Weekly Roundup: Reparations for Traitors and the Slush Fund Presidency

Brad Onishi: Welcome to Straight White American Jesus. I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar, founder of Axis Mundi Media, co-host of this show, and here today with my other half.

Dan Miller: I am Dan Miller, Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College. Delighted, Brad, to be your other half. As always, it's gonna be one of those days, Brad. Brad's been up for 72 hours — feels like last week, but you thought last week was punchy when we recorded at 12 midnight Hawaiian time.

Brad: Buckle up, people, because it's 6am Pacific time, and I've been up for four hours getting ready. I've just been in the back sweating, getting ready for the game, the Super Bowl, and it's — it's gonna get real.

Dan: I wake up all about this. I wake up and think that I'm ready. I got 57 texts from Brad,

Brad: So we're fired up. We're ready to go. A caffeine-induced hysteria has taken over, and I am chomping at the bit. Some days when we get to this microphone, we're tired and beleaguered, Dan. Other days, I can't wait to give it to these awful super villains that are now part of our sad era. We're going to talk about the slush fund, the DOJ settlement, and everything that that includes, including what it means going all the way back to J6 and the big lie, and then we'll get to the primaries that took place this week in places like Kentucky, Trump's endorsement of Ken Paxton in Texas, and what all this portends for November. We'll then finish up — hopefully we have enough time — with some clips from Jeff Bezos giving Justin-every-man's-blue-collar, Ken-couldn't-be-more-in-touch-with-the-people interview from his Rocket Park. Thanks, Jeff. We'll see what you said. Let's go.

All right, Dan. Guess what? I've been up since 3am, I've had 60 or 70 cups of coffee, and I'm just gonna spring something on you that you didn't know was coming. So, you ready?

Dan: I'm ready.

Brad: Take a look at this clip, Dan, of Donald Trump talking about his son getting married this week. This is an all-timer. It is an absolute all-timer.

Trump [Clip]: He'd like me to go, but it's going to be just a small little private affair, and I'm going to try and make it. I'm in the midst — I said, you know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things, that's one I can't win on. If I do attend, I get killed. If I don't attend, I get killed by the fake news, of course. I'm talking about now. But he's got a very — a person who I've known for a long time, and hopefully they can have a great marriage.

Brad: So heartfelt. Family values. This is a family man.

Dan: I really realize I am not neutral. I have — critics could call them partisan inclinations, I suppose. I don't think anybody's going to be upset if Trump was like, "Yeah, I went to my son's wedding." I don't think anybody in America is going to go dereliction of duty. Hey, whatever, you're at Mar-a-Lago like 57 days a month anyway, Trump. So, like, who cares? Like, you're never in Washington. It's like the White House is his vacation home that he goes to occasionally to leave the golf course where he lives. It's like a billionaire Caddyshack kind of thing he's got going. So, yeah, go to your son's wedding. Glad you've known him for a while. Glad that — you know, there's a lot of jokes we could go with there that I'm not going to go with, but

Brad: I mean, I'm already anticipating my daughter graduating high school and writing in the card, like, "I've known you for a while, and this is a good day."

Dan: "Just for a while." It's the conversation I had when my kid just got a driver's license, and that's —

"if people want to search on Facebook, you can find the thing, I'm sure, where it's like: 'Known her for a while now. Glad that she can drive. Was hoping to be able to make it for the test, but like a lot of things going on.'"

Brad: Yeah. For the record, I'm not planning to go to the graduation. I'm just saying I will send a card.

Dan: Maybe I'll send a bill for all the money I've spent on you getting you to graduation. Yeah, that's the Trump way.

Brad: For the record, Donald Trump has golfed 111 days since returning to the presidency in January 2025. It has cost us $155 million as taxpayers. So, yeah, man, you got Iran going, you got a ballroom to build, you're doing a lot. You've also —

Dan: Let's not forget the arch.

Brad: There's an arch to be built. Yeah. But in 300-and-whatever days, maybe a little more now, maybe 400 days, you've golfed 100 times — one out of four days. So, I don't think you going to your son's wedding is about us being mad that you took a couple hours to go to the nuptials. Dan, tell us about the DOJ loss, the DOJ slush fund, the IRS settlement, and how Donald Trump plans to steal even more money from the American people.

Dan: So, a little bit of background here. In 2020, an IRS contractor leaked some of Trump's tax records. People might remember this — you can Google it, go back, take a look. The person was punished, went to prison for it, but Trump was not satisfied, so he sued the IRS. Now I want to just step back for a minute. We need to recognize — we could call it the absurdity, it's also just the obvious, just general scumminess of this: the Chief Executive of the United States, the President, using the executive branch Department of Justice, which Trump sees as just his own personal law firm. People, go look at clips. There have been times where people will talk, and he'll talk about having his lawyers look at things, or the spokesperson will talk about his lawyers looking, and he means Department of Justice lawyers. Like, he talks about the Department of Justice as if it's his law firm on retainer — to sue another federal agency, the Internal Revenue Service, for like $10 billion, a ridiculous amount of money. So it was already this colossal, kind of circular thing where the chief executive is using the executive branch to sue the government to get money for him as an individual. Already really messy, all of that.

