transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:13] Hello, and welcome to The Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so we have editor-at-large Bill Kristol. I want to wish a happy 420 to those who celebrate it for marijuana reasons. A cursed 420 to those who celebrate it, because it's Hitler's birthday. Many of the rest of you don't notice it at all. Bill, what about you? Do you have a 420 tradition that you like to?

Speaker 2:
[00:39] I'm sort of in the don't notice it at all category.

Speaker 1:
[00:41] Don't notice it at all. Okay. Well, something to think about.

Speaker 2:
[00:44] All right.

Speaker 1:
[00:44] Well, I'll be celebrating tonight on the live stream. I'm streaming again, taking your questions at 8 PM Eastern on YouTube or Substack and to celebrate the day, I'll be having a Louie Louie THC beverage and we'll have a good time. So come hang out with us eight o'clock tonight. On more responsible notes, tomorrow the people of Virginia, which includes you, Bill Kristol need to get out and vote on the redistricting referendum. I have a couple of thoughts on that, but you're a Virginia resident. Have you voted yet? Have you decided how to vote?

Speaker 2:
[01:17] I voted early, so late last week. They said at the polling place that, you know, given that it was a week before the election and turnout was high, and I think that's generally people have a sense that turnout is comparable to the governor election. Last November, I voted for the referendum and I wasn't that close a call for me. In 2020, we all voted for a constitutional amendment and passed by two to one in the state to have non-partisan sort of professional, you know, unbiased redistricting, you know. And in fact, it worked well here and they came up with districts that were, it was six to five Democratic, which is kind of what the state is, right? Six to five Democratic or Republican. They had continuous districts, they tried to keep communities together, all the kind of things the political scientists want you to do. They did here. But you also have to adapt to circumstances. And if Texas and these other states are going to go ahead and tilt it in one way, you got to tilt it back the other. And interestingly, at one last point, it's only for four years. I mean, I give the drafters of this credit. It's not a permanent redistricting. It lasts till 2030, and it takes care of the problem of Trump attacks us, obviously.

Speaker 1:
[02:18] You know, this is where I'm at on it. Some of the discourse around this, I feel like makes me want to roll my eyes, particularly among the kind of high-minded nonpartisan types. I'm just like, yeah, it's unfair. The map that you're voting on in Virginia tomorrow is unfair. And that's the fucking point for it to be unfair, right? Like the only way to get back to a place where we have fair districts and a democracy that is representative of everybody is for both sides to play hardball on this. There's a national anti-Gerrymandering bill in the House. Only Democrats are for it. There are no Republicans that are for that. There were a couple of Republicans, we should shout them out, in Indiana and a couple other states, where they said, hey, we're not going to go along with this system. We're not going to go rig the system anymore and get on them. But in a bunch of other states, they tried to rig the system, to keep Donald Trump in power, to prevent Donald Trump from having accountability. And so, good on Abigail Spanberger and Luis Lucas. And like you said, in 2030, it will revert, as my understanding, to the constitutional amendment system, where there will be a non-partisan redistrict. And, you know, God willing, that will be in a place in 2030, where that can happen in Virginia and elsewhere. Because there are a bunch of red states that need that too. And there are a couple of blue states, Illinois. It's a dumb system. We should fix it. But it doesn't do any good to live in disreality and let one side try to rig the system while the other side doesn't. So go out and vote for the Louise Lucas bill tomorrow, everybody, if you're in Virginia. Let's do an update on the Iran war. So since we last got together with Ben Rhodes on Friday, things are looking a little dicier than maybe the president had portrayed. I don't know if you'll be surprised by that. President Trump is trying to sell a deal that wasn't actually done. We've seen that movie a million times before, and I think that Ben and I pointed out on Friday, even in the early moments of this, there's a bunch of reasons why this deal might be unstable, not the least of which, what the interests are of our partner in this war in Israel, and their misaligned from the US, and who knows in Iran if the negotiators actually are in charge and can negotiate, and who knows if Donald Trump is telling the truth, like for a million reasons, there are reasons to be skeptical. Those reasons were right since we last talked. Iran was unhappy with the United States blockade and with the ways in which Donald Trump was misrepresenting the deal that was coming together. So they fired on at least two, maybe three ships in the strait, merchant ships, which caused a bunch of other ships to turn around, re-close the Strait of Hormuz, despite Donald Trump saying on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz was open forever and that Iran had agreed to keep it open forever, they would never use it again. That lasted less than 24 hours. The US responded by seizing an Iranian ship. It was trying to bypass the US Naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman. So we boarded and seized that ship. Iran right now is saying that they don't trust Trump. We're getting kind of mixed reports on whether they'll even participate in the talks. I think the most recent report is that they are going to participate in the talks. And Trump is escalating his threats. Once again, he posted this yesterday. If Iran doesn't accept a deal, the United States is going to knock out every single power plane and every single bridge in Iran. No more Mr. Nice Guy. So there you go. No more Mr. Nice Guy is the new position from Trump.

