Welcome to the Bull Work Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is March 21, 2023 and today is not

the day you're going to be seeing a mugshot of Donald Trump. We're going to have to talk

about other things like recognizing that none of this is remotely normal. Joining me on

today's podcast, Dana Millbank, from the Washington Post, nationally syndicated columnist

and author of the destructionists, the 25-year crack-up of the Republican Party. Good morning,

Dana. It is great to be with you to discuss the abnormal, Charlie.

Well, you know, I was calculating this morning that we are in year eight of the GOP hostage

crisis. That's true. They continue to, you know, be obsessed with, well, how far do we have to go

to defend him? But this is the eighth year. Calcutta, I mean, just run it out, you know, 2016,

17, 18, 19, 2021, 22. We are in 2023 and they are still held hostage. You're old enough to

remember right during the Iran hostage crisis. They used to run a little graphic on the screen,

day 452. That's right. That's right. I would stand out on street corners telling motorists to,

you know, put on their lights or hunk their horn or whatever it is. So maybe we should be doing

this on Capitol Hill and trying to get some support for them. But this is a different hostage

crisis because the hostage taker had actually let them go in a way, you know, he was sort of caught

napping and they were free. And now they've sort of voluntarily come back into it.

And they keep re-upping. Like, okay, no, that was good. Let's do this again. I mean, there's a certain

irony, the fact that they're all down at that retreat in Florida, the House GOP, and because they

want to talk about their legislative, their non-existent legislative agenda and move forward.

And all they can talk about, of course, is that what are we going to do with Donald Trump? How far

do we go? What do we say? What is acceptable? How much suckage is required for us not to be dinged

by the Mugiverse? Right. I was actually listening to Kevin McCarthy go on and on about the

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