And so there's been a settlement for Trump, and it's a sweetheart deal, and it's got two big parts. The first part is, as you alluded to, a $1.8 billion — with a B — billion dollar slush fund to defend people from, quote, the weaponization of the Department of Justice. It is aimed to pay victims who were subject to lawfare weaponization. People have been targeted unfairly, Brad, by the Department of Justice. Claims will be assessed by a five-person commission through mid-December 2028, so it will go into effect until just before Trump leaves office, and then it will conveniently be done. There's no formal stipulation on who gets to apply for funds under this, on who gets to claim that the Department of Justice has been weaponized. But we obviously know — and maybe you'll walk us through this in more detail in a minute — but January 6 looms large here. One of Trump's primary driving aims since he retook the White House has been to paint the J6 rioters as patriots, as American loyalists, and so forth.

I think it will also likely connect to things we see like, quote-unquote, religious freedom — meaning the privileging of Christians, any time that somebody is supposedly denied the rights of their Christian faith because they have to do things like not discriminate against people who aren't Christians, or something like that. I think we'll see those kinds of claimants being recognized. I think anybody who's been a victim of, quote-unquote, gender ideology — anybody who has been told that, for example, they have to rent their apartment to a trans person because of state law somewhere — they will file suit and say that they have been targeted in some way by states or other agencies, that the federal government doesn't help them, it's being weaponized, and so on. In other words, this isn't going to go to everybody. It's not going to go to Comey. James Comey is not going to be able to apply for these funds or receive them. This is just largesse for Trump — it is largesse for his followers and his loyalists. It's a way of rewarding those who, in his view, supported him. I think it's a way of indemnifying them against anything else. So the whole thing is just a big gift from the Department of Justice and the IRS to Donald Trump and his cronies.

More to say about that, but in the second piece of it — I'll throw it over to you for your thoughts on the DOJ settlement and this $1.8 billion slush fund.

Brad: Okay, let's start with the obvious. We could spend all of today talking about corruption, and the salience of corruption just becomes more evident every day. We could talk for the next three hours about the ways Trump is manipulating the markets, people are placing short stock trades before his announcements about Iran or oil or whatever. We could talk about the crypto scheme, we could talk about all of it. It's just: he is taking everything he can get. Period. It's not about anything but how much power and control Trump can have. This is another one of those.

So we can talk about that and what it means for midterms, for voters, if people care — if they don't care, whatever. I want to dig into something, and that is January 6. You keep hearing Trump, and anyone from the administration, backbench Congress people saying, "Well, people have been treated very unfairly, and they just can't catch a break." This will rectify that. So we have $1.6 billion for J6 rioters — people who were accused of crimes, but many who were convicted of crimes, like Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy over the January 6, 2021 riot. He's since been pardoned, and he now says he's going to apply to the Trump administration's 1.776 billion weaponization fund, and assumes he can get about $2 million from that, according to Reuters. That is who this is going to go to, at least in theory.

And there's a couple of things I want to point out about where we've arrived with J6. I picked up a little book here from my bookshelf — do you know the author? Man named Brad Onishi. It's called Preparing for War.

It was subtle.

Yeah, it was. Thank you for that. Yeah, I appreciate it. What I called what's happening here, after January 6, was myth-making in real time. And what I said in this book is: look, what we're seeing is myth-making in real time. Usually, it takes years and generations to develop something like the Lost Cause mythology — the idea that the South will rise again, and it was really actually destroyed by northern aggression, and it was the moral civilization, and blah blah blah blah blah. That took decades to kind of get into place and solidify. This took months. What we saw after the J6 riot was that people like Kevin McCarthy, then Speaker of the House, people like Mitch McConnell, condemned Donald Trump for these actions. They said, "Look, this is not okay."

Let me pull up some things that Mr. McConnell said after January 6 — about a month after. He said, "There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day." He said it was, quote, "a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election." He said, quote, "It was an insurrection." So that's what we saw from Mitch McConnell. Now, McConnell did not vote to impeach, but he did say it was Trump's responsibility.

But what we saw here is myth-making in real time — the myth of the January 6 insurrection as a lost cause, as patriotic Americans standing up to the regime that's trying to steal their country. Or the idea that it is Antifa. The idea that this is simply something that was staged by those who hate Donald Trump. Okay, I'd like to play you a clip to prove this. Here's Representative Ralph Norman talking about J6 just this week.

Rep. Ralph Norman [Clip]: Look, January 6 is an issue that was made up in the first place.

Clip Speaker: Well, that was a staged thing from day one.

Rep. Ralph Norman [Clip]: When you had police officers let people in the building, when you had people that — not being processed — excuse me, Ray — you get his name. He's no excuse.

Clip Speaker: You're probably though — your Republican — drag for their life and barricaded themselves in their chamber. Do you think

Clip Speaker: that you're acting?

Rep. Ralph Norman [Clip]: No, there was a riot there, but it was self-made, right? But members — HR — that's made up.

Brad: It was made up. It was made up. A downright self-made riot. I want to announce the tour of Dan and I's new punk band, Self Made Riot. We will be with you, Marblehead, Mass. We'll see you in 2027.

Here's what I wrote in Preparing for War in 2022 when I was writing the book: "The danger here is clear. When leaders mythologize January 6, they not only tell inaccurate accounts of what happened that day — accounts that belie the overwhelming photographic and video evidence of the violent mob attacking the Capitol police — they also erode trust in democratic institutions and insinuate that the ensuing presidential administration, and perhaps other elected officials, have been elected fraudulently. They are also fomenting public opinion against those attempting to prosecute the perpetrators of the failed coup. The myth, in other words, creates sympathy for the insurrectionists, and it legitimates the MAGA movement's violence. History shows us that this can have tragic consequences."

So we are now in a place where your tax money will go to pay off the people that Trump incited to come to the Capitol to stop the election that the American people voted in, and which another person won fair and square. That is where we are.

