Trump’s Big Midterm Convention Is Already Looking Like a Flop

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1:00Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing out at the Bullwork. I am joined by Will Sumer. This is not Maga Mondays. It's Tuesday. This is not part of the franchise. We're just here to riff about the upcoming GOP convention, which starts Wednesday. Are you excited about? You know, I'm pumped. I love these big, you know, fabulous Republican events that we've, we, they're supposed to be some special, secret, special guests, all this kind of stuff. I really get into the pump and the circumstance. Is there anything crazy happening around this? It seems the predominant sort of takeaways that this is dull and that it's going to be kind of a snoozer and people are like, what are they going to be talking about? Like, what are you hearing? Well, I think the craziest thing is probably the price tag. If you're a lawmaker who wants to attend, you have to pay if you're Republican, you have to pay $25,000. And that gets you two tickets to the convention at a hotel room. And so now, mainly some of the battleground ones, they don't have to pay, but that is only actually infuriated the sort of the regular Republicans who now have to go and kind of cough up sort of a tribute to put on the convention.

2:00And where does that money go? Do we know? I'm assuming to some sort of Donald Trump committee of some sort. Yeah, presumably, you know, some kind of convention operation, but I think there is some bad blood and that explains why I think so many are sitting out the convention. Yeah. This seems a little informed. It's like one thing to just, you know, throw a convention and maybe you want to make a big sort of show and message your way through, which is immediately a very difficult midterm. But you're taking candidates off the trail, which is not great. And then on top of that, you're forcing them to spend money that they need to campaign on tickets for who knows what money that they probably would like to use like advertising. So I'm not sure this one's going to work. And then I looked at the actual itinerary and boy, it seems like a snoozer. I got to be honest. Have you seen this thing? Who do we have? There's a number of lawmakers who are going there and we can, you know, there's like interesting names, not people who you would not expect like Mike Lawler is going there. He's in the tough race in New York. But a lot of people are notably not going.

3:01Susan Collins of Maine, Johnson, you knew, Dan Sullivan in Alaska. I suppose it's pretty far way to go, but he's in the tough race. Mike Brown's Tommy Tupperville, not going. You would think Tommy Tupper will be there. John Cornyn, it's his home state, not going with Shelter FOIA, Santa Cana from Minnesota, not going. We contacted a bunch of people from the house. They're not going political reports that they surveyed 70 Republican members. 45 said they do not plan to attend or are still considering. So you know, a lot of people are just saying, yeah, let's not go. I was more talking about the content of the convention. Like, there's like a, like a fairly straight forward itinerary they put out about like what they're going to be talking about. I'll read a few of these. You tell me if they excite you, okay? So Wednesday, this is starting tomorrow. We're tripping this on Tuesday. Opening session focuses on tax relief, including the Working Families Tax Cut Act, expanded standard deductions and the child tax credit increases. Early blocks also highlight anti-fraud efforts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

4:06Wow. That's going to get the people going. All right. Oh, here's one. It's also Wednesday. Candidate showcase highlighting GOP contenders and targeted congressional districts alongside discussions on the no tax on tips policies, right? State governance and national traditions. Then the one after that, speakers address the American first trade policy, school choice expansion, opposition to gender ideology and new sports and government accountability. And then eventually we get to the evening ceremony, which it looks like there's going to be remarks from JD Vance. And Trump's going to be there and they'll say something, but I'll expect on the first night he's not going to give two bigger remarks. So yeah, it seems like, I don't know, not much to talk about. Yeah. I think we had discussed sending me to this, whether it would be this kind of spectacle of Trumpism of 2020, 26 or whatever. And I do think it just looks a bit boring to be honest. It looks like when we watched the Trump speech with the great American state fair, low

5:07energy. It's just like, yeah, I guess, you know, it is striking how few Republicans are going to this thing. I mean, I think that tells you, you know, what the Trump brand is like even among Republicans right now that they kind of want to, oh, yeah, maybe I'm going to distance myself. I saw one lawmaker, I think told political reaxios, you know, I think it's a great time to be home with my family or you know, people were saying, oh, you know, unfortunately, I have a wedding. I got to go to, you know, I mean, oh, God darn it. My cousin's getting married. Extended. Extended. Extended labor day celebration. Just having a friend. Yeah. This message is sponsored by Quince and I am genuinely excited to talk about Quince because I have been shopping at Quince for years since long before they were a sponsor. Since long before I think we had a YouTube page. I have been getting gifts for family, clothes for myself. Even their bedding, I use Quince bedding. I love Quince. And most recently with my baby son, I have discovered that they also have excellent baby clothes. You see the things that I've always liked about Quince, the great quality, the really comfortable

