Is the Minneapolis Killing an Inflection Point for Trump?

Summary

Bulwark Takes – "Is the Minneapolis Killing an Inflection Point for Trump?"

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Host: Bill Kristol
Guest: Sam Stein
Date: January 11, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Bill Kristol and Sam Stein tackle the fallout from the recent killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. The discussion explores whether this tragic incident represents a genuine inflection point politically and morally for the Trump administration, ICE’s role, and America’s political landscape. The conversation also dives into the administration's embrace of radicalism, foreign policy developments, ICE accountability, and broader trends of authoritarian acceleration within the U.S. government.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Minneapolis Killing as a Political and Moral Moment

• Sam Stein emphasizes that while many moments feel pivotal, this one is "very clarifying" for him due to its exposure of both the administration’s and the public’s willingness to justify state violence.
  • "This is not just like sort of a political moment. It’s a really, it’s a moment of morality. It’s a moment about our news industry, about how we consume information, how we process it..." (02:00)
• Both hosts note shock at how rapidly and shamelessly officials—from Trump on down—rushed to blame the victim and rationalize the state’s actions before full evidence had emerged.

2. Administration's Response and Media Manipulation

• Bill Kristol highlights the premeditated strategy of the administration to immediately shift blame and avoid normal protocol (like suspending the officer or investigating).
  • "Not even a pretense of we have to invest... Not even a pretense of any of that..." (03:16)
• Sam Stein points out the strategic use of pretexts—like anti-fraud operations—to justify overwhelming federal intervention in Minneapolis, framing it as a "wholesale attack" on an American city.
  • "They’re... attempting to withhold small business funds, attempting to withhold school... It’s a wholesale attack on an American city. I mean, that’s what it is." (08:17)

3. ICE’s Escalating Role and Public Backlash

• Discussion about ICE’s transformation from a law enforcement agency to a tool for political and physical intimidation, especially post-incident.
• Public sentiment is shifting, with calls to radically reform or even abolish ICE gaining traction.
  • "Not everyone is in the Bill Kristol radicalized camp of abolish ICE. I will say more people are getting there. They’re finding their way to Bill." (10:45)
• Kristol argues for serious congressional reforms, tying future funding explicitly to oversight and behavioral changes.

4. Congressional & State-Level Action on ICE

• Talk of legislative efforts (Chris Murphy, among others), but doubts about congressional appetite for a government shutdown over ICE.
• Suggests more immediate action may come from state-level laws (e.g., banning masks for federal agents in Democratic states).

5. Foreign Policy: Venezuela and Greenland

• Brief but pointed shift to Trump’s radical foreign policy moves—Venezuela’s regime change, threats concerning Greenland, and the resulting shock among global allies.
  • "Trump is, you know, giving interviews where we’re going to do Greenland, either the easy way or the hard way." (16:27)
• Sam Stein elaborates on the practical fallout—oil execs refusing to enter Venezuela, Europe holding emergency sessions over Greenland, and the general global uncertainty about U.S. intentions and reliability.
• Both note the self-radicalizing tendency of the administration, driven by an insular movement culture and a hardening base.
  • "The self radicalizing character of authoritarian movements is also a thing, and... we’re just seeing it in spades, don’t you think?" (22:29)

6. Authoritarian Acceleration and Internal Dynamics

• The conversation turns to how Trump’s second term, unconstrained by traditional guardrails, has created a feedback loop of radicalism among political appointees and young GOP operatives.
  • "There are Stephen Millers and Stephen Miller, you know, three quarter Stephen Millers and, and 125% Stephen Millers in some cases—true lunatics—all the way down." (25:18)
• Sam Stein observes that the path to power in Republican politics now rewards the most extreme actors.
  • "It creates another generation of Republicans who are just going to emulate what they did because that’s the path to more power." (27:49)

7. Epstein Files Controversy

• Frustration at the administration’s stonewalling of the legally required release of Epstein investigation files.
  • "They just basically stopped releasing these documents that they’re legally required to release..." (29:00)
• Discussion of potential remedies, but skepticism that Congress will act forcefully.

8. The Pardon Power & Erosion of Justice

• Sam Stein predicts a bookend to the Trump era: pardoning ICE agents at the end of his term, just as the term began with January 6th pardons.
  • "It would be an incredible irony, but also not entirely unpredictable, if towards the end of his term he issued a blanket pardon for everyone who was involved in an ICE operation." (32:15)
• Deep concern about "the semblance of a justice system" giving way to cronyism and retribution.