I want to bring this to two groups here, but I throw it to you — thoughts on Representative Norman, more on J6, how the slush fund or the IRS settlement relates, et cetera.

Dan: I think I've got thoughts on the political ramifications — we can circle back around to those — but I know that when J6 happened, Brad, you — I think we were on the front end of this. We tried to be on the front end of this, of how significant this was. And I know that there were people who were like, come on, like, yeah, it was a big deal, but it's not like that big a deal. If this has occupied such a space in Trump's mind since it happened — not just to indemnify himself, but to indemnify everybody else who was part of this — I think it's worth tying together. It's kind of obvious, but it's worth saying: this is all part of the big lie ideology. The reason why they're pro-American loyalists is because of this notion that the election was stolen from Trump — debunked a thousand times, no court wins on it, et cetera, et cetera. We know this, but it just continues to be, as you say, the mythology driving Trump. Now, I don't think for the most part it's actually the mythology driving a lot of the current congressional GOP, and I think that's a potential wedge that's starting to play out. But it is absolutely what motivates Trump, and we see that.

So I think we're going to see the bulk of these payouts go to people attached to J6 in different ways. I think there'll be some other groups that put their names in, but I think that's where most of it's going to go. And I also think some of it is going to go to Trump. He'll file a thing saying, "Oh, well, I didn't get money from the IRS for my suit. DOJ was weaponized. Russiagate, et cetera, et cetera." And he'll probably privately make money off of this as well. But I think J6 is probably the biggest sort of center of gravity for this fund.

So, coming back to that — the J6 — let's take a break, and then I want to focus on two groups from the present and the past, and then we'll talk about what this means for the future. Be right back.

Brad: All right, Dan. Zach Lambert, who's been a guest on this show, wrote this on social media: "So let me get this straight. We don't have money for SNAP, we don't have money for health care, we don't have money for public schools, we don't have money for veteran services, we don't have money for affordable housing, we don't have money for mental health services, we don't have money for roads and infrastructure, but we have $1.8 billion for the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on J6?"

Let me put this in similar terms: this is reparations. This is just reparations for traitors. We've talked for a long time about how Trumpism is a lost cause — how Trump is not seceding from the Union. It is the old Confederacy invading the Union. That is what we're seeing in the Trump era. So this is a fund for those who are part of that invasion, and who really fought at the first battle of Trump's lost cause. The first battle was January 6, and that battle has become a battle cry. Ashli Babbitt is a martyr. There are relics from that day — flags that were carried at J6 that are raised at ceremonies, and people say the Pledge of Allegiance to J6 flags. There are patches and other ways that people like Ashli Babbitt are memorialized and revered. This is reparations for traitors.

We do not have money for reparations for descendants of enslaved people. Every time that's brought up, the GOP is just like, no, no, no, that's crazy. How would we even pay for that? That's insane. I mean, yes, we just spent $30 billion on a war for no reason, and yes, there's $1.6 billion for people who are doing things like storming our Capitol. I mean, there's one guy, Dan, who was convicted of plotting the murder of FBI agents, and he was a January 6 rioter, so he's clearly learned his lesson after J6. He thought he might just murder some FBI people — maybe the slush fund can help him pay for his attorney costs and his defense.

So this is reparations for traitors. It's also — when I read about the slush fund, I really thought about one man: George Soros. Because he's the guy that we all know is always paying protesters to show up and create chaos in our public square. He's the guy pulling the strings, he's the guy behind it all, masterminding a coup, a takeover, a destruction of Western civilization. He's the one for years that has funded the stealing of your life. And it turns out actually that the people paying protesters — violent protesters — to destroy your democracy, steal your government, and run roughshod over any sense of a multiracial, multiethnic, multi-religious democracy are the people who are always talking about George Soros as enemy number one and the shadowy man behind the veil who's always pulling the strings. This is reparations for traitors, and this is paid protesters. That is what the slush fund is, in my opinion.

Now, I do think there are ramifications for 2028. When does the slush fund run out? Do you think this has any consequences for the midterms? And one thing I heard Amanda Marcotte say yesterday was: will this inspire people in the midterms who are willing to commit election crimes for Trump? Will they be like, "Well, I'm good. He'll just pardon me, and there'll be a fund for me, and I'll just get paid for this later. I'm gonna take this baby on credit, you know, my election violence. I'll take it on credit, because I'm sure when it's time, I'll get some of that sweet, sweet reparations-for-traitors money."

Dan: Just send the government the invoice.

Brad: Yeah.

Dan: "27 hours planning this. Here's my rate."

Brad: You know — when does this run out? And do you think this has any ramifications for the midterms?

Dan: So it runs out — or at least stops taking applications, or whatever the process is — mid, like, yeah, a couple weeks before 2028 ends. Right at the end of the Trump term. So it's clearly designed to be insulated from anybody else coming into office and scrapping this or saying, "This is ridiculous." Here's why I think it does have consequences for the midterms on two levels:

One, the congressional GOP is not happy about this. The congressional GOP has been stuck — we can rewind all the way back to the beginning of 2026.

Brad: Wait — rewind to when?

Dan: The beginning of 2026.

Brad: Ah, okay, the beginning. Got it.

Dan: And what did you have? You had Congress mired down about issues related to immigration and customs enforcement, and you had all of the riots going on, and protests, and different kinds of things like this. The GOP still has not managed to fund their pet agency of ICE. We talked about this before. The Democrats basically said, "Let's just cut ICE off from the rest and we'll fund that." That happened later — we know this. The GOP eventually capitulated but wanted to look like they weren't capitulating to doing that. They still, despite holding both houses, can't fund what for them is one of the highest priorities.

