Watch Mike Johnson Squirm Over Trump’s $5,000 Bribe

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1:02I'm here with my man, Will Salton. On Sunday, the 13th had to double check, been a long weekend of kids sporting activities. But I did manage to sneak in a bit of viewing of Mike Johnson, our speaker of the house. He did two shows this morning. Am I right? Meet the press and Jake Tapper? He was on CNN and Meet the Press. All right, there's a couple of things popped off to me. But the first one is his answer on this guy, Brendan Herrera. So for folks who don't know, it's Brandon Herrera, not Brendan. Brandon Herrera. He's running in Texas and we've covered him a bit on like Will Summer and Trio. We had Brendan Hartnick go to the Hill and ask a couple. I'm excited. He's a real shock, Jack. Will, do you know this guy? Have you seen any of his stuff? I've just heard the clips that they played. So no. He's the number. He spent his time prior to running for Congress doing like this whole YouTube streamer stuff where he just worships guns and says I rage his provocative stuff, hangs out with dudes

2:04and talks about women in the most deplorable way possible and thinks it's cool. All right. So our guy, Brendan Hartnick, has been digging into the archives and he's found some stuff. Some stuff. It's like almost uncomfortable talk about, honestly. There's one episode where he just talks about the supplements he takes to make his penis bigger and his semen more. Sorry, sorry, not it. Not it. You're just larger. He wants the semen to be more plentiful. Let's put it that way. Oh, I see. He's one of these white guys. Yeah. Yeah. He talked a lot about it. It's not, it's so grotesque. It's really, it's uncomfortable. I don't want to talk about that. The thing that is more political is that he went after Shannon Watts, who's a gun control activist. And they went back for the alakas. He's a gun nut. And he talked about kids as what he said. This is just me quoting the guy called them come trophies. And it's really nasty stuff.

3:05Anyways, he's the type of guy that in normal circumstances, you don't want around. You're kind of repulsed by him. But he happens to be running for Congress. It's kind of an important see for Republicans. And finally, Mike Johnson was asked about this on CNN, bijectapper. Take a listen to what Mike Johnson says. Well, I want to ask you. You talked about some of the more extreme DSA type candidates that the Democrats have. Republicans have some candidates like that on their own. For instance, Brandon Herrera, he's a House candidate in Texas. You've endorsed him. You fundraised him for him. He's a before he started becoming a congressional correspondent. I'm a congressional candidate. He's a YouTuber. And he has said some offensive, sexually explicit, crude things about women and children. Here's a little bit of what he said just three years ago. And I want to warn viewers that this language is pretty gross. Now directly to Shadon Watts. Hi, Shannon. Long time viewer, first time caller. First off, I want to get it off my chest.

4:05I think mom's demand action is fucking stupid. Being a mother doesn't make your opinion any more or less valid. Just because you let somebody cream pie you doesn't mean I have to give a shit about your political opinions. The fact that you kept your com trophy doesn't make you any less wrong about the dumb shit that you say. That's him disparaging mom. He's also in a video testing a Nazi era submachine gun. He called it the quote, original ghetto blaster. You see him go stepping to a Nazi marching song in a podcast two years ago, he joked, we should abolish old people. I have to say, I know you're not a voter in that district. You didn't nominate this guy, but I was surprised to see you endorse him in fundraise form. What does his candidate say about the Republican party's more extreme candidates? That's the testable language. You know how I feel about all of that, Jake. But also no brand in Herrera has been out running a very effective campaign and explained to people that he has apologized for all that. He was a podcaster and a provocateur and tried to get attention.

5:05It's not the way I speak or think and that's not the way most do, but that was his persona online, right? Now he's running as a very serious candidate for Congress and a very thoughtful guy. I was with him at the convention. So, what do you think of that? Well, okay. Mike Johnson correct me, Sam. I thought Mike Johnson was Mr. Family Values. He's the guy who, like I suppose supposedly evaluates everything by its sort of moral, whether it's morally appropriate. And suddenly that filter is just gone. Like when he says that this guy has an online persona and like somehow that's supposed to be free. First of all, I don't see Republicans forgiving Abdul El-Sayed or any other Democrat for stuff they said when they did a podcast. They didn't write that off and say, oh, that's his online persona. No, they hold a person accountable. But suddenly when this guy says this completely disgusting stuff in a context where you feel like that's the real guy and everything else is a front. Suddenly, that's just an online persona and isn't relevant to them making public policy.

