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Bulwark Takes
Morning Shots: Trump Embarrasses America at NATO Summit; Platner Mess Continues
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- [00:00]
Ben Parker
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- [00:46]
Bill Kristol
No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month
- [00:50]
Ben Parker
with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with code space80@talk space.com hi, I'm Ben Parker from the Bulwarks, sitting in for the vacationing Andrew Egger. This is Morning Shots live on the Bulwark Takes channel and I am joined by the inestimable Bill Crystal. Bill, thanks for joining me.
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Bill Kristol
Welcome. Inestimable, that's good. I'm not usually called that. I don't quite know what it means. That strikes me as slightly double edged, but I'm not going to, you know, below estimation or above estimation.
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Ben Parker
Hard to know, impossible to estimate. It can only be directly measured, I guess.
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Bill Kristol
Okay. Okay. Anyway, great to be with you and thank you for everything you've done over the two years, two and a half years, I guess since I've been involved in Morning Shots and you've been key, a key player. And we miss Andrew, of course, but he will return, we think, for the Midwest. Most people return for the Midwest, right? The wilds of the Midwest. It's not. You don't go there and they just disappear. Hopefully.
- [01:46]
Ben Parker
Hopefully. But yeah, we've gotten dark really fast, so let's keep it there. Let's. We got it. We have to talk about the NATO summit that's happening right now. President Trump is in Ankara, Turkey, meeting with the European leaders, the NATO leaders. Also Volodymyr Zelensky is there and his first meeting was with maybe at this point the most objectionable leader of a NATO country, the host, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who is exactly the kind of guy you'd think Trump would like in some ways because he is more and more dictatorial, more and more liberal, cracking down on opposition, but also maybe not the kind of guy you'd think Trump would like, because he is more and more sort of quasi Islamist and leaning into that part of Turkish national identity to prop up his power. It's, you know, another, another episode that we've become used to of President Trump going abroad and embarrassing us. Isn't it great?
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Bill Kristol
Yeah. I mean, he's the host, so it's not. Any American president would meet with him. And I suppose the decision to have the NATO summit in Turkey wasn't a Trump influence decision, to be fair to Trump here. But, you know, good. But I think a lot of Trump supporters would be put off by Erdogan because he's not very friendly to Israel, certainly compared to earlier Turkish governments, which were. And Islamist adjacent, if not fully Islamist. And in that respect, you know, friends of a lot of people who are involved in anti Western terror. And so, on the one hand, Trump shouldn't like Erdogan. On the other hand, Trump, that never really, when you think about Trump, Trump likes dictators. Yeah, Trump, that trumps everything else, so to speak. He's more simple about this. He likes dictators, he likes people he can do business with, he likes the kleptocracy side of things, which Erdogan is certainly involved in. And so it is, it's revealing, isn't it, that for him is. I mean, so many of his supporters would get all prickly about Erdogan's Islamism. But that's not really where Trump is.
- [03:45]
Ben Parker
No, Trump likes being a member of the club and he likes doing favors for people who are also members of the dictators club, like Putin. Like when he exchanged love letters with Kim Jong Un, he said that Egypt Sisi was his favorite dictator. And he did.
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Pete Hagg
He did.
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Ben Parker
Of course, you're right. You know, he has to meet with the head of the country as hosting the NATO summit. Turkey's an important NATO ally, even if they're sort of a quasi ally. Excuse me. But he did, he did do a couple things that were embarrassing right off the bat in this meeting with Erdogan. One is Turkey. At the same time that they were trying to buy advanced American F35 stealth fighter jets, also decided to buy Russian air defense systems, which you can imagine that would be a problem if you're figuring out how to shoot down American jets with your Russian air defense systems and the Russians come along and say, hey, could you tell us like, yikes. But Trump said that he might consider selling F35 jets to Turkey, even though I believe that is against the law. He just said, ah, maybe we'll do it. We'll see. We're going to look at it very strongly. And he also said this about taking sanctions off Turkey.
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Pete Hagg
I can tell you, we're going to be taking the sanctions off. Okay. I don't want him to waste his time answering that question because we're working very closely with Marco Rubio, very famous man, great Secretary of State, and with Scott Bessant and with Pete and everybody else. We're going to be taking the sanctions off. It's time to do that. Okay.
