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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Hey, everybody, when I taped this with Bill this morning, we were discussing these legal motions from a couple of Trump's underlings, including Walt Nada, that was trying to delay the release of the Jack Smith Report. They'd put in a filing with Judge Eileen Cannon. Since we've recorded, those motions have been denied. And so as of right now, there are no legal barriers to the release of the Jack Smith report. So hopefully we'll be seeing that soon and we'll be discussing it later this week. Up next, Bill kristol, hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, so we've got Bill Kristol live from Washington. A big moment for Washington. The football team has won a playoff match on the backs of LSU grad Jaden Daniels.
- [00:52]
Bill Kristol
First in 20 years, I believe the first playoff victory in 20 years. And they can go to Detroit next Sunday, which next weekend I was thinking about. This will be a good distraction from the inauguration coming up Monday because we'll have pretty good I don't follow pro football much like I used to, but seem like at least on pretty good playoff games next week, right?
- [01:10]
Tim Miller
We will have some great games next weekend. That distraction will absolutely be needed. Our friend Ben Stillmark Severance is coming back maybe on Friday. I'll create a list for people of various distractions from the inauguration.
- [01:23]
Bill Kristol
You need Monday, 9am to midnight, you know, 15 hours of things to watch.
- [01:30]
Tim Miller
I'll work on that assignment for our listeners. I guess I wasn't going to do this, but since you brought I was going to pretend like the inauguration wasn't happening for this hour. But we'll just do briefly because he announced just right before we were coming on the schedule for the inauguration, which includes on Sunday night a MAGA rally followed by a candlelight dinner. So not exactly traditional to have a rally, a partisan rally before the inauguration which I'm sure will have a message that they leak to the media that's like about unity and blah, blah, blah. The night before he's going to have a MAGA rally and then and then a nice candlelight dinner. Who knows, a picnic or something.
- [02:10]
Bill Kristol
It's all grift, isn't it? I'm sure I haven't seen it, but I've seen the announcement. But Trump can't personally, I don't think still benefit from ticket prices to the I don't think inauguration. You don't pay for to go there. Right. So people can go to that in the old fashioned way as a public civic event But Trump can't miss a 24 hours without the chance to charge people for something. And he can charge them, I assume maybe there's a price to get into the rally and then certainly a candlelight dinner. Is it with him or just with other people?
- [02:37]
Tim Miller
With him. Oh, yeah.
- [02:37]
Bill Kristol
Oh, wow. Very nice.
- [02:39]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I guess that must be it. I don't have it in front of me, but somebody reported that there's a report out there that Trump, they've already filled up the coffers for the inauguration because of all these suck ups pre submitting to him. And so one of his fundraising advisors was saying to corporation, well, well, you know, you could just give the money to the pack instead.
- [03:00]
Bill Kristol
Yeah.
- [03:01]
Tim Miller
So I mean like the grift is just couldn't be more out in the open at this point. As if the 40 from Melania wasn't enough. All right, we have a little bit of actual news here. So we're expecting today. You write about this in the morning newsletter, the Jack Smith Report. For people who have not been following this that closely, the favored judge of Donald Trump, Eileen Cannon, put a stay on the release of the report based on some kind of ridiculous rationale. She doesn't even have any jurisdiction obviously over the Jack Smith trial. She only has jurisdiction over the classified documents case. And today there's another delay because Walt Nauta, one of Trump's flunkies who was not indemnified by the Supreme Court like Trump, so he still is going to have to face trial over the classified documents case. He filed a petition or his lawyers filed a petition to delay the Jack Smith report because it might prejudice the jury and the classified documents case against him. And there's no connection between these two things. Besides, they're just two separate crimes that Donald Trump was indicted for. And yet Eileen Cannon obviously is doing what Nada and the Trump lawyers have requested. What are your thoughts on, on all that?
- [04:12]
Bill Kristol
Trump's Justice Department is going to draft the case against Nada and the other Trump employee a week from now. So it's all ridiculous. Yeah. No, I mean Thursday it seemed like the 11th Circuit, they were going to tolerate it. Cannon's three day, somewhat random three days. We have to wait till after that decision and then the report could be released, which would take us to say, and then over the weekend there were various back and forths, backs and forth, however you say that and culminating in the filing that you just described, which may or may not delay things much. I mean, the lawyers I've talked to seem pretty confident we'll get the report. Maybe it'll be delayed a couple of days this week and maybe Trump will go to the supreme court if the 11th Circuit says no way, and that'll take a day, but it's not 100%. And the degree to which the Trump people just, they don't give up. They try to exploit every ambiguity or they invent ambiguities, they invent legal doctrines. They invent is pretty impressive in a way. Maybe a little bit of a lesson for the rest of us that if they're going to play the system this way and the Justice Department is playing it very straight, as I say in the morning shots, and to their credit, I think you got the Justice Department of the United States, they're not supposed to cut corners or avoid things. And so they're scrupulous at all this and they're answering these objections as if they're serious objections. But it is kind of a lopsided or a one sided thing, right? I mean, it's, well, it's a way.
- [05:29]
Tim Miller
For them to gain the system and get the advantages of that, while people that are scrupulous are penalized. As been said before, it's not an original thought for me, but there is the rule that the defendant has an opportunity to get a fair and speedy trial is one of the things that underline our justice system. What about the other way around and United States versus Donald Trump? Shouldn't United States also have the benefit of that speedy trial? Apparently not.
