Loading summary
Transcript114 lines
- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway. Now through June 23rd. Shop for you. Save days and get great savings on all your favorite personal care Essentials and earn 4 times points. Shop in store or online and save on items like head and shoulder shampoo, Pantene Shampoo, Tresemme Conditioner, l' Oreal hair Dye, Tresemme Hairspray, and Aussie Miracle Curls and earn four times points to use for future savings on groceries or gas. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [00:31]
Tom Nichols
I feel like I'm getting robbed when
- [00:33]
Ryan Seacrest
I bet the finals on a sportsbook.
- [00:35]
Tom Nichols
Dude, delete that app. You need to be using Polymarket.
- [00:38]
Ryan Seacrest
Polymarket.
- [00:39]
Tom Nichols
Polymarket is a prediction market, not a sports book.
- [00:42]
Bill Kristol
You trade against other fans, not the house.
- [00:44]
Tom Nichols
That means more money for you and
- [00:47]
Ryan Seacrest
less for greedy sportsbooks.
- [00:48]
Tom Nichols
Even during the finals? Especially during the finals. You can even trade on whether Trump or Chalamet will attend the games.
- [00:56]
Bill Kristol
No way. What's the catch? No catch.
- [00:58]
Tom Nichols
And it's available in all 50 states. Polymarket is so confident you'll never go back, they're giving you $50 free on your first trade.
- [01:07]
Ryan Seacrest
I'm deleting my Sportsbook app. How do I get started?
- [01:10]
Bill Kristol
Download Polymarket now and use Promo code BUZZ for $50 free for your first trade.
- [01:15]
Tom Nichols
Stop letting Sportsbook steal from you.
- [01:17]
Bill Kristol
Download Polymarket and use promo code BUZZ for $50 free on your first trade. Use promo Code Buzz.
- [01:25]
Tom Nichols
Trading not available in all jurisdictions. Check local regulations before trading restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Hello and welcome to the Board podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so of course we are here with editor at large Bill Kristol. There is so much news to talk about. We're going to try to carve out some time for the NBA at the end, since Donald Trump is sullying the beauty of the NBA Finals. But, Bill, how you doing? Good weekend for you?
- [02:02]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, good, good. The Knicks maybe not aware of that. The Knicks. Knicks look strong, right? We'll get to that at the end, though. We'll race through. We'll race through all the other topics to get to the Knicks.
- [02:10]
Tom Nichols
You're looking nice in that green polo. That's a good color for you. All right, let's talk about what's happening in Iran. I'm just gonna run through the last 24 hours. We're very much deep into the Groundhog Day portion of the Iran war, but here we go. Yesterday, Israel is carrying out strikes against Hezboll in Beirut. This prompted Iran to fire missiles at Israel. Trump then urged Israel not to return fire and for both sides to sh. Stop shooting. Really strong. That's a strong man right there. Say after you've been bombed, do nothing. Israel nevertheless responded. They were not moved by Donald Trump's pleas. They launched airstrikes against Iran early this morning. Following that, Iran announced that they're halting military action in Israel. Israel continues to strike Lebanon. Axios's Barack Ravid post another siren alarm tweet about how Trump says, we are in a ceasefire and a deal is coming soon and the stock market is up. So I don't know what you make of all that. In some senses, a increase in hostilities in another way, it's just kind of a different version of the same story that we've seen for the last hundred days or so.
- [03:18]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I do think it's Groundhog Day pretty much. I mean, a couple of little tidbits that are amusing. Amusing but depressing about our commander in chief. He seems to have called your friend Barack Ravid at Axios before calling Bibi to directly tell him not to retaliate. He was like, I didn't. I mean, isn't that right?
- [03:36]
Tom Nichols
I mean, he talked to several reporters. There's a New York Post reporter he also spoke to. There's a third one I'm forgetting. It's unusual management of the war, certainly, to, you know, have the ally that you're in war with, for better or worse, get attacked, and then for you to immediately start telling media outlets that you. You want them not to retaliate and
- [03:57]
Bill Kristol
that you're about to call their prime minister to tell them not to retaliate. I think the gulf between Trump and Netanyahu and really between the US And Israel is probably greater than they're letting on. And then we might think, given history, and given both real history over decades, but also history of Trump and Bibi, which has been a lot of close coordination, obviously. And let's not forget that we got into this war. Bibi's urging, he's allowed to urge the US to do it. I don't think it proves anything inappropriate, but he urged the US to do it, this moment of opportunity to bump off the top leadership, and we took it. So I wonder really where, once this ends, and I kind of still think it will, because Trump really, really, really doesn't want it to continue, as we've seen, it will end, of course, with Iran having some ability to just shut the straight again. I mean, it's not going to be true. Free passage, God knows, the nuclear program, they can kick that down the road. I suppose they'll arrange to get some money to Iran through the Gulf states. All of our allies will have lost total faith in us. But I think one thing that will happen over the next several months, I wouldn't be surprised to see the administration turned against Israel. And then you really have an interesting moment. Right. For MAGA and for the Republican Party,
- [05:03]
Tom Nichols
I think I definitely agree that's possible. A couple of other ways to look at this. I don't think this is happening right now, but I think it bears mentioning that Trump and Bibi have done the good cop, bad cop thing in the past. It doesn't appear that that's what's happening now. Where Trump kind of pretended like he wanted peace and to give cover for Bibi to continue to prosecute wars. We saw this in Gaza and other places. So I don't think that's what's happening now, but it's bears mentioning. I think the one element of what happened yesterday that makes it slightly different from what we've seen for the past three months is if there are continued hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Iran, and if Trump can't contain that or can't credibly say that he wants to contain that in a negotiation, I do think that further complicates his ideal to get a final deal. I mean, Iran's. It's hard to even say what each side's terms are to end the war because the ball is moving on both sides a lot. You can't really trust anything coming out of either party. But if you take Iran's stated metrics for ending the war, one of them is tell Israel to stop attacking Lebanon. They want reparations for the finances lost, they want some element of control over the straight of Hormuz, and they want Israel to stop attacking Lebanon. And if Trump can't promise that as part of the deal, then that complicates the deal somewhat. And I do think that that's the one development from yesterday that's newish and
- [06:43]
Bill Kristol
relevant and it highlights the fact that Iran has made this a demand and it's being treated seriously as a demand. So that Trump is in fact telling Bibi, hey, lay on Hezbollah too much because it's going to screw up the the deal with Iran. But that's really amazing when you think about it. All of Israeli strategy for the last several years has been, and it's been quite successful, incidentally, in totally degrading Hezbollah and limiting that threat, obviously post October 7th, that was belated. And then attacking Iran, you know, for other reasons. One of the reasons being to weaken Iran's hold on its proxies. And that's been the and then they seem to be doing a pretty good job of that until this war. I mean, one of the 19 different bad effects of this war is that it's restored Iran's ability to have to claim control and probably to exercise some control over its proxies and make an attack on Hezbollah, an attack on Iran that was never Iran's incidentally positioned or policy in the past. They might talk to good game, but they never actually got into fights because Israel went into Lebanon or anything like that. I mean, they might do a little terrorism on the side, but the actual launching of missiles against Israel. So the extent of the damage Trump has done to US Credibility, US Foreign policy, all of our allies interests, it's a pretty astonishing achievement. You know, for one stupid I guess
- [07:56]
Tom Nichols
the last thing I've said this several times, but I kind of don't ever want this topic to go by anymore without mentioning just how humiliating and weak it is, just because it is truly unimaginable that Barack Obama would do something like this, start a war, demand unconditional surrender, and then start tweeting, please, Bibi, don't bomb. I mean, honestly, the people at Fox News could not contain themselves talking about how much he's a bicycle riding, arugula eating, you know, weak leftists. And Trump has demonstrated more weakness and less resolve than any president that we've had in modern times in this war. And I just think that continues to bear mentioning. Speaking of Trump being weak and erratic, he was on Meet the Press yesterday and could not handle the tough questions from Kristen Welker and had a temper tantrum, stormed off. I did a kind of full, you know, SportsCenter style breakdown of the tape over on the Bullock Takes feed if people want to check that out. But I was just wondering, Bill, what your kind of big picture thoughts were on the interview. And Trump goes real domestic. It's in Wisconsin, ostensibly as part of some proactive messaging about how the administration is caring about farm country and despite the fact that farm country is getting eviscerated by their policies. And so they were there by some big tractors. The rain was hitting the barn roof. And so the audio is very strange. And he ends up melting down and leaving on the topic of the 2020 election. But there's a bunch of other stuff in there too. I don't know what struck you?
