← The Bulwark Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript94 lines
- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Hey y'all, I hope you're listening to the Bulwark Podcast with me every day. But as we're learning in the first few weeks of the Trump administration, a lot of crazy shit can happen in 24 hours. And stuff can happen after I tape, or stuff can be really crazy and important but not make it into the hour that I have with you guys. I don't know. Here's some examples from the last week. Maybe Elon Musk will try to shut down an entire federal agency, or Trump will try to turn a foreign country into the Riviera of the Middle east. Or JD Vance will tweet out that saying I am a racist is not a cause for firing in this administration. When that stuff's happening and I have a little five or ten minute rant that I want to get out, I'm turning to a new podcast feed along with a lot of my pals, that's called Bulwark Takes. Bulwark Takes is our rapid response to breaking news and you get short takes from your favorite contributors like me, Sarah Longwell, jvl, Sam Stein, Will Salatin, and more. So you don't have to wait till the next day to hear our expert analysis and commentary on what's going on out there. You can search Bulwark Takes on Apple podcasts and subscribe if you want, audio only. Or you can head over to our YouTube channel to find the takes in video form too. So if we're going to be suffering throughout all this, come hang out with us. Subscribe to Bulwark Takes. We'll be seeing you out foreign. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Today is the seventh anniversary of the Parkland tragedy. I hate that we only discuss these horrors in like the couple days after they happen and then move on. So more to come on that next week. But we've put a link to Fred Gutenberg's orange ribbons for Jamie Charity in the show notes. Please go ahead and give him a little love and support and everybody else that was affected by that tragedy. But today we are jam packed with news. And segment two, we've got Michael Weiss on Trump's negotiation or submission to Putin and xi, whatever you want to call it. But first, he's back already we've got a lot of relevant news for him. It's Andrew Weissman, former FBI General counsel, former Justice Department prosecutor, chief of the Criminal Division in the Eastern District of New York. He's now co host of the MSNBC podcast Main Justice. He's got a newsletter on substack. We got Weiss, Weissman. If only we had Alan Weisselberg, we could have the full, just full gamut.
- [02:26]
Andrew Weissman
Panoply. Right.
- [02:29]
Tim Miller
Thank you for returning so soon. We're in a little bit of a pinch and the news is just screaming for you, given what happened yesterday at doj. Six senior Justice Department officials resigned rather than comply with the order to drop the Eric Adams investigation. They include basically the entire Public Corruption Unit at doj. Who needs that? Plus Kevin Driscoll from the Criminal Division, and then most notably the US Attorney from the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon. So what the fuck happened? Let's start there, Andrew.
- [03:00]
Andrew Weissman
Okay, what do we know? We know that there was a meeting last Friday with Danielle Sassoon and her deputies. She was in charge of, and her office is in charge of the criminal case against the mayor of the City of New York, Eric Adams. It was brought about nine months ago, and the defense lawyers were there and Emile Beauvais was there. He is the acting deputy Attorney general. New York minute ago, he was one of the criminal defense lawyers for Donald Trump. So he is a placeholder for the Trump administration in that position. And he's going to become the number two to the number two when Tom Blanche becomes the deputy Attorney general. His confirmation hearing is pending in the Senate right now. Todd Blitz, Todd Bletch. So there's various disputes as to what happened at that meeting. But Danielle Sassoon, the head of the now former head of the Southern District of New York, says essentially there was sort of laid out a quid pro quo of I will sort of enforce your immigration policy in exchange for your dismissing the case that has been disputed by Eric Adams, defense counsel. Understandable he would dispute it even if it happened. It's possible that there's just two different versions of what happened. More on that later.
- [04:26]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Okay.
- [04:27]
Andrew Weissman
That is then followed up by a directive from Neil Beauvais on Monday to the Southern District of New York saying you need to dismiss this case without prejudice. Where? I'm not basing this on the facts or the law. I'm basing it on two things. One, the case was brought too close to the New York City primary. That's a bogus, absurd argument. It was about nine months before the primary, and there's zero DOJ rules about not bringing a case within nine months of a primary. So that's just a fictitious reason. And it's important that you make that judgment because it's like, why would you come up with that fictitious reason why not just go with the truth if it's what you're doing is real? The second reason was sort of saying the quiet part out loud, which we're used to, which was the criminal indictment is going to interfere with the mayor's ability to carry out Donald Trump's immigration policies. That seems to corroborate what Danielle Sassoon said happened on Friday. Notably, by the way, in her letter describing what happened. She says at that meeting her deputies took notes and Emile Bove at the end of the meeting said, don't take notes and confiscated them and took them again. Why would you possibly care about somebody taking notes, which people do all the time, if nothing was being said that you in any way thought was improper?
- [05:59]
Tim Miller
It was the most remarkable part of a remarkable letter. I mean, it's like this three page letter. And then she ducks into footnote number one. Oh, by the way, Mr. Beauvais admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. It's like, this is why you always read the footnotes. That's where the good stuff is happening.
