← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:09]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. The Assad regime has fallen in Syria, and we're gonna have an update on that in segment two from Michael Weiss. But first, it's Monday, so we have our editor at large, Bill Kristol. Bill, we'll also get your thoughts on Syria at the end, but we've got to start with some more pressing matters, such as the fact that we should be together right now. But we're on opposite sides of Manhattan. I'm in my comfort zone in Brookly, and you are. You're where.
- [00:34]
Bill Kristol
I'm on the Upper west side. You're in Brooklyn with the young hipsters, and I'm on the Upper west side with my. The people I grew up with. You know, it's appropriate.
- [00:42]
Tim Miller
This is natural. Natural laws coming back into order in the country. You can already feel it. We need to start today with the Meet the Press interview that Donald Trump did. Lengthy interview. I've got a bunch of thoughts on it. I want yours, But I think the most significant. I don't know if you'd call it news, but the most significant exchange was related to Donald Trump's thoughts on the January 6th committee. And I want to a little bit of that for you now.
- [01:06]
Michael Weiss
And Cheney was behind it, and so.
- [01:08]
Bill Kristol
Was Benny Thompson and everybody on that committee. We're going to. For what they did. Yeah.
- [01:14]
Tim Miller
Honestly, they should go to jail.
- [01:17]
Bill Kristol
So you think Liz Cheney should go.
- [01:18]
Tim Miller
To jail for what they should?
- [01:22]
Michael Weiss
I think everybody on the. Anybody that voted in favor of jail.
- [01:24]
Bill Kristol
Are you going to direct your FBI director and your attorney general to send them to jail?
- [01:27]
Michael Weiss
No, not at all.
- [01:28]
Bill Kristol
I think that they'll have to look at that, but I'm not going to.
- [01:31]
Tim Miller
I'm going to focus on drill, baby, drill. There you go, Bill. He's not going to do it, though. He's not directing them. So is that encouraging there, that slight moment of encouragement? I just, I think that six sitting members of Congress should be jailed, but I'm not going to actually tell anybody to do it. How do you feel about that?
- [01:48]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. Nor is he going to explain, I guess. And Kristen Welker should have asked him this, what should they go to jail for? I mean, usually one goes to jail or one is indicted with a threat of going to jail for a crime. What crime did they commit? Trump seems to get to say. I wouldn't get to say that. He's the president Elect, I guess he says what he wants, but he says they should go to jail. And he doesn't get the follow up question what they should go to jail for. Maybe people are asking his people today, is there an actual statute? There are these things called books that have laws in them and statutes that if you were convicted of X number of them you get X penalty. And that's sort of the way it works in the US Supposedly. Not him opinion that these guys deserve to go to jail. I mean the other point, Andrew Egger makes this point this morning in warning shots. Is the speaker of the House going to say anything about him threatening six member. I guess, what is it? Six current members of the House. I can't remember three former members to go to jail for serving on a duly constituted committee of the House and having lawful proceedings and asking questions and so forth. I guess I don't expect Speaker Johnson to really object to what Trump said, though.
- [02:49]
Tim Miller
Liz Cheney put out a response statement that Donald Trump's suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed as a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundation of our republic. It's a good correct statement. I think we were last together last Monday. I've been persuaded more against the idea of the preemptive pardons for people such as Liz Cheney. But obviously when you have Trump saying something like that and you have reporting from Jonathan Martin and others that the Biden administration is considering those pardons, that that kind of interview is will probably be pinging around the White House counsel's office. So I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that after a little bit more time to let it ruminate.
- [03:31]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I remain pretty firmly against the preemptive pardons, certainly against a very broad swath of them. If there are individuals who are being targeted who. Well, I'm against it. I'm for raising money and having an infrastructure to help people who are unfairly charged, especially people who aren't wealthy and aren't famous and who they go after some lawyers, GS15s who were assigned to work for Jack Smith. And those people don't have the ability to raise money as hopefully Liz Cheney does and don't have the fame to kind of rally people to their side. And they deserve support. So I know some lawyers who are working on that and others and I think that'll be in place. I prefer that and I prefer an attitude of solidarity and sort of taking on Trump than the individual pardons, which will always leave some people out and some people therefore more vulnerable and some people won't accept them. And I think it's kind of a mess. People can individually appeal for preemptive pardons to Biden. I guess the way people appeal privately to the Justice Department, the way people appeal for pardons for actual crimes. I'm not necessarily against individuals doing that who feel extremely vulnerable. I think Liz Cheney's attitude is more bring it on. And I actually think she should say what's the crime? Let's have a debate about, let's have a discussion about this. You and I get appear with on the next Sunday's Meet the Press and you tell me what crime people who served on that committee committed and I'll tell you what crimes you committed as President of the United States. You know, I just think that attitude would be the right way to confront this.
- [04:54]
Tim Miller
I concur. I mean, initially, like I had an emotional reaction to it that was like, yes, he should do this. The President should this like pardon be aggressive, you know, protect. And it's just the more that I've thought about it, the more I just. To your point, she didn't commit any crimes, so you're pardoning her for nothing to protect her from what? And if you're, if you're worried that Cash Patel is going to trump up some reason to investigate her, he can do that based on things that happened in 2025. You know what I mean? Like, that there's, it's not like it's going to limit him. If we're working from the theory that they're going to make shit up to go after Liz Cheney, which is what they'd have to do because she hasn't committed any crimes. Well, they could make shit up that happened after the pardons. Right. Like it's not like be any less credible than what they did on the January 6th committee. Okay. I'm wondering what your other thoughts are about Meet the Press. Was there anything that struck you? Big picture.