- [09:28]
Bill Kristol
No, I think your coverage was excellent and people should watch that and then they can skip the interview. Not that they were going to watch it anyway. I've got to think I certainly didn't. But you see clips of it in your coverage, so that's good. The 2020 election, again, people treated a little bit too much, like, well, he's obsessed with it. It's kind of weird. He's obsessed with it because he's going to try to do it again. I do think that's why he's so both insistent on promoting the lie at every opportunity, but also very sort of sensitive about the discussion of the lie.
- [09:54]
Tom Nichols
Extremely sensitive.
- [09:55]
Bill Kristol
What do you make of that? I mean, you watched the whole show, so we didn't have to and commented on it. What is going on with him?
- [10:01]
Tom Nichols
I like to turn to George Conway for armchair psychological analysis of Trump, but since he's still in a campaign, I'll do my best to fill the role. You ever get into a fight, I'm sure this never happens to you, Bill, with your spouse, where you kind of know that you're wrong. And there's one point in which you sort of know that they, they have you, but you don't want to give in because for whatever reason, you're defensive, you're in a grumpy mood, you want to make your broader point and so kind of go over the top, you know, you lose your cool a little bit because somewhere deep down, you know, you know that they have you. I think that that's what's happening basically with Trump on this. Right. It's just like, it seems like he's talking to the press a lot, but he's not, because he's talking mostly to people that just suck up to him and they're in these very managed settings where he can just, if he does get a hard question, he just calls Kaitlan Collins ugly or whatever and then moves on to the next person. Right. That's how he behaves. So it seems like he's getting on, but he's never really getting challenged on this stuff. And Kristen really wasn't even challenging that hard. It was just she was doing the natural reporter thing, following up, saying, you don't have any evidence of this. It's relevant now in particular for a couple of reasons. One, he's making up lies about California. And two, he wants to give that slush fund to the people who are allegedly victims of his lies. And so he can't provide any actual evidence or data. And so he ends up lashing out. I think it's extremely important. I saw Charlie Gasparino of Fox News or Fox Business being like, why do we even care about this anymore? It's five years old. It's extremely relevant to the policies that he's putting forth right now, whether you want to get appointed to cabinet level positions, the slush fund, California, their plans for the midterms. And it all is related to his delusions, self delusions about 2020.
- [11:49]
Bill Kristol
One implication of what you're saying, though, is that as his popularity goes down and he gets the sense that maybe he won't be able to pull all this off, he won't be able to do it all by elections legitimately, and then he worries maybe he won't be able to pull it even off with Pulte and Blanche and all these people. Even if they get in, he gets more desperate, he gets more radicalized. I guess that's the way to say it, right? The anger would fit in with a sort of increased disregard for, I don't care what people say about it. I don't care if people can tell me it looks bad or I'm losing some swing voters. He doesn't care at this point, lashing out.
- [12:21]
Tom Nichols
And really, in my psychological analysis, it's probably less about you or me in a fight with our spouse. And it's more like a child or when I was a kid, I'm like, I changed my report card in sixth grade, which I did one time. And then I finally got called, finally got called to the mat on it.
- [12:36]
Bill Kristol
You better not run for office. That could be that big.
- [12:39]
Tom Nichols
I know, I know. The most embarrassing thing is I think I just changed a minus to A plus. Know it was something extremely embarrassing. But whatever it was, when I got caught, it's like you first before getting to acceptance and asking for apologies. It's like tantrum, you know, screaming, how could you accuse me of this? You know, and there is a little bit of that. He's like a child having a tantrum. And I do think that he will. That it will, you know, continue to get more and more alarming, you know, as. As we get closer to the end. So that's the thing to be concerned about.
- [13:09]
Bill Kristol
But the good news is, Tim, that the Republican members of Congress, they see what you see and they act according. They're going to act accordingly. They're going to put a guardrail in place and check him and not just go along because they know how dangerous it would be just to passively go along with this. Increasingly deranged and authoritarian president.
- [13:28]
Tom Nichols
Okay, well, I appreciate your optimism, Bill. Keep an eye on that. All right. Father's Day is coming up, and we're actually celebrating my dad's retirement this week, so it's a double for me. I had a little bit of writer's block on my retirement toast, but it just came to me in the shower over the weekend, and I'm very happy about that. So I don't know if hopefully Dad's not listening to this, but I'm excited about the toast. It can be hard to stay connected, though, with your father if you're living away like I am. And one thing that you can do, if you haven't already as a Father's Day gift, is Aura Frames. We gave my parents the aura frame and they love it. It's a great way to make sure they aren't missing out on any of the big moments. And they get excited every time a new picture shows up on the frame. I saw a dude out at jazz festival, young guy, who is fucking pumped about the aura frame that he had delivered to his mother on Mother's Day as a result of this very advertisement. So how's that for an endorsement? Aura Frames have free unlimited storage. You can add as many photos and videos as you want. You can preload photos before it ships and keep adding from anywhere, anytime from your phone using the free Aura app, or texting photos straight to the frame. And Aura Frames also makes it easy to personalize your gift for your father. You can add a little message before it arrives. It's named number one by Wirecutter. You can save now by visiting auraframes.com for a limited time. Listeners can get 35 bucks off select frames with code. The Bulwark. That's a U R A frames.com promo code. The Bulwark support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. One example of where Republicans in the Senate could do that. How about this for a transition is Todd Blanche is being officially put forth as the permanent Attorney General, which means I have to go through a confirmation hearing, which I expected this year for reasons we've discussed before, which is that on the one hand, you could have kept him as acting into next year, but then he's not confirmable. Basically, the options for Trump was to try to confirm him this year when they have a Senate majority that's big enough to potentially do it or gonna do a musical chair as of acting attorneys general for the rest of the term. And they seem to be going through the Formal route, which I guess is not nothing you wrote about, you know, kind of the upcoming confirmation and how Democrats should think about that. So talk about your newsletter this morning then. There are a couple other elements of it I think are worth getting into.