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Ben Parker
We don't want to believe the reason Turkey is under sanctions is for their human rights abuses and political repression. But, you know, Trump doesn't care, right?
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Bill Kristol
No, you know, and it's just getting. Following up on that earlier discussion or just thinking a little more about it. I mean, Qatar is not a country that many of Trump's supporters are very keen on. Also not a, you know, the host Hamas, last I looked. I mean, so, you know, and so, you know, again, very mixed, say, put a kindly mixed record on human rights, but also on terror sponsorship and adjacent sponsors, adjacency to sponsorship and so forth. And yeah, Trump loves them because they gave him the plane. So, yeah, the sanctions go off. Sanctions seem to going off everywhere. The Iran sanctions are suspended, at least some of them. They're not long for this world, pretty obviously. Right.
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Ben Parker
And so we allowed Russia to sell oil, whereas previously we had.
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Bill Kristol
Right, right. So I mean, really, the degree to which Trump does these things that are embarrassing to us because we actually have a traditional, if you want to put it that way, view of the US's role in the world, which involves A, leadership and B, leading in a direction of, towards freedom and democracy and opposing, supporting our friends and opposing our enemies. Trump doesn't find any of this embarrassing, honestly. That's just not his view of America. I mean, I guess that's one thing I, A lot of our friends kind of keep being surprised and hopeful and the Europeans at least pretend this as well. Right. Hope we can kind of be nice to Trump and keep him on board. And I'm not against that, incidentally. They can keep him on board to some degree and it's probably worth buying a year or two or three more of that from Trump's case. Two and a half years of.
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Ben Parker
For them, certainly less leave less.
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Bill Kristol
Yeah. For them, less objectionable behavior. And maybe for Ukraine and maybe for the world, you know, but, but Having said that, we just shouldn't kid ourselves about, and you and I both written this many times over the last couple of years about Trump and where he is. He's not like, gee, he doesn't quite understand American history or he doesn't quite understand the point of NATO. He doesn't understand that the money isn't, doesn't, isn't a real pot of money and that when they spend less, they're not, they're not taking money from us. And he understands whatever he understands. Who knows what he understands? He doesn't care what he understands. What he cares about is his view of the world, which is a kind of, well, it's mostly just Trumpian narcissism and, and kleptocracy, but, but also to the degree it's anything, it's America first, America as a bully. America getting along led by him getting along with people he can work with easily, which are mostly dictators with no obligations to Democratic other to Democrat, to allies or to democracies.
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Ben Parker
Oh, it goes beyond not having obligations. He's, he's actively hostile. Producer Matt, if we can, if we can start with this Greenland clip, this is the thing that drives our European allies, rightfully makes them the most alarmed and scared. And he keeps on going back to this thing about Greenland.
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Pete Hagg
Well, that's what hurt my relationship with NATO because Greenland doesn't help Denmark. Denmark doesn't spend money to really help Greenland, but it's an important, important part for the United States. And it's surrounded by China ships and Russian ships.
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Ben Parker
China ships.
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Pete Hagg
And that's not going to happen. Russian ships is. It's not going to happen. It was Greenland that in my. And it continues to be, that should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark. And when they wouldn't go along with it and with all the money we spend to help them with Russia and we don't have to spend any money, we could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe because as you probably know.
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Ben Parker
All right, yeah, I think that's, that's enough. He goes on a while about how you're not going to have Europe anymore and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's, it's active hostility to Europe. He really, maybe it's, you know, a sense of Trump has this sort of cultural inferiority. Like he feels like the Europeans are looking down on him, which, frankly, they probably are. But maybe it's the fact that they're sort of free and democratic and have all these rules that they follow and he thinks rules are for suckers. I don't know. What do you think?