- [05:42]
Bill Kristol
I didn't see it. I skimmed through the transcript. I couldn't tell. Part of me thinks he sort of was careful. He tiptoed up to the line as he did in that, you know, encouraging that they, they deserve to be investigated and convicted. But then I'm not going to order the FBI director do it. There were several issues where I thought he. On the dreamers, you know, where he's, well, we might have to go after all of them ultimately is they were illegal. The other hand, I really want to work it out with the Democrats. He of course vetoed deals with the Democrats that would have arranged for protecting the dreamers who've been here A long time when he was president previously. But he's pretty, I mean, he remains kind of cunning in the way that he gives his more, let's put it this way, his more respectable supporters, the excuse of saying, well, he's just, he's blustering. But at the end of the day, he indicated he might be willing to be okay with the dreamers. He said he's not going to order Cash Patel to do anything. So what's the problem, therefore, with. He's not, you know, ordering an FBI director to break the law. I thought he did a pretty good job from his point of view of straddling the line of red meat for the base and, you know, excuses for the, for the high toned excusers of him and apologists for him. I mean, having said that, this is like in Trump's universe, in the broader universe on earth too. The President Elect of the United States is threatening members of Congress to go to jail for no crime at all, and threatening others, of course, as well. And, and talking about mass deportations, which might not be quite as mass as you thought they would be. We should not lose the ability to be astonished that this is happening at all.
- [07:09]
Tim Miller
The other things that he said about that were executive orders, I think were interesting. He was pretty clear that he's going to pardon all the January 6th prisoners. He was like, we're going to look at them on an individual basis. So he kind of leaves the door open for, you know, maybe a couple of them that attacked the cops most aggressively might not get fired. I don't, I don't exactly know. There was no specificity there, but he strongly suggested that's happening immediately. Similarly suggested that birthright citizenship should be revoked via executive order, which is not legal on day one. We'll see whether that happens. But Lindsey Graham was quick to come out in support of that idea. He posted that President Trump is right to end birthright citizenship by executive order on day one. So to me, those felt like, as far as news is concerned, actions that he said are coming that are, I mean, not unexpected, but also ludicrous. The other thing that struck me, you know, because of all the, like, insane stuff, because you're talking about Hag south and Patel and, and the part, the pardons for prisoners, like the actual functional first piece of legislation that is going to be coming up, you know, in the first hundred days, supposedly he talks about a lot and, like, more than he would on the campaign. When, when Welker asked him about the first hundred days, he really honed in on that extension of the Trump tax cuts, which something that kind of got lost in the debate during the campaign, I think probably because Biden and Harris didn't really want to take a side on it one way or the other, frankly, they're going to negotiate it out so it didn't end up becoming a huge campaign issue. But I don't know, I was just struck by the fact that he focused in on that over the tariffs when he. When asked about the economy. And just thinking about the fact that it is not going to be very easy to get that done quickly. Like, you know, you have to go through reconciliation in the Senate, then you have this narrow House majority. You're going to have the blue state House Republicans that want to deal with assaults, you're going to have the crazy House Republicans that want to make sure that there are offsetting cuts and maybe Trump can bully them all through, but they can't. They're not going to be able to afford to lose but a couple of votes. And so I don't know. To me, that struck me as like, that might be more of a briar patch coming up in the beginning of the administration on like a substantive issue than people have expected.
- [09:25]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. And if Congress works anything like it has traditionally worked, which is a question mark, I suppose, in the era of Trump. I mean, the Congress does think they have a lot to say about tax bills traditionally. They actually mark them up in Ways and Means or in Senate finance. People have opinions and people have interest groups to represent. And you can't. It's this kind of. Well, we're just going to update or whatever the word he uses is, you know, the Trump tax cuts, it's not that easy in some cases. I mean, it's a different time. Right. And some of the stuff was a few years and some of it was for longer. I don't think you just Xerox the bill from 2017 and stamp 2025 on it and say pass this for another five years, you know, and then of course, as you say, wants to get in and add riders and stuff. So I kind of agree. It'll. And look, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and others at the committee, you know, chair level, did a lot of work on that in 2017. This was kind of their bailiwick and this was their whole. In fact, the way they ignored everything else horrible that Trump was doing was that this is what they focused on. We don't have that kind of leadership in either House. I haven't looked really closely at Ways and Means and center finance and so forth, but and very narrow majority too. So I, I agree. That will be interesting. I mean they'll get some version of the Trump tax cuts through eventually. I don't know. On tariffs he was pretty bellic, wasn't he? Pretty forward leaning on us, so to speak. He loves tariffs and all that nonsense. But yeah, we didn't see an actual number that what happened to the 10% across the board tariff that was supposed to happen on day one?
- [10:48]
Tim Miller
Yeah, exactly. I think that's what I noticed too. Sure he was still pro tariff, but when it was on the substantive, what are your day one executive orders? What are you going to do the first hundred days? He was leaning more towards the tax cut bill. Tbd. Okay. A couple other items from the weekend, a couple of hirings. I really wanted to focus on this one in particular. It's not the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department doesn't tend to be, you know, a big name or a position that everybody should have an opinion on, but I think in this case we probably should. That job announced this morning went to Michael Anton. Longtime listeners of the POD will know Michael Anton. He was the author back when he was anonymous of the Flight 93 article that made the case for Donald Trump in 2016 about how we had to storm the cockpit to prevent, I guess, Hillary from crashing a plane into American democracy. It was kind of a hard to exactly wrap your head around the argument, but that was Michael Anton's famous essay. But I wanted to focus on this the day after the election in 2020, the day after he wrote a article which had this headline, game on for the coup. That was his headline, not worth saying game on for the coup day after the 2020 election. He wrote that. One, we should challenge the late night fines in courts. Scare quotes around fines. Two, he said we should hold rallies in contested states. Three, we should urge GOP officials in close states to expose shenanigans and if necessary, refuse to seat Biden electors in the event of a fake count. For we should mount a campaign to marshal grassroots public opinion in the president's favor. All that happened in 2020. And he, he outlined the coup plan the day after the election in 2020. I think that it probably should have some limits on America's credibility around the world when the director of policy planning at the State Department was outlining the plan for a coup here domestically. So I don't know if you do. You probably know Michael Anton a little bit, huh?