- [15:49]
Bill Kristol
I mean, just an obvious point, there are many lawyers and judges for that matter. Well, how many Republican lawyers in the country? And unfortunately quite a number of them are pro Trump. Some of them would even have, you know, some qualifications to be nominated as Attorney general, members of Congress, judges. Anyways, I'd be worth getting into because he's chosen one man, Todd Blanche. And what's the one most distinctive thing he's done? He organized and executed the Epstein cover up. That's his claim to fame. Right? I mean, Tom, Pam Bondi testified about 10 days ago and really explained, I mean she was partly just ducking, but she was, I think telling the truth. This was Todd's baby and he did it. And I just go through some of the things he said in the course of both executing the COVID up, of course, the famous visit to Ghislaine Maxwell and then moving her to the nicer facility to remind her that she could be, be in our interest to keep quiet about Trump and maybe better things will be coming at some point down the road. Trump hasn't ruled out a pardon there and then obviously he's been publicly out there defending Epstein or as he calls him, Mr. Epstein. I was really struck by that in the interview with Laura Ingraham where he says he makes this astonishing comment that's gotten a lot of publicity, but you get even more that it's not a crime, it isn't a crime to party with Mr. Epstein. You know, he really straight says that two or three times. He thought that was a good talking point. It was really kind of mind boggling. But Laura Ingram asked the question normal way. This isn't testifying before Congress where one gets all maybe sort of formal. Not that most Trump administration people do that, but anyway, what maybe that Todd Blanche does. I haven't looked at all the transcripts. You know, this is literally on Laura Ingram's television show. Laura Ingram says, well what about Epstein? Some pretty bad things happen at this party. Todd Blanche, it isn't a. Laura, it isn't a crime to party with Mr. Epstein. He adds the honorific. Mr. It's like really? Does he refer to, does he refer to all the, the people he's sent to, you know, he's defended sending to
- [17:40]
Tom Nichols
unjustly to El Salvador Mr. Hernandez Romero or whatever?
- [17:44]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. Do you Think he's very careful to always put the honorific in front of all men.
- [17:48]
Tom Nichols
And Mr. Abrego Garcia.
- [17:50]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, yeah. And Mr. Alex Preddy. I'm somewhat a little doubtful that he's been so careful in all these cases. But Epstein. Epstein is Mr. Epstein.
- [17:59]
Tom Nichols
Mr. Epstein.
- [17:59]
Bill Kristol
Anyway, they just need to hang Epstein around his neck ruthlessly and totally fair to do it and just make the Republican senators who want to vote, if they're going to vote to confirm Blanche, they're confirming that they approve of the Epstein cover up. They think there's no reason why anything further should have been looked at. Any of the survivors should have been taken seriously. Anyone else should have been investigated or prosecuted, really wrap it around their necks.
- [18:23]
Tom Nichols
I like the honorific point, but I think your most important observation there is about how it's prospective. Right. Is that with Mr. Blanche in charge of the Department of Justice, the Epstein cover will continue. Yeah. And I don't imagine that he has a great answer for that. Right. Like, he can, you know, do the same Gish Galop nonsense about the past and what happened and why they were delaying and why they're reviewing documents. He's good on all that. But, like, when it comes to the question of, well, are the rest of the documents going to be put forth, are there going to be additional investigations? I can't imagine he has a good answer, that he lie, I guess, and say we're looking into it or whatever. But I think it's pretty clear that if you put in the point person for the Epstein cover up at the top of the Department of Justice, the Epstein cover will continue. So I think that is an important part of his confirmation. The other part is the nomination for Attorney General is not going to be the thing that makes or breaks the Republican senators in these swing Senate states. Obviously, it's just not an issue that is that broadly of concern to the public. But it's still pretty noteworthy that you will have Hedge, Sullivan and Collins, three people who are going to claim to be moderate, claim to be middle of the road, claim to be sensible Republicans as they run for reelection in Alaska, Ohio and Maine, respectively. You would think that Trump would need at least one of them in order to get Blanche confirmed. And I haven't heard anything from any of them. I think that it puts him in a little bit of a tough political position. It's hard for you to kind of look at me with a straight face and say, Susan Collins is a moderate that needs to be defended in the Senate, if she's even open to the idea of confirming the person that orchestrated the Epstein cover up, that came up with the cockamamie slush fund that was going to pay $1.8 billion to insurrectionists, and Blanche is obviously unqualified for this job on so many levels. And I think that that will be one of several things that put somebody like Collins in a tough spot.
- [20:34]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I think, look, normally, and as you say at Attorney General, any Cabinet confirmation, really pretty hard to elevate it to the level that one could elevate it perhaps, except Epstein. That is kind of a huge, huge, huge issue. And if you can make this about Epstein, I think suddenly it maybe even dwarfs some of the other debates we're going to have. It could become the debate of the summer. Trump may get a Supreme Court nomination or two. They'll presumably be pretty well prepared for that. And the Democrats historically have not been great in dominating that debate. I think they might be better this time. But so I would just from a political point of view, don't we want to have a huge debate about Epstein all summer?
- [21:08]
Tom Nichols
Yeah. And I think that that is something that can trickle down to your point into the main Ohio, Alaska Senate race. Right. Which is Donald Trump's putting up a guy that's going to continue the Epstein cover up and Susan Collins and Dan Sullivan and John Husted, we'll see. But seem to be going along with that on the other nominations front. So Bill Pulte, who was put forth to be the acting Director of National Intelligence, absurd nomination, of course. So interesting things are happening there. We are finally seeing some minor Republican backbone on this one. And basically going along with the Democrats, they're using this FISA reauthorization as kind of like the hostage to try to prevent Bill Pulte from becoming dni, saying that they won't reauthorize FISA if Polti is in there. I think that's interesting. Does Trump actually care about that that much? Unclear. But we have an example of something that I know you've been arguing about for a lot over the last year and a half, which is Democrats are the minority and also a handful of Republicans actually using the levers of power they have to try to limit Trump from his worst instincts, impulses.
- [22:24]
Bill Kristol
The Democrats who are ranking on the two committees in the House and the Senate Intelligence Committee said kind of signed off on a deal on section 702 on the FISA eavesdropping and how it affects Americans.
- [22:35]
Tom Nichols
Who's at the times in the House. Right. Who's in the Senate. Yeah.
- [22:37]
Bill Kristol
And Mark Warner in the Senate. So Himes was sort of hesitant to sort of. He thinks it's an important program which presumably knows a lot about. And maybe he's right. Probably right. Still, he was hesitant to sort of say no with Pulte there. I'm not willing to necessarily not reauthorize 702. I believe he finally, on Friday, he sort of came around on that. And I think it's pretty obvious that you cannot have this guy Pulte running ODNI with everything that we've already seen Tulsi Gabbard do in terms of election interference. Foreign election interference is the excuse for the national intelligence world to get involved in our elections. And Tulsi Gabbard already has tried to use that to get involved in Fulton, Georgia. We now see Trump's eagerly charging fraud in California. I mean, why won't the next thing be if Pulte's in there the two weeks from now? Oh, got some interesting intelligence findings here about monkeying around with the vote in California. I mean, it's very dangerous. 26 is infinitely more dangerous for 28. Obviously Warner has been a little more hesitant than Himes, but he seems, he loves that. You know, he's worked well with Tom Cotton. I just heard him say that on something recently. I know. And he's proud of some of the reforms they've added to the 702 program. I can't judge if they're serious or not, but. So I'd say there's still a little bit of reluctance to play real hardball here. But this isn't hardball. I mean, this is honestly, this guy's so mind bogglingly unqualified. And this doesn't require a huge big reversal by Republicans in Congress. It doesn't require a policy change that Republicans don't like. It requires Trump literally just not appointing Pulte to be the Acting Director of National Intelligence, a job that he's adding to Pulte's other jobs. It's so ludicrous. Anyway, no one's even saying that he has to fire Pulte from the housing job, though he should be fired from that too, for what he's done. No one's saying that he has to put in someone we like a lot, National Intelligence just withdraw it. So I think they should really make that case more, more energetically. Honestly. Trump can solve this problem in one
- [24:28]
Tom Nichols
minute by getting rid of Palti.
- [24:30]
Bill Kristol
You mean by just withdrawing his appointment or his planned appointment to be Acting director doesn't require going to Congress. It doesn't require removing him from something he's been doing. He hasn't begun yet. Right. This is a very easy one to fix.
