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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Daily. We'll get to that. I'm Tim Miller. Thanks so much to everybody who sat in while I was away. You know, we brought Fever Dreams back. You know, Sarah did multiple heads. Bill is everywhere. Bill Crystal doing multiple podcasts for me. So I appreciate that. Appreciate the POD production team for working while was getting tan. We'll do a little vacation talk, explain the new POD logo and name. And I got some thoughts on the Michigan elections. We'll do all that at the end. But first, it's Monday. And so he's back again. It's Bill Kristol. Hey, Bill.
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A
Good to be with you, Tim. We missed you. The audience missed you. Everyone was all anyone could talk about. There are two main topics here. Where's Tim Miller and the Odyssey? They were close.
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B
I don't believe that's true. I really tried to bubble myself as much as possible while I was gone. And so thanks to the producers here, thanks to Ansley, I really pulled together a list of the things that happened since I bubbled myself. And I just kind of want to go through them with you and then we can pick whichever topic you want to start with you feel like is most pressing. Two weeks I was going more US Casualties in the Iran war, which was supposed to be over very quick, as I recall. Number of service members killed in the war is now up to 18. The regional war is expanding. Trump is pretending like we're close to a deal again, but I guess last week had promised the biggest attack since World War II. So that's kind of a little bit same as it ever was with what's going on with the Iran war. Brent crude did get back over $100 a barrel. While it was gone, there were cyber attacks on our water supply that experts say point to Iran. But Trump said it was Minnesota that did it. So that's concerning the Saudis. We have a deal with the Saudis to go nuclear. That doesn't seem great. They're still imprisoning foes of the regime. I don't really know if we want them having a nuclear weapon. We're bailing out Japan for some reason. Jay Clayton, a man with no experience for the job and no integr. He was tapped to lead dni. The GOP senators all went along with it because he was better than the other person that they had previously put up who had less experience and less integrity. Todd Blanche was on the ropes for a second. The Secret Service illegally surveilled Jim Comey over the seashells we found out Trump's social media company is now giving early access to his market, moving tweets to banking clients. So otherwise known as taking bribes. The Trump family is taking bribes to give financiers early access to his announcements. The DOJ admits that the reflecting pool problems were caused by shoddy work, not vandalism. So they dropped the case against an innocent man they were going to put in jail for 10 years for going after the reflecting pool. Even after they dropped the case, Trump administration officials are still pretending like the vandalism was happening and doubling down against the people that they had falsely accused. Federal agents around the country were told that the FBI would no longer investigate confrontations with immigration agents. The Trump administration has launched plans to channel more asylum seekers into deportation proceedings without hearings. The Haitians are going to be deported. There are plans for that, putting them on deportation flights back to crisis stricken Haiti. That's coming. The executive director of the Office of Homeland Security Statistics resigned, saying that there is a war on immigrants and they're using the statistics for ill. Trump kind of sort of hit the Bush line. Socialism is coming back to the upper Midwest and I don't even want to know what's happening with the DNC tried to brief me and I want to continue bubbled from whatever's happening there. So that's a summary. Where do you want to start? Does that cover everything? Was there something I felt you feel like I missed?
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A
I think those are the high points or maybe we should say the low points, right?
- [03:44]
B
Yeah, low and low.
- [03:45]
A
A lot of corruption, a lot of lying, a lot of bad government. And you know, what's good about that list, actually, which I hadn't really thought of since I have been kind of following it stupidly, you know, getting too involved day to day is it does give you a sense of the magnitude and the breadth and depth, I guess is the way I put it, of what's happening in the Trump administration. You know, the lying, the corruption, it's not one little place. It's not just the White House. It's not one department, Department of Interior, who thought about them at all. It turns out Doug Burgum is also, you know, lying, or his people are lying to the Justice Department and they're all together lying to the court. And then. And the Secret Service is calling the Air Force One to report on Jim Kobe. I mean, the degree of it's bad, it's bad. That's my conclusion.
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B
The way that the corruption and just the incompetence all ties together, it's like looking at the list, I cheekily said we're bailing out Japan for some reason. We're really bailing them out because of the Iran war.
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A
Right.
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B
Honestly, because we got into a stupid war. And the Japanese yen is now down to the lowest point it's been since the 80s. And that a lot of Asian countries, including our allies, are having oil crises because it's more acute for them as far as receiving oil for the oil that goes to the Strait of Hormuz versus how it impacts us domestically. So all these things, the insider dealing, the insider trailing it, ties to the Blanche story, which I papered over because I think that's what we should start on first. Ostensibly, the objection to Blanche, which was, I guess maybe the one besides Trump hitting the Bush line. The one green shoot from the news update from the last two weeks was that Blanche had been briefly held up by Republicans in the Senate because they're like, this slush fund is too far. This is like Trump family taking bribes through his social media company. That's no big deal. Or taking bribes from Middle Eastern countries that now we're giving nuclear access to. That's not a big deal. But Trump literally taking tax dollars and giving it to insurrectionists was a step too far for two Republicans. And so last night, Cornyn and Tillis fold on this because Blanche has promised, put out on a piece of paper, the slush fund is not going to go forward. Money isn't going to be dispersed to allies of the administration. But they did not do anything to take back Trump being able to avoid being audited from First Access.
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A
And the idea that this was the only reason to object to, or really, honestly even the main reason. It was one that they latched onto. And it was good that they did, I guess. And I was happy when they were objecting to Blanche. It would have been better that he not be Attorney General. But I mean, as you said, he's busy prosecuting innocent people, not prosecuting ICE agents who are attacking both American citizens and people who are here lawfully and for that matter, people who are here in an undocumented way, but minding their own business and living peacefully. The Epstein thing, unbelievable. And the meeting you had with the Epstein survivors, maybe you were already away for that. Really extraordinary to talk to Danny Bensky about that. Just what it was like in person, the kind of contempt he had and whom he had covered up, had no intention of not even. Not doing anything, but not even making them feel heard. I mean, really. But anyway, they caved, predictably.
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B
Yeah. They caved predictably, and it's a ridiculous prospect to put them in for those reasons you just laid out. But just in the grand scheme of things, the slip up from his confirmation hearing where he is like when John Kennedy said, are you in Trump's Friends? And he's like, I'm Trump's lawyer. And it's like, that's how he sees things. You were just talking about the scale of corruption. They're doing sham investigations, whether it be over the Reflecting Pool or over Comey, et cetera. They're doing plenty of sham investigations against foes they're not investigating. Like you said, the ICE agents. Think about all the other stuff they aren't investigating, though. The scale of public corruption right now is unimaginable. One of the other stories that briefly pierced my peaceful bubble was how corporations are going into Trump, and it's like, you got to give a million dollars to the MAGA super pacs in order to get kind of favorable treatment on regulation, et cetera. I mean, the graft that is happening in this administration is incomparable to the first term and extremely uncomparable to anything else in modern American history. And it's like, to put a person in charge of the Department of Justice amidst all that under party line vote, that's just like going to act as a henchman for the President is insane. It's insane. And these guys, like, you know, the only two people that offered tepid pushback are people that are retiring. Like, what is their point of folding now? What's the point of folding now? And I think that these guys are so deep, speaking of bubbles, they're so deep in their own bubble that I do think that they've convinced themselves that, like, Blanche, I gotta go with Blanche, because if it's not him, who the hell knows who it could be? It could be somebody worse.