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Bill Kristol
And I think his. He is, he's not really a real America firster in the sense that he's also something of an American imperialist in a sort of silly and vulgar way I would say. But he wants to increase the size of the US And Greenland is this big thing that's there that's sort of empty. Ish. And that he vaguely thinks why shouldn't we just take it? I mean they have this total fake justification of Russia and China. I mean, I don't know what, you know, Denmark has never said no to anything we've wanted to do in terms of national security stuff in Greenland or some of which does involve monitoring really I guess Russia keeping the seas open, which so far as I know they are. And so I don't know that we can stop or we want to be in the business of stopping Chinese ships from sailing from traveling around the world. I mean our ships travel around the world and so but we're keeping an eye on them from Greenland and from elsewhere. Anyway, it's all just, it's amazing how many of our friends or erstwhile friends I will say in the hawkish foreign policy community. I was in a discussion a couple of months ago like semi seriously apparenting this stuff about China and Russia, which is just idiotic. You know, I mean if you want to hurt Russia, help Ukraine.
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Ben Parker
Yeah, that's absolutely right.
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Bill Kristol
And, and, and, and that's worth doing on its own. It's own right too obviously. And somehow our friends have decided that Greenland, Greenland's the way we're going to rally. Check or, and also help Taiwan and don't be super friendly to Xi and don't, you know, send signals that we're not going to support allies 10,000 miles away and all that. Our friends 10,000 miles away like Taiwan and none of that. Our friends are willing to put that all on the back burner or our ex friends because, you know, we got to be tough on Greenland. Ridiculous.
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Ben Parker
You know, you raise a couple other points. One, we forgot the some other not exactly sanctions. But you know, speaking of doing favors to dictators, didn't Trump also remove the export controls over the most advanced microchips for China so we can sell them the things they need to overtake us now that's great, thank you for that. And also, you know, you raise an interesting point. When he was talking about quote unquote China ships and Russian ships, I assumed he meant their navies. I does he mean.
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Bill Kristol
Oh, I see.
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Ben Parker
Yeah.
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Bill Kristol
You're probably right. No, but again, I don't know that we can stop their navies from sailing in international waters.
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Ben Parker
I think if we really, I think given what the Ukrainians have done to the Russian Navy, I think if we really wanted to, like, there's not a big problem with us stopping the Russian Navy from sailing whenever, wherever we don't want them to. The Chinese Navy, you know, is not as serious a blue water threat at this point. But anyway, we should, we should move on because this is the, the other thing Trump insists on doing that is bad for America's allies, bad for America's national interests, which is really, I think, what separates us from him is that he has sort of a conception of what's good for him and therefore it must be good for the country. We have a conception of what's good for the country. And as it is, and has been and will be. But, you know, he was talking about how, yeah, we don't really care about Ukraine. It doesn't really matter. We have another clip here.
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Pete Hagg
I would like to see. It doesn't affect us. It's really, you know, it's far away.
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Ben Parker
It's far away.
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Pete Hagg
That's Europe. Much more. We're there to help Europe, but it doesn't affect the United States. We have an ocean in between. But, you know, it's just. I can't stand watching what's happening. I've seen the pictures of those battlefields and it's a drone war. It's a war of drones. It's a whole new technology and we're actually the leader in drones now. We have the most complicated drones, but people wouldn't believe how violent it is. And I've seen the battlefields. They send me pictures. I actually want to say, don't send them to me, Pete. This man right here sends me pictures, is Pete Hagg.
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Ben Parker
Said, must be on signal.
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Pete Hagg
And I said, pete, you know what? Doesn't help to look. I've never seen anything like it. It's carnage and it should stop.
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Ben Parker
You know, Bill, there's an ocean in between us and Europe, which is. Which is why we never had any problem when there was a war in Europe before all the wars in Europe, never a problem for the United States ever in history. You can look it up.
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Bill Kristol
Yeah, we've gotten so used to Trump. I'm glad you're calling that one out because we've gotten so used to him. We sort of just. He says that, he said that many times. And one shrugs one shoulders. It is astonishing that an in 2026 says that no one, no American president since 1941 has said something like that. And actually, I've got to say, even for the preceding 30, 40, 50 years, that we pulled out of to some degree, world politics in Europe in the 20s and weren't that much involved before World War I. Even then, people didn't actually go as far as Trump is now going, right. We had a more muted version of what we should be doing. We didn't have troops there. Obviously there was a different kind of sense of how we might help. But even after, even so, it's really astonishing, kind of what we're going back to it, I don't even think in the 19th century, just while we're getting into the history for a second, serious Americans just cared about what happened in Europe. We didn't have the capacity or, you know, to send troops to fight wars. There wasn't. That wasn't where we were. We were small and still relatively weak country. And the oceans were more formidable barriers than I think for modern technology. But we cared about it. We thought it was important that. So it's really appalling the degree of both political and moral lack of seriousness that Trump has and that he always demonstrates with respect to Ukraine. We shouldn't cease to be appalled by that.
