← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Sam Stein
Hey, guys, what's up? It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. I'm here with Will Sommer, who is much better dressed than me. I feel bad. Well, let's not overstep here, Will. Today we're recording. We're coming to you late Tuesday night because Trump is doing an interview. And then we have some other stuff happening today based on the great signal gate, whatever you want to call it. So we're going to talk about all that, but I want to talk about the Trump interview first before we're going to get into that, as usual, subscribe to the feed. We love it, we need it, we live off of it. Just click that button. It's so helpful. All right. Well, we were watching Trump tonight. He was on Newsmax. You know, much of the interview was sort of like standard stuff. I guess standard is a weird way to put it because all of it's kind of off the wall. But then he got asked about, out of the blue, at least to me, whether he was looking into some sort of government compensation fund for, for the J6 riders whom he pardoned early on in his administration. Here's what he said. Let's listen to it and then get your reaction on the back. Is there any talk because they lost opportunity, they lost income, any kind of compensation fund?
- [01:13]
Donald Trump
Well, there's talk about that. We have a lot of people talk about. A lot of the people that are in government now talk about it because they, a lot of the people in government really like that group of people. They were patriots as far as I was concerned. I talked about, I talk about them a lot. They were treated very unfairly.
- [01:31]
Sam Stein
All right, so there you have it. He's, he's kind of in a Trumpian way, like, open minded to the idea of doing some sort of compensation fund for these people. Look, I admit I'm not like, totally down the rabbit hole like you are in this stuff. I didn't know that a compensation fund was considered a thing for these people. I thought the, the pardons was enough, but maybe not. Can you talk to me a little bit about where this idea has originated from and, like, why it's gaining steam?
- [02:00]
Will Sommer
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, this is something I've been working on is sort of not the reparations one, but we're working on.
- [02:06]
Sam Stein
Are we calling it reparations or compensation fund?
- [02:09]
Will Sommer
Well, a lot of people are calling it reparations. I mean, so there's this idea that kind of more broadly, that, like you might think if you Did a riot at the Capitol, you'd be pretty grateful that you got part of at all and sort of say count yourself lucky. But actually there's a lot of discontent among J6ers who feel that like they haven't really been like fetid enough. And a big aspect of this is the idea of a reparations fund. Just this week, I don't know how quite how long this, all this talk's been going on. I just heard of it this week and I think Greg Kelly, who's interviewing Trump there, seems like very plugged in with J6World. And so on the Gateway Pundit, which is like a very big pro Trump blog, they had an announcement that two attorneys are seeking to get a J6 reparations fund from the government. Those attorneys being a guy named Peter Tickton, whose kind of claim to fame is that he went to high school with Trump. They don't seem particularly close.
- [03:05]
Sam Stein
The military academy or somewhere else?
- [03:07]
Will Sommer
Yeah, the military academy, yeah. And I think because their names are supposed to start with T, they're like next to each other in the yearbook and that's it. It's sort of like the connection. But he's kind of made like a kind of a late in life career off of that. And then the other lawyer on it is Mark McCloskey, who folks may remember with his wife, you know, in 2020.
- [03:29]
Sam Stein
Probably don't have long enough memories to remember that guy. But he was a cause for Republicans because he was in this posh, this like two block gated community. Yes, in this community. And he just drew his gun on. Was it Black Lives Matter protesters?
- [03:43]
Will Sommer
Yeah, exactly. They were just like walking by his neighborhood and he went out like, like office.
- [03:49]
Sam Stein
It didn't work out, but he's been like a CPAC attendee. I'm pretty sure. Don't want to over that, but I'm pretty sure he's been at cpac. He's been on the conservative circuit, so. Wow. So this is his new dig.
- [04:01]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, so this is the new thing is trying to like this, this reparations fund. It's kind of attracting a lot of characters, kind of like a lot of people, as you said, that I've seen on the circuit as well. And so that's the, this is, it is relatively new though. I mean, this is the power of.
- [04:16]
Sam Stein
Is there, is there like a lawmaker in Congress? Because I assume that this would require. Well, I shouldn't assume the stuff because who knows?
- [04:23]
Will Sommer
Well, they take the USAID money or whatever.
- [04:26]
Sam Stein
Yeah, I Mean, like, who knows if you need any appropriations anymore, you could just shuffle it around and get some Doge Savings devoted there. But are there people in Congress who are latched onto this idea?
