Sam Stein and Mary Peltola: Cozying Up to Commies and Corporate Elites

Tim Miller (0:13)

Hello and welcome to The Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I got a double header for you today. In segment two, we've got Alaska Democrat running for Senate, Mary Peltola. We taped the interview yesterday before a story came out about some of her staff management choices and some of the Sam Stein-esque texts that she is sending to her underlings.

I'll have a lot more to say about that before we get to segment two. But up first, he's the managing editor of The Bulwark, the aforementioned Sam Stein. What's up?

Sam Stein (0:41)

What's up, man? How are you doing?

Tim Miller (0:43)

I'm doing pretty good. We had our president once again kind of kowtowing to a foreign dictator that we're supposed to be in competition with yesterday.

The plane landed Andrews Air Force Base, and Bill Kristol, as this is one in the Morning Shots newsletter this morning, pointed out that it was the first time since 1962 that a president went to greet a foreign dignitary at the airport. And the last time was Kennedy greeting a British leader. So a little different. I don't believe that time we rolled out the red carpet again and had US troops literally on their knees, kind of like smoothing it out, making sure that there were no kinks in the carpet while the Chinese waited and looked on from above in the airplane. I just another absolutely humiliating degradation of our troops to the benefit of first Putin or last year and now Xi.

Sam Stein (1:41)

It wasn't that they were smoothing it out. They were like looking for little speckles of dirt. They were trying to, I mean, they were really getting in there. I'm surprised they didn't have a Dyson to go and clean it up. I thought it was pretty appalling.

It's like for a guy who's so obsessed with imagery, does he not recognize the imagery in that? He's got Chinese dignitaries just waiting as he cleans up for them so they can walk on a red carpet for him. And then there's other elements of it that looked pretty silly, like him wincing and him wearing gloves in the 60 degree weather.

Tim Miller (2:13)

We're going to get to the gloves. What was happening with that? It was very strange. And you would have thought it was the depths of winter in DC.

Sam Stein (2:21)

You're in DC.

SPEAKER_3 (2:22)

It's not that bad.

Tim Miller (2:23)

Trump was in a suit and a very heavy overcoat, and then also heavy gloves. Wasn't it like in the 70s yesterday?

Sam Stein (2:34)

It was high 60s, low 70s.

Tim Miller (2:36)

Beautiful day.

Sam Stein (2:38)

It was my type of weather. I enjoyed it. It really was not that cold. It's like one of those days where you don't know if you should send your kid to school with shorts or pants. It's that type of weather, right?

Tim Miller (2:48)

You're in a hoodie now, I guess, in Trump's defense.

Sam Stein (2:50)

Well, the office is pretty cold. I am not wearing gloves for the record. The gloves are weird. I mean, is it the hand condition that is-

Tim Miller (2:59)

Covering up the bruises.

Sam Stein (3:01)

And then they put out some photos today, and they clearly were AI edited where the gloves are off. I don't get it.

Tim Miller (3:07)

And old people do get chilly. You know, this is why a lot of elderly move to Florida and Arizona. It's kind of like a running joke. Sometimes when you go to these-

Sam Stein (3:16)

They get chilly when it's 40 degrees.

Tim Miller (3:18)

Sometimes when you go to these retirement communities, you know, and somebody's sitting in their lazy boy with the blanket on, even though outside it's 92 degrees in Tucson or whatever. Like that's kind of true. So maybe his blood circulation just isn't flowing to his extremities anymore.

Sam Stein (3:35)

That's possible. That's possible. In terms of like why he does this for Xi, I don't, I mean, the conventionalism is that he just has a strongman complex, right? And he likes his people. And he's not a confrontational guy despite being confrontational. So when he rolls up the red carpet for folks, it kind of is unbranded.

Not the same as him getting gooey about Mom Donnie, but there is something to the idea that like he just doesn't want to do personal confrontation.

Tim Miller (4:03)

He wants it to seem historic, I think. I think it's part of how he feels about it, like the carpet and the plane and the airport and that it's a dramatic scene and the flyover. I think that's part of it.