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A
Yeah. That was the attitude that led them to quickly confirm Clayton, Right. For Director of National Intelligence. So we have just to step back, as you say. We have now blanch at Justice, Clayton at odni, Hegseth at Defense, Mark Wayne, Mullen at dhs, and Patel at FBI, key national security agencies, all involved in justifying corruption, lawlessness, election subversion, incidentally, which Blanche's Justice Department's been plugging ahead on as much as they can. They're losing a fair amount in the lower courts. But I was talking to a couple of state secretaries of state last week, and, you know, they're getting a lot of pressure. Some of them are resisting, but the pressure has Some effect. Maybe it deters some people from voting, too. If you scream and yell enough about how you're going to get in deep trouble if you make a mistake and vote when you shouldn't. And they don't. They're not sure if they're correctly registered anyway. The whole thing is it's very bad. I mean, we have a really bad administration full of true Trump loyalists who are, some of whom are not totally incompetent, unfortunately. And I guess the other thing I'd say is it's clearly when you read about the Reflecting Pool case, for example, it's penetrated down, right. It's not like there are Interior Department staffers who provided the bad information to Justice Department staffers, who in turn provided it up to Piro. There are people at the second, third, fourth, fifth levels who are going along or who are enthusiastic in some cases if they were hired as MAGA loyalists, enthusiastic participants in all of this. And then the White House, obviously. So the degree of danger over the next two and a half years, I think, from the executive branch is just kind of confirmed by the confirmation of Blanche. And it wouldn't have mattered that much, incidentally, if he didn't get confirmed. It's not like Trump was going to put someone good in there. But Blanche probably a little more dangerous because he knows what he's doing. So that's really the bad news.
- [10:23]
B
Let's go to the security side of that, because you're right, and I do think Census gets lost. And when you on Thursday at a podcast have focused on, you know, Department of Defense and what's happening Hegseth, which is really good. And you say that. Well, sure, they do have some competent people in some of these offices. I think Blanche's like the velociraptors who's learning how to open the doors and he's learning how to do it. And you've got Miller and Immigration. They've got some competent, nefarious people in Immigration and other places from this security standpoint, like the incompetence at the top of Dodge, where Hegseth has no idea what he's doing. There are now leaks coming out about the ways in which we're not prepared now for counter attacks against us, against the homeland, against allies in the region. And then you pair that with Jay Clayton, who was just had one of the most buffoonish, clownish confirmation hearings I've ever seen. Being at odni, you have cash at the FBI, you have the president of the United States going back to that rundown Saying that what was seems like an attack on the homeland, a cyber attack from Iran, I. He's pretending is. Is from Minnesota. You know, who knows? Maybe we'll get out of this. Good luck. You know, maybe. Maybe, you know, for whatever reason, you know, good fortune will fall on the country and that, and that we won't face threats from. From foes. But, like, it is truly madness thinking about kind of that, like just the Hegseth Clayton Cash kind of leadership in these security offices.
- [11:56]
A
No, totally. And especially when you have a president who's. It's all gone to his head. The imperial vision is now much more part of where he is than in the first term, where he had all kinds of other terrible visions and prejudices and inclinations and policies, but that really wasn't quite as much part of it. Now it's clearly central. And now he's got himself in the hole in Iran. He can't get out and won't do the things he would have to do to minimize the damage. Yeah, so we get the worst of all worlds, right? Very aggressive authoritarianism at home, some of it, unfortunately, with some prospect of succeeding, at least for a while. And then abroad, sort of incompetent imperialism, if you want to call it that. Authoritarianism. If you were just staying at home, at least one would feel like, okay, maybe it's not great policy and our alliances are getting weaker, but one can imagine it just being a gradual process. But the Iran war really has. You've made this point several times. It's put an exclamation point on the retreat abroad and on the incompetence abroad. And every ally and every opponent we have around the world is looking at
- [12:56]
B
us and thinking, well, no unintended consequences. I want to do a little bit more on Iran in one second. Let's just really quick close on Blanche, because you had in the newsletter this morning trying to make lemonade out of lemons. It was a good effort. I appreciated the effort. It's pretty sour out there. But why don't you make the case for people that haven't had a chance to read it? Well, just.
- [13:19]
A
It does force all these Republican senators to vote for Blanche, maybe with the exception of Collins. They need to get 50 votes, and several of them are on the ballot. And then, of course, in the open seats, the Republican challengers are going to gas this week, and they'll say they support Blanche's confirmation. I don't know that Blanche is a huge voting issue, but I think it does bring home what for me is the Key issue for the next three months that Democrats just need to hammer. A Republican Congress will never stand up to Trump. You don't like Trump. Trump is at the Bush line. Trump is at 34% approval. You want him checked. Whatever you think of us Democrats, you don't have to love us, God knows. But we will check Trump and the Republicans won't. And here's the latest instance. It looked like they were gonna check Trump and they didn't. Right. I mean, so it's good to go out into the recess with a capitulation to Trump in that respect, I think from a political point of view.
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B
And I think it's good to just make the point also then that they really didn't stand up to Trump at all. Not only did they confirm him, they did it based on this fig leaf, like total sham document. Like the. Did the document ever have legal standing? Really? Could it have uphold in a court before? No. But like this isn't signed by all the parties to the original agreement. Like it's just Blanche. Right. And you know, Trump has certainly broken a lot of handshake deals before and it doesn't seem as if Trump was on board for this. And again, like even the stupid piece of paper he put out didn't do anything to address like the other corruption about this, which is immunity for Trump on the tax side. And so the whole thing is fake. And what Trump wants to spend his time and focus on in the next two years is just going to be more and more examples of this enrichment of himself and his allies. That is his agenda. That's what is left of his agenda. I mean, I do think that using Branch is an example of that for some of these houses that are racist is sensible.
- [15:10]
A
It's still tough, especially the Senate though, because they literally will vote for Himstead in Ohio and Moody in Florida, and they really will have to cast that vote. And it's not a great vote for them, I don't think.
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B
Sullivan in Alaska, Sullivan in Alaska, it
- [15:23]
A
can make a marginal difference. And I do think it fits into the theme if it keeps Democrats on message, which is you need us to check Trump as much as we can. They shouldn't oversell it. This corruption, it's gonna be hard to stop it, but at least you're not gonna facilitate it, turn a blind eye to it, go along with it. So that's gotta be their core message. I would add. I say this in the morning shots. I don't know if you agree with this, maybe I overstated. But meanwhile, yesterday, this is before the capitulation on Blanche and there's some chance that Blanche still doesn't make it. Other Republicans might have problems, et cetera. And Democrats should fight it hard and drag it out all week and make a big fuss about it, assuming he does make it through. Democrats yesterday announced they had an agreement on a continuing resolution. They're going to fund the government through December 11. It totally confuses their message. The message should be the Republicans are terrible. All they want to do is accommodate Trump. But you know what? We're going to cut a deal with them totally unnecessarily now before they go home so they can go home and saying, you know, we're governing responsibly. Look, the Democrats just voted for a bipartisan way to keep the government open.
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B
I was going to rant about Dan Sullivan, but we'll just, we'll get to it.
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A
Yeah, please. Okay. You rant about it.
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B
Well, no, we'll get to Dan Sullivan next. We're going to do the CR because I couldn't believe this. I texted this to you yesterday. I got my little.
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A
You did. You were the one. I hadn't noticed.