- [05:57]
Bill Kristol
And Judge Cannon is the person who really denied that in the classified documents case and now trying to reach over to even let us, and the Supreme Court denied it basically in the January 6th case. And now Canada's trying to reach over to delay or stop really the release of both reports. One already is apparently not going to be released, at least for now, the classified documents report, because that case continues against the two Trump employees. So the degree of. Yes, the degree to which they've all gamed the system, including the judges, and this I guess is the point I try to make this morning a little bit that, you know, the lawyers are too polite, everyone's too polite to say that Judge Cannon is behaving as a pure partisan political hack. People are too polite to say that to some degree about the Supreme Court too, I would say. And the next four years, Trump's going to appoint 200 judge candidates. Trump learned a lesson. You know, he complains bitterly about the Trump appointed judges who ruled against him in November, December of 2020. Right. That's one of his big grievances I appointed them. Don't they know who they're supposed to be loyal to? He's not making that mistake again. And his White House counsel isn't going to make that mistake. And Pam Bondi as Attorney General's not going to make that mistake. We're looking at Judge Cannons all the way, the Republican Senate confirming all of them, or 95% of them, and a Pam Bondi run Justice Department, which is not going to be scrupulous as Merrick Garland's has been. So it's going to be. This is a little bit of a foretaste of what four years of Trump could look like.
- [07:20]
Tim Miller
Cannons all the way down. I want to play. Speaking of this asymmetry, Chris Wray was on 60 Minutes last night, his one interview since he decided to resign his role as director of the FBI. He addressed some of the questions about Trump's grievances about the classified documents case. I want to play that and then just talk more broadly about the interview.
- [07:43]
Chris Wray
Part of the FBI's job is to safeguard classified information. And when we learn that information, classified material, is not being properly stored, we have a duty to act. And I can tell you that investigations like this one, a search warrant is not, and here was not anybody's first choice. We always try to pursue, invariably try to pursue the least intrusive means, first trying to get the information back voluntarily, then with a subpoena, and only if after all that, we learn that the agents haven't been given all of the classified material and in fact those efforts have been frustrated, even obstructed, then our agents are left with no choice but to go to a federal judge, make a probable cause showing and get a search warrant. And that's what happened here.
- [08:39]
Tim Miller
I just wanted to lay all that out because it speaks to exactly what you were just talking about, right? Where the FBI follows every rule here, right? Like they go to Trump in a friendly way and say, hey, you might have forgotten that you have these classified documents. Do you want to hand them back? No. Subpoena. They go around the subpoena, and then eventually they have to go and seize these documents back, as is required, as is their job as the Federal Bureau of Investigation to protect these classified secrets. They didn't know Trump was going to be back in the White House. You can't do something based upon that. And so they do all of that. They follow the rules. And then Donald Trump, you know, after all of his delay tactics don't work, then gets to say, oh, they're targeting me, you Know, he gets to flop around on the ground and say, oh, the government, the government is targeting me. And the concerning thing about this is that worked that effort to convince people that he was being unfairly targeted, that there was a politicized government coming after him. He convinced not only his cultists, but like a broad swath of other folks in the media, particularly in the alternative, Joe Rogan's type media, to buy his story here. And what you see is Wray and the FBI and our institutions punished for going about it the right way.
- [10:07]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, and I guess Joe Biden had some documents, it turns out, from his vice presidency and maybe from before, from the Senate days, classified documents in his garage or something. I don't remember how we know that, but we knew that his lawyers were going through it and discovered some at some point when there was a general concern about classified documents after Trump had a massive cache of them, Pence had a couple too, I think, which he gave back. Biden totally cooperated, invited the FBI to come in and search, and they did. The documents were sent back. This was that special counsel whom Garland again being very scrupulous, appointed to look into this. So there couldn't be a conflict of interest with Garland himself, Biden appointee looking into it, or someone he, you know, he, someone reporting directly to him. And so he gets special counsel, Robert her, who does a report which is damaging somewhat to Joe Biden. Right. Says they can't prosecute him for this because he wouldn't have good enough memory anyway and be sympathetic figure old guy. And that's report that's released by Garland. I mean, think about that for a minute. Right. The sitting President of the United States who didn't do anything wrong really has a report released. And I'm not complaining about that, that seems right, but detailing sort of what her found. And the ex president of the United States who purposely takes masses of documents, lies about having them, orders employees, hide them and you know, I don't know what, mess around with the cameras and all that kind of stuff in Mar a Lago. He's got a grievance and he, and he gets lucky, I suppose, with the judge to whom the case is assigned. And the judge basically runs the clock out for a year and a half. And he's, and he's trying now not even to have a report that might be critical of him. So the disparity there is pretty extraordinary.
- [11:47]
Tim Miller
Okay, so let's get the devil on our shoulder out here. Is it the lesson that Democrats really shouldn't play by these sorts of rules, that there should be a little bit of Calvin Ball going both ways.
- [11:59]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. Or at least they should know that their opponents are not playing by these rules. And maybe they still should, in my view, try to obey the law and so forth. But there are ways to do so and there are ways to be more aggressive, obviously. And I think maybe not bending over backwards would be a good start. And playing hardball within the constraints of legitimate baseball as opposed to sort of polite batting practice, practice pitchings. And that's unfair. As opposed to Garland and Justice. And I don't have a grievance. I mean, I think Jack Smith did his best at all. But I've got to say, when you go back and think about it, that the idea that the Justice Department spent two years prosecuting every person who stormed the Capitol, which I'm for, and didn't start the case against Donald Trump Till after the January 6th committee, I think it was at the very end of 2022, I think, when Garland announced that. What were they thinking? I mean, who was responsible for all those people storming the Capitol? They didn't. If they didn't find a crime, they didn't find a crime. But at least investigated in a very ser. Serious way. Not, you know, this very tiny. They did almost nothing really, until the January 6th committee did its thing. So I don't know in retrospect, that was a very bad decision by Biden.