Speaker 2:
[05:46] Trump. I mean, Andrew has a good piece in When He Trusts this morning. I sort of thought of this when Andrew was writing it. I think literary critics call this an unreliable narrator. It's like the narrator of the story is not telling the truth. I mean, of course, there are times when you shade the truth in diplomacy, but that's not what Trump's doing. He's just making up things. I think the Iranians wanted to make the point that you think over the weekend that they have the ability to close the strait when they want to, and they want people to remember that going forward. I assume they're going to ultimately agree to something, and we're going to agree to something since we're in full-fledged desperation for an agreement mode, Trump is, that will basically open the straits with both sides. But I think Iran wants everyone to remember that if Israel attacks again, or if we do something they don't like, or if the UAE does something they don't like, or if they just don't like, you know, they want to make a point in general, they're there and they can do it. I mean, that was sort of interesting. I thought that was what's behind probably what they were trying to do. Otherwise, they're getting a ton out of this deal. Looks like they're getting total sanctions relief. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when people hawks on Iran, including me, screamed and yelled about Obama giving some sanction relief and a little bit of money that they had over here back. Trump's like trumping that manyfold. And of course, they're not going to get, it looks like the nuclear material is going to sit over there and allegedly be inspected by us. And it turns out there's a very good, there's a very interesting report from our own Defense Intelligence Agency, the report to Congress, or at least the Congress has a copy of, saying that Iran has a ton of ballistic missiles and drones left. We haven't degraded them as much as Trump has been claiming. So it's not a good outcome for the United States.

Speaker 1:
[07:23] Yeah. To your point on these Trump threats and how hollow they are, and it's such a, I guess it's not boy who cried wolf, because the boy who cried wolf, the wolf is like boy who's pretending to be the wolf. Over and over again, it's like I'm going to end your civilization and then you did nothing. It's like we're going to obliterate you, then you do nothing. And we're going to take out all the leadership and then you do nothing. Now it's like no more Mr. Nice guy for real this time. It's like, okay, buddy, Dan Shapiro, the former ambassador to Israel from Biden, is like I think a real middle of the road guy and all of this and no fan of the Iranian regime. I was interested in his take on this over the weekend. He wrote, Trump spent all day posting on truth social things that had not been agreed to trying to will them to be true by saying them, this is a crazy way to do diplomacy on something that's consequential and it has to be telling the Iranians that he's desperate for an off ramp, which only increases their leverage. That goes, I think, to what you're saying. Iran is trying to continue to increase their leverage and they want more money out of this deal. You're going to give us full sanctions relief? Okay, maybe we also want a toll on the straight or maybe we also want this, that or the other thing. I think that is what's happening in the moment. The argument for a deal coming together is that both sides want it to. Both sides do want an off ramp, but just from the outside analysis perspective, it looks like our side wants it more. It looks like our side wants it more. The Iranians obviously can sense that as well. You get us into a situation where you started this war of choice, making all of these grand pronouncements about complete surrender, and then you get into it five weeks and you're begging for a face-saving off ramp. It's pretty humiliating, really.

Speaker 2:
[09:10] Seven weeks now, I think. Trump said four to six weeks, but now it's running a little long and he wants to get on to other things, I guess. Maybe I can just mention here that I wrote a little thing for Morning Shots, just noticing what was in the Wall Street Journal piece over the weekend that other people commented on too, that they purposely excluded Trump on the Friday that the airplane was shot down, and they were scrambling and devising, and thankfully devising a successful plan to extricate them. This was a major military effort, and meeting in the White House, they managed to keep Trump out of the meeting, basically. Occasionally they gave him updates, because senior officials, it doesn't say who, but I assume these are senior military officials, maybe a couple of his own, maybe the civilian ones are intelligent enough to know this too, thought that Trump's presence there would make it impossible to have reasonable and sound decision making, because he's so impatient and impetuous and reckless and so forth. I'm now elaborating a tiny bit on what the Journal said, but that's the point of what they're saying. Kind of unbelievable, right?

Speaker 1:
[10:07] I mean, two Journal stories over the weekend about all the drama happening here. There's the one story where he's screaming at people and becoming very impatient during this period, where there are two airmen in Iran. It was interesting. The other interesting part of that story is, Trump is an unfrozen caveman from the tabloid era of the 80s-like thing. You keep being reminded about that. In this case, I guess he was just really remembering Carter and the hostage crisis and how bad that was for him politically. They're like these in the pop culture references, in the history lessons of political lessons, Trump is always recalling how things were in the 1980s. You have that kind of drama behind the scenes. Commander-in-chief basically kicked out because he's agitating people too much during this recovery. Then we have the other Wall Street Journal story on Hegseth and Driscoll feuding, Secretary of Army and Secretary of War, in a pretty kind of a hot feud right now in the middle of this conflict.