6:09I don't get it. And it's not just that. His online persona was his job. It's like one thing to be like goofing off on Reddit and saying nasty things which are, you know, was one of the big problems for Grand Plightner obviously. It's quite another thing to have your online persona be the entire reason that you are running for office. And this is why he's the candidate is that he generated an online following and became popular. Then of course, Tony Gonzalez, the congressman who had this seat had an affair with his aide, the aide tragically killed herself. He left office and this is the guy that they have to replace him. But it really does get to the sort of asymmetry between the parties. I'm going to read a tweet that our boss there along will put on. I'd love your thoughts on this. Well, she says one of the asymmetric issues of these parties is dem candidates like Abdul Al Sayed are carrying the baggage and paying the price for campaigning with someone who says disgusting things. Republicans are straight up running the people who do and say disgusting things and no one blinks. And that's true.

7:10No one blinks. Like Brendan Hart and went to the Hill and asked all these Republicans about those quotes from Brandon Herrera and no one was like, oh yeah, he shouldn't be elected. He shouldn't be running. I'd write that on stage just like, no, whatever. Right. Right. Okay. A couple of things. I'm really glad he brought up basically Hassan Piker because the Republicans at their fake midterm convention, they weren't just holding Al Sayed accountable for stuff he said in his podcast, right? They're saying, oh no, you campaign one time or whatever with Hassan Piker. And now we're going to hold you accountable for everything Hassan Piker said. And we know Hassan Piker is doing a lot of stick to, right? So that's one step removed from the candidate. Here we have the act. This is to Sarah's point. Here we have the actual candidate has said the disgusting stuff. And it's not even sort of disgusting stuff that like has some sort of a policy background to it. It's just gratuitously nasty and shows sort of an ugly side to his character. So I totally agree with her point about the double standard. But the larger thing that I would add to that is what we have here as a party.

8:13I think the reason why these Republicans on the Hill are telling Brandon, not Brandon, you know, that they don't get that like ignoring this is because they've been trained in the age of Trump, right? In the age of 100%. 100%. Yeah. But that's what Max Miller said, right? I mean, Max Miller is the entire reason that he's sticking around. He was like, Trump stuck around. And I'm, you know, and he's my hero, right? So yeah, it's Trump. Yeah. And there's so I would take people back to me. This goes back to 2015. There was a moment when the former Republican party thought, oh, we can't say this kind of stuff. We can't run this kind of candidate. And basically it was when Donald Trump, who at that time was sort of a nobody, not a politician. He runs for president and he insults John McCain in a Republican forum in Iowa. Like I like people who weren't captured. And there was this massive intake of breath around the Republican party. You can't do that. You can't say that. And he did it. And he got away with it. And he won. And all the Republicans looked at that.

9:14And ever since they have basically seen this guy expose Americans or expose Republicans as not giving a damn about this kind of gross behavior. And so now they just look the other way. And even Mike Johnson, Mr. Family Values doesn't. Mr. Me, it's true. The sanctum only from Mike Johnson when it comes to anyone else that's not a Republican. It doesn't really the question though, like, should Democrats reassess how they hold or how they respond to these instances? I mean, I'm not saying, well, I guess I don't know. Like what, why, why play on a higher playing field when you don't have to? It does raise that question. Yeah, I don't know. Look, all of us at the Bullwork, we believe in institutions, we believe in norms. We would like to restore those. And at the other party, as if the Republican party isn't going to do it, then let's find a way to do it ourselves. We must uphold these values. But at the same time, Sam, I think you're getting at the dilemma, which is, are we going to be the only ones who do that? Because what one of the things Trump has done is he's identified people who uphold institutions

10:17and norms. He's identified that as a weakness. And then he can exploit it. You guys can worry about that stuff. I'm going to trash the norms and I'm going to get the votes. And the sad thing is it's working and it's kind of driving Democrats to ask the question that you're raising. Should we give up on the institutions in the norm too? Should we put up a bunch of shock, a bunch of shock shocks too? I don't know. What do you think? Well, no, I don't think so. And that might make me a naive. But I do think there's actually value in, you know, holding up good character. I think people get people who reward you for it. It's not that the problem is not going to be always consistent, right? It's like, let's be real about it. If you're in a situation where you're going to lose the Senate seat if this guy has to be kicked to the curb, right? Democrats would probably think differently about what that are holding up. But it's just truth. It's the reality of it, right? The Grand Planner thing was kind of an interesting case study in this. It's like they did hold him accountable. They did force him to the race, force him out of the race.