- [13:05]
Tim Miller
And Garland and the other interesting things in the Ray interview. And, you know, we'll get the right expert in here to have a broader conversation about this at some point. But his comments about China, I think were very interesting. 60 Minutes was trying to direct him to talking about terrorist threat, given what was happening in New Orleans and stuff. And he was like, actually like the thing that I think has been underappreciated is the way that China is, is breaching our infrastructure in various ways. I thought that was interesting. And I have a broader convo about that. But then the rest of the convo is just, again, Ray just doing the, well, I wanted to make the transition orderly. It's kind of goody two shoes stuff about how, oh, the, you know, the bureau can't be politicized. And it's all kind of a worldview that's like, yeah, that all makes sense in a 2011 world. But they've nominated somebody who's literally stated that he plans to politicize the bureau. Right. And so don't you have to act differently in the. And I think that's really what we're saying here, it's not about going around the law or not following the law or not respecting our democratic norms and institutions. It's about recognizing tactically that just saying, oh, I'm going to cross my T's and dot my I's. And while the other side is just shameless about their plans for corrupting the institution, I just don't think that makes a lot of sense.
- [14:25]
Bill Kristol
Right. As you say, you don't have. No one wants anyone to break the law here. But so fine, he's now resigned, I guess, or he's about to resign or has. I don't know if he's officially resigned yet. But anyway, he will have resigned on January 19. He could testify about the bureau, which he knows a lot about, and how dangerous it is to politicize it and therefore Cash Patel should not be the next director of the FBI. He can make clear that he's fine with people who he doesn't agree with on everything and that there's a bunch of people who have supported Donald Trump who probably are capable of leading the FBI in a decent way. But why doesn't he join other for like Bill Webster, the long time ago former director of the FBI, in opposing Patel? And that's the part that's kind of amazing, right? He's, he's going to quit and then he's going to say, well, as a former director, be inappropriate for me to testify before Congress or say anything like that. I mean, exactly.
- [15:12]
Tim Miller
He said, I don't have the exact quote, but like he said he didn't want to embroil the bureau in more drama and more political drama than necessary. And it's like it's too late. Like the horse is out of the barn. It's run around the track a few times. As far as the FBI being in the middle of sort of political hay being made out there, it just felt naive to me.
- [15:32]
Bill Kristol
He would do more to oppose politicization of the FBI, which I assume is an institution he really cares a lot about. If he came out against Patel, I mean, he would at least try to create a little bit of a barrier, a little bit of a guardrail against the total politicization of it under Bondi and under Trump. And maybe that would work a little bit, as happened incidentally in the first term, where people were very alarmed and screamed and yelled and Mike Flynn was dumped as National Security Advisor in a month. And in fact, some of these guardrails held a little bit more than they would otherwise because people were so willing to be Alarmed, including Jim Comey, to speak of this particular instance. Right. Who Trump fired. And he went, he got fired, but he didn't then think, I'm not allowed to speak about anything that happened.
- [16:15]
Tim Miller
So, yeah, none of these guys ever seem to say that. Like, thank God that Flynn was kicked out. What he did after he was pushed out of the Trump administration, going around on a tour around the country talking about CU on, you know, and talk about deep state conspiracies. This man was going to be the national security adviser. Like, imagine what would have happened had it been him instead of H.R. mcMaster. And yet the. The people you guys write in the morning ch about Lankford, about how Lankford, you know, said, I forget what. Which of the crazy Trump things he was talking about. He's like, ah, you know, this isn't going to happen. This is all bluster. You got to sort of wait things out, like the responsible ones, you know, never then talk about the value of the times when the guardrails held, then they go silent. You know, it's not like there's anybody out there in the Lankford Cotton McConnell world who's using this very example, like, you know, look, there are times when we need to protect Trump for himself. You can imagine them saying this, Right. This wouldn't be my preferred route. Right. But it'd be better than doing nothing right? Then saying, you know, look at how Mike Flynn and how dangerous that was. And we went through the normal process and he was investigated and he was repl. By HR McMaster, and that was an upgrade. You can imagine people saying that, but nobody ever does.
- [17:33]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, just to close that loop a circle. I mean, I believe Patel personally has appeared many times with Mike Flynn and is a big supporter of Michael Flynn. So it kind of really just brings home the point here.
- [17:44]
Tim Miller
All right, we have other hearings this week. Hegseth is Tuesday. We're going to be live streaming some, maybe all depending on how good it is of that on our YouTube page. Make sure you subscribe to the Bulwark on YouTube and you can press little alarm bell to see when we're going to live on that. Kristi Noem Bondi, Russ Vogt, Duffy are Wednesday, it's got Ascent at Treasury and then Bondi again on Thursday. That's kind of the schedule for now. Look, you know, in the afternoon, sometimes you don't want the third or fourth, depending on how much of a sicko you are. Dose of caffeine for the day. Have another coffee. It might affect your sleeping at night. And so I've been turning to our new sponsor, Mud Water for that afternoon. Pick Me Up. Packed with Cacao, Chai, Lion's Maid, Chaga, turmeric and cinnamon, Mud Water gives you a smooth energy boost without the heart racing jitters. Think of it like coffee's chill yoga loving cousin who went on a spiritual retreat, came back more Zen and left the jitters behind. You'll stay alert and calm and still be able to fall asleep at night as the weather gets colder. Mud Water is the perfect, cozy, nourishing drink to warm up with whether you're curled up on the couch or in the middle of a busy day. It's more than just a coffee alternative. It's loaded with antioxidants and all the other health packed ingredients that'll make you feel like the healthiest person in the room. Try it today and save big Our listeners get up to 43% off your entire order, free shipping and a free rechargeable frother. Head to M U d w t r.com and use the code thebullwerk at checkout. And now Mud Water is available at Target and Sprouts locations across the US So it's never been easier to grab a cup of this winter friendly Pick me up. Every single ingredient in Mud WTR's products are 100% USDA certified organic, non GMO. There's also zero sugar or sweeteners added. To use Mud WTR, you simply drop the powder into your favorite mug, pour some water on it and give it a mix. Some go wild and add a little creamer or honey. Not me. I like it black. So, ready to make the switch to cleaner Energy? Head to mudwtr.com and grab your starter kit today. Right now, our listeners get an exclusive deal up to 43% off your entire order, plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother. When you use Code the Bulwark, that's right up to 43%. Off with code the bulwark@mudwtr.com after your purchase, they'll ask how you found them. Please show your support and let them know we sent you. Keep your energy natural and refreshing all year long with Mud Water because life's too short for anything less than clean, delicious energy. Other news related to these confirmation hearings over the weekend, Tulsi Gabbard apparently has been flipping her view on section 702 in her conversations with Republican senators. I think Lankford mentioned this section 702. If people aren't familiar of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act fisa. It allows the US Government to collect electronic communications on non Americans located outside the country without a warrant. This has been a big flashpoint among kind of the isolationist, right, Rand Paul, etc. And this is the horseshoe. Rand Paul and Tulsi have been fighting the use of this tool, but it's obviously a tool that would be used as the person in charge of coordinating intelligence across agencies. I'm just curious your thoughts on the hearings coming and tulsi flipping on 702.
