Major MAGA Figures Say Trump’s Assassination Attempt Was Staged | MAGA Monday

By The Bulwark

Summary

Figures like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Joe Kent are reviving claims that the Butler assassination attempt on Trump was staged or covered up, moving from earlier deep-state narratives to theories implicating Trump himself. The rise of these theories reflects growing disaffection among MAGA dissidents, undermining the earlier 'divine aura' narrative that surrounded Trump after the attempt. The staged theory fails because it would require cooperation from Biden's DOJ and Secret Service. Evidence includes a real victim (Cory Compatory), the shooter's poor marksmanship (kicked off rifle team), prior planning, and Trump's bleeding ear captured by AP photo. The attempt occurred just two days after Biden's poor debate performance, when Trump was already gaining political momentum, making a staged attack illogical and unnecessary. Hosts discuss allegations of Patel's drinking problem causing work disruptions, a locked-door incident requiring SWAT, and his $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic, seen as a weak case and potential distraction. Patel announced on Fox that arrests for 2020 election interference are imminent, with vague justification including a bizarre 'disease temple' reference, viewed as a distraction from his own scandals.

Highlights

• Secret Service timeline disproves staged claim
• A person killed proves real bullet
• Parents' call disproves staged assassination
• Cash Patel's disease temple threat
• Ashley St. Clair alleges Madison Cawthorn groping

Transcript

All right, we're back. We are back, baby.

So excited. Me and Will Summer doing the MAGA Mondays again after a week off.

We're looking both a little tan.

I'm a little redder, I got to be honest.

Uh this is what happens when you lay in the sun for four hours, seasick on the on a boat. Uh you've put 50 uh what are the whatever the thing is?

50 sunscreen on, but it just FB Yeah. Yeah.

And it just didn't work. I I mean I thought I was gonna be fine, but I look terrible.

Will, you look great.

How was your How was your time off?

>> Thank you. Yeah, I went to Mexico City with the fam and uh you know, maybe I didn't get a tan because you know, lots of time in museums, restaurants.

Um but we we we were living good and uh but uh but you know, the other thing I I wanted to add is uh you know, a lot did happen.

You know, we have a lot to dive into today, but also gosh, you know, clvicular odeed.

Um Jordan Peterson's daughter says that he maybe has like some kind of brain damage from his own benzoi addiction.

Okay.

>> Um so you know it's there's been a lot going on and um you know I think there's a lot to unpack today.

>> Well actually sort of before we get into it I do have a question about what it's like for you to go on vacation because like are you able to unplug or do you spend your time with your family on vacation just kind of strolling through the internet streams and and figuring out what's going on? Well, you know, the good news is uh my my kids are so young that they're constantly like trying to

run into traffic and stuff and so like I really just don't have time. Like my

Like my screen time was way down and I was like, "Oh, yeah.

" Because I was like dragging these kids through the city being like, "We got to get this street food or whatever.

whatever." And they're like, "Oh, I want to jump into traffic." So I >> You're like, "Hey, hey, hey, did you see this about clavvicular?" And you're like, "Oh, yes. I I was I was like, "How do I use the code word? How do I explain to my wife like OD, you know, without the kids picking up on it?" Uh but yeah, I mean, you know, on one hand, I did

miss it, but then in the evening, you know, that's when I catch up and I go, "Oh my gosh, you know, why am I not at work?" Uh but so, so, so, you know, it's

" Uh but so, so, so, you know, it's the yin and the yang. You know, I'm back.

>> I just the image of you a long day, you know, going on vacation with little kids is not actually vacation.

So, you're just exhausted at the end of the day.

You and the wife finally get to unwind and you're just on your phone looking through >> No, that's completely it.

That was completely it. I was like, "Oh my gosh.

" Like, right, the clicular thing happened like in the evening. I was like, "Oh my gosh.

" >> Oh man. Well, it's good to be back.

Um I was monitoring it uh from afar, too.

I saw the clvicular thing. Uh I saw it being carried out. I thought of you.

Um but then this weekend really I I started like signing really back online and looking at what was happening on the internet.

And the one thing that just kept coming up, and it might have been my algorithm, who knows? But it was everywhere, is the resurfacing yet again of these conspiracy theories around the uh Butler assassination attempt of Donald Trump back in the 2024 campaign.

Now, just just to back up a little bit and set the stage and then we can dive into this and and I guess I should probably preface this by by acknowledging that like a lot of people in the comments uh and a lot of people online are, you know, credulous about this.

They think that something did happen.

They believe that it's worth a lot more scrutiny than it's received.

They think there's a lot of suspicious anecdotal stuff that hasn't been answered.

And I don't want to be disrespectful of it. Like I think I'm ultimately for more transparency, more investigative journalism.

Uh I I too want to get more insight into what's going on.

So I'm not disrespecting the conspiracies.

I will be upfront about it.

I don't believe them uh at this point.

Uh, I'm not certainly prone to believe in conspiracy theories.

That's just my nature. Like I want to make sure like there's hard evidence before we start suggesting Israel's behind this or something else.

Um, but I also do acknowledge that like there is just a lot of chatter out there. So I want to be sort of respectful for the people who are curious, but just be honest about where I'm coming from. All right.

So, with the throat clearing out of the way, this weekend there were a number of conservatives out there raising the the alarm bells about this stuff.