Okay, so they were set to have votes on this finally in May, mid to late May. They've now postponed those votes because of this. They are upset enough and concerned enough, and there's enough division in the GOP, that — I would argue their highest legislative priority, or budgetary priority, of 2026 so far is now stalled. They've put it on hold for at least a week through the Memorial Day break.

Is that going to change anything that Trump and the DOJ do? No, it's not. They'll make some noise and things, and then they'll come back and they'll do what they do and they'll give in to Trump. But I think it does show real consternation and frustration on the part of the congressional GOP with Trump and with the White House.

Does that play a role in 2028? Maybe it does, in terms of how voters play out. How do grassroots Republicans feel about this, especially when they start getting the campaign ads — the "paid protesters and government funding for anti-government activities" framing? But here's the other thing: it stalls Congress further. The GOP — all they've been talking about for the last year is affordability, and "this is going to be our drumbeat message." And all through the fall they said, "Nope, we're going to get to it, we got time, we got time, Brad. We'll start talking about affordability — that's what Trump cares about." And then we hit the new year, like, "Well, you know, we still got nine months or so to really get everything in line." And then not only do they have all of the ICE stuff, but Trump starts a war, and then that stalls it out, and now they've got this.

And you've had people in the GOP who said, "We need to put another big, beautiful bill through — that needs to be our summer priority before we go on recess. We need another big beautiful reconciliation bill that we can put through and show Americans that we're really concerned about affordability, and we need that ahead of the midterms." I think this virtually guarantees that that doesn't happen. It was a long shot before. I think this virtually guarantees it.

So if nothing else, this once again stalls members of the GOP who want to get reelected, who do think that the midterms matter and aren't convinced that redistricting is just going to hand it to them. I think they're really concerned about that — GOP members who are worried about 2028. Trump is not. Trump does not care what happens after 2028, as long as Trump is insulated from things. He knows he's not going to be president. He doesn't care about the GOP, he doesn't care about the MAGA movement — he cares about nothing but Donald Trump. And we're beginning to see that. And it is, time after time after time — it's been literally about a year now that we've been talking about the wheels coming off for Trump, and how he is this tremendous drag on everything that the GOP is trying to do. And I think we continue seeing that, so I think in that regard, and just the pragmatics of that, I think it could have a huge effect on the midterms.

Brad: So I think what I'm hearing you saying — correct me if I'm wrong — is that what we have is a stall of any momentum that the GOP has in Congress, and to reset the political table before the summer. Reportedly, 25 senators met with Todd Blanche yesterday because they were upset about this. That is a lot — in terms of the Republican caucus in the Senate, that's a heavy amount. Thom Tillis said that he thought this was "stupid on stilts." So there is significant pushback here in Congress.

So I think what I'm hearing — and jump in here — is: if you thought that the GOP could roll out some messaging this summer that would kind of quell the affordability problem, distract from the Iran ongoing quagmire, continue to distract from the Epstein files, and make people sort of forget about the fact that Trump is laser-focused on a ballroom that'll cost a billion dollars and an arch to Trump that will stand in DC — you're wrong. That is what we're going to get. And the closer we get to the end of the school year, the more that kind of summer stalemate sets in. And when you get to Labor Day, people are like, "Oh yeah, we couldn't go on vacation, gas was $8 a gallon, and the president continues to just take as much as he can get. We're still in a war for some reason, and we're now paying J6 rioters." There's some folks in MAGA that will love that. There's a bunch of folks that won't. Is that what you see? And I want to get to the primaries — I think it all ties in — but just wanted to see if you have any final wrap-up on this one.

Dan: Yeah. I do see that, and I think the other piece, tied in with both the optics of this politically and Trump's self-aggrandizement, is the second piece of this settlement: a one-page addendum that Todd Blanche attached to it, indemnifying Trump from any kind of IRS investigations ever. It says that the IRS is, quote, "forever barred and precluded from pursuing examinations of Trump-related or affiliated individuals and related trusts or businesses." In other words, they literally handed Trump a blank check — you can do whatever you want, or not want, with your taxes, with paying taxes, with reporting income, with doing anything else, and you now have carte blanche for the rest of your life to have the IRS not take a look at that. That's going to play great for Republicans in the primaries. Everybody's going to love that. Everybody's going to be like, "Oh yeah, yeah, the Republicans — they're the ones of fiscal responsibility and the moral high ground."

It's just another torpedo in any hopes the Republicans have of trying to put forward some notion that they are not just a party of lackeys to the most corrupt president that we've ever had in this country. And I think that's the other piece of it. And to your point earlier about the corruption — it's not even like secret or quiet. It's just out in the open. It's the Attorney General telling the IRS, "Oh, by the way, Trump's indemnified from everything that you can ever do now. He'll never have to pay taxes if he doesn't want to, because you can't audit him or look at him or anything else." This is just fodder for anybody who wants to challenge Trump in the GOP, in the primaries, and in the midterms.

Brad: You pay taxes, the president doesn't — or at least we don't know, because he's the only person in the country who the IRS is not allowed to examine. That's a pretty good campaign ad, I think. You know, how does paying taxes feel to everybody? Well, there's one person in the country who the IRS is basically exempted from — we the people — and I have to —

Dan: Can I — like, how can I get a memorandum sent to the IRS?

Brad: Yeah.