- [06:17]
Andrew Weissman
Totally. It's funny, I always tell my law students, I teach at a law school, I always say, read the footnotes. That's where people say, oh, yeah, by the way, here's a little factoid that tells you what's going on. And notably, the direction from Anne Bove to the Southern District of New York was to dismiss the case without prejudice. Meaning that as everyone has talked about, there's a sort of Damocles hanging over Eric Adams head, or as I like to say, a choke collar. And you've already seen the effects of that choke collar, which is, it has been widely reported that on Monday, which feels like a million years ago, but just this past Monday, Eric Adams met with his entire leadership team, every senior agency head and their general counsels and said, do not speak ill of Donald Trump, Mr. Trump. And then second yesterday, he said, I'm going to allow ICE agents into local prisons like Rikers to effectuate immigration arrests. That is in violation of local law. So, I mean, it's just remarkable. So here's a guy who's under indictment, out on bail, saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm authorizing them to violate local law. The mayor is not allowed to do that. Just to be clear, the mayor has no power to say violate local law any more than, Tim, you and I saying that. So there is now this standoff, because where we are right now is Daniel Sassoon has said, I am not doing this. I'm resigning rather than carry out what she believed, and I can agree with her, is both an improper and arguably illegal order from Emil Bove. He then says, I'm moving the case. The prosecutors signed to the case. I'm moving it from New York to Washington, D.C. to the public Integrity Section. Now, just to be clear, the criminal case is still pending in the Southern District of New York. He can't change that. The judge who has the case has the case, but it gets assigned to the Public Integrity Section. And that's why, Tim, each person, like the Saturday massacre, is saying, no, no, no, no, no. So you have six people who have now resigned. I'm sure everyone at the Department of Justice is saying, I'm not answering my phone because it could be Aviel Bove saying, I want you to go to the Southern District of New York and do this.
- [08:40]
Tim Miller
Could you explain that to me for kind of a novice on this? So why does somebody else have to take it up to close it? Like, why can't. I mean, I guess Trump could just pardon him. Could the doj? Why does it have to be a specific person within the DoJ to shut down the case?
- [08:57]
Andrew Weissman
So there is a pending criminal case, and in order for that case to disappear from the docket, there needs to be a motion that is. So somebody has to say, discontinue it. And that has to have court approval. The court has limited authority to say no, but if it was shown to be an illegal order or for improper purposes, there are a number of things the judge could do. The most extreme would be he could hold a hearing to say what happened here. I want to know if this is an illegal scheme. I think he should have a hearing. And here's the really extraordinary thing that he could do, is he could say, no, I am not doing this. I think this is part of a quid pro quo. I don't think you have a valid basis to dismiss it. At that point. The prosecutors, the plaintiffs in the case, are saying, I'm not going forward because Emile Beauvais is saying, I'm not doing it. So what could the judge do? He could appoint an independent team to prosecute the case. That has happened in a case called Donziger. A colleague of Judge Ho Lewis Kaplan, who some of your listeners may be, may remember, he had the E. Jean Carroll case where there were two separate verdicts in favor of Eugene Carroll, and he was the judge who oversaw that case. So in a separate case, he actually appointed A special prosecutor to go forward with a case which he thought was.
- [10:28]
Tim Miller
Meritorious couldn't veve or blanche just withdraw the prosecution. Couldn't they take it on? I mean, if they. But they have to be confirmed, I guess.
- [10:36]
Andrew Weissman
Let's assume that Emil can't find a prosecutor. He goes through thousands of people. But let's say he does it or he finds somebody to do it and they go into court and they say, judge Ho, we would like to withdraw this case. The judge does not have to agree to that. The judge could say, why? Why do you want to do this? And if the judge were to hold a hearing and conclude that there was an improper quid pro quo here, the judge would be, again, it's limited authority, but he'd be within his rights to say, the court is not going to be a part of this. And then the case is not dismissed. So it's not a unilateral authority for the prosecutors to say, we're not going forward.
- [11:19]
Tim Miller
Got it. Okay. So much more to get into here. We have, as we're, I think, going to a lot during the next four years, have some heroes and villains, morality plays. Let's talk about Danielle Sassoon for a second. She's not, you know, she's not some deep state lib like Andrew Wiseman.
- [11:34]
Andrew Weissman
She isn't. She isn't. You know, it's so funny. She will be, though, because she is going to be vilified the way Bill Barr is now viewed, like Bill Barr and Andrew Weissman are now. It's like they're one in the same. It's like, why we did something that Donald Trump doesn't like.
- [11:50]
Tim Miller
Well, congrats. We have one of those paintings, like one of those dumb dog poker paintings, and it'll be you and Bill Barr and McCabe and all memorialized forever. Sassoon was appointed by Trump. She's a Federalist Society longtime member. She clerked for Reagan appointee Judge Harvey Wilkinson on the 4th Circuit. Then she clerked for Antonin Scalia. Not exactly a squish. She was awarded the FBI Director's Award for Outstanding Criminal Investigation last year. It is noteworthy that she would do this given that background. Right. Like you could imagine. Not to impugn your business there, Andrew, but you could imagine a prosecutor who likes the cameras, who maybe doesn't like Donald Trump and sees an opportunity here to be whatever. Like you could imagine somebody making that political choice. This is not it. Like, this is somebody that has been a down the line, you know, by the book prosecutor who is appointed by and served for Republicans or conservative justices. Just saying, absolutely not. Three weeks after she was sworn back in. And that's pretty remarkable.
- [12:58]
Andrew Weissman
It is. You know, this is where I mean, I hate to sound Pollyannish or naive or be on a soapbox, but what you are seeing is at the Southern District of New York, at Main justice in the Public Integrity section. And just let's not remember that this is all on the heels of everything we're seeing at the FBI, which is also not a hotbed of the deep state. It is a conservative organization where the acting head of the FBI, Special Agent Driscoll, was also selected by Trump to lead that agency. While they, they await the confirmation of Kash Patel. All of them have been pushing back. And that's where what I would tell you. And again, I don't mean to sound Pollyannish, but let's do it. People act out of principle. All of these people, when I was in the department, their policies you agree with and you disagree with. There are Democrats and Republicans in the White House that come in all the time and you're used to policy directives that you have to implement. And if you can't stomach it at all, you can leave. But it is so rare that you ever see a situation where prosecutors and agents are resisting because something they believe is illegal. The last time we saw this was Trump 1.0 when prosecutors resigned in the Roger Stone case. I was so taken aback. It does not happen. And the only other time I can think of of note is the Saturday Night Massacre.
