← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Hey guys, I wanted to share with you a few scheduling notes and kind of how I'm thinking about the podcast over the next little bit. So firstly today we're doing a Next Level podcast with me and JBL and Sarah today. We're taping one Friday. Usually that's out on Wednesdays, but we put that here in the Bulwark Daily feed. So if you want more of me and JVL and Sarah's thoughts, head on over to the Next Level podcast feed. And that will be up late on Friday. I'm also taping a bonus podcast with James Carville to keep an eye out for this weekend. We wanted to do an update for his team, I think some of which is going to show in the James Carville documentary, which is really good, by the way. If you haven't seen it, I think you can get it on Max at this point or maybe in a theater near you. Lastly, for this podcast, you know, it's tough right now having to do this. I'm really grateful for all of you guys. It's been kind of crazy how many people are listening. I do not begrudge anybody feeling like they need to check out from this for a little while. But I also want to be here for people that are looking for community. And so in that spirit, I just wanted to tell you how I'm thinking about it. Like, there are three main buckets of things I want to do. One is kind of continue to have the conversation about what the opposition to Trump might have done better or might have done differently and kind of have on people who have different perspectives on that. I want to have on some of the Democratic candidates that won and outperformed Kamala, see if they have particularly ones that I think might have interesting perspectives on how the Democrats could have acted differently. I'm going to have on some populist lefties whose some of their ideas might not align with mine, but I think it's a worthwhile conversation about the future direction. I want to have on people from the Democratic coalition who think that maybe it's social and cultural issues that are a problem. Anyway, I just want to hash out a wide range of different views. So that's kind of Bucket one. I don't want to do that every day, day, but periodically over the next couple months, obviously we will monitor what is happening with the transition and Trump and what the concerns are, what the worries are. That is Bucket two. But lastly, I do want this to be a place where we can process our feelings and our emotions and where we can all kind of hash out how we're thinking about this because it's certainly jarring. Despite the fact that I was pretty worried about this, it remains jarring. Just because you were expecting that a traumatic event might happen does not change the impact of the trauma. Right. Maybe it could blunt it a little bit versus being blindsided. I feel like I was certainly better prepared this time than in 2016. But that said, you know, the impact on all of us is still going to be real and I'm going to try to have some guests on that I like hashing out feelings with and that I like processing things with, and I think that that is hopefully going to be useful for you all. Lastly, I'm really grateful. I mean, I've had just an unmanageable amount of emails and comments and subject messages from everybody. So I'm going to try to get to those at some point. But I appreciate them. You can keep them coming. If I haven't gotten back to you, I don't know, maybe you'll have a nice note from me over Thanksgiving whenever I have a chance to catch up. So I appreciate everybody. It's a wonderful community and that's how I'm thinking about this going forward. Feedback welcome. Up next, our old friend Ben Whittis. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We are here today with Editor in Chief of lawfare, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He also writes Dog Shirt Daily on Substack. It has been wittus Woof. Hey Tim, Woof is my response to Dog Shirt Daily. Woof.
- [03:57]
Ben Wittes
You know, it's been a big week for Dog Shirts. On Wednesday morning, realizing what the catastrophe we were facing, I thought the only reasonable response was to wear the most garish, flamboyant dog shirt I owned. And so I put it on and not one, but two people said to me, you know, I wish I had worn something that says fuck you to the world quite as loudly as that dog shirt does. That wasn't their words, but that's what they said. So put on the loudest dog shirt you own, whatever the equivalent of a dog shirt is for you.
- [04:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, and take off the hair shirt. I've been wearing a hair shirt for two days instead of a dog shirt and I'm done with that. I was hopeful that we were going to get to spend more time together in 2025 as we revamped the Trump Trials for newish listeners to the podcast, Ben had a semi weekly segment where we talked about the latest with all of Trump's legal at the time woes, and here we are today and I believe the Trump trials have come to an end. I guess we should just start there. There's no reason to think that that is not the case. Right. That anything will continue in New York or anywhere else.