Speaker 2:
[11:13] Driscoll went out of his way when he was testifying on the Hill Thursday to praise former Army Chief of Staff, General George, whom Hegseth had unceremoniously fired. He drove up with his family to see him and they hugged and there's no finer man. I think Driscoll may be quite well being sincere here, everything else I've heard about General George is very flattering. Driscoll seems like a reasonably sane person by Trump administration standards, but to go out of your way to praise the person that you're boss, I mean, you're superior to the Secretary of Defense, just fired two weeks before is pretty striking. There's just out and out war between Hegseth and Driscoll. Driscoll is a very close friend of Vance, was put there by Vance basically. When presumes Hegseth is a little bit on thin ice, Trump must be self-aware enough to know that this whole Iran thing was a mistake, and that Hegseth was one of those who sold him on it, and pumped it up in those early days and weeks. I don't know. Is Trump self-aware enough to realize that he should want to get rid of Hegseth?

Speaker 1:
[12:08] I don't think so. Maybe you're right.

Speaker 2:
[12:12] Maybe I'm wrong about that.

Speaker 1:
[12:14] It depends who he's talking to. It depends how many people are telling him that Hegseth is a boob because he is very susceptible to peer pressure. The other types of reporting that you're getting out of this is that Trump is really doing a classic politician, world leader mistake throughout all of history, which is only listening to yes men. The one thing that has always been true about Trump is he likes the drama. He comes from reality TV show world where he wants the two sides to be feuding, and wants to hear from both sides. In the most unhealthy way imaginable, he's at least getting different perspectives through that process. It's hard to tell if that's still happening. The one report of somebody who's like, you would be shocked at how much time he's spending watching the AI videos of himself on truth social. I don't know. I just don't know exactly if he's getting enough negative information about Hegseth. Hegseth has been the biggest yes man of all, it sounds like, with regards to the war. I don't know. Maybe if things start going worse, that blows back on him. The other thing that he is seeing that is creating some hedge on his decision-making is what's happened with the economy. It did get a big boost Friday when people thought that this thing might be over. We're back down a little bit this morning. Let me just pull this up. All this stuff is very fluid. The Dow and S&P are only down a little bit. I think that there's a, what was it? JVL call it the madman theory of the economy. JVL had a great newsletter over the weekend. We should go read just about how the investors are just basically like, any sign of normalcy means we should buy. There's that, but oil prices are up another 5 percent this morning. They went down slightly below the land man line that I like to say, where Billy Bob Thornton's character says, we want to keep it between 60 and 90. It went slightly down below 90 over the weekend. Now, it's back up. I think the economic impact of this is real. Because of the UAE over the weekend asking us for a bailout, they want the Argentinian deal on the dollar swap. All of that stuff is pretty shaky right now. I think that if it tips a little bit worse than this, that will even create less leverage for us in these negotiations, seems like to me.

Speaker 2:
[14:38] That is, the Iranians know that's the pressure they have on Trump. This is just mathematics in a way, it's not psychology. I mean, the longer this trade is closed, the less oil there is available to use and the less other products. And there are now shortages in some countries of what's used to make plastic bags and a million other things, drugs, I guess, pharmaceuticals. So, no, I think it's getting real. I mean, everyone said ahead of, we've discussed this once or twice, I mean, everyone said it beforehand, 10-day closure of the trade, not great, but you survive. 30 days, getting a little problematic. You get into the 45-day range, I guess we're getting pretty close to there. I can't remember how quickly Iran closed the strait, but it was a couple of weeks into the war. You're getting serious supply chain issues. Now, that should pressure Trump to come to a deal this week or maybe next, maybe pressures him, though, does he tie one more spasmodic use of force, kind of go out with a Nixon kind of 72 Christmas bombing showing he's a tough guy, I wouldn't put it past him, but then if he does that, then of course you're into a situation where you don't know how Iran reacts, et cetera. So, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[15:42] I don't know. The one last spasm feels Trumpy to me.

Speaker 2:
[15:46] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[15:46] I think there's something to it. A lot of people, I think everybody feels like they're a little bit better at predicting him than people are. There's some trends that you do see. You can kind of predict him pretty good in the medium term, but what crazy stuff he'll do in the short term to get there. I was pretty struck when I had Alistair Campbell from The Rest is Politics last week, his co-host Rory, I was listening to their shows to kind of prep for it, and Rory had gone on a vacation, Rory Stewart, and he was like, I just wanted to test myself where I didn't, I forget where he went, he went somewhere where he didn't have good Wi-Fi, and it's like for a week, he just didn't read the news, and then he came back and read the newspaper one day at a time to see if he could predict what's coming. He's like, I was kind of surprised by how bad I was at it. I felt like it was better than I would be, and it is like Trump's, you can notice trends, like in the short, he's just so erratic, right? That it is a little bit, in the short term, hard to say. But that said, I, the one more spasm kind of feels Trumpy.

Speaker 2:
[16:44] Yeah, just one point on that, I mean, he's erratic, but it's erratic in the two extremes. The one thing he doesn't do is really go down the middle of the road, you know? It's either I'm doubling down, then I'm backing off.

Speaker 1:
[16:54] Yes, right.

Speaker 2:
[16:55] I'm doing one, two hours after the other. I mean.