- [14:32]
Tim Miller
Well, maybe part of the reason why it sounds Pollyannish and people are skeptical of all this is just because we've seen so little principle out of the political wing. Right.
- [14:42]
Andrew Weissman
Yeah.
- [14:42]
Tim Miller
In the morning newsletter I sat in this morning and I wrote about the Cash Patel lies. And we talked about this earlier in the week with Carol Leonig, just his bald faced lies to senators about his involvement in that purge of the FBI that you referenced. Right. And we see no, not a single Republican Senator, not a single Republican elected official, not a single staffer who cares about federal law enforcement saying no. Like we should not confirm somebody that is going to lie to our face about the politicized manner in which he purged the FBI. Like we see none of it. And so, you know, the behavior, Sassoon and the other people that resign just does stand in stark contrast to what we've seen from the political class.
- [15:25]
Andrew Weissman
Absolutely. I mean, what you are seeing within the Department of Justice, including the FBI, is a sort of I am Spartacus moment where people are really standing up. And that is why Emil Beauvais has gone through six, count them, six people who all say, I am not carrying out what has been described as a quid pro quo.
- [15:45]
Tim Miller
So the Public Integrity Division. And there's gotta be some long term, at least short term consequences to the fact that like the Public Corruption Unit is now emptied out. I don't know, it doesn't seem like Pam Bondi is going to be, you know, quick to the draw to be replacing people in that, in that division. You know, you've, you worked in, in the building. I'm just kind of wondering what kind of stuff will be going unmonitored now.
- [16:09]
Andrew Weissman
A friend of mine who is a white collar defense lawyer said when Pam Bondi issued her first day memos that this is the golden era for white collar criminals, she basically was like, you know what? The Foreign Corrupt Practices act, gone. The Foreign Agents Registration act, gone. I mean, her policies are really favorable for sort of rich white criminals and.
- [16:38]
Tim Miller
Large corporations and also corrupt prominent black criminals as well.
- [16:44]
Andrew Weissman
Turns out public corruption cases, CG Eric Adams and Rod Blagojevich and Foreign Nation States where the Foreign Election Interference Task Force and the Kleptocracy Unit and all of these things that were put in place to prevent foreign adversaries from acting here illegally, all disbanded.
- [17:10]
Tim Miller
I want to get in a little bit more to this Emile Beauvais. Is that really how you say his name? It's such a pretentious way to pronounce the name. I might just start pronouncing it Bove.
- [17:20]
Michael Weiss
I love it.
- [17:21]
Tim Miller
For the rest of that. That is my I am Spartacus moment. I'm just going to mispronounce his name intentionally.
- [17:27]
Andrew Weissman
Going forward, maybe we'll call you Tim.
- [17:29]
Tim Miller
A. Tim A. Timothy. Timothy. He is emerging as kind of one of the main nefarious characters. Trump 2.0. Yeah. Villain, sure. He was the one in the aforementioned Cash Patel in the whistleblower report. I mean, we're three weeks in, we're not even a full four weeks in. And he's already been in two whistleblower reports named specifically this one person. Right. The whistleblower in the Patel situation said that it was Emil Bove that was telling FBI agents that it was Stephen Miller and Cash Patel that were calling for the purge. And now we have Sassoon saying he was the one that's doing this quid pro quo, allegedly with Eric Adams and telling people to confiscating the notes that were taken, you know, because you're not supposed to take notes on a criminal conspiracy, as we know, by the way, he is.
- [18:20]
Andrew Weissman
He has admitted that. He has not denied that he did that. He has said, I did it because I was concerned about leaks. I'm not really sure how being concerned about leaks is dealt with by taking notes because people can still talk. But just to be clear, he has not denied that he did that.
- [18:40]
Tim Miller
Interesting. Muzzles may look into muzzles. The other thing is, like, in his memo about rationalizing, you know, ending the prosecution of Adams, he compares it to the Victor Boot prisoner swap, which is like an insane comparison. Right? Because he's like, I'm criticizing the Biden administration for doing this deal for a Russian arms dealer in exchange for Brittney Griner. And so that is. That gives me justification to do a quid pro quo, as if. As if Eric Adams is the Russian arms dealer in this analogy. So, anyway, talk to us about, about. About this guy.
- [19:18]
Andrew Weissman
Well, Danielle Sassoon brings that up. She says the analogy to the Victor Boot quid pro quo, she said, well, that's alarming because that was the White House. They're entitled to say, you know what? We'll give you this person. You get. We'll give that person, you do a swap that is not allowed in the criminal law to say, you advance our policy agenda. And we'll give you essentially the, in effect, a pardon. But, you know, keep it hanging over your head to make sure that you're. You're on this choke collar. She's just like, that makes it even worse. And, you know, it's such a tell that Emile Beauvais, in his direction, has a footnote to your point. Look at the footnotes. That says, to be clear, this is not a quid pro quo. Like, it just. It just happens to be on his brain that, oh, yeah, I need to make sure I say that. I'm not doing this while I do it.
- [20:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah. My this is not a quid pro quo shirt has people asking a lot of questions that are answered by my shirt. Any. So, any, is there anything else we should know about this guy?
- [20:19]
Andrew Weissman
I mean, it's a. Yeah, there is. So another thing that has been reported is that he, according to the New York Times, after the Trump election, met personally with Eric Adams to work out the strategy that Eric Adams should use in meeting with Donald Trump in order to undermine the DOJ case. So this is the person who's the number two at the Justice Department figuring out how to undermine their own case, which smacks of sort of obstruction. You want to Talk about sort of potential obstruction of justice. I mean, that is unbelievable to be meeting with the defendant to talk about what's the strategy to make it look sort of good and put the packaging on this and lipstick on a pig. Crazy.