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B
I turned my alert, you know, they're all off, and it was like the punch bowl news alert. And it says this. Congressional appropriators have released a short term spending bill that will fund federal agencies through December 11, attempting to avoid a pre election day shutdown. The bipartisan bill is expected to be taken up in the Senate this week. It's like, why? What? Why, why? Why would the Democrats go along with anything? And this is like, you understand we're doing Michigan at the very end. You understand why people are going to go for Abdul Al said when the stuff like this happens? Honestly, like what? What could plausibly be the rationale for signing on to a bipartisan effort to fund this government with the way that Donald Trump is spending the money on his fucking triumphal arch and on masked murderers in the streets. Let them have the shutdown fight. Do the same thing you did the last two times. Talk about you're not gonna fund the government because you want to spend people's taxpayer dollars on helping taxpayers get health care, get things that they need, not, you know, fund Donald Trump's fucking pet projects like it's crazy.
- [17:34]
A
And they get almost no concessions in this. So they don't get to. There are no limitations on what ICE does. There's no question the war will be funded. All the things the Democrats could have made a real fuss about. A and B, just to make the point even more obvious. I mean, the current funding runs through September 30th. If they feel on September 26th that it's too hard to shut the government down and they're better off doing a short term cri, you know, I could that will be a case to be made. Doing it now two months early, giving the Republicans this nice out to say they're being bipartisan and they're being responsible. And look, we're working with the Democrats. The Democrats are saying we just suck up to Trump. But no, we're working together on it's beyond. I looked around last night. I thought maybe after you sent me the thing that I started to read about it. This is crazy. There must be something I'm missing. And I looked around, but so far I have not found a compelling argument the other way. Maybe I'm missing something.
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B
If you're a Democratic Senate staffer, I'd be glad to hear a counterpoint to this. But I'm looking at the bill. It's like we're going to fund the National Security, Department of State and Related Programs Appropriations Act. Why? Why would the Democrats be funding Marco Rubio's coups? That's what Marco is going to spend money on for the rest of the year. He's planning his finishing his Cuba coup. It includes DHS funding, it includes Interior, which I think is funding the Arch. Why? Well, not one cent would be my position.
- [18:57]
A
I mean, it's a cr so it includes, I think it includes all of them, basically. And again, there are ways to it says if you want to keep stuff open in late September, there are ways to selectively keep the key departments that service people open. There are ways to do even a short term cr, maybe get some, insist on some concessions on some of these things, as you're saying. But this is really kind of crazy. And I do, yes, you're right. I mean, honestly, why are Democratic voters unhappy with Democrats in Washington and the Democratic establishment? That's why they are right.
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B
But one of the other moments of clarity I had on vacation was thinking about how I'm going to prioritize my time going forward. You guys know, if you're longtime listeners, one thing I don't do, iron. Life's too short to iron. Here's another thing that life's too short to do. Spend a Saturday wandering around a blind store. Not going to do that. Not interested in that. That's an hour that could be spent for higher and better purposes. I want to spend my Saturday brunching with my gays or with My child at the park or I don't know, doing a bulwark take for you guys that's useful. So what can you do instead? Think of a better way to blind shop with three Day Blinds. They're the leading manufacturer of high quality custom window treatments in the US and right now if you use my URL3dayblinds.com the Bulwark. They're running a buy one, get one 50% off deal. That's a good deal. We can shop for almost anything at home. Might as well shop for blinds at home too. Three Day Blinds has local, professionally trained designed consultants who have an average of 10 plus years of experience. They provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you in the comfort of your home. Just set up an appointment, you'll get a free no obligation quote the same day. And if you I'm not going to go shopping for blinds on a Saturday, you know I'm not going to do that. One thing I'm sure is shit not going to do is actually put the blinds up myself. DIY projects. And that's not it. That's not where my time is being spent. The expert team at three Day Blinds, they do all that. They design, they measure, they install. So you can just sit back, relax, rage, tweet, leave it to the press right now. Get quality window treatments that fit your budget with three day blinds. Head to three day blinds.com thebullwerk for their buy one, get one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades and drapery for a free no charge, no obligation consultation. Just head to 3dayblinds.com thebullwork One last time, that's buy one get one 50% off when you head to the number 3D a Y blinds.com the bulwark. I'm gonna go back to just the blanche vote because I think you did make a good point and I was a little cheekily dismissive of it about these senators having to confirm him. I just the Dan Sullivan you were talking that got me going. So I pulled up Dan Sullivan's Twitter feed and I pulled up his little press release thing to see what he's doing and is there a more pathetic figure than him? Dan Sullivan tried to run in like a Tom Cotton esque kind of ouvre that he was going to be a national security kind of responsible steward, strong US military type senator. And it's like he's nowhere. He is just, he's the invisible man in Washington. He goes along with everything Trump wants to do in these hearings. It doesn't seem like he has any concerns about somebody being the head of ODNI who has absolutely no experience, who is offensively dismissive about questions of basic facts about the election and other matters. No complaints about the concerns of DoD that you covered on Thursday's podcast and the issues that we have with material like nothing. He's posting like, oh, he was at the Blueberry Festival this weekend in Alaska. He's got two posts about him and Mike Rowe having an event. It's like nothing. He goes weeks without putting out anything. What is his position on the Iran war? Who knows? I guess pro. He doesn't say anything about it. These guys are so unbelievably pathetic. Trump is at 34% like he's up for reelection. You have no concerns about the way things are going if you're Dan Sullivan? Apparently not. Mary Peltola for Senate.
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A
Once you've gone along so long, you don't. It's just too hard to break. And maybe it wouldn't help him to break this leg because he's gone along with everything. As you say, though, he's actually, I knew him a little bit back in the day, you know, obviously senior person in the military, knew a lot about defense, seemed to care about it sincerely. He also was incidentally, kind of a McCain internationalist. I think he joined the board of IRI, didn't he? The international Republican stud. Maybe he's chairman even now. I'm not too sure. I've lost track of. It's become a pretty ineffectual and pathetic organization during the Trump years, but it was once a place that kind of was a home for internationalists. Conservative internationalist Republicans. Yeah.
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B
He's the chairman of iri. Yeah, yeah.
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A
And he wanted to be part of that. But has he spoken up against all the other stuff? No.
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B
Tell people this just so people can understand my laughter. Tell people what IRI was supposed to be about. What was iri?
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A
They're part of the complex of organizations that get some money from the government and then conveys money on their own to do things like election observance, helping civil society groups, especially in Ukraine, but in places where there are conflict or where there's authoritarianism and it was. They and the Democratic equivalent did some pretty good work over the last two, three, four decades. And, you know, sort of.
- [24:26]
B
Do you know what their tagline is? It's right here. Pull it up. Advancing democracy worldwide. Okay, so it's under attack everywhere with Donald Trump leading the charge. And like Dan Sullivan, who is ostensibly the chairman of this Group has nothing to say about it. It's just like unbelievably pathetic and cucked.
- [24:44]
A
Yeah, I didn't know he's chairman.