11:17But if we're being honest, like that sort of accountability came when the polls showed that he had, that more or less, he was on the path to losing. And so this is, you know, I'm not saying the two parties are the same. I do think Democrats are way more invested in holding up character and defending institutions that are Republicans at this point. But there is political expediency in all this. This fall in Jeep country and during the drive into fall sales event get a great deal on four by fours that refuse to be contained, like Jeep Wrangler, confidence built into every drive with the most awarded SUV ever, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and freedom that can't be denied with the open air freedom in Jeep Gladiator. After 85 years, it's no surprise that Jeep became America's SUV brand, get a great deal during the Jeep Drive into Fall sales event. Jeep is one more awards over its lifetime than any other SUV brand, cheap in the Jeep grill or register trademarts of FCA US LLC. At QVC fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home and culinary, all in

12:20one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Lori Geller, Philosophy, Ninja and so many more. Now at QVC.com. Right. Can I ask you a gut check on this? Suppose the grand platener pulls a max miller. He stays and past the point where that's a good point. Now you have to choose. Are you going to stay with Platiner? Now that he's your only option, are you going to try to do some writing thing? What are you going to do? No, I mean, that's, you, that, that is the ultimate question. I guess the distinction here is that Democrats ain't a way for that choice. They said you have to get out. Everyone said they had to get out. They said they had to get on down. Whereas with Max Miller, Trump has been fine with him. Mike Johnson has said he's fine with him. The NRCC is actually raising money for him. Like, they didn't, they didn't make the choice for Max Miller and Democrats did. I think that's the most, that's the most relevant contrast right there.

13:25But yeah, if the hypothetical that you presented was there, I don't know what they would do. I honestly don't know. There's a couple of things that Johnson said that you flagged. He was on, again, he's on me to press and see it and he was asked about this $5,000. I don't know what bribe. Let's just call him a bribe. It's bribe. Why are we tomorrow playing around with dividend here? It's a bribe. John Trump wants to give every adult citizen $5,000, but only if Republicans retain both houses of Congress, it's ridiculous. And Johnson's asked like, well, do you support it? Whereas it's coming from, let's watch what he says. Turn to the midterms because President Trump is proposing to pay every American adult $5,000, but only if Republicans keep control of the House and the Senate. For that $5,000 check, doesn't the President need Congress to act? And are you going to carry out his wishes? I would assume, yes, he'd need Congress to act. And that's a creative idea.

14:25He launched it at our convention and got a lot of people excited. Of course, devils in the details, we have to figure all that out. But I think what he was articulating there, Jay, is that he's saying that if you want more money in your pocket, you have to keep Republicans in charge. Why? Because we're talking about the record of achievement. Look at what we've done since President Trump took over Republicans if had control of the House and Senate. Well, you seem tickled by this. Why? So maybe this is kind of a shame for it. I'm watching Johnson Scorm because he doesn't want to say that he's going to like pass this $5,000 bribe. First of all, he can't do it. He can't do it because the freedom caucus people won't even let him do it. Now, let alone the Democrats, right? But he's trying to like turn this into something else. But at the same time, he knows this isn't bonkers. And he's, but he can't say that because the big orange guy will get mad at him, right? So he becomes up with this language. I love this one. He says, oh, it's creative, right? Like creative, like a lunatic showed up like and came up with a bribe.