9. Public Reaction and the Limits of Polarization

• Despite the divided political conversation, both hosts notice real grassroots outrage crystallizing in spontaneous demonstrations—even in less-liberal areas.
  • "Fifty people just with anti-ICE signs, bullhorns, ‘Renee Good, remember her name,’ that type of thing... the fact that they decided like they had had enough and that they were willing to just stand there for no reason ... that seemed to signify something." (36:50)
• Stein expresses some hope that such grassroots objection reflects deeper unease across the country.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "This one is very clarifying for me for sure." – Sam Stein, on the Renee Good killing (02:00)
• "There was not even a pretense of any of that... Not even a pretense." – Bill Kristol on the administration’s response (03:16)
• "It’s a wholesale attack on an American city. I mean, that’s what it is." – Sam Stein, on federal actions against Minneapolis (08:32)
• "We have the opposite dynamic now... the accelerationism I actually think is probably coming a little bit from below." – Bill Kristol (24:52)
• "If you believe that ICE has been turned into sort of a, you know, Gestapo-like institution that’s there to enforce MAGA politics... what kind of... it would have to be like a very serious purging." – Sam Stein (11:20)
• "You start the term by pardoning all the rioters who attacked the cops. You end the term by pardoning all the cops who attacked the protesters." – Sam Stein (32:15)
• "It’s not a contradiction if your view of politics is friends and enemies." – Bill Kristol, on MAGA’s justification for state violence (35:55)
• "Normies frankly look at this and say that’s messed up. Like you can’t just shoot a woman in her face like that because you feel endangered." – Sam Stein (38:45)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:10–03:16: — Assessing whether the Minneapolis killing is a big political/moral moment
• 04:08–06:43: — Administration’s rush to judgment and ICE’s role; video evidence and accountability
• 08:17–10:45: — ICE as a political weapon, escalation against Minneapolis, and congressional/state backlash
• 13:57–15:38: — Congressional and state-level reform efforts, legislative challenges
• 16:12–22:29: — Foreign policy shocks: Venezuela and Greenland; Trump’s radicalism on the world stage
• 24:52–27:59: — Authoritarian acceleration, self-radicalizing movement, template for new GOP leaders
• 29:00–30:18: — Epstein files release controversy and legal impasses
• 32:08–33:53: — Trump’s pardon power and the collapse of justice norms
• 36:39–39:08: — Anecdotes of public protest, grassroots outrage, and societal sentiment

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Conclusion

Kristol and Stein ultimately agree the Renee Good killing marks a deeply clarifying, if not singular, flashpoint: exposing the administration’s authoritarian acceleration and the urgency for both institutional and public pushback. While the response from officials is deeply concerning, the unexpected outpouring of grassroots protest offers a glimmer that political and civic opposition may yet form a meaningful check on the status quo. The episode concludes on a wary but attentive note, highlighting that the events of this week underscore just how radical and dangerous the current trajectory of American governance has become.

Transcript

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[Bill Kristol]

No purchase necessary. VGW Group void where prohibited by law. 21/ Terms and Conditions apply. Hi there. Bill Kristol here. This is Bulwark on Sunday, and I'm very pleased to be joined by Sam Stein, my friend and colleague, to discuss the events of this week. I mean, I didn't even know where to begin. We were trying to decide what ordered it. What is the most important event of the week? I don't know. Minneapolis, do you think? Think?

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

So you've been following that one pretty closely, discussing it and editing copy on it and so forth. Where do you. I mean, let's. I guess, less the event itself. Tim Miller and others have covered that quite a lot. You did with Tim. And what about the pol. Political effect of it? Was this a big moment? I guess is the way to put it. This terrible killing of. Of Renee Good.

[Sam Stein]

I think so. I'm also, I, you know, I'm very cognizant of the fact that you and I on this very program at various points probably have said things are big moments and you know, they feel big in the moment, and then you move on to another big moment. But I think at its core, this is not just like sort of a political moment. It's a really, it's a moment of morality. It's a moment about our news industry, about how we consume information, how we process it, the extent to which we're willing to justify clearly cruel things. It's been, it's been the type of moment that's kind of exposed people in, in ways I think that not every political moment does. I've seen a lot of stuff online that just, you know, and, and I, I, I'm not, you know, I don't want to be too precious about it, but I've seen a lot of stuff online from people that I, I, it just kind of is shocking the degree to which they've rationalized and justified the state killing of people. And look, I, I, I, again, I, I don't want to overstate it because I know there's going to be another moment in a couple days or weeks or whatever, but this one is very clarifying for me for sure.

[Bill Kristol]

No, I think that's well said and I think I'm struck with that too. I think Andrew Egger had a very good piece in Morning Shots, really written quickly after, for the next morning, really pointing out the immediate lying and sustained lying and shameless lying from the very top of the Trump administration, obviously, and then picked up by everyone. And it was clearly that was a prearranged, so to speak, strategy, right, that they were going to go out early and blame the victim. And ICE did nothing wrong. It was not even a pretense of we have to invest what a normal police department would have said, right? We'll investigate. He's suspended on paid leave. We're going to, you know, provide counseling for him because it's pretty traumatic to shoot someone normally, you would think, and kill someone. And you know, we're going to reevaluate perhaps some of the ways we're doing things. Not even a pretense of any, any of that, that, that's, and yeah, and.