- [05:19]
Ben Wittes
Well, are of course, four cases and there are three answers to this question, but they all amount to the same thing. So the two cases that are federal, the classified documents case and the January 6th case, are just going to go away. They will either go away because Jack Smith preemptively dismisses them for a variety of reasons that we can talk about, or they're going to go away because Trump gets into office and his attorney general dismisses them. But one way or another, they're going to disappear. The Georgia case, which never, you know, kind of self destructed on its own, it will be finished off by the combination of the Supreme Court's immunity ruling and this to the extent that it hasn't really finished itself off yet. Important caveat to that. There are a whole bunch of co defendants in that case and it will not necessarily end for them. And of course, Trump can't pardon them on a Georgia state matter. So it ends as to Trump, but not necessarily as to Giuliani or Mark Meadows or a bunch of the fake electors or that sort of thing. And I actually do think that that and that, by the way, that's true in a bunch of other states as well. There are fake electors cases that will not go away just because Trump is president against the people who they are filed against. The most complicated case is the York case, which of course Trump was convicted in. But shortly after the conviction, the Supreme Court immunity ruling came down. And the immunity ruling may or may not have substantial implications for the integrity of that verdict. The judge is currently considering that question and will resolve it on the 12th, I believe, of this month. So four days from now, if he decides that he doesn't have to throw the case out, he will proceed to sentencing over the next few weeks. And of course, nobody knows how he will handle the question of the defendant having become the president elect while he was awaiting sentencing. So two possibilities or three possibilities there. One is, I think, a probably 35, 40% likelihood that he just declares a mistrial because of the Supreme Court's ruling in the immunity matter. The second possibility is that he says, no, we're going to sentencing and offers either a wrist lap sentence that would be resolved by the time Trump takes the oath of office. Or a more substantial sentence, but defers it until Trump leaves office, and during which time, presumably, the various appeals would play out. So I think those are really the only three possibilities, none of which will encumber Trump's ability to be president in any meaningful way.
- [08:36]
Tim Miller
What do you expect?
- [08:37]
Ben Wittes
Look, Justice Mershon, I think notwithstanding Trump's rhetoric about him or has been a very fine judge and has done a very good job in this case. There's no right answer to this question. There's only reading tea leaves of what the Supreme Court will think. My guess is he will. I think there's sort of like a 40% chance that he will not proceed to sentencing. And if he does, he will do something that doesn't interfere either a suspended sentence because Trump is going to be president or just deferred at all. You know, pronounce something and stay it until such time as a Trump isn't president and all appeals are resolved. But it'll be, you know, a one day big news story and then it'll be over.
- [09:30]
Tim Miller
So I want to move on to what you wrote about kind of the Trump trials broadly for listeners who are like, ugh, we're doing feelings and distractions at the end of the podcast. I want to get through the business of all this. You wrote a subhead that gave me that ugh, feeling in my stomach in your article about the Trump trials. And it was this, what good is a criminal justice system that can't do justice, protect democracy, or persuade voters? And I guess I'm looking to you to answer your own rhetorical cue.
- [10:03]
Ben Wittes
Yeah. So look, I mean, I have been stewing about this question since the trajectory of Tuesday night became clear. I began this year really earnestly thinking that I was going to spend the year watching and reporting on four trials of Donald Trump or three of four. Right. We weren't sure which ones were going to happen. And I was going to kind of write about it in a near daily fashion for Lawfare. I was going to write personal thoughts about it on Dog Shirt Daily. I was doing the, you know, the regular podcasting on it both with Lawfare and with you guys, both you and Charlie. And that was like how I had mapped out my year. And so I realized that that's an incredible intense investment in the criminal justice system as a means of democracy protection. And as I say in the piece, I feel like a complete fool for believing, like, I actually just believed that I didn't know what the mechanism by which all this would matter was, but I did think it was Important. And so you say, well, the criminal justice system has three purposes, broadly, right? It's to punish bad guys for bad things. It's to disable or incapacitate or deter future wrongdoing, either by locking people up or giving them, putting the fear of the hand of justice in their minds, which is to say protecting society. In this case, the society is the democracy. And it's also to do it in a transparent fashion that persuades people of its validity. And so I think you have to look at it as a almost complete failure on those three vectors. It did not punish wrongdoing except in the mildest sense, that there's a jury verdict that may survive in New York and may produce a slap on the wrist or deferred sentence. It sure as hell did not protect society. And some of that is, of course, the Senate's fault, not the justice systems. The Senate could have incapacitated and disqualified him in the second impeachment or the first impeachment, and it chose not to. And that's really not anybody's fault But Mitch McConnell and his cohort. And then it did not persuade either. And this is the most mystifying part of it to me, that you have this incredible record that was built in these cases, some of it more at the stage of alleg, some of it proven through trial. I mean, the Stormy Daniels testimony and the Michael Cohen testimony did happen. They happened in open court. And it seems like nobody found this persuasive. More people voted for Donald Trump than before the indictments and convictions. So it's almost like they worked as a positive qualification after.