And what's interesting is that if you remember back in 2024, the first round of conspiracists were liberals. It was the blueon crowd as they were called wondering why this happened, wondering about the protocols around it, suggesting that it might have been a false flag operation to jin up support for Donald Trump prior to the election.

There were some cons conservatives at the time who were conspiracists, but they're coming at it from a different direction.

So like Eli Crane, if you remember this, thought that this was an attempt by the Secret Service and the Biden run uh FBI to kill Donald Trump.

I mean, that that that was basically his insinuation.

Now it seems different. Now there are people out there who are wondering whether this was all staged to help Donald Trump.

And they're coming from the conservative side as well.

So, you know, Tim Dylan, obviously, famous podcaster who's been more Trump skeptical of it of late. He he said, quote, I think it may be staged.

You have Tucker Carlson, who says the FBI is covering it up. You have Joe Kent, obviously, who resigned and said he tried to investigate it but was stopped, although he offered no evidence.

Let's put up the Marjorie Taylor Green tweet from this weekend. So, this is just yesterday.

I'm not calling the Beller assassination a hoax, but there are a lot of questions that deserve public answers.

I'm asking, why won't Trump release the information about Matthew Krooks?

Matthew Krooks is the alleged killer.

Uh, did he actually act alone?

If not, who was behind him and who helped him?

Why the cover up?

So, Will, what's going on here? Why are voices on the right suddenly coming at this from what seems to me to be a different direction than like the Eli Crane, they were trying to kill Trump and now they they got caught.

>> Yeah. I mean, I think we're seeing here a lot of these people who are sort of dissident elements of MAGA, you know, whether it be Marjgery Taylor Green or Tucker Carlson, have increasingly in the past week or two sort of embraced this idea uh that, you know, either there was a real attempt on Trump's life involving the deep state and Trump is now covering that up or Cash Patel's FBI is covering

it up or that this was somehow staged or that it was set up to make Trump look good, you know, on the other hand, which is kind of what Marjorie Taylor Green is suggesting here, right? Um, so, so I you're exactly right that this is is from a different angle. It's sort of a, um, people have gotten so fed up with Trump that now they're just saying, "Well, I think he staged the assassination on himself."

" >> But why do you think they're doing it now?

Is it is it just like they're just disaffected with Trump, the Iran stuff?

They need to find some other outlet to express their displeasure.

They're just sort of inclined to believe conspiracies.

>> Yeah. I mean, essentially, yes.

I mean, I I I I think Joe Kent coming out has helped a lot with that. Um, you know, it is pretty crazy that this guy who was like a top counterterror official was also kind of running a sideline in like, you know, like YouTube assassination investigation and like sleuth thing because he he also famously like had looked after into the Charlie Kirk case and was told like, "What are you doing here?

Back out." Um, and so, you know, I I do think there is it's the the Butler assassination was so important to MAGA and it was such a moment of like, oh, you know, Trump is at his apex.

He's so powerful now. There's no stopping him.

um literally like an assassin can't stop him.

Uh and I think the fact that people are questioning that now really points to to Trump's unpopularity on the right.

>> Yeah, it it does sort of undo a lot of the heography that they had engaged in earlier on, right? I mean, there was this almost religious element to what had happened.

And I remember being at the convention hall was like what was it like a couple days after the assassination temp where everyone had the little bandages on the ears and they're talking about Trump.

Yeah, they were talking about Trump in this kind of divine uh aura around him and you know God had saved him and now it's like well actually maybe he did you know he orchestrated this whole thing.

It it's wild. Has the White House engaged this?

I I haven't been able to see if they were like engaged at all in this.

>> No, you know, here's something interesting though, Sam. When I was doing research for this segment, I remembered that back in I believe November, the FBI put out its own document trying to put put a lot of these conspiracy theories to rest.

So already we've seen the Trump administration kind of engage with this stuff in the same way that Bonino and Cash Patel came out and said, you know, Epstein killed himself last summer.

Now last year they put out a document that said like, you know, we looked into it.

This is crazy. They were like, Thomas Matthew Krooks, he did not really use they them pronouns, you know, and and sort of all these things.

>> That's what they looked into.

Yes. It was not a trans conspiracy.

yeah. You know, I I do think there's also this, speaking of the there sort of this similarity between the conspiracy theories between about Charlie Kirk's assassination and the Trump assassination attempt where you have someone who's like seems pretty believable as a suspect as sort of a lone gunman type. Um, but then people just like they want this, you know, in the case of uh you mentioned the kind of the the earlier version of these

conspiracy theories, uh, where it's like we want this deep state or this left-wing cabal to be behind it. Um, and

Um, and then people are really sort of left dissatisfied when that doesn't turn out to be the case.

>> No, I I like can acknowledge the dissatisfaction, right?

dissatisfaction, right? Like it doesn't on the surface it doesn't really make sense that this 21 20-year-old kid who was kind of like a social outcast suddenly got a a football field away from the president with a rifle and no one saw him and got off a couple shots and killed someone and like how how could that even happen? And then you get

an investigation into him and there's not like really an ideology here. just

seems to I mean he's Googled like both Biden's schedule and Trump's schedule and it's like you want some sort of motive and and you know something similar to that effect remember the Las Vegas gunman who who shot like killed 49 people at that show was awful and and it just sort of they looked into it a I mean as far as we know it's like I couldn't tell you what the motive was of

that shooter and it's deeply frustrating and troubling honestly that you have these instances where it's incredibly violent tragic loss of life and you don't have concrete answers that give you some sort of satisfaction that yeah this was for this reason. So I get it like you want

So I get it like you want something bigger there but sometimes it's just not the case.