- [04:35]
Will Sommer
You know, I haven't really heard about this getting any traction in Congress. I mean, as you say, you think you would have to have a bill or something. But also, I mean, these days. Yeah, perhaps not. You know, the. Obviously, these people have, like, some connection to Trump, the people seeking it. And, you know, the other thing that struck me about that interview was how, like, really, like, January 6th, heavy it was. That feels so long ago. But Trump was really. He said, oh, Ashley Babbitt. Like, I'm a big fan of Ashley Babbitt. And I think actually she was trying to hold back the crowd, which famously is what you're doing when you end up at the front of a mob. You know, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- [05:10]
Sam Stein
No, yeah, that. That. You know, it did. It's interesting. I forget what the context was, but Babbitt came up with him a couple days ago, and I'm trying to recall what it was. I think it was some other rioting that had happened that he was condemning, and he was comparing it to J. But you're right, there is something that has drawn Trump to the cause that he continues to bring it up. And I wonder if this is just him sort of, like, viewing this as, like, I don't know, kind of like an extension, a proxy of his own political fate. Like, you have to give these people some sort of retribution because he, too, got retribution. Or maybe he. In a way I would never suggest. No, I am about to suggest, but I'm couching this with some skepticism. I wonder if Trump feels bad that he put these people into this type of situation, although he would never, ever admit to feeling any empathy or sympathy for this, but I do kind of get the sense that he is occupied with it.
- [06:04]
Will Sommer
I think that's a very sympathetic read on your part. I mean, I. I think what's. What's most likely here is that, you know, he's convinced the election was stolen. And so, I mean, he's saying, you know, yeah, they. You know, they were trying to. Of course, they were trying to stop the stolen election. The other thing is he gave kind of the classic take that has on all these people where there's QAnon or whatever, and he says, well, Ashley Bab was just a big fan of mine. And so, you know, that's all I need to know.
- [06:29]
Sam Stein
Everything is through the prism of they, like, Me. And therefore, they're good. All right. I want to ask you about another thing that happened tonight which is sort of related to the second part of your amazing newsletter today. Your newsletter. Look at that. Kind of the conspiracies that have bubbled up about this Atlantic story about the Signal Group chat that basically every high ranking national security figure was in, uh, along with Jeffrey Goldberg. So obviously this is a huge deal and we're kind of waiting today to see how the Trump administration itself would try to explain this away. And they had various explanations throughout the course of. And then Mike Walls, the National Security Advisor, went on Laura Ingram tonight on Fox. And he, and he was asked about it and he had this like, kind of weird sort of explanation where he's like, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I just don't know how this guy got into this, you know, Signal Group. I didn't put him there. And like, you know, we need to like, get Elon Musk on this and. Well, watch the clip. And then I kind of want to get your take on how this fits into the conspiracy theories around the story.
- [07:39]
Mike Waltz
President expressed complete confidence in you today and his entire cabinet. But how did a Trump hating editor of the Atlantic end up on your Signal chat? You know, Laura, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the President, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the President of the United States, and he's the one that somehow gets on somebody's contact and then gets sucked into this group. Is someone in your intel. Is someone in your intel team trying to cause trouble here? Because that's the scuttlebutt out there. We have people. We have people. No, look, this was, this is a great group. The President has a great team. This is not First. No. Your team. I'm not talking about the other principals. No, no, no, These were principals and, and a couple, and a couple of staff that were coordinating, as you saw, having a policy discussion as, as we went forward. And then just in the days before what was an incredible strike, not only did we take out people that the Biden team never could, that we took out headquarters, missile caches, and actually one of the leaders of the Houthi organization, we've since taken out several since. And you know, that's what they don't want to talk about. They don't want to talk about the success here. They don't Want to talk about the hostages getting released. They don't want to talk about the Black Sea cease fire that we just put in place today as the President ends the largest land war in Europe or the border, or the fact that Panama just kicked China out of the canal. And success after success after success. So they want to focus on this. It's embarrassing. Yes. We're going to get to the bottom of it. We have. I just talked to Elon on the way here. We've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened. But I can tell you, I can tell you for 100%, I don't know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation, and he really is a bottom scum of journalists. And I know him in the sense that he hates the President, but I don't text him. He wasn't on my phone. And we're going to figure out how this happened.
- [09:49]
Sam Stein
Here's the national security advisor saying, my defenses, the secret group that I was trying to put together, somehow got infiltrated by Jeffrey Goldberg. And that's his excuse, which I find very troubling if that's the fallback. Um, but talk about what you're seeing online in terms of conspiracies here.
- [10:08]
Will Sommer
I mean, from my point of view, I mean, this is like when this stuff is just the most fun, when you have such a sort of narrative scrambling moment, you know, like, I literally.
- [10:16]
Sam Stein
Cannot believe that the excuse, again, is that our. We are our defenses were not good enough to stop Jeffrey Goldberg.
- [10:23]
Will Sommer
Yes, Jeffrey Goldberg, who. Who inadvertently bumbled it, you know, was invited. And so the. Yeah, so they've been cycling through these excuses and kind of Trump supporters. Well, I mean, in the aftermath last on. On. On Monday, we initially saw. Well, maybe my. My favorite was that this was deliberate. This was kind of 4D chess, because they wanted JD Vance's statement saying that Europe needs to step up to get to Europe. And so they wanted to. They were doing that one didn't make.