Speaker 1:
[16:57] Yeah, exactly. All right, everybody, I've told you my origin story with the old Ridge Wallet. They're going to come sponsor the podcast. They're going to send me a sample wallet. I was a little concerned it was too butch for me. I thought that something as sleek and powerful as the Ridge Wallet would be more appropriate for Sarah. It was a lesbian gay joke there. But then, literally that day, was out with the other gay dads at school. One takes out the wallet to pay the bill. There it is, Ridge Wallet, talking about how great it is. I'm over here, just stereotyping myself. Now, when it turns out that the Ridge Wallet is right for people of all, sexualities and gender identities, losing your wallet is the worst. But with the Ridge Tracker Card, this is another reason I like the Ridge Wallet, because I lose everything, right? The Ridge Tracker Card makes sure you'll always know where your wallet is, even before panic mode kicks in. They also create premium everyday carry essentials like power banks, USB charging, key cases, suitcases, and rings all built with a sleek and durable design. No matter what you pick, Ridge has a free shipping, 99 day risk-free trial and a limited warranty on all of their products. So for a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at Ridge by using code, the bulwark at checkout, just head to ridge.com and use code the bulwark. And you're all set after you purchase. I'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. I want to talk to you about a couple of the geopolitics impacts and how things are changing already as a result of the last seven weeks. Literally as we're talking, Trump posted this, which is a little bit of a she doth protest too much possibly. But here's a bleat this morning. Israel never talked me into the war with Iran. The results of October 7th added to my lifelong opinion that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon did. It's not a great sentence structure, but I watched the fake news. Then he goes down to this, just like the results in Venezuela, which the media doesn't like talking about, the results in Iran will be amazing. If Iran's new leaders, parentheses, regime change, exclamation point, are smart, Iran can have a great and prosperous future. Trump obviously feeling the heat on this question, following the news that BB was in the Situation Room, and feeling like he has to come up with a post-hoc rationalization for why he wanted to do this, even if it wasn't for Israel's coaxing. He was already president once. He said this lifelong opinion. It's just really, it's hard to buy. I do think it's interesting that he's still contra what Rubio will say or even Hegseth, or anybody else in the administration, you ask them what the goals and objectives are. He's still kind of on the Venezuela beat.

Speaker 2:
[19:50] He's totally on the Venezuela beat. The degree to which I think historians will decide that Venezuela gave him this insane megalomaniacal sense of what he could do and what the US military could do. He sort of forgot the difference between Venezuela and Iran, which is kind of a big difference in so many ways. Like Venezuela is right near us and it's a reasonably small country, and other big powers don't have a huge interest, and Israel is not involved, and a million other things, right? And even China, Russia will vaguely like Venezuela. We're not going to do anything over here, whereas Iran is a whole different kettle of fish. But he desperately wants a world in which he can do Venezuela as every six months, and that's it. And no one asks too many questions after. And it's not real regime change, but it's not nothing exactly, because you got rid of a guy who's particularly disaseful and it makes him beat his chest. It makes me think he really wants... Don't you think he will want to do Cuba and Greenland after this? I mean, this is a big question getting into our maximalist thing. Is this lesson from Iran? Got to stay away from that stuff, back to ice and domestic stuff. Or is this lesson from Iran? Got to do Cuba or Greenland?

Speaker 1:
[20:52] Yeah, drug addict needs another hit. I need another hit. Or a gambling addict that... I was on the hot craps table, I was almost there and then the table went cold. Now I got to go back to the ATM and pull out a couple hundred more dollars to get that high back. It's not something that ever happened to me. I can't relate to that at all. Yeah, no, I think that's what's coming. The China element of this is also kind of interesting. For the first time today, China said publicly the Strait needs to be opened. And I kind of engaged in this in a formal way. They were talking to their pal MBS about that. Who knows how that shakes out with the Gulf states that had tried to bribe us. And now it seems like they're starting to reassess some of their investments, at least Saudis and UAE asking for a bailout. Now they're looking back to China and wondering who they should make a deal with, maybe both sides, maybe not pick a side. And then I saw this poll, this is a Politico poll, which is pretty remarkable, asking the citizens of these four countries, what you would maybe say is our four biggest allies, at least in the post-World War II era, Canada, Germany, France, and the UK. I don't want to throw Aussie in there, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, or Mexico. But like, you know, four pretty of our top allies, asking them whether it's better to depend on China or the US under Donald Trump. So this is specifically about Trump, not necessarily about the broader US. Canada, 57 to 23 in favor of China. Germany, 40 to 24 in favor of China. France, 34 to 25 in favor of China. Britain, 42, 34 in favor of China. I just think that, like, there are some, who knows about how long lasting, but some calculations are being made in the Gulf States and among our allies that feels like it's emboldening China. And ostensibly some in the administration were like China hawks and talking about how that was the real threat when Trump won it.