So >> yeah, >> well I was just going to say I mean I think the idea of the magnet people questioning this um is sort of the as we talked about is it's kind of crossing a line to suggest that you know Trump is is such a bad guy to them now that he would not only stage an assassination.

I mean but obviously there was a guy who did die in the assassination.

So that that he would have someone shot you know to help his political chances.

I mean that's really like a lot of these people again have already broken with Trump.

Marjorie Taylor Green, Tucker Carlson, but I think it shows you how, you know, how irreconcilable they are with Trump at this point, >> right?

I want to get into some of the specifics around the conspiracy and to explain, I guess, in in a way why I don't believe that there was a conspiracy.

Um, couple things.

One is, um, the sort of 30,000 foot one, and just jump in when you have a thought here because I'm going to riff for a little bit, but I I want you to jump in.

one is is like this was the Biden le justice department secret service that was you know in charge of the security.

Okay. So like if your belief is that Trump now staged all this to benefit himself politically it would have involved at least some buyin from the Biden uh secret service Biden led secret service and Biden le justice department Biden le FBI at the time. Okay.

So that alone is is is difficult. There was a bipartisan congressional committee that did look into this after the fact.

Bipartisan being the key word here.

And and they they they did not come up with uh any rationale for this being a conspiracy.

Um Trump people forget about this.

Trump went on do Dr. Phil uh during the campaign and was asked about this stuff and he blamed um the Biden uh Secret Service for not staffing him well enough.

So, you know, he also is adding to the idea that like, hey, you know, these people were partisan. If they were partisan, why would they um, you know, why would they engage in this?

And then there's the specific stuff.

So, among the other things, there's this, you know, one of the things is like, well, why did they rush all those photographers into place to get those iconic shots of Trump with his handheld high, you know, all that stuff?

And if you look at the actual footage, I mean, and I did, they didn't rush the photographers into place. You look got to look at the whole footage.

Trump actually goes down. The Secret Service keeps him down for like 45 seconds.

And then if you hear the footage, you can hear someone scream out, "All clear, uh, suspect is down or shot or killed or something like that." And it's only then that Trump gets up and does his thing.

And it's only then that the photographers are ushered in by what looks like a youngish secret service person.

The other thing is, and keep this photo up for a little bit, there's a lot of photos circulating this weekend of Trump's ear, and it looks like it as it's not actually hit by a bullet.

And it appears that that's an old photo or or a wrongly uh presented photo because as you can see here very clearly, this is an AP photo. Trump's ear is bleeding.

I mean, it's bleeding. It's right there.

top of the year. That's blood.

Now, people say, "Well, it's it should have been way more damaged if it was, you know, a bullet of that caliber." So, I can't speak to that. It's possible.

I suppose everyone's posited that it could have been shattered glass from the teleprompter or something like that, but I think it's pretty evident from this photo right here that that ear is bloodied.

Okay. Now, I know people are going to say, "Well, he could have cut it himself.

" Um, but we do know that a shot was fired >> like like a wrestler like he had a little a little razor concealed.

>> Yeah. Well, you know, he's a WWE fan, so little ketchup packet or something like that.

But, you know, there was a person killed.

Okay. Cory Compatory was killed.

He was shot. He was killed.

So, clearly a bullet was fired. Um, but the the most sort of I I mean I I can go on.

Do you have any thoughts here before?

>> I have two thoughts, two two points to make.

Um, one is uh that you know this this conspiracy has has gathered a lot of characters.

Now, Marjorie Taylor Green was saying, "What about Willie Teepez?

" And now Willie Teepez Willy >> kind of a or teepee I guess sort of a um Kaiser So type name. Um supposedly like I believe a Norwegian Antifa who was supposedly in touch with Matthew Thomas Krooks and tagged him on YouTube.

don't know the FBI said they don't really buy it. Um but so this it's kind of created its own it has its own universe of characters now. Um, and kind of the broader point about so Secret Service, you know, security. I would say this weekend we're seeing a real clear investigation uh story about a Secret Service agent having a relationship with, I believe, an Only Fans creator who was like posting all his, you know,

internal Secret Service documents. So

So maybe the OBSAC isn't that good in general.

>> Is this a John Solomon joint or is this something else?

>> Uh, no. No, that I believe Crabtree Sus Crabtree got it. Okay.

Yeah, Secret Service has not covered itself in glory on a number of fronts. So, let's just state that.

A couple other data points again.

We'll just jump in, please.

Um, okay. There was this theory that he was shot in the chest because there's this kind of like shadow or hole in his Have you seen this one?

>> No.

>> There's like a little Okay.

There's apparently a photo floating around.

There's like a kind of a dark hole right here on Trump's suit. It looks dark compared to the rest of the suit.

Uh, they did look into that actually.

It was just a fold in the jacket.

There's other pictures without that little dark spot.

I'm not really sure what the theory would be about the chest, but that's been floating around there.

Um, former agents have told news sources that in fact the agents operating were keeping him protocol.

Um, again with how they put Trump down covered him and only when it was all clear that they let him get up.

Um, couple other things, crooks.

There was explosives found in his car.

He had searched for the schedules of Trump and Biden. uh he had searched for info on both the Republican Democratic convention.

He had searched for how to make a bomb from fertilizer.