- [24:48]
B
I'm glad we circled back to Dan Sullivan. A good five minute hate on Dan Sullivan is a nice way to return. Where was I? Oh, I wanted to talk more about the war and you covered some of this. But in some ways this is a little bit of Groundhog Day with Trump making threats and then backing down. But there have been some real developments. The Ukraine war, Iran war, quasi merge would be an overstatement, but Ukraine attacked an Iranian ship, increasing evidence that Russia is providing targeting intel to Iran, going after our troops and our bases. And then in addition to that, kind of trying to figure out how to get out of it, there's a CNN exclusive this morning that says that there was a request from a senior officer at the US Military command that said, quote, we are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran. So that's where they're at, really, is spiraling. I mean, there's a bunch of other stuff that happened, you know, as far as, you know, the expanding regional war and the ways in which Saudi was getting involved in other countries. Well, at some level, it's kind of the same as it ever was. Story like, it is worsening.
- [25:56]
A
Yeah. Iran turns out to be stronger than we thought even two months ago when we knew that they hadn't been obliterated. But we thought, I did think at least. Well, maybe they really have been set back, though, and they got a few drones and a couple of missiles. But it turns out they have quite a lot of missiles and quite a lot of drones and quite a lot of capability to strike all over the place. And they're working closely, it does look like with China actually, behind the scenes and with Russia. And they've got other neighboring countries totally intimidated. And MBS called your friend, MBS called Trump Saturday to urge him not to escalate the war against Iran. The Saudis don't like Iran and they don't want to make it even worse. I mean, we have just destroyed the alliance structures that we have in Europe and the Middle East.
- [26:36]
B
Remember when they're getting in the Abraham Accords?
- [26:39]
A
How's that working out?
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B
Yeah, everything was great. Jared Kushner, Peace in our time. It's mockable and concerning. There's a memo going out around the security agencies. It's like, wanted new ideas for how to go after Iran. Like, as if, as if there hasn't been like, what a half century of war gaming on this. Like, there isn't, you know, people in the bowels of DOD that have been coming up with different ideas for fucking decades. But the reason why that is, like, we're harming our Asian allies. Like, economically, the Arab allies are being targeted and Israel is in a different boat than the rest of them. But, like, that's why I think that they are, like, we need to come up with creative ideas because they still feel like they need to put on pressure, but they don't have support for doing. And I don't even think Trump wants to do what would need to be done to escalate.
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A
And the military has gone along with an awful lot, it seems to me. It's hard to judge from outside. Maybe there was more resistance than I realized. But certainly on the show I did Thursday when I was pinch hitting for you with Margaret Donovan, I mean, who was a jag, and the decade ago, the fact that we have no report, no public acknowledgment that we hit the girls school and how that might have happened, at least a classified report for Congress, but also a public report that's been done many, many times in the last two, three decades as we fought wars and made mistakes and hit civilian targets. Obviously, that's just disgraceful, really. This is what got me freaked out about that conversation. The degree to which the military itself could be getting corrupted. I hate to even say it. I hope it's not happening. And I think the military is more resistant than almost anything else in the US Government. You get the firings, you get the politicized promotions, you get the, you know, the message that goes all the way down. If you want to get along, you. Not just you go along, but maybe you even suck up. That New York Times story when you were gone about the way in which the guy who's chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Caudle, got the job is horrifying.
- [28:34]
B
I missed that story. What was it?
- [28:36]
A
So it's like a nightmare of what everyone who's worried about a third world politicized military, he basically saw that Hegseth was going to fire the chief of Naval Operations. I think it was Admiral Frank Keddy. I think that's her name. Was her name is her name. And he decided he could get it. And he spent weeks sucking up to Hegseth, hiring Parla Torre, who was Hegseth's lawyer, to be his lawyer, saying he didn't like all that DEI stuff. I mean, basically the worst kind of political campaigning for this job, which worked and now he's head of naval operations. So that's at the very top level, four star. But then of course, God knows what's happening at the one star level and at the colonel major level and so forth to get promoted. I mean I'm much more worried and I think Margaret was in this conversation about the degree to which in 18 months. 18 months is not a short amount of time. Another 24, 30 months. You're going through a whole promotion cycles here. Right. People have three year assignments. Usually Hexa is more incompetent than the rest of them I'd say compared to presumably the grown up lawyers at justice and even to Mark Wayne Mullen probably at dhs. But he's pretty determined to do what he's doing and he's getting no pushback. And that gets us back to Dan Sullivan, your friend. There are people in the US Senate who know something about the military and some of them, many of them are actually Republicans and this is a place where they can say look, we love Trump, we love this, we love that blue. You can have all the corrupt graph you want, but you know what? We are going to get serious about not letting you ruin the United States military. Kind of an important institution. Right. And they're not doing so far as I can tell, almost nothing.
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B
It's pretty telling that Cash and Hagseth are still in there.
- [30:10]
A
Yeah.
- [30:10]
B
You know, I mean like with all of the stories that came out about cashes incompetence and the Atlantic, the people from inside the House, even maga, FBI agents just talking about how clownish it is and then again with all the reporting you were just talking about about DoD and with the obvious disaster that the Iran war is, you would think there would be like that's where one of the scalps would be. And I think that the fact that it hasn't been and that there isn't really even buzz about it, it's pretty alarming. Right. As you look ahead to the kind of things to be worried about in 2028. Trump wants people that are pliable in charge of those ministries in those two
- [30:59]
A
cases, obviously people who are more than pliable, who are eager to participate in all the anti Democratic and really. But I'm serious, when you think about it, it's really terrible that they're there. I couldn't agree with you. I hadn't really thought about the fact that they're still there.
- [31:12]
B
But you're right, that is they lost Bondi. No telling.
- [31:15]
A
Right?
- [31:15]
B
You know.
- [31:16]
A
Yeah. Gabbard.
- [31:19]
B
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've heard me talk about BetterHelp for a while now, but I don't know what we ever talked about how much people love the service when they use it. You can check it out yourself@betterhelp.com reviews to see amazing customer reviews in real time. The reviews are updated every day with hundreds of people saying how much they love betterhelp and how helpful it's been to them. Speaking of which, have you given this podcast a positive review lately? You probably should right now. Just go ahead and do that and go read the reviews@betterhelp.com BetterHelp has an average live therapy session rating 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client session reviews. The feedback from people who have actually used the service speaks for itself. BetterHelp therapists have at least three years and 1,000 hours of hands on experience. They also hold all required education, training and certifications across a range of mental health specialties. And BetterHelp makes it easy to get started. Answer a few questions, get matched with a therapist based on your needs and switch therapists at any time if it's not the right fit. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com thebullwork that's betterhelp.com thebullwerk I want to go to other news. One more thing from the things that I missed that I would be remiss to not cover briefly, the surveilling of Jim Comey. That story from our friend Carol Linnig at msnow and others. Apologies to whoever else was on that story. It's like this combination of shocking and alarming and it's also like the boobishness of it. I mean it's like it had a little bit of a Watergate feel to it that it was like this was very menacing and also like so boobish and like crazy. But like Trump's on the plane on Air Force One, I guess going to the Middle east and the Secret service folks in D.C. are getting messages from the plane that like redacted figure is very interested in the surveillance of Comey and where Comey is and that this is a big topic of discussion on the plane. What are we going to do? And so they start surveilled him on his drive home from the beach to his house in Virginia and surveilled his house. He got his phone, they're pinging where his phone was like illegally. No warrant based on emergency, a supposed emergency notion that he might be threatening the President. That is really just sheer madness. Yeah.