[Sam Stein]

It'S, what's been interesting is that, I mean, obviously they have a playbook for this and there's no pretense they, they automatically were going to rush out, accuse this woman of being involved in some sort of nefarious left wing network of disrupting ICE operations, of endangering the ICE officer. Surprised they didn't say she was trend Aragua, because that's usually in the playbook. But then, you know, it's almost what stands out is that, so the subsequent video from this officer comes out and JD Vance and everyone else is like, well, this proves that we were Right. You know, this adds evidence to the fact that we were right. And to me, first of all, didn't. But secondly, implicit in that is that they recognized that there was more evidence to discover that there was another element to the story that would add to their understanding of it. And they didn't hold back from blaming her prior to getting all the evidence. Now they may say, well, everyone else was rushing to conclusions. We should too. No, sorry. You are the authority figures. You run the state. These are ICE agents. You have an obligation to hold back and to, to investigate and to be sober minded and honest about what happened. That's your job. And they were admitting in that moment that they rushed to judgment and of course, they would find whatever else came out to confirm their priors. But whatever that, that, that stood out to me. The other thing that stood out to me, I was talking about this the other night with a friend. Why was he, why was the officer filming this thing? I mean, why was he filming this thing under. No, I, I don't know what protocols are, but I have to imagine that one of the protocols is to not have one of your hands tied up on a camera. And he was filming this thing with one hand, drew a gun with another. And to me, that is just an abhorrent, irresponsible way to go about this. And again, I come back to this. These are the authority figures. These are the people who are making money through taxpayer funds. These are people who ostensibly have entrusted to enforce our immigration laws. They have a different obligation, along with the political leadership to handle situations like this. And they are failing to meet that obligation. They, it may be secondary to the loss of life, which is tragic, obviously, but it's really troubling to see the people who you entrust as authority figures act in this manner. And I think that's, to me, why this is such an important moment and such a clarifying one too.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I mean, it's so easy to say, look, we're assembling all the data. We should not rush to judgment. We have confidence that our ICE agents, you know, find people, they're doing their best. But we also look, as we would always review any incident like this. It wouldn't be very hard to be sort of proud ICE and defend your people, so to speak, at some general level. Police departments do this all the time and, and just say nothing about the victim. They don't know anything about her. But instead the immediate domestic terrorists and the lying about the, the car and all that, it really. And they were first, incidentally, it Wasn't as if there was a huge firestorm on the left and they came out an hour later. They were literally the first ones out. I think people were mostly just shocked by what they had seen. So anyway, the. I do wonder, I think the ice that all the other videos, some of them older, that people are sort of rediscovering, so to speak, that show this kind of behavior, luckily not usually leading in loss of life, but leading in pretty serious places. And some of them even contemporaneous and some of them even after, and some of them even in Minneapolis itself. And that's the other thing. Something like this happens. Don't you say, you know what, we're going to just stand down for 48 hours here in Minneapolis and just make sure there's no, you know, we're not going to make things worse. We're not going to heighten tensions. We're not going to, God forbid, have something else go wrong somewhere that is just a totally normal thing to do. Right. And they did the opposite. We're sending 200 more people in and we're doing grades on a high school. I don't know what it was some school that afternoon, I think. And it's, you know, really. I mean, the degree which they. Yeah, they're not behaving like normal law. Normal supervisors of a law enforcement agency.

[Sam Stein]

Well, I think it gets back to the reason why they rushed out their statement from Christian McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson. It came before any video serviced online. It's because they don't view this as a law enforcement operation. They view this as a political operation. And they're going to go in and they're going to dismantle. You know, dismantle is a tough word and wrong word, but they're going to go in and they're going to disrupt communities. They're going to go after minority communities in Minnesota. They have this pretext of the. The fraud investigations that were happening have been happening for years. But they, you know, they, they created a great pretext. There's legitimate fraud, but they've hyped it up to an extreme. And so now it's not just DHS that's descending on the state and, you know, thousand more ICE agents even after this. Renee, Good shooting and killing. They're, you know, attempting to withhold small business funds, attempting to withhold school. School food assistance, sorry, food assistance and school food assistance, and they're attempting to hold daycare funds. And it's a. It's a wholesale attack on an American city. I mean, that's what it is. Under the pretext of, well, we can't let our tax dollars be wasted on fraud. And it's really, it's, it's surprising to see to the degree that it's happening, just how blatant it is. I mean, they're not even, you know, they're, they're dressing it up in the most flimsy, flimsy of ways. But it, it, you know, many, Manyapolis is really under siege right now.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. I mean, ICE is not responsible for investigating fraud. You know, there are many parts of the federal court. No, I'm not driving. There are many parts. It's true. That appropriate to say we're sending 50 special, you know, investigators we have at HHS, you know, HHS or elsewhere in the federal Department of Justice to go look at what was going on there. We want to supplement the state's efforts. So it's a totally ridiculous pretext. But just on the politics of it, finally, I do think ICE was already unpopular. I think the immigration issue politically, which obviously helped Trump quite a lot in 2024 and where he has support on the border was, was, had gradually been moving against him, partly because the, the, the, you know, the, the face of it was not enforcing the border, closing the, you know, an open border. It was just ICE raids that were often cruel and seemed unnecessary and violent and so forth in major cities. This certainly some, I, I think is an exclamation point. I mean, putting it. It's a sad one, Obvious, very tragic one. Yeah, on that. So I do wonder where this goes. I mean, I, I just feel like, I don't know.

[Sam Stein]

We have a newsletter coming out tonight on that. I mean, this is what Lauren Egan and Adrian Kirschel have written about, which is, you know, the sort of backlash politics to ice. Not everyone is in the Bill Crystal radicalized camp of abolish ice. I will say more people are getting there. They're finding their way to Bill. But it is, it is a place where people are actually getting more comfortable. I guess the.