Dan: I want to be clear: I don't know enough about taxes to knowingly cheat on them. But if I did, if I did — I feel like that might be a useful card to have in your pocket. I don't know enough about taxes to try to defraud the government. But if I did, if I was a smarter person, Brad — maybe I could get a golden ticket like that. And, you know, not pay taxes at all.

Brad: IRS, if you're listening — okay, just making sure. I'm getting it in my earpiece. Okay, you did hear that. Thank you. All right.

CNN — Eric Bradner, Arit John — writing on May 20: President Donald Trump's retribution campaign steamrolled another Republican rival on Tuesday, with a Trump-backed challenger ousting one of the president's leading intra-party antagonists, Representative Thomas Massie, in a Kentucky primary. Former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein — uh, let me double-check — win over Massie continued a May political payback tour that has seen Trump take down five Indiana state senators who voted against his redistricting push two weeks ago, and two-term Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach Trump in 2021.

So, as much as you and I just talked about how this is not going to play well, and the midterms — there's a table set that really looks bad for the GOP, because Trump keeps steamrolling any chance to kind of swing the momentum back — what these primaries from this week showed us, Dan, is that at least in the Republican Party, and at least in primaries, which are indicative of certain things and not indicative of others, Trump still has some juice. And I do think that's something that everyone needs to keep in their mind. I don't love the liberal media that every day is like, "Trump gets destroyed, it's the last stand," and it's like you've been saying that for nine years now.

So, Trump — there was about $17 million poured into the primary between Massie and Gallrein, on the part of opposing Massie. Massie, of course — I think most of you listening and watching know — but Massie is the representative who, along with Ro Khanna, basically signed and led a bipartisan effort to get the Epstein files released. He has been talking about pedophiles and the ways that billionaires in the Republican Party want to cover up for pedophiles. He was defeated. Period.

Bill Cassidy — hope you enjoyed voting for RFK Jr., a junior physician. Bill Cassidy, thanks for that legacy, but you're now out.

Neither of these guys, Dan — here's what I want to say — neither of these guys am I sad about in terms of, do I think these were people who represented the kinds of values we need in the United States? No. Massie has a record of what you could call anti-Semitic rhetoric. He's not somebody who's on board with any policy I'm on board with, other than releasing the Epstein files. Bill Cassidy acted like a coward when it came to RFK. Not sure what happened there. But this is also not somebody who I'm like, "Oh man, I'm really sad."

Dan: What is bad news to me is that Trump still has this ability to sway these primary contests, and to really sort of topple candidates who have had the gall to stand up to him. Thoughts on that before we jump into his endorsement of Ken Paxton in Texas, and what that means?

Well, I think I agree with you about — I see the articles, too, that are like, "Is Trump losing influence in the GOP?" And in some ways, sure, maybe — just in the sense we just talked about, of congressional Republicans finally getting upset about things. But on the ground, in primaries, there was a lot of talk in the primary season — Democrats having a strong showing in primaries and so forth. I think the flip side of that is: is Trump still the proverbial kingmaker in primaries? And he is. It's clear that if he targets GOP enemies, they go down. So I think that's really important.

And I was going to swing into the Paxton piece, because then the other part of this is — and again, I think this is like two wings — you've got the popular MAGA side of stuff, and yes, there are polls showing that Trump is less popular with Republicans now than he has ever been. He has 80% approval with Republicans — that's his floor as of this week with them. He's incredibly popular. But this week, by endorsing Paxton and not John Cornyn, he further alienated his GOP members in Congress. They wanted him to stand up for Cornyn. They're trying to put forward a message to people that the GOP has some level of morality, care, and concern. And Trump, to no one's surprise, went for Paxton — the Trump loyalist, mired in scandals. So I think it does show the fractures that are existing within the GOP right now. I see them coming between congressional Republicans and the Senate — those who need to hold office, who want to stay in office, who hope to do something while in office — and the grassroots MAGA crowd, for whom Trump continues to throw out the red meat, long-term effects on the party be damned.

Brad: He didn't seem — Josh Marshall pointed this out at TPM — he didn't seem to warn the caucus, he didn't seem to strategize with Republican senators. It was just: he announced, "I'm with Paxton."

So, friends, if you haven't been following this race: we have John Cornyn, senator from Texas, running against Ken Paxton, the attorney general. In some ways these are two guys that look very similar — similar policies, similar conservative MAGA bona fides in many ways — but Paxton, even in Texas, has a level of toxicity that is actually pretty rare.

And now, just a reminder: this is the race in which James Talarico is running for Senate, so whoever basically wins this Republican primary — we now know — will face James Talarico, who defeated Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary.

Here are some scandals that Ken Paxton has been involved in. 2015: a securities fraud indictment. 2020: he was impeached by his own party in Texas. Okay, I want to repeat — in Texas — for abusing power and accepting bribes from a political donor. So those things are there: bribery, abuse of power, securities fraud. He also — let me just check if this is the same Paxton — yes. And 2023: allegations of an extramarital affair with a former Senate aide. 2025: divorce after 38 years of marriage to Angela Paxton, who said that she was divorcing him on biblical grounds — which those of us, Dan, who speak evangelical, those of us who learned evangelical as a second language when we were young, know means she thinks she's allowed, biblically, to divorce him because he cheated on her, and cheated repeatedly.

Nonetheless, Dan, I'd like to play you a clip of Lance Wallnau — prominent New Apostolic Reformation persona, somebody who had, it turns out, a role in helping people get to J6, who's an ardent supporter of Donald Trump — and here's what he said about Ken Paxton and his endorsement by the president.