- [13:24]
Tim Miller
More people voted for him after.
- [13:26]
Ben Wittes
More people voted for him after than before. Yeah, yeah, right. I do find that a completely dispiriting and demoralizing statement about the capacity of the criminal justice system to do anything in the highest value, most high stakes cases. Usually we see it fail in the other direction. You know, conviction of innocent people or over prosecution of relatively minor people. But flamboyant, buoyant criminality that the system cannot restrain from the heights of power, that is an almost cosmic failure. And I ended the piece by saying this little bit of nonsense that John Adams wrote about being a government of laws and not men. The Trump trials really do stand for the proposition that at least as regards Donald Trump, we are a government of men, not laws. Demagoguery works. I identify in the piece three modestly redeeming features of the Trump trials in the midst of.
- [14:41]
Tim Miller
All right, yeah, here we go. Redeeming. I'm a little worried it's going to be disappointing.
- [14:46]
Ben Wittes
It's going to be disappointing. They're like, at the end of the day, this was a failure. Number one, they created a record. The record went well beyond the record that the January 6th committee was able to produce. It stands for what the government of various states would be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt if given the chance by the electorate, which it will not be. That record matters. I don't know how it will come to matter, but there will be, there has been, there is no doubt that we elected a serial criminal to be president. And at some level, that's gotta be important.
- [15:26]
Tim Miller
It'll, I think, play a very central part in history books about the late republic, you know, things of that nature.
- [15:34]
Ben Wittes
Yes, right.
- [15:35]
Tim Miller
And AI movies that are done about this era by the Chinese, you know, in the 22nd century, whether it's only.
- [15:43]
Ben Wittes
For posterity and only what one AI tells another AI about how human civilization felt apart, like that record will matter. The second thing, and this is a little bit more speculative, but, you know, I did sit through the only Trump trial we're going to see, which was the case in New York, and he did have to spend six weeks being confronted by the evidence against him and, you know, watching. Being subject to the jurisdiction and management of a judge whom he clearly loathed, watching as witnesses described his behavior. I don't think that's, you know, going to affect his behavior going forward, but I do think it's a. It is in its own form. To have to sit there and be powerless to stop this from happening and have people pronounce judgment on you is its own form of accountability in some form. And then the third one, which I mentioned earlier, is just that the underlings are not saved by this. He can pardon the ones who were prosecuted federally, but there are a bunch who were prosecuted or are being prosecuted at the state level. Some have already pledged and some will presumably continue to be prosecuted. And I think that is actually extremely important, because if you are a Trump enabler now who's thinking of doing illegal things on his behalf, you know, what happened to the Ken Chesbroughs of the world and the Rudy Giuliani's of the world may actually be a deterrent in a way that does not really occur to you or me who are not, you know, contemplating doing, you know, illegal, terrible things on behalf of a candidate or president, there's a lot there.