[Bill Kristol]

So, well, or at least, I mean, the apologize things a little bit, but at least radically reform seek, get serious about congressional oversight. And so that also changed dhs, which seems like an unbelievable.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I think we should noodle on this, though, because I forget where JBL is at. But I mean, if, if you believe that ICE has been turned into sort of a, you know, Gestapo, like, you know, institution that's there to enforce MAGA politics and you're a Democrat and, and, you know, your party gets elected to the White House. I mean, can you. I guess the question is, what? Can you actually reform that institution? I mean, what, what kind of like, it would have to be like a very serious purging. Right? Like, that's. If you believe that, if you believe that it's just, you know, it's all about the sort of who's giving directives, then maybe you can figure out a way to keep it intact. But, you know, there's other, there's other big issues here. It's, you know, congressional oversight. Can you actually enforce any of this? Because these people don't talk to the Hill. There is a huge funding battle coming up at the end of January. There's not much of an appetite to shut down the government again, especially if they resolve this Obamacare subsidy issue, which it may actually get resolved. We'll see. But there's now a real movement to say no, absent, you know, some serious reforms and restraints on ICE and the Border Patrol, we should not fund the government. And I, I'm not totally sure if Democratic leadership is eager for that one because of the scars of 2024, but these instances that are happening are creating much more appetite for it. And I mean, look, the polling numbers aren't lying. He has seen a drop in terms of the public trust for him. Still one of his better issues, but it's definitely declined since its heights.

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[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, to go negative on that issue of all ones that's bad for Trump. But no, I do, I personally think the Democrats in Congress, they need to introduce legis of what a serious reform of ICE would look like for now, let me put this way, a serious form of dhs. It might involve just getting rid of ice, but removing the parts of it that have to remain. They still have to deport, you know, criminal aliens who have committed crimes and have someone to pick them up when they're released from prison and put them on a plane to wherever that was done under Obama, under Biden, under everyone. That's not a, that controversial part of it, but that they have to give a sense of trying to do it now, I think partly for the politics and partly to show what they would sort of do in the alternative. I mean, I think otherwise people like me are going to honestly are going to tweet, abolish ice. And I think we're making a point when we do that and try to get people to think hard about it. But there needs to be, I guess Chris Murphy's working on legislation on that and I think it's a pretty big. Whether they will have the nerve to shut down the government or whether they should, I don't know. That's a whole different issue. But they are, I think I tweeted this yesterday or two days ago. I would have trouble voting for an appropriations bill that appropriated funds blindly and without any restrictions to the current DHS and ice. Just as a person, as a, you know, I would find that very difficult to.

[Sam Stein]

What's the crazy. The horses out of the barn on that one?

[Bill Kristol]

You know, it isn't, it isn't.

[Sam Stein]

Well, of course it didn't give them that it appropriate.

[Bill Kristol]

Those appropriations could be reversed tomorrow.

[Sam Stein]

So you want, you want to, you say don't author the things that we authorize. We are not going to appropriate.

[Bill Kristol]

They didn't authorize anything. They just gave a blank check to them and they can now say, you know, that blank check we're giving a, we're withdrawing some of it or B, we're withdrawing it unless you institute the following.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, I think that's no.

[Bill Kristol]

Funds can be used for mask to agents, period. You know, I mean, it's not that hard.

[Sam Stein]

I mean I, my theory on this is that a lot more action is actually going to happen on the state level probably first California, I think passed some bill that said you can't wear masks. I, I would be very surprised if other Democratic states didn't follow up on that. You, I mean that's just like such a Basic.

[Bill Kristol]

But I think on that, the. I mean, they're going to try. I think there's a lot genuine issues of whether states can restrict federal law enforcement that way. I mean, it is, I suppose, Congress, war anyway. But I agree there'll be state stuff, too. This will be a big issue to follow in the next week for sure. Meanwhile, we have Venezuela. It's hard to believe that was literally. That was a week ago, right?

[Sam Stein]

I cannot believe that.

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, it sounds like that was like two. Is that right? That's after January a little bit. Saturday, it was Saturday morning, 11am so we're speaking Sunday morning at 9am so it was eight days ago.

[Sam Stein]

And, and now foreign leader eight days.

[Bill Kristol]

Ago, it's like, right. And then betrayed the Democratic opposition and they're going to take all the oil and then we're. And, but we're going right after green now Trump is, you know, giving interviews where we're going to do Greenland, either the easy way or the hard way. And the place that was just even, what, two months ago, kind of a joke about the Greenland thing. Now the Europeans are having kind of emergency sessions about it, as they should. I mean, unbelievable. I mean, I don't know that also you had the instinct of Venezuela was a big moment with the caveat that all these things are. We think all these things are big moments and sometimes they aren't. And I think that, you know, not so much Venezuela itself, but what it showed about Trump's willingness to go through with some of these threats on the foreign stage.

[Sam Stein]

You know, so I was, maybe I was just crazy, but I just assumed that, you know, sneaking in and snatching a foreign leader and then saying, you're going to occupy a country and run it through the military and extract its oil and keep it for yourself and then keep on, you know, embargoing everything and killing people in the Caribbean. I thought that would be big.