Lance Wallnau [Clip]: Now I know Ken has some personal issues. We knew when Donald Trump came in, we were going to deal with some Stormy Daniels chapters. We just want to make sure that he's behaving himself now and walking as close to God as he could, and that's where Ken Paxton is — he's learned from his wicked ways in terms of his behavior. I'm just saying that the Christian community comes up to me and says, "Well, I really like Ken, but I don't know if I can vote for him — I'm a Christian." Well, look, he's owned the mistakes he's made in the past, unlike a whole lot of politicians in Washington who just say it. He's the real deal, and he's a fighter. Remember what Lincoln said about Grant when they said, "Well, he drinks too much." He drinks. And Trump said, "Find out exactly what he's drinking and send it to the other generals. I can't spare to lose the man — he fights."

Brad: We got a Freudian slip in that one, didn't we, Dan?

Dan: Lincoln, right? Yeah, yeah.

Brad: Well, you remember what Lincoln said to Grant, and then Trump said, "Well, get me more of what he's drinking."

Dan: Just know exactly how old the president is. Maybe he just thinks he was there. I don't know.

Brad: Yeah. So, here's my setup for that clip, and I just want to get your full analysis. Here is a religious leader who is supposedly a moral beacon for Christian values, doing what Christian leaders have done for 10 years now with Trump and Trump-aligned people — which is: yes, adultery, yes, a scandal, totally, is this guy acting like a Christian? Is there a Stormy Daniels chapter? Do you know what the Stormy Daniels chapter is? He slept with a sex worker weeks after his third wife had his fifth child. So yeah, the Stormy Daniels chapter — you know, like King David, like that kind of business. And he's just like, "But he's a fighter! He's a fighter!" General Grant — I mean, he just compared Ken Paxton to General Grant. Anyway, whatever. Go, you go — because I'm just, I've been up since 3am, it's gonna get ugly here.

Dan: It's just again — it's all the quiet parts out loud. The slip of Trump and Lincoln. The people that really do, honest to God, believe that Trump is on a par with Lincoln. I mean, Trump has said the same things — he's said he's done more than any American president, he's said he's done more for African Americans than any president, which brings up the legacy of Lincoln. That's a claim Trump has made, and I think now believes. And it just shows the way that when they've got their candidate, ideology will dominate over everything else. The theology will follow along behind. We will find a way — we, the conservative evangelicals and the Christian nationalists and the dominionists and everybody else — will craft the theological rationale for holding on to power the way that we are, just like Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas will craft the legal rationale for whatever decision it is that the GOP needs them to reach. This is the pattern. We see it from the top down.

But it's one of those clips that I think is notable just because it shows you so clearly how openly, so on the front of mind, this actually is for the big players in the field. I mean, Lance Wallnau is a guy that called

Brad: Kamala Harris a Jezebel, like — you just see the double standard. Like, Kamala Harris is a Jezebel, but Ken Paxton, he's owned his mistakes. Has he owned his mistakes? Has there been a full-throated repentance? Is there the sackcloth and ashes? Has there been a mourning period? Has there been anything? No — there's just been carrying on. And the only justification Paxton has is he's a fighter, meaning he will get us power, which is all we care about. We just care about power.

I will say that this is a huge win for Talarico. Like, Talarico wants this, because Paxton is going to get the vote of hardcore MAGA people, but there are those like independents and centrist types in Texas that are done with Paxton, for sure. This gives Talarico a window — I mean, we may see in November a Texas senator from the Democratic Party. We might, we might not, but this increases the chances for sure.

All right, let's take a break. Come back, and we'll get to the man of the people, Rocket Man, Jeff Bezos. Be right back.

All right, Dan, let's talk about more taxes. I mean, $1.6 billion in reparations to traitors. We've got that. We've got a $30 billion war. We've got Trump shorting stocks when he's making announcements — at least allegedly, at least it seems that way to many, and there's a lot of research that shows that it's allegedly okay. Don't quote me. Well, you can quote me, but don't say that I didn't caveat it. We've got the corruption just everywhere. And then we've got one of the richest men in the world talking about taxes. So let's see what he said.

Now, I will say he's not going to say this in the clip, but he did say the lower half of earners should not pay income tax — that's there. But as Robert Reich and Bernie Sanders point out, his effective tax rate every year is very, very, very low. So I'm not sure who Jeff Bezos thinks should pay taxes. If the upper 1% and the lower half are not, I guess it's just everyone in the middle class. But anyway, here you go. Here's the clip.

Interviewer [Clip]: She's made a reference to you, and others, being able to pay a lower tax rate, even though you're paying an enormous sum in taxes — a lower tax rate than —

Jeff Bezos [Clip]: So maybe I am. People sometimes say that I don't pay taxes. I do. I pay billions of dollars in taxes. And — perfect — if people want me to pay more billions, right, then let's have that debate, but don't pretend that that's going to solve the problem. You could —

Jeff Bezos [Clip]: double the taxes I pay, and it's not going to help that teacher in Queens, I promise.

Brad: So as you can imagine, Dan, there's been a lot of reaction to this. Zohran Mamdani came out swinging, but the person I want to talk about who really made some points here was Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders talked about how, under his plan, a 5% billionaire tax rate would raise teacher pay to a minimum of $60,000 in this country — which it currently is not. It would provide funds for universal health care, funds for child care, pre-K, things like that. It would make a difference. And we're not just talking about you, Jeff. There are other people in the world, there are even other billionaires in the world. So yes, we do want you to pay more taxes, but we'd also like all of you in the billionaire class — and those of you who are in that class who are also in the Epstein class — we would like you to pay taxes.