Speaker 2:
[22:48] Yeah, totally. And Pakistan, incidentally, which is getting all the statures, they're the middleman, the host of these talks. They're very close to China. So, I mean, they're not doing this without consulting with China. They said that, I think, at times. And now China, I think, wants to say publicly, they want the straight reopenment. They think it will be reopened. And they want to position themselves. We weighed in when it was all kind of a bit of a chaos. And we're the big guy. And we're not irrational and erratic like Trump. We weighed in. We said we want it opened. And you know what? A week later, when it opens, China is going to say, see, we can be helpful in these crises. You know, everyone should listen to us.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[27:43] Well, except we know that he's actually getting the FBI to do things that it shouldn't be doing at Fulton County in Georgia and elsewhere, now Michigan with 2026 related stuff. Obviously, he's saying we're going to charge people criminally for the great conspiracy of 2020. He said that on Sunday on TV. I'm alarmed that on the one hand, they're so alarmed by him, all the people who talk to the Atlantic, and on the other hand, it seems like he should be weaker than he is as director. I'm worried that they're going along, and their culture is to go along, or maybe there's some people who like having him there. I don't know. Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe they are curbing him more than I realize. I hope they are. This is something serious. The people in the government, some of them will have quit and some should quit. Obviously, if they can't do things they can't do in good conscience. Others really need to do what they can to mitigate the damage that's being done from Trump on down, through Patel and Hegseth and others. I assume people are, they're intelligent, they're acting this way and within the bounds of the law. But there are plenty of things you can do to make things less bad. Not tell him certain things and have some meetings that he's not, whatever, invited to and slow walk some things, and fast walk some other things and so forth. But I'm pretty worried. The DOJ-FBI-DOD situation, totally irresponsible and reckless leaders, getting some pushback, but also doing a lot. I mean, and they can do it in a ham-handed and heavy-handed way, can still do an unbelievable amount of damage.

Speaker 1:
[29:08] Yeah. I mean, I'd love to hear from folks inside the Bureau and how they're navigating all of it, because I do think it's tough. And I know for a fact there are some responsible people in there still, if we have mutuals. But it's really tough. I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, there's somebody who's pretty far down the enemies list, but on it somewhere, on page 40 or whatever. It's nice to have a drunkard trying to go after the enemies. He's been totally ineffective. Certainly does not seem like a coincidence that after this Atlantic story came out, he was out there this weekend saying, they're going to be arrested soon in the 2020 election fraud theft. It's like, okay, buddy, we'll see. Good luck with that. On the other hand, for the broader public safety, given we're at potentially, you would think, a time of heightened terror risk on the homeland, you'd rather have somebody actually who knows what they're doing, running the FBI.

Speaker 2:
[30:02] Yeah. On the third hand, Todd Blanch replaced Pam Bondi. Blanch is more, let's just say, probably more qualified for the job than Bondi and stuff. And he's ruthlessly going about DOJ's business of persecuting Trump's enemies and politicizing everything. And they just, the career person who was trying to actually be responsible in Miami has now quit or been fired. It's not quite know which, I guess, or at least removed from the case, right? And they brought in Joe DiGenova, an 81-year-old guy who's gone kind of crazy in my-

Speaker 1:
[30:34] Oh my God, is that right? Is that who they brought in?

Speaker 2:
[30:36] Yes. Joe DiGenova is now the special assistant to Blanche for the Miami prosecution of Clapper, of former DNI, James Clapper. So on the one hand, it's like idiocy and kind of comedy. On the other hand, Blanche is pretty resolute and he kind of knows what he's doing and now they're going to go after Clapper and they're going to intimidate a lot of other people and run up his legal bills and Patel says he's going to sue the Atlantic for defamation. I was in some quarrel with some of my liberal lawyer friends. Oh, that lawsuit's going nowhere. Well, is it going to have an intimidating effect on others? Is it going to force the Atlantic to spend a lot of money? Are anonymous sources in the future going to worry that if they talk to a reporter and then the magazine that the reporter works for gets sued, that they might have to reveal the names as part of their defense? I mean, I just think the whole intimidation stuff that's going on with the FBI and DOJ remains obviously very bad. But I remember having this argument with Bondi was still around. Maybe it's better to have Bondi there. She's unpopular and doesn't seem terribly competent. On the other hand, I don't know. As you say, it's a tough, it's on the one hand and on the other hand, either way is bad, because Trump is very bad. He's a bad man.

Speaker 1:
[31:46] Either way is very bad.

Speaker 2:
[31:47] Maybe you should make that point. Maybe you should make that point.

Speaker 1:
[31:50] Okay. So Joe DiGenova, who got brought in, you try your best to see everything these days, but sometimes things squeeze by you. I'm happy you mentioned it because I have some history with him. There's a little lore.

Speaker 2:
[32:01] Really?

Speaker 1:
[32:02] Oh, do tell. I did an article in the period between Biden beating Trump and January 6th. So January 6th hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 2:
[32:09] Right.