- [17:50]
Tim Miller
There are three things that struck me, so I'm just going to take them one at a time. On that side of it. The last point about the future deterrence and the pardons. Well, it is true that the co conspirators in state trials are still going to be subject to punishment. I mean, who the hell knows what Donald Trump plans to do in January and February. But like in my mind, I do have the Air Force One General Radic scene of emptying the prisons, you know, when they've kidnapped the president on the plane, Harrison Ford and they're letting Radic free. I mean, he does plan to let all the January six prisoners free. Right. And the ones that were and part of the Jack Smith case are going to be excused. And the court has given it immunity to, you know, grant, you know, pardons to people that commit future acts outside the law on behalf of the federal government. Right. So I mean, I take your point on the third positive, but there's another side to that coin. Right. I just, I kind of wonder how you see that.
- [18:56]
Ben Wittes
Look, the pardon power is essentially unlimited. There are some outer bounds of it. But what he's going to do or what he has hinted that he's going to do with respect to the January 6th defendants is wholly within the space of his authority. And he's been nothing but candid about his plans in that regard. That is just a cosmic democratic disaster. And it is not wrong to say that space that I've preserved is a rounding error next to it. So I don't want to sugarcoat this at all.
- [19:35]
Tim Miller
But you do expect, and you expect that he's going to. I mean, I guess we can't get inside Donald Trump's head, but like that is something that putting your law fare hat on, not your hat of what are the positives of this that can be taken for this, you know, that is like a chief thing to monitor at this point.
- [19:52]
Ben Wittes
Yeah, I expect him to do that early and like I expect him to betray Ukraine early and perfectly happy to be pleasantly surprised if he A takes longer or does less of it or B doesn't do it at all. And I will happily sing the praises of his growth if he surprises me on either. But I don't expect to be surprised. I think the January 6th pardon promise is something that gave him very little political benefit. He clearly believes in it insofar as he believes in anything. And it, and it's also self interested in the sense that, you know, if you want a mob to mobilize at your behest, one thing you can do to incentivize that is make clear that you will take care of people who commit acts of violence for you. And so I don't know why he wouldn't do it, and I expect him to do it.
- [20:56]
Tim Miller
You said that it's the last of the Trump trials. He will be an old man when he leaves the presidency, if he leaves the presidency, I guess in four and a half years. But I don't know. He's the kind of person that I feel like lives to be 100. Are we sure that there's nothing on the back end of this? How do you think about that? Because actually, I think the threat of trial, I mean, God, we'll have so long to talk about this, but on one hand, it's like almost. I almost don't want him to feel like there's a specter of trials on the back end of the presidency because it might disincentivize him to leave. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, exactly.
- [21:33]
Ben Wittes
So I would say I do not see how the cases survive. You could, I suppose, dismiss them without prejudice and then refile them, but there would be a statute of limitations question, and you would have to figure out whether they told the statute of limitations. I don't know how future courts would think about that. And I suspect that there are things his Justice Department can do in the interim that will make it impossible. I haven't thought through how to do that. My strong suspicion is that the criminal questions vis a vis Donald Trump in 2029 is that what year we're thinking about will have more to do with activity that occurs in the period of his coming presidency.
- [22:31]
Tim Miller
Right. The future crimes.
- [22:32]
Ben Wittes
The future crimes. Then, for example, I doubt very much that he will not steal another hoard of classified information. Right. And so I think we have to, as emotionally difficult as this is for me to say, I think we have to let go of the idea that the criminal justice system has anything to say about his past crimes.
- [22:56]
Tim Miller
And then this takes me back to that other thing. I just want to follow up the John Adams quote. I mean, clearly, John Adams is wrong now. I mean, at least in the current. In our current system, like the. In the current. The current system is now such that, I mean, like, the reality that we have. Are living in is that we are a country of its people, and the people have chosen this and that overrode the laws. And so at some point, regardless of, let's say, he goes in, decides he wants to be a golfer, hires a bunch of Wall street guys, and, like, doesn't really do anything crazy the next four years, I don't think that's going to happen. But, like, that's like the best pitch. And then he leaves. Even yet still, like, the rule based, liberal democratic order has already been cracked.
- [23:37]
Ben Wittes
Yes. And look, I think that has domestic consequences. It has foreign policy consequences, too. The domestic consequences are that the next time somebody says to you that, you know, we're a country that applies the law without fear or favor to the powerful and the powerless alike, the only proper response to that is laughter and ha.
