I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the To the Contrary podcast. Well, Donald Trump's Revenge Tour rolls

through Texas, which interestingly enough will further divide the Republican Party, create all kinds of

problems for Donald Trump in the United States Senate, which is not happy with him right now,

and puts that state in play for the GOP. So Trump's winning doesn't really look all that much like winning.

Meanwhile, in case you miss this story, there is a giant steel cage going up at the White House

in case you thought that the insidification of the White House was over.

This is the octagon that Donald Trump is building for his ultimate fighting championship

match, which will take place to honor his birthday and coincidentally, also apparently,

America, because what better way to say happy birthday America than to have two grown men,

you know, beat the shit out of each other in a UFC mixed martial arts bout.

Donald Trump also moves closer to surrendering to Iran.

It is a busy, busy week.

And joining us to try to make sense of all of this, our good friend, Adam Kinsinger. Adam, I hope he had a good long weekend. You know what, I did? I did. I took, in fact, a day. Monday, I didn't really even think about politics, and it was amazing. So I had a good one. I hope you did, too. Actually, I did. And given what kind of a summer we're going to have here,

so I want to start with this because, I mean, it's not the most important story, but it kind of feels

like another one of those iconic moments. I put it in my newsletter yesterday, in case people

have missed it. This picture of the gigantic steel octagon going up on the south lawn of the White

House. I mean, I'm kind of wondering if historians of the future, you know, when they chronicle

American decline as a symbol of our uns seriousness that we're, this is actually going to happen.

We're going to have a ufc match

on the white house grounds and just adam explain it to me you know it's it's weird because i

i can't put words to the disgust of this thing you know what i mean because's like, I guess the best way I can put it is I think of,

and I'm not a Roman history buff,

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