Speaker 1:
[32:10] They are the stop the steal campaign is gaining momentum and etc. Newsmax was the main home of this because remember Fox was losing ratings ground to Newsmax. I was like, I need to watch Newsmax. So I sat in my bed, this was during COVID, so I didn't have to leave anyway, and watched 24 hours of Newsmax with sleep in the middle. So whatever, 16 hours of Newsmax. But I wanted to watch every hour of the day. I'm going to just read this. I pulled up the article. 434 PM, Joe DiGenova comes on. The host says that he was brought on to talk about Obamagate, but this week that they're going to change things up and talk about Trump's attempt to overturn the election. Stick with me because I wrote this whole thing dead pan because everything was so crazy. It was the only way to do it. It goes like this. DiGenova says that the Durham report should come out to help give state legislators more incentive to stop Biden since he was involved in Obamagate. They start talking about that. Then he gets asked about Chris Krebs, and DiGenova calls for the execution of Chris Krebs, which then we clipped and published. I was watching it, and then eventually DiGenova, after that, had to apologize and back off. So that's the kind of mind you're dealing with. Like somebody who is on the Cable News show between the 2020 election and Biden's inauguration, saying that the person in charge of CISA, who was protecting our elections, needs to be executed for treason because they were involved in some imaginary scheme. So now he's still on the beat, 81 years old, five years later. Now, still trying to put somebody into jail for this imaginary crime. Totally insane.

Speaker 2:
[33:52] Yeah. So the lawyers I know are all like, he can't prosecute the case and they don't have a case, and it's not going to go anywhere, it's not going to work. But you never know, you get some jury, the wrong judge or jury in Florida, but probably won't work. But yeah, the legal defense, the cost and the intimidation factor, I think again, they're just all in. It's not an accident. I've forgotten your piece. That was an excellent piece from November or December 2020. Actually, I felt bad for you watching Newsmax for 16 hours.

Speaker 1:
[34:18] Well, that was good. It helped me. It helped because there was a period of time where you and you were on this, and a lot of other even anti-Trump people, like you guys are being a little too alarmist and whatever. It was like, no, actually, if you watch the types of stuff that they're talking about, you could feel the bloodlust. You could feel it grow. It was even for my analysis, it was important to not watch the scene washed, watered down depictions, but to watch what the audience was getting. And it's not surprising that people watching a show like that would then turn up to the Capitol, right? It was much easier to predict anyway.

Speaker 2:
[34:54] And that Trump was really going to try to do. And I think now, again, let's just apply this to today. People need to be, you have Michigan and Fulton County, Georgia, and you have DiGenova, and people need to be serious. We need to worry about 2026 and 2028.

Speaker 1:
[35:09] Speaking of things to be worried about, you had Ryan Goodman on the Sunday interview yesterday, just talking about this fight that's happening on the Hill over Section 702 and the spy powers that the government has. You know, for people who want the full sermon, they can go check that out, but do you want to just give a little bit of a TLDR?

Speaker 2:
[35:26] 702 is the authority that allows our intelligence agencies to listen in on and read communications among foreign nationals, but also from foreign nationals to American nationals, how Americans are protected, Fourth Amendment, First Amendment. So it's a complicated way in which they can't or can't look at what Americans have been doing. It was abused a little bit, honestly, but not too much. They did there and they, to be fair, the FBI corrected its abuse, it seems like, with an internal report. But Ryan and I were both basically, I don't want to speak for him, but I think this is true. National security professionals think this is an important part of our anti-terrorism efforts. So we've mostly been defending it. Some civil libertarians don't like it, and it has to be reauthorized every two years. It was passed after 9-11, and the Congress, to its credit, said you got to take a fresh look every two years. We're not going to give this a permanent authority. So it's a tricky authority. And Ryan and I are both against a clean reauthorization, as they say. They should now make them get a warrant if Americans are involved, and put in a few other safeguards, perhaps. Some people on the Hill have been leading this fight. But it's very much similar, weirdly, I think, analogous to the Virginia thing we were talking about, which is people say, well, you were for clean reauthorization in the past. Why aren't you now? Well, because Kash Patel is the head of the FBI now. And whatever you think of Chris Wright and Jim Comey and all these other characters, I'm sure they weren't perfect, God knows. They were not going to use the FBI the way Kash Patel could try to use the FBI and use this authority. The same with the Justice Department and same with the intelligence community under Telsey Gabbard. So it's now bottled up on the hill. The House had a kind of meltdown Thursday night. Johnson couldn't get it through. The Freedom Caucus people actually did the right thing and voted against it, some of them. And people like Massey, the kind of libertarian types. We'll see what happens. It's got a 10-day extension. So it's actually a live issue this week on the hill. There's a totally obvious compromise to be done if you care about national security and want to add some reasonable civil liberties provisions. Trump right now is for, of course, the clean extension, which he doesn't want the civil liberties provisions. We'll see if they end up with a reasonable agreement or not.