- [21:12]
Tim Miller
I'm blown away by the depoliticized Justice Department. They really are just going right by the book. All right, lastly, what now? I mean, this is one case, right. But it certainly is indicative of sort of what's to come for the Trump 2.0 Justice Department.
- [21:30]
Andrew Weissman
So let me just address what I think can happen in this particular case. There are a number of things. One is the things that's never going to happen, which is the Senate could actually do something because they do have the Todd Blanch nomination before them, so they could actually call him back. They could investigate all of these things that are pipe dreams because, as you said, they have no backbone and they're not doing anything. So that's 1, 2. And I think much more realistic is that Judge Ho is going to have a hearing. That is the judge overseeing the case, and that could be really explosive. And he could require Emil Beauvais to appear to talk about what's going on. Three, Kathy Hochul, the New York State governor, has the authority to remove the mayor.
- [22:17]
Tim Miller
Wow.
- [22:17]
Andrew Weissman
I don't know how she doesn't exercise that at this point. And I know that she is talking about Jesus. That undermine democracy. But I think there's an equally good argument that when the mayor is so conflicted and has, as I said, this choke collar on, he is not representing the people who elected him. He is representing somebody who was not elected as mayor of New York, which is the president of the United States. And he is also directing ICE and his people to violate local law. So she has sort of every reason to say it actually upholds democracy to say there needs to be a new election because this person cannot be operating in an unconflicted way. So those are three things I also think you're going to see. And this is sort of, you know, in my little nerdy world, I think, with respect to lawyers, I think you're going to see complaints in the bar with respect to Emil Bove's license, because there'll be allegations about what he is doing and the impropriety of it. And the bar associations that are supposed to oversee us and have done a pretty good job with respect to people like Rudy Giuliani, for instance, I think you're going to see some action there. Again, I know that's sort of a small bore in terms of democracy writ large. But in terms of my little profession, it's kind of nice to see people policing themselves.
- [23:41]
Tim Miller
What are the other US Attorneys thinking right now? I mean, it has to have also impact on, on that, on recruitment, on other people's and their, and their jobs. I don't know.
- [23:51]
Andrew Weissman
Well, widespread support for so soon. Every single person I know within and alums within the FBI, outside of the FBI Justice Department, everybody is fully supportive. I think that is why you were seeing so many people resign. And so I don't know how Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche and Emil Bovet go forward leading this organization. I mean, you need a certain number of horses to pull a wagon along. And there is widespread revolt. And just to be clear, it's not just because of policy, it's because of these people are trained to adhere to the rule of law.
- [24:31]
Tim Miller
Well, thank you so much for pinch hitting today, Andrew. It's good to see you again. Twice this month. It feels like we're gonna get to hang out a lot, unfortunately. I know going forward. So very much appreciate everybody. Check out his substack and his podcast, Main Justice. We'll be seeing you soon.
- [24:45]
Andrew Weissman
Okay, take care.
- [24:46]
Tim Miller
All right. Up next, my friend Michael Weiss. All right, we're back with friend of the show, editor of the Insider, a Russia focused independent media outlet, former investigative reporter for cnn. He's the author of ISIS Inside the Army of Terror and has a forthcoming book about the gru, Russia's int Agency. It's Michael Weiss. How you doing, man?
- [25:20]
Michael Weiss
I'm well. How are you?
- [25:21]
Tim Miller
Lots happening. We had a bilateral press conference with Modi yesterday and as well as an Oval Office press conference about the negotiation, if we want to call it that, with Russia. We're getting some mixed signals from Trump and Hegseth and Vance on this matter. And so I just, I want to get into the details of what we heard at the press conference. But I want to start with this question that was posed by Matt Pierce. What is the foreign policy of the U.S. government right now?
- [25:49]
Michael Weiss
I don't think the U.S. government is quite sure of that, to be honest. You're seeing a lot of contradictory lines of communication and I think it's indicative of just sort of how amateur the current lineup is. Hegseth, from what I've been able to report so far, was not cleared to give the statement he gave, which sort of blew back in his face. He's had to walk it back. It's been repudiated by other members of the administration.
- [26:14]
Tim Miller
But then Trump just real quick. But Then Trump basically kind of concurred with it also.
- [26:19]
Michael Weiss
Yeah, well, evidently the original draft of what Hegseth was going to say alluded to the Istanbul deal in the early part of the war, which the Russians keep citing as evidence that the Ukrainians missed an opportunity to end the war. Complete fugazi nonsense. It was really bad. And I'm hearing It was actually DoD staffers, many of them from Coke funded think tanks, who ended up drafting this thing. I mean, Hegseth is the guy who strikes me he probably thought NATO was a type of mezcal before his confirmation hearing. Right. Not the sharpest tool in the shed and very easily manipulated in running one of the largest entities in the world, which is the Pentagon. Yeah, yeah. Trump, too, saying a lot of strange and unpleasant and alarming things. I mean, my European friends are like, oh, so he wants to cut American military spending in half, which would make the percentage of America's GDP that is spent on defense something like 1.68%. Meanwhile, he wants all NATO allies to spend 5%. So that's, you know, physician, heal thyself. And then he wants the burden to, of course, be passed to the Europeans to sustain a war that he also says is going to be wrapped up in short order with a beautiful peace deal that nobody knows the contours or details of, because I don't think he does. But, I mean, Hegseth's amateur rookie mistake was to offer everything up to the Russians that they want, by the way, in advance of even entering into negotiations. So, you know, foreclosing on the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO. It's an open secret that Ukraine is not going to be in NATO in the short or midterm. Right. Biden says the future of Ukraine is in NATO. But at the Vilnius summit several summers ago, Ukrainians were hopping mad that there was no credible path for accession. Right. That's an obvious thing. He says that Ukraine cannot claw back all the territory it controlled in 2014. Well, President Zelensky has essentially said the same thing. And that's also. That's not even an open secret. That's just accepted reality. But again, you don't articulate these things publicly and affirm them before you enter into what is going to be a very prolonged and possibly nasty and, you know, arduous set of negotiations with the Russians. So the Russians, I think, were kind of rubbing their hands with glee about this, but now you have this weird stuff happening. J.D. vance.
