Ed Powell returns to Bald and Bloviating for a Labor Day follow-up to his January appearance, when he gave Donald Trump's second term a passing grade point by point. Ed has been a Trump supporter since 2016, Mookie has not, and neither man has spent this episode pretending otherwise. The scorecard is interesting, while what counts is watching two people with different starting points reason honestly, in real time, about a rapidly changing situation, and staying friends while doing it.

The real story is Ed changing his mind, in public, on his own terms. He's specific about why: the Trump family's crypto ventures, which he considers outright theft from Trump's own supporters, and the strikes on Iran, launched without a congressional vote, which he now calls grounds for impeachment. That's not a small thing to say out loud as a committed Trump voter, and Mookie doesn't let him off easy either, pushing back throughout, wearing a red shirt homage, arguing that Trump's rhetorical style hasn't actually changed at all, and that his base still isn't seeing what Ed now sees.

That tension, between updating a view when the facts move and staying loyal to where things started, runs under almost everything else the two cover: how corruption gets selectively noticed depending on which side commits it, whether military setbacks sometimes force overdue reform, and how national identity and tribal loyalty shape foreign policy debates in both America and Israel. None of it resolves neatly, and it isn't supposed to. What the episode actually demonstrates, better than it argues, is that two people who vote and believe differently can still listen to each other, change their minds without shame, and disagree about plenty while liking each other more, not less, for the argument.

The Guest

Ed Powell received his PhD in Astrophysics (Plasma Physics and Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion) from Princeton University and has worked as a contractor for the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and the Intelligence Community since graduating. Today he owns his own consulting company specializing in systems and simulation architecture and engineering.

Ed's January Scorecard

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