- [24:06]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, I hate pointing and laughing, Nelson.
- [24:10]
Ben Wittes
Yeah, I mean, I hate to sound like, you know, an antifa person, but, like, give me a fucking break. If you try to overturn the democratic order in the United States and you run for president and you're charismatic enough and your people are resentful enough, you can become president again rather than facing the consequences for that. Well, there's a country that, you know, used to stand for that principle, and a person who used to stand for that principle, and it was Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, right, who tried to have a coup, you know, then runs for president and wins and overturns the democracy. How are we different?
- [24:56]
Tim Miller
We're about to find out. I suspect not very much. Yeah, I want to get to Ukraine, like I said. But first, I just really quick want to talk about the Democrats and the lame duck because it ties to the Trump trials. Eileen Cannon, our friend, the potential future Supreme Court justice who bailed Trump out of the classified documents case in Florida, she was appointed during the Trump lame duck. I don't know if people know this. After the 2020 election, she was confirmed, not appointed, confirmed to her position during the lame duck following the 2020 election. And Elizabeth Warren and some others have been out there saying, you know, Chuck's got to get off his ass and they got to confirm as many judges as possible. And I had an emailer point out that maybe they shouldn't be focusing on confirming as many lower court judges as possible. Maybe this is the moment to push Sotomayor out and confirm a Supreme Court justice during the last, whatever, how many weeks they have. Do you have thoughts on either of those?
- [25:57]
Ben Wittes
So I have not looked at the numbers about how many judicial nominations are pending or how many vacancies there are to fill. Schumer has generally been quite effective with confirming judges over the last few years.
- [26:11]
Tim Miller
That's true.
- [26:12]
Ben Wittes
So I assume that there will be as quick a push to do as much pending business as possible. As to a Supreme Court justice, they did show at the time of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, the Republicans showed that you can do a Supreme Court nomination very quickly, if you happen to want to enough. That would require, of course, the cooperation of Justice Sotomayor, which is a fact not in evidence in that regard. So I think realistically, unless she were to resign and there is no way to push her out, by the way. That's the thing about being a Supreme Court justice.
- [26:58]
Tim Miller
Nancy Pelosi can't do it.
- [27:00]
Ben Wittes
Nope, nope. It's life tenure. Right. And people do have a.
- [27:05]
Tim Miller
She can't have a call with her about the poll data and you know.
- [27:10]
Ben Wittes
Who knows, the justice might even take Pelosi's call. But, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's a decision of one person and one person only. I do think the likelihood of there being some, you know, outstanding pending business that they try to get done with respect to nominations. I mean, they certainly should in the raw political power department. How much you can get done depends on how many slots are empty and how aggressive, you know, you can be with respect to them.
- [27:45]
Tim Miller
You also have been a stalwart advocate for Ukraine in addition to your work with the Trump trials, famously your work of trolling the various Russian embassies.
- [27:57]
Ben Wittes
Which will continue.
- [27:58]
Tim Miller
Which will continue. Good. I like to hear that. I wonder what I just open ended question, I guess, have you been talking to people in the Ukrainian resistance, the folks that you've been dealing with in the NGO world. I wonder what the mood is and what the thoughts are about what's next for Ukraine.
- [28:16]
Ben Wittes
Well, so there are different points of view on this. Privately, publicly. Everybody says the same thing. Of course, you know, which is this is an internal US Matter. Our relationship is with the United States. It transcends party, it transcends personalities, blah, blah, blah. You know, privately there are Ukrainians who are in very different places on this from people who, you know, see this as a cosmic disaster to people who, in a very American way, you know, they dislike Biden and they say, well, Trump, you know, will be a disruptor and maybe will do the things that Biden wouldn't do. Right. The same delusional thinking that affects Americans about all kinds of policy areas also affects Ukrainians when you, when you think about Trump.
- [29:13]
Tim Miller
And sure, an unknown, erratic guy that likes to win.
- [29:17]
Ben Wittes
Unknown, erratic.
- [29:18]
Tim Miller
It's better than the bad status quo. Right. Makes sense.
- [29:21]
Ben Wittes
And also remember, Ukrainians, people, Americans really don't understand this because they think Biden and the administration has been strong on Ukraine. But Ukrainians really don't like Biden because he's put all these restrictions on their use of weapons systems and they feel like he's held them back and the aid has been slumped. And so there's a real transatlantic intra alliance divide about Biden. So there's a tendency to say, well, Kamala Harris would be. And this is in some circles, I don't want to make it sound widespread or universal, but a kind of, hey, nothing could be worse than this, right? And a kind of doom scrolling, we'll take any alternative instinct. And that reflects, frankly, the desperation of the Ukrainian military position. Look, again, as I said with, you know, the pardons on January 6, I take Trump at his word about Ukraine. He has been nothing but consistent about not supporting the Ukrainian war effort, saying he wants a quick peace, which can only happen on Russia's terms, and not saying he will continue to support the war effort. I don't see any reason to disbelieve him that those reflect his. Honest is a weird word to ever use with Trump, but he is emotionally transparent and he's been very consistent about Russia and Ukraine. The only hope in this area, in my opinion, other than a revolution in his thinking, which if, by the way, if it happens, I will come on this podcast and praise him and I will eat crow. I will do. You know, when it comes to this issue, I don't believe in intellectual consistency and I will praise Donald Trump if I have to. If he, if he does the right thing, I don't expect it. The only hope is something that did happen in the last Trump administration, which is that some of his underlings quietly did the right thing in a bunch of areas related to Ukraine, including at the Defense Department, where they did actually provide Ukrainian military lethal support for the first time. And so the Trump administration actually did some good work on Russia and Ukraine. The first sanctions bill got passed and was signed. Right. And so there was some good underlying work, none of which appears to have any relationship to Donald Trump or his attitudes. And so one thing you could, you could hope for is that, you know, the Mike Pompeo's and the, you know, like might do the right thing and not tell him about it or tell him they're doing something else or whatever. But I think that's the ray of hope. And there's another side of the Ukraine thing, which relates to his immigration pathologies, which is that there are a lot of Ukrainians in the United States on temporary protective status. And when Stephen Miller wipes that out because he hates Haitians and because he hates people who he imagines have come here illegally and are eating dogs and cats, by the way, who also deserve temporary protective status. He's going to actually force a lot of Ukrainians to leave the United States. And that's its own form of betrayal.
- [33:10]
Tim Miller
Kinzinger posted yesterday to Jake Sullivan. I don't have it in front of me, but it was basically in short, release the hounds, let the Ukrainian military loose for the next two months so they can have a stronger negotiating position in January, I guess. Do you think there's any possibility of that or any hope of that, or do you think that even matters?
- [33:29]
Ben Wittes
So it does matter. There is a large amount of aid that has been appropriated but not yet distributed. I am not an expert on the logistics of that, but anything you can get done in terms of frontloading aids, certainly restrictions that, frankly, were a terrible idea before are an even worse idea now. And you know, the Ukrainian military position, particularly in Donetsk, is bad. And shoring it up is an important thing to do in the remaining months of the administration. It's not a lot of time, but anything we can do, releasing weapons systems, arranging for other governments to release supplies, just get it done. Obligate everything you can.
- [34:22]
Tim Miller
We're now getting to the fears and feelings and distractions section of the podcast. Let's just start with fears. I mean, we've discussed Ukraine, which is obviously going to be at the top of your list. Is there anything else that you are eyeing as a particular acute worry for, I don't know, the near term Trump administration?
- [34:41]
Ben Wittes
Well, so it's a little bit outside of my area of expertise, but I'm certain that there will be a substantial effort to deport very large numbers of people. And whether that, whether we actually have the resources to do that in a way that involves millions of arrests and putting people in camps, I don't know. But there's certainly a legal authority to do a lot. And by the way, Congress would be likely to appropriate money to do it, given the likely composition of Congress. And so I'm actually very afraid, afraid for a lot of people who are here, you know, sometimes lawfully, sometimes unlawfully, but who are doing no harm and are going to have their lives turned upside down. And by the way, all of that will happen without. It'll happen with great political controversy, but with minimal legal controversy. The second thing I'm worried about, you know, is the actual weaponization of the Justice Department. This is hard to do, but it is not impossible to do. And I'm very worried about who's going to be the Attorney general. I assume he's going to fire the FBI director and replace the FBI director. With, you know, Cash Patel or something. I'm not confident that a lot of Republican senators are going to be as vigilant in the nominations process as they should be. I don't live by many maxims, but put not thy faith in Senator Collins as one of them. You know, and I'm worried about the staffing of the administration, particularly in the space of people who wield power, wield guns.
- [36:36]
Tim Miller
I think those are all good and smart things to be concerned about. To me, the immigration thing is the most certain acute concern. There's this Axios piece this morning. It's just the best gallows humor piece that I've read in a long time because it's like, on the economic stuff, the Republicans won enough that had Trump won this narrow Electoral College victory where Hakeem Jeffries was speaker, his only lever would have been tariffs, stuff that he could have done executive. But because the Republicans love the House and Senate, in a weird way, the remaining old school Republicans will have some sort way in this whole process. And so. And the business guys. And so Axios has a speech this morning about how Trump's planning tax cuts and deregulation, and he's going to help the crypto and AI and oil guys that supported him. Like populism, you know, with huge wealth transfer for billionaires, no trans reassignment surgeries for the working man. There's a bunch of areas where it's like, I'm prepared for him to do the worst, but he might not. Not the immigration is like he's going to do it. Like, Steven Miller is in charge. Yeah, Stephen Miller's in charge. And. And it's the one area where he actually has a competent, maybe not particularly competent, but like a minimally competent team around him that is ideologically motivated, that knows how to open the doors in the administrative state. So, anyway, I mean, I just think that that's right to be the number one most acute fear. Okay. How are you coping?
- [38:06]
Ben Wittes
I am trying to write every day. I'm writing a column that started Wednesday morning on Lawfare called the Situation. I have a few ways of coping that I have revived from the last time. The first is I do not listen to his voice. If I have to deal with a Trump statement or speech, I find a written version of it. I find the sound of his voice very upsetting. And I don't. I don't.
- [38:42]
Tim Miller
I know you're being serious, but I'm sorry. Yeah, I know it's same. It's just the way that you put it made me laugh.
- [38:47]
Ben Wittes
But yeah, no, I just, I. These are things that just needlessly make me upset.
- [38:53]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [38:54]
Ben Wittes
And there's enough needful things to be upset by that I don't want to have to hear the sound of his voice. And so I make a point of not doing that. And I have essentially put my social media presence, it's on send only. I don't want to engage with hateful people on social media, even at the level of, you know, seeing things that they're saying. And so I send my stuff out, but I try to slow down and engage the world in writing. I'm not doing any television, so those are the sort of personal habits thing. I try to do everything I can by reading and by writing. The more fundamental decision is you choose the things that you care about engaging most. Which is not to say you don't care about engaging other things. I, I care very much about the immigration roundup that's going to happen. It's just not something that I'm in a position to help with. My infrastructure is not built for that. For me, it is rule of law, protection, Ukraine, they're conceptually related and importantly in my own mind, but they're just the two things that I am going to focus on. And you do what work you can do in those areas and they're different for every person. They're different and they go to what's in your heart and you say, I'm going to do what I can do. It will not be enough. We're not going to change the world with Ben Wittis projection efforts about the rule of law in Ukraine or publishing lawfare or. But the accumulation of very large numbers of people thinking that way and doing things together is. It's civil society, it's what we can do. And you have to emotionally accept that, you know, that is the part that you're going to play. And the big picture outcomes, as we found out on Tuesday, are not up to you. That doesn't mean the things that we did were not worth doing. It doesn't mean the things that we did failed. It doesn't mean the things that we did were not good. And so I just, you know, want to urge everybody, think about what those things are for you and, you know, winnow them down. Get to the two or three that are the ones that are most important to you. Tune out the rest and be a citizen.
