Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have a massive day today. The Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard hearings are happening as we speak, as is a press avail that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are having about the tragic plane crash in Washington. So we'll get to some of that. For Bulwark Plus subscribers, we'll do a full wrap-up at the end of the day. That link will be in your inbox, or you can go to bulwark.com slash subscribe if you're not a member yet. I don't know why that would be. And of course, I'll be back tomorrow for a recap. But for today, we've got the co-founder of Crooked Media, co-host of something called Pod Save America. He also has another podcast I like called Pod Save the World.
He was a national security staff spokesman during the Obama administration. It's a man Ben Shapiro calls Tayron Tommy, Tommy Vitor. How are you doing?
You know, I'm good, buddy. It's great to see you. Actually, I think in like 2018, I emailed Ben because I used to call him Baby Bannon, which honestly was kind of unfair because I think he left the Bannon world. So we agreed to not be quite as mean to each other online, but I never actually met Ben. So I should probably do that someday.
Yeah, I don't know. I listened to his podcast for the first time in a while yesterday, and it is unlistenable. And the fact that he beats us in the ratings sometimes is me always, but you sometimes should really make you have to reflect on some things. How do you do a show without someone to talk to? I just, I don't get it. It's just a monologue. It's just monotone. What did Sarah call him? A castrated chipmunk? It's just like a castrated chipmunk giving you a 50-minute lecture in the same tone. It's an interesting podcast. Fun guy. You know, to each their own, right? You know, everybody, people like different things, different strokes for different folks. All right. As I mentioned, there was a just horrific midair collision last night outside of Reagan National DCA.
There were no survivors. The collision was between a passenger jet coming in from Wichita and an Army helicopter. As we're coming on here, I believe still happening in the Brady briefing room is Donald Trump and J.D. Vance talking about this, the I want to play one clip from the president talking about what he thinks was the reason that this crash happened.
They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program. Then another article, the Federal Aviation Administration. This was before I got to office recently, second term. The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency's website. Can you imagine?
I guess it's black people and the people with mental health problems that caused this. He went on to say that Pete Buttigieg was a disaster who's just got a good line of bullshit. And he followed up that by saying, now we mourn and we pray. So thoughts on the president's reaction to this tragedy.
I mean, I have two sort of buckets of thoughts, Tim. I mean, the idea of blaming this crash on DEI before there's an investigation and then handing the mic to a real-world Boston castmate turned Fox News host turned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who then hands the mic over to Fox News weekend anchor turned Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a lot. It's a lot for me to...
taken you don't feel like that was a meritocracy they're having two reality show stars and one weekend host being the like point people for responding to this you don't think that reflect and they are all white males so i mean they had to overcome the obstacles of the dei to get to the jobs they did they succeeded somehow in spite of all the obstacles in front of them so that was one bucket of frustration and then i just started to think about like
What would Obama have done? What would George Bush have done? What would Reagan have done in a moment like this? I think you go out and give a speech that's thoughtful and that is about the victims and mourning and this sort of like collective wound that the nation is experiencing because of this tragedy.
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