{"id":15690,"date":"2026-04-13T18:53:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T01:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15690"},"modified":"2026-04-13T20:37:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:37:39","slug":"another-mad-mad-mad-mad-weekend-bradcast-4132026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15690","title":{"rendered":"Another Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Weekend: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 4\/13\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_Vance-Orban-TrumpJesus-PopeLeo-Swalwell_041326.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">It&#8217;s all we can do, at this point, on our Monday shows, to hang on for dear life and try to get caught up with as much of the weekend&#8217;s madness as possible. And so we do again on today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, along with the help of a few callers (including some Trump supporters!) [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Among the weekend&#8217;s madness&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>After a marathon one-days-in-a-row of negotiations with <b>Iran<\/b>, the world&#8217;s second greatest deal-maker, Vice President <b>J.D. Vance<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/iran-us-israel-trump-lebanon-april-11-2026-2be904aee3f804892336730279e054b9\">gives up and goes home<\/a>. In retaliation,<b> Donald Trump<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/04\/12\/business\/strait-of-hormuz-blockade\">announces<\/a> that he will shut down the Straight of Hormuz&#8230;which was already shut down by Iran in response to the U.S. attack, and was one of the main reason for the weekend&#8217;s negotiations amid what is supposed to be a two week ceasefire between US\/Israel and Iran.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Then, the brightest news, by far, of the weekend. Just days after Vance &#8212; the weekend&#8217;s double-loser &#8212; stumped for him in person, Hungary&#8217;s 16-year, rightwing dictatorial leader, <b>Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/b>, was crushed by voters who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/world\/europe\/europe-celebrates-orban-defeat-hungary-election-putin-trump-maga-rcna331478\">removed him from power<\/a> in a landslide Sunday election. Orb\u00e1n, a longtime Trump\/Vance ally, modern-day U.S. Republican Party hero, and dictatorial autocrat has blocked migration to his country, gutted LGBTQ rights, shut down freedom of speech and judicial independence, gamed the electoral system, cozied up to <b>Vladimir Putin<\/b>, blocked EU support of Ukraine amid Russia&#8217;s war against them, and oversaw the takeover of major media outlets by corporate cronies during his 16 years of consolidating power. (Sound familiar?) But, on Sunday, voters in Hungary overcame all of that, crushed Orban&#8217;s party and publicly celebrated across the nation all night long. I suspect we&#8217;ll be seeing similar in this country before too terribly long.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>While the supposedly-anti-war Vance was failing to strike a deal with Iran (or get Orb\u00e1n elected), <b>Donald Trump<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/apr\/12\/donald-trump-marco-rubio-ufc-iran-war\">attended<\/a> an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight here in the U.S., attacked <b>Pope Leo XIV<\/b> in a ridiculous lengthy <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116394704213456431\">screed<\/a> (for being soft on crime and nuclear weapons, or something) and <a href=\"https:\/\/wapo.st\/48LzKT9\">posted<\/a> an AI &#8220;painting&#8221; of himself on social media depicted as Jesus healing the sick. By Monday, after criticism from even his own religious supporters, he deleted the photo and claimed it was supposed to be him posing as a doctor in support of the Red Cross. (I&#8217;ll pause here so you can get up off the floor from laughter.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Despite what Trump, Republicans and Fox &#8220;News&#8221; repeatedly tells you, as it turns out, California is in pretty good shape. As Democratic Governor <b>Gavin Newsom<\/b> enjoyed <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GovPressOffice\/status\/2042314196369772773?s=20\">rubbing in Trump&#8217;s face<\/a> over the weekend, the Golden State&#8217;s GDP <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ca.gov\/2026\/04\/09\/californias-economy-leads-again-grows-another-5-in-2025-to-record-4-25-trillion-gdp\/\">increased by 5% last year<\/a>, leading every other state in the union, as the fourth largest economy in the world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Meanwhile, this year&#8217;s sleepy election to fill Newsom&#8217;s termed-out position as the head of the 4th largest economy in the world in November suddenly got a lot less sleepy over the weekend and into Monday. Where Democratic Party alarm bells had <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15673\">already been ringing<\/a> about a Top Two primary that could send two <i>Republicans<\/i> to compete against each other in this year&#8217;s November general election. (Though dumb Trump probably <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/06\/us\/california-governor-trump-hilton-democrats.html?unlocked_article_code=1.a1A.GPZC.8ljYBoX_uluh&#038;smid=url-share\">helped to avoid that<\/a> last week by endorsing one of the two Republicans who had been tied for first place at 10%.), Now, sexual assault <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/04\/10\/us\/eric-swalwell-sexual-misconduct-allegations-invs\">allegations<\/a> against one of the leading Democrats, Bay Area Congressman <b>Eric Swalwell<\/b>, have resulted in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/04\/12\/politics\/eric-swalwell-ends-campaign-california-governor\">dropping out<\/a> of the crowded race on Sunday and <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/congress-ethics-swalwell-california-governor-a1626c5f4dbcc16c85f4313a8d7e5464\">announcing his resignation<\/a> from Congress on Monday, moments before airtime. We&#8217;ll see how, and if, that ends up shaking up the statewide Gubernatorial Primary on June 2nd enough to allow one of the far-too-many Dems on the ballot to break through to the first or second spots in the Primary to go on to the November general.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, in the second half of today&#8217;s show, we open the phones to <b>callers<\/b> on any and all of the above and, after many weeks of asking, a couple of Trump supporters finally ring in to answer my invitation!&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-IranTradeTalkFail-OrbanOusted-TrumpvPope_SwalwellCrashes_Callers_041326.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/256-the-bradcast-w-brad-friedm-30973643\/\">iHeart<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s all we can do, at this point, on our Monday shows, to hang on for dear life and try to get caught up with as much of the weekend&#8217;s madness as possible. And so we do again on today&#8217;s BradCast, along with the help of a few callers (including some Trump supporters!) [Audio link [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,89,675,21,299,479,2053,1326,750,1704,134,1738,477,2056,300,1705],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-california","category-democrats","category-donald-trump","category-election-2026","category-eric-swalwell","category-gavin-newsom","category-hungary","category-iran","category-jd-vance","category-kpfk","category-pope-leo-xiv","category-republicans","category-viktor-orban","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15690"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}