So, you know, I don't know, you might say, well, that was just planning on his part uh to make sure he had a good cover, but it's there.

He did the searches. Um, Fox News had reported uh that the Krooks' parents had called the police before the assassination, a couple hours before the assassination to warn that their son might be uh about to do something troubling.

Again, that's not something you would do uh or have done if you're trying to stage an assassination, right?

Like your parents don't normally try to tip off the the police uh in advance of it.

Maybe they weren't in on it, I suppose.

But again, I'm not trying to again, I'm not trying to be dismissive necessarily.

Well, I guess I am being dismissive of the conspiracies.

I'm trying to work through these uh and and just sort of go through some of the points.

Um >> that makes sense to me. I I mean, I think we could just forward this to Marger Taylor Green and Tucker and I think this should resolve the issue pretty quick.

>> Yeah, I'm sure they're going to be completely convinced.

But the bit the the one that really stood out to me again is and this I I want to give credit to this guy Scott Carney who was like a a sleuthy investigative journalist um who uh who did this about eight months ago. He did a video on this.

Again, this stuff popped up all the time.

But what's different now is that it's the MAGA folks who are pushing it.

it. But Scott Connie had this point about about sort of the the theatrics of this, the the bigger planning of this, which is if you think about it in just the broad scheme of things. If the idea is you want to stage an assassination attempt so that you can generate political

sympathy for yourself, okay?

And someone's going to fire a real bullet or multiple bullets at you. Okay?

Which happened, right? I don't think anyone's saying Cory Compatory was, you know, faking it. He was killed. Okay.

So, real bullets were fired by Thomas Krooks at the very minimum.

I think everyone agrees with that. If you want to stage an assassination attempt, why would you let someone like Thomas Krooks who had no history of being a good shot take the shot at the president?

I mean, that is highly reckless.

So, let's watch Scott Carney summarize it because he does much better than I do at at at unpacking how kind of difficult it is to believe the conspiracies to Slate.

Crooks had no military training and was reportedly barred from his high school rifle team. He had such bad aim he was considered quote dangerous and a potential risk for accidentally harming his teammates.

Now, this is not the sort of crack shooter that you're going to want to have performing a near miss on your head with a lethal round.

>> While the results of the shooting ultimately helped Trump in the subsequent election, proponents of the false flag hypothesis have to contend with a few very hard to stomach facts.

The first and foremost is this.

For it to work, Trump would have had to be so confident in the shooting skills of this would-be assassin that a shot could get close enough to potentially cause him actual damage.

And also that the shooter would be willing to sacrifice their life for the president's plot.

Frankly, that just seems crazy to me.

>> And it frankly seems crazy to me.

>> Can I leave you with something else to think about, though?

>> Yeah, please. Lee Lee Harvey Oswald, also famously a poor marksman, you know, so you know, who's to say?

>> Well, GET THE IT'S TRUE.

I'm kind of a Kennedy assassination guy.

Um, you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Mafia, Cuban exile, CIA, all of it.

All working together. Yeah.

>> Okay. I didn't know that about you.

This explains a bit. But you don't believe it here.

>> No, not in this case. Not in this case.

>> Okay. Well, hold on. Hold on.

That gives you credentials.

>> Yeah. Look at me. Yeah.

>> Yes. Yes. Yes.

>> Go on. Come on. Keep going.

>> Oh. Oh, no. You know, I I was just going to say that the one thing I I was going to say is like you really have to be bad to be kicked off of the school marksmanship team as a risk to your teammates.

Like, is he aiming at a 90 degree angle or something?

You know what? What is uh you know, that's crazy.

>> It is crazy. I mean, again, I just want to emphasize this. The idea is you gave you someone went to this 20-year-old kid, troubled kid. They're like, "This is our guy. I want you to climb up on this thing.

You're probably going to die, okay?

Because they're going to shoot at you after you shoot at us.

But we want you to climb up on this whatever this structure, this edifice, about a foot, 300 feet away from the president, and we want you to take a shot at him, but we want you to be really precise, okay?

We want you to shoot at him and just kind of graze him or near miss him and you may kill someone in the audience, whatever.

It's worth it.

Uh but whatever you do, don't hit Trump.

Like just don't do it. Good plan.

And he's like, >> "No, high risk.

>> It's insane. It's It's really insane.

" >> Good news, Trump. You're Yeah.

Joe Biden just imploded on the debate stage.

Now we got to do this totally insane.

Well, that's the So, okay, that's the other thing that people don't really and I don't think that I'm going to I'm going to backtrack in a little bit because again, I don't want to offend I'm not trying to be totally offensive to the people who are conspiracists here, but this happened like two days after Biden's debate, okay? Like, Trump is ascendant.

Like, this thing is he's going to win at this point.

Everything is like, "Wow, my opponent just had the most epic brain fart collapse in the history of politics in front of tens of millions of people, and it's absolutely all anyone can talk about. You know what we need to do? We need to go through with the plan for that fake assassination attempt.

" Doesn't quite make any sense. Now, I will say the the conspiracists have have argued that there might have been a second shooter, right?

Like that's that is one of the things that they were talking about that Crooks wasn't up there firing, but there is evidence that he did fire. Um, and so I just can't I can't find myself to get I can't get myself to the place where I believe this stuff.

>> No, I I think it makes a lot of sense.

>> Okay.

>> You know what you're saying, not the >> Thank you. I was just clarify.