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Ben Parker
I'm doing a very Bill Crystal thing right now and I'm reading, or in the case of the first volume, rereading Churchill's history of World War II. So I'd read the first or at least part of the first book and I put it down years ago and now I'm going back to it and I just got. I'm, I'm right in the middle of the sudeten crisis is 1938. I think I should know that. Where Hitler decides he wants the German speaking parts of Czechoslovakia and Churchill's not in government and the British are basically saying, like, oh, well, you know, there's nothing, there's nothing we can do to stop the Germans from crossing the Czechoslovak border. And Churchill says, like, this can't be your insight. It cannot be that you look at a map and think, well, we're over here and it's over there. Says when great powers are in competition, they're not limited to the particular region where there happens to be the fighting. Right? Like the French army and the British fleet could have a lot of influence on German policy if they wanted to in 1938, they just didn't want to. And it's the same here. Right? The fact that Ukraine is separated geographically from us doesn't mean that we have no levers to pull or no interests there. And Trump just seems, again, intent on not thinking about what's good for the country, but thinking about. You can see it in what he says, thinking about what moves him. Personally, he doesn't care who wins in Ukraine. He probably would actually kind of prefer it if Putin won, but he's probably starting to see that's not really possible. He only cares because he sees pictures and it upsets him, which is a minimal modicum of humanity. But, like, there's no thought behind that. It's just the impulse of emotion, which I guess is what we knew about Trump all along.
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Bill Kristol
And the boasting about America, he likes doing that. We're not ahead in drones. And it doesn't, it's not a good thing to say we are. I mean, I understand American presence. You shouldn't go around saying we're behind. Maybe, but it's not a good thing to try to reassure everyone to say we're ahead when we're not. Because, you know what, if we're not, if we're ahead, why do we need these huge increases in the defense budget, except to flatter Trump and Hegseth and to have more troops to play, to build battleships, you got to build idiotic battleships which are going to be destroyed by drones, obviously, many of which. So, I mean, it undercuts its own agenda to the degree he, his administration has one. It's a kind of boastfulness that's just silly. But also, as we saw in the Iran war case, damaging those first two, three, four weeks of Hagsef. Very bad. I mean, very bad because partly one reason, the country sort of looked up in five weeks and said, what the hell are we doing there? And I think they were right to say that. We said that from the beginning, but still was like, I thought this was all. We were decimated, the Iranian military, and now they're shooting down, you know, Apache helicopter. So it's, it's self defeating for Trump. But he can't resist, of course, the boasting.
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Ben Parker
Yeah, no, and he, he is completely incurious. Doesn't want to learn anything, just wants to boast. And this is what happens. We do have to go to an ad very briefly, and then when we come back, we have to switch to domestic politics because there's just too much going on not to talk about it. So right after this message is brought
- [17:29]
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- [18:56]
Ben Parker
I am not related to any dentists, but I can't confirm teeth are important. And you know what else is important is character, as it turns out, how people comport themselves. So we have to talk about Graham Platner. I'm sure everyone's seen it by now. Major report from Politico yesterday afternoon. A former, well, I don't want to say girlfriend. Someone who dated Platner years ago, accused him of sexual assault and it seems very credible. She had receipts from when she told people about it at the time. That's pretty much the gold standard of evidence. If you mentioned it at that time, you're probably not. You probably weren't setting up some trap to spring on him now when he decides to run for the Senate in five years. So he's probably going to drop out. And the Democratic Party of Maine is a few days, about a week to decide with whom they're going to replace him on the ballot and they sort of, it seems like have no really good options. You know, I can, first of all, like, what are your thoughts on this whole Polygon?
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Bill Kristol
So I, I think they actually have decent options and I, I, but I, I have something to say, I think about the Democratic Party. But a Samstein had a good piece on all this this morning and very shots which people, people should, should read. But you've got some thoughts on, I know you've been in our discussion of slack and stuff talking about character and it's underestimation in today's politics. So say you say a word about character and I'll say a word about the Democratic Party.
