Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bork, and I am joined by Sarah Longwell,

our publisher, our fearless publisher, and we both have drinks. Cheers. It's Friday afternoon.

It's Friday afternoon. Hold on. That's some good still wine. Yeah. Grab a drink yourselves,

people. Come hang out with us. Yeah, yeah, Get buckled in and everything. We're going to be doing something a little bit different now. We are going to be talking about some insane news that just happened, but almost kind of predictable in a way. It was Zoro and Mamdani in the Oval Office with Donald Trump and an actual love fest broke out.

We'll get to that in a second.

But about like 10 minutes into this discussion, we're going to stop.

We're going to pause it.

And then we're going to do a Q&A, which is basically I'm going to grab some mailbag

questions for Sarah and she's going to grab some mailback questions for me.

That's only for people who are paid subscribers to the bulwark. Either YouTube subscribers or substack subscribers. So look, grab a subscription. It's worth it. It's a great investment. A lot of fun that happens. You get a chance to post questions to either of us. All right. Sarah, let's talk about Zaron. He goes into the Oval Office. Everyone's portraying it as a great socialist beatdown to come. Trump gets in there and showers him with praise. The gist was, this guy's not so bad. I could actually live in New York City under him. I think he's going to do great work. Would you feel comfortable living in New York City under a Mammadongda.

Yeah, I would. I really would. Especially after the meeting. Absolutely. I really think he's a chance to do a great job. We're going to help him. But I really think there's a chance to do a great job. You know, we actually do have a lot in common. At one point, they said, Zaraan, Momdan, do you stand by calling Trump a fascist?

And Trump just interjects and says, lot in common. At one point, they said, Zara, and Mamdan, do you stand by calling Trump a

fascist? And Trump just interjects and says, you can call me a fascist. It's easier to just dispel

with the question that way. Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist?

I've spoken about that's okay. You can just say, yeah. Okay. It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind. I thought this was going to happen, but I didn't think was going to happen to this degree. What do you make of it? You know, there's a couple things. One, you often hear from people that Trump in person is very charming. Yes. Which I'm always like...

Have you never met him in person?

Why would I have met him in person?

No, I've met him in person.

I don't know, crossing paths once upon a time in a green room or something?

What kind of life do you think I lead?

No, I was never...

The closest I've come to proximity to Trump is my proximity to Tim Miller as he was shouting at Trump, your tie was made in China back sometime in 2016.

...