All right, we got to take a quick break for an ad because we don't do this stuff for free.

Don't go through the archives and endure this stuff for free. Let's play a quick ad from Shopify. We'll come back and we're going to be talking about Cash Patel.

>> Bullwork takes is sponsored by Shopify.

Here's the thing about shopping on the internet.

You might be doing it when you're tired, right before you head to bed.

If your credit card isn't lying around, it's very easy to just switch tabs and never follow through on the purchase you intended. That is no good if you're a business trying to convert customers in your online store.

Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses all around the world.

10% of all e-commerce in the US.

From household names like Allirds or Deathwish Coffee to brands just getting started, maybe yours.

Accelerate your efficiency. Whether you're uploading new products or trying to improve existing ones, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography.

Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you.

Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling.

Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with worldclass expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond.

What if people haven't heard about my brand? Shopify helps you find your customers with easy to run email and social media campaigns.

See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their Shop Pay button.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.combullworktakes.

Go to shopify.combullworktakes.

That's shopify.

com/bullwork takes.

You know, I I pretty much would buy anything that Andrew Edgar promotes uh and use any product that Andrew Edgar promotes.

So, I I was actually doing that just googling Shopify.

>> I was I was captivated by his performance.

>> Yeah. and and I I will be on Shopify all day today.

Was wondering if I could get that plant in his background on Shopify.

Shopify, man. Everyone should check it out.

All right, other big story from the weekend.

Cash. My cash.

>> I've been dying to get to this one.

>> I know. I know. And and Tim talked about this a little bit. Uh The Atlantic reported uh I think it was Friday night.

It was or no, Saturday night, I think.

is like one of those rare Saturday night drops of a story that doesn't happen that often where you're like we got the good, you know, you have a good story, like a real explosive story when you're like, you know what, we can drop this at 8 p.

m. on a Saturday. It's going to be fine.

This thing's going to travel.

And I think that's what they did.

And yeah, it the the headline doesn't really give it credit cuz like it's about drinking.

Like they should have fl they should have swapped the deck in the head there.

FBI director is MIA. I would have been like FBI director is accused of excessive drinking.

Uh you want to summarize this for us because you you you you've been a hot in this one.

>> Yeah. So I mean yeah this is such a good story such a good read. Um yeah so this is about uh Cash Patel and it alleges that he's you know um you know almost like do we even need to say alleged because famously we saw the video of him uh you know pounding bruise with the hockey team at the Olympics.

Um, but basically it alleges that his he has this his drinking has become a problem at work that people are have trouble locating him, have trouble like they I believe they the article says that they had to move meetings to later in the day.

>> At one point in the article they're like they had to do the door knockown.

>> Yeah. Well, I was going to say and I I want to parse that part closely, but basically it says it was a little unclear to me whether it was on a trip in a hotel room or if it was actually at FBI headquarters, which would seem even crazier to me. Um, but basically that there was a point where they were like, "Well, we know he's behind this door and it's locked.

Uh, and so we have to get like a SWAT team battering ramp to get through and get him.

" >> I mean, that's nuts. That's nuts. Crazy.

>> Yeah. I think people like are, you know, I don't think people are appreciating that.

Uh, it's the FBI director. It's like, you know, like we shouldn't be, first of all, we should not be talking about this guy ever.

Like the FBI director should be like in the background, not grabbing headlines, not partying up with the boys at the Olympic Stadium, not traveling on his jet to go see his what is the country music sensation.

>> Yes, >> we use the word sensation here.

Uh, you know, like he's in the headlines all the time and it's just abnormal for that to be the case. Then you add on the fact that there's now accusation of alcoholism.

Look, I'm not I'm not gonna suggest that no FBI director has ever had problems before. We we had Jay Edgar Hoover, right?

Like, you know, there's some real real gems in there.

But like, this is a lot of drama uh public drama, I should say, for an FBI director.

And now he's threatening to sue the uh Atlantic over this. Do we know if the suit's been filed?

>> Um well, so he said on Fox News uh on Sunday, he said it would be filed today.

um as of you know us sitting down this morning I don't think it's been filed.

This is interesting though because um you know for me part of the story I mean obviously the drinking stuff I think is very damaging to Cash. But other parts of the story you know like him um you know supposedly shutting down like the FBI merch store so and so he could shop privately and saying he wanted tougher merchandise.

I think that's certainly interesting but it's also kind of like part for the course for like a Trump administration story.

to me that like his lawyer singled that out in a letter saying, you know, Atlantic, don't run this.

Don't say cash, you know, messed with the merchandise store.

So, you know, I guess what's interesting sort of the there's the story itself and then there's a story around the story, which is the huge push back from MAGA, from people in the administration, people like Rick Grenell, who obviously just recently left the Kennedy Center, people saying, you know, I can't believe this is the craziest thing that's ever been written.

Meanwhile, there's all this reporting about like Trump bumble bungling the Iran war.

Things that you might think would be a little more relevant.

So, I I'm just curious about why Cash is is so defensive about this one in particular.

>> You think it's like uh you protest too much kind of thing?

>> Well, I I don't know. I mean, obviously people have said, you know, Trump obviously has this, you know, is very critical of people with drinking problems. Um although, you know, apparently he doesn't. I mean, Pete Hex has hanging around. I mean, like all all these other people who, you know, this this issue has come up for them.

Um, so you know, perhaps he's trying to, you know, I will note Cashine especially, you know, subservient to Trump in his Sunday Fox News appearance.