15:27A Republican is offering money to the trillions of dollars in bribes. So it's creative. And then he says it's out of the box. It's outside the box. Yeah, of course it's outside the box. It's definitely outside the box. So it's just a wild sort of exhibit of like how to sound like you're being complimentary when you really think the idea is nuts. Yeah, he's like, Trump's a big idea is guy. And this is a big idea. And it's like, no, it's not. It's just a pretty simple idea. It's bribery. It's been around for a while. You're paying people to vote for you. That's kind of the interesting thing about Trump is he does the stuff out. This is not a new thought. But this is yet again, in a case where he does the stuff you're not supposed to do. Yeah, public and he gets away with it. Like if he were to pay everyone $5,000 privately for their votes, we'd be like, you cannot do that. That's illegal. But he just announces it and says, yay, you know, we get this vote, you'll get my $1,000. Yeah, like Trump is this giant experiment. And what if you had no values at all, right? You just, you're just trying to win elections.

16:27So you're in this party that says like we believe in small limited government and you only get paid if you work in this country. But then like, so you, you're trying to do things within that framework like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, etc. Right? Okay, it's no tax. That's still a Republican. But then like you're still trailing the polls and you're like, how about if I just throw money at people like from the government, then you got to come up with this language and we'll call it a dividend. Does that make it a Republican idea? And it was like, even, I mean, I'm kudos to Tapper for calling him out and, and, and Chris, to Chris Timon, creativity. He's like, you know, it doesn't have to be from, you know, from, it doesn't have to contribute to the debt because we have all this tear freebie coming in. They're like, it's like $300 billion in tear freebie. This is $1.3 trillion. What are you talking about? He kind of skirts around that. He just doesn't even answer it. Like, okay, so Tapper totally flagged him on this. Not enough tariff money, but like what is tariff money? It's taxes. It's our money. It's tax. You're taxing and then you're giving the money to people like, how is this a Republican

17:28party? We're taxing Americans to give money back to Americans that we don't have. So no, it's, it's wild shit. It would be, it's like, I'd be curious to, I actually kind of want to see it come to a vote because I would like to see people take stands on this and see what they have to say. Who's the freedom cracker guy who was against it? Ralph Norman, but like, there are people in the freedom caucus who actually think the Republican party should still be conservative in the sense of like, you know, not spending money. It doesn't have like, we're $40 trillion in debt. We're going to like throw another trail. If it actually came to a vote, they'd all get on board, right? I guess Norman doesn't have anything to vote for anymore because he was all supposed to primary. But most of them 99% would probably just get on board, right? If they had to, if they get the vote, that's probably what would happen. But Mike Johnson's job and he's really good at it is to take this moron, this orange moron and his crazy ideas and finesse it, massage it into something that Republicans could vote for it. So it could have, no, they'll, they'll try to make it like a tax rebate or something like

18:30that. And, you know, that'll sort of fit within their parameters. As if that won't hurt the debt. Okay. Last thing and I'll take this one. But if you've thought some curious, but he wasn't, Johnson was asked about this air regulation. So I'm not like an expert at all. I've done no reporting about it, but I'm, you know, reading like everyone else. What is like, abject panic over the past couple weeks sparked by a couple of air executives and workers coming forward saying, hey, this thing's getting out of control. There's like a 10% chance that it could, you know, just to make humanity, we could go extinct. The type of shit that, you know, normally you would kind of like sit up and be like, oh, my God, that's, that's the cause coming from the South of the House. And we had a couple executives come out over the weekend and be like, hey, we really do need to slow down. The White House's posture has been sort of bewildering to me. Trump basically is like, yeah, whatever. We'll all work out. It always does. And then he jets off to Ireland to watch a golf course at his golf resort.

19:30And it's like you, you know, I don't know. That just really bothers me for some reason. Like just, you don't have to do that in the contrasts as ridiculous. David Sacks, who's basically the AI guy and the crypto guy in the White House, he was like, yeah, if you want to slow down, go for it. We're not going to get it in your way. But like, don't act like, you know, this isn't a problem of your own creation. I thought that was ridiculous too. Like if you are an elected office, if you are serving the president, if you are entrusted by the people to protect them, you can't just be like, up, we're not going to do anything. Okay. I mean, that's absurd. But Johnson basically took that posture. Johnson was like, I love to point it over into David Sacks's tweet. He thought it was brilliant. I didn't think it was brilliant. And then he raised the prospect that we might lose the air is to China as a reason to not go quickly on regulation. He did say, let's get everyone into room. But he's like, we shouldn't rush it. We shouldn't rush it. Like we need to be careful here. And I don't know, man, I get like Republicans don't like to regulate and that's part of