Part of the larger point here, Jeff, is not just that you would pay more taxes, but this feels incredibly unfair — that you pay such a low tax rate when those of us making $70,000, $80,000, $100,000 a year are paying way more than you. Thoughts on this before we get to something else he said about his legacy and civilization.

Dan: Yeah. So it's just the standard — I think number one: narcissistic. This whole thing is so narcissistic. It's like — it's a side note, but you come across those articles, those studies showing that, you know, big CEOs and such have really pathological psychological traits. Jeff Bezos — really — everything's about him. He's really like, "Well, I can't fund the government by myself." Shut up. As if that's what anybody is suggesting.

But there's the clever — so he did. He sounded like Bernie Sanders a little at first, right, when he's like, "Oh, the lower half shouldn't even pay taxes." And you're like, "Oh okay, Jeff, where are we going? Does that mean the rich people, the super ultra rich, should pay more?" No, no, no, no — that's not what we're talking about, Brad.

I'm a student of the humanities, not great at math — that's not my strong suit. There's a reason why I like letters and words and not numbers. But it seems to me that if you stop getting revenue from one source, you're going to need to get it from somewhere. And Jeff Bezos is just doing magic rich-guy math where — he's probably doing a risk, like, "Let's just take out a loan and do that" — except the government already has done that for a really long time.

And also, I just want people to note the way that he evades that central point. The interviewer says, "I understand you pay lots and lots of taxes, but your lower tax rate — the percentage of your money you pay in taxes — is far lower than it is for any kind of average wage earner in America." And what does Jeff Bezos do? First, he starts with the non sequitur: people say "I don't pay taxes." I pay taxes. Nope — nobody just said you didn't pay taxes, Jeff. Nobody said that. Number one. Number two, he says, "I pay billions of dollars in taxes." Exactly — the interviewer said you pay lots of taxes. But what's your tax rate, Jeff Bezos?

I did keep talking about taxes today. I had a painful tax year this year. Brad, me too. I could go pull mine out, and I could calculate my actual tax rate — because I use TurboTax, and it calculates a weird rate that I don't understand — but I could look at how much I brought in and how much the government got, and I'm like, "Oh, that was a pretty big bite this year." For different reasons, it's higher than Jeff Bezos's. It's higher than Donald Trump's, if Donald Trump pays taxes. And now we'll never know.

We all know this. Everybody's been through this. The different kinds of tax rates that the wealthy have — borrowing against earnings to drive down tax rates, capital gains taxes being lower than wage taxes, because rich people don't make their money from wages, they make it largely from capital gains. On and on and on and on. So he's got that standard rich-guy kind of thing — that like he's the savior of America somehow, and he shouldn't be taxed, maybe because of his contributions to civilization, which we'll get to here in a minute.

But yeah, it was the kind of bait and switch that the really, really wealthy always do. Like, "Well, I paid X amount in taxes." Of course — that's a number that dwarfs what I paid. Did I pay a billion dollars in taxes this year? Nope, I didn't. Am I coming up on making a trillion dollars? No. So the effective tax rate was higher. And so he sounds sort of populist when it suits him — to be like, "Well, don't tax the lowest people" — but then being like, "Well, don't tax the rich people either, just generate the money magically from somewhere that doesn't hit Jeff Bezos, because he's just too important for that."

Brad: One of the things that Tressie McMillan Cottom said on social media was that he also just turns this into a transaction — like, "I just give the government money." And taxes are supposed to be us pooling our money as citizens to make our lives better collectively. Talk about a social contract, talk about whatever — but people like Mamdani and others have made this point, and I agree with it: people actually don't mind paying taxes when the government uses them to help citizens — child care, parks, health care, infrastructure programs that make your life more able to be filled with health, education, jobs, all kinds of stuff. People are like, "Okay, yeah, it's actually worth it for me to give money to those things." But maybe not $1.8 billion —

Dan: slush funds to help J6 rioters. Maybe that's the kind of government expenditure the taxpayers don't like supporting.

Brad: Reparations for traitors. And I also don't like reparations to Trump. Also don't like ballrooms that cost a billion dollars — don't like that either. But don't worry, Dan, Jeff Bezos has an explanation, because his worth to the rest of us is way more than what he pays in taxes.

Jeff Bezos [Clip]: If I do my job right, the value to society and civilization from my for-profit companies will be much, much larger than the good that I do with my charitable giving. And I think this is an important point to make, because people forget — or they sometimes don't see — that when you create something like Amazon, and you're saving — I get letters from new mothers all the time that say, "I have no idea what I would be doing right now if I didn't have Amazon, thank you." Or what we did in the pandemic, when people could really see what an essential service we provided to them. So Amazon creates tremendous value. And by the way, all companies are creating value of some kind.

Brad: My brother in Christ. My bald brother in Christ. Listen to me for a minute, man. I know — was I talking to you or Jeff Bezos for a second? I was talking to Jeff. You're my other half, my work husband; he's my bald brother in Christ. "My value to civilization is more than philanthropy." I mean, there's so much more to say here.

One of the things that immediately arose for me was robber barons of the 19th and early 20th century — people of the Gilded Age, the Vanderbilts, the Stanfords, the Rockefellers. We can think about those companies and what they meant, and the ways that Rockefeller or others built an empire. Much of the value of civilization now lies in what Andrew Carnegie did to give away his fortune and build things like libraries and universities and other things. The ways that we have Stanford University. The ways that we have Vanderbilt University. And the ways that all of that — so we can debate this and talk about the good, the bad, the ugly — but I thought this clip was an interesting window into the mind of a very out-of-touch billionaire. What do you think about this before we go to Reasons for Hope?