Speaker 1:
[37:27] All right. I want to move on to a couple of politics items before I lose you. I guess we should do the Scotus reports first. Alito and Thomas, there's some reporting from Jan Crawford over at CBS, who's very well-sourced in the conservative side of the court, no doubt, and saying that neither of them want to retire. This would have been the assumption about Thomas because he's not so far away from being the longest ever serving member of the Supreme Court. I think that he wants that distinction because I'm sure that the folks at Holy Cross will be excited to honor him for that. When he achieves that, the three most famous Holy Cross grads, John Favreau, Bill Simmons, and Clarence Thomas. But people have been thinking that Alito is going to do it because he wanted to make sure that he could be replaced by a fellow hack. There's concerns if Democrats take the Senate next year, etc., that who knows what might happen. But the Crawford Report is saying that he's going to stay. Lauren Egan has a good newsletter for us last night talking about how Democrats aren't really buying this and are still really preparing for a big Supreme Court showdown this year. Who knows? Maybe it will come next year. I was wondering your thoughts on that and it's pretty interesting. Again, kind of similar to the redistricting question. I think that the Democrats, if Alito waits till after the midterms and the Democrats take the Senate, for all of people's complaints about Chuck Schumer, I'd have it happy to beg on my face when I'm wrong about this. I think that the Democratic Senators are going to create a new Merrick Garland rule, say, sorry, we'll wait till the next election, like not bringing up a new justice for nominations that you guys did, and we'll hold it as long as we need to hold it, and we'll see what happens to the 2028 election. I think that's what would happen. So it'd be pretty significant if Alito decides to stay on past this midterm.

Speaker 2:
[39:21] Yeah, it's much more fraught now that it looks like Democrats could either win the Senate or get very close, and then he just said he'd want defection perhaps to stop someone. No. So I think Jan Crawford is an excellent reporter. I've known her a long time. I'm sure she's accurately reporting what Alito and Thomas are saying to people. What I think Lauren has captured well though is that they've been saying it out just to keep there, whatever, not look like a lame duck, I guess you could call it that, or just to look like they're making their own decision. But they could change their mind. And also Trump could pressure them. I mean, I think this is pretty important to Trump and to Trumpists. And especially in the case of Alito, I don't know, Alito may think, I'd like to stay, I'm having a good time, ripping out people's rights and so forth. But what if Trump calls him? Says, you got to go, Sam.

Speaker 1:
[40:05] Well, the other thing is that they could look at what happens in the midterms and there could be the lame duck period. And this is what they did in Scarlet. So you look at, let's say the Democrats take the Senate in November. This shows the stakes.

Speaker 2:
[40:19] Totally.

Speaker 1:
[40:20] Really, the whole election, as far as I'm concerned at the midterms, is Iowa, Texas, Ohio, maybe Kansas, maybe Nebraska, maybe Montana, maybe Florida, whatever. These red states for the Democrats, it's the whole ballgame. It's like, can the Democrats get to 51? And the Senate, for the Supreme Court reason, but for others, for other nominations for replacing Todd Blanch after his, if he's no longer the acting AG, if they try to keep him in as acting to next year, who knows, other confirmations, like that's the ballgame. And so if the Democrats succeed in winning enough of those red states, two of those red states to get to 51, then it's like, okay, well, could Alito retire really quick in November and have John Thune jam it through before the new Senate sits? I mean, it would be tight, but it's possible, I think.

Speaker 2:
[41:03] That would be tough, I think. Or certainly in September, if it does become obvious that there really is a massive wave and they have a better than 50-50 chance of losing the Senate. Yeah, I agree. And certainly if Alito does retire, on the other hand, we have a huge confirmation fight. Presumably the Republicans are in good shape for that fight, but Trump will nominate a right-wing justice. Everyone I know who's plugged into that world at all, whether on the opposition side or a few people who talk to people who are on the Republican side, think that this is not going to be a kind of respectable-ish Amy Coney bad. Yeah, we're talking right all the way. What are those Judge Hogue types down in Texas or Eileen Cannon or what's his name, the guy they put on the court, Bovay or Blanche himself or God knows what. Trump wants loyalists on this court, so he has a chance to put people on. That's become a huge fight. Even they can't stop that person, the politics of that fight are very important because it highlights how important the Senate is. No one's guaranteeing even if people don't choose to retire, people get sick and so forth. There could be another opening in their other district court and circuit court openings in 27, 28, which means Democrats has to do a better job than they've done in the past, explaining why the courts should be important to voters who might want to vote Democratic. Republicans have done a very good job on the courts as a motivating issue for their voters. Now, maybe post-Roe, post-Dobbs, that's different. It's easier for the Democrats. I know Democrats, Lauren reports on this or who are ginning up on this, but the Republicans have had an advantage, don't you think, on the politics of court fights?

Speaker 1:
[42:30] I think that's changing, though, but I think that they have for the last generation, but I think that's changing. So, important for the Democrats politically to identify messages that allow them to succeed in red states. So, I'd like to point out good examples of that when I can. John Ossoff had a big speech in Georgia over the weekend. I know it'll play for folks. I keep coming back to this, the Kamala conundrum question, which is in part was not her fault, but I think that she got into the sour spot where moderate voters thought that she was a California progressive and some progressive voters who cared a lot about Gaza. I thought she was a corporate chill and independent voters didn't really trust her. The challenge is, how do you come up with a message and a messenger where progressive voters look at them like, yeah, that guy works enough. I'll get excited for that person and the moderate and independent voters look at them and say, yeah, okay, this person could appeal. John Ossoff has demonstrated an interesting model for that potentially in Georgia. I thought it was interesting to hear how he was talking about the Iran War and the corruption issues in the economy at his campaign stop over the weekend. Let's listen to that.