- [33:52]
A
I guess the Secret Service got involved because the claim was it was a threat to the President. And the Secret Service deals with those. So they have expertise on that. Now the way in which they investigated it, justice was comical, of course, trying to get some old 86 year old mobster to say that 86 does mean rubbing someone out, which it doesn't. It didn't. He said, I think. But no, but it does illustrate also, doesn't it? I mean, how again, it goes down through the ranks. So some third level Secret Service guy gets a call from his buddy on the plane and he's involved in the investigative side of things in the Secret Service and suddenly they're all doing this stuff, which they should not be doing. Right. And in that respect it is worse than Watergate, obviously, because Watergate, they couldn't really penetrate the agencies quite that well. You, that's what makes me worried. I mean, every part, every place you look, it's happening and it's often buffoonish. The Federal Communications Commission, the post office with the ballots. But they've, you know, it's a pretty sustained government wide effort to for corruption, for prosecution of enemies and for election subversion.
- [34:52]
B
Yeah. And the buffoonishness just doesn't negate just the total assault on civil liberties in this country and the authoritarian nature of it. Right. It's just like, correct, Jim Comey should not be spied on because the President doesn't like him. That's what was happening. That is what happens in authoritarian countries. Doesn't seem like this is happening at scale yet here. But the fact that it was happening at all is an unbelievable scandal. You always do the oh, if Obama did this, blah, blah, blah. It's kind of stupid a dog bit to be anything but really. If you look back to another administration of our lifetime besides the two Trump administrations, the idea that the President of the United States directed the Secret Service to spy on a political foe, it would be an administration embroiling scandal. I mean, people would resign over it. Right. I mean there's not since Nixon been anything akin to it. We'll talk about a couple other Republican crazy stuff that's been happening. I'm happy to see that the Max Miller story has burst into public consciousness. It's something that we've been talking about on this show. But for people who missed that or don't remember, he's the Ohio congressman that has two credible domestic abuse allegations against him. And they're particularly credible because the first is from Stephanie Grisham, who is Donald Trump's spokesperson, and the second is from the daughter of Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno. So two Republicans, MAGA folks, are in the Trump orbit saying that he assaulted them. And the strange thing was this was not getting any attention, really. And he's up for re election. It's a winnable seat, potentially, for Democrats, I think. Brian Poindexter is a Democratic candidate in that district. And Moreno hadn't said anything. The allegations from his daughter about Miller throwing scalding hot water on her, and there are pictures, she submitted pictures of the burning on her skin and other kind of bruises came out like two years ago. Her dad hadn't said anything. He finally put out a statement yesterday saying that Miller shouldn't be in Congress. I haven't seen a whole parade of other senators or congressmen joining on for all of the Graham Platner drama. Maybe belatedly, all the Democrats, even his close allies, came around to saying that the allegations were too serious for him to run. The Miller accusations are at least as serious. And I guess the only person to have said anything so far is the father of the woman who made the allegations. I guess I should say I do think it's potentially meaningful. You don't have to hand it to Bernie Moreno, who waited two years to do this for some reason, but it's potentially meaningful that he did so, because I do think him not saying anything was cover for the other Republicans to not say anything. Because they're like, if the girl's dad, woman's dad, excuse me, isn't going to say anything, then why would I? I think there's more pressure now on them to do so, but we'll see. It's another one where you look at the senators, John Husted. It'll be interesting to see what he has to say. Ohio Senate race. Yeah.
- [38:09]
A
I do wonder if this is a much bigger story in Ohio, obviously, than. I mean, now is a big story nationally, but it was already beginning. Yeah. What does Houston say? What does Speaker Johnson say when they get back? He. So far as. Oh, no, I guess there's an ethics investigation. Just want to take a close look. I mean, it's really appalling. It's horrifying. Who was that other guy that's in there? There was another. I forget his name.
- [38:29]
B
Always Corey Mills.
- [38:30]
A
Yeah. Who's another?
- [38:32]
B
He's probably thinking of.
- [38:33]
A
They're just all happily there. And Trump's gop, you know, sexual abusers and stuff. But of course, it fits in with the overall Epstein thing too. So the Democrats just need to say, this is Trump's gop, and then they'll let the decent ones say, oh, no, that's not me, but fine, if it's not you, distinguish yourself from your buddy there, Max Miller, whom you're clowning around with in the House Republican Conference every.
- [38:53]
B
Yeah, among the other things, I guess he held a gun to her head, threw hot water at her. Police are also conducting an act of child abuse investigation.
- [39:01]
A
Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible.
- [39:02]
B
Reporters reached out to several high profile Ohio Republicans, including John Husted, and they didn't, they didn't give a comment. So I don't know how long it'll be able to last, but we'll keep, we'll keep watching. These guys have no, absolutely no integrity. They don't care at all. Millers. I put out a lengthy video defending himself yesterday. There was one part of it that particularly caught my interest that I want to play for people he doesn't really like, give an alternate explanation of what happened in the scalding hot water incident. But he does try to provide an alibi for himself. Let's listen. The very next day, we had a friendly phone call about our daughter's upcoming hospital procedure and I drove in from Washington to be there for it. Six days later, she offered to cook empanadas for me for dinner. If I had assaulted her, would she had offered to cook me dinner? Six days later, would she have invited me to spend an afternoon at the playground with her and our daughter? If I had assaulted her, would she have cooked me empanadas? I mean, like, this is like from a fucking 80s movie villain. That is insane.
- [40:11]
A
Yeah. And we know that that's often, unfortunately, the way, you know, victims, they're in a tough position. They feel that they have to get along with this guy for a while. He's stronger than they are. He's a member of Congress. He has powerful friends. She's worried about her daughter. Maybe he invite him to the playground for a couple of hours, maybe cook him dinner or some, you know, if it keeps him from doing even worse things. But this has been much studied, obviously by those who know much more than I do.
- [40:33]
B
She had cooked me supper. If I roughed her up a little bit.
- [40:36]
A
It's just the idea that that's the defense. And now we have, I guess, these other tapes. No, there's no defense. I, I, I, one point thought, look, I don't want to jump to conclusions. A few weeks ago, I don't Know, I don't know any of these people, and who knows what happened in these cases, but it's pretty clear. And Moreno, I mean, I do think that's where Moreno makes a difference. Right. He was very reluctant to say anything. I don't think he's covered himself in glory, incidentally, as a. If I may say, as a father, that of. By rallying to the defense of his daughter publicly, now, privately, I think he was with her on her side, so to speak, trying to help. We seriously believe that Moreno and his daughter are on some conspiracy to drag down Max Miller. I don't think so.
- [41:14]
B
Yeah. And it's really like if the writers of Mad Men would have been like, we need to go back to the drawing board on this one. It's too on the nose. Would she have cooked me some dinner if I had punched her? It's like, what? Fucking sick. Sick guy. Big race there in Ohio. It's another one to look at. Hopefully we can rid ourselves of Max Miller. I want to talk about Mitch McConnell. Not a lot has changed since I left on that front. He did issue one more proof of life photo. We've not heard him speak. Putting everything else aside, the paid medical leave is pretty good in the Senate. I don't know if anybody else would get to just disappear from their job for months on end without getting that. Maybe like Mitch McConnell, I don't know, maybe that should increase his interest in healthcare reform if he's to come back to the Senate, which I don't expect we have. Kay Granger also died while I was gone. She was a House Republican from Fort Worth. She spent the final months of her House career in an assisted living home in Texas. These people need to understand who they are representing and what their job is. I don't understand how they can rationalize that this continues to be okay. And I guess we're coming up on August 6th. Is that the idea that Mitch McConnell that, like, the rules in Kentucky on how it gets replaced or stuff are different? Coming up in the next few days. But if they do that, if they try to pull this, where Mitch McConnell finally drops out right after the deadline, it is a total offense and affront to the people that they're supposed to be representing. Including people that don't vote for them.