- [12:36]
Bill Kristol
I did back in the day. He was a political philosophy Student and I voted for the Weekly Standard back in the. It was a Bush served in the Bush White House and a lower level, I believe it was the National Security Council there and then served the Trump National Security Council at a somewhat higher level. I knew him when he was a Bush Republican, not when and haven't known him since he became a Trump Republican. He was very offended when I guess harshly criticized his. His Flight 93 essay in September of 2016. Yeah, look, you'd think being an election denier or even being a little more than a denier, being an election plotter or co conspirator to overturn the election or encourager.
- [13:12]
Tim Miller
Thief.
- [13:12]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, encourager of the election. I've always disliked in a way the term election denier, which is a little too passive. It's sort of like, well, after the fact you denied it. I mean, that's important too, incidentally. But it's one cut more to have been in the middle of the planning to overturn to stage the coup. But of course, Cash Patel was maybe even more than Anton, who was not part of the administration at that point. You think senators might raise this, I don't know, in confirmation hearings. I'm not sure policy planning is a Senate confirmed position. I wonder if it's not. Maybe. And then I think it has been sometimes it hasn't been at other times. It's a bit of a consolation prize for him, too. He wanted to be deputy national security adviser. He was in the running for that. He didn't get it. Some people say he didn't get it because he refused to serve with Seb Gorka. I guess they have some deep hatred for each other. It is kind of fun when the, you know, different little sects or pods of authoritarians getting turn out to hate each other and to get in fights with each other and, you know, undercut each other. Let's hope there's quite a lot of that actually in the Trump. In the Trump administration. That would be good.
- [14:11]
Tim Miller
It seems to me like the senators are circling the wagons and we've seen some, I think Tom Cotton commented over the weekend about how he thinks all of Trump's nominees are getting through. We weren't really holding out hope for Tom Cotton in any of these situations. But like when you start to think about the Tulsi Gabbard of the world, like who would be the ones to go with Murkowski and Collins and Navy McConnell to oppose her, you would think that somebody like Tom Cotton, who disagrees with her, I assume in every way about her Foreign policy views might be one. But for him to be out there today saying he was going to support it felt like there was momentum after Gates for a moment for the senator showing some spine. And I'm sensing that momentum dissipating. I don't know about you.
- [14:57]
Bill Kristol
I think that's right. My only caveat would be it could undissipate if new things come out about these different nominees. And there will be presumably FBI checks. And people have really looked, you know, have been confronted with the things Tulsi Gabbard said over the years. I mean, God knows they're capable of ignoring this confrontation. But are a few people, the Mike Ramses of the world and others, who have shown some signs of being willing to not, you know, Joni Ernst, to not simply cave in? Will they ultimately, you know, find an excuse to say, well, I hope to be for that person, I hope to support the president, but it's just too hard, or go to him privately with five senators, as happened with Gates, and say we can't support him. So I'm a little hopeful that one or two of them go down. Still, it's always been a good thing to bet against Republicans hanging in there. They're always tougher on the first day. I mean, let's put it this way. That's certainly been the pattern from January 7, 2021 on that. And well, of course, during the administration as well, they indicate a little bit of, gee, that's kind of a problem. I alarmed, actually. And a week later, it's kind of less alarmed. And two weeks later, it's, it's a great nomination and I just look forward to seconding it on the floor of the Senate. So we might be in that, in that circumstance. I mean, if I could say you're going to talk about Syria later with Michael Weiss. I mean, to have Gabbard and Hegseth, one thing to have them in, it's pretty horrible anyway, in a kind of quiet world, I guess you might say, to have them in, in the world that Trump administration will be facing in January 20, in Europe, in the Middle east, in Asia, I mean, it's really appalling, I gotta say, just as a matter of basic responsibility to have competent, sane, sober people running these, qualified people running these departments.
- [16:36]
Tim Miller
I was with a lot of Republicans in Iowa on Friday. You're the Joanie Ernst type, Republicans, staffers and former staffers. It was intriguing to me that the consensus view among everybody was essentially, we hope that Joanie will do the right thing with Hegseth. We think that she's doing something good now, which is like creating some space maybe for other people to come forward or maybe for Hegseth to drop out if more bad information comes out. But when push comes to shove, you know, and I'd ask them, do you think she would really vote him down in the Armed Services Committee? I didn't find anybody who thought, yes. And I think that that is like, pretty reflective of like the state of play. Right? Like if they, if they can do the right thing without too many negative consequences politically for themselves with the base voters, they will or try. But when push comes to shove, you know, it's not going to be there. So I don't know. I would love to be proven wrong, but that was the sense for Ernst.
- [17:38]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, that's very interesting. I mean, they. I haven't followed this super closely, but my sense is the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the enablers of the sort of upscale enablers of, quote, respectable Republicans, they haven't really taken a strong view one way or the other. Maybe they've grumbled a little about a couple of these appointments, but they published Hexas op ed. They published a piece by Trump's first term national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, defending the appointment of Patel. They've given their readers, which is like Republican donor class and upper middle class voter class and people who talk, Joni Ernst, friends and donors, plenty of COVID to sort of say, well, I think these attacks, they said some foolish things in the past and hexafed a slightly misspent youth, but, you know, I think they're up to it. And I mean, they've given plenty of COVID for these senators to do the wrong thing.
- [18:25]
Tim Miller
One other hiring note at the White House, we got to shout out Trump's defense attorney, Alina Haba, who has received the role that Kellyanne Conway had in the first administration counselor to the president. I was looking at her bio and it's like, it is insane that this person is the counselor to the president. She was working in fashion until not too long ago and then did go back to law school, but has had very few actual trials. I was reading a list of some of the cases that she has actually represented. I want to read a couple of them to you now. In July 2021, she represented Siggy Flicker, a former member of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, who alleged that Facebook had disabled her account for wishing Melania Trump a happy birthday. Haba wrote a letter to Facebook, which Facebook appeared to ignore. Later that month, Haba represented Cesar de Paco A vitamin supplement entrepreneur in a federal court case where she filed a lawsuit against Portuguese journalists for revealing his close connections to the far right Chega party in Portugal. I mean, this is not your, your father's counselor to the president. There's no James Baker type resume here for Alina Haba.