- [21:11]
Bill Kristol
702 is kind of complicated, but a. If Chris Wraith is very concerned about China, one reason he's probably knows what he knows is because of 702 and intercepts of communications. I think it's the communications with American citizens which are masked and which are mega data and so forth. And then they have to get a real FISA warrant to open those up, so to speak. As I understand it, that's what let's say responsible civil libertarians have been worried about. As I understand the bill Tulsi introduced in December 2020, it would just get rid of the whole program, the whole NSA ability to intercept these communications from abroad, including from abroad to other people abroad, certainly from abroad to here, which is kind of important to know. You know, I hope she doesn't get any credit for this ludicrous flip flop at the very, you know, last minute when she's been harping on this thing for years and she's unqualified in a million other ways. Hey, they're all in excess someone qualified. One doesn't even know where to begin. Russ Vaughan. I hope he gets asked about the things he has said publicly and also been filmed saying when he thought he was in private. I mean, he's a pretty extreme choice for a very powerful position. OMB director. I don't know. We'll see. It'd be interesting to see how sort of well organized the Democrats are, how focused they are in their questioning and whether any Republicans sort of have any interest in being at all tough or serious. And also whether, you know, the FBI reports, do Democrats insist on knowing what's in them, especially in the case of Hexath, or did they just let the two top members, they don't even. I don't think that they've gotten the FBI briefing yet. They gotten a briefing from the Trump transition team and what the FBI told them. The whole thing sounds very squirrely and I don't know. I hope Democrats are tough about this because I do think, I mean Trump himself has won the election. So It's a little hard to go after him now, honestly. And we discussed this the other week, I think, and, and it's not hard, but I mean it probably politically, you gotta give him a chance to become president and see what he does. These nominees didn't win anything. They're just picked by Trump. And I totally legitimate to criticize them and to say. And if one wants to speak to Trump, voters say, unfortunately, The President's made 15 fine nominations, but three or four of these are problematic. It happens. It's our. Every president loses one or two of his nominees. Things he didn't know. He thought Pete Hexeth was a charming guy. And Fox, we didn't realize that he had this whole history. And we're saving Trump from himself, as you said a minute ago. Right. So I don't know, we'll see how much of that there is.
- [23:32]
Tim Miller
We'll learn a lot since Hegseth's first on the block. So we will learn a lot from the Hegseth nomination on Tuesday and we will obviously be having a lot of coverage of that here. To your point about how Democrats manage this transition, there's one Democrat in particular that has taken a different approach from everybody else. It's John Fetterman, senator from Pennsylvania. Him and his wife went to Mar A Lago over the weekend, met with Trump. Trump loves attention, loves a convert, says he's a common sense person, not conservative or liberal. This is a long way from when Trump had said that Fetterman is taking heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and fentanyl and that his brain didn't work. So big flip there from Trump. Is he a risk of a party switch? Is this just a strategic gambit where he's trying to do things a little bit differently, to play, to play nice? Is it self preservation? Is it the strok? I don't know. What do you think's happening with John Fetterman?
- [24:33]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, and more broadly with others who are. There's other tendency other members have shown made at least much more minor steps in that direction. I mean, I'm not sympathetic to the argument they have to do this to preserve, you know, to get reelected or something. It's like the votes on the immigration bill last week, 48 of them in the House. Really? I mean, they're up at least the House members are up in two years. The Fetterman's up in four, and others are up in six. I mean, really, is anyone going to remember a vote In January of 2020, you know, in terms of their reelection? It strikes Me as ridiculous or a trip to Mar a Lago. I mean, Fetterman's kind of a character, so it's hard to generalize from his case. He's a senator, he's not in the position we're in. And I can totally see if there's a tax bill in April and he has to look out for his constituents or things he believes strongly in, in terms of policies and deductions and so forth, he should go to the Treasury Department and talk to them. He should go to the White House and talk to Trump or to other relevant officials. Making the pilgrimage to Mar a Lago is different, don't you think? I mean, that part of it is what rubs me so wrong, right? If Trump invites Democratic senators to the White House two weeks into his presidency, obviously they'll go and he's the President of the United States and they're senators and they have a million things to talk about and some of them they might end up agreeing on. But the pilgrim, the pre presidential pilgrimage to Mar a Lago and then all the, you know, talk about how. What a wonderful conversation they had, that's not good.