- [42:56]
A
Yeah. The degree to which we are going to have, don't you think, a massive generational, I mean, a real rebellion against the old people in both parties, though, including healthy ones. But you just sort of. It has to be a presumption now that you Cannot just have the attitude of you're there forever and you're there till you become feeble and you're there till you die. It's too. I mean, after everything we've been through,
- [43:16]
B
shouldn't we know what Mitch McConnell's status is? I don't know. I mean, I felt like when I left there was some rumblings, like whether Andy Bashir should be a little tougher on this. I do feel this way. Like, shouldn't the governor of Kentucky, like, know if the senator from Kentucky is compos mentis?
- [43:35]
A
Well, yeah, he doesn't, he says. And do any Republican senators know? I. I suppose John Thew knows. He's just keeping mum. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, it is kind of astonishing.
- [43:46]
B
All right, well, I've got more stuff for people. I've got little business, you know, podcast business I want to share with people. And I've got a very lengthy dissertation on the Michigan Senate race, which I'm sure people are really excited about. What else? Is there anything else from the past that I missed? Bill, anything else you want to get off your chest? Reflecting pool.
- [44:05]
A
Otherwise, Reflecting pool was amazing. And again, just the kind of degree to which all kinds of people at Interior and Justice and the White House were lying. The lying, the continued lying, the shamelessness of the lying. We shouldn't forget about that. It's stupid to even talk about because it's been so obvious for years. But again, we shouldn't neglect that. I suppose it is quite something, the lying, the corruption, the incompetence. So on the one hand, it's all bad. I guess the one thing I would say is the Bush line. I mean, the good news is last week there really were several polls and respectable polls, a couple of them of registered voters and said not just adults. Trump has typically done a little better with registered voters, all four of them under 35%. I mean, that's pretty astonishing. And that really is a drop down from the 40 was bad or 40 you start. That's when I started to think the Senate's really in play. 35. I mean, now presumably he gets a little bounce back from that. And Ron Brownstein was on the bulwark on Sunday yesterday. You just do the math. And we know quite a lot about how approval ratings correlate with the vote in an off year election. If you do the math of what Trump's approval rating must be in the different states that we've been talking about, it's going to be better than 35. If he's 35 nationally. His approval rating in Ohio is 45, maybe. Right. 10.10. Ohio is 10 points better than the nation, probably for Republicans, it's not about 50. And there's a lot of evidence that if you get the president below 50, the senator or the senatorial candidate from his party has trouble, especially when that party is so closely linked to Trump. It's why the Democrats have to make it all about Trump. They have to. If I can, maybe I'll close out with this, not go along with stupid, unnecessary compromise bills to keep the government open two months before you have to pass anything about keeping the government open and why they have to just hammer the Republican going along with Trump in this being just a rubber stamp for Trump in the most shameless way, I think.
- [46:00]
B
Can I add one thing to this? Because it's what I'm going to rant about next. But I just want to get your take is. And also the tying to Trump is also just keeping the eye on the ball about, like, what this midterm election is, is about Trump. I just like, to the extent that my bubble got pierced, the amount of factional infighting and nitpicking, I find it almost irresponsible. And I think that it's a pox on both sides or all the sides of the fight within the Democratic side. I understand the notion that the Democrats need new, fresh thinking in the future if they're going to win presidential majorities again. I hear that. But, like, that's not what the 2026 election is about.
- [46:36]
A
I totally agree. It's. And apart from the fact, yeah, it's analytically stupid, I mean, that is to say, what, 20 in the sense that obviously Democrats need to have a positive agenda, et cetera, in 28 for the presidency. And obviously they should fix various things about the party and about liberalism's message and figure out who's right between the progressives and the centrists on a whole bunch of issues, et cetera, et cetera. The one thing they have to do in 2728 is stop Trump from further as much as they can stop Trump from further ruining the country. It is not just politically useful to make it about Trump because he's at 34%. It is correct to make it about Trump. It is the most important thing. But we're in this, like, crazy world.
- [47:13]
B
It's not even closed, by the way. It's not even close.
- [47:15]
A
No, not yet.
- [47:15]
B
Totally.
- [47:16]
A
I mean, well. Oh, the Democrats really have to work a little on the health care thing because they're like, oh, Medicare for all is kind of good, but it's kind of problematic. What about this? You know what? Fine. Think tank should do that. Individual members should do that. They have staffs, they have their own committees. I'm all for that. They should be ready to go with good legislation. And in 27 won't go anywhere, probably in 28, but certainly in 29. And that's all fine, but it is not the fundamental thing. So this is a case where the political imperative and these. What would we call it, substantive imperative are the same.
- [47:43]
B
I think it's such a comfort to be back with you, Bill. We're extremely aligned. Thanks again for your assistance while I was on holiday. And we'll catch you next Monday. All right, everybody, stick around. I got. I got more for you.
- [47:57]
A
Yeah, stick around, though. This is going to be a good rant from Tim, so.
- [48:16]
B
All right, so a couple of items just between me and y'. All. You may have noticed, whenever it matriculates into your pod feed, we've got new art, We've got a new Bulwark website. It's looking great. Go to the bulwark.com, sign up if you haven't. We also have a new name for the podcast. Kind of ish. It's the Bulwark Daily. Now, I've been wanting to do this for a while because this show is really more than a podcast. It's in part my engagement with you guys. It's obviously video. It's on YouTube. I'm surprised by how many people who say they listen to the podcast, then subsequently tell me they didn't realize it was Daily. I think that's good for the branding people to know I'm here every day. People need everyday material. I also noticed some of the other podcasts like mine have started calling themselves video podcasts lately. And there's something about that that just makes my skin crawl. It just feels wrong. Video podcast. I don't even like to say it. I thought for a second about the Bulwarks show. I felt weird. I don't know why. Just didn't read right. So, anyway, the Bulwark Daily, we're here every day. Nothing else is changing but just a little brand refresh for everybody. And I really. And also I want to acknowledge and appreciate everybody that comes every day, because I do think that it is a different type of thing, a different type of relationship when I'm talking to you guys every day and hearing from you guys every day. And I think that is something that I value about what we're doing here, so hopefully it doesn't spook you too much. I know some people don't like change. I know we're all never Trumper OGs, you know, the small c conservatives out there. We don't like change. We get uncomfortable. But I think it'll ring right after a minute. A few vacation big thoughts Before I wax poetic about how great it is to have two weeks off on vacation, I do just want to say I realize that I'm really lucky you guys make that possible for me. So I appreciate that A lot of people have jobs or financial situations or family situations that don't allow them to just gallivant for two weeks. And so I'm really grateful that I was able to do that. And I think it was important because I feel like I found a lot of clarity in week two. Week one, you're still on vacation, you still have the stress, you're still tense. I was partying a little bit. Week one, Week two, there was a peace, there's a piece. There was a lot of time for reading and thinking. I felt like I got a lot of that. I felt like I got some clarity of mind about what our purpose is here that is useful. I feel like I was able to do some learning again, which is nice because you got to be able to consume to provide new thoughts and ideas and perspectives to people. I was able to learn in particular a lot about bananas. So you're going to be hearing a lot of banana facts in the next few podcasts. I don't know if you guys knew this, but we gave people when they got to Ellis Island a banana for a period of time when they got off the ship. One of the big fruit companies that then did the coups did that, but I thought that was kind of nice. USA. I wanted to, in particular, though, right now talk about one element of the clarity that I just previewed for you with Bill Kristol. The distance gave me a lot of feeling of the pointlessness of the fights that I find myself embroiled