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- [00:00]
Sam Stein
Hey, guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the bulk. I'm joined by Tim Miller. We're going to dissect the Trump Meet the Press interview from this morning.
- [00:09]
Tim Miller
I like how I don't have a title. Everybody else gets like, sam, managing editor. I'm just, it's kind of like, I'm like Beyonce. I'm like the Beyonce of the Bulwark. You know, we don't need any, any description.
- [00:19]
Sam Stein
If you and Beyonce, we just, we go. This is Tim.
- [00:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that's a good point.
- [00:24]
Sam Stein
First name business. I'll give you your title when I, I have the right words for the proper title. Just so elated, you know. All right, Meet the Press Trump loves the show. I mean, I know he shits on TV and networks all the time. He just can't get enough of this stuff because it feels like this is like third or fourth Meet the Press interview since the election. But we'll put, put that aside. He had a lot to say. We're going to play four clips in total. My big picture takeaway is that in a way, and I know this sounds crazy, but in a way I feel like I'm getting a little callous to Trump because he said a lot of like, very off the wall stuff. And I read the transcript, I was like, well, is it that crazy that he's questioning the Constitution, like, that he has to uphold this up? That seems like normal. Is it that crazy that he's like saying he's might invade this country? So I, I'm worried about that. I'm actually worried about that. I'm too calloused at this point.
- [01:18]
Tim Miller
I'm worried about that for you too. My. But it is, it's like there's like a dog bites man element to it. Oh, he's doing the Greenland thing again. And it's like, okay, but due process.
- [01:30]
Sam Stein
It'S like, ah, yeah, we've been there.
- [01:32]
Tim Miller
My takeaway from it at the big picture. And this is something that I was thinking about going back to the interview at the Atlantic when, you know, Ashley Parker and Michael Shearer were asking him, kind of, he's worried about the economy. And he says something to the effect of like, I already won, you know, like, no, like, I'm not worried. I'm not worried about it. Like, I won and people voted for this and we'll see what happens. And I think that's in some ways a little dangerous for his political project and people around him that he does kind of seem more so than in the past, like willing to be like, whatever, we can take some pain, I don't care. I've already. I do feel like in the first term he obviously did crazy stuff, but a lot of times he got pulled back from the brink because he didn't like the bad press, he didn't want his numbers to go down. He was very sensitive to that. He feels less sensitive to that now. So that's my big picture psychoanalysis.
- [02:23]
Sam Stein
That's so. Okay. I've been trying, I haven't test run this idea.
- [02:26]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [02:26]
Sam Stein
But I'm going to now because I've been thinking about that through the prism of is he or is he not actually serious about a third term?
- [02:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [02:34]
Sam Stein
And I don't think he's actually that serious because of this. I think he doesn't give a. Because I think, I think he knows that this is it and public opinion doesn't actually materially matter for him at this point. And I don't really think he cares that much about J.D. vance or Mark Ruby or whoever else would get the nomination. I think it's all about him.
- [02:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [02:50]
Sam Stein
And it's got in my head that almost like, do I kind of want him to want a third term? Like, do I want him to be like reactive to, you know, public opinion more? Because it seems like he's got a higher tolerance for pain at this point.
- [03:04]
Kristen Welker
Right.
- [03:04]
Sam Stein
And this is a man who already.
- [03:06]
Tim Miller
Has, obviously, just to be clear, you don't want, you don't want him to want it because you're hoping for four more years of Trump, but because. Because then he would be more respons to political realities.
- [03:16]
Sam Stein
I thought that was self evident.
- [03:18]
Tim Miller
Okay. I just wanted to say it explicitly.
- [03:21]
Sam Stein
No, I actually want the full, you know, 12 here.
- [03:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I don't know. It is. So I agree with you on that. And I think that that thing is the thing that has always worried me about the third term and the potential chaos at the end is it's like who knows what fucking 81 year old Trump, you know, like could want. Right. Like, you know what I mean?