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Ben Parker
So I'll say this, which is there are sort of two ways of thinking about how to vote for a politician. And I started thinking about this when I was listening to a lot of our colleagues, Sarah Longwell's focus groups, especially during Trump's first term. And you would hear a lot of people saying like, I wouldn't want him to babysit my kids, right? This is Trump voters. I wouldn't want him to babysit my kids. I wouldn't want to hang out with him. But I like his policies. And this got me thinking. First of all, two things. One is, I don't know really how true that is. A lot of people, these people couldn't name policies they liked. They actually kind of liked that he hated the people they hated or whatever. But also, you really don't know what a politician is going to be faced with once they're in office, right? It's easiest to see this example with president. So it's true for other politicians too, right? You can vote for President George W. Bush because you like his education reforms or because you like his plan for Social Security or whatever, or his plan for faith based community building initiatives or whatever it was. And then 9, 11 happens and all of a sudden he's a foreign policy president. And like, no one thought he'd be dealing with that. You can vote for FDR because you think he's doing a good job with the Great Depression. All of a sudden It's World War II. You can vote for Woodrow Wilson because he kept us out of war. And then just what, one year later, the country's involved in World War I, which, by the way, there were still oceans between the United States and Europe back then. You know, you can vote for John Fetterman because you like his policies. Obviously, that's a bit of a difficult case. But, you know, there's more than just getting the guy who has good policies in there and winning. You don't know what a politician is going to be faced with. So I really think that there's a There's sort of a deeper wisdom to not setting aside your policy preferences. But you know, maybe considering just the better person qua person might be the better choice because there's so much uncertainty about what you're actually voting for in the future. And this is the problem with voting for someone like Graham Platner. He's got, you know, the right messaging and he excites people and he has the right sort of populist policies and energy. But I mean after that New York Times report weeks ago, everyone kind of knew there was more to come. There were a lot of rumors and it was clear to see this isn't the guy who people who spend real time with him leave thinking, wow, what a stand up individual, what a good guy. Sam makes this point in this morning's morning shots. People haven't read it. They should. This guy had no political background and so he had basically no vetting. He was a nobody and no one knew anything about him and so no one had checked. Did he ever commit a sexual assault? Is there already, are there any skeletons in his closet? And it makes it very hard for people to really know what they're voting for. So that's my case for just voting for the best person instead of the person whose policies you like the most. It's hard to do. I don't know how people were supposed to know better in this case, but that's sort of my philosophical point. I don't know. Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox now. Your turn.
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Bill Kristol
No, it's good, it's well said. And I mean, I think one maybe subsidiary point to your point is populism in particular is a bit of a trap because it puts such a premium on channeling public's anger and dissatisfaction and unhappiness and being an outsider. None of those things is illegitimate. And there's some excellent fine people, individuals who've done that incidentally. It's not always against, it's not always a mark against your character. Right. It means to be a populist. I mean Jimmy Carter ran in 76 and he had good character and he channeled a lot of that. We need change. Anti war. Washington's stuff. Country as good as its people. So I have nothing, I think I wouldn't, I want to blame, you know, populism for, for our friend there for, for Graham Platter. On the other hand, it probably is the wish to embrace the wish for Democrat of Democrats to embrace a winning populism against Trump's bad populism. And it is bad and the wish isn't stupid, incidentally, isn't foolish. But it, it, it led to a certain amount of just wishful thinking about Platner and a certain amount of not distinguishing between really admirable populists, you know, sort of okay populace, you know, and then, and then Platter. So that I think that might be just my corollary to your point. I will say. And the Democrats I think they're getting. Having said so, I'm not so sure. There are two. The two or three people who lost the gubernatorial Democratic gubernatorial primary this year in Maine, but it was closed. There were three or four candidates. All of them got decent amount of votes. Now they have ranked choice voting and they're all respectable vetted. I think almost all at least respectable vetted political people. Plus maid has Democratic member of Congress. It has one who's retiring, Jared Golden. It has the former governor Janet Mills is actually a perfectly reasonable person. She's a little old and didn't want a