- [24:43]
Tom Nichols
But why would Trump do that? Right. I guess to my end, I think Trump obviously seems more interested in having Bill Pulte in there at dni, creating problems for his enemies. And he cares about FISA or the particulars of protecting the country. Trump doesn't give a fuck about protecting the country.
- [24:56]
Bill Kristol
Totally. No, no, no, Totally. I just think it's a. Democrats can make just the point. You just.
- [25:00]
Tom Nichols
Oh, it's a good message. Yeah. It's kind of the Mark Warner thing. Mark Warner seems like a good person, fine person. Nothing against him in particular. But it is funny from a political standpoint. He's up this year. It's like, it's kind of funny that there's sometimes this scuttlebutt that you hear about how the Democrats are having their Tea Party moment and the Democrats are following the Republicans down the extremist path, and it's like Mark Warner didn't even have a primary. I don't know. I'm a middle of the road person and I might have been interested in a Mark Warner primary. I don't know exactly what it would have looked like, but just, you know, a little creative destruction, getting some more ideas in there, maybe pressuring a minimum, pressuring him to be a little tougher and less willing to talk about how great his partner is, Tom Cotton on Intelligence Committee actions. I don't, I don't really believe that Tom Cotton is that great of a partner. Sorry. But here we are, Mark Warner kind of moseying on towards reelection as if we aren't in a national crisis. Something pretty great happened for me on Sunday. I slept in. I slept in. I didn't go out on Saturday night. Was not hungover. I didn't have to wake up in podcast. I didn't get waken up by my daughter for some reason. And I looked at the clock when I rolled over. I was like, damn, 848. That is a treat. And we might have to give at least some of the credit, maybe all the credit to our friends at Helix. My Helix mattress is helping me work on my sleep habits. It keeps me cool and comfortable. Plenty of support and also a little firm. Firm mattress is what I'm looking for. No waking up with the random aches and pains that you get from sleeping on the uncomfortable mattress. Plus, Helix makes it easy to upgrade your setup. They deliver your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the US they got 120 night sleep, trial and warranty. With the happy Helix guarantee, you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. Go to helixsleep.com thebullwerk for 20% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com the bulwark for 20% off site wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. It's helixsleep.com the bulwark. Okay. The Department of War is led by Pete Hegseth, a weekend talk show co host. And he, to our great embarrassment, was giving a speech honoring the anniversary of D Day in France. And the speech just, overall was just nauseating. But there was one particular clip that got a lot of tension that I want to play for you.
- [27:36]
Bill Kristol
Their legacy demands far more than quiet reflection. It requires our active vigilance.
- [27:44]
Tom Nichols
Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed
- [27:49]
Bill Kristol
by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, in Italy, Greece and
- [27:57]
Tom Nichols
Bulgaria, boats and men arrive.
- [28:02]
Bill Kristol
When will European capitals do something about that invasion?
- [28:08]
Tom Nichols
A lot of issues there. For starters, in that metaphor, he's the Nazis. I just think that's an important thing to bring up. Famously on D Day, it was, you know, the Allies, the Americans that were storming the beaches that were, you know, trying to ensure that the European capitals were protected from the internal fascists. And so in this metaphor, I guess he's talking about how he wants to defend the capitals from the invaders, which again would have put him on the side of being the Nazis. So that's maybe a miss on the metaphor. On top of that, this whole thing is just, it's so insane where they're at, where he thinks that the parallel is immigration and that immigration is the apt comparison to what happened in World War II and not Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia's menacing of Europe. Because he's got nothing to say about that, because he doesn't think that, that Americans should be involved in that. He doesn't think that Americans should be helping to defend European capitals from fascist invasions. He only wants to wave his finger at the Europeans and say, let in fewer brown people. That's basically his lesson of D Day and the brave men storming the beaches of Normandy. He thinks that the lesson today that we could have learned from them is we should be harsher about the brown immigrants.
- [29:26]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, some number of those people storming the beaches on D Day with the suns. And grandsons and great grandsons, obviously, of immigrants. Quite a lot of. Quite a high percentage, I would expect. So, yeah, who came here for the same reasons a lot of those migrants are coming to Europe now. That doesn't mean that they should let. Maybe they've made some mistakes in immigration policy. Yeah, it's such an unbelievably inappropriate metaphor comparing them to the Nazis.
- [29:47]
Tom Nichols
Right.
- [29:48]
Bill Kristol
As you say. Plus the reversal of who's storming the beaches and who's not and all this. But I mean, it's really, really kind of grotesque, just embarrassing. Mark Hertling, our colleagues, when he was still in active duty, when he was a general, lieutenant general, gave the speech maybe 11, 12 years ago, I think shortly before he left, retired at this ceremony. It's an annual ceremony, obviously. And he was, I was in touch with him over the weekend. He was so personally just offended and appalled that this could be happening. This is, you know, such an important ceremonial occasion, a moving one. Usually the veteran, the old, old veterans are there, the locals in France, but other Europeans as well take D Day seriously. They put flowers on the graves. The American soldiers buried in the famous cemetery in Normandy, but also in other cemeteries in France and Holland and Germany. Actually, to use it as an occasion for this is so gross, really.
- [30:41]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, it's depressing, honestly. Yeah, it's gross and depressing. It's just like to have this buffoon, you know, giving this kind of like, it's not even a high class version of the conservative worldview and it's like a tabloid weekend Fox News version of what the argument would be. And it's really, it's really shameful. This is where we're at.
- [31:09]
Bill Kristol
It is striking how much I talked to Tom Joslyn about this in the Sunday Bulwark show yesterday and I don't fully understand. I guess I underestimate it a little bit. There's a lot of kooky things and Trumpism, a lot of things that I don't like and are deplorable. And there's a lot of just garden variety racism and bigotry and nativism and all this. But the degree to which the great replacement theory and the re migration agenda is really at the heart of it, I think I sort of underestimated that. There's so many others, so many other things that are very unpleasant to say the least. But he could have done much more of an America first foreign policy type. He could have had some fake. I don't know what the analogy would be. We have to be strong and tough in Department of War and weakness doesn't work. But event right to the re migration agenda. I don't know. Are you A little surprised how central that's all become in the second term. I guess it was central in the first term too.
- [32:01]
Tom Nichols
But I mean, it's tied to the original Trump escalator speech of the invasion of America in this way. It's just like Father Coughlin stuff all over again. And it's just a sense that the real threat is that, you know, these third Worldists or whatever are, you know, invading our, you know, pristine Western civilization. And, you know, none of them actually go to Europe either. This is like the other thing. Like, it's just, it really. I mean, truly, they take the worst examples. Kathy Young wrote about this in the morning shots this morning, actually. There is this horrible story in London, you know, of a Brit that gets killed by a migrant, and there's a misunderstanding. The police come and the migrant that killed them had actually called the police. And so the police didn't know who the, who the perpetrator was and who the victim was. And they obviously fucked it up. But they, they turned it into this big, you know, sort of example of why, of how immigration is killing London. That's just like, they've never been to London. They don't talk to anyone. They don't go to. I was in Manchester last summer. I was. I'm telling you, Manchester is not. There's not a migrant invasion happening in Manchester. It was. It felt very Brit. I think, though, that their worldview depends on this. Right. The real threat is from this other. And if you centralize that, then you don't have to feel so guilty about being on the side of Russia and Ukraine, for example, or some of the other ways in which they've departed from more classical Reagan. That's right. Conservative ideology. Right.