- [03:39]
Sam Stein
Truly off rocker.
- [03:40]
Tim Miller
Like. And so I just think the unpredictability of that is the thing that worries me the most. But anyway, let's get to the, let's.
- [03:45]
Sam Stein
Get into the cups. All right, clip. Here we go. He's going to be talking about does he actually have any responsibility for this economy and this is what he has to say.
- [03:54]
Donald Trump
You've been arguing all week that this is President Biden's economy. Is this now your economy, sir?
- [04:00]
Kristen Welker
Well, I think certain aspects of it are. Costs are. I was able to get down the cost, but even that, it takes a while to get them down, but we got them down good. We lost five to six billion dollars a day with Biden. Five to six billion. And I've got that down to a great number right now in a very. In a record time. You know, we're talking about 100 days, but just think of what that is. $5 billion a day we're losing on trade. And we were very tough with China, as you know, we put 145% tariff on. Nobody's ever heard of such a thing. And we've essentially cut off trade relationships by putting that much of a tariff on. And that's okay. We've gone cold turkey. That means that we're not losing, you know, we lost a trillion dollars to China. A trillion dollars. That means we're not losing a trillion dollars when we go cold turkey because we're not doing business with them right now. And they want to make a deal. They want to make a deal very badly. We'll see how that all turns out. But it's got to be a fair deal.
- [05:02]
Donald Trump
When does it become the Trump economy?
- [05:05]
Kristen Welker
It partially is right now. And I really mean this. I think the good parts of the Trump economy and the bad parts of the Biden economy, because he's done a terrible job. He did a terrible job on everything.
- [05:16]
Sam Stein
Classic. I actually chuckled, and I only read the trans again, but I was chuckling.
- [05:21]
Tim Miller
Is that because you're hungover or because.
- [05:22]
Sam Stein
It'S actually quite hungover, as you can probably tell. But I was reading. I was like, oh, my God, that's such a. I get the credit for the good parts and Biden gets the credits for the bad part. It's like, of course he says that.
- [05:34]
Tim Miller
It is a classic Trump. I do, I do think not to be classic bulwark, but it's also kind of a sign of weakness. Like, you know what I mean? Like, to have to do that, to.
- [05:43]
Sam Stein
Have to do it.
- [05:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [05:44]
Sam Stein
You should want to take full credit. I get it. I get it. All right. That was not that exciting. But then he was asked about this quote that he had given earlier this week where he was talking about, you know, this is at the Cabinet meeting, kind of infamously, they're like, look, the cost of some goods are going up. And like, to your point, he was like, we can stomach this. But he had this line about paying for more dolls or having only two dolls versus 30 dolls for your. Your little girl. And, and. And welker Kristen Welker asked him about it, and he expands on, and this is what he says.
- [06:13]
Donald Trump
You were at your Cabinet meeting. You said, quote. I'm going to quote what you said. Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. Are you saying that your tariffs will cause some prices to go up?
- [06:29]
Kristen Welker
No, I think the tariffs are going to be great for us because it's going to make us rich.
- [06:32]
Donald Trump
But you said some dolls are going to cost more. Isn't that an acknowledgement that some prices go up?
- [06:37]
Kristen Welker
I don't think a beautiful baby girl needs. That's 11 years old, needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable. We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China.
- [06:55]
Donald Trump
When you say they could have $3 instead of $30, are you saying. You're saying Americans could see empty store shelves?
- [07:02]
Kristen Welker
No, I'm. No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying they don't need to have $30. They can have three. They don't need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.
- [07:10]
Sam Stein
All right, so that was. I thought that was wild, too. And then he went on and you talked about pencils and. Who needs 250 pencils when you can get five pencils?
- [07:19]
Tim Miller
I don't really have 250 pencils.
- [07:21]
Sam Stein
Who has five pencils? I mean, I guess my kid does because he's in school, but, like, dolls and pencils, his. He is very much stuck in an alternate era, but in the 1950s era. Yeah, the 50s.