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7:14Kingdom as well. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash bulwark takes. So yeah, I mean, I think, and I would say like also in the broad or mega grassroots and right wing media, I'm not hearing a lot about this. I think that there's one I know Mike Cernovich was promoting some kind of like C tier grifter event that's like an hour outside of Dallas or something that's coincides with this. But otherwise, there's really, you know, not I think a lot of like natural excitement. Yeah, and I might be because it's not being particularly well run. We have a guy on the ground there. I'm going to withhold his identity for safety considerations just kidding. He's alerting me that they don't really have many like maps or schedules or itineraries to actually hand out. The thing I'm reading you is just from some local website that got some what they call full schedule, but this seems pretty unfull. So it could have has the potential to be a disorganized mess. Yeah, and you know, I mean, that's always fun to watch, right? I mean, you know, it if it is kind of one of these classic, you know, America 250 type

8:18events that you know, it's a lot about that. It could and it is being open to the public. And so, you know, you know, maybe they pack it in and then someone goes wrong. I mean, I will say like I've been following this event pretty closely. I noticed just a few weeks ago they were looking for volunteers. I was like, geez, you know, you would think you would have this planned out a little more. You know, it does seem a bit slapped together. Do you think the guy who was arrested for touching himself to the Cirque d'Ai whatever is going to show up? Yeah, the Uncle Sam guy. You know, well, I don't know one one January six lady claims they're trying to recruit J sixers to attend. So, so you know, we're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel there. We got to pack these seats. Two more data points to suggest that this may have not been particularly well thought out. One is Wednesday night happens to be the NFL kickoff Patriots, C.O.X. Super Bowl rematch. So they're going against that Thursday night is actually great game, too. It's 49ers Rammed. It's on Netflix.

9:19Trump's going against that. We'll see if he can draw a crowd. I'm not totally confident. I think people love their football. The other thing was that the URL for the convention, the unofficial site, GOP Dallas, 236.com was directing to the Epstein Files database for some period of time. The one that's run by the Justice Department. I don't know if it's still going there. Let me see. While I talk you, let's see. Hold on one second. I'm putting into my thing. Yeah. As I speak, I just typed it in. It goes right to justice.gov slash Epstein and that's the database. So they should have gone on top of that. This is like several days old now. I'm not sure why they haven't really dealt with that one. So we shall see. So no real MAGA movement presence, no TPUS. I mean, I'm sure some people will be there. And obviously tying in with that, it also coincides with the Charlie Kirk anniversary. So there's going to be some remembrance there. So probably some turning point USA elements will be there. But yeah, overall, I mean, I'm just not seeing, you know, I think, you know, it's kind of another sign that, you know, the Republican Party and the movement is kind of positioning

10:20himself for the post Trump world, even though I would say he very much does not want that to happen. And that's why he's doing this. You know, I do want to bring up the, you know, the RNC chair was on Benny Johnson. And as I said, he's saying, you know, maybe there's going to be some special guests. They had Hulk Hogan at the 2024 convention, ripping his shirt off. And so he was saying, you know, obviously Hulk can join us anymore. Yeah, that would be a real surprise guest. You know, who knows who it'll be this time? But he was saying, you know, in the past, we've had Lara Trump. And of course, she really, she's a real big get, you know, oh, sure. Okay. But so we'll see who would you pinpoint if you had to gas and put you in a spot, like the big surprise guest if there is one Kelsey grammar. He's kind of been on the trip on the publicity trail lately. That's a weak guest. Like swakens. Oh, yes. Yeah, cash per tell's girlfriend. How do we get a land of star like this? Yeah, no, we'll see. I did note that one of these sections is about girls or boys and girls sports.

11:22Trans issue seems to be like exactly what they are leaning into, like very heavily, because they have very little else to do. I was struck you on Musk's super pack or pack, whatever it is. Put out an ad today. I think it's their first foray into the ad wars. And literally, literally, it goes up to Sheridan literally. It's all about trans rights and trans scare. Let's watch this. The music is taken out of the ad for corporate issues, but you can still hear the ads. Let's play it. Just two years ago, we fired Sheridan Brown because Brown put the trans agenda ahead of Ohio's values. Sheridan Brown voted to let biological men play women's sports. He supported legislation to allow biological men to enter women's locker rooms and bathroom. Brown even backed taxpayer-funded sex changes on children. That's why we gave Brown a pink slip. Make sure you vote this year. Let's defeat Sheridan Brown in his radical agenda.