- [33:42]
Bill Kristol
And then they could be on the side of all the neo Nazis and nativist parties in Europe, which obviously have gained ground in many places. And so that also could be one last thing about D Day. Just, I was struck by this. So Trump, this was Saturday, right, June 6, and I was looking around on Twitter or whatever, and blue sky and all that, and Trump seemed not to have posted anything yet about D Day. Seemed a little odd for the American president. So I sort of double checked as much as I could, true social and all, and he seemed not to. So I just, just pointed that out and that Zelensky had made a very moving statement about what D Day meant. Trump had said nothing. But I kind of figured since, you know, 50,000 other people had made the same point by the time I made it, I believe on social media and elsewhere I figured, you know, someone in the White House would fake, you know, would write some vaguely appropriate or even inappropriate thing for Trump to say about D Day, you know, so he could sort of be on, avoid that criticism. And he never did. You know, he posted about a whole bunch of other things. He had a lot of insane AI photos and went on about that kind of stuff. The Arch, he loves the Arch and it's going to be great. But he didn't say anything about D Day, which is somehow very revealing.
- [34:44]
Tom Nichols
Well, he thinks that they're suckers and losers, you know.
- [34:46]
Bill Kristol
Well, he thinks they're suckers and losers. And the megalomania, the degree to which it's now all and entirely about him. There's no sense that there's like American history, other generation, things that happened in the past generations we should look back to with gratitude. It is so. Become so narcissistic and solipsistic that he can't even bring himself to go to the trouble of shouting at one of his aides, write three sentences about D Day and post it.
- [35:10]
Tom Nichols
You mentioned the Arch there. You're mad about the arch. That's interesting. I am. I want to sort of stoke your anger because it's hard to be mad about everything now and certain things happen that pique my anger and listeners can tell when that happens. And for some reason, for you, it's the arch. So I want you to try to get my dander up about the arch, because it's one thing I don't like it, but it's just I'm not feeling it in my core. So I want you to make the pitch to me about why should we matter about the Arch?
- [35:35]
Bill Kristol
I mean, you know, Washington, but. So we live in Northern Virginia. There are like three bridges, basically, you drive across four, maybe to Washington, and one is the Memorial Bridge, which has Arlington Cemetery on the Virginia side, and basically the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall and the Lincoln Memorial on the other on the D.C. side. And it's a wonderful vista coming either way. And so I, you know, do that fairly often. And the arch is supposed to go up smack in the middle of this as a little plot of land. So it's just a circle that it would, would take up all of, totally dominate. The height is unbelievable. 250ft. I mean, people just haven't sort of maybe quite internalized how much it would loom over everything, but especially loom over Arlington. So for me, that's really disgusting in a way that I gotta say just. And again, this isn't rational, really. Perhaps the White House stuff is terrible. Believe me, I'm not, you know, the. The ballroom, the cage match, but I don't know. I think it's the White House, you know, it can be fixed by the next occupant. He's living there, so I guess, you know, he's got. I don't. He does not entitle to ruin the place, but it's sort of more underst. Understandable that he's doing so. But the arch is not. That's like, not on his grounds. You know what I mean? That's like actually sort of in between, sort of between Virginia and D.C. right outside Arlington. I come back to Arlington. So I. I guess it just moves me. And what does it mean? What is it a symbol of? It's a symbol of imperial triumphalism. The French put it up and they really didn't do too well in the subsequent wars they were fighting. Maybe it's a bit of a, you know, irony of history kind of situation, but anyway. But what has he done? What have we done, to be totally honest, in very recent years, to put up the arch. We should put up a tribute to the Ukrainians, not some fake triumphalist arch.
- [37:12]
Tom Nichols
You're getting my dander up a little bit. It's coming. It's coming slowly but surely. I've walked across that bridge a bunch. My senior year college apartment was just kind of right on the other side of the Memorial Bridge there. So I went down there a lot. Might have smoked a bowl on the bridge one time. That's memorable. I want to mention, since we have Hagseth really quick. The Mormons are mad. And I mostly just want to mention this in the spirit of like, you know, first they came from the trans. And I said nothing for Mike Lee and the Mormons. Hagseth winnowed the Pentagon's list of recognized faith codes from over 200. Just 31 LDs was still listed, but it was moved out of the section for the Christian faith. For example, the list says Christian Seventh Day Adventist but not Christian Church of the Latter Day Saints. Mike Lee tweeted angrily about this repeatedly over the weekend. At about midnight last night, he tweeted, I just got off the phone with Trump. We discussed the Pentagon's Christian list. I won't speak for him, but I'm thrilled where this is heading. We're the most fortunate that Trump loves us and stay tuned. So I just wonder what the Mormons thought was going to happen when they put the Christian nationalists in charge of the Department of War. But Anyway, and you know, I'm not
- [38:24]
Bill Kristol
an expert on this, but in real Hegsethian, Christian nationalist supremacist circles, they don't like the Mormon. I mean, we know this if you.
- [38:33]
Tom Nichols
Right.
- [38:33]
Bill Kristol
Obviously this was an issue in the rowdy campaign. It kind of popped up a couple times. They quickly suppressed it, you know, but yeah, they don't think. They think the Mormons are a cult and not legitimately Christian and so forth. And so this is someone, I guess, who was running this in Hegseth world was more of that was from that part of the Christian nationalist world and took out his animosity to the Mormons. Yeah, they are a big group and an important group and a very impressive group of Americans. And so it's probably a mistake. And they have senators, so they dominate a state, Utah, Mormon senators. They're not the only Mormon senators. And so they're probably a mistake to pick that fight. But I and Trump couldn't care less either way, obviously. So it's like, does 2 Corinthians say something about the Mormons?
- [39:16]
Tom Nichols
I don't know. I mean, Trump's in his head is just like, like, I mean, you guys are gotta be kidding me about this. Like, we're gonna fight about your imaginary, you know, sky Jesus. Whatever you guys want, I don't care. Summer is in full swing here in Nola and that impacts how I get dressed. It's hot. It's getting hot out there. You need pieces that feel lighter and more breathable to deal with the summer heat. And that's why I keep coming back to Quints. They focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Think breathable linen and soft organic cotton. Well made basics, but without the luxury markup. Quint's European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather. Upgrade your rotation, starting at just 34 bucks. Their tees are soft and easy to wear and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. For the rest of y', all, we don't. We have hot summer nights here, which is just. I love it. I love it. Everything at quints is priced 50 to 80% less than their similar brands. If you go check out the video of my breakdown of the Kristen Welker Trump interview. I was in kind of a casual Sunday shirt. It's a little button up, light and breathable. Got a lot of compliments for it. Wasn't one of those expensive designers from Europe where you got to pay the tariffs? No, it was Quint's baby. It was Quint's it's looking good. I was looking designer. You guys were complimenting me. I also like my Quince linen button down. Wore that on the plane the other day. The planes get a little chilly sometimes, so you want a long sleeve shirt. But then you get outside New Orleans and it's hot. The linen shirt is a nice combo for that. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com the Bulwark for free shipping on your order. And 365 day returns now available in Canada, too. That's Q U-I-N-C-E.com the Bulwark for free Shipping 365 day returns quince.com the Bulwark I don't move to Scott Pelley did an interview with the Times over the weekend. And speaking of getting your dandruff, and I think the thing that struck me the most about it was just how emotional he is. He is extremely upset about what is happening in CBS, what's happening in 60 minutes. And you could tell during the interview that this was raw, this was not a calculated career move or something. And there's one section in particular I want to play where he was discussing using the honorific Ms. Weiss and the manner in which she intervened with 60 Minutes around their story on Renee Good. Let's listen to that. Barry Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the quote, but that's what was communicated to me. And the other thing was Renee Goode's car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer. We have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had. We had already scrubbed the video archives looking for those scenes, but it somehow wasn't enough for Ms. Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasn't standing in front of the car and she wasn't driving toward him. But that's what the president said about that and that's the way she wanted it described. That's pretty striking. And concerning, just how blunt is that? Barry Weiss came in and said after agents of the state killed Renee Good, she was demanding that the 60 minute story reflect the point of view of the killer and of the president as much as possible.