- [07:34]
Tim Miller
Well, for starters, my daughter's finally radicalized against Trump after. Yeah. Over the dolls. Having to go down to two dolls would be an absolute Hiroshima event in my home.
- [07:48]
Sam Stein
So have you ever tried to take a. If you've ever tried to take a stuffy away from your child, it is like, oh, my God.
- [07:56]
Tim Miller
You always have to do it in secret. You always have to do it and.
- [07:59]
Sam Stein
Take one at a time, strategically, until they wake up one day and they're.
- [08:02]
Tim Miller
Like, wait a second, where's the tiger? Like, tiger. Did you misplace that? You might have misplaced it.
- [08:07]
Sam Stein
I don't know, man.
- [08:07]
Tim Miller
Anyway, she's radicalized, but I don't. Like. I talked to Derek Thompson about this a bunch on Friday, and it's like, the whole thing is pointless. Like, what is the point? Like, we are creating shortages for what, like, on. You do see some of this on the left, particularly around climate, right, where people are like, we should consume less. And they're like, there's a goal for this. We've gotta protect our natural resources, et cetera. So there's a. I think that's a very unpopular political opinion. And you notice most Democratic presidents don't run on that platform. But that exists, and that's a coherent worldview. What is even the point of this? We are going to stop.
- [08:46]
Sam Stein
We have to nationalize our doll supply chain.
- [08:49]
Tim Miller
We're going to stop importing dolls from China because we want to manufacture more iPhones in America. Like, there's no. Is there a goal to manufacture more dolls and pencils here? I don't think so. Is that, like, to create jobs for folks? It's just about some imaginary balance sheet in his head where he doesn't like the trade deficit. And so it's like, so we can even. Steven, the trade deficit. I'm going to make little Janie, like, have fewer dolls for Christmas is insane.
- [09:22]
Sam Stein
It's insane. I actually listened to your conversation, Derek. I thought it was. I mean, it was spot on. Because if the idea here is like, look, we need to. We have to, like, shore up our supply chains on critical matters like semiconductors or, you know, pharmaceuticals or whatever. Like, cool. Like, I get the idea behind tariffing those things and trying to initiate some sort of repatriation, I don't. I don't think we need to do this for dolls. Like, I just don't.
- [09:49]
Tim Miller
Who does? Nobody does.
- [09:50]
Sam Stein
Trump does. But the only sort of charitable way to think about it is that I don't actually think he thinks this way. Maybe does is that he wants to inflict pain on China, right? Like, to get them to the, like a different spot in the negotiations. And so maybe if you just inflict across the board pain and just hit everything and the American people suffer in the interim, but in the long term, you get better leverage in your trade negotiation. I mean, maybe that's it.
- [10:19]
Tim Miller
But nobody has enunciated that strategy as clearly as you. So if that is true, I'd like to hear it from the administration. So maybe, maybe if we hear from that he's getting rid of the biggest China hawks in the administration. Waltz is more of a China hawk than these other guys, so.
- [10:36]
Sam Stein
I know. Well, that's. And that is the weird irony of it is, like, what is. Who's running this? Because Navarro is the China hawk and he's been sort of sidelined. Walsh has been sidelined. And it's kind of weird which makes me just think it's all in Trump's head. Right? Like, he's just trying to, like, yeah.
- [10:54]
Tim Miller
I think that's what's happening.
- [10:55]
Sam Stein
All right, let's switch to the two, the two foreign policy elements. I Meet the Press first. I. This one was interesting because it comes in the wake of, obviously, the Canadian elections. He was asked about the new prime minister there, who is apparently coming to Washington, D.C. this week, and also called Trump and talked about it. And look, it sounds like Trump has a better relationship with Carney than he did with Trudeau. Here's what he had to say about Canada and in relation Greenland.