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I don't know.

[Sam Stein]

But apparently not. No, it's a big deal. And a couple things that have really emerged over the past few days since the, since we got Maduro out is one a real reluctance by the oil companies to go in there. I thought it was an incredibly telling moment when the CEO of Exxon @ the White House in front of Trump, so he knows he needs to butter this man up. This is our President King here, and he says the conditions are not right to go into Venezuela right now. Now, he did say, I assume that the Trump administration will get them to a good place. But he just said in front of him, we're not going in. And if he's not going in, who is? I mean, the smaller oil shops that are willing to take more risks. So that was one. And then obviously the other stuff that's happening with Machado, the, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who is apparently willing to relinquish her Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump in some sort of effort to get him to like Packer politically. A shocking crass. I can't even describe, like, how ridiculous the idea is that he would take her Nobel Peace Prize. Pretty egotistical. And then on top of that, you have this, you know, continued kind of neo imperialism from the administration where it's just like, we're gonna do whatever we want. The Greenland stuff is. The Venezuela stuff. It is, it's the same genre. It's Donald Trump basically saying, I'm going to do what I want on the world stage. I don't care what type of, what type of, you know, residual impacts happen here. I don't care if the world unites against America. I don't care if there are, you know, trade deals being cut where the United States is even party to them. I don't care if I destroy NATO. And we are just sort of like, everyone, I think, is just sort of holding their breath, being like, is he serious? Is this going to happen? And if so, what happens in reaction to it? I mean, that's. I'm just.

[Bill Kristol]

Waiting. No, no. Well, we all.

[Sam Stein]

Are. We'll.

[Bill Kristol]

See. Rubio, I guess, is meeting with the Danish foreign minister this week. A lot of stuff seems to be happening behind the scenes. I mean, Greenland's stepped beyond, I think your degree because, I mean, a, there's no Maduro was under federal indictment order, the Panama precedent. And Venezuela was a terrible place. And many people didn't register, didn't hadn't recognized. Many nations hadn't recognized the legitimacy of that government after they stole the 24 election. 2024 election. None of that obtains, obviously, with Greenland or Denmark and NATO ally. So the degree of sort of neo imperialism is. It's actually beyond imperialism. We didn't, most imperial countries didn't go attacking friends. They attacked unoccupied places that were just easy to exploit and weren't either friends or enemies. Or they attacked, went to places that were sort of controlled by hostile powers to some degree. And so the Greenland thing is really, it will destroy NATO and it already is, honestly. And I don't think this is one where I do not think general officers will obey that command. Well, it's, I mean, whatever the Case with Venezuela and the lack of congressional authorization, which I think is. Was a huge problem. Indeed, the majority of the Senate now agrees with that. I do not believe that. I mean, how can you go to war with Greenland and it'll ally or land troops there without the permission of Denmark, without congressional authorization? I mean. And so, yeah, I don't believe the Joint Chiefs will do it. I mean, I think there's a couple massive resignations from the general.

[Sam Stein]

Office. Yeah, there were, there were a few. There were a few. I'm, I'm forgetting it was a couple British publications like the Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

[Bill Kristol]

Mail. So, yeah, caveat. Yes.

[Sam Stein]

Caveat. I'm taking my salt shakers here. But the implication was that there was angst in the military over the decision to draft these plans for an invasion. And then the other one, I forget which one it was, was talking about what might happen if. Within Europe, if they.

[Bill Kristol]

Were. That was the Telegraph. Yeah, that was.

[Sam Stein]

Interesting. Yeah. And, and you know, we're talking about sanctions in the US Potentially getting rid of US bases and forcing the closure of US bases in certain European countries. I mean, what are we doing? What is the value? When you look at the ledger and you get the. You sort of add up as this, you know, worth it versus what are the causes. It's like mind boggling to me.

[Bill Kristol]

But. Yeah, but remember, I mean, jd. Jd Vance thinks NATO is a negative. It's not like he's. Trump hasn't thought as much about it. But the Vance wing of the maga and a lot, I think not, not just that, gee, we might be damaging something worthwhile like NATO. It's the whole thing. NATO's a part of liberal globalism and we need to get beyond that. So I think it. No, but I think it really shows how radical. I guess in both cases, I guess the way with ice and Venezuela slash Greenland. What strikes me, and I'd be curious on your thoughts of this is it's. I mean, I think it's been a certain assumption, not really on the part of most of us at the Bulwark, but I think in the world, including liberal world, that we've maybe we've seen the worst. There's always going to be kind of a reversion to the mean. He's becoming less popular. There's more pushback, which is true. And which maybe, you know, things may sort of stabilize. Not stabilize a good place, but stabilize in the sense of like, you know, we're kind of fighting on this level area. Some of us have thought that this, it looks that was possible but in fact the self radicalizing character of author authoritarian movements is also a thing and. Oh yes. And here we're just seeing it in spades, don't you think? I'm really struck by that. The degree to which they are doing things that, that their friends didn't think they would have done two months.