in, sometimes on social media or even on the comments of this here video. I don't know if it's the phones we have to know everything about everybody, or if it's trauma from a decade of Trump or if it's this feeling that the stakes are so high that anyone who doesn't see things exactly like you do as a traitor. If it's something else, it's some combination of all that, but it feels like there's a fraying of the opposition right now. And there's a lot of really personal, petty, nasty fighting that is happening that I just think is extremely counterproductive and stupid and a waste of time when we are still two and a half years away from January 6, 2029, it's August 3, 2026. We know what happened on January 6, 2021. There's a lot of months, a lot of weeks, a lot of days. Now is for him to fucking create problems. And like that is the focus of what we're doing here. And I just think that's what should be everyone's focus. And you know, we talked about this a little bit with Nicole before I left. And I think that it's, you know, something that I have professional admiration for about her show, which is just like her eye is on the ball and television show is different from a podcast. And I'm still going to talk about all this other stuff. It's not as if you should ignore what's happening and there are important things happening in democratic politics to talk about it a little bit. But like the anger and the rage and the energy should be channeled against the person that is trying to turn us into a right wing authoritarian dictatorship. And I think that in some ways it's obvious, but like when you get into the day to day, you can lose sight of it. And so that's one of the. I had a lot of, what's the movie line, what alcoholics call a moment of clarity. I had a lot of moments of clarity while I was gone. That was just one of the moments of clarity. So you'll hopefully hear some of the others as the days move on. This takes us to Michigan though. I really hate the Michigan Senate race a lot. It makes me sad. And so before I get to that, I do want to shout out a Michigan House candidate as a little palate cleanser. I got to meet Matt Mosdom, who's running for The House of Michigan 7 a couple months ago now at Slotkin's old seat. This guy, if you don't know him, he held the nuclear football for Obama. He's a Navy seal. He has organized labor and Slotkin behind him. So he unites the tribes a bit. He's got this like personal profile of masculinity that people tried to project onto Platner but is actually legit and doesn't have the baggage with it. It's hockey, dad, and the dude has his priorities straight. I was watching one of his ads this morning and he's talking about how his top priority is fighting corruption in D.C. and like that is just correct. That is the correct focus for somebody who's going to the House of Representatives in 2030. Are there many other issues that are going to be important for the Democrats to hash out? Like, yes. But right now for these guys are getting In January of 2027, through the end of Trump, through the beginning of the post, Trump investigating their corruption, fighting it and getting our democracy back is the top priority. And this guy gets it. I just think he's exactly the type of dude Dems need. You can check him out if you live in Michigan 7 I'd encourage you to give him a look. Primary election is tomorrow. There are some other candidates in the race, but I'm partial to Mastum, so check them out. I also put a list of candidates a couple weeks ago that I think are worth supporting in the triad. I want to put a link to that again in the show notes, in case you missed it. Go check it out. I think we're going to update that some point here once all the primaries are done. But looking at candidates who are across the ideological spectrum, I think are strong candidates who are running in places where the Democrats haven't had a lot of success recently, where I think that they could have success. So there's the positive. Now we get to the Senate race. The story of my thoughts on the Senate race starts with a troubling tweet I sent in the Charlotte airport lounge before I did a cross intercontinental flight. I don't know if you guys remember the story of Justine Sacco. My elder millennials remember this, she tweeted. I don't remember what it was. I thought about looking it up this morning, just kind of, who cares at this point? She tweeted something that was either racist or quasi racist or interpreted as racist about her trip to Africa. And then she got on a plane and people saw the tweet and they started piling on her. And then a hashtag started about like, when does Justine land? And so like her flight lands and she gets off the plane and she realizes that she's been canceled, that everybody hates her for. The tweet that she sent, I had kind of a micro version of that before my vacation. Nothing racist. I tweeted that Haley Stevens was growing on me and it was kind of cheeky. She had this funny riff and I wish I could do her voice where she's like, we're gonna let it rip, we gotta let it rip. And she's just kind of mad and I don't know, there's just something about it that made me giggle. And I'm stuck in an airport lounge. I'm just like, fire it off. I'm fucking firing off tweets all the time. Fire off this. She's growing on me. What happened after that? I guess I don't know, because who cares? But my understanding is, like, some people who follow me also tweeted that she was growing on them. And then some other people started tweeting that sarcastically or mockingly. And then it's all happening while I'm in the plane. And then Track APAC somehow got on the Jump to Conclusions mat and was like, this must be an opinion. And then somehow somebody decided that we were getting paid $1,500 to tweet that Haley Stevens is growing on us. And Wajahat Ali is like, tweeting insane accusations at me about how I'm taking money for my tweets. And Rashida Tlaib is tweeting about this, and it's like, this is all crazy. It was all crazy. It's like, I don't. I think it was the second nice thing I've ever said about Haley Stevens. Like, she. There's something that she did at the debate I liked. I don't really remember what, but I've been nasty to Hailey Stevens mostly for most of this campaign. One of her friends, like, chastised me after a panel that I was on because I was comparing her to egg from Arrested Development and, like, being very critical of her. Like, I'm not. Like, this is not a Haley Stevens person, really. But, like, I thought the clip was funny. And so, you know, this thing, like, spirals out of control, though. And it's like, there are memes about this. And, like, it's like, okay, well, so this is part of my personal growth. I land in Berlin, and it's like, okay, a lot of congresswoman and a lot of people apparently think I'm taking money to say that Haley Stevens is growing on me. Just like, why would they pay me for that? The whole thing is insane. So whatever it's worth, I don't take money from anybody for any tweets. Certainly no campaigns or allied groups. The only people I take money from or we take money from at the Bulwark are those and the sponsored ads that you hear, if you're not a Bulwark plus member, shout out our friends at Three Day Blinds and Laundry Sauce. And they're disclosed as such. Yeah. So people send me things, and they're like, will you tweet this or whatever, like flax. But like, I almost never do. I never do. If I disagree, obviously every once in a while somebody will flag me for me, something that I, that I like. And so I'll share it. Of course. I think most flacks are like scared of me because I used to be a flack and I don't care. And this podcast would be fucking boring if I was like saying things that, that the press secretary for Haley Stevens wanted me to say. It's great the whole thing is. But I wanted to share some lessons from it. Number one, I sent one tweet trying to correct the record. Probably shouldn't have even done that, put my phone down, let people lie about me and moved on. Went to Berghain. I think that's personal growth and I think that just kind of in general, like keeping focus on the things that matter is smart for all of us in these stupid social media wars. I will say another lesson here might be be a little bit careful of what influencers you follow. If there are people that are randomly doing false smears against people that are ostensibly on their side because they want to win some internecine factional fight, maybe that should raise questions about whether you should trust them on other matters. And three, I think the Senate primary, these Senate primaries have caused everybody to take their eye off the ball. As I got into with Bill, like for the people who are like professional moderates or professional dsa, their eyes are so far off the ball right now like that they aren't even in the same stadium. And I know the DSA people aren't even gonna listen to me on this. So I try to say this to my moderate buddies, but it's just like, like going to the mat with personal nasty attacks on people who are part of the broad anti Trump coalition right now In August of 2026, I find to be totally irresponsible and wrong and I think everybody's got to take a breath. I think the people that are engaged in this should also go on a two week vacation if they can. Or maybe two days, it's going to walk around the block