- [28:43]
Tim Miller
Just real quick, before you get to J.D. vance, the funniest part of the Hegseth Presser for me, everyone would be dumber for having listened to it. So we're not going to pull the full audio of this, but people can Google it if they want. He was asked, like you've told us, what concessions that you're asking for from Ukraine, what concessions are you asking for from Russia? And his answer was like, Mr. Trump strong. And like he goes on for two minutes with nothing because he has, he had nothing. Like there wasn't even a fig leaf. Right.
- [29:13]
Michael Weiss
And he's probably not even aware of what concessions could be wrong from Russia. You know, there are a couple things that are happening right now which make all of this incredibly ill timed. The first is there are Republicans who are putting forth a suite of possible sanctions against Russia that would really hammer the energy economy. I mean, basically destroy Russia's economy even more so than it has been already. Right. If Biden administration sanctions were a 6 out of 10, this would ratchet it up to about an 8 or 9 out of 10. This is probably something that the Trump administration will not do, but at least they could use it as a, as a cudgel or as a threat that if you do not meet us to the point at which we need to be met for any kind of negotiations, we have this at our disposal. Right. Nobody's talking about that. The second thing is that actually the Russians are performing quite poorly right now on the battlefield. They are slowing down in the pace of their advance in Donbas. I'm hearing reports, credible reports from Ukrainian officers in the field that their rate of fires is dramatically reduced along the contact line. So basically they're not bombing, they're not hitting the Ukrainians with artillery anymore. Whether or not this is a hiccup that gets adapted and goes away on the Russian side, or whether or not it's indicative of something more systemic and problematic in their war machinery, I don't know. But it seems like now is the time to pause and maybe wait and find out before we start giving the store away for free. And you know, keep in mind, Putin doesn't just want a US President to say Ukraine will not be a NATO. Biden kind of sort of came close. And before the full scale invasion, that administration was essentially offering that to the Russian side as a way to deter, stop them from invading. Putin has been around long enough, several presidents on the American side, he wants a treaty, which means he wants it ratified by Congress, that essentially Russia gets a veto on NATO expansion, that they will not incorporate more countries. That's not going to happen in Congress even under this current gop. Right. But suddenly we are bending over backwards to try and convince the Russians that Ukraine will not be in NATO ever. We shouldn't be doing that. We should be using the very kind of slowness of our own political machinery as an advantage on our side of the ledger. We're not doing that either. So it's a very bizarre kind of time to sort of insist that Ukraine be wrapped up here. And the third point I should make, and this comes right from the mind of Tucker Carlson, who has made a few trips to Russia. It is absolutely one of the demands of the Kremlin is that Ukraine have elections. They do not want Zelensky, the wartime president, to remain wartime president. They think. And this, I think, is more suggestive of how the Russians completely misread the Ukrainian body politic, which landed them in this mess of invading when they thought the entire population would greet them as liberators and go over to their side. They think that they can install, through their bag of dirty tricks, election interference, political warfare, a more pliant asset in Kyiv who will certify any deal that essentially cedes the sovereignty of the country over to Russia. Zelenskyy is still, I think, the most favored candidate in whatever polling is being conducted now. But all that to one side. There is no Ukrainian politician who's going to emerge to say, we must look eastward once again. There's no Yanukovych in the offing here.
- [32:34]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [32:34]
Michael Weiss
Everybody wants to be part of the eu. Everybody sees themselves as a member of the west community. The Russians don't appreciate that fact. But we seem to be now suggesting, I mean, Bloomberg just had a piece today that the Trump people are telling Zelensky, you have to have elections. The sheer logistics of which are going to be quite difficult because 20% of the country is occupied. Missiles are still landing into Kyiv and Kharkiv, and you're going to have a ceasefire before, which will be kind of fitfully maintained, and then you're going to go to the polls. It doesn't make much sense, but this is another demand the Russians have.
- [33:07]
Tim Miller
I'm curious what you think Putin ultimately wants, but I want to, before we get Michael Weiss's take, I want to listen to what Trump thinks and whether he trusts that Putin is dealing with him in good faith. This was him yesterday in the Oval Office.
- [33:20]
Michael Weiss
He says that he really wants peace. Do you believe him?
- [33:24]
Donald Trump
Yeah, I do. I believe he wants peace. I believe that President Putin, when I spoke to him yesterday, I mean, I know him very well. Yeah. I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn't. I think I'd like to see peace.
- [33:37]
Michael Weiss
Do you trust President Trump?
- [33:38]
Donald Trump
I believe that, yeah. I believe that he would like to see something happen. I trust him on this subject.
- [33:45]
Tim Miller
Trust him on this subject.
- [33:46]
Michael Weiss
He would tell me if he were lying KGB case officer. He wouldn't do the dirty on me.
- [33:54]
Tim Miller
Because we have such a good relationship. Totally preposterous, almost ridiculous to even take it seriously if he wasn't the President of the United States. But. But I am curious what you think Putin wants out of this current negotiation, because I think it's a little opaque and it kind of is related to your point about the weakening on the battlefield. I think that there was some thinking that maybe he didn't even really want a peace deal when Russia was pressing ahead, but maybe he kind of does want a temporary pause now. I don't know. What do you suspect? Do some Kremlin ology for me.