- [43:07]
Bill Kristol
Two little things just struck me that she directly intervened. I mean, presumably when people want to put their thumb on the scale, it's happened, God knows in life. I mean, they do it through intermediaries they have little deniability. She didn't care about deniability. Maybe she didn't want deniability. Maybe she was fine, but she wanted to be able to tell the White House, hey, I fixed. Look, this thing was much better. Came out better than you would have thought. They wanted to make it all the ICE agents fault for murdering Renee Goode. So that part strikes me. I mean, does she even mind this coming out? I mean, she probably doesn't like it, but they certainly went out of the way not to pacify anyone at 60 minutes, right?
- [43:41]
Tom Nichols
Not publicly. And I guess they had a private meeting with Bill Whitaker, which was terrible. I mean, subsequently.
- [43:47]
Bill Kristol
With Whitaker. With Whitaker, yeah. Maybe they want to keep some of. But, you know, she and her bosses at Paramount, I don't really understand the corporate structures anymore. But whichever bosses she has who want the merger approval and for either past mergers or future mergers, they want Trump to know that she and they are on his side. Right. In the old days, they would do these things under the COVID of darkness. If you're going to distort the news a little bit, they want Trump to know, which is another step down the authoritarian path.
- [44:15]
Tom Nichols
And this is why Nick Bilton couldn't answer the question when Pelli was asking him at that original meeting that leaked about why they had fired the previous executive producers and the heads of the show. This is why it was so important for Bari Weiss to get somebody that was her choice in charge of the show, that they couldn't do what they had done traditionally, which is promote the person internally that had been the best story producer. That's how 60 Minutes worked. They would promote from within. They'd find somebody that understood the program and that had demonstrated skill and leadership at shepherding various stories to the tv. Instead, she has to bring in some outside guy. And it's like, why? Well, well, it's for this. So she doesn't have to send an email to somebody she doesn't know saying, hey, can you make sure the story reflects the lie that the President told, that Renee Goode was aiming her car at the officer when all video shows that she was doing the opposite. Now she can just communicate that to Nick Bilton and have him try to do it. So we'll see how it continues to go. Look, everyone needs to do what's right for them. I understand the reason Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker said that they want to stay. I think that they probably are rightly worried that had they quit, it's over. Like, 60 Minutes is basically dead. And maybe by having them around, you can kind of shepherd this thing and muddle through into something different in the future. But it seems to me like the writing's on the wall.
- [45:47]
Bill Kristol
I guess I was just thinking we discussed Bill Pulte earlier. I guess Bari Wise is the Bill Pulte of CBS News, right? I mean, she's utterly unqualified. She'd never run anything big. And with all due respect to the Free press, certainly not a TV newsroom, certainly not a TV news organization, she comes, takes over and immediately starts butting right into on Trump's behalf, which is exactly what Bill Pulte is going to do with national intelligence. I mean, the authoritarian stuff happens within government and of course it happens within other organizations that they want to corrupt and shape.
- [46:16]
Tom Nichols
That takes us to the LA mayor's race. With all due respect to the free Press, Matt Iglesias shared this screenshot this morning of their coverage of that race. Race. I'm just going to read for you a couple of headlines. Heidi Montag, Spencer Pratt's wife, is already LA's first lady. The revenge of the California Republicans Inside Spencer Pratt's viral video machine. Will Spencer Saka La Basura? Will LA's Latinos back Pratt. Pratt. Daddy's revenge. Everything is reality TV and Spencer Pratt knows it. It goes on the very obsequious fangirlish, even coverage of Spencer Pratt's mayoral campaign for the Free Press and a bunch of other center right folks on social media bragging about how great of a campaign he ran. It turns out as the count continues to trickle in six days later, that he will not even make the runoff. He's been passed by Nithya Raman, a more of a. It's kind of hard to frame her ideologically because in some ways she's left of Bass. But she also has been trying to move aligned with the YIMBY crowd, which you would maybe say is more to the middle of Bass. But she now appears certain to enter the runoff with Bass. Pratt, it looks like, will get a smaller percentage of the vote than Trump did in Los Angeles. Which goes to tell you that the whole buzz about this campaign, it was just this bubble. It's just a total online bubble of a certain type of person that was excited about this. A lot of people that don't live in LA that liked his videos and you know, those videos can do well on X. But like that is not a substitute for an actual campaign. I don't know if you have any thoughts on Spencer Pran.
- [47:56]
Bill Kristol
No, it's a Good sign if the right. If the MAGA world is being deceived by their own bubble. I mean, it's a big, somewhat correct indictment of the left that it lives in a bubble and blah, blah, blah. And they didn't understand Middle America. Got to go to a diner. Maybe they should go to some diners in LA and talk to actual people who live there.
- [48:11]
Tom Nichols
I don't know, maybe the MAGA media should go to some diners in LA or, I don't know, maybe a taqueria.
- [48:20]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, not diners taqueria or cute little vegan cafes or whatever.
- [48:27]
Tom Nichols
Smoothie shop. I want to talk about the conspiracy theories which now are proliferating online. And by proliferating, I mean, obviously the President himself shared conspiracy theories about this LA mayor's race. I've seen it from Megyn Kelly, I saw it from Wilt Chamberlain, who I've debated on the Piers Morgan show. It's. It's really widespread. The Federalist, Megan McCain, Meghan McCain, even shared a potential conspiracy theory about the LA mayor's race. And if you have friends in your life that are sharing conspiracy theories about the count in the LA mayor's race, I just would like to offer you an easy rebuttal to send them. It's important just to start from the baseline here, that 15% of people in LA are Republicans. 15%. And so perhaps Pat did not even run a campaign to try to appeal to those who are not Republicans. He did AI videos that were very withering, making fun of Democrats, and those are very popular among Republicans who live in other places online, understandably. But that is not how you appeal to a city that is 60% Democrat and the rest of the independent, 25% independent. And so you had all these people online, all these Republicans from other states say, like Spencer Pratt is running this amazing campaign. It's like, well, he's running an amazing campaign to appeal to you. Like MAGA Republican that lives in Orlando, or like Republican commentator that goes on Fox News and lives in New York. He's running. No wonder you like it. He's appealing to you. But he did not run a good campaign. Appealing to Democrats that live in la, it's possible that you could reach them. I think that there's some unhappiness with the Democratic governance there. But the way to appeal to them is not to run a MAGA campaign. And so the reality is that Pratt had zero chance to win. Even had he made the runoff, there was no path to getting a majority of the vote running a MAGA campaign. In la. And so the whole conspiracy theory rests on this notion that Karen Bass wanted to prevent Spencer Pratt from getting into the runoff, which is like the opposite of true. Now Karen Bass is in a real danger, like the incumbent LA mayor who I assume, I guess nobody ever says who is doing the election thieving, but I would assume it would be the incumbent mayor who would have some control over the election process and for whom the people that run the elections work for. Why would she want to rig the system to get a more formidable challenger in the runoff? Now, I think it's a decent chance that Karen Bass loses. And we've now been through this system a million times. I mean, literally in la, we went through this, whatever that was four years ago where Rick Caruso was winning on election day against Karen Bass and the mail came in and Karen Bass won. Like, if you tell voters that that mail in ballot is fraudulent and you shouldn't use it like the MAGA Republicans do, then it shouldn't be a surprise that your voters don't use the mail mail and that progressive voters do. And if the mail ballots get counted later, it won't be surprised that the more progressive candidate will do well in the later counts. This is very easy to understand, it's very easy to explain. There's no conspiracy. And yet ostensibly reasonable people who've worked in politics for years, whose parents were senators, have decided that they think that this is a big conspiracy. And yet the conspiracy makes no sense.