20:30their DNA. But when you have people saying our product could kill humanity and you are the highest person in the House of Representatives and you can write the laws to help. Right. Have some urgency. Like take it seriously. You don't have to like be so nonchalant about it. And that really bothered me. Yeah. Well, this China angle is actually pretty important because you've got the threat that you're articulating about. It's the AI going to take, can I kill humanity? You do stuff to us. And then you've got the counter argument, which is, hey, if we restrain our AI in the United States and in the West, China or some male factor is going to have their own AI and their AI is going to beat our AI because we're restraining ours and they're not. It's like an arms race thing, right? And I don't know exactly how to sort out those arguments, but I do know this, Sam, if you're an AI and you're watching this debate, you are learning how to play humanity, right? You're like, okay, if I can, I mean, seriously, like, you know, we'll have the transcript of this up and there will be people biting articles and the AI is going to look at what

21:32we say and the AI is probably figuring out, okay, so if we want to kill off the humans, what we want to do is create this sort of, pit the humans against each other. This whole China argument, let's get that going, right? So that the Americans will restrain theirs and then we'll do something with the Chinese and we'll get them fighting each other. And meanwhile, we'll team up against them. Totally. Although I don't like to think about like that because it makes it very dark. It's just weird to me. Again, in the President of the United States, the Speaker of the House, and they're just like, ah, let's, let's, let's like not go crazy with the regulation. And it's just in normal, in a normal universe, I think the, the, what you would get is, from the White House or from the Speaker's Office, we hear what they're saying. We take it very seriously. We want to convene everyone immediately, start the process. We're not going to be prescriptive, but we got to get this conversation going. President Trump's going to speak with President Xi in some summit in a couple of weeks. It will be brought up there.

22:32We need to get on a legislative framework. It's going to take time, but we are on top of it. You'd want to show that you're on top of it. And yet that's not at all the posture from Johnson. And certainly not the posture from Trump, who seems totally disinterested in it. Yeah, well, Trump has been laissez faire about this the whole time. Even when other Republicans were literally, they're looking at polls, they're looking at political indices. And they can see that there's a backlash against AI and data centers and all that stuff. Trump has been pro the whole time. And he's been making the China argument. You know, and that's, so, he's not, is it just because he's in the, he likes, I mean, they've given him so much money and he feels like, you know, he wants to keep on on his good side, or is it just, I don't know, but he gets ideas in his head. He gets a framework like Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That drives everything forever. No argument can overtake it. I won the 2020 election. Here it's, we have to beat China at AI. That is completely driving everything he says. It's going to take a lot to turn him around. Maybe the AI, maybe the AI company's coming out and saying it, maybe that can do.

23:33Trump's a product of the 80s. Hear me out, right? That's when he really burst out. 80s and 90s, right? He saw the Terminator. He saw Terminator 2 as well, right? He knows what SkyNet is. Maybe the answer to this is, we get shorts and nager to call him up. And be like Donald. You must regulate the AI. Or say, I'm like, not even joking. I feel like that could possibly work. Just Arnold's the only one here. Okay, Sammy, just accomplish something which is that you've produced a bullwork product that people in the White House are going to grab onto and say, Stein's got a great idea. Get shorts and nager on the phone. Get shorts and nager on the phone. Absolutely. That's the thing that's going to turn Trump around. That's a better shot than anything else I've heard. It's not the worst idea I've ever had. I've had bad ideas though. So we'll see. If you want to use in the White House, you can credit it called the Stein idea. I want to man royalties. I'll just take the flowers for saving humanity. It'll be amazing if it worked. And if it started here, that would be incredible.

24:33I hope that happens. All right, well, thank you so much. I appreciate it for those who watched on Sunday. We do this out of love. We do this so that you don't have to watch these shows. We know it's a burden. And we hope in exchange that you can see it in your heart, maybe to subscribe to the bullwork. It's a little token of appreciation. Thank you. All right, well, talk to you there, buddy. All right. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Lori Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. Your path to pharmacy can be closer than you think. West Coast University's hybrid doctor of pharmacy program

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