- [25:55]
Tim Miller
Here's the thing that bugs me about it. The whole, oh, guys, chill out. Stop getting your hair on fire. It's like this feels like a contrarian, real talk kind of position. But all it is is it's just a total cya. Anybody can do this, right? It's so easy to be like, guys, chill out, it's not going to be that bad. And then if things get bad, be like, well, I've changed my mind, things have gotten bad. I'm now going to weigh in and it allows you to kind of posture as more serious when it's really just. And it's not childish, but it's just kind of like surface level, right? Like, it's like, oh, well, you know, I mean, anybody, like, let's just chill out, guys, calm down. Who knows? Because I guess that's objectively true, right? Like, we don't know yet. So I'm not advocating for people like, running around with their heroin fire saying Nazism is coming, but it does feel like there's a middle ground between that and, like doing thumbs up pictures with all the nominees. Like, do we have to do the thumbs up picture with all the nominees? I feel like there might be a more productive way to say, hey, I'll meet with these nominees and see if we have common ground in certain things. Or, you know, whatever it is, like the fentanyl crisis or whatever. There are certain issues that we can work together on. There have been centers that are good at that. Tammy Baldwin did this. She worked on a bill with J.D. vance that was relevant to the people of Wisconsin. I interviewed about this and, and that's what you're supposed to do as a person in the legislature, right? The thumbs up pictures and like eye rolling and anybody who is expressing legitimate concerns about Donald Trump coming in, that part annoys me. I don't like that.
- [27:30]
Bill Kristol
I totally agree, obviously. And it's again, if you actually care about influencing the behavior of these nominees because you're going to be a senator and they're going to be, many of them are going to be cabinet secretaries and sub cabinet and, and the like. You should be tough on the things that they're saying or have said in the past and have said they would do in the past. You should be tough on that and say, well, that's unacceptable. Now look, I'm open to having a conversation, maybe I'm even open to voting for you as a Democrat if everyone wants to say that. But you've got to assure me that you're not going to do A, B, C or D or Trump has to assure if you're going to talk directly to Trump. Did he ask Trump any tough questions? Did he ask Trump whether he would order Pam Bondi to not do investigations of, of people that are on Cash Patel's list? I mean, I have no impression, I didn't read carefully all the accounts, I guess, of Fetterman's visit, but I have no impression that there was any sort of sending a message to Trump.
- [28:19]
Tim Miller
Well, no, if he did, then Trump wouldn't have been talking about how great and how smart he was.
- [28:23]
Bill Kristol
Right.
- [28:23]
Tim Miller
You don't have to read all the accounts. That's the other thing with the Fetterman is, now that you mentioned it, now I'm getting my hackles up. He does this thing where people ask him about, well, Cash Patel said this or so and so said that and he's like, like, well, yeah, I haven't seen that. And when we talked to him, he told me he wasn't going to investigate enemies. So that's okay. And it's like, wait a minute. No, Fetterman ran as a progressive. Right. Like far more progressive than either of us. Right. And so if you have nominees coming in who have stated plans that are in stark contrast to what you have said, your preferences are on various policies, then it's your obligation as a senator to vet through those. If it's like a Tulsi situation where he asks her tough questions about something and they're like, you know what? I sure I said that on Steve Bannon's podcast, but I changed my mind. I'm going to do this instead. I don't know that I would really still believe them, but at least then you're doing your job of vetting the person rather than just being totally dismissive of any concerns about these nominees and doing, doing nicey nicey thumbs up pictures. I don't dig it.
- [29:29]
Bill Kristol
At least Lankford got Tulsi to flip flop 702. Now we don't. I don't still think she still think she's qualified and I don't trust her to run dni. Having said that, they can literally now I believe very hard for her to come out against 702 or not to support its reauthorization and so forth. Right. I mean from once she's there, having said this publicly. So I, I think yes, at least get minimally get the commitments on the things that are important for the country.
- [29:56]
Tim Miller
But I do want to see the holdout. My one caveat on the Fetterman thing is just in order to be consistent with myself, the Democrats do need people who just talk normal and Fetterman does that. Right? I know, I know, I know. Take a deep breath. Bill. I know that you love the, you know, high minded Straussian talk and the quoting of Churchill and the I like Fennerman going back to the Greeks and I know you like all that that but the Democrats could use a mix of people and they could use one person in there who does wear the hoodie and just is like, come on bros, I'm gonna chill out about this. Like there is some value to that posture. And, and I guess that's just why I keep coming back to the thumbs up photos where it's like I feel like you could achieve that he could get the value out of that without being so obsequious.
- [30:45]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I agree. I look, I rather like Fetterman from what I know of him. I've met him just a few times actually. I joke I saw a couple of different events in the last few months. Some reason this was before this last stretch but you know, earlier in 2024 and I said, you know, I think I'm probably a little bit to your left now, but that's okay. We have a, the Democratic Party is a big tent. You know, he was already moving to the I'm spending more time attacking the left. And we had a sort of jocular, very brief exchange about this.
- [31:12]
Tim Miller
So I know I had a jocular exchange. You didn't quote Euripides or anything. You just, you're just too brass, you.
- [31:17]
Bill Kristol
Know, to adjust my remarks to the. No, but Federer is a smart guy also. I mean, he's got that whole shtick, but it's not like he's not a, you know. Anyway, I don't have a look. I think he's a good politician. He won in Pennsylvania. We were happy. I recall defending him quite a lot after that stroke, incidentally, when everyone was, oh my God, how could you support someone who's not, you know, in totally great shape? And I remember we published articles of the Bulwark about how people recover from strokes. And having a stroke is very different from being, you know, 80 years old and not being able to do things and so forth. And when you're, you're middle aged and you can recover and so forth. So, yes, we are not an anti. I really think JVL loved Federman, didn't he? Wasn't he pushing Fetterman for like, Fess.
- [31:54]
Tim Miller
Hoping he can come on sometime, we can have some of this stuff out.
- [31:56]
Bill Kristol
We have been a pro Fetterman publication. So we say all this from sorrow.