- [51:53]
Bill Kristol
And the Democrats in this case held their, I think the disproportionate between the early vote and the later mail in vote, and the majority of the vote in California is mail in, I believe could be a large majority that was disproportionately accentuated by the fact that Democrats were holding back on the California gubernatorial vote. But it's the same, it's the same ballot as the mayor because they wanted to see which of the Democrats were going to emerge so they could make sure that you didn't get a Republican Republican primary. Right. So it was like, first of all, there was Falwell and then there was a question about who is. So it's. Yeah, looks like more of a disproportion, but it's perfectly understandable. Plus the normal disproportion that you mentioned between Republicans voting earlier, partly thanks to Trump and Democrats voting later. Yeah, Anyway. But there's literally no evidence then, no one whatever. They. Maybe they should count the ballots faster. Maybe you don't like mail in voting generally and you think they should vote more on fine. That's a policy issue. Say different states run differently. There's literally no charge of fraud here. I'm not even like a fake, fake charge that we had in some of these other areas where some, I don't know, one box got mixed up for 10 minutes and it looked funny when they moved it somewhere. Whatever their charges were in other states in 2020 or whatever.
- [53:00]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, the bamboo ballots or whatever voting machines, there's nothing. They have nothing. It's just like, it looks fishy. It's like it doesn't look fishy, actually. It looks exactly like what you would have expected, what I would have predicted would have happened beforehand and what election watchers would have predicted beforehand. And there is also no motive. If you're going to say that there's election fraud. What would be the motive of Karen Bas Ass to have to run against a more formidable Democratic challenger? It doesn't make any sense at all anyway. The whole thing is idiotic.
- [53:30]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway now through June 23rd. Shop for you. Save days and get great savings on all your favorite personal care Essentials and earn 4 times points. Shop in store or online and save on items like head and shoulder shampoo, Pantene Shampoo, Tresemme Conditioner, l' Oreal Hair Dye, Tresemme Hairspray and Aussie Miracle Curls and earn four times points to use for future savings on groceries or gas. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [54:01]
Tom Nichols
We covered this pretty much at length last Monday, but we do have the main primary tomorrow. Do you have any updated platter thoughts or should I move on to the other Senate races?
- [54:11]
Bill Kristol
No, I would. I guess it's a rank choice voting and I personally, if anyone cares, since a couple people ask me, I would vote for Mills and for Costello and rank them and not rank Platner. And hopefully that 51% of Mainers maybe decided to think better of Platt or whatever, even if they like him and respect him, that maybe it's a little risky just nominating him on the entire US Senate is at stake here, conceivably. But no one really cares about my opinion about who they should rank in the Democratic primary in Maine.
- [54:38]
Tom Nichols
I suppose I don't think they do either. And my other thing I would say about this is Maine is not California and Graham Platner has been campaigning a lot throughout Maine, Maine. And so the people of Maine have got the chance to meet him. They know Him. There have been plenty of examples of quotes you see of people and Alex Seitzwalds, who is a guy I used to know as a national reporter who moved to Maine to edit a local paper. And he's like, I hear from people that say everybody is two degrees of separation. From Platner, I heard the stories about him. I was for him. And I knew things before the New York Times even wrote anything. I think that there's that element there that, that a lot of this stuff is baked in. And Maine voters like his message, and that's democracy. I continue to share the concern that there's little risk, I don't know, that Maine voters maybe know everything. So it remains to be seen. But anyway, that election is tomorrow. Iowa. I had Josh Turek on Times of Flat Circle. Was that last week, the day after his primary win? I think it was last week. We have a pull out this morning that shows the Iowa race tied, I should say. This is an internal DSCC poll. So this is one of those things where DSCC is the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Having been in this boat as a press secretary, it's like, if you people oftentimes say that the internal polls are, like, rigged to make your candidate look better, that's not what's happening internally. You want to know what the truth is, but you just don't tell reporters if it's bad. You do tell them if it's good. So if there's like a margin of error and you've gotten three poll, you do a poll every week, and two weeks you're down five. And then one week it shows you tied. Then you're like, you show the reporters, hey, we're tied, right? So I. I don't know that this means that the race is actually tied, but it does show Ashley Hinson underwater. The Republican shows Turk up big with independence. I think that's encouraging to me. Iowa is the. The battleground. I said this to Luke Wrestler when he was on last week. I was like, when his dad did the. Florida, Florida, Florida. I'm Iowa, Iowa, Iowa in November. Rob sand, they just announced this morning. I think astutely, he chose his lieutenant governor candidate, a guy named Dave Mohlbauer. I know nothing about this person except for that he is a farmer from Crawford County, Iowa, which is real rural. I've been to Crawford County. That's not fake rural. It's not like Des Moines exurbs. That's out there in farmland, northeast Iowa. And he's got a cowboy hat on in his picture. It seems like the aesthetic choice there of who they're trying to appeal to is pretty obvious. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on Turek or what's happening in Holiday the Iowa No, I think
- [57:12]
Bill Kristol
I do think the farm economy stuff is very real and everyone I talk to from there who has business there or who's visited there says that. So yeah, it feels like. Don't you think Iowa, Alaska and Ohio are really, I don't know, close to toss ups at this point? I think. And those are, those are the.
- [57:29]
Tom Nichols
I think Alaska and Ohio are toss ups. I think Iowa. I would have leaned towards the Republican in the Senate, Ashley Hinson and the Democrat in the governor's race. I know that there's going to be skepticism. I've heard some from one listener in particular about the idea that ballot splitting still happens. And I just think that on the Marge, there's enough Governors races and Senate races are different. There is a psychological barrier. If you are yourself, I am a Republican. I've always been a Republican. I don't really love Trump that much. If you're that type of person in Iowa, then you're like, we really need a new state government. The state government has not been serving us well. And the Republicans nominated a guy from Kansas who's a total clown, who is an investor in a Cochrane company, fermtech. I don't know if you know about cockerings, Bill.
- [58:17]
Bill Kristol
Just what I've read online a little bit. I haven't read too much. I haven't read too much. I don't really want to know, but go ahead and tell.
- [58:22]
Tom Nichols
Please shout out to our friends at Firm Tech when they were mentioned last week I received a free sample which I've not tried yet, so I can't give an endorsement, but I appreciate them. The Republicans nominee for governor and conquering investor lives in Kansas. Just absolute absurd choice to be governor of the state. No career political operative that he marries a rich person is just a Nepo baby that is totally out of step. So back to my point. You can imagine the Republican in Iowa looking at that race and being like, this is crazy. Rob Sands seems like a middle of the road guy. And then struggling to also pull D in the Senate race. You know, I can imagine that. And so I do think that there's a little bit of an additional barrier for Turek. I think it's doable though, for sure.
- [59:12]
Bill Kristol
Democrats have won governorship in Trump time, recent times. Trump times and obviously in Kentucky and Kansas, actually a couple other states that are. I'M now black now for a second. Whereas the Senate races, which get our federal races do become referendum on the parties as a whole. You know, Trump's weak enough that that could hurt. Hurt in a couple of cases, I do think. Now, finally, and again, if the Republican senators have to vote to confirm the organizer of the Epstein cover up, that wouldn't hurt either to make the federal race less lopsided. But Trump carried 25 states three times. All of them now have two Republican senators. That is those, they have 50 Republican senators in those 25 states. So at the federal level, the ability to withstand the fact that I just don't really want Elizabeth Warren running the Senate. I mean, whatever they're going to tell themselves has been more powerful at the state level level, there's more reality. This Republican governor screwed up. We're going to put in a Democrat, you know, and so I do, yeah, intrinsically it's easier to win the state and local level race for that matter, than the federal race. But this might be different with Trump not at the top of the ticket. With Trump in his second term as president though, and him if he's at 38, 37%, I come back to the single best thing you can do if you don't live in one of these states and don't control, can't affect the campaign tactics or whatever and Persona of these candidates is to knock Trump's numbers down. I mean, it just makes a huge difference at these federal races of Trump's at 36 or 39 or even in these states it'll be higher because these are Republican states, but makes a huge difference if he's at 44, 45 instead of 50. I mean, that's.