12:22It's just, it's right. That's it. I mean, this is obviously Elon's kind of obsessed with this topic. And that's, you know, we will take it. You would take a long time to sort of dive into the psychology there, one of his kids is trans. But like, that's it. That's all they're talking about. Yeah. I mean, and we saw that as well with the the Enes Cantor attempts to join the WNBA. There's this real kind of like midterm push just to talk about like trans people playing sports as like the big, you know, can we get this back in the headlines somehow? You know, make people think, I mean, I think it's pretty clear, Democrats have kind of retreated on this issue. And I think it's probably much to Republican Shagrin. And so now they're really trying to bring it back up. And it's like, well, I guess if I'm a voter in Ohio, and maybe it works, it worked last time. But am I like, okay, yeah, like sharebrown is going to be a senator and Donald Trump will still be president there for what? Like, it will just like, you know, pass, you know, laws just absolutely expanding trans lights everywhere.

13:23I mean, that's not going to happen. I don't know. I'd argue that you'd have a couple of right years of Trump to run on or to run against frankly. And that would be more persuasive for the voters. But who am I? One other ad that I want to talk about is this Ken Paxen ad that was put out today. Pure AI, just not even like remotely trying at this point, goes against James Taylor. We go again, culture war heavy. This one a little bit more about biblical stuff. But let's watch this. In the beginning, God was non-binary and he wasn't a Christian. And God said, let there be six genders and there were. And God so loved the world that he gave us his only son who was a radical feminist and never asked people to worship him. Look, I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity. James Talleriko, wrong for Texas. America is not a Christian nation. And wrong for America too. I'm Ken Paxen and I've proved this best for people. That's a crazy one. We need a better picture Ken for your own kid.

14:25Ken Slurrin is words a little bit there at the end of my show while they didn't try. I just second take on that. I guess I'm curious about this whole, we're going to just puree eye it. It's kind of Spencer Prattie, although not as insane as Spencer Pratt stuff. Does this work? I mean, I look at that. First of all, didn't sound like James Talleriko. Secondly, I'm just distracted by the use of AI. Yeah, I mean, I have to say it is clever of them to say the King James Talleriko Bible. It works pretty well. But yeah, I mean, this is, I think it's somewhat effective in some ways. It does kind of string together all these quotes that are legitimate Talleriko quotes. I'll be it. I'm sure taken out of contact, in many cases. But yeah, I mean, this is, why not just use his quotes? Why not have a narrator read them? It's a distraction to have it all be AI. Yeah, there might be something to that. Also kind of like almost like a claymation Talleriko. It looks a bit distracting. Maybe that's just the AI. But I think, obviously, this seems to be where it's headed. And Republicans, I think, are leaning a lot more into the AI than Democrats are.

15:27But I think Democrats would be wise to jump on it. I hate to say it. Oh, man, you're a nihilist. I'm an aryless Jesus. Okay, well, look, we're going to have a lot more talk about you and I are going to be doing some of the live streaming. So we're coverage plans are this. We got Sunday bunch on the ground in Dallas. Okay, he's going to be checking out, jumping on our live feeds. But we're going to go live both nights Wednesday night and Thursday night. So the idea here is to start a little bit before the keynote speech. Again, Wednesday, it's going to be Vance. Thursday, it's going to be Trump. They're both going on roughly around 9 p.m. Eastern. It's a little late for my blood, but whatever. So we'll try to get on around 845, but these things are in late. So we're going to be a little bit flexible. But people are tuning in. We're going to open it up, watch it together, and then give you our immediate analysis on how it all went down. I'm on Wednesday night. I think Tim's going to be anchoring on Thursday night. Wouldn't I do we have you on for? I think I've been told whenever they want me.

16:28I will say that you're always wanted. You know, I'm a native Texan. And so I will have lots of homegrown wisdom such as, for example, where did they get collaches? And stuff like that, a lot of good Texas, Texas thoughts. What a tease. You can run about the origins of collaches. That's really exciting stuff. All right, people are going to be tuning in. Should've set record numbers for our YouTube channel. Thank you. Well, appreciate everyone. Subscribe to the board. Subscribe to the speed. So you can watch us take in mystery science theater style, the GOP midterm conventions. Wednesday, Thursday, only on the board. You too. Take care. Until now the data your AI depends on has been trapped behind ever increasing cloud fees. Wasabi created a cloud storage and is redefining cloud storage for the AI era delivering simple predictable cloud storage for AI analytics media and more. Your data is free to move fast to access and ready while your AI needs it.

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