[Sam Stein]

Ago. Yeah, yeah, 100%. We kind of are grasping for explanations for. Our buddy Andrew Egger had an interesting theory that he's kind of, he's got this 35 base that's gonna just be with him no matter what. And the issue with that is that it convinces him he can do insane radical things like, you know, invade Greenland and that these people will just say sure, great, awesome. And so that gives him this kind of, this feeling of Megalomania. Yeah, megalomania. You also have the element here which is that I assume he's not running for re election for a third term. But even if he were, but let's just assume he knows he can't get a third term in office and you know, he's sort of bored with. He doesn't care for legislating anyway. So he does things that he wants to do. And that's like from the, from the extreme which is potentially invading Greenland and you know, sinking ice on an American city to like the surreal which is I'm gonna actually revamp all of Washington D.C. 's public golf courses because I want to do it. And it's like, well no, you can't. Like, I mean, so you're dealing with a lot of like either sort of like megalomania or boredom or invincibility and he's just having at it. But of course, you know, again I come back to. It's not like this happens in a vacuum. So Catherine Rampel and was in, in our internal section. I mean she flagged this story about the European Union having this landmark trade deal with South America. I mean things are happening outside of the United States now. I mean there are people, no country can reasonably trust what we're doing from a diplomatic or economic perspective. I mean if you're invest, if you want to invest in America, you can't do it because you don't know what the issue is going to be with tariffs. If you want to study in America, you can't do it because you don't know what's going on with student visas. Right. I mean like there, there's so much uncertainty happening here because of.

[Bill Kristol]

His. And I would say because of him and because the Administration over which he's presiding and which he put they put together is so much more radical. I mean it's obviously totally incomparable to the first. The first term was a bunch of speed bumps and guardrails, not all of which held but some of which did which generally made it harder for him to do stuff that either he thought he should do or that he had would have lunch with Tucker Carlson and Tucker Carlson thought he should do or whatever or his more radical followers thought he should do. We're in the opposite sit now where the accelerationism I actually think is probably coming a little bit from below. And Trump thinks well I want to be emperor of the world. So that sounds great. I'm going to do it until someone stops me. And no one's really stopped him yet. And so I'm just. He loves being a bully and so forth. But I think one can't overestimate how important that sort of accelerationism is. People focus on Stephen Miller. I did too in the newsletter and that's appropriate. He's, he is probably the most powerful person in the administration right now. Not a trivial thing. But there are Stephen Millers and Stephen Miller, you know, three quarter Stephen Millers and, and 125% Stephen Millers in some cases true lunatics. All the way down. Not all the way. Well, all the way down, yes. At the second and third tier. Right. We've written about many of these people, different toys and the degree to which that just means everything is pushing in that direction. I mean I was in the Reagan administration in a much less not a central area education where but you know, there the tip that was the typical dynamic I'd say it's true even of Obama and others which is it has sort of ideologues including in some cases the president himself who wanted to kind of push further. And a lot of people say well that's these two things that we can try to do but this one is too much and the political, the politics won't support this and this one the lawyers are going to tell us you can't do. That's the kind of normal dynamic of a movement being in power, getting changing things quite a lot but being checked in certain respects. We have the opposite dynamic now which is more like what happens in authoritarian countries which is the movement, the movement places its people in who are self radicalizing and talk only live in a bubble and then that pushes you further. They get away with one thing. It's like well let's just do the next thing I Mean, that really is the history of this. So anyway, I think it.

[Sam Stein]

Did. Let me just pick up very quickly on that because I think it's really a smart insight which is very young operative in Republican politics or, you know, even a young lawmaker in Republican politics. There's only one template that you know of that works, which is to be a Stephen Miller or to be a J.D. vance and change your colors or to be a Donald Trump and be a pugnacious bully. And if you look at what happened to their career, Stephen Miller started as a sort of Jeff Sessions staffer, kind of a backbencher in the Senate who would call reporters at night and, you know, talk to him about how horrible immigrants were, but no one took them too seriously. He was just this crazed guy. And now he's the most powerful lead in Republican politics. You look at that and you say, that's the career I want. I'm going to do exactly what he did. You look at J.D. vance, who went from writing hillbilly elegy and being on cable news to just basically trading in his character for something maga ish and now he's vice president and likely to be the presidential candidate. You look at that, you say, that's the template I need to follow. And so this has a way of compounding. It creates another generation of Republicans who are just going to emulate what they did because that's the path to more.

[Bill Kristol]

Power. No, that's, that's, that's well said, though.

[Sam Stein]

Depressing.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. The Epstein, which I guess doesn't. Well, I was gonna say it's.

[Sam Stein]

Not. Doesn't seem, that seems crazy, man. We.

[Bill Kristol]

Got. What about that? I mean, let's talk about. I mean, I'm just gonna say we. The first. Okay. The bill got passed inside, the deadline got hit. They released stuff in two tranches. There was, there were, there were issues with the way they released it. There were redactions. They lied about issues.

[Sam Stein]

Releasing. They released all the Bill Clinton stuff.

[Bill Kristol]

Yes. But still we. I think the conventional wisdom on December 24th, I think the second release was like the 23rd or something like that would be okay. I guess each week they're going to dribble it out. They're going to be jerks about it. But each week we're going to see more. I mean, they seem to be on that path. Zero since then and no prospect that anything's coming. I mean, I, I really think I said this. I remember back in December even I thought I was being a little extreme at some point. They're Just going to say, forget it, we're not releasing anymore. You know, they're not going to.