He said, >> we're gonna get to that. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

And >> let's put before go let's put up the Grenell tweet if we can because I think this gets at something larger. Okay.

I asked this is Sarah Fitzpatrick is the author of the piece who her editor was on that all anonymous hit piece that has been wildly discredited.

She won't answer. She's nervous about the coming court action.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Just cuz she's not answering your email, Rick, doesn't mean she's nervous.

No one >> because it's clearly like, I want to tag your editor and scream at them, too.

>> Yeah. It's like, oh, okay. Yeah.

If you don't answer Rick, that means you're guilty.

Uh, that's just not how it works.

Um, we have breaking news. He has sued.

>> The lawsuit has been filed uh as of this morning.

Um, you know, right before we went live today. It looks like the the lawsuit has been filed against Sarah Patrick Fitzpatrick in the Atlantic.

Um, and you know, cash is asking for do we have a >> 250 >> 250 million. There you go.

>> 250 mil. That's it. Didn't Trump want a billion from someone? Uh, so yeah.

Um, just to be clear, she has two dozen sources.

Now, they're anonymous, as you can imagine.

That's how it's going to work with this type of vindictive administration.

It's not the thing here.

And I think what you're getting at is kind of notable.

If this were a one-off, uh, I, you know, you might have more suspicion about the story, but it's not like there hasn't been a succession of reporting about Cash and sort of the bungling and the, you know, the silly stuff that he's doing and the use of the Jets and, you know, the the gym, like he had some gym video that he was putting out and the

story about like trying to find a jacket when he was going to Utah to deal with the Charlie Kirk thing and he couldn't find one. He end up with like a woman's

He end up with like a woman's jacket.

>> Yeah. Like the small size, I believe.

Yes.

>> Yeah. And then he was like looking for some Velcro patch that made him look tough.

Like it's all there.

What's new about this story is the drinking stuff, but he like you said, he's on videoed at the Olympic hockey. He pounding a beer.

So yeah, it's it's an embarrassing story.

There is look at >> there he is. Classic.

>> Who could say this guy who who could say this guy has a drinking issue?

Uh actually, I'm not going to say that.

I have Chuck Beers, too. I'm not going to be sanctimonious about it.

Anyways, the other thing that was kind of notable is the lawyer he used uh I believe for for the lawsuit is the same one that Mark Robinson used.

>> Yeah. So, this guy's named Jesse Benol.

This is a character I'm very familiar with as sort of the go-to defamation lawyer for MAGA figures. Um he the basically like if you know he's also pretty close with Cash. I believe he's on the board of Cash's Foundation.

Um and so this is a guy who you know if you're a right-wing person who's unhappy about a media article, you'll probably hire Jesse Benol. Um, as you said, he represented Mark Robinson in the lawsuit against CNN over, you know, failed lawsuit over Mark Robinson's online sexual activity.

Uh, so, you know, I don't know.

It's not it's not like Cash has hired Clare lock or some other like super heavy duty defamation firm.

Um, this is kind of like someone you go to, I would say, if you uh, you know, you want to get out there that you're suing quickly.

Um, but not necessarily like you have the strongest case.

>> No, the Robinson one was a joke.

uh you you you hinted at a cash is doing what you do when you're in trouble in the Trump administration and you need a distraction, you're worried about your standing with the boss, you just go, you know, say you're digging up some about the election interference in 2020.

So, he went on uh Fox with Maria Bartama on Sunday.

Let's play the clip uh where they're talking about uh the investigations that are currently happening.

And maybe we don't have the clip, in which case I will read it. Uh, he says, "No, we don't have it. It's fine.

" Uh, basically he says, "Okay, Maria, I'm happy to announce on the show that we are going to take to take this, we aren't going to take this lying down.

You want to talk my character, come at me, bring it on. I'll see you in court.

" Blah blah blah blah. Okay, this is about suing for defamation. He then goes and he says, "We are currently doing a suit and there's going to be arrests more or less for interference in the 2020 election.

" Uh, first of all, I I you know, it seems conspicuously timed, but secondly, it's like these guys, the I was noting this, the Justice Department has a policy. You're not supposed to talk about ongoing investigations until you need to talk about ongoing investigations.

U, but it is sort of the same playbook that Tulsa used, right, where she was in in in a little bit of trouble.

She went down to Georgia.

Um, what did you make of it?

>> Yeah, I mean, on one hand, it does seem kind of crazy to be like, yeah, we've been in office for more than a year.

but you know we might finally like if the if a presidential election was really stolen I mean you'd kind of want to get on that quickly. Um on the on the other hand you know you do think about you know clearly there's been some sort of there's been reporting about you know US attorneys being involved investigating the voting machines you know so maybe I mean you know it it doesn't seem impossible that they that

there is some kind of arrest coming up.

They just put out a the news yesterday was they they they the DOJ had asked the city of Detroit for the 2024 Mon County voting rules, which didn't make really much sense to me because Trump won Michigan in 2024. Um so we'll see what comes of that. This is the actual quote from Cash because I butchered it.

I finally found it. Uh Cash says, "I'm never going to let go of this.

They tried to thwart our elections and rig the entire system. And that is not something that I'm going to allow on my watch.

But you just have to remember they built this disease temple over 20 and 30 years. What the does that mean?

We've got all the inference.

I can announce on your show that we've got all the information we need. We are going to be making arrests and it's coming and I promise you it's coming soon.