Speaker 3:
[43:42] While he and his family rake in billions from foreign princes. While he plunders our health care to cut taxes for the rich. Meanwhile rent, power, groceries and health care have all hit all time highs this year. This year, ground beef is up 20% since Trump took office. Coffee, 40%. Health premiums through the roof. And remember, while you pay more for everything, the first family's wealth is growing by billions of dollars. Because they're crooks. And everybody knows it.

Speaker 1:
[44:40] I mean, that feels right, you know? It's a way to speak to the anti-Trump side of this and do a lot of never-Trump-er friendly messaging, you know, but also tie it in to kind of the populist economic case.

Speaker 2:
[44:54] Totally. I mean, it indicates the point you've made over and over and I've made occasionally, which is you can be, you know, moderate or centrist or big-tent-ish in your issues and in your policies, but vehemently against Trump and especially in the corruption is the sweet spot here, right? And the kleptocracy and incidentally, the Hungarian election. That's what Magyar, who is too right wing for a lot of lefties, not lefties, even just normal progressives, honestly, in Hungary, but he was so strong on and he has been in the weeks in C1, 2, and I'm going to rip up this, rip out the corruption, the kleptocracy, the whole system. They're all crooks. That line is excellent of Ossoff's incidentally. I don't know why. I guess maybe others have said it, but somehow the way. And he's sort of a mild man. Ossoff's not actually a natural stemwinder type, I wouldn't say. And so it's impressive to see him do it. I mean, no, I very much think that tying the kleptocracy and corruption of Trump and his family and the oligarchs, pairing that with the bad economic facts facing the middle class seems to be the way to go.

Speaker 1:
[45:57] Absolutely. All right. I want to close with JD and the Pope. You commented on social media something about the Pope Leo posted that you liked. I'd like to see you self-identify as elderly. Because Leo posted this, let us remember that the elderly first and foremost need to be listened to because they preserve the wisdom of a people. It's nice. A lot of humility. And you're thinking that I should be listening to you more based on the Pope's advice. I'll take that note. JD doesn't really share that humility about listening to the wisdom of other people. He likes to listen to the wisdom of himself. And I just want to play one more time JD talking about this at his event with Erica Kirk late last week.

Speaker 4:
[46:37] When the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword, there is a thousand year, more than a thousand year tradition of just war theory, okay? Now we can of course have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think that it's important, in the same way that it's important for the Vice President of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it's very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology. And I think that one of these issues here is that there has been, again, hey, random dude screaming, I told you I'd respond to your point. I just want to respond to this question first.

Speaker 1:
[47:16] So there you go. Vance-splaining, some Vance-splaining there. I just, like, I love that he's been condescending to the Pope, that like it's the Pope that needs to be careful with his rhetoric. Has he ever talked about Donald Trump and he didn't be careful with his rhetoric? No, it's just the Pope. JD Vance becomes a Catholic two minutes ago, and then he's like, you know what? The Pope needs to be a little bit more cautious with how he talks about the just war theory, okay? Do you know about the just war theory? Because we just started a war of choice and started bombing a girls' school, that might be just war, so shut up, Pope. And then he tells the kid asking the question, and you shut up too, and it's like JD Vance and Zelensky, you shut up too. He just likes telling people to shut up.

Speaker 2:
[47:52] Trump should nonetheless be removed from office. I guess we'll have to put up with JD in 2027, 28 because he's less crazy and less likely to get us into some total reckless, insane debacle than Trump. But Vance is really bad too, I've got to say. What a pair, Trump and Vance, good.

Speaker 1:
[48:09] Really bad, okay. I love that you're just going to take the capital I impeachment ground, you're there. You're just like, it, JD Vance is awful and Trump is so bad that we need to be lectured and patronized to for two years in exchange for getting rid of Trump. I like that. That is what you would call the wisdom of the elderly.

Speaker 2:
[48:28] Yes, thank you. Well, the reason I did that cute little, if I could say, thing on X with Susan right away, I said, Tim calls you elderly every week, so you're just trying, I'm embracing my inner elderly.

Speaker 1:
[48:39] I don't think I call you elderly.

Speaker 2:
[48:40] Susan is abused by our exchanges where you pretend that, Bill, you remember this from 48 years ago, before everyone else in the Bulwark was born. Then of course, I play along. I play along by remembering that when I was in grad school, Nixon was impeached for war to get or something. I embrace my inner elderlyness and I'm glad the Pope respects it. He's the Bulwark Pope and I thought he was thinking of me, frankly. He presumably watches us, he watches this, he's got some extra time there. He thinks that Tim is being a little unfair to Bill sometimes.

Speaker 1:
[49:08] I think he's a committed watcher. That's my understanding from reports inside the Vatican. All right. That's Bill Kristol. We'll be back tomorrow. On Tuesdays, we got the next level. If you just need to be politics junkie, you can tune in to the next level tomorrow. I'm going to go a little bit off news on this podcast, bringing one of my buddies who got a new book out. I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to be live streaming tonight before the Nuggets game, eight o'clock in the East. Come hang out with me. I'll take your questions. I've got a lot of fun stuff to talk about. We'll see Bill Kristol next Monday. See y'all tomorrow. Peace. The Bulwark Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.