Election Profit Makers · Jon Kimball & David Rees

Episode 375: The Tell-Tale Apostrophe

April 7, 2026·55 min·4 clips

David dissects Trump's first-ever F-bomb tweet, questioning if the apostrophe reveals it wasn't written by him.

1. Election Profit Makers, hosted by David and John, covers Trump's escalating Iran threats, the tell-tale apostrophe, Iranian Lego propaganda, the Greg Phillips teleportation update, Artemis II, and March Madness in its final episode before a summer hiatus. 2. David is the primary analyst; John provides counterpoints and occasional one-liners; both hosts have long-running chemistry and speak frankly about current events. 3. The episode's central question is whether Trump's escalating rhetoric about destroying Iranian civilization is performance, genuine intention, or something in between—and whether any prediction market can still calibrate the odds. 4. Pam Bondi was fired as Attorney General, reportedly for insufficient vindictiveness toward Trump's enemies, and will be replaced by Trump's personal attorney. 5. J.D. Vance is in Hungary boosting Viktor Orbán on the eve of his reelection, which David says creates an 'awkward position' given Vance's prior opposition to American foreign intervention. 6. Trump posted to Truth Social: 'Open the fucking straight. You crazy bastards. Or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah.'—which David identifies as Trump's first documented F-bomb and first use of an Islamic benediction. 7. David's 'tell-tale apostrophe' theory: the elision in 'fucking' is too mannered for Trump's known rhetorical style of all caps, ironic scare quotes, and invented words, suggesting an aide—possibly Dan Scavino—typed the post. 8. Trump followed up with a post threatening to destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran by midnight, then with 'a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.' 9. Polymarket removed all markets relating to nuclear detonation, cutting off the hosts' usual probability signal; David estimates a 10% chance of nuclear use while John says something significant will happen militarily. 10. David notes that Josh Marshall's theory about foreign policy being the arena where an unpopular president can still act unilaterally explains Trump's escalation as a 'psychic coping mechanism' for cratering poll numbers. 11. Iran's social media accounts have produced Lego animation videos mocking Pete Hegseth—including one of Hegseth vomiting and raging—which David calls candidates for the all-time greatest wartime propaganda humor exhibit. 12. David compares the Iranian social media team to Tokyo Rose, wonders if an American is producing the content, and challenges Hegseth to make a competing meme given his self-styled warrior identity. 13. Trump told Fox News the U.S. tried to arm anti-regime protesters in Iran through the Kurds, then admitted 'I think the Kurds kept them'—David calls this 'one of the stupidest and vaguest wars we've ever fought.' 14. Marjorie Taylor Greene called on administration Christians to 'fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God,' calling Trump 'not a Christian'; Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones also called Trump evil and invoked the 25th Amendment. 15. Greg Phillips, FEMA's head of Response and Recovery, updated his teleportation story: he was heavily medicated for cancer at the time, calls the event a miracle rather than teleportation, and says 'translated or transported' are the proper biblical terms. 16. The New York Times visited the Rome, Georgia Waffle House and found no staff who recognized Phillips, which David calls disproportionate piling-on and defends Phillips's right to an unexplained experience. 17. Artemis II launched astronauts into deep space for the first time since 1972; David is skeptical anyone should trust NASA under Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE oversight, and jokes about hoping Martians kidnap the crew. 18. The episode is loose and conversational with frequent tangents into comic books, Cold War metaphors, and pop culture; the tone is both appalled and genuinely amused. 19. Listeners who enjoy political comedy with close readings of primary sources and absurdist cultural digressions will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting structured debate, prediction market trades, or concise news summaries will find the format too digressive.

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A comic, wide-ranging final episode before hiatus that turns the news into a loose but pointed back-and-forth.

Election Profit Makers closes out the run before the hiatus until the 2026 midterms with a comic, wide-ranging take on the news. David and John move from the Strait of Hormuz to war, presidential power, and how much autonomy a president really has over military action, keeping…

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You want one last, unfiltered read on the week's political chaos before the show goes on hiatus.

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