>> This disease temple. Yes. He kind of recalls the the language of kind of like the tech monarchists who talk about like the cathedral, you know, controlling American life.

Um, yeah, it is funny that suddenly he's like, "Oh my gosh, you know, FBI directors are, you know, to your earlier point, they are allowed to comment on investigations if the FBI director is on the verge of being fired.

" And so, you know, that's a famous caveat.

>> Yes. One. Exactly. Um, okay. Last bit.

Uh, unless you have anything more you want to say about cash.

>> No, no, no, no. Let's get to this one.

Yeah. Quickly. Yeah.

Well, actually before we get to Ashley Sinclair, um, which is a good one. I can you talk about Jordan Peterson because you referenced it earlier and it was sort of like jarring.

What What's going on?

>> So Jordan Peterson had a benzoazipene dependence.

I believe Clinazipan.

And so people, this is several years ago.

This was like right before the start of the pandemic.

I think people may remember uh that Jordan Peterson was kind of like just really on top of the world as this kind of like right-wing intellectual.

He told young men to make their beds, all this stuff.

And then he sort of disappeared.

And then >> my understanding is basically he ended up in I believe a Russian sanatorium where he was put into a coma as he went into a benzo withdrawal. Um and this was all kind of like his daughter was involved Michaela Peterson.

She was pinging around with Andrew Tate in Eastern Europe all this stuff.

he comes back and he had like I think like 2024 he was kind of back in and then he had this new recurrence of a medical issue that they initially said was like a mold allergy. Um and then yesterday, you know, his daughter has occasionally been popping up to provide evidence, um or updates. Um and then this time she said, well, uh he seems to

have like I believe it's called athesia, but basically it's this kind of like >> athesia.

Um and so essentially, so she says it was caused by mold and um but basically she's claims this was like kind of pharmaceutical industry damage um because of his benzo. Uh so you know it does seem like Jordan Peterson is kind of kind of going to be out of the picture for uh you know at least a while.

Um it's a sad story and I think also you know just sort of a you know kind of a bizarre one kind of yeah it's very bizarre.

Athesia according to AI is a distressing neurossychiatric syndrome and a movement disorder characterized by an uncontrollable intense inner restlessness and a compelling need to move.

often manifesting itself as pacing, rocking, and shifting weight.

That's That doesn't sound fun.

Although I feel like I kind of sometimes suffer from it.

All right, Ashley Stlair.

This one, you know, we had we had Ashley on the pod.

Tim had her on the pod.

People need to for those who don't know Ashley Sinclair, she conservative influencer.

Um she came up through the TP USA pipeline right?

>> Yeah. So Asha Sinclair was a sort of um you know right-wing internet egirl perhaps you might say. Uh you know initially she used the colorful screen name Sex Laptop. So that's kind of I I think sort of sums up where she was coming from and then so she's kind of like a cute girl >> sex laptop.

>> Laptop. Yeah. So this was this was sort of before she got politicized and she was just kind of like an attractive woman young woman online and then she got into the TV USA pipeline.

Um, and then she was fired from that for taking a picture with Nick Fuentes. Uh, and and so anyways, cut to, you know, I think a year or two ago in, you know, one of my favorite stories to ever emerge from right-wing media.

She had a child with Elon Musk and then there's kind of like an ugly custody battle over it.

Uh, and now she's sort of restyling herself as like this person who's like, I've been inside right-wing media and I'm going to tell you how sick it is and how twisted it is.

And as you mentioned, she went on Tim.

>> I thought the Tim I don't know if you saw the Tim Pod or watched it or heard it.

I thought it was really interesting.

Um, like you know, I thought her sort of recounting of that journey she had and sort of how the system worked, whether or not it was, you know, uh, trying to make uh, you know, her situation better and it was just sort of, you know, glossing over some of the mistakes she made and and not taking full account.

But you can you can judge it however you want.

I came away from it thinking like, you know, this was, you know, a good bit of introspection and someone who actually, you know, had a fairly clear view of, you know, the problems of the right-wing internet culture and the incentives that are put in place.

just, I guess, right-wing, but internet culture at large. Uh, you know, I I thought she was, you know, pretty damn articulate about it. Um, so, you know, yeah, maybe some of it's just, you know, covering her own ass, but like >> No, no. I mean, I don't mean to sound cynical about it. I mean, I I I do think like if if she wanted to maximize the amount of money she was making, she

would still be on the right. Um, you

Um, you know, sometimes I I just kind of like summing up these people's careers flippantly.

>> Yeah. Well, when you start being called sex laptop, uh, yeah, it's an interesting starting point. All right.

So, what what actually happened over the weekend with her and Benny?

>> Sure. So, you know, Ashley over the past week or so has been on this uh campaign uh and she's putting out these Tik Tok videos, get ready with me videos.

Maybe we should start doing our videos like this, you know, where you're kind of putting on your makeup for the day uh and telling a story. And it started, she started saying, well, >> I'll do that only for the paid subscribers, but go ahead.

So, she started saying, "Well, you know, um, you know, there's all this money in right-wing media, you know, as we've reported on here at the Bullwork about, you know, these here's 500 bucks to post about how bad, you know, uh, how good soda is for people on EBT or whatever.

Um, these kind of things that that I've covered.

" And then this kind of started people on the right saying, you know, attacking her.