- [34:25]
Michael Weiss
Well, I mean, I think they want to drag this out as much as possible. A de facto ceasefire or anything that lowers the temperature is a boon for the Russians because it'll allow them to regenerate their forces. It'll allow them to kind of pause and reconstitute and bring new kit to the front, dial up more North Koreans that they can send into Kursk, whatever. But it also, frankly speaking, allow the Ukrainians to do the same thing. Ukrainians are suffering pretty badly themselves. I mean, this is a matter of population differences. One of the big points of vulnerability for Zelenskyy is his refusal to lower the draft age to 18 and bring more younger to the. I mean, you've got, you know, 40 something year olds, in some cases geriatrics, who are now in trenches in Donbas fighting on the Ukrainian side. So they have a problem with manpower. But ultimately, look, I think the Russians understand that this is going to be a process. And so what they're trying to do is set the sort of players correctly such that they can get the maximum concessions from the American side. They don't really believe in negotiating with the Ukrainians at all. Remember, Ukraine has no agency. It practically does not exist as a sovereign entity unto itself. For them, this is really a war with the United States and NATO. So they want to talk only to Washington and who do they want to talk to? So I think it was interesting there was some misreporting that, you know, Kellogg, the special envoy to Ukraine, was not going to Munich at all when Trump did his truth social post about this, you know, sort of the preliminaries of this discussion, he did not mention Kellogg Witkoff, his buddy, a fellow billionaire, the guy who got the American schoolteacher released by the Russian side. That's all purpose. The Russians see Wyckoff as their man. Not because he's necessarily pro Russian, but he doesn't understand anything about this part of the world. He's completely green. Whereas Kellogg lives, breathes and speaks Ukraine, Russia 24 7. That's his portfolio.
- [36:19]
Tim Miller
You can also probably do some back channel deals with him because Witkoff's son is the co owner of the Trump crypto scheme with the Trump kids. So the Trump kids and the Witkoff kids are together on their cryptocurrency.
- [36:34]
Michael Weiss
To the Russian mind, I mean, Witkoff is just another oligarch boyar who is surrounded by the Tsar on the American side. So they would.
- [36:42]
Tim Miller
That's about as close as you could get. I mean there isn't, there isn't a great example in recent time where we have a president who appointed his, you know, business partner stabbed to a, to a special envoy position. Right. Like, I mean it is pretty, it's pretty similar actually to the, to the Russians.
- [36:57]
Michael Weiss
Yeah, I mean it's, you know, a political system that is governed by cronyism and you know, back scratching and so. Yeah, but Witkoff, they think, especially with the sweetener of this unexpected exchange of, you know, on our side we had a crypto grifting criminal that we gave to the Russians and they had a schoolteacher hostage. They think that they've now incentivized Trump to, to play nice. And by all accounts he is again, he trusts Putin arguably more so than he does his own ministers and his own intelligence.
- [37:28]
Tim Miller
Well, certainly more than Europe because I thought this was telling also from yesterday and I'm curious your view on how the Europeans are processing all this because he was asked about working with Europe in these negotiations. I don't remember if I mentioned it, but he's floated the idea. There's a spring summit in Saudi Arabia, so home turf for Putin in the negotiations. And so the question was about whether he'd be working with Europe on that. And his answer is pretty gobsmacking. Let's listen.
- [37:56]
Donald Trump
And we told the European Union, we told the NATO people, largely they overlap. You have to pay more money because it's unfair what we're doing. We're doing a tremendous amount more with probably $200 billion more going into Ukraine, using, for Ukraine to fight. And Europe has not really carried its weight in terms of the money, it's not equitable. And we want to see a counterbalance. We want to have them put up more money. They have to do that. At the same time, we had a very good conversation with President Putin.
- [38:35]
Tim Miller
The question again was, are you going to be working with Europe on the negotiation? The answer there was trashing Europe and then reiterating that he had a great talk with Putin.
- [38:44]
Michael Weiss
Right. And expecting Europe to essentially shoulder. By the way, I mean, Europe does spend almost as much as we do on Ukraine. And if you measure it in, in both military and humanitarian assistance, I think you could even come up with a figure that's greater than what the US Is doing. So this is nonsense. Look, I'm an advocate for every NATO member to meet the 3% threshold for defense spending. I think it's a good idea. The Europeans have been talking about this since time immemorial. I mean, it was part of Macron's sort of. What did he call it, his sovereign hegemony or. He changed the term of art multiple times. But the idea of Europe being able to defend itself outside of the American security umbrella is a good one. And especially it's a good one now that America is, you know, fast becoming the Venezuela of North America. You know, we're not. We might not be able to do things that we used to do before. And a lot of Europeans are very much in favor of this, which is why, literally a few hours ago, Vandelayen announced at Munich that she's going to propose activating the escape clause for defense investments, which will allow European countries to spend even more on defense. And that would, of course, help sustain the war in Ukraine. But, you know, we've discussed before, and I want to reiterate this because it's very important, there is this grand misconception, and it especially lapped up by the MAGA types, that the way that American security assistance for Ukraine works is pallets of cash on transport planes delivered to Kiev. Zelensky pockets half of it, buys yachts in the Mediterranean or whatever. Look, we spend the money here in the United States. The vast, overwhelming majority of the money that has been allocated for Ukraine gets invested in the US it opens factories to manufacture artillery shells, weapon systems, modernizing our own arsenal. Hiring American workers used to be a MAGA conceit that put the money here and bring our own proletariat up from its knees. All these things get met with security assistance to Ukraine. And the best part is the stuff we end up giving them are old, outdated weapon systems. They still work and they still work a lot better than Russia's state of the art weaponry. They're all too grateful to receive them. And then we end up revitalizing and modernizing our own military. The American Enterprise Institute also did a recent study that showed what would happen if Ukraine were to lose the war and Russia were to conquer this country in terms of America's defense posture in Europe. Now, assuming that we have any interest whatsoever in a defense posture in Europe and that we're part of NATO and that we want to have a deterrent capability, they calculated it would cost $808 billion to the American tax over the course of the next five years, an increase in $808 billion to essentially get our house in order in terms of air defense, sea defense, personnel, logistics, all the things that would have to be brought to bear to Europe because the border that NATO would share with Russia would grow exponentially as a result of Ukraine's defeat. So if you approach this purely from utilitarian accounting, I mean, that assumes that.