good primary campaign against, against Platner and obviously dropped out. I think that or they have just business types and you know, whatever. I mean, they can find someone fine. My optimistic view on this from the point of view that Collins really should be defeated is that in 22,002, Bob Torricelli, the incumbent Democratic senator in New Jersey turned out to be quite corrupt and had all kinds of ethics problems. I mean actual charges were ultimately filed and he, the Senate, I think, censured him. He pulled out of the race in New Jersey under huge pressure. Very ambitious politician on September and a likable guy, incidentally. I knew him some very, you know, like charming kind of guy in a way. Pulled out September 30th. September 30th, the Democrats Central committee met. Just the way they're going to beat in Maine if Platter pulls out this week and put in Frank Lautenberg, the former senator who had retired was kind of elderly and he won by 10 points because New Jersey was a Democratic state. Now Maine has an incumbent Republican senator, Susan Collins. So that's a little different situation. I take that point. Still think at a good year, any Norman Democrat wins in Maine and they just need to get a normal Democrat in there this week. Platter does need to be pressured to pull out. I guess. The other point I'll make with the Democrats though, slight defense now of the Democrats and they were much too tolerant of Platter. You know, on the whole they do actually when these things get pointed out more or become kind of conclusively shown, turn against these politicians Like Platner. Andrew Cuomo in New York would be a good instance. Including like Cuomo, an actual incumbent governor and pretty well very well known figure and so forth. And so I feel like they, they're at least a semi respectable part. It's probably as respectable and as concerned about characters any political party in our times ever is going to be. You know, whereas the Republicans Paxton wins beats Cornyn A they didn't do anything to help Cornyn be Paxton anything much. Most of them be Paxton beats Cornyn in Texas. As you sort of said. Let leave aside the issues. He's pretty extreme but look at his character. And now they're all in for him. They're going to spend millions of tens of millions of dollars. They're all raising money for him. There's no issue. You know, they're like so it's their Democrats are at least try to be a semi responsible and semi decent political party is the way I would put it. And Republicans have kind of given up on that. And that is the broader point. Maybe I'll write about this Torah for morning shots. I mean the Democrat we all complain about the Democrats and God knows I want too many phone calls with too many Democrats and I have plenty of things to complain about. But I mean they are the party that's standing up against authoritarianism and they have some issues on the left and they have some people I wish they hadn't nominated in four or five congressional races. But it is four or five congressional races, maybe one or two Senate races. It's not president of the United States. It's not, you know, 45, it's not 10 or 20 Senate races. It's not the kinds of people the Republicans are now routinely nominating all around the country. A Democratic administration, Biden administration, plenty of problems. It didn't have people in all these senior positions like Hegseth and Blanche and
- [28:15]
Ben Parker
Patel and, and the guy who said that he went P and yeah, yeah. And the guy who said that he teleported to a Waffle House.
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Bill Kristol
Yeah, I mean, so I, I feel like the Democrats sort of don't get quite enough credit for being a heck of a lot better than the Republicans.
- [28:29]
Ben Parker
Oh, I think that's a great point. I actually, I remember when I the so first of all we should give credit. There are a lot of Democrats who either had not endorsed Platner or had endorsed Platner who are now calling for him to drop out of the race. The main Democratic Party said that he should drop out. I believe the Democratic senatorial campaign Committee said that he should drop out and they wouldn't be spending money in the race if he was the nominee. If he is the nominee, I should say. And I remember I wrote a, wrote an article for the Bulwark when the whole Cuomo scandal was happening and the Democratic Party of New York basically kicked him to the curb. And the headline was something like, the Democrats kicked out Cuomo because they're not a cult. And you know, the, the, that's, I think that's the difference you're getting at is right. The, the Democrats actually have sort of a functioning, basically, you know, self aware and minimally responsible sort of party apparatus that is trying to maintain the quality of the party as a thing that is, you know, A, partially responsible for governing the country and B, selling something to voters. And the Republican Party is just a cult. And you know, if they decide that Bill Paxton is a, you know, Ken Paxton, sorry, Ken Paxton is a, is a, you know, major figure in the cult now, well, then we all follow Ken Paxton's lead, I guess. And you know, Donald Trump has been the cult leader for coming on a decade now and, well, he's just fine. So. No, I think you're totally right. The Democrats are imperfect, but there's really, there's really no comparison between the two.