Benny Johnson said, you know, because Ashley wrote a children's book that was very like anti-trans children, you know, back when she was on the right.

She's since disowned it and this has kind of created this idea on the right that she's going to make her child with Elon Musk trans which you know I don't think there's any evidence for.

So then you know Benny joins in this and she sees this as sort of like um you know fine Benny you know cards are off the tail or you know no rules now regarding you goes after Benny.

Yes, >> let's play it.

>> You see Benny, it's really easy for anyone to admit that they have sex with men outside of marriage. We all like to get our whistle wet. Okay. Um I'm less interested in that though. I'm very I think everyone will be very interested in your financials and the story of how Benny Johnson came to be in the first

place.

TDFN.

>> So she has kind of an interesting she's almost like a Joan Rivers type character.

Like she's she's doing like little like bits and you know she has a but um but basically she used to work for Benny at at his sort of Republican strategy group.

strategy group. And so I think it's pretty believable that she knows where some bodies are buried. I mean, Benny obviously other right-wing figures and people who worked with him at BuzzFeed have accused have said they, you know, he's gay, that they've hooked up with him in some cases. Uh, famously a few months ago, Milo Yiannopoulos was saying this and Benny and his wife put out like a very intense statement that was like,

"We must defend the honor of our family and suggested that they would sue Milo."

" I will say, I checked again, this comes up pretty regularly on Magga Monday, I think.

Uh, I did check this law.

>> Literally every Mega Monday you've mentioned >> has this lawsuit still has not been filed in the video. Uh, she calls him, you know, Benjamin Grinder Johnson as though that's his middle name.

Um, you know, it's it's interesting. I mean, I always love when these right-wing media figures like kind of flip defect and then they say, you know, it's time to drop everything.

Like she was making not regarding Benny, but she was saying various people were, you know, running honeypot skins on each other and amassing all this blackmail material on each other.

So, it's kind of things we've always suspected, but it but it's interesting to see it confirmed.

Uh, you know, in the case of this black.

>> Yeah. First things first, we have no prom uh if Benny is on Grinder or if he's gay.

>> Well, all the love, all the best to him.

Uh, and we would support no matter what uh what he wants to do in his private life.

Um, but how much do you think there's like I mean, I'm looking at the comments right now and everyone's just like, "Spill the beans. Is it true?

" It's like, is it true? I mean, it's just they're just or are they just throwing around Because I feel like that's half of the internet these days is people being like I'm gonna expose you for this or I'm gonna expose you for that and then they never follow up and give the goods.

>> Well, you know, in some cases, you know, Ashley does she she made some pretty specific allegations on her TikTok about Benny's business partner, someone who whose name I don't even remember.

Um, but she also, you know, she accused Madison Cawthorne of sort of groping her while in a car. Um, so, you know, I I do think there are uh I I tend to agree with you.

I I'm sort of at this stage with a lot of these right-wing media figures.

figures. a lot of like you guys won't believe the ultimate dossier I had that's going to come out and it's like all right you know either come out with it or give Will a call you know and and we can talk about so you know and sometimes you will do that which is great >> do we have the Madison Cawthorne let's do that one if we have it because because you just referenced it this the

other Ashley Stlair clip >> maybe we don't have that >> no it basically she says she was in a car with him and she was working for Benny's firm at the time and Madison said you know well just be aware like I have no control you over my core essentially and then he was kind of like grabbing her thigh. Um, and you know, other women have made allegations against Madison as well. So

So >> yeah, I don't know if you saw the Lauren Boower viral clip about everyone being horny up on the hill. Did you see that one?

>> Yes.

>> That that was about Eric Swall, but it's it's true.

There's just a lot of horn dogs around, I guess. Um, all right, man.

Well, look, I think we could leave it there.

It's been a good 45 minutes or so.

Feel like that's an appropriate amount of MAGA Monday, and I got other to do, right?

>> Yeah. Well, thanks everyone for joining us.

>> Yeah, let me before we go, uh, first of all, it's great to be back. I miss you guys.

I miss Will specifically tremendously.

Uh, and I really appreciate diving right back into it.

It's like a real jolt to be back into it doing Mega Mondays. If you like what you've watched, um, we need your support.

Like, this is kind of this is the game.

We need subscribers.

We need people to, you know, subscribe to us on YouTube, but also on Substack.

Uh, become a paid subscriber.

Uh, support the mission of the bull work where we can do this stuff for you.

It's really important that we get subscribers.

The other thing that I want to announce is that we are hitting the road again.

Uh Bork's gonna go out west.

I'm actually gonna I'm doing this I'm going out west.

I convinced my wife to let me do this.

Going to go to San Diego. I'm going to be in LA. Uh and there are tickets for next month's show that are available.

So if you if you are in and around San Diego or Los Angeles, you can get tickets for our May shows. Just go to thebbowork.

comvents.

That's thebullwork.comvents.

I've done a couple of these shows.

Uh it's someone I'm just laughing at the comments.

Someone says Sam needs Alo Money.

I do. I'm too red. Um I've been I've done a couple of these shows.

Uh they're awesome. They're such a fun time.

Great audience experience.

We talk, take your questions, lot of interactions.

Going to be great.

So, if you're in the area, LA or San Diego, come get tickets. Thebbowork.comvents.

Will, thank you for doing this, everyone.

Thank you for tuning in.

Sorry I'm so red. Talk to you next Monday for MAGA Mondays.

Peace. Thanks, everyone.