- [32:01]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And I like heterodoxy. If he wants to leave the party norms in certain ways, there are a lot of elements of it. I like the smiley thumbs up pictures. Maybe we can stop, I guess. That's my number one. That's my number one issue. The visits to Mar a Lago. Let's chill out on those. On the other side of the coin, on the more normie Dem, whatever you want to call it, traditional Dem side of the coin, while we're doing, while we're doing little nitpicks, we cannot cover the DNC race at all. So I would like your take on the DNC chairs race broadly. But I have to, you know, in order to be fair here on the podcast, if you're gonna criticize the heterodox suck up to Trump Dems. I also need to express my concerns about the more mainstream Dems and their strategies. The key players in this chairs race are Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota dfl, and Ben Wickler, the chair of the Wisconsin Wisconsin Dem party. Martin O'Malley, former governor of Maryland, is also in the race. There's this guy, James Skoufis, who's been creating a stir. He's kind of a lefty populist state senator from New York. There's some other people running, but those are the main Players. Wickler, I think, is considered the favorite. He did this tweet over the weekend. We unite our coalition by making sure everyone's at the table. As DNC chair, our leadership team will lift up our full coalition. Black, Latino, native, aanhpi, LGBTQ youth, interfaith, ethnic, rural, veteran, and disability representation. Nobody talks like this. Nobody talks like this. Okay? You can be for diversity and a B for having voices at the table while just, just talking normal. Stop. Okay, stop. What is interfaith? Does anyone know what interfaith is? What is ethnic aanhpi? I had to Google it. NH Is Native Hawaiian. Do we really need Native Hawaiians at the table at the DNC decision making process? And if there's a talented Native Hawaiian who happens to be a good strategist, sure, great. But is that a key part of Democratic outreach? Invite the best people who know how to win, get perspectives. Sure, I'm all for this. Like, say, hey, if I'm at the dnc, we're going to get perspectives from people, you know, to make sure we aren't in our bubbles. Like, right. We're going to have diversity when it comes to race, but also college attainment, you know, religion. You can say that in a way where you sound like a normal human listing out interfaith, ethnic. Like, I understand it's a little bit of a nitpick and this is kind of just like woke copy pasta, but it just has to stop. So anyway, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or the DNC chairman's race more broadly.
- [34:42]
Bill Kristol
I mean, I know Wickler a little.
- [34:43]
Tim Miller
And I, I like Winkler, by the way. I'm picking on him with love. Picking on him with love.
- [34:47]
Bill Kristol
Good job. No, no, but it is. He must have thought he was having trouble on the left, you know, with some of the DNC members and say the DNC is a representative organization and you know, and it's quite diverse and, and Hawaii has DNC members. They're not being discriminated against. Hawaii's governor actually was here with talking to people about how he's a doctor, if I'm not mistaken, was talking about how dangerous Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Would be as secretary of HHS. So I like, I think his name is Governor Green. I don't know much about him, but he seems like an impressive guy anyway. Yeah, I mean, so why go into that whole ridiculous thing? It just kind of confirms one's impression of the dnc. I mean, whether the DNC matters, I don't know. You didn't you work in a previous life at the RNC for a year or two.
- [35:26]
Tim Miller
I did, I did probably block that out.
- [35:28]
Bill Kristol
I want to have your point about this.
- [35:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah, here's the diversity that you could use. There's Bill Simmons used to, as a sports pod guy I listened to, he used to say coaches and NFL coaches need like a director of common sense on the sideline of like clock management. I just like somebody who's played a lot of Madden who can be like, don't do this. It's like I have an 18 year old kid who's played a lot of Madden that's like, don't do this coach. Like I just know that this is a bad idea. The Democrats need that. They need like a 22 year old twitch streamer to just sit next to whoever gets this job and when they see a draft just be like, no, I'm sorry. People talk like this. We don't know, I don't know what anhpi is. We're not gonna do that. A 24 year old twitch streamer to just veto tweets. I think might be, might be a useful person to have at the table while you're adding people to the table. These committees aren't as important as people think is I think the point of your question. And there are two different models that are useful. One is just raise a lot of money and put a ton of money into ground troops and data and door knocking. And it's just this is behind the scenes and you're just, I was about to say making the trains run on time but that has kind of a negative connotation these days. So you know what I mean? Just make sure the operationalizing of it is good. That's been most of the RNC chairs frankly going back to like Ken Melman, like all the way forward the ranks was I think chosen under that rubric. Then he kind of, you know, started to enjoy the limelight a little bit. But you know, the new RNC chair whose name I'm forgetting right now at the moment from North Carolina, Whatley, Michael Watley just came to me. I think he is in that rubric. Right. The other model is the more like I am, I'm the chief communicator for the party while we're out of power. You know, Terry McAuliffe was maybe more in that role. Dean I think might have seen himself as operationalizing but was more of a public facing. So either of those models are fine for me. Right. None of the candidates there, Ken Martin, Benwickler and Martin O'Malley I don't think are going to be seen as the chief public face of the Democratic Party. I don't think any of them fit that bill. So given that really their job is just do no harm on the public facing stuff and make sure that the actual party is running well behind the scenes, is raising money. So that's it. If you cut away all the bs, that's it. And it's not really about ideology or any of that.
- [37:56]
Bill Kristol
Not at all. Wickley did a good job in Wisconsin. The governor reelected. He wasn't the greatest candidate. They got Tammy Waldman get reelected. They lost the Senate race to Johnson, but it was pretty close and lost the state this time, obviously. But close get closer. I think closest to the three Midwestern states, I think Blue hall states. So he has a perfectly good claim that I know how to do this kind of the water judicial race too. That was important. And he went after the Republicans and reduced their margins, I think quite a lot in the legislature. The whole Democrats just like to take a second on this. There's a kind of fantasy world they're in now of like we're going to redefine the party in this way. We're going to be centrist on immigration, but we're also going to be populist on this, which is all fine. And they should all try that out and different people should say what they believe or say what they think works politically or both. But for now, it's about opposing Trump and stopping him from doing as much damage as possible and establishing yourself what you believe and what you would do, really, by contrast with Trump. I mean, that's what a good opposition party does. So if his tax bill is all for rich people, you say, look at this tax bill. It's a disgrace. We should help the middle class or the poor. But the idea that they're going to sit around in sort of endless meetings about how they can really rebrand the party is childish. Now they have a couple of elections this year, good candidates. I think Spanberger here in Virginia, Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey would be my preferred, my preferred candidate for governor there. Help those two people win governorships. You know what, that would actually really help. Help some younger members of Congress become spokespeople on different issues in a more organized way than they can do when they're just sitting in some committee on the minority. That would be a good idea. Do some stuff around the country with, you know, the Jason Crows and Jake Akin classes and others, or even aoc.