- [60:44]
Tom Nichols
Yeah. And I think that's where he is in Iowa right now, 44. And I think that puts Rob sand in a good place. And he's got to get down closer to 40 for Turk to be there. But that's very possible. Doesn't seem like things are getting better economically in farm country. All right, we've gone along. Bill said we had a lot of topics today and he didn't even know we were going to talk about cockerings and said it was going to maybe be three hours and it's only been an hour. But I do we do want to just briefly discuss the NBA playoffs in part because it's overlapped with politics, because Donald Trump is doing his best to salt the vibes for the New York knicks. We've won 13 straight games. It's just been a truly unbelievable Run and they go home to Madison Square Garden. Tonight has not been a finals game of Madison Square Garden. And I'm going from memory like 20 some odd years. 30. 30, yeah.
- [61:30]
Bill Kristol
1999. 1999, I think.
- [61:32]
Tom Nichols
So that would be what, 27 years. And Trump is going to go to game three, which is annoying. You know, making the finals about yourself. For starters, Obama was a legitimate basketball fan, did not go to NBA finals games when he was president. In part because he's president thing, in part because it creates a huge issue where for example, the Knicks have had to cancel the like street parties, watch parties outside the stadium. You can't get in. And this is the hottest ticket in the history of sports. Like you can't get into the stadium for less than $5,000. That's like the worst seat in the stadium is $5,000. So if you're a regular New Yorker, you know, from Queens and wanted to go down and be there and experience that what they had been doing was outside the stadium, they would play the game on, on the big screens outside Madison Square Garden. Then you'd have a kind of a watch party vibe. They've canceled that because that makes it unsafe for Donald Trump which is you know, really kind of the turd of the punch bowl here on what should be a massive party for New York and for the Knicks. And to me, I feel like it might be a jinx, might be a hex. I think he might be a hex. And the 13 game winning streak, it's something to keep an eye on whether Trump hexes the 13 game winning streak tonight. But it's been an awesome Finals. I felt very bad. I don't. Did you watch game two, Bill? No, I felt very bad for Wemby. It was tie game and Wemby, the star of the spurs, like had they had the ball, the chance to win and he just threw it off the his teammates back. It was really sad. I was watching with my daughter and she was like, I feel sad for Wemby. I think that's good. But anyway, Bill, as a New Yorker yourself, do you have any, any takes?
- [63:15]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. And then Wemby missed a bakeable shot.
- [63:16]
Tom Nichols
Right.
- [63:17]
Bill Kristol
Got the ball back at the buzzer. Yeah, it's been an amazing run for the Knicks. I mean Trump going is really just. I don't even recall him being a basketball fan particularly. I've been sort of a Knicks fan. Not as much these days as, I mean I'm not as much follower of NBA basketball the way you do. I don't recall Trump showing up in Knicks games the way a lot of people have for years. And even though they've had some rough stretches here in the last 20, 30
- [63:39]
Tom Nichols
years, it's not a Ben Stiller, you know, who is there in the hard times and the good times.
- [63:42]
Bill Kristol
Exactly right. No, and so. Yeah, well, that's true. I mean, so it really is just. He's just gonna. Yeah. The city, really. I was struck. I had happened to see a couple people from New York this weekend who aren't huge basketball fans and one is, but two aren't. And, and, and, and they said it's really amazing. It's. Everyone's talking about in the city, everyone loves it there. Everyone's reading up on all the stories about the individual players and they have. These Knicks are likes. The last time the Knicks won so believable was 73, which was. Were teams. They were teamwork teams, you know, and, and they had some stars. But actually what was most amazing was they're working together and this team is like that. But everyone sort of internalized that. There's a lot of good mood and goodwill, I'd say about it. I watched some of the clips of the press, you know, thing they do, you know, during the playoffs yesterday with all kinds of celebrities sort of fat. My friend Fat Joe was there, you know, and joking around with Coach Brown and with the players. I mean, it was. It's really the city, I think, is feeling in a very upbeat mood and Trump's going to show up, make everyone wait two hours to get into the Garden or get there two hours early, kill the, you know, the watch parties outside, get booed. I suppose when he shows up and make it about himself, I mean, really is terrible. I hope he. I don't quite know what hope. I don't quite know what to hope. I hope he actually hope he pays a political price for it. I don't know how that could happen, really. He's not going to win New York anyway. Maybe, maybe there'll be some indirect annoyance from people. I don't think he'll be well received, do you think? I don't feel like NBA fans. That's true.
- [65:08]
Tom Nichols
I don't know. And it will be the rich Knicks fans who can afford the game, but I don't think so. I don't think so. So on the other hand, though, I mean, I had to experience this. Trump showed up to the LSU National Championship in 2019 and like there was a mo. And that's very different because it's south. Right. So we Were playing Clemson. So the crowd was mostly Trump. Yeah. And football. Right, and football.
- [65:27]
Bill Kristol
Which.
- [65:28]
Tom Nichols
But he goes out there and there was mixed, you know, a lot of cheers, some in my section, some booze got a little heated in the section for a minute. Not going to blame my husband for that, but it was his fault. And, you know, there was. Got a little hot. And then after that, he goes away and it's just kind of like, can we just enjoy this? You know, And I. And I do feel like that there's. That I don't want the. If you're a liberal Knicks fan, I don't want you to. Don't. Don't let this ruin it for you. You know, a good middle finger at him and then moving, then focusing on Carl Anthony Towns and his brilliance, I think is probably the right thing to do. So there's a funny viral video going around. So funny. So we'll play the audio. My mayor Muslim.
- [66:06]
Bill Kristol
My bagels.
- [66:07]
Tom Nichols
You wish.
- [66:08]
Bill Kristol
My Christian New York
- [66:12]
Tom Nichols
just, like, shows you. It's very New York. It was a very New York little scene asap. Rocky was out there. Anyway, it's fun. All right, Bill Crystal, there it is. Game tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I guess I just will say to people, we're going to publish the next level early tomorrow. So if you don't like tomorrow's guest on this show, you'll have the next level podcast as well to choose from. And I think I'm gonna enjoy myself. So it'll be a little bit of a swerve from our usual fair, and then we'll be back to business as normal on Wednesday and the rest of the week. We got a good schedule for you this week, so thanks to Bill, Crystal, everybody else, we'll see you tomorrow. So after school, I take a dip
- [66:54]
Bill Kristol
in the pool, which is really on the wall. I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball. Hit my checkbook. Credit cost more money than a sucker could ever spend. But I wouldn't give a sucker or a punk from the rocket. Not a dime till I made it again, everybody.
- [67:10]
Tom Nichols
The Pork podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [67:21]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this summer. Stock up on your favorite brands for both you and your home. Now through June 23rd, get big deals on everyday essentials from Procter and Gamble. Shop in store or online for savings on items like Swiffer Power Mop, Fabrize Plug Warmer, Herbal Essence shampoo, Old Spice 2 in one, Crest Scope toothpaste Secret Deodorant Spray and Head and Shoulder Shampoo. Get these deals before they're gone. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.