- [41:54]
Tim Miller
They would then decide that they would want to defend that whole border.
- [41:58]
Michael Weiss
If you're a businessman, this is the great investment you can possibly make. Because, and I don't mean to be cynical here, the Ukrainians make this argument, too. We are not fighting war with our strategic adversary. They are. We're helping them. We are bleeding Russia dry on a European battlefield such that Russia cannot invade another ally, a NATO ally, thus triggering Article 5, thus bringing the United States into a shooting war with Russia. And at the same time, we are upgrading our own arsenal. What's not to like about this? If all you care about is the money, and I purposefully leave aside the moral imperative and the values and all the bright shining city on a hill stuff, because most people that we're trying to persuade don't even care about that. They just want to know what's in it for me? What do we get out of this? The answer is you get it quite a lot. You just don't realize it.
- [42:48]
Tim Miller
There were a couple of other noteworthy statements from the two pressers. I'm just going to lump them all together and get your take. Trump wants Russia back in the G7. Apparently you referenced earlier that he said that he wants to meet with Putin and Xi and talk about cutting our military budgets in half. All of them. He went on a pretty negative tirade about Taiwan during one of the press conferences and about how they're stealing our jobs. Take all that together. And I think it paints a pretty clear picture of what kind of world Trump wants to leave everybody. But I'm wondering what you think about all that. That.
- [43:25]
Michael Weiss
Well, I'm old enough to remember when spending money on Ukraine meant we weren't spending enough on Taiwan to defend them from the imminent and inevitable Chinese invasion. Yeah, Right. So now, all of a sudden, Taiwan is our enemy or our rival, taking our jobs, and they annoy us, stealing our microprocessing industry, and they annoy us. So that. That doesn't sound like we're coming to their defense. I mean, look, you have a guy who fundamentally, he doesn't care about allies. He doesn't even really care about national or strategic interests. He cares about transactions. What's in it for me? What am I getting out of this? Right? Everything else is just a dodge or a hustle or he thinks that we're being taken for a ride. And all these other countries, they're the welfare queens of Pax Americana. He doesn't understand the implications of just forfeiting our role in the world and allowing these countries to be gobbled up by their regional adversaries, who then become, of course, and are already actually America's strategic adversaries. So it doesn't surprise me, given his style and his mode of thinking, the countries that he tends to get on with the best, he would love to get on with Putin and Russia. There are some hurdles in the way here, but we've been discussing what they are. He loves Erdogan and Turkey because Erdogan has sort of managed democracy such that he's sort of the president slash dictator in perpetuity, right? And he likes what Turkey has done, which is taken over Syria because Bashar al Assad pissed off the sultan. He can get along with a guy like that. He likes Netanyahu, and Netanyahu sure loves him. I mean, you know, Taj Mahal Khan, Yunus, David Petraeus as pit boss in Gaza. I mean, what's not to like there, right? Like, riverfront property, the new Riviera in the most volatile and hostile piece of real estate in the Middle East.
- [45:26]
Tim Miller
Never seen Bibi smile so wide.
- [45:28]
Michael Weiss
Never seen so wide when he saw that. And Viktor Orban as well, who has managed to do the same kind of state capture in Hungary, although he's. He's small beer because Hungary doesn't matter to the extent that these other countries do. Those are the only people that he sort of likes the cut of their jib. Everybody else is like, all right, show me where on this dotted line I get what I want out of this, right? And, you know, the Ukrainians to Their credit, I think, have begun trying to play to some of these personality defects and this sort of egomania. You'll notice Axios had a write up of the Trump Zelensky call. And among it's a minor point, but it's I think, kind of evocative of the way the Ukrainians now see the lay of the land. It says Zelenskyy told Trump at the end of the call he would give him a championship belt from Ukrainian heavyweight boxer Oleksandr Usyk. Right. He was like, oh, I'm gonna get a beautiful belt. You know, it's like Muhammad Ali's belt, it's coming from Ukraine. As I, you know, the next step, I'm not kidding, the next step is extremely hot Ukrainian women in a delegation to the White House, right?
- [46:36]
Tim Miller
We know rare earth minerals, championship belts.
- [46:40]
Michael Weiss
Hot blondes, rare earth minerals, you know, lithium and all the stuff that goes into microprocessors. That idea came from Ron Lauder, by the way, you know, who also gave him the idea, why don't we take Greenland? Because why the hell not? What's Greenland and who lives there? So again, it's like his business men, friends, fellow oligarchs, tell him, hey, this is, you know, what I would do in your position. Let's talk about hostile takeovers. It's like that Danny DeVito movie from the 80s, Other People's Money. That's how Trump is governing as president.
- [47:14]
Tim Miller
It's comforting to know that one of the co founders of the Estee Lauder cosmetics company is leading our foreign policy. But if that doesn't leave you with any chill down your spine. Did you see the other special advisor who was traveling with J.D. vance, and I think he was on two trips, actually two of the overseas trips.
- [47:34]
Michael Weiss
Which one is this?
- [47:35]
Tim Miller
This is my pal, Pizzagate Jack Posobiek. See this? Oh yeah, yeah, Pizzagate Jack. He was, you might remember him from being at the pizza restaurant in D.C. where people were saying there was the frazzle drip happening in the basement, where there was no basement to like kind of live streaming from there, you know, trying to get to the truth, get to the bottom of it. I mean, he just has a massive hit list of conspiracies mongering and I guess he's like, he's in the inside circle. It's him, the crypto friends and the Estee Lauder guy. And you know, this is sort of who's the brain trust.
