call. No, no, I love where you took it. I mean, we talked last week about this guy from Tennessee, Andy Ogles, who went on social media and said, Muslims don't belong in American society pluralism is a lie.

Now imagine if he said Jews don't belong, Catholics don't belong in American society, right. The outrage would be insane. But but again, he knows it's safe to do this.

It's a lie. I mean, James Madison wrote the Constitution. We have freedom of religion, which means Muslims do belong here, Jews do belong here, atheist do belong here. But this guy must have gotten some traction or some fundraising off of his particular fuck watery because now I mailed this picture to you earlier. He's gone full crusader cosplay and he just posted.

Oh my god, this AI image showing himself and Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio wearing old fashioned money Python and the Holy Grail style costumes of crusaders. It's the most soft core gay porn I've ever seen. I mean, Dylan, this is like the most anti Jesus thing you can possibly do, right. You're bragging about how Christian you are with militarism and the notion that you're going to kill a lot of motherfuckers for Jesus.

Yeah, and the really ironic thing about that is, as you mentioned, the crusaders were losers because the crusades were highly ineffective in what they were attempting to do and and in the first crusade after they they won a battle.

They found a bunch of women left behind by the Turks and this is what they thought was being holy. We did nothing evil to them, but simply speared them through. So they raped those particular women. They just killed them with spears in the name of Jesus.

And then another crusades, they did rape the women and they did dash the children's heads against the stone walls. None of that looks like Jesus. And also they were huge failures. And Andy Ogles is running around with this templar cross fucking cosplay.

They failed, man. I saw Kingdom of Heaven. They failed. Yeah. Well, the first crusade was marginally successful because they got Jerusalem back for a little while. But then the rest of them were massive failures that were expensive, cost lives. And again, looked nothing like Jesus. And the reason they did this was because everybody was fighting over.

That's our holy land. It can't be your holy land. Yeah. The whole planet is the holy land. All of the land is the holy land. What is wrong? There you go with your hippie Bob Marley Jesus talk Dylan. All right. We got to take a quick break. Please stay with us. Oh my God. This is great. It's great going deep on this with you. When we come back, I want to take more calls. And I want to talk about the stupidest Christian nationalist thing. Any Congressperson has said the entire week. How could it be stupider than Andy Ogles?

And his gay porn AI imagery of him and heads up is crusaders. Well, Congress would marry France and wins the crazy prize.

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We are back. And tonight with the God Squad of one Dylan, neighbor Cruz is here. Dylan, thank you for being with us. I got to play this my favorite clip of the week.

I know there might be more evil people, but nothing more stupid than this. This is Congresswoman Mary Franson, spoiler alert. She's a Republican. And in this clip, she says she's not worried about climate change because climate change isn't in the Bible.

She says if you've read the good book, you know how it ends and it's not with climate change.

Even if Book of Revelation said this, holy crap. This lady did not get this crap from Jesus. Give a listen.

Friends, and that's why when you talk about climate change, I don't get upset about it. I don't get worked up about it is because my faith is not in climate change.

It's not in scientists dictating what we should and should not do to save the environment because my faith is in Jesus Christ, right? He's the same today tomorrow and forever yesterday.

And so, you know, if you read the good book, you know how it ends, it's not with climate change. That's my closing speech.

Dylan, that's what the Bible calls god damn fucking blasphemy, right? She just made all that shit up. I mean, I mean like the Bible doesn't talk about electricity or air conditioning. Let's see you live without those for a few weeks.

Yeah, we got to stop electing stupid people with religious psychosis.

And, you know, nuclear bombs are not in the Bible, but we've got a damn near 80 year old man, baby with his hand on the nuclear codes.

And, you know, I grew up Gen X and we had air raid drills and duck and cover drills when I was in elementary school.

Did she not worry about that stuff? And to say you know how it ends, I guarantee you that woman has no clue what anything in Revelation means.

She has not read Revelation at all. She's had men in church tell her what it says. And that's all she needs to believe.

Right. And this goes for a lot of the Bible because it's a collection, it's an anthology of ancient text that was written over a long period of time with multiple redactions, etc.

And a society and cultural milieu that is nothing remotely like ours.

You're right. So you need specialized training to do this. And I got news for all the well, the Holy Spirit can tell me people.

The Holy Spirit told me y'all are full of shit.

I mean 800,000 getting it right.

No, 800,000 acres burned up in Nebraska. Right. I mean, droughts across the planet.

Hawaii gets four feet of rain. Okay. Like, like, this is really happening. And, and to me,

the Bible is damaged.