[Sam Stein]

Pretend. Have they not gotten to that point.

[Bill Kristol]

Yet? What do you think? I mean, tell me, what do you.

[Sam Stein]

Think? I woke up the other day and I was just like, when's the last time they put out any Epstein files? It's not that they don't have.

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[Sam Stein]

They. They've claimed that they have hundreds of lawyers working on getting them redacted. Are they making zero progress? Are they going one document a day? Like, to me, it was just. I. So I was like, wait a second. They just basically stopped releasing these documents that they're legally required to release, even though they've already said they've got hundreds of lawyers working on this and they found, they found a million more documents at the sdny. It is shocking. I mean, genuinely shocking. And they went from saying, well, we're going to get to this deadline to, well, it's a lot to get to. We need a little more time to, oh my God, we discovered a lot to, hey, stop talking about it. We're working. Like, leave us alone. And we're just supposed to sit back and be like, okay, I don't know, you know better than I do. What's the remedy here? I mean, I guess Ro, Khanna and Massey are probably working on something, some contempt, but they have the Justice Department's involved in any contempt of Congress stuff. So what's the actual remedy.

[Bill Kristol]

Here? There are ways Congress can help people contempt without the just word. They go into a civil court, apparently going to a court, a federal judge, to try to get order. But it's hard. I mean, unless again, you're willing to threaten cutting off funds for parts of the government and so.

[Sam Stein]

Forth. I think, you know, they're just blatantly ignoring a law. I mean, that is what they're doing.

[Bill Kristol]

Right? Right.

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[Bill Kristol]

At the beginning was more like it's going to take us longer than we thought. Now it's basically forget it. And you put that together with what's happening some of these other areas and I come back to the ice thing which we began with and maybe we should close with. I just, I see the videos of these people behaving this way. It's so obviously been told the should behave this way or at least they can behave this way. I mean the, the degree of, of, of, of just relishing the bullying and 12 of them with this combat gear and mask surrounding a, I don't know, you know, a 40 year old woman in the case of, of, of Renee Goode. But that's typically, you know, shouting anyone, a family, someone in a, in a Honda, you know, where they're taking their kids somewhere and, and, and bullying and intimidating. It's really grotesque that that's happening. And, and they are not, there's not even an element of we want to be careful not to have this, not to do this.

[Sam Stein]

Right. Well, and also now we're going really full circle because we've talked about this in the past. But you know, hanging over all of this is Donald Trump's pardon power. I mean, he has the ultimate ability to, you know, commute or take away someone's sentence and basically clean their record. And it would be the, it would be an incredible irony, but also not entirely unpredictable if towards the end of his term he issued a blanket pardon for everyone who was involved in a nice operation. Right. You start the term, you start your term by pardoning all the rioters who attacked the cops. You end the term by pardoning all the cops who attacked the protesters. And that. I, I mean I, I would actually put some money on that happening. It's just we, we kind of the semblance of a Justice Department or justice system, I should say, has really, really gone by the wayside. The only thing that's kind of still there are these district judges who occasionally slap down the administration. Like for instance, we had a ruling that said they cannot in fact just cut off child care funding for five blue states. But that's like the smallest of right of, of things to feel hopeful about, because the actual system of justice in this country, incredibly perverted. And it's become perverted because Donald Trump has basically said, you know what? I'm going to go out of my way to help people who I like. I'm going to give them pardons, I'm going to give them preferential treatment, I'm going to stop prosecutions of them, and I'm going to go out of my way to use the Justice Department to go after my enemies, and not just the Justice Department, but as, you know, ICE and other agencies and just sick them on.

[Bill Kristol]

Them. So, yeah, and I mean, you and I discussed them with that night of January 20th, I think we both remember they did a whole bunch of things, got inaugurated to give a speech. He did a lot of executive orders in the afternoon. And then the January 6th thing was sort of pending where people weren't sure how broad it would be. Remember, he, maybe he wouldn't pardon the most violent people. Come on across the board that evening. And I think we talked about it that even. I know we did. And I think I wrote about it the next morning. And you edited it for morning shots. I mean, that this is the January 6th administration. And that did turn out to be really profoundly indicative, I guess, of where they were going, which is, forget it. You know, we're rewarding our friends and not just rewarding, you know, the people who beat up cops for us. And now.

[Sam Stein]

They'Re. And that's really come home to this week for me. It's like this whole notion. And you see people like Megan Kelly and other commenters being like, well, of course this officer had a right to shoot this woman in her face because he feared for his life because she was attacking him with her car. And I, and I want to be like, do you hear yourself? Because everything you're saying right now could be applied to any Capitol police officer on January.

[Bill Kristol]

6Th.

[Sam Stein]

Right. I mean, they were being, you know, objects thrown on the, being whacked with flagpoles. You know, people having their eyes gorged out. They had doors being closed in them. They legitimately have said in, on the Record in, in congressional hearings that they feared for their lives. Would they be comfortable if they just got up and started, you know, shooting wildly at the J6 riders? Of course not. We'd find the.

