9, 12, 10, 28, 2, 23.

This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our super secret studio in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C., and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world.

Hello, and welcome to a special episode of DSR's Words Matter,

but also Deep State Radio.

A little mash up here, as folks might call it,

where we've got with us both the one and only norm ornstein how are you doing norm i'm hanging

in persevering persevering that's you know that's that's that's as best as can be expected um and

one and only edward g luce of the financial Times. How are we doing, Edward?

Well, to pick up on Norm and George W. Bush, I said, I am preserving, preservation.

Well, that's good. That's good. Now, you know, we're here to talk about the news and everything else,

and I imagine both of you are extremely fortunate to have the world's leading

expert on the National Security Council here on the podcast with you.

We are. Thank you for joining us, David.

Thank you. Thank you for picking up on that, not leaving me hanging there, particularly since

you have just written this massive biography of

Spignav Prisinski, who is, of course, one of our notably successful national security

advisors.

Let's just pick up on the news, because it's the news. Ed, Mike Waltz is out.

Was it signal gate? Was it the fact he didn't get along with the invisible but powerful White

House chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Was it something else?

We'll never know.

But because Trump is very sensitive to looking like a loser,

...