- [48:13]
Michael Weiss
And just to again, to underscore kind of the willy nilly nature of all this, because you really don't. People are very sure about what's going to happen. I'm not so sure because I don't know, you know, who's got the President's ear or what kind of impression has been made. I mean, to send out JD Vance, who is the most hostile to Ukraine person in the US Government, and his staff really hate Ukraine.
- [48:36]
Tim Miller
I mean, he literally said like, I don't care what happens to Ukraine.
- [48:39]
Michael Weiss
Not only. I'll give you an anecdote. I know some dyed in the wool hardcore Republicans who were fine with Trump when he picked Vance as a running mate. I got calls, vote for Biden, vote for Biden, vote for Biden. Why say, oh, his staff, particularly James Braid, his legislative director, like, these guys are like crazy, like, beyond Cato Institute, libertarian, isolationist. They think sanctions on Iran are escalatory. We can't get anything done with these people, Right? So Vance, they saw as the real ideal. So now he sends JD Vance out after Hegseth steps on his own crank and Vance goes, we might go to war with Russia if they don't do what we want. Well, hang on a minute. You were the guy who said, I don't care what happens to Ukraine. Now you say all options are on the table with the Russians. Now I get it.
- [49:26]
Tim Miller
It's kind of like bluffing, but turning over your two twos and also bluffing so people can see what you got.
- [49:34]
Michael Weiss
Right? So you wanted me to do criminology on the Russian side. If I do criminology on the American side, I think they sent this guy to say this so they can kind of appear tough to a domestic audience. But the Russians really understand that J.D. vance doesn't believe a word of what he's saying. Right? So this is all just face saving for Trump. The shafts of light here are Ukraine does get a say in its own future and fortune, right? Everybody who asked me about, well, what's their sovereignty if the United States, remember, according to the United States, Ukraine should not exist right now, even under the Biden administration. They had three days, you know, until Kyiv was toast. Two weeks until the entire country was conquered by the Russian army. And they fought back. They did what we told them they couldn't do do, and they succeeded. So they're clever and they're innovative and they'll find ways to resist. Number two, if the Europeans really are serious about saving this country, which they should be. Not everything Trump says is wrong. When he says this affects Europe more than it affects us, he's right. It's on their doorstep. So the problem is they have to get their act together, particularly the Germans. But even without the Germans, I mean, if you look at the coalition of the most hawkish pro Ukraine countries who have given orders of magnitude, you know, by proportion of weapons and money, you've got all the Scandinavian countries, you've got Sweden, you've got Denmark, which has emptied its stocks of artillery howitzers. The Baltic states, my friends in Estonia, I mean, their intelligence has single handedly, frankly helped keep survive in the early days of the war. They're the ones that told them about the air bridge that was being brought over by the Russian side. The Poles aren't going anywhere. The Brits are fine Tory labor. They compete with each other to be more pro Ukraine. You actually have a pretty good assemblage of nations, all NATO members, by the way, that can help this country survive and fight back. So I understand the inclination toward pessimism, if not catastrophism. But the good news is America is kind of a fallen or dilapidated power, has empowered others to realize that they kind of have to take fortune into their own hands, as it were, and they need plan B and plan C. One of the odd things about this election, and I think I mentioned this on the show the last time, is Europeans were not as aggrieved and panic stricken as a lot of Americans were. They thought it was inevitable Trump was going to come back. And there have been things in place for the last four years that anticipated this contingency. So I'm not trying to be Pollyanna ish about this. I'm not. But I do think that we should not be writing Ukraine's obituary so prematurely.
- [52:14]
Tim Miller
Let's send people into the weekend with some green shoots. And I guess just a brief update, can you tell us what's happening with the aviary in your home? Are you doing this from inside? Yeah. Are you doing this from inside a birdhouse at the Central Park Zoo or where are we?
- [52:28]
Michael Weiss
As I'm talking to you, my daughter just left on a weekend holiday to Maine with her best friend from school and their parents. I've got two squawking budgies in I don't know what room. We have to move them around because my golden doodle, who has gone from 10 pounds to 40 pounds in the space of like six weeks and whose permanent teeth magically came in overnight, like overnight oats, he terrifies the birds. So I have a menagerie that's deeply dysfunctional and at odds with itself in this house. And a lot of stuff going on here. And, you know, thanks for being patient. I'm sorry for the background noise, but.
- [53:01]
Tim Miller
No, it's lovely. We'll just have to bring the budgies on to the next. To the next visit. Thanks so much, man.
- [53:06]
Michael Weiss
You got it. Yeah.
- [53:07]
Tim Miller
All right, everybody. We'll be seeing you back here on Monday. Appreciate Andrew Weissman and Michael Weiss, the law firm of Weiss and Weissman. And we'll be have a one have as good of a weekend as you can. We'll be talking to you soon. Peace.
- [53:21]
Unknown
Valentine to go Feelings he's treasured most above all the teachers and the football star. It's in his tiny face? It's in his throne? Valentine told himself he's got something to say? It's Valentine's Day? The rhythm of the crown? Teddy and Judy down? Valentine sees it all? Oh, he's got something to say? It's Valentine's Day? Valentine told me how he feels?
- [54:38]
Michael Weiss
If all the world.
- [54:44]
Unknown
Or stumbling through the mo? It's in his tiny face? It's in his scrawny hand? Valentine knows it all? He's got something to say? It's Valentine's Day? Day? Valentine. Valentine. Valentine. Valentine. It happened today? Valentine? Valentine.
- [55:52]
Tim Miller
The Bullord podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.