Dan: First question: what are the chances that he actually gets letters from new moms all the time?

Brad: Oh my god, oh my god. Brother, come on, geez.

Dan: If you wanted to send a letter or an email or anything else to Jeff Bezos — I mean, please, folks, email me. Like, how would you even do that?

Brad: Oh, I actually — yeah. Dan, I sent an email this morning to bezos@amazon.com. It went right through. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: It's like, "I get letters from new moms" — all bull— is what I call on that. And first of all, have you ever been around a new mom? Exhausted, trapped, tired — you know what they're not doing? Writing letters to Jeff Bezos. That's not what any new parent is doing. But in the midst of all of that —

Brad: Some of the lines he spouted in this interview — you're like, that was clearly a publicist and a speechwriter, and somebody fed you lines. Like, "The lower half of the earner bracket should not pay taxes." That's clearly a line that was just garnered for public favor. And this was also one that's like, "I get letters from new mothers" — this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, man. Like, we know you're lying through your teeth, and you look like a complete asshole right now, like a chode of, like, the highest degree. Okay.

Dan: Yeah.

Brad: All right. Yeah.

Dan: So I just quickly — this is an old ideology, a capitalistic ideology, that the free market will fix things, that it's a benevolent force, and so forth. He also says in another clip that we didn't get to that the reason rent is high is because of government intervention. No, Jeff — it's markets, it's unregulated markets, that's what makes rents high. It's profit motive in renting — that's what makes rents high. Sorry, Jeff, it's not government intervention.

And this whole like, "Every company adds value to civilization" — yeah, I guess, if you reduce, quote-unquote, civilization to convenience, to profit, to entertainment. Those things are all valuable — don't get me wrong. You know, Prime's got some good stuff on it. But Brad, civilization is not worse without Amazon Prime. It's just not. It's not worse if you have to wait four days for shipping instead of overnight. It might not be worse if, I don't know, you don't see 57 Amazon trucks every time you're on the highway. I don't know.

Whatever — the point being that you get this notion of this weird — they have to redefine what the value of human existence and civilization is to try to make themselves feel like they're contributing to it. Which brings me back to the narcissism. How narcissistic do you have to be to not look in the mirror and say, "Wow, I've made vast amounts of wealth — am I really contributing? Am I doing something that matters in a lasting way with that?" Versus: I'm just going to change my definition of human meaning and civilization so I can feel good about myself, so I can see my amassing of tremendous amounts of wealth as somehow a social benefit for everybody. That's the capitalist logic that has always been with us. It's alive and well, and Jeff Bezos showed it very much in that interview.

Brad: Yeah, no, I agree. And I think if you take this at face value, he's saying that human existence comes down to a neoliberal logic of being a consumer, and the producers are the ones who make your life good, because —

Dan: your social value is your productive capacity.

Brad: Yeah, that's what it is. Which is the point you've made about Josh Hawley's book, and about the idea of Homo economicus — the idea that we're reduced to our economic output, and life does get reduced to that.

And I will say: one way that your contribution to civilization has made all of our lives worse, Jeff Bezos, is that you are the exemplar of a corrupt system that allows a human being to hoard so many resources — resources they could never use in one or 100 lifetimes — while the people you employ work for very little money, in many cases in settings where some of them pass out or die from exhaustion, and fighting unionization, and the environmental impact is overwhelming. So yes, you in the position you hold, the resources you have hoarded — you are a hoarder. J6 rioters, they're getting reparations as traitors; you are a hoarder. And you could give away how much of your money to your employees or just the general population, and still have more than you could ever spend. But that's just not how our system works, and you represent that. So yes, that is a clear way you've made things worse.

On that note, Dan, let's go to Reasons for Hope. What do you got?

Dan: I've got that the Department of Justice — Trump's law firm, the Department of Justice — suffered its seventh and eighth losses in court in efforts to get voter information from states. These were rulings related to, I believe, Maine and Wisconsin this week. We just keep seeing this. And I take hope in seeing this Trump administration trying to get sensitive voter information from targeted states, and over and over and over they continue to lose in court to the states that stand up to them. It's a theme we've seen — the people who've chosen to stand up, in states, organizations, entities, individual states who've chosen to stand up to Trump, they're coming out on top over and over. I thought that, as we look to the midterms, which has been a big theme today, it was a reason for hope.

Got some from our Discord. Dawson put in that an ICE agent in a January 14 shooting of a Venezuelan man in Minnesota has been charged — so ICE agent Christian Castro was charged in the shooting of Julio Sosa Celis, and will face four counts of second-degree assault. Nathan put in the Discord that the Broadview Six had their

Brad: charges dropped. These were folks involved in ICE raids in Chicago, and the absolutely inhumane approaches and strategies implemented by ICE during Operation Midway Blitz. If you read the details of that, it is harrowing in terms of what the government tried to get away with — the grand jury changing verbiage in the legal briefs, and so on and so forth. It's really, really bad. But good news is those charges were dropped.

All right, folks. Thanks for being here today. We are on the precipice of a new chapter in our show, and a new chapter for Axis Mundi Media. Going to be unveiling that here in about a week, week and a half — and at least announcing it, if not the change is happening a little bit after that. So please stay tuned. Subscribe to our newsletter — we drop that every Sunday. And subscribers, look for the bonus episode coming your way. We're going to be recording soon. Other than that, thanks for being here. Enjoy the holiday weekend. We'll catch you next time.

Dan: Thanks, Brad.