and it's time to get the ship back on course here while mixing my metaphors. But the threats are so great right now. The threats and the risks we talked about with Bill about the buffoons, they're running the national security. They're still killing people in the streets. We're about to do mass deportations of Haitians. They're spying on Jim Comey. Why possibly would you prioritize bickering over something that's not even gonna happen. Like Bill said, we're gonna bicker over what your healthcare plan is. It's like nobody's health care plan is being passed. Donald Trump is fucking president. Okay, so fight about that. In 2029, we have to defeat Donald Trump. So having a good message for people that's good, and arguing about what that message should be, that's fine. But these sort of low blows and lies and smears about people we're going to need to have on our side this year. And going forward to me is crazy. And so to the Senate race itself. Here's my thoughts. I don't really like either candidate that much for Abdul. I know that a lot of people really like him. Like he's got a huge fan base. I like the people get excited about candidates. I think that's good. I think it can be dangerous. You know, you don't want to get into a culture. But I want people to be excited. I don't want everybody to be jaded. It seems like younger people are excited about Abdul in particular in Michigan. That makes me happy. And so like that part of it. I don't want to yuck anybody's yum. I worry a little bit. Just my personal worry is that he's like an inverse Fetterman and he makes the life hard for the next Democratic president, like from the left in 2029. There's going to be narrow majorities. We're going to have to do stuff. Does he really seem like a team player? I. I don't know. But I also understand why he's resonating. People are really pissed. He's got a message for people that are pissed. And his focus message, he's a good message. Talking about healthcare, corporate influence, the way that we're wasting money on these stupid wars. I think that that message is right. And so I understand. The cultistness though again is part of what concerns me with him. The fact that he had to send out a tweet telling his own fans to stop doing misogynist hits on Hailey Stevens isn't great. The fact that they're regularly making up lies about their opponents. I don't like the fact that many of the people that were sending me messages and posting on my Instagram posts about my vacation, about how I'm a Zionist, I'm taking blood money from the Zionists, and I'm worse than maga. It's like, guys, if you think that Haley Stevens is a MAGA or a worse than maga, like You've lost your mind. Okay? You've totally lost focus on the plot. And I just. I think that that is the part that worries me about El Said and his supporters. They think that the enemy is the center, is the center left Democrats and not maga. And I'm concerned about that. I'm a little bit concerned about the election with him. We'll get to electability at the end. As for Haley personally, she doesn't like. She's kind of a strange cat. That's what the whole growing on me thing was about. She seems to have been a totally competent House member. I think that she'd be a total team player in the Senate. It's hard to imagine Haley Stevens not voting for whatever the policy priorities are of the next Democratic president. She seems to care about Michigan, get things done for Michigan. That is a totally fine person in the Senate. There are a lot of people in the Senate like Haley Stevens. As I said with Bill, I'm concerned about some of the ways that these people want to make too many deals with the MAGA Republicans. That would be something I'd have concerns about Haley with. But all in all, I don't. I think in the grand scheme of things, like, she'd be a broadly inoffensive senator. I understand why people are mad about the Apex stuff, and I do want to just talk about this really quick. I just think that in general, if any interest group puts tens of millions of dollars into one race, I think that should become an issue in the race. I do. And whether that would be AI or Big Oil or whatever, it's too much. It's too much influence. It is distorting the democratic process. We should reform it. There should be campaign finance reform. This was a bipartisan thing. When I was coming up, this was McCain's thing. And after Citizens United, things have gotten out of control and it's going to be tough for the Supreme Court to do stuff. And people need to come up with ways to make changes. And until we can make changes, the best that can be done is to make it a political issue. And so I think that no matter what the interest group is, the idea that there would be that much money flowing to one person feels like a totally relevant issue in the race. And it's something that I understand why people would be like, I don't want to vote for somebody that is getting propped up by that kind of money from interests. The Israel thing in particular, the APAC thing in particular. It's like, okay, again, people have to live in reality The Democratic Party rightly is upset about a lot of the ways in which America and Israel have conducted foreign policy. The fact that Israel, that Netanyahu is in our Situation Room arguing for this disastrous war, that's terrible. The way that Israel has prosecuted their actions in Gaza and then with the settlements, I have came on talking about what's happening in the West Bank. People are pissed about it. People are pissed about the way that we are involved with it. And so if you're going to have an interest group that is supporting closer ties to this foreign country, that people are upset about some of their actions recently, that's going to be a problem in the campaign. That's going to become a campaign issue. And I just think that this is where this whole race has devolved into this kind of sectarian religious war, which is just not how our campaign should be run. Things aren't going that great in the Middle East. I don't really want our primaries to be Israel, Palestine and Jews versus Muslims. I don't think that's healthy. We're in a pluralistic society. I don't think that interest groups or PACs that are pushing the interests of any foreign country should be having that much influence in our elections. Like a pack that is backed by Qatari Americans or Saudi Americans or Saudi Americans or Belgium. That is not healthy for democracy. And so it's become an issue in the race. I think it should have become an issue in the race. And I don't know that the pushback results in less money flowing to these races because it's not effective, because it backfires, I think that's probably a good thing. You know, look, everybody has their free speech rights in this country. Everybody should be able to advocate for the candidates they want. But like, I just think that in this moment where the Democratic Party should be uniting around Donald Trump and uniting around how Trump has betrayed voters and uniting around a message, an economic message for people who are being left behind and re establishing themselves as a working class party. Like turning the party into like a Middle Eastern sectarian religious war is ill advised to say the least. And so I don't think that it was wise for AIPAC to spend 30 million in this race. I think it ends up being self harming to their interests and to the interests of American Jews who are concerned about anti Semitism, all that. I think that it backfired and I think that as a result, Abdul said it's going to win this race tomorrow. So I don't know that my opinion matters that much. I'M a bit little concerned about. I think it's a little risky on the electability front. I think that Michigan has elected Gretchen Whitmer, Alyssa Slotkin, Dana Nessel, a lot of people that are of the Haley Stevens profile. And I think that any bad year for Trump, I think the neighbor Stevens would win easily. I think that Abdul will probably win, but I do think it'll be incumbent on him to really work to win over the voters of the people that voted for Alyssa Slotkin, who you might Remember won in 2024 when Kamala Harris lost. So figuring out how to talk to those voters who may have concerns, it's something that he's got to focus on. And I think that that is going to take a vibe shift from acting as if the central left Democrats are the enemy to focusing on Donald Trump being the enemy and how central left Democrats need to be on board with the effort. So that'd be my advice to Abdul and to fight agency and to the folks that are excited about his campaign. So that is that long show. I have a lot to say tomorrow. We're going to be live on the next level as the results come in. So that'll be great. If you want more Michigan Senate content. Wisconsin, it's going to be a doozy of a night tomorrow night. I've got a really great socialism rant going for tomorrow night's next level. I have so many rants that I've been kind of bubbling up in the old brain after a couple rose at the beach. So get fired up for that. And I don't think it's gonna be what you think it's gonna be, by the way. So hope to surprise you. Appreciate everybody very much. Good to be back. I'll take your comments, criticisms, compliments in the comments. See you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Daily. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown,