← The Bulwark Podcast
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Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. A few housekeeping items, a few things to be excited about. We have a new member of the Bulwark coming here in a couple weeks, but the news is out. It's Catherine Rampel. She was a economics columnist for the Washington Post and a co host of the Weekend on on msnbc. She's a new mother, so she's been out on maternity leave, but when she's back, she's coming back with us with a new newsletter focused on economics. She'll be, she's been on the show several times, but she'll be appearing on here more to talk about all things that are happening with the economy, which I think is going to be a big, big story in 2026 and beyond. You might remember her from daring Scott Jennings to do the Elon Musk Hitler salute on CNN a couple months ago. She's spitfire. She's great. We love Catherine. So excited to have her on board. And if you're not subscribed to our newsletters, this is your time. Go to the bulwark.com and get signed up on the newsletters as well. I mentioned this before periodically Believe this Bulwark takes feed now for folks who need even more than the daily podcast. Sometimes it's just rapid response stuff to the news, sometimes it's other interviews that just kind of don't fit into our podcast timeline. So today's guest, Bill Crystal does on every Sunday a live interview that goes onto that feed. This Sunday he was with Ryan Goodman of Just Security, some very serious legal talk about Trump's foreign and domestic military actions. I did a little bit more, you know, frou Frou stuff. Okay. But I was signed with KFC Barstool, some of the original Stooly Bar Stool Bros. And we talked about how the Dems can do better in that with that demo. And I can tell you I think that there's a lot of misconceptions out there about how far away the Dems are. I think that they could do much better with some of these guys. Anyway, check that out if you're interested in that. And lastly, today's show is a doubleheader. I don't know Bill Kristol, if you ever would have thought this. It's back to back Bill Kristol and Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda in segment two, she's reanimating her father's committee for the First Amendment and I was excited to have her on to talk about it. Giddy really, to have her on to talk about it. And so there you go. Bill Kristol, what do you think? Editor at large. It's Monday, it's you, but it's also you and Jane Fonda today. Would you have seen that coming 20 years ago?
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Not entirely, of course. We're fellow boomers, I guess, and that's true. She's a little older, but we're contemporaries. And I remember watching her father in some excellent movies and he was a big. Yeah, he was a big free speech defender, I think, during the McCarthy years. Right. Kind of courageously, I think. And Katherine Rampel's a great addition to us. I think it's a little bit. I wouldn't just include her as housekeeping. I'm just going to say that I have a higher, you know, I'm going to curry, assuming she's watching, I'm going to curry favor with her right now, making clear that I dissent from that relegation. But that's okay. That's okay, Jim.
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This is why we need Catherine Randpell. This is why we need, you know, more women. So I don't do these microaggressions.
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I wasn't even thinking about the gender thing, honestly.
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I will say about Jane Fonda. We talk about this a little bit. I knew nothing about Jane Fonda, it turns out. And it's one of these things where like in life some people just become like memes or characters. And in the right. I just got this vision of her passed down to me that was like totally wrong actually, it turned out about Jane Fond. I don't know. She was, as you said, it was more your era, so you maybe lived through it all.
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The photo she allowed to be taken, I guess I think I've got This right. In 72, maybe in Hanoi with a North Vietnamese anti aircraft gun, which presumably was being used to shoot down American pilots. That was very bad.
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B
Not good.
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A
Now, she then reinvented herself with all the, you know, the diet stuff and all and the exercise, whatever that was. Exercise, I guess. And. And I think she sort of apologized for what she did in the 70s and, you know, visited McCain and so forth. But. So I'm okay. I'm okay with her.
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B
And ended up being kind of right, though, about the war broadly, maybe not about the.
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You shouldn't stand where the actual North Vietnamese should be. Just gonna say, you know, I don't want to sound too old school neocon here, but that's a little too far.
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We needed you to represent that point of view on the crystal and fonda and I'll just say Fonda. She was, she, the only thing she was disappointed about is that neither of us are really Republicans anymore because she was excited to have Republicans in the tent for the new effort. So any stick around for that? All right, the real news, the military is invading Chicago and Portland, I guess against the, or over the objections rather of the local political officials, thought that this was a republic that we were living in. Apparently, apparently not. Or maybe still thanks to some judicial rulings in Chicago. We have JB Pritzker. I guess we'll start there. This was JB last night. We must now start calling this what it is. Trump's invasion. It started with federal agents. It will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes. And it will now involve sending in another state's military troops. Texas. I call on Governor Abbott to immediately withdraw any support for this decision and refuse to coordinate with the administration. So there it is. And there was a period of time where we thought maybe they're backing off this a little bit. They're going to go into red states where they had, you know, where the National Guard was welcomed, where there weren't these constitutional issues. You talked about this stuff with Goodman yesterday. I'm wondering what your top thoughts are.
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I thought Andrew Egger put it well in the morning newsletter. We really have the rule of law and the rule of Trump and the two which have been in tension with one another and rule of Trump has been creeping up against the rule of law. You might say they're now in just full fledged conflict. I think sort of head on collision. This is the moment where we'll see the moment. It'll take a while, but we're now at a different point, I guess the way I put it than we were maybe a month ago when as I said these things were all happening. Authoritarianism was moving. But now we really have the real moment of crisis. I would really say.
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Yeah. The rule of law side has had a momentary victory so far at least in Oregon over the rule of Trump. And I think it's just worth really focusing on what we've seen here. It's Karen Immerget. She is a Trump appointed Judge in Oregon 2019 appointed by the Trump administration. That's important. She's twice now blocked the administration's attempt to send troops over the objections of local officials. Local officials filed emergency injunction and we're getting one of her rulings in this case. And unlike in Newsom, so she's contrasting with California plaintiffs, provided substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days or even weeks leading up to the president's directive on September 27. Furthermore, this country has a long standing and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs. She kind of frames that up even really from a right, you know, from a more conservative judicial perspective, the whole ruling is worth reading. And she's very strong on this. I mean, we'll see what happens with the Rubber Meets the Road. The MAGA folks are all saying, you know, the judge isn't in charge of the military, we are. And I mean, that could end up being an organ, really, where this comes to a head.
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It's an excellent opinion and people really should read it. It's not super long, but it's very. 30 pages, but it's very tightly argued. You know, it's funny, I thought I heard her name when this case appeared last week, and I thought, why do I know that name a little bit? I don't know every district judge in the country by any means, especially out in Oregon. And it turned out I vaguely remembered her name because she was the. As a young lawyer went to work for Ken Starr when he was special counsel in 1998, and she was the person who deposed Monica Lewinsky.
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B
Oh, really? Yeah.
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Starr didn't want to do it himself for kind of obvious reasons. It's more seemly to him. And so. And so Karen McKenzie, then she was George W. Bush U.S. attorney for four or five years, I think so, yeah. I mean, not a bleeding heart liberal and a tough. I remember a couple of lawyers I know when she got the case thinking, oh, we could have gotten a better draw out there, you know, and excellent opinion, really worth worth reading. You know, this thing of the MAGA reaction which Steve Miller embodies, I suppose, or leads that, you know, Trump's in charge of the military, he's commander in chief, that you're throwing that term around a lot. Think about what that says for a minute. They're not saying that he's commander in chief when we're fighting a war abroad. And therefore the judiciary has to be extremely restrained in second guessing things, which is a reasonable position. Sometimes they're saying he is commander in chief of the military here in the United States, but the military is not commander in chief of law enforcement in the United States. And the use of the military in the United States is very limited, both by law and tradition and implicitly, at least by the Constitution. And so it's so revealing of how far MAGA world has gone to just embracing. I don't know what to call it exactly. Caesarism is one term that they use in political science. You know, sort of that's just dictatorship maybe. You know, he just gets to use the military in the United States wherever he wants, whatever he wants, without regard to what the facts are, without regard to all the legal niceties. What the governors who are elected officials in their state think. And that's we're also supposed to say, okay, you know, he's commander in chief, I guess he just gets to deploy forces against and incidentally against American citizens. This is not just to help ICE arrest and that would be not. That's problematic too incidentally, to arrest undocumented immigrants. These people who are protesting, so far as we know, are I assume overwhelmingly American citizens whom the military is going to be doing what against fighting.
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It calls to mind the Mark Milley speech that he gave about how the American military is different and they don't pledge an oath to a dictator, to a wannabe dictator and talks about the traditions and just like how counter what this administration is saying to kind of those. Those traditions. More on Miller. He got into a little tiff with our colleague Sam Stein on social media over the weekend. Steve Miller wrote this about immigrant legal insurrection. It's interesting that they appointed an insurrectionist to be a district court judge, but was their. Their decision they'd like insurrectionists, I guess legal insurrection. Steve Miller says the president is the commander chief of the armed forces, not an Oregon judge. This is an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers. And the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the republic itself. Sam quoted him saying, top official in Trump White House calls a decision from Trump appointed judge an organized terrorist attack on the federal government. Stephen said to Sam, you are repugnant. I mean not wrong, but not correct in this situation in particular.
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That was hard.
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Again, we'll see how this all shakes out. But like the, just the escalating rhetoric and the threats here like this, this notion that like a judge that they appointed saying that they've not created a rationale for taking over the Oregon military. You know, Oregon National Guard is, is a. It's an act of insurrection that requires and potentially they're complicit in organized terrorist attack that requires the administration to crack down on it. And the kind of other text around all this, you talked about this a little bit with Ryan Goodman was this National Security presidential memorandum that people were talking about and sp which is about domestic terror and how the US now cinches this memorandum saying that the federal government will put together a strategy for investigating disrupting any organizations that foment political violence that speak out against it. I mean, it's a pretty alarming trajectory.
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The memorandum is alarming for everyone they can go after. I hadn't really focused until you read just now Miller's post Legal Insurrection. I mean, the normal thing anyway, other White House would say, or even this White House or even Trump in the first term at least would have said is mistaken decision by a judge, very regrettable. We expect to prevail on appeal to the Supreme Court.
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Well, Biden or Bush would have said very regrettable. Trump would have said, loser, loser, judge, idiot.
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But Legal Insurrection really lays the groundwork for obviously ignoring judicial rulings that are insurrectionist, for I don't know what, removing judges who are insurrectionist. I mean, are they also subject to this national security memorandum and can be arrested? I mean, it shows how far we've gone. And no one, of course, God forbid, any Republican member of Congress or anything senator should say something about maybe someone on one of the judiciary committees say something about how this is inappropriate for the number two person, really the number one person in the White House, the White House staff, to say so. It shows how far we have gone down this path to very bad path.
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B
Very bad path, the path potentially that we're heading towards. I noticed a post from you over the weekend about Stephen Miller's various. He was just off the chain and I've just read part of the various things that he was talking about, but tweets that are inciting the situation, exacerbating the situation in a bunch of these scenarios in Chicago where there were protests against ice. I know. Or it continues to be out there, like looking for pretexts to send these troops in. And obviously that's kind of the crux of this fight in Oregon is that they're. It's like their rhetoric is not matching the reality. Right. Like they're trying to argue that there was this emergency, there's this violence on the ground. And it seems like that Judge Immerget is basically saying, well, yeah, like if there was violence, I would have let you do this. But there hasn't been. And so they want violence, they're looking for violence. You write, Stephen Miller is so desperate for a Reichstag fire moment that keeps getting thrown around. I thought it might be useful for some listeners to like what, what do you actually mean by that? Because there was a period of time where I had the impression that Reichstag fire was representing like a false flag. Like the Nazis basically started the fire, then blamed out the communists as a, as a way to grab power. But it seems like as history has gone on, I think that was a misconception and that the Reichstag fire moment really just means that something happens that, that then leads the wannabe authoritarian to, to assert power.
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A
Yeah, I mean, shortly after Hitler takes power, I guess, or becomes Chancellor, I think it's the end of February 1933, the Reichstag, the German parliament, is set on fire. I think at the time the guy who was arrested seemed to be an anarchist of some kind and kind of a disturbed person acting alone. So far as one could, as historians now think the left assumed it was a false flag thing at the time. It may not have been a false flag thing, but it was taken advantage of in a huge way by Hitler and the Nazis to basically, I think it's when they passed the Empowering act, whatever that's called anyway, that's where they began to really destroy the democracy over which Hitler was still kind of presiding, and begin the path road towards totalitarianism. So. So the analogy I suppose would be there could be incidents in places that are not false flag, they're just unfortunate incidents or maybe even some six left wingers do something somewhere and they use that as the excuse to, to consolidate power and purge opponents. And they really went all out against the left in Germany, et cetera.
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B
You can get overstated to what their plan is with regards to purge, but they definitely want to use the power of the law to go after left wing fundraiser, big donors, left wing groups, any protest organizations, in addition to using it as a rationale to have the military in the streets of these cities. Right.
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A
And I would say just empirically, if I can say, you know, there's just no question that ICE is provoking violence at this point. ICE is not solving a problem of violence. It theoretically could be the case you and I might not like the deployment of ICE even in these circumstances. We certainly might not like the Federal, the National Guard being federalized, but it could theoretically be the case, and it was the case in LA and 92 when Bush used the National Guard, that there were terrible riots going on because of, in that case of the Rodney King decision and you know, in the federal, there was a good reason to set in the guard or whatever ICE's deployment here is. It's just clear from the Way they're conducting themselves in Chicago, the instance with the helicopter raid on that apartment building was that early last week. They're provoking the violence. Their presence is provoking the violence. And beyond their presence, their actual actions are pretty purposefully at this point provoking violence. So it's, it's in a funny way in this respect, beyond the Reichstag fire, you might say, you know, so. Yeah, but, but they want the violence. And I mean, I gotta say, most 98% of the protesters seem to me to be behaving with pretty impressive restraint. Actually. There have been very little violence from the people who are protesting. ICE is pretty. ICE has committed a lot more violent acts than the people protesting.
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B
Yeah. In Portland. That's why they picked Portland, because there were really violent protests in Portland. And some of that was back then. There was also the kind of proud boys were in the picture, so kind of right wing militia groups and left and they were fighting amongst them. So I, you know, but like that was the case in 2020 in a way that it's not. Hasn't been now. And yeah, I mean some of the videos, the ICE and there's some funny ones of the ice, like the fat ICE guys, like chasing around the guy on the bike in Chicago and stuff. Like there's some funny videos, but there are like some very alarming videos about like. And obviously the guy that. I guess I should mention this. Actually I've been meaning to mention this. There's the video. I'm going from memory, so I apologize if this is wrong. I believe it was in New York where the ICE agent pushes down the woman that is really upset that her husband has been taken away undocumented, I guess, allegedly, supposedly an undocumented migrant and his wife is pushed to the ground. And then they fired the guy. And I think I mentioned that on either this or the Next Level podcast. The couple days later they unfired him. Like they brought him back. And so to your point about the provocation, like they're good with it, they want it.
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And the ads that they're running and the glorification that Kristi Noem is putting out the videos. Yeah. Is there a single? I'll just ask.
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She does look kind of weird in the workout video. I will say, yeah, kind of. I don't know, maybe that's provoking just kind of the way that. Just sort of an uncanny Valley non human kind of presence.
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A
But yeah, as a single ICE agent been disciplined. So of course we know in the months this has been going on and with all the videos we have of really inappropriate to say behavior, to say the least. Behavior by them? I doubt it. And they're encouraging it and the videos encourage it and glorify the use of violence by ice. Again, there's none of the normal we hope we don't have to use force. You know, they don't even pretend that anymore.
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B
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A
You said, I mean, I say at the beginning that they've done a pretty good job on the healthcare fight and the obvious, the natural thing to do, and maybe ultimately, maybe I'm being a little provocative, I don't know, is to just keep fighting the healthcare fight. They're doing fine with it, but I just feel personally, it's a little weird. And things have changed a lot since that healthcare strategy was devised a month ago when it was pretty reasonable or even when it began to be implemented, really. We two weeks ago, as the shutdown became imminent, and now we are in a genuine constitutional crisis and a genuine showdown between the rule of law and the rule of Trump. And somehow that has to be captured, I think, in what the Democrats say. Now, maybe you can let Pritzker and Newsom and others and the governor of Oregon make this case, and Jeffries and Schumer can keep talking about healthcare and very robotically on message. But it just feels weird to me at this point, and I do. Can they actually prevail? Can they prevail on healthcare? Incidentally, I'm a Little doubtful. Can they prevail on getting things onto these legislation? Who knows? They haven't tried. I mean, we don't know. Our Republican senators can be a little nervous not even allowing a vote on the use of congressional authorization for the use of force. There are Republican senators, Ryan Goodman makes this point, who have a pretty long record of being pretty strongly in favor of Congress having a say on these sorts of things. Now, are they capable of totally collapsing in the wake of Trump's opposition? Yes, of course. So I don't know. I just feel like, at least for now, I thought I would put this out there. It's a little beyond probably what the traffic will bear for now politically, but I don't know, another few days, like what we've seen. Congressional leadership can't be totally detached, so to speak, from what the governors are saying, from what's happening actually in the streets of Portland or Chicago.
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B
Sometimes it's hard to. You can imagine and game out in your head how these sorts of political kind of moments will settle into the kind of public consciousness and what people take away from them. I was pretty worried that the Democrats were going to find themselves with internal dissension and not enough backbone to fight, and then it would end up kind of, you know, feeling rather limp. It doesn't feel that way, I guess. Now, again, I talk about what the arguments are, what the. I'm still a little, I don't really know what the exit strategy is, but, like, it does feel like they're dug in for a fight in a way that is, that is useful for the moment. And I do think to your point, I mean, depending on what happens in Portland and Chicago and as these guys escalate, that could change their posture and positioning even more. I do think that's a good thing to raise. Do you have any other shutdown thoughts?
- [23:54]
A
Well, just my only other point, I make this at the end, just as a suggestion, in a way, at the end of the little piece, is that so we have the shutdown on the one hand, that's sort of what's happening in Washington. We have the actual constitutional crisis happening out in the country, but with the Trump administration as well. And then we have this no Kings protest planned a little under two weeks from now, which I think will be very big. I mean, it could be bigger than the previous one, I think millions of people. And if you think about the resistance to Trump, there's sort of a legal side, there's a, let's call it, political side and a popular side. And I do Think these could all be kind of brought together in a way that they haven't quite been yet over the eight months or so of this administration over the next two weeks in a way that would, that kind of reinforce each other. So I think it's a bit of an opportunity just politically to build more momentum on the side of the resistance. Sam Stein, our colleague who edits the, the, the morning Shots, usually was joking in Slack that he didn't expect if you had told the young Samson, he said, you know, 15 years ago that he'd be editing Bill Crystal saying that there needs to be, you know, popular and legal and congressional resistance to the use of the military at home and abroad. Untethered use of the military. He wouldn't have quite believed it. But I, and I had to explain to him that of course it's all very different. No, I didn't really explain anything, but it was, it was a fair, it was a semi fair point.
- [25:12]
B
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A
Do we have a sense of how the sailors reacted? Were they. They weren't as stone faced as the generals, I suppose?
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B
Yeah, they were not stone faced as the generals. I'll give them mixed credit. There was definitely some hooting and like hooting and hollering around like Trump being a great physical specimen and some of that sort of stuff. And Trump did kind of give them an opportunity to boo Barack Hussein Obama and they did not take that similar. I think the little gnat was kind of quiet after he started talking with little Nat. So I didn't know go to the academy. So I don't know exactly what appropriate behavior was there. There was certainly some hooting and hollering though, in the crowd, but maybe was maybe not the most alarming that it could have been. How about that?
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A
That's good. I mean, I sort of expected the general officers to be very disciplined, but you don't know what's going on down in the ranks and among very young sailors. Where was this? This was in Norfolk, down there, right?
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B
Yeah. I forget. Yeah. Somewhere in Virginia Beach. Yeah.
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A
So I'm hopeful that there's a broader Sense throughout the military, it's really important that there be obviously that this stuff is inappropriate. They have to put up with it. He's the commander in chief, as they always remind these young troops. So you know, they've got to be respectful. But yeah, they don't have to internalize the notion that they should, that he's the person they work for as opposed to the chain of command which he's at the top of the oath they take is to the Constitution, not to him.
- [29:28]
B
It is just, it probably goes without saying, but just like the whole context of all this, the idea of simultaneously I'm sending troops into these cities to go after so called left wing agitators while giving a speech in front of rank and file and talking about the Democrats, if they're the problem, that needs to be taken care of, followed by the speech of the generals where he's talking about the enemy within being scared and the enemy without. And I mean, all of that together paints quite an alarming picture.
- [30:00]
A
No, totally. And I was wondering, I don't know if this was scheduled a long time ago, if there was some 250th anniversary somehow think of the Navy that he was going to go to. But again, if this were happening in a foreign country, speaks to the general officer corps on a Tuesday and then was that just this past week? I've totally lost track of things. Yeah. And then six, five days later, speaks to sort of enlisted or the rank and file, let's just call it, of one of the major, one of the services. You get a sense that, gee, you know what, he thinks the military is pretty important. Pretty important to his agenda, to his authoritarian agenda, to his staying in control, maybe ultimately. And he's pretty, you know, systematically too strong. But in his way, he seems to be giving a lot of speeches to the military. Why is that? You know, and, and paying a lot. And Hex, as we know, is paying a lot of attention to promotions within the military and so forth. Again, he called it a rally, which is interesting, but in a way, if you were just giving rally speeches, one would be less alarmed. Right.
- [30:53]
B
Here's maybe one other. Whether to be alarmed about this or to laugh at it, I don't know. I think I'm going to be alarmed by it. Are you familiar with Scott Adams?
- [31:04]
A
Just the name. Yeah.
- [31:05]
B
Okay, well, he wrote the Dilbert cartoon.
- [31:07]
A
Yeah, right.
- [31:08]
B
This is the kind of thing where you don't really want to, to care about what these people think. But Scott Adams was in 2015, a prominent early Trump advocate When it was kind of comical to be for Trump, really. And he was there at the beginning. And so he gained a huge following among Trump supporters as somebody who's like, hey, here's a Hollywood guy that'll put his name out there. And he's gotten increasingly unhinged, and yet he maintains an important following. I like to monitor this stuff because, you know, a lot of times you're seeing from Stephen Miller and stuff, oh, it's the left that is calling us fascists, and we need to crack down on that, because that is an incitement of violence. Well, here's one of Donald Trump's biggest supporters over the weekend, Scott Adams, of the Dilbert cartoon. By far the best form of government, if you could get it. Now, the problem is there's no way to guarantee that that's what you're getting. But if you could get it, the best form of government would be a authoritarian strongman who had your best interests in heart, which turns out to be Trump. Is he an authoritarian? Yes. Is he a strong man? I'd say yes. Yes, he is. Is he benevolent in the sense that although he's tough, everything he does clearly is for the benefit of the public? At least he's benevolent. 1.3 million followers there for Scott Adams. I guess there's points for just saying it. They're like, but I do think it's important to just call attention to this, which is like, they're saying it. Trump has 20, 28 hats. One of his biggest supporters of 2015 is like, we want him to be a benevolent authoritarian strongman. He is a benevolent authoritarian strongman. There's no pushback, really. I mean, there are people that will push back if it's the left that says it and say that they're doing hyperbole, but when it's from inside the house, that's just kind of. I'm a little alarmed that they're putting that into the public discourse.
- [33:13]
A
Wait till Trump reposts it. That'll be the real moment. But, no, I hadn't known about that. I mean, I knew who Adams was, that he was Trumpy and all that. But that is striking. Now, the cards are all. Like, in blackjack or poker, the deal is cards are face up at this point.
- [33:27]
B
Right.
- [33:29]
A
There's no mystery about what their hand is and how they're going to play it.
- [33:33]
B
It's a concerning thing. I tried to bring Ken Burns to the Dark place last week, and I couldn't do it because he's seen it all. It couldn't be any worse than it was in Charleston during the revolution or whatever. And that's great. That's great. We definitely have been in darker places than in this moment. But one of the things he said that struck me, that I've really been sitting with all weekend is some of the principles of the. Of the revolution, of the founding, the people advancing them, didn't even fully believe them. I mean, obviously based on their behavioral slaves and stuff, that there was this kind of momentum or inertia of if you put a powerful idea out into the world, people pick it up and it manifests itself. Right. And he was talking about that in the positive way about the ideas of the founding. And I'm increasingly worried about that. That today. Right. The inverse of that, that like these things are being put into the ether in a way that they were not.
- [34:30]
A
I totally agree. I think it's really an important point. I've been very struck on a parallel path, or the same path really, which is authoritarianism has a certain natural, natural support out there. There are things that appeals to in the human soul and especially in some people's souls and especially maybe in this current moment, for various reasons. And once it gets the momentum, people do sign on. We know this from history, right? It's not like everyone was on board with Mussolini or Hitler or anyone else. Hugo Chavez, the moment he showed up or even when he first got elected, maybe. And it's the normalization isn't even a strong enough term because of course, he's been now been elected president twice. So it's way beyond just normalization as kind of just a movement in America. I couldn't agree more. It's really bad. Ideas can have momentum, unfortunately. I don't know if as much as good ideas, but almost as much as good ideas. And the founders knew this. It's just to take a second on the founders, which Ken Burns knows a lot about, obviously a ton about. They were very worried. They didn't think, oh, once we set this thing up, there's never a chance of demagogues taking over or popular passions getting out of hand. They spent a huge amount of time and effort worrying about constructing institutions to check that, to guardrails against that. And then they say, also, you know what? We still depend on the public ultimately. And elites, they don't quite say it this way, but I would say that's what they think. To stop this as well, we need humans, not just guardrails, to stop these tendencies which are always going to be there or possibilities which are always going to Be there.
- [35:55]
B
All right. Well, assuming we avoid the authoritarian strongman coming to fruition, we do have some ranked politics ahead of us. And I just want to touch on two things really quick before I lose you. That's coming up here in the Virginia governor's race. We talked about it last month. You're in Virginia. Abigail Spamberger seems to be running a strong race against a quite absurd, ridiculous Republican challenger and winsome Sears. Some news over the weekend, though, kind of down ballot where the attorney general, the Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones had sent a bunch of just really fucking disgusting texts about how his opponents kids were little Nazis and how he wanted to piss on the graves of his opponents. And the Republican speakers, if he had two bullets and it was the Republican speaker and like Hitler and Pol Pot or something, the Republican speaker would get both. I mean, just like it was private texts, maybe with somebody that he's flirting with. I've heard. So I don't know. It's kind of a Corey Lewandowski type behavior there. So it was private text, not a public. Even still horrendous. And I think that the Democrats, in a number of ways, we've seen this, like from the top of the ballot all the way to the bottom. Like there's a little bit of a lack of seriousness sometime, like dealing with the threat that we are dealing with. Like it was not a secret that this guy was. Was a ridiculous candidate that he was running a primary. And I guess you tell me it was a close. It was a close race, but I feel like there could have been, you know, maybe a more formidable opposition against somebody that was going to embarrass the Democrats to this degree.
- [37:29]
A
Yeah, I mean, I voted for his opponent in the primary, I'd like to say, who lost 51, 49. So, you know, it was a perfectly. The opponent was a totally reasonable, moderate Democrat, more like Spanberger. I mean, Jones, not only just when Seth broke. He didn't really apologize right away. Right. Didn't it take him for a while to be dragged into a more serious apology? So behaved very badly. Look, honestly, if. If early voting hadn't begun, I'd be very much in favor of everyone pressuring him to get off the ballot and let the Democrats nominate, presumably the person who got 49 of the vote. I feel like it's. It's close to disqualifying, but I guess with early voting having begun, it's just very, very hard to figure out how you would people have to go back and vote again and how do you keep track, it gets pretty crazy. Right. So I don't know if that can work. So here we are. I don't know how much it'll hurt. I don't think it'll hurt Spamberger too much. So in Virginia, we vote independently for the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general. So people might split their ballot down at the AG level and vote.
- [38:21]
B
Have happened in Virginia quite recently.
- [38:23]
A
Yes. And I'd say the AG who's the incumbent is the most reasonable version of junkinism that you're going to get. I mean, it's not, you know, he's gone along with a lot of stuff I wouldn't go along with and, and gone along with Youngkin going along with a lot of stuff that one shouldn't go along with. But he's not, I think, you know, it wouldn't be fair to say he's like a full bore Trumpy type. So I do think a certain number of swing voters might switch over to him in the general. I don't, I think they can separate this Spamberger from this. But Spamberger, for some reason they're all reluctant to. They criticize him pretty harshly. But then the Republicans intelligently, from their point of view, politically kept saying, well, but do you in favor of him dropping out? And then none of them is quite willing to say that. So.
- [39:00]
B
Right. The timing. Yeah, no, it was good Oppo. To me, the lesson, because like who the Virginia attorney general is not really that important to me as Bert living in Louisiana. But to me the lesson is just again, going back to there has been a reticence and I tie this to the Biden and Element parts of Kamala. There's a reticence among kind of the Democratic cultural elites of like, we've got to circle the wagons. The threat is so great that we got to stick with our side. You know what I mean? We don't want these internal fights breaking out. And that is the wrong lesson. Right. Like, I mean, and we've seen how that has backfired several times, which is just like, no, if there is a Democrat that is going to harm the party or that is going to harm the country or that is not, that is whatever, using bad judgment, they should be called out for it. Like, there should be a concerted effort to move to stronger options. And this is kind of a micro version, I think, based on what I've heard in Virginia is that wasn't like a great secret. I don't know if people knew that his texts were this disgusting, but it wasn't A great secret that this was not maybe the strongest candidate they should have. All right. In Georgia, Lauren Egan went there, our colleague, to cover Jeff Duncan, former Republican lieutenant governor who acted extremely admirably in the face of Trump in 2020 when he tried to overturn the votes in Georgia, then endorsed Kamala Harris, gave quite a good speech, I thought, at her convention about kind of the moral imperative for why he decided to do that. Good guy. I've got to know him a little bit. And he is now running as a Democrat in the Georgia Democratic primary. Mayor of Atlanta Keisha Lance Bottoms is the other, is, I guess the leader in the polls right now would be the most prominent candidate. There are a couple other people in the race. I was wondering what you made of the, of Egan's story and of that of Jeff Duncan's attempt here.
- [40:53]
A
I'm very encouraged that he's doing it. I mean, I think I may have talked to him about it, actually. I was like, we were on a bus together at the Going to the Republicans or ex Republicans for Kamala Harris event in Pennsylvania, where we also stood on the stage kind of. But 20 of us kind of didn't seem to help much in Pennsylvania. But anyway, and Jeff gave an excellent speech there, too. And I think we were talking about what party are we in now these days? And so forth. And I repeated, I believe this was your original point way, way, way back when. And you were early on this, that, you know what, if you're with the Democrats, you might as well just join the Democrats and then you can maybe influence the Democrats and someone like him who's been elected statewide can, can run as a Democrat. So he's doing it. I'm not taking any credit for this. I'm just saying I don't know if he's going to win or not. I mean, running against the former governor of by far, the electricity in the state, who's a Democrat, is obviously, you know, it's a bit uphill. He should be encouraged to do it. He should be praised for doing it. And if he loses, he should still be praised for doing it. And I hope it doesn't deter other people from doing it. You know what? You lose once, maybe you win two or four years from now, maybe someone else like you wins. Maybe you have a standing now in the party to be a player, you know, be a figure at an active and state level or the national level. So I'm very heartened by his decision to run. And right now the polls show I'm far behind. But it's natural that we'd start off that way. I don't know. What do you make of it?
- [42:08]
B
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that the model makes more sense in Kansas than in Georgia. Right. Like, or in like a red or congressional district. And so I don't like you if he loses his primary. I don't, you know, I think that, I don't think that should discourage the model. I think that maybe there are other districts where that, where it would maybe make more sense. I think it could work for him in Georgia. I think obviously the black vote is like particularly significant in Georgia and that's going to be a challenge for him. Like, is he going to be able to appeal to black voters? Maybe he will. I don't know. But I think that maybe the model is different in a different state that's different demographically and politically. But it's also like Democrats want to win. A lot of Democrats want to win. And there are certainly obviously ideologically motivated Democrats, but there are also Democrats who really, if you're in Georgia and you look at Brian Kemp's last years, Brian Kemp's been about the most reasonable Republican Republican out there, but he still passed a six week abortion law. If you're a Democrat, you're like, I would like somebody that will not, that will at least put in place a more reasonable restriction when it comes to abortion. There are various other things. Democrats are sick of getting beaten. And I look at somebody like Keisha Lance Bottoms and she said, and we'll see what kind of campaign she runs. But Lauren Egan asked her campaign about Duncan making the argument about electability. And they sent her a poll from 2021, so it's a while ago that showed that she had a 57% approval rating in Atlanta when she was mayor. And I was like, well, that's not that good actually. I mean, if you're going to win as a Democrat in Georgia, you need to win big, big numbers in Atlanta. And I think that she has baggage from COVID and from the crime spike that happened. I'm not blaming that for her crime spike happened everywhere in 2020 and 21. But you can see the ads, you know, and so I don't know, I think that he has a legitimate electability case to make to Democrats and Tim.
- [43:51]
A
What the Republican nominee filed closely enough. He won't be someone as reasonable as Kemp, right?
- [43:55]
B
No, it's probably gonna be Burt Jones. So on the Republican side, they got Raffensperger, who also acted honorably as Secretary of State. But it's Kind of a funny. It's sort of a model of like dispatch dispatchism versus bulwark or like National Review, maybe. National Reviewism versus Bulwarkism, where it's like, Raffensperger is gonna run as a Republican. I think his campaign is hopeless, but good on him for doing it. And he'll almost certainly get beaten by Bert Jones, you know, unless, who knows, maybe he texted somebody crazy.
- [44:26]
A
I don't know if I hearschu in the Republican primary in Georgia. Maybe you remember, didn't they have some candidate just two years ago or something? Who was that guy who was.
- [44:33]
B
Yeah, maybe it doesn't. Yeah, Herschel. No, probably doesn't hurt you. So he is lieutenant governor who is fully on board for the Stop the Steal. It's just a straight insurrectionist, far right lunatic. And so, yeah, to your point about the importance of electability, if you're a Georgia Democrat who's unhappy with Ken and you have the specter of this guy coming in, might be enough to get you to kind of broaden the tent a little bit. I don't know. We'll keep monitoring it, but I'm happy that Jeff has given it a shot. Anything else? Any final thoughts before we get to Jane Fonda? The people are ready for Jane Fonda, I'm guessing.
- [45:03]
A
I think the people want Jane Fonda. I'm willing to acknowledge that. And I think we're on good terms these days. I think we follow each other on Twitter or something. Or did. Maybe we were on Blue sky now. And I think we're. I think.
- [45:13]
B
I think that she'd be excited to hang. I don't know. You're in LA soon, heard. So now you guys can get together. Everybody, that's Bill Crystal. He's here every Monday. We got a little bonus segment for you with Jane Fonda up next, so stick around for that. All right, everybody, we are sold out of tickets to all of our shows on the fall Tour except for October 8th in Washington, D.C. and was on a call yesterday planning out what we've got in store for you. It's going to be fun. Obviously, JVL will be there, so there'll be elements of Darkness, but we're also bringing in Sarah McBride for a conversation with Sarah Longwell that I'm super excited for. Maybe we might get Will Summer up to talk about some of the crazy shit that's happening on the MAGA ride. I've got some other plans in store for you, so it's not too late. Get your tickets now. Washington D.C. october 8th, go to the bulwark.com events. The bulwark.com events. I hope to see you all there. It's at the Lincoln Theater. Awesome venue. Appreciate them for hosting us. And so I hope to see you all in Washington October 8th. Hey, everybody. We are back. This is such a delight. I'm so excited for this. She's an Academy Award winning actor and activist. This week she relaunched the committee for the First Amendment, which I was honored to be asked to sign to become a member of of it is the great Jane Fonda. Hey, Jane. How are you doing?
- [46:44]
C
Hi, Tim. I'm so grateful that you've signed. It's wonderful. I want to ask you something. I'm hoping you're Republican.
- [46:51]
B
I'm. I'm not anymore. I officially left in 2020 when he tried to steal the election and everybody went along with it. So I'm sad to tell you that I have to disappoint you. I'm no longer a Republican.
- [47:04]
C
That's too bad. I wanted to be able to say we had Republicans signing off.
- [47:11]
B
We might be able to find one or two these days.
- [47:13]
C
I've tried. I tried. I got. Tried to get to Tucker Carlson. I tried to get to Ted Cruz, tried to get to my friend Arnold Schwarzenegger. None of them answered me.
- [47:22]
B
I'll work on that for you. We can shake out a Republican. I'll work on that for you. We can find somebody.
- [47:27]
C
You know, this is not a partisan issue. One of the great foundational things in this country, in our democracy was that even if you didn't agree with each other, you knew that you each had the right to speak what you felt without danger. And my God, if we lose that, I mean, our fathers and grandfathers fought wars to protect that right. And so we have to stand up together. Republicans and moderates and Democrats and independents.
- [48:00]
B
You got me on the moderate list. I'm with you. It is crazy in this moment that this is where we're at. We're taping this on Friday. It's going to air on Monday. But we had news just today. FBI fired a guy for having a gay pride flag on his desk. Apple shut down an app that allowed people to tell people to warn people if there were ICE agents in their neighborhood. That's part of the First Amendment, too, obviously. I assume it was the Jimmy Kimmel situation that prompted you to start this. I. I mean, these threats seem to be very real. Talk about why you want to do it now.
- [48:30]
C
No, it was before the Kimmel thing. I received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. And in thinking about what I wanted to say, I remembered that there was this committee for the First Amendment in the 1950s, which came to be because of the House on American Activities Committee. And what was being done to so many Hollywood people put in jail and so on because they were accused of being communist when they weren't. And my dad was a member of that. And so I talked about that. And then, I don't know, about a month and a half ago, two months ago, me and my posse were saying we need to start it again. So we did.
- [49:10]
B
Who's in your posse?
- [49:12]
C
They're not names you'd recognize.
- [49:14]
B
Okay, Just your pals. You have a posse because you also do a ton of actual real life activism. A lot of times people of your stature will have a big fancy fundraiser in the Hollywood Hills and check the box, but you're doing real work volunteering, supporting organizations.
- [49:32]
C
Since when I first became an activist in the 1970s, it was always I was on the ground. If I was going to work with soldiers, I was on the military bases, I was in. You know, I was there. And that's how you learn and grow as a activist. I love that part of it.
- [49:49]
B
You know, you're closer to this than me. I worry a little bit that people are scared to go out and, and speak out in protests, maybe more so than in the past. I wasn't around for the Vietnam protests that you're in, but I think people are afraid of the government retribution, afraid of the masked ICE agents, and that that is having a dampening effect on people speaking out. Do you sense that? Do you hear that from people?
- [50:14]
C
Yeah, and quite justifiably, yeah, there's protests. Those are very important because it shows that huge numbers of people are opposed to what's happening, happening. But there are other things, like strikes, boycotts, walkouts. You know, one and a half million people stopped their subscriptions to Disney after Kimmel was suspended. That matters now. They didn't get in trouble. There were so many of them, that kind of thing. The flight attendants may go on strike and that might bring the shutdown to a close. They did that before with Trump, and it made him stop what he was trying do to. To do. When people do something en masse that's strategic and really harms the opponent, especially economically. This is what has to happen now.
- [51:04]
B
I mean, there's so much stuff to be upset about right now. And you're talking about what prompted you to start the committee. When you look out there, what really gets you mad? What do you think is the locus of resistance at this point?
- [51:19]
C
Point? I mean, what is scariest is that we have a president who has already taken more power than any president in the history of this country. He's trying to control the Federal Reserve. He's trying to get the central bank. And it's happening faster than it ever has in any industrial democracy. And historically, it takes 18 to 22 months for an authoritarian to consolidate power. Once that happens, it's very hard to defend democracy after that. That's why there's an urgency. We really have to. We have to get together and unify now across the political spectrum. But I forgot this. God damn, I'm old.
- [52:00]
B
That can't be true.
- [52:01]
C
And I forgot what I was going to say.
- [52:04]
B
I was asking what you're most angry about.
- [52:07]
C
Yes, the demonizing of activists. We are Americans. Our fathers and our grandfathers fought wars for these rights. When I got mad at America because of the Vietnam War, I was living in France. I came back here to protest. I care about this country. So to accuse activists as being domestic terrorists. I'm sorry.
- [52:28]
B
Yeah.
- [52:28]
C
You know the slap suits, that means trying to intimidate people from protesting in public. They're doing that. It's all to scare people.
- [52:37]
B
The president called you the enemy within this week. He said you're scarier than the foreign terrorists. You know that we. You don't know who the enemy within is because they don't wear. Wear a uniform and they're trying to undermine the country.
- [52:48]
C
He also said that he was a big supporter of free speech. So I'm pissed at his henchmen who are making him do things that he obviously doesn't want to do.
- [53:00]
B
Maybe that's a good way to look at it. We'll see. Maybe it's the henchmen, or maybe they're full of shit. Maybe they were all full of shit on the free speech thing. Maybe they just wanted to be able to say the P word instead of actually giving people a right to protest.
- [53:14]
C
This is classic. I mean, it's happened in Hungary, it's happened in Turkey, it's happened in Russia. This is the playbook that we're confronting here. And this has never happened to us before. We flirted with this in the 20s and 30s, but it's never happened. So we have to gird our loins.
- [53:35]
B
I like that you say that there's still time to fight, that we still need to fight. Sometimes I hear from people who are really beaten down and kind of feel like it's already been lost. I Understand that sentiment. And I was watching last night, the documentary about you. I was trying to get up to speed and there was this one scene that really struck me. It was an interviewer. I didn't recognize him, it was before my time, but interviewer, one of these shows and he was having you on and he was saying you were once a radical and were castigated as being outside on the extreme. And now, now your position is in the mainstream. He basically is saying to you that basically everyone came around to where you were on the Vietnam War. And I do wonder if that gives you any hope that you had seen that trajectory before. Being opposed to something and then seeing everybody come around to your point of view. Do you think that that might give us a light and a path forward this time?
- [54:30]
C
Listen, you're looking at a very hopeful person. And that's because I'm active.
- [54:35]
B
Yeah.
- [54:36]
C
You know, if you, if you are sitting around bemoaning what's happening, you're gonna, you know, if you're gonna. If you wanna be hopeful, do hopeful things.
- [54:44]
B
Yeah.
- [54:45]
C
I mean there's even joy involved in this. I can't wait for the committee on the First Amendment. Maybe you'll be part of it. To come up with really creative stuff. And I don't wanna give away some of the ideas we have. Totally fun, funny, non. Obviously nonviolent. We have no place for violence in this. Can't win with violence. The ticket success is nonviolent, but we can have fun. And I mean, we're creators, right? We're storytellers. So we can show we can model for the rest of the country. What? Cnn. Creative nonviolent non cooperation.
- [55:23]
B
Well, you might be scaring some Republicans. Republicans way by calling it cnn. You know what? You asked me if I was a Republican to start and kind of. Who cares about that? In some ways, you know who you should be inviting to this? Who we should be inviting as in my outside role here, all of these tech guys and podcaster guys who were so adamant that their first amendment rights were being infringed by the woke mob, our friends the Joe Rogans and Theo Vaughn's. And Mark Zuckerberg said he supported Trump because Trump was a free speech president. You should invite those folks. Mark said he was for free speech. He should be with you on this issue.
- [55:56]
C
I would think how to reach him.
- [55:59]
B
We can figure that out. I'm sure we can track that down between our role. I don't have Mark's cell phone number, but I have some of those other guys.
- [56:06]
C
Okay.
- [56:06]
B
Because I think that matters. Right. Like those guys, you would think those guys would be with you would be with us on this, and we'll see if they put up or shut up. Right?
- [56:15]
C
Yeah.
- [56:16]
B
On the free speech thing, I asked you at the beginning, I said, was it the Kimmel thing that sparked it? And you said, no. What was the threat that really? Was there a particular threat or action that they did that had you riled up?
- [56:28]
C
No, it's just that I read history, and I'm with people who pay attention, and I read books, and I could see what was happening in June, in July. I could see this is not the first go around with Trump. This is different. I'm hopeful, but I'm also scared.
- [56:51]
B
How did you feel when you won again? Just speaking for myself, it made me very sad. Like, I was scared the first time. I was actually sad the second time because it felt like that our fellow Americans had let us down. I don't know what was your emotional reaction?
- [57:07]
C
I felt sad, but I felt, okay, let's get to work.
- [57:11]
B
Good, we need that. Here's one other thing I want to ask you about on get to Work. And I came from the. I used to be a Republican. As we talked about the top. Can I tell you this first? Before I ask you this question? I just want to admit this, all right? I didn't know shit about you. I didn't know anything. I just knew the propaganda that I'd heard from my little Republican friends, Hanoi Jane or whatever, and I hadn't really consumed your art. And it was Covid, and my husband was like, you would love Jane Fonda. Actually, we should binge Grace and Franklin, Frankie. And we started binging Grace and Frankie, which you need something to do in Covid. All right? And I was just like, you are so delightful. My entire worldview changed. And I started thinking about it, and I was like, I didn't actually know anything about her. I knew nothing. I knew two sentences of slander. And I do think that there's something to that. Right? And this was like, there's a lot of people out there that are being delivered propaganda that makes them think. They think that their fellow Americans are enemies. Maybe that there's a little lesson in my own failings and, like, how that can be punctured if you actually, you know, talk to somebody and listen to them. I don't know. Do you hear that often? Like, do you hear from people that felt like they didn't know the true Jane Fonda because of, you know, the way that you were Smeared.
- [58:30]
C
Yes, I do, quite often. And I'm happy to say a lot of them are veterans.
- [58:35]
B
Oh really?
- [58:35]
C
That really makes me happy. It makes me happy. No, if people knew where my heart was, they wouldn't think I was Hanoi Jiang. What I mean when I say that is. And a lot of it has to do with my dad who came from Omaha. My heart is with working people. I almost moved to Detroit to become an organizer in the United States United Auto Workers Union. I wanted to do that until the head of the organizing said Fonda, we've got plenty of organizers. We don't have movie stars. Go back and take your career seriously, smart guy. But I don't hang out with billionaires. I mean I married one, he just wasn't like the other billionaires. And I don't have anything against billionaires. But you know what I'm saying that those kind of people, I don't hang out with them very much. Very much. I don't. I am interested in the people on the ground who are hurting right now. Yeah, that's where my heart is.
- [59:39]
B
I love that. So what I was asking about the war protests, I do feel like, and you hear this from people on the left who feel like that that anti war energy has been lost on the left a little bit or got co opted some ways by Trump. Like Trump ran as an anti war candidate and we see now how crazy that is. I mean right before we started taping we just bombed another boat, boat in the Caribbean. Crazy. It's crazy. We're like bombing random boats in the Caribbean. And he ran as the anti war candidate. Don't you feel like Democrats and folks in the left could kind of recapture some of the anti war spirit and arguments that maybe, I don't know, has dissipated a little bit since the end of the Iraq war? Or maybe you disagree with that. I don't know.
- [60:20]
C
I think one of the big problems we have now is that there's two Americas and we're getting totally different information, totally different. I know people who only get their from Fox and Breitbart and that. And so how can they know? How can they know what the truth is and how can people organize? It wasn't that polarized back in the 70s but the most effective thing that we did, and I say I was then married to Tom Hayden and and Nixon had convinced people that the war was over because ground troops were coming back. Even the war in the north with the bombing was increasing and the anti war movement was looked at as violent and disruptive and everything so we got suits and ties and cut our hair, and we launched our campaign in Dayton, Ohio, at the Ohio State Fair. And I had just come back from Hanoi. They hadn't yet built their story about attacking me, so there wasn't all the hostility or anything. I did a slideshow about women in Vietnam during the war at the Ohio State Fair, and we traveled. We did 80 cities in three months. And we talked to the people in the middle of the country. And little by little, they came to realize we're paying for the war with our dollars. And it's not ending, it's increasing. He's lying to us. And. And, oh, God. It was fantastic. It was a whole new tactic, and it was really successful. And we did it two years in a row. When we got the funds cut, Congress cut the funds to the regime that we were supporting in South Vietnam that wasn't supported by the Vietnamese people. And that was a big lesson. Go to where the people are and just talk straight. And I think that kind of thing has to happen again because people are not getting the information.
- [62:26]
B
Yeah. And I think the Democrats should. I think there's a good lesson to that, just both about going to the people going outside of their bubbles, but also just on the policy of the war. I don't think regular people that voted for Donald Trump want us to be doing a war in Venezuela. No, I don't think people are for that.
- [62:40]
C
No. I saw the polls today. No, they don't.
- [62:43]
B
Yeah. So it's about educating them. All right. Anything else on the Committee for the First Amendment you want people to know?
- [62:49]
C
Well, you know, we're not looking to build an organization. We're looking to help build. Build a movement quickly that can confront authoritarianism. And I'm so glad you're part of it. And if you can help us get more Republicans, independents, that would be great. Tim.
- [63:06]
B
I'm on it. I am on it. I have a question for you. One last question for you. You made a face when I told you I binged Grace and Frankie. Did you not like that? Do you have. Do you have.
- [63:13]
C
I love Grace and Frankie. I'm just surprised at all the things that you could have seen of me. That that was what. And thought I was. Okay.
- [63:21]
B
So what should I watch? Give me some homo.
- [63:24]
C
I thought you were going to say you saw the documentary, which is a really good documentary.
- [63:28]
B
I did see that, too. But give me something else. Give me something from the deep lore, you know, something from the past.
- [63:33]
C
Clute. Have you ever seen Clute?
- [63:37]
B
No, I've Never? Well, I mean, they mentioned it in the documentary, but I've never actually seen it.
- [63:40]
C
You wouldn't dislike me if you saw Clute?
- [63:42]
B
Well, I don't dislike you already, but I might just see Clute just for fun.
- [63:46]
C
It's a good movie. It's a great movie. Yeah.
- [63:49]
B
Do you know that you're on this podcast? It's you and Bill Crystal. I bet that would have surprised you in the year 2007 for you and Bill Kristol to be back to back on a podcast.
- [63:58]
C
No, I used to read, you know. What was it called? The Weekly.
- [64:02]
B
The Weekly Standard. Yeah.
- [64:04]
C
Yeah. I religiously read the Weekly Standard.
- [64:07]
B
Really?
- [64:08]
C
Yeah.
- [64:09]
B
Why?
- [64:09]
C
I wanted to know what they think. You gotta know.
- [64:14]
B
Well, you and Bill now, I mean, are basically aligned, I think, on basically everything except the Iran bombing. You and Bill Kristol are like, probably.
- [64:21]
C
We don't have. We don't have to be. That's what I like about this committee of ours. We don't have to agree on anything else except our right to speak freely, to express ourselves.
- [64:31]
B
Amen.
- [64:32]
A
Amen.
- [64:33]
B
Well, we're going to keep doing that. I'm going to keep expressing myself. I appreciate you, Jane Fonda. Anything I can do to help the committee, you just ask. All right?
- [64:40]
C
Okay.
- [64:41]
B
This has been such a delight.
- [64:42]
C
Thanks.
- [64:43]
B
All right. Well. How lovely was that? I'm just tickled to have gotten a chance to talk to Jane Fonda and to pair her and Bill Crystal. It's a long, strange trip we've been on, people, and we'll keep it going tomorrow, so stick around. We'll be back for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace. We started drinking the Kool Aid. We were taking the bait. We were talking the big talk, never playing it safe. Looking good as Jane Fonda on a Vietnam tank. You can't get something for nothing. Gotta energize your base. But she was young enough, she was blonde enough. She was about a perfect 10. Had millions of admirers, but not one single friend.
- [65:40]
C
But it's a.
- [65:41]
B
It's a little uncanny, what she managed to do. Became a symbol for a pain she never knew. You know Ronnie Reagan, he was a shoe salesman, son. He got himself in the movies.
- [66:17]
A
Yeah.
- [66:17]
B
He impressed everyone.
- [66:21]
C
He thought trial by fire.
- [66:24]
B
Was America's fate. He made a joke or the person. Four people, and that made him saint. But he was tan enough, he was rich enough, he was handsome like John Wayne. And there was no one at the country club who didn't feel the same It's a little uncanny what he managed to do. Got me to read those Russian authors through and through. The Borg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.