- [19:38]
Bill Kristol
I mean, I guess counselor means anything they want it to mean. And so she won't do the legal stuff. I guess the White House counsel, who I think is problematic himself, incidentally, will organize that. But it just means, I think it just means PR flack for the president, especially on Fox News and all other right wing outlets. I mean, that's, I mean, Kellyanne actually knew a little bit more about, you know, real politics and probably was involved in some of the strategy sessions. Who knows how much, honestly. But she was mostly also a PR person. But I assume that's what Alina Haba will do. But I realize what I said just said was kind of stupid because of course to say that someone there is only a PR person or is only isn't involved in the actual counsel's office doesn't stop them from giving substantive advice and for that matter, legal advice. And if Dan Scavino can be shaping policy, why can't Alina? Habit. It's going to be a great second term. Really fantastic. It's going to be, I mean, the mix of sort of Trumpian chaos and idiocy and unqualified people and then ferocious, somewhat intelligent and knowing what they're doing, authoritarian ideologues. That's Vought and Miller, I would say, especially and J.D. vance to some degree. I mean, I guess that's what characterizes a lot of authoritarian governments. Right? Sort of a certain amount of idiocy and showmanship and chaos and a certain amount, unfortunately, of actual steely determination to deprive us of our civil liberties and centralize all and personalize all power in Donald J. Trump.
- [21:04]
Tim Miller
Well put. I don't have anything to add to that. I will say to your point that Haba. Yes. Even if she's just the PR person at the beginning, that's up until Trump's actual White House counsel gives him advice he doesn't want and then he's got a backup lawyer around who can tell him what he want, wants to do. So we will, of course, continue to monitor that. Hey, y'all. This podcast is sponsored by MDHearing. MDHearing just made their Neo rechargeable digital hearing aids. Only $297 a pair. That's over 90% less than clinic hearing aids and they recently cut their price in half despite all of the inflation craziness. It's really important, by the way, that you guys out there who might need a hearing aid have one so you can hear clearly my dulcet tones and the witty remarks that I sometimes make under my breath. And if so, this is the perfect product for you. The Neo fits inside your ear so no one will ever even know it's there. Plus MDHearing just launched the Neo XS, MDHearing's smallest hearing aid ever. MDHearing was founded by an ENT surgeon who saw how many of his patients needed hearing aids but couldn't afford them. He made it his mission to develop a quality hearing aid that anyone could afford. MD Hearing has sold over 1.9 million hearing aids and they offer 45 day risk risk free trial with 100% money back guarantee so you can buy with confidence this holiday season. Get the hearing you deserve with MDHearing. Go to shopmdhearing.com and use promo code thebullwork to get a pair of hearing aids for just 297 bucks. Plus they are adding a free extra charging case, a 100 value just for listeners of the Bulwark. That's shopmdhearing.com and Use promo code the bulwark and get a pair of hearing AIDS for just $297. Speaking of authoritarian regimes, I want to get your two cents on what is happening in Syria. You tweeted this that Trump said the US should have nothing to do with it. Let it play out, do not get involved. That was Trump on Syria. You write, does Trump even know we have 900 troops in Syria? That we have real interest in the fall of Assad and a defeat for Russia and Iran and in shaping as much as possible what follows. I'm curious what you have in mind on that front.
- [23:16]
Bill Kristol
I mean, just a couple of points and Michael obviously knows Syria in much more detail than I. Well, three points I guess I'll make. Maybe one. You know, the Russians and Hezbollah and Iran did not come to Assad's defense at all. People noted that and noted the irony that the Russia Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Hamas, backed by Hezbollah and Iran and supported after the fact at least by them, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. And kind of poetic justice or something, or irony of history, Assad, who was buddies with Putin and buddies with Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran, gets deposed in December 24th. So I think there is a little bit of poetic justice there, but it's also the case that the reason Putin is not strong enough to have helped Assad, the reason Hezbollah has been so decimated, is because the Ukrainians and the Israelis fought back. I mean, they do deserve some credit for this. And it's kind of a little reminder that if you fight against dictators and authoritarians and terrorists in one part of the world or in one front, maybe you help weaken them on another front. I think that's really a kind of. But anyway, we want to just pay tribute, especially to the Ukrainians, I mean, for all the talk of how and they are in some trouble and they're, you know, not as big as Russia and so forth, but Putin is weaker. This is a big blow to Putin. He invested a lot in Syria as his entree back into the Middle east first in 2013 and especially in 2015. So we shouldn't lose sight of the. This was a victory not just for the Syrian people, and I think it was for them, but for people fighting dictators everywhere, really, on the second front, just quickly on the Syrian people, I don't know what's going to happen. And some of my friends are more alarmed about the people who are going to come to power. Other my friends think it's very fluid. It's hard to tell. I'm slightly on the fluid, hard to tell side. But final point, we can help shape this. This is why Trump is so wrong to say we have no stake in this and we should just stay out. I mean, we can't perfectly shape it. Things can go awry, God knows. But if we have troops there, we certainly have an interest in destroying and removing the chemical weapons. We have an interest in weakening further weakening Hezbollah and not letting Iran move back in if they find their nerve again and try to it cause more trouble as the trouble is an understatement for Syria. So I think the outcome now is very fluid and variable. And I would prefer to have the US have the attitude of we're going to do our best to shape things there within certain limits obviously, of what we can do as opposed to sending a signal that it's hands off that signal. Maybe Putin and Hezbollah wait a month and decide, okay, you know what, we can go back in and cause more trouble or others Taliban can go back in and decide to help HTs the more a Sunni fundamentalist group and so forth. So I think it's a very, it's hopeful and we should be grateful when a dictator like Assad gets deposed. But I think Trump's tweet or whatever it Was. Was a sign that he is. His instinct is to go in the wrong direction. Can members of Congress do something on this? But can members of his own administration who know much, much better push him to be less irresponsible? That was a question in the first term. It'll be a question in this term.
- [26:20]
Tim Miller
I want to close with you. We do a little feelings talk for Friday's newsletter. I wrote about just something kind of concerning that I've noticed out in the world, particularly among my friends, my Democratic friends, and some of our readers. And that is falling into kind of a nihilistic world mindset. There were a lot of Republicans in 2016 who used this phrase, LOL. Nothing matters after Trump won. It's like, this is so absurd. This is so ridiculous. I have no choice to just assume that none of the rules matter, none of the norms matter, my behavior doesn't matter. I might as well just go along and get money, do whatever job I can do, get whatever access there is, or that I just need to check out of this. This is stupid. This all doesn't matter. And I've noticed that feeling percolating among Democrats now. The same idea, the Trump winning again means that none of this, none of the things that we had valued actually have value and that we should just blow it up. You know, I think that there's a big fuck it mindset out there on the left, and I think that is I'm concerned about it. And so I wrote trying to encourage people to guard against that, encourage them not to become what Donald Trump says they are. Don't be what Donald Trump says you are. He wants everybody to be like him because his theory of the case is that everyone is like him. And I understand that it's sometimes challenging to guard against it, but I think that there is a way to do that while still fighting aggressively, pushing back on him, et cetera. So, anyway, I was wondering if you had any thoughts along those lines for about a month out, whether you've descended into nihilism. You have any other wisdom for us on that?
- [27:59]
Bill Kristol
I thought your piece was very well said and seemed to have gotten a huge response. I think it hit a nerve and was important to say that, look, I mean, after the defeat for Trump to be elected twice in 2016 and then 2024 is not. I mean, people are entitled to a little bit of temporary nihilism and temporary, I don't know, wanting to just give up, I suppose. And individuals can make up their own minds about what they do over the next four years. Obviously. But look, he won by a point and a half in the popular vote. He won the swing states by a couple of points. It was bad. He's got a Congress, Republican House that's going to go along with him and enable him, which is bad. But it's of course, by a very tiny margin. So what do you think? I kind of think the nihilism recedes at this point. Maybe your piece will help push it along. Obviously individuals at different stages of life and different responsibilities will make different choices. I had dinner with my friend Jane Orlinger last night who said he really was demoralized the next day and spent basically three weeks reading 20th century literature that he hadn't read before and discovered Stefan Zweig, whom I've never read, who he says is really fantastic incidentally, but he's now back in the fight, so maybe that'll become kind of the People are entitled to a little break, but not to four years of nihilism.
- [29:11]
Tim Miller
People are entitled to reading some literature about mid 20th century authoritarians or to read sad fiction or whatever people are. People are entitled to all that. I have also participated, but I don't know. I do worry about it though, Bill. I think that the. But he fights element of Trump, the Democrats, like, we just need somebody like that who doesn't care about the rules, who just fights back, who just, you know, says screw it all. And this ties to me to some of the things I've been seeing online about this assassination of the healthcare executive, the United Healthcare Executive, where there is like, it was a New York magazine, had a headline the other day that was like, I don't have the exact headline in front of me, but it was essentially like it was inevitable that this was going to happen because people are so mad. I don't know. This like, mindset of this is a revolutionary moment. I underestimated how easily that took hold on the right in 2015. And I'm not saying that there is a parallel to that right now at all, but I, I think we should at least monitor it and guard against it and push back on it when we see it.
- [30:14]
Bill Kristol
That's really a good point. And I'd say the comparison, I suppose, might be after Romney lost in 2012. And honestly I was disappointed, but life went on and Republicans won the Senate in 2014 and so forth. And I didn't like Obama's second term, but we lived through it. But I think I underestimated at the time. Just to really, I think confirm and strengthen your point, I very much underestimated at the time, how radicalizing that was for the Republican right. Rush Limbaugh said, I think the day after the 2012 election, it's not our country anymore or something like that. And that became pervasive obviously by 2015 and we got Trump. So I guess what you're suggesting maybe is that it would be bad if this became the equivalent on the left and got more widespread among Democrats. I guess I've assumed it stays kind of on the marginal left, but I could be wrong. So I think you're right to fight back against that, maybe a little more than I've really been focused on.
- [31:05]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I'm not trying to make a parallel just as far as obviously there are a lot of other factors and the media environment on the right. I've been a little disquieted by the degree, both online and in my personal life of people that have just really started to say some things about how to push back against this that have echoed some of the things that I heard nine years ago. So anyway, don't do that. Don't let them take your soul, people. That's it. We can fight, we can kick them in the balls from time to time, but don't, don't let them, don't let them take your soul. And some norms are good, not all. We don't have to save all the norms either, by the way, but like the good ones, we should keep. So anyway, that's my, that's my final message, Bill. We'll be discussing this more next Monday. I'm looking forward to a full debrief on the fall of Assad from Michael Weiss up next. So thanks much, Bill. We'll see you soon. All right, we are back with Michael Weiss, editor of the Insider, a Russia focused independent media outlet. He's also the host of the Foreign Office podcast. Long time no talk, brother.
- [32:28]
Michael Weiss
Was it like three days ago?
- [32:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it feels like it. I don't know. It was last week, I think that we had John, and in the ensuing couple of days we had the Assad regime be toppled by the Turkish backed rebels. Hts and Assad is now in Moscow, presumably preparing for his new role. Shoveling snow at the Kremlin was a remarkably fast defeat, though I think things were on this trajectory when we last spoke. But I'm wondering what you think are the implications of all this and maybe we'll just kind of tick through the geopolitical ones and we'll sort of tick through them one at a time.
- [33:05]
Michael Weiss
Well, the first set of implications, I think the most Important, which is, before we get into what happens now or how it's going to change the landscape of the region is for the first time in 50 years, quite a lot of people are able to breathe easily. Yeah. I mean, I've been watching over the past 72 hours, horrific footage from Sednaya Prison, which was this kind of. Not even a prison doesn't describe it. I mean, it's sort of a complex of dungeons within dungeons in the Damascus outskirts, where all of the political prisoners of this regime, some going back decades, you know, Hafez Al Assad was still president when they went in, have been, in a sense, just sort of abandoned by the world, buried alive, in some cases, women detainees who had been raped by prison guards and given birth, having to live with their children in these squalid cells. I mean, it's Third Reich stuff. And I think we need to appreciate that in the west, we had a moment, perhaps with the. The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and then a little bit with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, of celebrating the blossoming of democracy and all that. We got a little too high on our own supply and a little too eager and happy. But it has to be said, I mean, this was a brutal totalitarian dictatorship that, I mean, destroyed the lives, destroyed the families of so many people, including those who were not necessarily political, looking for the overthrow of the Assad dynasty, but simply wanted a little bit of liberalization or the ability to say what they wanted to say. So just on that point, I think let's just give the Syrians their due here. They're celebrating for a reason in terms of how all this went down. I mean, the last time we spoke, Aleppo had fallen. I kind of explained the dynamics of how of that transpired. I think I might have used the phrase catastrophic success. So just as a small recap, every country in the region was normalizing with Assad right a month ago. He ain't going anywhere. He's won the war. He's the king of Damascus. And even the United States under the Biden administration, although now they're trying to change their tune about this, they were sort of facilitating normalization and rapprochement, watering down the Caesar sanctions bill, trying to kill the anti normalization bill, allowing all kinds of weird diplomatic overtures with the Emiratis, who have emerged as his sort of dead enders and his great defenders, even though at one point they were very much opposed to him. It looked like he was sitting pretty. There was one problem, one holdout in this scenario which was rapprochement with Turkey. And the Turks were saying, look, we'll do a deal with you. We'll recognize your government. We want refugees, 3 million plus of them, to return to Syria, but we want them to return safely. Don't put them to the sword, throw them in Sadnaya. And also our big issue is with the Kurds. Right? I won't bore your readers with the history of how the Assad family has used the pkk, which is the Kurdish militia, still technically a designated terrorist organization by the US and the eu. They used them as leverage with their relations with Ankara for decades. But suffice to say, when ISIS came into Syria and the US intervened, we propped up the PKK and created for them a protectorate statelet right on Turkey's southern border, pissing off the Turks like no other. Right. Turkey wants the Kurdish issue solved, and they're going to do it in a military fashion. And they saw the writing on the wall. Donald Trump is elected. He wants out of the region. Syria is a place of what, death and sand? I think he once called it not enough oil to interest him. The idea that the conventional wisdom is he's simply going to hand off America's responsibility in Syria to the Turks. So they were kind of rubbing their hands with glee, and they couldn't get to yes with Assad. So hts, I wouldn't call them Turkish backed. They're Turkish enabled, Turkish protected, Turkish empowered. But Turkey has its own janissary. Did I use that word the last time?
- [37:15]
Tim Miller
Yeah. We're back to the janissaries.
- [37:17]
Michael Weiss
HTS has been begging Erdogan, put us in coach. Let us have at it. The regime is bombing us. The Russians are bombing us. You're not getting what you want with Assad. Let us sort of put military pressure on him. And the Turks said, sure, go for it. They told them no. In October, November, they said yes. And the idea was a limited offensive that would creep up into the Aleppo outskirts and then stop and then suddenly let's restart the negotiations. Well, it's like they put their finger through a husk and the husk just simply collapsed into dust. Right? I mean, there was no regime. The Syrian army melted away. There's footage of guys, or at least photographs of the aftermath of guys who took off their army uniforms, put down their guns, and melted back into society. Right. And HTS said, well, let's keep going. And they took Aleppo, and they took Aleppo almost without shots being fired. And suddenly, I think the Turks realized, okay, I mean, maybe we can get what we want now through regime change, and very easily so. And they didn't rein HTS in. If they could have at that point, I don't know. And now all of a sudden, Assad is toppled in Damascus. And here's the important thing. This was not a military fight for Damascus. Damascus was abandoned. It was ceded to the opposition in lieu of a pitched battle, which is absolutely extraordinary. If you were watching this take place in real time over the last 13 days, it was like, okay, they took Aleppo pretty easily, but now the battle for Hama commences. There was fighting, but not such a battle for Hama. Oh, okay, they got Hama, but they'll never get Homs so easily. That's going to be the real Stalingrad. I woke up and Homs had fallen. I was asleep. And then all of a sudden, they're in Damascus. And it's not. Not. It's not just HTS here, the actual first elements that reach Damascus, funnily enough, the southern front, which was a consortium of reconciled rebel groups. Russia did the reconciling, but. So the idea was you put down your arms and we'll let you kind of run your little autonomous zones, but really, you know who the new master is. It's Assad, it's Hezbollah, it's Iran. These guys never liked the regime, and they were obviously, now we know, lying in wait all the time to take up arms again and press the fight forward. A lot of these rebel groups in the south, like near the Jordanian border, are former assets of the CIA and Jordanian intelligence. So they're known to the West. They reach Damascus first. Anyway, it's not just HTS here. I keep trying to get a credible number of how many fighters does HTs have? And the number I keep getting from Western stakeholders is probably between 60 and 80,000. 60 and 80,000 is not enough to hold all of free Syria. Yeah, they're going to have to do deals. There's going to be bargaining. And in fact, there already is. I mean, local administrations popping up in these liberated cities, other rebel groups that are, you know, they're with it for the revolution. But at some point, maybe they're not going to be so amenable to Jelani's new governance or leadership. So it's so early days. I can't make any predictions as to what may happen. I just follow the reporting. And so far, the reporting is, okay. Cautiously optimistic, happy for the Syrian people, but deeply, deeply terrified that Syria becomes ungoverned space or a new safe haven for. I don't think people in the west are concerned necessarily about jihadism in Syria, they're concerned about transnational jihadism, the rise of ISIS again, Al Qaeda, other new groups that might feel empowered, who want to not keep it within the borders but start exporting terrorism abroad. And Jelani, so far, and again, you don't have to be a babe in the wood. And you have to trust this guy. And there's plenty about him not to trust. I mean, he's a deeply Machiavellian figure, but he's a shrewd politician as well. So far. He's being pragmatic. He's cutting deals with the Russians, so say the Russians, to allow their forces safe passage out. It may well end up being the case that the Russians don't have to abandon their naval base in Tartus or their air base in Latakia because HTS has reached some kind of accommodation with them. He did outreach to the Iraqi government. Don't send your forces in. We have no quarrel with you. Even though they're the Shia. And he comes from an organization, pre Al Qaeda, he was a member of what was known as the Islamic State of Iraq, which soon became the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. You know, this is a guy who used to belong to a genocidal terrorist organization telling Shia, we have no quarrel with you. We want to build a pluralistic, multiethnic. I'm joking with my friends who study this. I'm like, you know, you got MAGA guys in the west are like, oh, we just gave Syria over to Al Qaeda. Wait till they find out what DEI Jihad looks like. I mean, this guy is. I mean, he's far more progressive than a lot of elements we have here, at least in terms of the rhetoric, you know, I mean, so he has reinvented himself or trying to reinvent himself as somebody who can be. Let alone. He doesn't want foreign intervention destroying what he's doing, much like the Taliban upon. You know, he's looking to kind of model it on a slightly softer version of their authoritarian rule.
- [42:26]
Tim Miller
That's kind of my question. I was hoping you were to come on and give the 13 keys for Jelani to maintain power within Syria Lichtman style. But if you're not willing to do that, make predictions. I am just on this scale from, I guess what is the rank is the scale. This could end up anything. Kind of like Turkey, where it's sort of an Erdogan model all the way to. This could be like the Taliban and Afghanistan or like what. Like, what is the. What are the Comps what people are thinking might be possibilities.
- [42:56]
Michael Weiss
Turkey is going to have a huge say in this. They've been dealing with HTS for seven, eight years. I mean, their corner of Idlib where they started to really ply their trade in terms of governance and state building and everything from enforcing traffic rules to Covid relief plans to all of this stuff, I mean that was done at the pleasure of the Turks. There's Turkish garrisons in Idlib protecting them with artillery. All of the cross border commerce was through Turkey, money, aid. So they have leverage here. They have skin in the game. And I think the United States is now. I mean, there was a New York Times article. The Biden administration is doing an assessment on who and what is HTS and what is their relationship with Turkey. If it turns out that the Turkish relationship is even profounder than we thought in terms of, of intelligence, coordination and infiltration, then the west has some skin in the game here because they will use Turkey as their kind of intermediary with hts. People are starting to talk about delisting hts. The Brits are kind of mulling it over. Well, if they're the de facto government, we don't want Syria to become a failed state. We don't want them sanctioned up the waz. We're going to have to deal with them in some way. Early days yet. Early days. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. But the bottom line is America still has what, 8, 900 soldiers in eastern Syria? The Syrian Democratic Forces have also bitten off more than they can chew because the regime and the Russians pulled out. Just yesterday, the US was able to bomb ISIS camps in Badia in areas that had been governed above by Russian air power and below by this hollow SAA force, the Assad regime. And suddenly ISIS is getting their clock cleaned in the east. So it's not as bad as it may seem because there are players on the ground, including American allies that will have eyes and ears and they'll have some influence and leverage now.
- [44:56]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the other question that I had just listened to your description of the husk that collapsed. The big reason why it collapsed is what you just said. The Russian backing the Russian and Iranians have been weakened based on what's happening in other theaters. And it just, they didn't have the interest, I guess, in intervening. I mean, wouldn't that have been the way for Assad to hold power? He would have needed them to intervene one over the other.
- [45:23]
Michael Weiss
I mean, you know, there are two moments that I would love to have been, well, more Than two. But in recent years, two moments I'd love to have been a fly on the wall as Putin was getting his briefings. The first is when the Russians invaded Ukraine and Kyiv not only did not fall in three days, but they ended up getting booted out of Kyiv. And then a lightning counteroffensive in Kharkiv and then Kherson. Where's the Russian intelligence assessment of the Ukrainian fighting capability? Similarly now, who is the guy who had to tell Putin that Assad and his army melted away, didn't put up a fight, melted away, and in the space of what, not even two weeks, it all just fell apart and crumbled such that Putin said, screw it, I'm not coming to the rescue this time around. And the Iranians too. What a busted flush this guy is. All the blood and treasure invested by one regional power, one nuclear armed hyper state in Europe, now invading its next door neighbor over the course of a decade, more than a decade, and the guy simply just collapsed. And he didn't even, I mean, he didn't put out the last fight. He just boarded a plane and flew to Russia. I mean, you know, he and Yanukovych can do a kind of new version of the Odd Couple, can stream it on Netflix. I mean, you know, two asshole dictators.
- [46:43]
Tim Miller
Send her to Siberia.
- [46:44]
Michael Weiss
Yeah, yeah. I mean, so if you're, if you're the Russians and the Iranians, there might even be a creeping sense of relief. Like finally, we don't have to, we'd have to prop up this, you know, this paper tiger, the human toothbrush, as Christopher Hitchens used to call him.
- [46:59]
Tim Miller
I want to be a fly on the wall when Assad has to go have dinner with Putin on one of those long tables.
- [47:05]
Michael Weiss
And here's what's interesting. And this is also, I mean, exactly the questions I have are the speed with which the Russians just pulled out, not from again, sort of their perches in the coast, but all of the other forward operating bases, air bases that they had occupied. That suggests to me perhaps not just exasperation with Assad, but more of a vulnerability, weakness on the Russian side than we have yet fathomed. Right? I mean, possibly because of the attrition that they're suffering in Ukraine. I mean, even Donald Trump tweeted the other day that Russia has suffered more than 600,000 fatalities, casualties, which tracks more or less with what the Brits had put out publicly. And remember, Trump is now getting intelligence briefings. So is he basically declassifying through X, as is his wont I don't know. But the Russians are weaker than they were. Iran is. I don't know. It's like that scene in Rocky when Apollo is completely exhausted and just everybody's covered in blood and they're still kind of. I mean, Iran has nothing left here. Like, Hezbollah was completely decimated. Shura Council wiped out, their arsenal wiped out. If they even had the arsenal that they were said to have had 150,000 rockets. What's left to save here? The Iranians are already talking to hts. The Russians are talking to hts. The Syrian Revolutionary flag is now flying over the Syrian Embassy in Moscow. What a humiliation. The Russians allowed that to happen.