- [30:00]
Bill Kristol
Right. And you know, it's a simple point, but it may be worth reminding us. We'll see how they handle this this week. It's a little pressure and everyone's been writing endless pieces about this person that's a problem. Not perfect nominee, but they need to nominate someone who's, I do think they need to do someone who has the most, the easiest to bet and the least problematic vetting. They don't need to go through another cycle where, well, this guy isn't quite like, isn't quite like Platner, but he's not great because he did this or did that. They just need to. Someone who's totally you.
- [30:30]
Pete Hagg
Yeah.
- [30:30]
Bill Kristol
Yes.
- [30:31]
Ben Parker
And I think at this point, I think that's right. And I think there's a, there's sort of a strategic or like almost a game theoretical argument for that. This is probably going to be some tortured logic, but bear with me. The way I figure, all of the people who would be okay voting for someone who has a, shall we say, checkered history or has shown poor judgment or misbehavior in their past would also vote for someone who's clean.
- [30:59]
Bill Kristol
Right.
- [30:59]
Ben Parker
I don't think there's a serious number of voters who are voting for Graham Platner. Because he committed sexual assault and has a Tottenkelf tattoo. Right. I think that number is vanishingly small.
- [31:09]
Bill Kristol
But I think there are a lot who just. Who like him because he's such an outsider and rabble razzer and stuff. And there will be, I would predict they'll put someone in and next week there'll be a poll that shows, you know, 18% of Platinum voters don't want to vote for whoever they put in. And then, but then two months later it'll be 12% and four months later it'll be 6%, I think. But they, they will be a bit of a. You know, there will be people who will be annoyed that they've been deprived of the person they voted for in the primary and so forth.
- [31:37]
Ben Parker
But anyway, no, I think you're totally.
- [31:38]
Bill Kristol
Your point stands, though.
- [31:39]
Ben Parker
Yeah. And I think if you think broadly across the whole country.
- [31:43]
Bill Kristol
Right.
- [31:43]
Ben Parker
What are the Democrats and what are the Republicans? The people who are okay with or even want the transgression, the criminality, the in your face obnoxiousness. They already have a party. And if the Democrats want to differentiate their product, then leaning into, like, we're kind of the good guys. We're the guys you don't have to, like, have any qualms about voting for. If you, you could be. You can actually vote for a good person who, like, maybe you would leave your kids alone with, maybe you would actually want to hang out with. That's, that's just good product differentiation. We don't need a second Republican Party. We already have one and it's selling some strong stuff. So as I said, it's probably some tortured logic. Maybe it's overly optimistic about what people want and will vote for. But that's my business strategy for the Democrats. It's worth what you pay for it.
- [32:29]
Bill Kristol
No, I think it's good. I think it's right. And they'll look, you know, if you look around. Who are we going to be covering? We'll be covering Cooper Talarico, Whoever is the nominee in Maine, Michigan.
- [32:41]
Ben Parker
Whoever's the nominee in Michigan. It's gonna be.
- [32:42]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, that's, that's, that's the one big outstanding question I think just was there. It's less character and words. That is pure, kind of just I think the issues. Risky nominating someone that far left. But Michigan's a tough state anyway, it's Iowa. Look, Turk looks fine. It looks good, actually. Admirable. I mean, I just feel like the Democrats are going to look like a reasonable. Both a normal party and with some pretty admirable and younger candidates. Also, the average age of these Democratic Senate candidates is young, and that's good too. So I think they're being a little. There's a lot of sniping at them and the leadership could do better on this and that. I have my issues. The more you sit on some of these zoom calls with too many of them, the less, the more annoyed one gets. Annoyed in minor ways, but one has to stop oneself and say, look the big picture. This is a party that's mostly doing the right thing or trying to do the right thing.
- [33:33]
Ben Parker
Well, that is an unusually optimistic message, I think, for morning shots. So maybe we should leave people with ridiculous in their mouths. Bill thank you everyone for watching Warning Shots live. Remember to subscribe to the newsletter if you haven't already. Andrew Egger will be back soon, so you can return to your normal actually back in two weeks, so we might do this again. But Bill, thank you so much. I had a lot of fun.
- [33:54]
Bill Kristol
Me too, Ben. Thanks.