[Bill Kristol]

Grotesque. And one police officer did shoot after repeated warnings when this rioter.

[Sam Stein]

Really. And it was, it was very. And, and I didn't, I mean, like, look, I, that was horrifying to see someone.

[Bill Kristol]

Shot. Yes. And that became a massive issue on, on the mega. Right. And, and now it's. Yeah, now it's. Of course it's no problem. They.

[Sam Stein]

Don'T. But they. In the inability. It's either they willingly just ignore the contradiction or they aren't able to see it, but either way it's pretty shocking to me to watch it.

[Bill Kristol]

Happen. It's not a. I mean, you know, it's not a contradiction if your view of politics is friends and enemies.

[Sam Stein]

And.

[Bill Kristol]

Right. You know, anything goes for your friends and nothing goes for your enemies. I mean, so that's where we. I'm afraid we are. I really, this week has been around. It's been a, it's been a big week in that. I don't mean this in some fossil way, but in a serious way. I mean, in the sense of we began the SEC this year and everything that's happened is just for me confirmed how radical the threat is. Go ahead.

[Sam Stein]

Please. Blowing very anecdotal. This is like a classically DC observation, so, you know, people can make fun of it for whatever. My, My family and I took a drive out to Shenandoah yesterday because we're, we're going to go get a puppy. Our dog died a couple months ago. We're getting a new one. I wanted to.

[Bill Kristol]

Wait. I was read. What breed are you.

[Sam Stein]

Getting? We had a beagle. I will never do a beagle again. We're going to go with a labradoodle, which is. Oh, that's fashionable now. And very.

[Bill Kristol]

Cute. Very.

[Sam Stein]

Fashionable. And we're driving into Shenandoah. It's raining. It was horribly raining yesterday. We pull off on this small town to get to sort of farmland and on the corner of the highway in this pouring rain are like 50 people just with anti ice signs, bullhorns, Renee Good. Remember her name, that type of thing. And this is a really small town. This is just like, you know, I'm sure it's just like a thousand people maybe. And they stood there in this really cold rain on the sidewalk right near the overpass and they were just waiting. And you know, I, I don't know, it didn't strike me as a particular. I have to look up the voting didn't strike me as a particular liberal bastion of Virginia. But the fact that they came out and the fact that they decided like they had had enough and that they were willing to just stand there for no reason, it wasn't, it wasn't like an epicenter of political activity, but they just needed to express themselves to me at least on an anecdote level that seemed to signify something, that people are really disturbed by this stuff. Enough to come out in the rain and do.

[Bill Kristol]

That? Yeah. No, that's interesting. And I think there were pretty, lots of demonstrations. There was pouring in this area. I was thinking myself of going this way was one nearby in Tyson's Corner. And I just honestly should have go. But it was, it was, I.

[Sam Stein]

Think it was horrible.

[Bill Kristol]

Weather. Yeah. And I also said to myself, as you just said, I mean it's, you know, it's not like you're protesting outside of some ICE headquarters where it makes a certain amount of sense. You're protesting randomly outside a shopping center, you.

[Sam Stein]

Know.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. I went of course to the no Kings thing, but I figure I, I was, I'm in touch a little bit with some of the organizers. They were pretty surprised. This was totally spontaneous. That is Renee Good was shot on Thursday. Right. So this was a very fast. You know, this was not organized by anyone, frankly. They did have a website where you could like look as I did to see what's the nearest demonstration. But yeah, I wonder. I do think a lot of that is now.

[Sam Stein]

Spontaneous. A lot of people are disturbed by this, I think in a way that I think the political conversation sort of ignores. I mean, obviously everyone's on their sides and you know, DHS running out and doing their whole thing and. But I think normies frankly look at this and say that's messed up. Like you can't just shoot a woman in her face like that because you feel endangered. And also, he didn't really look.

[Bill Kristol]

Endangered. And as he's, as he's taking.

[Sam Stein]

As he's taking photos with your cell phone camera, you gotta catch this. You know, it's like if he felt endangered, don't step in front of the car, have your camera out. You know, things like.

[Bill Kristol]

That. Ten other ICE agents around. And this is not a cop who's alone in a terrible neighborhood where he's getting surrounded by possible criminals with guns. Right. I mean.

[Sam Stein]

That'S. And the other thing that when J.D. vance got up there, he's like this guy, this guy, you know, three months ago was dragged by a car and he has 300 stitches or something like 30 stitches on his leg because of that. Of course he's going to be trigger happy being out there. And I'm thinking, well, why put him out there if you know he had this trauma and you realize he's trigger happy? What the hell are you doing? You don't lack for ICE agents. Like, you can find someone else, put them on the desk. Like, why would you put him back out there? That's not a defense. That's an indictment of the decision at ice. So I think these guys are a little bit high on their own supply when it comes to this.

[Bill Kristol]

Stuff. Yeah, I think so. And let's see what happens. I mean, it's. It's. Anyway, heck of a start to the year. Depressing one, but important. And thank you, Sam, for taking the time Sunday morning to join me here. Go off with your family and we will. I will see you tomorrow.

[Sam Stein]

Morning. Take.

[Bill Kristol]

Care.