- [11:22]
Donald Trump
You and I talked and I asked you if you would rule out military force to take Greenland, and you said no, you don't rule out anything. Would you rule out military force to take Canada?
- [11:32]
Kristen Welker
Well, I think we're not going to ever get to that point. It could happen. Something could happen with Greenland. I'll be honest. We need that for national and international security, but not, I think it's highly unlikely. I don't see it with Canada. I just don't see it. I have to be honest with you.
- [11:48]
Donald Trump
Okay, but you don't rule it out for Greenland.
- [11:50]
Kristen Welker
And by the way, Canada, they spend less money on military than practically any nation in the world. They pay NATO less than any nation. They, they think we're subsidized. They think we are going to protect them, and really we are. But the truth is they don't carry their full share and it's unfair to the United States and our taxpayers.
- [12:14]
Donald Trump
You are not ruling out military force to take Greenland.
- [12:18]
Kristen Welker
I don't rule it out. I don't say I'm going to do it, but I don't rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we'll take care of and we'll cherish them and all of that, but we need that for international security.
- [12:34]
Sam Stein
All right, so I know you have some thoughts on this.
- [12:36]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I mean, the interesting thing there is, there is this gimmick that happens, this, like, cat and mouse game with Trump on these interviews with the Kristen Welkers of the world. And I don't really know there's a good solution to it. So this isn't really a critique, but you have this thing where the reporter will be like, will you rule out insane thing X that he had bleeded about? And he does the. Well, you can't rule anything out. And then, like, the headline is, Trump doesn't rule out doing Insane thing X. And like, that's fair, you know, but it also is a little bit like. Well, the reporter actually inserted the idea into the conversation, you know, So I take it with, like, a little bit more of a grain of salt in this exchange. The reporter asked where you rule out invading Canada, and he kind of does, actually, but then he volunteers. But I will not rule out going into Greenland with military strategy. And to me, that is now Trump inserting that idea into the conversation himself. And so it carries more weight. And again, I just, like, we're in the middle of these negotiations, supposedly, you know, and the sub negotiations and the sub. Sub deals with Europe, and it's like, if you're Europe, if you're Denmark, you're the eu. This is the President of the United States volunteering to a reporter that he's. That we have serious national security issues in Greenland and we might invade. Like, it's. It's on the table. Like, that is, like, very serious and I think has very real implications in addition to just being, like, completely off the. Off the chain.
- [14:03]
Sam Stein
Yes, it's off. It's off chain. And yes, the fact that he was the one who brought it up adds an element of seriousness to it. I will just know. Again, I. Back to the being calm. But it wasn't that he ruled out invading Canada. He just called it highly unlikely. I just want to be clear, okay? The more normal thing to be would be like, of course I'm not going to invade. Highly unlikely at this point. Good to know. We're only, you know.
- [14:30]
Tim Miller
So you're saying there's a chance.
- [14:32]
Sam Stein
Small percent chance we might just do it, but don't want to rule out anything, obviously. All right, last one. Russia, Ukraine, he's asked about again. We were supposed to. This thing was supposed to be fucking resolved on day one. Here we are, day 100, whatever, and we're still dealing with this difficult shit. But he's asked about Russia, Ukraine. Here's what he says.
- [14:52]
Donald Trump
Are you any closer to reaching a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia?
- [14:56]
Kristen Welker
I hope so. How would you. I do believe we're closer with one party and maybe not as close with the other, but we'll have to see. I'd like to not say which one we're closer to, but we did do a deal for the American people that was good. We were able to get rare earth. You know, the Europeans are getting paid back. They have a loan. We didn't. Biden just gave him $350 billion. He has no idea where the money is. What happened. And at least we'll, in one form or another, get our. I don't feel so foolish. And remember this. This is Biden's war. This was a war that was never going to happen if I were president. This is a horrible, horrible war. And I get to see shots of soldiers through know satellite that are so, just so terrible. 5,000 soldiers are being. Look, 5,000 soldiers a week on average are dying. They're not American soldiers, but I want to solve the problem. They're Russian soldiers and they're Ukrainian soldiers. And if I can save 5,000 souls, I just love doing it.