- [39:37]
Tim Miller
This is why I like.
- [39:38]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, so totally. I agree.
- [39:39]
Tim Miller
I got. This is why we, both of us were for AOC taking that oversight chair role, because the most important thing right now is defining Trump and the Trump administration negatively. And she's good at that. And instead they gave her a seat on Energy and Commerce. And I'm like, I'm sorry, AOC going to bat against Trump and using, you know, her media power to do that is a. Is the highest and best use of her. Not, you know, trying to argue for the Green New Deal or whatever. While you're in the minority on the Energy and Commerce Committee, no matter what your view is of that as policy, none of that is going to happen. There's not going to be. I mean, I say this, it's pretty macabre given what is happening in la, but there's not going to be meaningful legislation on climate that the progressives like on the Energy and Commerce Committee this time. This is your point. You can have the ideological fights, but the fight right now is an anti Trump fight.
- [40:34]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. If they can adjust, they can help on some legislation. That's fine. It's not mutually exclusive. Chris Murphy, I've got to say, I think you had him on. Didn't you have him on fairly recently? I can't remember.
- [40:43]
Tim Miller
I've had Murphy on. Not that recently, but yeah, he's been good, though.
- [40:45]
Bill Kristol
I mean, I've got. I don't know him much at all, and I didn't really follow him very closely. I mean, he's very outspoken on gun control issues, which was fine, good. And some other issues. But I've got to say, he seems to be one of the few people who's like, internalized the notion that, okay, what we need to do on cap, the way we define ourselves as something different, as something new and different, is by opposing Trump and thinking of interesting ways to do so. Then you're not just defending Biden's accomplishments from the last few years and. Or before defending whatever, you know, the Obama administration, you know, and you find your way into the positions you need to be in and you never know ahead of time. Incidentally, in my experience of this, what issues take off. Right. And what fights take off and what nominees blow up and what departments turn out to have scandals and suddenly you're making name on something you didn't really expect to be. Murphy, at least seems to me to have a feel for that in a way that most of these other members are busy sitting around.
- [41:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And the other thing Murphy's doing is making that and saying, we need to do this fight on behalf of working people getting bad. I think that's right. Thinking about how can we reframe this Trump fight. We're putting us on the side of regular people, working class people against entrenched, powerful interests. That's a smart use of time. You did a tweet, which you do sometimes, about bullies, and this is related to this. You wrote, as I've gotten older, I've had to acknowledge the sad fact that in this world of ours, bullies often prosper. But my loathing of bullies has also intensified over the years. And as bullies are ultimately weak, I do think the Putin's Trumps and Musks, if resisted, can be defeated. This is the mindset, right? No. Was that just. You don't actually believe.
- [42:25]
Bill Kristol
No, I do believe that. I'm sorry, what Was I striking?
- [42:27]
Tim Miller
No, no, you just made an eyebrow. An eyebrow that was like, maybe I was over my skis on that.
- [42:32]
Bill Kristol
Maybe they can be defeated. No. Sometimes eventually they could be defeated.
- [42:35]
Tim Miller
Eventually they could be defeated.
- [42:37]
Bill Kristol
No, that's. I find the bullying side of my Maga and Musk and the tech pros and stuff particularly repulsive. I gotta say. They could have views that I really think are bad for the country. And obviously I've argued with people for decades about such views in different foreign policy and in other areas. But that's one thing to earnestly have such a view and advance it. It's the really repulsive bullying and the taking pride in being bullies and that taking pride in supporting them because they're bullies that I just find kind of personally so off putting.
- [43:07]
Tim Miller
I guess, like most behavior is just appalling in these sorts of cases. Sam Harris, who I had on recently, was doing an interview with Bill Maher and he was like telling a story about how Musk had been. Had tweeted out a link that the Pizzagate guy tweeted it out as like a clip of Harris and they used to be friends clip of Harris talking about immigration. But like it was clipped in such a way that they. They totally got the point backwards that he was trying to make. And Sam emailed Elon, who had been his friend, was like, hey, you got this wrong. And by the way, the guy that you're sharing this was the guy that thought that there was child abductions happening in the basement of a pizza parlor with no basement. And he said, Musk replied, fuck off. And it's just like, that's it. It's like, I can do what I Want. I can smear people, we can attack people. I can bully people. And if I'm challenged, I can just tell you to go pound sand. It's a particularly unappealing trait. But I do think maybe the glimmer of hope is that I don't think it's a trait that wears well. Maybe. Right. Are you convinced about that? You seem unconvinced about your own take.
- [44:19]
Bill Kristol
So I don't think it wears well. That's why I wrote that. I'm usually pretty sincere in what I write sometimes.
- [44:25]
Tim Miller
When you're doing thought experiments.
- [44:27]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. Right. Well, you got to do that too. And once. I don't really look at the response, but you see the responses sometimes and someone had responded quite intelligently. Something about how. Well, I think what Bill underestimates here is how much people like bullies and bullying, that there's more support for it than you would like to think. I tend to agree with you that people don't like it ultimately and it wears thin. And if one can organize in response to it in an effective ways, one could really fight back effectively, actually. But I don't know, the Magus experience is a bit of a wake up call. The degree to which people like being part of the bullying crowd as opposed to standing up to the bullying crowd. Right. Even billionaires, even Mike Zuckerberg and all that bullshit about you can do this on some other show. But on the. What did he say that he realizes now that Facebook, they need more of a culture of masculinity or something? What is he even talking about?