- [41:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, use the word civil society. And I've been thinking about it in this way, which is in some ways depressing, but I'm slowly transitioning it from depressing to invigorating inside of me, which is like, I'm thinking about the models of the people that are maintaining civil society in places like Hungary and Hong Kong, et cetera, and thinking they have a mission that for a long time has felt like it has not a lot of chance of success, but is worth doing anyway, Right? And like, we have been in a place here where we thought that there was a risk of loss, but there was a good chance of success, you know, and that's more buoying, right, to work on something that does not feel Sisyphean. Right. And yet there's some Sisyphean things that are still worth doing. Right. And I've been trying to think about that, reframe this into that model. And that's been a little bit of a comfort to me because I'm thinking. Because I think that there are a lot of people doing that in places such as. Such as that who are doing very fulfilling work, even if the results aren't as palpable.
- [42:48]
Ben Wittes
I think that's right. And the results aren't palpable until they are. And I just remind people of Poland or Botswana, which this week, throughout its ruling party of 60 years, in a democratic election. And I think one of the things about not knowing that you're going to lose, which is what happened to us this week, the flip side of that is not knowing when you're going to win. And the final point I'll make is that democracy is not a light switch that you turn on or off. It's a rheostat, a dimmer. And all right, we turned it down this week, but we didn't turn it off. And my goal is to make sure that it doesn't turn more than it has to, that we turn it back the other direction to the extent that we can. If you think about it as a flip switch, you're going to get completely depressed. But we still have a First Amendment. We still have a gazillion offices at all kinds of levels of government, run for them, organize candidates for them, speak, you know, use your rights. And you never know when you're going to win and when we're going to start turning that Rio stat back the other direction.
- [44:12]
Tim Miller
That's good. I appreciate that. It's a little bit of downsizing, the ambitions to think about the American democracy and the Botswana democracy sense. But such is life.
- [44:21]
Ben Wittes
Hey, man, BOTSWANA, you know, 50 years ago, 70 years ago, it's a colony. Today it's an independent country that throws out Its government. We should feel something connected to that.
- [44:36]
Tim Miller
Hell yeah. Botswana. All right, lastly, really quick, any distractions? Do you have a distraction for people?
- [44:42]
Ben Wittes
Projectors. Projectors. Get a laser projector.
- [44:46]
Tim Miller
Get a laser projector.
- [44:46]
Ben Wittes
There is a building in your neighborhood. Contact if you want to know how to do it. There's a building in your neighborhood that you can say, read the Bulwark on and you can tell your whole community how to subscribe to the Bulwark podcast. Get a laser projector. You won't regret it.
- [45:08]
Tim Miller
Ben Wittes, thank you so much for spending this time with me. We will be talking soon in the late democratic republic.
- [45:15]
Ben Wittes
You're a great American, Tim, and I just want to say it didn't work out for us this week, but I could not be more proud of the Bulwark, of the community you guys have built of your personal work over the last nine years. And don't ever undervalue the contribution you guys have made.
- [45:37]
Tim Miller
Appreciate that very much. We'll see everybody else back here real soon. Peace.
- [45:41]
James Carville
I've got darkness below me I need you to show me the way that I should behave I've been in my closet I shut it and locked it Let me out give me my chain I'll be a slave I've got rooms full of questions Quite a collection but answers I have only a few.
- [46:33]
Ben Wittes
But.
- [46:33]
James Carville
I could use your help clearing off these shelves and maybe fine Just a little bit of truth.
- [46:47]
Tim Miller
Please.
- [46:50]
James Carville
Forgive me for the sinner I am Treat me like a child Cause I'm half a man but please forgive me I stepped on the line in the same hell I'm trying just as hard as I.
- [47:19]
Tim Miller
Can.
- [47:22]
James Carville
Lord, I'm trying just as hard Hard as I came Lord I'm trying just as hard as I can the.
- [47:41]
Tim Miller
Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.