- [16:00]
Sam Stein
All right, It's a bit cryptic there. I don't know, is it. Can I. Am I reading it correctly? I'm reading it. I'm reading it a certain way. I wonder how you're reading it.
- [16:11]
Tim Miller
I am genuinely unsure. I could see it both ways. I'll be interested to see which way you land. But let's play it out, though, because I want to give it out, because this is a quote that is offensive and horrific no matter which way he means. Maybe he means that we're closer to getting a deal with Russia than with Ukraine. And he knows that he is going to get in trouble if he says that Zelensky is the problematic one. So he's being cheeky and he's like, I don't want to say his name, but, you know, it's a little Jewish guy running Ukraine. That's the problem here. And, like, he's not. He's being stubborn and we need to nudge him along. Maybe that's what's happening. I think it's probably more like it's the other way, where he's like, actually, I've been. I met with Zelensky recently, and it's. And it's Russia that maybe we're a little further away than he had anticipated. But he doesn't want to say that because he doesn't want to admit it. But if that is what he's saying, that is horrible, though. Like, this is like, I don't want to. That's clearly what I don't want, to offend Vladimir Putin. I can't. But, I mean, they just think about.
- [17:07]
Sam Stein
How he's being critically. He can't be critical in public of Putin.
- [17:11]
Tim Miller
Yeah, he's berated Zelensky over and over again. And it's like he can't even say that Putin is not as amenable to this peace deal as I thought, as we hoped he would be. Like, you can't say that. I Mean, that is, again, that makes him the junior partner to Putin in this negotiation, correct? Yeah, correct.
- [17:30]
Sam Stein
And that's. So it's evident to me that this is what it is because Ukraine just signed the minerals deal.
- [17:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [17:36]
Sam Stein
Every, you know, they. They are comfortable. The 30 day ceasefire. Russia violated it. They have been, you know, relatively, you know, stable negotiators on. On this peace deal. Obviously, they're not wanting to recognize Crimea. Right. But it's evident across the board that Russia is the aggressor here. And I think it's dawning on Trump a little bit, finally, that he is being completely played and bent over by Putin. And it's like the problem is he can't admit it. Right, right. He can't. He can't admit it because if as soon as he admits it, he looks like such an idiot. And so that's why you have answers like this. It's bad. It's bad. But I think the other way would have been worse.
- [18:16]
Tim Miller
Yeah, no, I hear that. I mean, it's really. It's. And it's not great. He's in a pretty terrible situation. I guess it would.
- [18:23]
Sam Stein
It's his own making, though.
- [18:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it would be good. It would be good only if it was like he was. There's a chance that he could get so upset that it didn't work out, that he would then turn to supporting Ukraine. But I think that he's cornered himself in such a way that's not possible.
- [18:41]
Sam Stein
Once you berate Zelensky like that and whip up your supporters to think that Ukraine is a corrupt, horrible place that is just sucking US money and that this could all be the beginning of World War iii. You can't go back.
- [18:54]
Tim Miller
You can't go back. I know.
- [18:56]
Sam Stein
So that's where tough. All right, man. Thank you for watching this. Appreciate it. Thank you for jumping on me. Appreciate it.
- [19:01]
Tim Miller
Go Nuggets.
- [19:01]
Sam Stein
Go nurse this hangover. Hey, congrats. The Nuggets you're gonna get. You're gonna get your ass handed to you.
- [19:07]
Tim Miller
We'll see. We'll see. You always got the joker. You always got the joker.
- [19:12]
Sam Stein
I'm giving you. I give you one win.
- [19:14]
Tim Miller
That's okay. I'll take two.
- [19:15]
Sam Stein
All right, talk to you soon.
- [19:17]
Tim Miller
Later.