- [45:24]
Tim Miller
I mean, they need more of a culture of masculinity. Yeah, this was on my notes, but I was like, I don't know if Bill crystals right now. You should have someone better masculinity with. But yes, but no, I just tease you. But like, yeah, we need more of a masculine energy that celebrates aggression. More Mark Zuckerberg. Give me a break. Give me a break. All these people is just so. It's so fucking embarrassing. I have one burning question for you before I let you go, because I've been having people message me about this. Is the old national greatness conservative inside you at all when it comes to Greenland, is there anything firing inside Bill Kristol from 90s Bill Kristol that says Greenland? I don't know. I don't know. Trump I don't like. But Manifest destiny to Greenland may be a little appealing for you.
- [46:14]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I don't like Manifest destiny as a historical matter, but I used to joke in the 90s hey, you know, parts of Canada, if they want to join the U.S. that's fine. Obviously they should want to join. It should. We shouldn't be conquering them. But then they would have some issues how they would separate themselves from the rest of Canada. But that's sort of between them. But I don't have a problem with if Denmark decides it's too much of a pain in the neck. I guess they pay quite a lot of money actually, to support the people in Greenland who don't really have that much of an economy there, I guess. And if they decide it's too much of a burden for them, and if Greenland wants to become part of the US that would be fine. And then we'd have to figure out how to. They should have votes, you know, as should people from D.C. and Puerto Rico. Yeah, maybe they'd be part of Alaska. Some kind of like coalition. Coalition of the islands, I don't know, or something like that. Or far flung places. It has a little bit of resonance. So someone texted me, actually, when the Greenland thing started to see, which is, wow, the neoconservatives really have taken over the Trump administration. And. But so, but on the other hand, just as a. Someone who does, you know, for. Could be semi serious for 20 seconds. Denmark has been totally, as I understand it. I asked some foreign policy guy about this since I don't know anything about it. Are we having problems like we're doing what we want to do in Greenland? Not at all. Denmark's perfectly. As a NATO ally, they're perfectly happy. If we asked to send 10,000 troops to Greenland tomorrow to guard it better or something like that, they'd be fine. And there are American troops there, incidentally, on and off, I gather. And if we want to exploit the minerals there, if Trump doesn't put tariffs on everything and destroy the world trading system, we have very good relations and good trade relations with Denmark. We import stuff, we export stuff. So fine, so let's get the rare earth minerals. So it is just such performative. I had thought before it was performative. Bullshit, you know, just. It was just bullshit and a way of keeping people off his back as he sells out Ukraine and the important stuff. Maybe he realizes that if you want to be on Mount Rushmore, you probably. It's not a bad idea to expand the size of the US And. And maybe he's more serious about it.
- [48:06]
Tim Miller
And Greenland looks big on a map.
- [48:07]
Bill Kristol
It looks big on the.
- [48:09]
Tim Miller
Greenland looks big on a map.
- [48:11]
Bill Kristol
And the people there look white or whitish. I mean, so I don't know. And that's good. The place is white in general. It's very snowy. You know that Trump likes that. He doesn't want one of those places with dark people and a lot of sunshine.
- [48:24]
Tim Miller
You know, none of the Caribbean islands are on the list, you know, for acquisition.
- [48:29]
Bill Kristol
How about, let's just give Puerto Rico statehood. That's an actual place with millions of Americans, you know.
- [48:35]
Tim Miller
All right. I just wanted to see if, if you know that it had a little.
- [48:40]
Bill Kristol
I take it, had a little.
- [48:41]
Tim Miller
It had a little.
- [48:41]
Bill Kristol
Little. A little. But not incidentally, if he were saying, you know what we need to really help Ukraine, we have a chance to topple Putin, look at the energy problems they're having. You read about this warning with Gazprom and we really can double down on Ukraine. And incidentally, I'm not a, you know, new creature. Ukraine should join NATO. And if Denmark is, if Greenland's too much of a burden for Denmark, we could take that off their hands. That's a consistent, greatest position. But Trump is not for American greatness. Trump is for bullying a couple of little countries, mostly even symbolic bullying, I would say, you know, taunting Canada, being idiotic about Mexico, honestly, which is very important, a country that we need to be in good terms with and then not standing up to either Putin or Xi or I predict Iran. He's going to be bad on all the big challenges that we're bad from a hawkish point of view, including the Trump hawks in the administration. You know, I think on all those issues, on all those things that actually requires like serious policy and tough trade offs at times. Right. Maybe, maybe he'll realize that he won't be a successful president if we lose ground to Putin and to Xi and to the Iranian theocrats. But I don't know, I don't know. I'm not very, that I'm very worried about actually the Ukraine situation. But Bob Kagan had a good piece on that in the Atlantic last week, very long piece. You can read it at your leisure.
- [50:02]
Tim Miller
We'll put it in the show. Notes Bob Kagan. All right, thanks, Bill. Chris, we also have our, we should say Jen Rubin has left the Washington Post and she's starting with your friend Norm Eisen, an outlet called the Contrarian to fight the Autocrats. So FYI, as the people desiring to fight autocrats might be leaving some of the other more legacy news outlets, a thousand flowers are blooming. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
- [50:26]
Bill Kristol
Welcome, welcome, welcome in the anti autocracy water. I was gonna say it's not really war. It's freezing. It's freezing here in pro democracy and anti autocracy world. But welcome, welcome.
- [50:40]
Tim Miller
Yeah, but if you want to do a polar bear plunge with us, we'll accept you. Come on in. All right. Thanks for Bill, Crystal. We'll be back tomorrow with another edition of the Bowler Podcast. See y'all then. Peace?
- [50:58]
Bill Kristol
Buried up on the Jesus Christ? Just somewhere we can all be losing? And I'm stuck Somewhere in between your death and my Lucy dream? I know? Hell, lately I know?
- [51:41]
Tim Miller
But I'm tired of trying to prove my worth?
- [51:43]
Bill Kristol
To be accepted on this earth? Baby, I'm ready to go?
- [52:12]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.