- [48:40]
Tim Miller
So the extra star, we're adding a.
- [48:42]
Michael Weiss
Star, is that the Syrian revolutionary flag, the independence flag? It's actually more of a historical flag. It's the pre Baathist one. But anyway, I think that a lot of people are beginning to reckon or strike these new accommodations with daunting realities, that they pushed too far, they projected too much power, and now is the time for retrenchment, which is interesting and also it poses dangerously so, but nonetheless an opportunity for the west here not to do too much itself, but to start negotiating with different players to further weaken Iran's presence in the region. And. And frankly, if this culminates with Russia getting kicked out of the Eastern Mediterranean, that's going to put a damper on a lot of things, including their ability to intervene in Africa because Kheminim Air Base is what they use for resupplies and so on to go from Europe to Africa. Otherwise the supply routes are too circuitous. So, yeah, I mean, our enemies have kind of. They took a bloody nose. And the new guy, the new sheriff in town, he's saying he doesn't want to have a quarrel with us. Well, I've seen that movie before, but. But, you know, yeah, it's early.
- [49:52]
Tim Miller
It can't be any worse than Assad. Right. I guess we've been down that path before.
- [49:55]
Michael Weiss
Something can always be worse than what came before. You know, it's just I really want people to appreciate that the depth of depravity and cruelty that this regime has inflicted, not just on its own people. But keep in mind, and this is what gets me about somebody like Tulsi Gabbard I can at least appreciate. I don't agree or necessarily respect, but I understand this sort of kiss and Jerry and Rial Politik, well, an awful dictator, but we have to do business with him because the alternative is worse or we have bigger Fish to fry. And we need it. Right? Whatever. I've heard that before. You know, that's just IR theory 101. She goes to Damascus, she meets with this guy. He's not our enemy. Excuse me. Excuse me. He spent years importing foreign jihadists, including people who ended up joining Al Qaeda in Iraq, sending them into Iraq to blow up American and British and coalition forces, as well as Iraqi troops as well as Iraqi civilians. There's a great piece in the Guardian about how the Iraqi intelligence service. There were actually good actors in the Iraqi intelligence service anatomized an operation plotted in Zabadani in Syria that consisted of Al Qaeda operatives and the Syrian Ba'ath party to basically import explosives into Iraq and blow up the health ministry and Iraqi government institutions, killing hundreds of people. This is Assad, okay? When he presents himself as secular, as the protector of minorities. No, that's propaganda and bullshit designed to persuade gullible actors in the west who are terrified of what may come if he's not in power anymore. But I see Christians celebrating his demise. Who to thunk it to? Listen to J.D. vance. They're going to be put to the sword immediately. So things are a little more complicated than they seem here. And again, you have to take it day by day. And let's not project our own fantasies onto a part of the world that is hard enough to understand how it got to be the way it is, much less where it's going from here.
- [51:52]
Tim Miller
All right. Last thing. You spoke powerfully at the beginning about just these prisons. It's horrible. And you're right, you could use the word depravity and just the depths of depravity of Assad. It's like the most horrific regime in the world probably over the past decade.
- [52:07]
Michael Weiss
One of. For sure. Yes.
- [52:09]
Tim Miller
So one of those prisoners is American. Austin Tice. President Biden spoke briefly about them, believing that he might still be alive. He was a freelance journalist and a veteran that was kidnapped. God, Over a decade ago. Now, do you have any sense for that or any other potential American interests?
- [52:29]
Michael Weiss
I don't. I know, Austin. When I was covering Syria in 2011, it might have been the beginning of 2012. He and I connected over Twitter. I was actually leaving southern Turkey, and he had just arrived, and my fixer became his fixer. So he got into Syria, and then he and I were staying in touch. He was doing Incredible reporting for McClatchy. And because of his military background, his reporting was even more powerful because he understood sort of the dynamics with air power and all the rest of it things that are foreign to me, or at least at the time were foreign to me. And I never believed that he was captured by jihadis. There was a video put out, you know, that showing him being taken up a hill and. But the guys in the video for jihadis, I mean, it looked like they had their clothes freshly pressed at the dry cleaner. It was all very staged and artificial. Right. And then, lo and behold, it turned out the regime had captured him. I mean, look, I hope to God this guy is alive. He's a great journalist. He's a friend. He's been through hell. You know, I don't know the state in which anyone's going to find him at this point. Because you've seen some of the detainees, the prisoners, the hostages, really, of Sednaya. I mean, one was a medical student taken 13 years ago, who has complete, total amnesia. It seems he's. Memory loss of everything. Yeah, I have no. I mean, honestly, if I knew where he was, I would be talking to you about it.
- [53:54]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I decided there's buzz, there's discussions and I'm sure rumors, et cetera.
- [53:59]
Michael Weiss
No, for sure. And, you know, but again, you have this country that is honeycombed with torture facilities, dungeons, places to keep human beings alive, such as it is. And I think everybody's now trying to scramble to figure out where these facilities, where these sort of pockets are. So, you know, it's. Again, it's too soon to tell, but I have no doubt if he's been kept by the regime, then he will be found.
- [54:26]
Tim Miller
Michael Weiss, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Much happening, much happening. As we have a transition into the next administration, I think that we will have much to discuss about foreign policy in the new year as well. So thanks for coming back on so quickly, and we'll be talking to you again soon.
- [54:43]
Michael Weiss
Okay, my pleasure.
- [54:45]
Tim Miller
Thanks, Michael Weiss. Everybody else, we'll be back here tomorrow with another edition of the Bulwark Podcast. See you all then. Peace.
- [54:51]
Michael Weiss
If anyone is making this count me.
- [54:55]
Tim Miller
With the night.
- [55:15]
Michael Weiss
When I come through swinging, you can sing.
- [55:21]
Tim Miller
Nothing really matter nothing really matters away and anyone can have a go if you want to touch me let me know when I met my lowest.
- [56:09]
Michael Weiss
When I come to singing, you can hear me singing on the pavement.
- [56:59]
Tim Miller
Again.
- [57:01]
Bill Kristol
You can.
- [57:08]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.