Yeah. The Bible talks about stewardship of the earth, stewardship.

I mean, the Bible doesn't need to talk to this issue because God gave us the tools to stop global warming by switching to cleaner energy.

Why do they just want to assume it's the end of humanity rather than do a little goddamn work and make sure it's not the end of humanity.

It's all spiritual narcissism because these people are raised to believe the world's going to end, but they're going to get to survive and go behind God's velvet rope because they're so special.

That's all this is, right?

Well, there's a lot of that. And there's also an awful lot of, but work happiness. So, you know, we're going to make our money.

And they, they somehow equate capitalism with freedom and no taxation with freedom and no regulations with freedom.

And I, I got news for y'all capitalism's not in the Bible.

But no.

But in first Timothy, where it says, for the love of money is the root of all evil, well, that's my definition of capitalism, love of money.

And it also says that people who are followers of Jesus should be content with shelter, clothing, and food.

And they should not seek in any way after riches.

You found the one teaching of St. Paul, they don't want to follow. That's what you found right there.

Right? And so, and as far as environmental stewardship goes, my entire first book is about that.

So check that out. Go golden is the title.

And if you, as these people say that they do, take Genesis seriously, Genesis chapter one is very different from Genesis chapter two.

There are two different creation stories. But Genesis chapter one at each and every stage of the creation.

God calls it good.

And then he simultaneously, and that's important, creates humankind in God's image.

There go. God is not binary or male, because you don't create a man and a woman simultaneously in your image and be one thing with the difference.

Thank you.

Thank you. People want to forget that. Genesis chapter one, God creates man and woman in his image at the same time.

That says non-binary is a gets according to my dictionary.

Exactly. And they are there to steward that created space in the Garden of Eden.

And there's also throughout the Torah, there are places where it says, look, you're going to let the land life follow.

Every, I think seven years or something like that, because they understood that the land needed to rest, that the land needed to replenish.

And also the poor could then go take the gleanings from that land.

And it was a mark of proper stewardship of the ecological environment that supported them, that God commanded, according to the writings in the Hebrew Bible.

So in other words, what you're saying is fuck these people, right? I think that's what I'm getting.

Yeah. And she should take a very spiritual way.

Yes, read the theological abusing's volume one. Let me go to Glenn in Mississippi who's been on hold for a bit. Glenn, welcome. You're on with Dylan, David Cruz. Good to have you, man.

Thank you.

Hey, thanks for having me and good to hear from you, Dylan.

This in December, though, I can abuse her on this.

But you think of Trump saying that for a keyster, everybody should stay in and vote for his saviour.

Is that not about the most blasphemous?

Oh, wow, I hadn't heard that.

Yeah, he said, we'll do this for Jesus.

Oh, yeah, I heard that. He said that they said they have to vote for the saviour for Jesus. Yeah.

Make it harder to vote for most Americans, disenfranchise the poor and women for Jesus.

I mean, Dylan, along with Doug Wilson and Joe Webon and Dale Partridge and all those clowns who say that should be a household vote.

Yeah, that the man of the house should get to vote.

Well, what the hell does that mean for women who are single or divorced or lesbian or asexual or who, you know, or whomever?

But for him to say that is definitely wow, that's that's off the charts with the black crazy.

That is off the charts, but I'd say there's also an awful lot of I don't care how much of a believer in Trump's bullshit you can be.

How can these people see any of that? That is like the most holy day of holy days.

Right. And you're doing exactly the opposite listening to the devil teach you all about how to honor Christ.

They don't view it that way, man. They view it as they own Easter. That's their thing like they own Christianity.

And they kind of believe they own God in Jesus too. And they can do it as they wish. They have dominion over faith itself. Right.

I mean, Dylan, that's not being too harsh. That's sort of they act like they own it and that they're the gatekeepers to to faith itself.

Yeah. It's just it's the same thing as they believed that, you know, that they can destroy the environment because of dominion.

And that's not what that means. It means stewardship. And and as a as a friend of mine names Scott Baker says he's a theologian and professor down in Tennessee.

God gives roles, not roles. He gives gifts, not roles.

Right. So it these these people just I am so sick of them.

Well, listen, thank you for the call. Glenn Dylan, can you stick around a little bit because I I have something special for you.

Your favorite Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webon, who I think every week just says the most racist anti woman offensive shit possible.

So he can make decent people outraged and get his clips played. And we're going to play one when we come back 866 997 4748.

I mean, I've heard some batshit stuff from these fascists, but let's say that gender equality is a Jewish plot to eradicate white people.

That combines like six different micro penis conspiracy theories.

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