- [10:51]
Sam Stein
Any sense to me because J.D. vance literally went to Europe and said that you don't need.
- [10:58]
Will Sommer
Right. I mean, how else would.
- [11:02]
Sam Stein
We need it to be this way?
- [11:05]
Will Sommer
So you have that. And then it seems as though as we're talking here in the evening on sort of like 36 hours later, that we're looking at, like, just kind of throwing up their hands and saying, well, I don't know how he got in there, but maybe someone nefarious did it. You know, that I. I think, unfortunately, it seems to be headed to. Jeffrey Goldberg did something like kind of schemed his way in here, which, you know, doesn't seem to be true at all, but that somehow I think they just really want to blame him. And, and obviously because the. The other defense, which was nothing classified, was in here, could easily be disproven by Jeffrey Goldberg, although he seems like, pretty reluctant thus far to. To show the actual classified information.
- [11:50]
Sam Stein
Yeah, I mean, that. That one is. That one's tricky because. And they're not addressing it, but it seems pretty obvious that talking about war plans two hours before they happen would classify. Would be classified as classified. But, you know, what do I know, right? Like, maybe they were just trying to open source the war plans. This one, though, seems directly refuted by Goldberg's own writeup, which is that he just got randomly added to the signal group. And he, He. In his story, he's. He didn't say, like, oh, you know, I finally stumbled across a signal group that was like, open, and I just jumped in. No, he's. He got invited. And I, I guess I get. Just can't get over the fact that they don't have a readier explanation for this stuff.
- [12:34]
Will Sommer
Well, and the other challenge for Mike Waltz personally is that, like, why does he have Jeffrey Goldberg in his phone?
- [12:40]
Sam Stein
Why he didn't explain that? That's the thing.
- [12:42]
Will Sommer
And so, I mean, it's kind of like your, you know, your girlfriend sees you've downloaded Tinder or something, and it's like, whoa, oh, my friend took my phone and, you know.
- [12:50]
Sam Stein
Yeah, but a Tinder. I thought it was Tindad. It's the son of the wrong app. No, this is. He was asked about it, and he was asked about this by Ingram and. And he was like, I don't know. I never talked to the guy. And then he had some. We. I can't even. I'm probably not going to do this justice. But he said something like, you know, sometimes you download someone's name and then their number gets put. Someone else's number gets put attached.
- [13:11]
Will Sommer
It just slides in there.
- [13:12]
Sam Stein
Yeah, it just goes in there. But the best part is they're like, you know what? We got Elon on this. Like, Elon just, you know, sitting around balancing utensils on his finger is just like, aha. I know. I know how to handle this. Like, no, the obvious explanation is you accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg when he meant to add Jameson Greer because they have the same initials. Like, just. Just say that. I don't really understand what this is all about.
- [13:36]
Will Sommer
This is something we see over and over with Doge is this Idea that, you know, we can just have Elon and the gang solve it for us. You know, where I have seen a lot of, like.
- [13:47]
Sam Stein
It's such boomer energy. It's such boomer energy.
- [13:50]
Will Sommer
We're going to get my grandson in here, and he'll fix the computer, you know, and he'll figure out how I got this contact.
- [13:55]
Sam Stein
Well, this is enough. I find this all hilarious, but maddening. Stay on the QAnon stuff and the J6 stuff. Sorry, J6 stuff, not the QAnon stuff. Although they're kind of intertwined. Because I am kind of curious if any lawmaker ends up putting together a bill for reparations, that would be.
- [14:13]
Will Sommer
I mean, now that it's. Now that it's in the ether, I mean, I think it's a matter of time. Yeah.
- [14:17]
Sam Stein
Okay, let's put a. We'll leave this with, uh, with a bet. Who's your money on? Uh, for the legislation, to introduce it.
- [14:25]
Will Sommer
First, I'm gonna go with a classic Marjorie Taylor Greene.
- [14:29]
Sam Stein
Oh, come on. Oh, that's like. That's like taking Tiger woods in his prime to win a golf tournament. That's just not. It's just not. No, I. I'm going. I got Brendan Gill. I'm going with Brendan Gill. That guy's been throwing out legislation, like, you know, just totally, you know, sucking up. The Trump legislation. I think he'll go with this one, too. He's the one who did articles of impeachment against the judge who blocked Trump's mass deportations. As soon as Trump was like, we need to impeach this guy. So I. I think he's. I think he's got his finger on the pul.
- [14:57]
Will Sommer
He's an up and comer.
- [14:59]
Sam Stein
Yeah, we have the bet. You go with mtg. I'm going with Gil. We'll have Rupert, the editor here. He'll take the house. So anyone else? He wins. All right, Will. Good talking to you, buddy. Thank you for this. Thank you for your service, thank you for the newsletter, and thank you guys for watching. Subscribe to the feed. We will be in touch. Bye.